Does It Get Better???

[You_Will_Fail]

You were saying you marked the episode down simply because it changed your perception of the Borg. That still seems pretty silly to me.

Anyway, now you've finished Season 3, you can create your "Season 3 thread"!

 

[DonIago]

While Voyager is certainly a weaker force than the Borg, I thought it was kind of clever how the writers created an enemy that the Borg couldn't fight precisely because their monolithic nature prevented the necessary solutions from occurring to them.

Given the behind-the-scenes stuff to this point, I'm rather wondering how things might have panned out if Kim had bitten the bucket. They'd set him up for a fairly cool death by television standards.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Yeah, the show woulda been much better if Kim had gone. Seven learning about humanity and femininity from Kes/Kes living the rest of her lifespan would have been much more interesting than seeing some Harry has a crush on Seven jokes/Harry not doing much/

 

[DonIago]

Though I would miss Harry's priceless comment about not finding a little black box on his chair. Even if it only pointed out how ludicrous the situation was and didn't do the character any favors.

There, I think I deftly avoided any spoilage.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

I don't think one comment would have made 4 seasons of mediocrity worth it.

 

[tighr]

Though I would miss Harry's priceless comment about not finding a little black box on his chair. Even if it only pointed out how ludicrous the situation was and didn't do the character any favors.

Ha! Of course its ludicrous. Harry's station didn't have a chair.

 

[AdmiralScreed]

You were saying you marked the episode down simply because it changed your perception of the Borg. That still seems pretty silly to me.

Anyway, now you've finished Season 3, you can create your "Season 3 thread"!

If your perception of (insert one of your favorite alien races here) was worsened by an episode, wouldn't you mark the episode down for it? I wouldn't find anything wrong with that.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

But that says nothing about how well the episode was written/acted/directed etc, but then I suppose you're marking the episode as you enjoy them, not to their technical merits - which is fair enough and we all do that to an extent.

 

[Methos]

You were saying you marked the episode down simply because it changed your perception of the Borg. That still seems pretty silly to me.

Anyway, now you've finished Season 3, you can create your "Season 3 thread"!

If your perception of (insert one of your favorite alien races here) was worsened by an episode, wouldn't you mark the episode down for it? I wouldn't find anything wrong with that.

I'll accept that...

my perception of humans was dramatically worsened by a lot of episodes in Voyager lol

M

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Let me think about
If my perceptions of Cardassians was worsened by an episode...I don't see how they could be. I like that villains can be 3-dimensional and sometimes surprise you. The whole idea in "Scorpion" was that the Borg's technology/avarice (if you can call it that) basically got them into trouble when they came across a species from a parallel dimension completely alien to them. I just don't see how that would make the episode less enjoyable, why would you want to the Borg to be so 1-dimensional that their description would basically be "cybernetic alien race that can't be defeated by anyone".

 

[MacLeod]

Q, Who? worked as an introduction episode, nothing more.

And the only reason they escaped was because of deus ex machina (Q). In fact the episode needed both Guinan and Q to work.

VOY tries that, all they get is flack for how the whole episode needed deus ex machina to work and nothing about how good the story was otherwise.

It wasn't really much of a Deus Ex Machina. A Deus Ex Machina usually means using something that was never seen/referrenced before.

Q got them into the mess by hurling the Enterprise to that Encounter, he used the same means to get them out of it.

 

[AdmiralScreed]

I'm not saying the Borg can't be portrayed in different ways, but some portrayals make for more dramatic storytelling than others. While I did like Scorpion, and I thought it gave us an interesting look at the Borg, it doesn't compare to Q, Who? or TBOBW. The more menacing and threatening Borg from those episodes are simply more interesting to me than the victimized Borg in Scorpion. That's fine if you disagree. I'm open to other opinions.

 

[Anwar]

Q, Who? worked as an introduction episode, nothing more.

And the only reason they escaped was because of deus ex machina (Q). In fact the episode needed both Guinan and Q to work.

