“The Best of Both Worlds”
Written by Michael Piller
Directed by Cliff Bole
Season 3, Episode 26
Original air date: June 18, 1990
Star date: 43989.1
Mission summary
The Enterprise investigates a distress signal from Jouret IV, with whom they lost contact 12 hours earlier. When they arrive, not only are there no life signs of the 900 inhabitants, but there are no signs life was ever there at all. What’s left of New Providence, the settlement, is a giant crater. Picard is joined by an Admiral Hanson and young Commander Shelby, who believe that this is an attack by the Borg… an attack that has caught the Federation completely unprepared.
Hanson also has some non-Borg-related gossip. The first is that Riker’s long stint on the Enterprise is hurting his career, and that he’s been offered a third command (this time, the USS Melbourne) that he has not yet accepted. The admiral suggests that Picard give Riker a kick in the pants and then accept Shelby as his replacement.
Shelby is doing fine replacing him on her own, beating Riker at a game of poker, then heading off to an away mission an hour ahead of schedule against Riker’s orders. She does turn up a unique signature–a Borg “footprint”–that confirms the Borg’s involvement in the destruction of several other Federation colonies. But Riker is still wary of Shelby’s impetuousness and inability to follow orders. When he complains to Picard, however, Picard reminds him that Riker was much like that when arrived aboard the Enterprise, and that perhaps it’s time he took his rightful place in the captain’s chair.
Riker seems genuinely torn about what to do. He claims that the Enterprise needs him, but when he sits down with Troi to discuss his dilemma the struggle is clearly more personal:
RIKER: What am I still doing here? Deanna, I pushed myself hard to get this far. I sacrificed a lot. I always said I wanted my own command, and yet something’s holding me back. Is it wrong for me to want to stay?
Troi answers that while he and Shelby are alike, Riker has something more: maturity.
TROI: You mean you’re older, more experienced. A little more seasoned.
RIKER: Seasoned. That’s a horrible thing to say to a man.
TROI: I don’t think you’ve lost a thing, and I think you’ve gained more than you realize. You’re much more comfortable with yourself than you used to be.
RIKER: Maybe that’s the problem. I’m too comfortable here.
TROI: I’m not sure I know what that means. You’re happy here. Happier than I’ve ever known you to be. So, it comes down to a simple question. What do you want, Will Riker?
The 8-ball says: Ask Again Later.
Meanwhile, another Starfleet vessel has encountered–and presumably been destroyed by–the Borg cube. Shelby admits that Federation technology is 18-24 months away from any advancements sufficient to actually give them a chance against the Borg, and Geordi confirms that an encounter even with the flagship will likely end as all the previous encounters have. Nevertheless, no other ship is close enough to intercept, so the Enterprise goes it alone.
It turns out the Borg have been looking for them. To everyone’s surprise, it’s not interested in the ship’s technology or even its variety of alien life–all it wants is Picard. Sure, leave the chaff behind… He of course declines, but the Borg don’t take rejection easily and trap the ship in a tractor beam. By fluctuating some gobbledygook they break free long enough to hide in a nearby nebula. With tensions high, Shelby suggests separating the saucer section, but Riker says that’s much too dangerous at this stage of the game. Nevertheless, she brings the idea to Picard behind his back. He agrees with Riker, but Riker is furious that she would circumvent the command hierarchy. Off the record, she tells him to his face that he’s become too soft to command, and that he’s standing in the way of her career.
Picard, meanwhile, seems to be preparing for a futile battle. He and Guinan share a moment on the brink of the apocalypse:
GUINAN: Do you expect this battle to be won?
PICARD: We may yet prevail. That’s a conceit, but it’s a healthy one. I wonder if the Emperor Honorious, watching the Visigoths coming over the seventh hill, truly realized that the Roman Empire was about to fall. This is just another page in history, isn’t it? Will this be the end of our civilization? Turn the page.
GUINAN: This isn’t the end.
PICARD: You say that with remarkable assuredness.
GUINAN: With experience. When the Borg destroyed my world, my people scattered throughout the universe. We survived. As will humanity survive. As long as there’s a handful of you to keep the spirit alive, you will prevail. Even if it takes a millennium.
