75 – The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2

Grade: A

Summary

At the end of the last episode, Captain Picard had become assimilated into the Borg. Riker and the rest of the crew built a weapon out of the main deflector dish, but it proves to be ineffective against the Borg cube. Now how will they stop them?

Commentary

This episode is a very good conclusion to the finale from the previous season. The storyline is very fast-paced, and very enjoyable. The characters are deep and well-defined, and even Commander Shelby is more tolerable than in the last episode.

The acting is better in this episode than in the previous one, so that’s good. If there’s anything preventing this episode from being an A, it’s that the storyline could have been a bit better. Toward the end of the episode, it’s a bit of a letdown, but that’s probably to be expected, since it’s the concluding episode of a very strong 2-part story.

Like “Yesterday’s Enterprise” from earlier in Season 3, the two-part “Best of Both Worlds” really resembles a film. Personally, I think these two episodes together were far better than some of the Star Trek films (Nemesis, Final Frontier, Motion Picture, et. al.).

Of Note

This episode is the first time that the phrase “you will be assimilated” is heard in the Star Trek series.