Best of Both Worlds 30 years ago Today (6-18-30)

Working on a Challenger class build thought.. why not watch BoBw .. and on the thing it said.. June 18th 1990.. 30 years ago to the day it aired..
30 years ago.. Darn I'm getting old..
So, asking.. what was ya'lls response to the episode? Like it? Not like it? Best episodes of the series??
Scared, Irritated at having to wait for 3 months for the next part??
Thoughts??

 

I remember the good old days when "The Leisure Hive" was but ten years old... oh wait, wrong show and same time period anyway...

After how much a bomb "Transfigurations" was, I wasn't sure... I don't recall seeing the teaser, since that would have helped. But I'd watched it anyway, having sat through and invested in season 3's previous episodes, of which the last handful seemed remarkably flat...

It was an exciting episode with build-up of a feel and tone never having been explored before.

The moment the Borg said they were coming for Picard it was fairly obvious that they'd Borgify him. Once we saw the cupboard with all its cubic feet devoted solely to his uniform that was neatly ironed yet not folded, that solidified it...

...but on the other hand, his reveal in the Borg refrigerator radiator outfit was pretty dang effective. Complete with $2000 cat laser toy affixed to his head...

And despite it all, the claustrophobia the whole episode put out would keep anyone... engaged.

Was Patrick Stewart really intent on leaving? If so, what had him opting to stay on and deprive us of several years of "The Riker Bedroom Antics Drama Comedy Hour"?

On subsequent viewings:

It's still a game changer but some nitpicks have flowered nonetheless.

It's definitely a more visceral and drama-driven episode and not as intellectual, but the drama makes an impact and the visceral nature rocks the house. And not everything need be stepped in 200 intertwined layers o' intrigue and multifaceted nuances. This is the Borg. A gestalt. An amalgamation with central locus of focus. And they want Picard's bod, much to everyone's surprise cuz he's like 600 years old now and not 25...

The Riker subplot is overall built up well, complete with Shelby's itchin' for position.

The claustrophobia and brooding gloom still work - largely because this feel and format is atypical of the show, and done well.

And yet, at the same time, there's a lot of soap opera talkies going on. Riker and Shelby bickering in the turbolift is overly long padding. Give me a few minutes with After Effects and some public domain sound effects, like cats yowling and hissing... I'm sure that's been done a dozen times on three dozen YouTube channels already anyhow.

Yet the whole episode still gels together despite its ups and downs.

Apart from "you should be in the center of town!" as the camera pans back with everybody gawking over the edge of where the town used to be since there are no roads creeping that far out into the desert or mountain terrain...

The nebula scene and how they're driven out was pretty robust, and furthering the dour mood -- very eloquently so.

In later viewings, and on Blu-Ray, I noted Locutus' headpiece has embossing that looks vaguely like a Cyberman helmet -- only done to far better effect, which also has yet to be improved upon by any show made since then. It was never noticed before, in part thanks in part to bunny ears' reception and lack thereof, and how HD didn't exist back then. I never saw those intricate details ever before and every newfound emboss and seam only make the experience even more chilling because it all looks real - a testament to the costume and make-up designers of the time, for sure.

And the reason for the laser costing $2000 had to due with fitting and making it compatible with filming, since any old cat toy didn't do - never mind no such cat toy existed back then. Meow.

If the Cyber visage is a nod and homage, and we all know the maters of TNG were fans of Doctor Who, it's a very subtle one at best. And the innovations for the Borg outfits as whole units - which looked dang expensive at the time and are still very effective regardless - made the Borg their own. For 1990 and now. I don't recall caring for the claim of "Oh the Borg are just Cybermen, wah wah wah". If I did, it definitely didn't last long as there's influence from many sci-fi shows as Cybermen were paralleled to Cybernauts and androids that had souls plopped into them and other then-not-original ideas too. The Borg were and still are simply brilliant, terrifying, and successful regardless of influencers.

Especially as I was hyped to see part 2. If TBOBW was such a hack piece as was crowed often at the time, no dissenter would begin to have ants in the pants to see the upcoming conclusion... and what a friggin' three months of a wait it was... and I was not disappointed, to say the least--

But it was bloody huge as far as cliffhanger events go. Even Troi having a lump in her throat tells far more than any line of dialogue would. Even more momentous than ALF being surrounded! Or Blake's 7 but we saw everyone killed and gunshots fired over the closing credits and it's unlikely Avon was pew-pewing with Sooling rising up from the ground just to pew-pew them all down. But I digress - twice. Thrice would be nice, but as there's no word that's like twice and thrice but to reflect on a fourth-in-a-row... or six-in-a-row by now...

...I do remember people asking if both episodes were made back-to-back. When hearing they weren't, I was wondering what would happen if Picard was to leave. Again, three friggin' months...

and I loved it.

Still do. Nitpicks and all. Resistance is useless. Unless one is having to listen to a Vogon recite poetry, in which case giving up is the worst thing imaginable but I digress again. Even the obvious lame joke about how everyone's going to service the Borg - since Borg find physical pleasure irrelevant... which is strange since their technology can cure any ailment fairly quickly and as easily as they can adapt and reverse-engineer technology no matter how inferior to theirs it is. If this were season one, especially early season one, it'd be all too easy to imagine - especially if it were a follow-up to that all-time classic entitled Justice: "Cold sores are irrelevant, we have your Zovirax now."