If that didn’t reassure enough, the ship seems to be hit by something and Picard has to run to the bridge. The Borg have found a way to sniff out the Enterprise, who must leave the nebula or be destroyed. They get caught in a tractor beam–again–but the Borg don’t want the ship. They beam aboard and kidnap Picard! To make matters worse, they set course for Sector 001–Earth.
Picard refuses to cooperate, but again, these Borg don’t take no for an answer:
PICARD: I have nothing to say to you, and I will resist you with my last ounce of strength.
BORG: Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours.
PICARD: Impossible. My culture is based on freedom and self determination.
BORG: Freedom is irrelevant. Self determination is irrelevant. You must comply.
PICARD: We would rather die.
BORG: Death is irrelevant. Your archaic cultures are authority driven. To facilitate our introduction into your societies, it has been decided that a human voice will speak for us in all communications. You have been chosen to be that voice.
Yeah… that’s not good.
The Enterprise, now commanded by Riker, is scrambling to put together a weapon that will destroy the cube, but they obviously have to retrieve Picard first. Riker reluctantly allows Shelby to command an away team to bring Picard back, but first all they find is his uniform. They are able to sabotage one small part of the cube to get it to drop out of warp, so that the Enterprise may use its massive deflector shield weapon. They eventually do find Picard, but he’s been upgraded, into one of Them.
The away team beams back and reports the bad news to Riker, who gets to see it for himself onscreen:
PICARD: I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service us.
Riker knows what to do.
RIKER: Mr. Worf… fire.
To be continued…
Analysis
Part of me is irritated that there’s been little set-up over the last year for the impending Borg invasion, but the writers make that work, because as much as we are unprepared, so is the Federation. I have seen this plenty of times and it still makes me tense. Watching this, I am worrying about the Enterprise. I am worrying about humanity. I am worrying about Picard. And the writers sucker you in, because for three seasons you’ve expected the happy ending that Gene Roddenberry promised humanity. After all these years, I still feel the gut-punch when Picard appears onscreen as Locutus and tells us that life as we know it is over. He’s right. “The Best of Both Worlds” changes everything. It makes you doubt. It makes you fear.
For three years with Captain Picard, and the three years before that with Captain Kirk, we have seen a vision of the future where no problem is insurmountable. Where humanity can outsmart, outmercy, and outgun any villain. More importantly, this vision of humanity has a credo: live free or die. We have seen in the past our heroes choosing a third option (so clever!), or when all else seems lost, indeed choosing to die (so brave!). But what if there is no choice? What if subjugation and slavery don’t beget heroes, or strength, or self-determination? What if they just destroy? What if who we are at our core, our sense of individuality and self-worth and positive thinking, is meaningless in the face of an advanced enemy? This is the anti-Lord of the Rings. There is no Red Dawn speech about dying with dignity and courage. There is no Sam putting on the ring and continuing the journey alone. It’s got the darkness with none of that hope.
To the Borg, humans aren’t people–they’re a resource to be exploited, to serve their needs. Their culture, their strength, their families, their individuality and beauty and essence is irrelevant. This isn’t just war, where one side would just kill everyone (or sometimes let their culture be as long as they paid tribute, like the Romans that Picard so helpfully quotes). This is worse, more insidious, more disturbing: the complete subjugation of a people’s identity to service the bare production needs of another. This is slavery. “The Best of Both Worlds” folds a great science fictional idea in its own right, the hive mind, into a gut-wrenching retelling of American history. We were our history’s Borg. It’s not a coincidence that the few words of hope we get are from (regrettably magical negro-ish) diaspora-veteran Guinan. When the Borg march out Picard as one of Them–as a voice for slavery–it still sends chills down my spine. One could not imagine a more devastating portrait of our future. I for one cannot think of another episode that so powerfully elevates Star Trek into the realm of thoughtful, groundbreaking art.