VOY tries that, all they get is flack for how the whole episode needed deus ex machina to work and nothing about how good the story was otherwise.

It wasn't really much of a Deus Ex Machina. A Deus Ex Machina usually means using something that was never seen/referrenced before.

Q got them into the mess by hurling the Enterprise to that Encounter, he used the same means to get them out of it.

Deus ex machina in this context just means pure plot contrivance. In this case, the story couldn't happen without Q and his unlimited powers. In order to show just how tough the Borg were, it had to be the power of "God" that saves them.

While I did like Scorpion, and I thought it gave us an interesting look at the Borg, it doesn't compare to Q, Who? or TBOBW. The more menacing and threatening Borg from those episodes are simply more interesting to me than the victimized Borg in Scorpion. That's fine if you disagree. I'm open to other opinions.

It's just not possible to have the Borg be as menacing in VOY as they were in those episodes, because those episodes involved more than the adventures of one lone scout ship.

 

[exodus]

Scorpion Part 1: This episode's most glaring flaw is that it diminished the threat of the Borg. Seeing Borg ships torn apart makes for good action, but I can't help but feel disappointed that the species who once assimilated Picard and almost destroyed the Federation are now having their ships blown apart like TIE Fighters.

Why do folks keep thinking the Borg are the supreme species of the Galaxy? They were never meant to be anything more than ONE race that was stronger than the FEDS. They were never meant to be the biggest threat out there, just one.

The idea of there being at least ONE species out there that could kick Borg ass is EXTREMELY likely.

It's the Boba Fett Syndrome.

 

[exodus]

A pretty damn good introduction episode, I might add. Much better than Scorpion. From their very first appearance the Borg were ruthless and menacing, and that's one of the things that made the Borg so great. They were seemingly impossible to defeat. Every attempt by the ENT-D to gain the upper hand resulted in failure.

The crew of the Enterprise beat the Borg every time.
"BOBW" they destroyed the Cube by putting it to sleep. Earth is saved. The fact that the Borg needed Locutus says they never could take us by force. They had to use tactics to trick us to assimilate Earth. If the Borg were so powerful, they would need a tactic like Locutus, they'd just come a assimilate Earth by sheer force.
The fact that the Borg are not that strong a force has been in front of our faces the whole time.
The Enterprise crew showed weakness again in the Borg in "I, Borg" by making them vulnerable to a virus.

 

[Anwar]

To be fair, it was implied that the virus wouldn't have worked since Hugh's individuality was just as much a virus and all it did was affect his one ship.

Oh yeah, again TNG has Crusher destroy the Borg Cruiser in "Descent" with the power of a Sun. If Voyager had done that then it would just be another sign of the Borg being "weakened".

Because the Borg are apparently more powerful than Stars.

 

[Harvey]

I rather liked that solution to fighting the Borg, actually. On Star Trek: Voyager they would have just beamed over a photon torpedo, detonated it, and called it a day. In "Descent" it took careful risk-taking to defeat what was still a powerful adversary -- even without the Collective mind.

 

[exodus]

I rather liked that solution to fighting the Borg, actually. On Star Trek: Voyager they would have just beamed over a photon torpedo, detonated it, and called it a day. In "Descent" it took careful risk-taking to defeat what was still a powerful adversary -- even without the Collective mind.

Yeah, credit for that goes to Lore.
The Borg lead by a real Borg couldn't do shit without the help of the Enterprise.

 

[Harvey]

Well, having Lore in that episode was one element too many. It's probably the weakest cliffhanger of TNG because the episode tries to do too many things at once, and can't give any of them the screen time they need to be properly presented.

 

[exodus]

Well, having Lore in that episode was one element too many. It's probably the weakest cliffhanger of TNG because the episode tries to do too many things at once, and can't give any of them the screen time they need to be properly presented.

I agree, however unfortunately it's still canon and counts toward showing the Borg were weak before Voyager.