 

The ending of BoBW Pt. 1 remains one of the high water marks for Trek.

I did a weekly rewatch for me, initial watch for friends, and when we got to this episode I called it for the night. They were not happy, nor were they in any way mollified when I noted that back in my day we had to wait an entire summer to see how things would turn out.

 

If you get a chance to get your hands on the standalone blu-ray, I highly recommend it, just for Elizabeth Dennehy's stories. Her first day had a technobabble line about how the Borg cube could still be active, even if 70% of it neutralized. She went over that line again and again so much that she still remembers it to this day. She also struggled with "separate the saucer section and assign a skeleton crew" (That is a few too many S's). Apparently, she did not care for the hairdo they gave her for the episode.

 

That's like Frakes' problem with "It was his assistant" XD

I was supposed to wait only 1 week, but then I wasn't allowed to watch part 2. Took a while till I could finally see it, so I know how it must have been for the original audience...

 

I voted other. There was a time when I watched these episodes so much that the impact started to go away. Over the years I think they've become a little overrated. I understand it's place in the franchise and it is still a great two parter, but I just wish some of the other lesser known episodes of the series were talked about more. You go to conventions or fan gatherings, the same episodes keep being brought up. Just once I would love to go to a convention and someone brings up something like Galaxy's Child on a whim.

 

Great episode, tons of fun!

 

Probably the finest moment in Trek and the best of the season-ending cliffhangers, while also probably being the most notable season-ending cliffhangers of TV. I cannot speak for every TV series that had done such a thing but aside from ones like "Who Shot JR?", Negan and Lucile is there really anything else out there that delivered this much of a cliffhanger? (Though, I cannot speak to shows like Game of Thrones.) I mean watching this at the time, which I cannot speak for how I reacted, I went into this episode on first viewing having already seen the other seasons so I knew it'd all work out, but I can imagine how people felt and reacted considering all the information they had that the deflector weapon would destroy the cube. What could happen next?!

People today couldn't take this kind of stuff, everyone pitched a fit on the Negan Lucille thing on The Walking Dead a few years ago (not knowing who Negan had selected to be killed) and I was just like, "Millennial babies, you've no idea what the meaning of a cliffhanger is and that people have been dealing with this pretty much since the dawn of episodic story telling.

The concept of a a cliffhanger goes back to the Victorian era and, really, probably even to some the earliest moments of written fiction.

 

Didn't someone survive for 1001 nights only because of daily cliffhangers? XD

 

I loved it. Part 1 was one hell of a cliffhanger. particular when Riker orders Worf to fire on the borg ship. I always knew that the crew would get picard back and just generally being on the edge of my seat. Fantastic two parter and still one of my faves from TNG.

 

Great stuff. I'll always remember the buzz that went through that summer, waiting for part 2. It was fun seeing all the supposed "non fans" talking about it.

TNG's other season ending cliffhangers never matched up.

 

Since TNG was in syndication in 1990, it was broadcast on different nights of the week depending on the market you were in. So, if you were going to post something online you had to be very careful about marking any spoilers. (The web wasn't really in existence back then, but Usenet was available as well as other computer bulletin boards like Compuserve.)

I remember that Sunday when BOBW became available, somebody on the Star Trek Usenet newsgroup posted a message with a header like "Picard's a Borg!" The header was basically like a thread title, so it was the first thing you saw when you connected to the newsgroup. As you can imagine, lots of users were pissed off, and each time someone made a comment the header would reappear at the top.

 

Quite simply, one of the greatest and most unforgettable cliffhangers in television history.

My brother and I were living together when it originally aired, and we recorded Locutus's speech as the greeting on our answering machine. So all that summer, anyone who called us would get, "I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service ... us."

 

I'm pretty sure at one point my Windows error dialog box sound was "Resistance is futile".

 

I've discussed my memories of it before...

In brief: I have a strong memory of it linked with real-life events: I was moving from my house for the first time in my life. My father had just died and I was helping my mother with house preparations and so on. Well, this will seem like long ago but the episode fell on the day after we moved. I had no TV (staying at a friend's house for 2 days) and was not set to move in for another day, so no cable. I missed the reruns. My entire memory was of waiting for the rerun in Sept before the premiere episode. When I saw it the week before, I was blown away.

RAMA

 

Some say that TBOBW has been the greatest cliffhanger ever?

 

If Galaxy's Child was a season cliffhanger that ends on Geordi walking in on the Leah in the holodeck, it would be the most talked about cliffhanger in television history

 

I did that in an earlier time. I try not to overwatch anything anymore. I try to savor them after long periods. It helps the appreciation level.

 

I guess I'm in the minority here. Since Picard went back to being a regular human being, the whole episode felt like a cheat, like the writers spent the whole episode tricking us into thinking there will be big changes, and then they went back to the status quo.

 

At the end of the first episode there was no guarantee that that might be the case. In effect, we might have had a more power Pt. 2 if Stewart had left the show or such. But that might have meant winning the battle but losing the war.

When you accept the premise that none of the regular cast were going to leave the show and Shelby wasn't going to become even a recurring character, I'm not sure this is all that surprising. The show certainly didn't have the budget to routinely show two ships or such.