And then there’s the fact that that’s where the episode ends. Hopeless. With Picard lost (at Riker’s hand!), with Earth about to be destroyed! Even knowing that in the end it will all be OK (aside from some paralyzing PTSD Picard has to look forward to), I sit back and think: oh my god, how are they going to do it? How on earth could they ever come back from this precipice? And that, my friends, is a brilliant cliffhanger.
If there’s anything about this episode that feels less solid, it’s the Riker/Shelby story. Part of it is that I’m just not very interested in Riker’s manpain angst over whether to take this Totally! Awesome! Promotion! or whether he’s getting flabbier with age. Is he ready for command? Uh, duh, he takes command all the time, where’s the question? (Though I will note that I really enjoyed the conversation between him and Troi, which felt natural and sincere.) But part of it is that I think they made a real misstep with Shelby. Once again, the writers have confused strong women with disobedient wackos. Sure, Riker took risks and maybe endangered himself a little more than he should have. But Riker would have NEVER, EVER disobeyed direct orders from a commanding officer, circumvented the chain of command, tried to make his crew work past the point of exhaustion, or told a superior office whose job he wanted that said officer was weak and in the way. Hanson can talk all he wants about how she’s Grade A sidekick material, but she has no respect for the hierarchy and no captain in his right mind would want someone like that as his Number One. Add to that the creepy sexism of Hanson’s interest in her (“Just an old man’s fantasies,” he says–EW) and Troi dressing down Riker in front of the whole bridge for wanting to go on the away mission himself, it just feels… off. Jumbled. Without a clear conflict. Is the problem that Riker’s got flabby authority? If so, then let him be wrong–let her idea about the saucer separation be the right one, and Riker really is standing in the way of the right, if not the risky, decision. Or is the problem that Shelby is a loose cannon whose ambition is itself a risk? Fine, then reprimand her–don’t just have a little pout-fest in the elevator. I guess I still leave this whole conflict really unsatisfied at what point it’s trying to make aside from add dramatic tension to a story that really, really doesn’t need any more of it.
Oh and the away team rescue mission scene is totally unnecessary and boring.
But those are small flaws in the face of such a riveting and game-changing cliffhanger. This is one of the best episodes of a television series ever made. Hands-down.
Torie’s Rating: Warp 6 (on a scale of 1-6)
Thread Alert: The Borg are looking sharp! I like Picard’s ab upgrade. But seriously, I love the Borg outfits. They’re just the right mix of creepy/cool, and the $0.25 laser they strap to his head was an absolute stroke of genius. In this iteration, they look a bit more stripped down and utilitarian, rather than “Q Who” where they looked like baby Katamaris that have just collected a bunch of scrap metal along the way.
Best Line: PICARD: This is just another page in history, isn’t it? Will this be the end of our civilization? Turn the page.
Trivia/Other Notes: This is the first use of “Resistance is futile.”
They wanted to bring back the Borg earlier, but had a difficult time fitting them in. The writers very much wanted a “queen bee” for the hive, and it was writer Michael Piller’s idea to make the queen bee Picard himself.
Piller admitted that when he wrote this episode, he wasn’t sure how it would end.
An original draft had Picard and Data combined into one Borg unit, but this was dropped because it makes absolutely no sense.
The inspiration for Riker’s dilemma about whether to stay or go was Piller’s ambivalence about whether to leave the show when his contract was up after this episode. Like Riker, he ultimately decided to stay, after personal encouragement from Gene Roddenberry.
Dr. Crusher was written onto the away team because Gates McFadden really wanted to fire a phaser.
The final scene, where Picard appears as Locutus, had one rehearsal. Patrick Stewart turned to the camera and said, “I am Locutus of Borg. Have you considered buying a Pontiac?”
Ron Jones, who composed the music, said of his five-note leitmotif that he wanted it to sound like “an epitaph for humanity.”
George Murdock, who plays Admiral Hanson, was God (or rather, “god”) in Star Trek V.
This episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Effects.
Elizabeth Dennehy, who played Shelby, looks an awful lot like her father, Brian Dennehy.
Previous episode: Season 3, Episode 25 – “Transfigurations.”
Next post: Season 3 Wrap-Up.
I think I can help about the Shelby/Riker confrontation and why it’s here, in fact I’d argue it belongs to the very core of the episode.
The Borg have a collective mind, there’s no disagreement, all units execute one master plan which as it seems is without flaws. Humans on the other hand are not only all different, they also disagree about this and that, even worse they act unpredictably and emotionally. During the first part of TBoBW this shows in all its problematic aspects: Starfleet is impressed and very much psychologically defeated with all the doom and gloom about the unstoppable Borg. And on the flagship Shelby who is supposed to make the Enterprise more powerful mostly creates dissent.
However, in the second part the individual approach of humans proves to be more powerful. Riker decides to choose exactly the fight strategy Picard/Locutus already knows about and merely brings him back which in itself is a pretty pointless victory. But this allows the crew to access Locutus through Crusher with her medical equipment, Data with his technical possibilities and Troi who recognizes at the crucial moment that Picard is peaking to them not Locutus. And finally they devise an unconventional method to defeat the Borg.
This very much reminded of the way chess games are played where a human chess master plays against a supercomputer. Usually the human players who have no way of matching the analytical powers of the machine try to lure it into rare and difficult to analyse situations and devise unconventional strategies to defeat their less flexible opponent.
So while this episode can be seen as a parable on slavery, I think it works also as a very Star Trekkian hymn on a humanity which draws strength from the differences of its individuals.
I didn’t mind the interplay between Riker and Shelby. Really, Riker SHOULD be in command of his own vessel by that point in his career. He was holding himself and other promising Starfleet officers back by refusing.
Guinan’s speech to Picard really didn’t help matters. How many El-Aurian’s are there left exactly? The fact that some humans might survive scattered around (a la Titan A.E.) isn’t really what Picard had in mind when he felt this time to likely be the end of history. And, as much as I love this episode, and it’s conclusion. What exactly do th Borg gain through Locutus? I understand gaining his knowledge… but after that, why not just utilize the knowledge and destroy/enslave anything that gets in your way with no further communication? After all, the Federation’s responses are irrelevant.
@2 (Scott): What exactly do the Borg gain through Locutus? I understand gaining his knowledge… but after that, why not just utilize the knowledge and destroy/enslave anything that gets in your way with no further communication?
I suppose it’s possible that the Borg grasp the value of turning one of the Federation’s most respected commanders into their tool, if only to sow doubt and hesitation. But would the Borg actually adopt such a psychological approach? The psychology of individuals would mean nothing as it applied to themselves but surely, in consideration of their vast library of the behavior of multiple species and civilizations, they’d know that individuals’ psychology could be manipulated to their benefit.
But we all know that the reason for making the Borg select Picard as a representative is for dramatic effect. Something of the same desire to embody the threat posed by the Borg in the form of an individual character can be seen in First Contact when it gave us the “Borg Queen”…the less said about whom the better. (Ugh, and people like that movie! I don’t know why.)
@ monoceros4
I liked First Contact (it’s entertaining but not my favorite), but hated the Borg queen, too.
I never understood how the Borg collective needed a representative and that he actually got a name and sometimes used the pronoun “I”. Assimilating Picard made total sense, but making him somewhat distinct did not. In some ways, I thought it was a little bit of a cop out. In First Contact, they chop people’s arms off and take out their eyes, but Picard just gets an arm extension (yeah, I know, feature film made later, etc.), for example. But they still could have made Picard totally lose any identity and just be one of the millions in the hive, instead of being some kind of commander on the Borg ship.
Other thoughts…why doesn’t anyone consider going low-tech on the Borg. I often wanted someone to jump out with a machete and just chop their heads off or shoot them with an assault rifle. Or carefully stab them in a soft spot with a dagger.
I don’t know about this Guinan/magical negro (ugh, makes me cringe to write that) thing. I just thought she was an alien with unique abilities and experiences due to her age. I never honed in on the fact that because she was black, she’s magical. I really respect her character and wish she was the ship’s counselor. At the very least she doesn’t play to the stereotypes black women typically have in shows.
Shelby reminds me of the documentary Misrepresentation when it talks about strong women in cinema. Women are either overcompensating, aggressive bitches or fighting F toys. She could have had tension with Riker just due to her competence and professional ambition, not because she’s being ridiculously aggressive and insubordinate beyond anything professional.
Not to get too much into another movie, but I just had to say I disagree that this is the anti-Lord of the Rings. It’s exactly the same concept, I think. Sam didn’t take up the ring for Frodo–Frodo was utterly subverted by it and it was only another subverted character, Gollum, that led to the ring’s destruction. Just as a Borg, Picard, was used to destroy the rest. Frodo is never the same even after, even his body doesn’t heal–he’s worse off than Picard. Also, the hero army went to Mordor thinking they had no hope, but would fight to the end. Maybe the big difference here is that Aragorn gives a better final speech than Riker.
It is remarkable to me how cinematic this episode feels, like the TNG movie that was never made, and how much of that feel comes from the unease the episode creates. It is exciting, like no TNG movie ever was.
Contra Torie (a little), I think much of that unease comes directly from the Riker/Shelby equation. It really seems like it is Riker’s moment to leave, and to be replaced by a firebrand like Shelby. They spend time teeing that up very well, even to the point of Picard practically ordering Riker off his ship. Shelby is set up as smart and capable, yet brash and in need of some seasoning. You can imagine her among the ship’s future complement.
The very fact that the script expertly sets up the possibility that Riker has outspent his time as XO feeds directly into the uncertainty and apprehension we feel about Picard. It might be possible—this episode sets up so well—that either Riker or Picard might not be around for Season 4. The introduction of a strong new character creates that. And I think the tension is vital to creating the very tension and apprehension Torie cites so well.
Perhaps the biggest clunk of a fairly flawless episode is it sets up too well the notion Riker is hurting his career and himself by continuing to serve as XO, that his reluctance is being noted by an increasingly exasperating SF Command. Given how much damage Starfleet takes in this two-parter, how many commanders and personnel are lost, it strains credulity Riker wouldn’t be ordered into a promotion and a new command assignment, whether he wanted it or not.
The ending here was such a gut punch. We had finally come to accept Picard as captain. His style was different from Kirk’s but he’d finally shown that he was worthy of respect. And then this. And having to wait 3 months to find out how this would all resolve. It was a very long summer.
That laser was terrific. Having it shine right into the camera made it seem as unsettling as it was supposed to be to the crew.
If only they had remembered that this made no sense and not recycled it in Voyager. Tuvix *shudder*
The big thing about this script is that Piller had no idea how to get Picard out of this situation. He wasn’t sure he would be back the following season and figured either he’d think of something over the summer or it would be somebody else’s problem. Fortunately, he stuck around and the conclusion would actually feed into several more episodes that gave season 4 a very strong start.
@ 1 Lemaitre
I think a handy execution of the idea you discussed would have been great, but I don’t think they pulled it off here. The problem is that there is no dissent–Shelby doesn’t have some kind of radical idea that causes disagreement, she’s just not following procedure. Now if she had come in and said “Let’s fight” and Riker (or anyone else) had actually suggested something radically different, like, say, a planet-wide evacuation of humanity from Earth, then to me that would highlight the anti-collective individual spirit. But Shelby’s idea isn’t even rejected by Riker–he just says “not now”–and Picard agrees. So that doesn’t work for me as an exploration of how various intelligent individuals can create a better, stronger plan of action.
@ 2 Scott, @ 3 monoceros4, @4 RSM on the Borg Queen
Well I love First Contact, and while the Borg really don’t need a queen or Locutus, I don’t think it’s completely unreasonable. Actual queen bees are made by the workers–they are fed and cultivated for that particular purpose, as Picard is. More than that, they’re responsible for one thing: reproduction. Since borg are made, not born, it makes sense to me to have a queen bee choose how and when to reproduce the borg through assimilation.
@ 4 RSM
As for low-tech, they have forcefields…
Guinan: I actually really like Guinan, and I would never say that her MN qualities are on the level of, say, Stephen King. But she’s still the mysterious black sage whose powers of insight into space and time constantly help the white protagonist through his trials with words of wisdom. They do fill in her backstory later, but right now she mostly just pops out of the woodwork to dispense spiritual advice and that’s unfortunate.
LOTR: But to me, LOTR is about hope. Sam goes on because he has hope that he can still prevail. Theoden knows that they will all die, but believes that they will go out in a blaze of glory that will give him the dignity and honor he needs to not be ashamed of his role in history. I don’t feel any of that dignity or honor or hope here. They’re not rallying in one last hopeless defense, they’re just putting themselves up as meatshields because they’re a mess and don’t know what else to do. It doesn’t feel epic. It feels small, and sad, and dark.
Interestingly, Picard will be sharing Frodo’s PTSD very shortly.
@ 5 Lemnoc
Oh I agree with everything here.
@ 6 DemetriosX
If only “because it made absolutely no sense” had stopped them in the past…
@ 7 Torie
Reproduction: But they had baby Borg! This is one thing I found totally confusing and was going to ask the crowd. Is this an inconsistency or am I missing something? The first time they meet the Borg and go on their ship, they find a baby Borg in a drawer. It seems that was totally dropped and they moved onto assimilation as their only means of reproduction.
Yes, Lord of the Rings has hope, but that’s because it’s more beautifully and artistically written than Star Trek–obviously showing my favoritism here–or the characters are written as more noble and admirable. I do think that what happens to Frodo is infinitely darker than Picard’s injury and recovery.
As for forcefields, they don’t immediately activate, do they? You mean they can’t even touch the Borg (in close proximity, not ship to ship) because of these forcefields? I guess I never saw one activate before it had been shot by a phaser a few times and had time to adapt. At this point, I may just not be sufficiently versed in the complexities of Borg technology. I can live with that.
@RSM #8
Re: slugging the Borg — both Riker and Worf try it in this episode and it doesn’t seem to work out so well for them. Sure, they’re both telegraphing their ridiculous backhand slaps pretty hard, so we can call that one unresolved, but I imagine the Borg would probably figure out the Federation shiv. Awesome an episode as that would make!
As for Borglets, that’s a good call… I’d imagine they use organic development as a means of replacing worn-out bio-units, but also like to acquire other species to prompt better growth rates?
@ 9 DeepThought
Maybe also to diversify the gene pool (so they don’t end up like those weirdos in that episode where they clone Riker and Polaski)…and obviously to acquire knowledge.
@ Torie
The issue with Guinan as a magical black person causes me to ask whether we can become over aware of stereotypes in media and whether playing a stereotype is unfortunate just because it’s a stereotype. To be clear, I am talking about positive stereotypes, not ones that are clearly denigrating or belittling. Assuming I subscribe to the idea that black people are stereotyped as magical (which I personally never thought of), does that mean that a black person can never play a magical character without being considered an unfortunate display of a stereotype? Can a woman never play a caring stay-at-home mother, for example, without being considered an unfortunate reminder of the stereotypical child-rearing mother without a payed career?
What’s so unfortunate about Guinan only showing up to give excellent insight and advice? She’s awesome and too bad Whoopi Goldberg was probably too busy to be a regular character on the show where they could flesh her out more. Maybe Guinan only shows up to dispense advice because she’s a bartender, so maybe that’s just a bartender stereotype and she happens to be black. To be honest, that’s probably how I always saw her character portrayed. She’s the bartender that’s always there to listen to your problems.
@10 RSM ;
I must agree with you. I never thought of Guinan as a “magical negro” character. In fact, I must admit I never even heard of that term until I started visiting here. I’m not saying that Torie’s opinion isn’t valid, as I’m probably very ignorant of the history of the “magical negro”… I’m just saying it hasn’t affected my view of the character or the actress playing her.
The only “magical negro” character I can truly think of is ‘Uncle Remus’ in Disney’s “Song Of The South”, which is now generally considered as racist in it’s depiction of slavery. It has been withdrawn from distribution and remains unavailable on home video except for a rare Japanese Laserdisc release.
re: Guinan as a Magical Negro. Torie didn’t invent this, it’s a real thing.
The reason people find it problematic isn’t because the stereotype itself is insulting or derogatory. Of course there’s nothing wrong with being wise or insightful or giving advice! The issue becomes that certain types of people are repeatedly cast into certain supporting roles. They’re present in the plot in an instrumental fashion–their role is to provide something that’s necessary for the main characters, the ones we really care about, to move forward past a particular challenge. Their characterization or motivations are secondary, hinted at or sketched loosely if at all, and they tend to be painfully expendable (like John Coffey, or the janitor in The Shining, or the old woman who summons everyone in The Stand–yes, Stephen King is particularly prone to using this device) if the result is an emotional response from the white main characters, or just when they become inconvenient to the plot.
This particular trope is also problematic because the Magical Negro character is usually powered by magic or by wisdom from “difficult life experience”–unlike more privileged characters, who have mastery and understanding over the magic. This plays into unfortunate “noble savage” stereotypes which attach to some real-world people of color–being relegated to mystic spirituality or earthy wisdom which are explicitly beyond human understanding, even to the people who possess them.
The problem isn’t that Guinan is wise; it’s that she exists to help Picard past certain plot points, again and again. (And if she were just a wise bartender, then why does she have magic cross-timeline powers in Yesterday’s Enterprise or Time’s Arrow?)
The end result of all this is much like the end result of Strong Female Characters or the “model minority” stereotypes affecting other groups in our society. It’s a narrowing of allowed types of representation, which denies certain groups of people the opportunity to have full representation and characterization.
And if all that isn’t enough, though, it’s also cliche, lousy writing.
@12 Deep Thought,
Yeah. The problem is that she serves as an easy guide into the “Captain is always right” thing that becomes calcified in TNG. I think the conceit gets disassembled in later ST iterations, and that’s a relief, but here it is almost precious that the captain is cosmically wise, oh-so-right, and there is a living omniscient to declare it so.
“Is it the right thing to do,” asks the captain. who already made his mind up.
“Yes, of course, and here’s why,” declares the bartender, who knows how the universe unfolds.
My own feeling is Guinan’s remarks here are ultimately irrelevant feel-good. Nothing she says influences outcomes, and are not central to anything that unfolds. She functions more here as morale officer, not much different from Troi. Guinan states The Themes of Star Trek, she’s the holder of the two tablets of Moses, even though everything that happens here (wonderfully, marvelously, refreshingly, awesomely) unravels and unwinds those themes. Good on it.
Star Trek misplayed Guinan. The one time they had a chance to (thematically) put her in her place, they took the cheap route by having her and Q snap insults at each other. Guinan is a counter to Q. She is a character with wisdom gained through experience with her great age. She has abilities only hinted at – though her abilities do not seem to be all the flashy tricks used by Q. I can’t help wondering how strong the character could have become had the writers realized what they had and let it develop.
Well, there’s no dispute from me that minorities still don’t get the leading roles they should. I mean, they didn’t even get a black woman to play Cleopatra who was…black. Ugh.
Something I was thinking is that I come from a culture that generally regards spirituality, superstition, religion and sometimes even “magic” with some degree of reverence or respect. The idea of the wise woman and her supernatural, innate knowledge is something I see a lot in literature and film from my region of origin. So, the idea of a magical woman doesn’t bother me. I would love it if she had a stronger role (as I’ve said), but I don’t mind her capacity as an occasional advisor/cheerleader. I think she matters more than it seems. After all, without her in Yesterday’s Enterprise, the Federation would have been destroyed. She played a tangential role, but one that was indispensable.
I can understand, however, that if someone individually or, also due to their culture, considers magic to be unreasonable or illogical and not highly regarded, that a magical character would seem a demotion or less respectable role–Just a consideration as to different perspectives on this issue.
By the way, even though Dick has psychic abilities in The Shining, Danny has the strongest shine and he is a little white boy.
@ 8/15 RSM
I don’t remember if they ever brought back the baby borg. I just assumed that got retconned. Also, Cleopatra wasn’t black. She was Greek, and a really inbred one, too.
The whole problem with a stereotype isn’t that it’s positive or negative. It doesn’t matter if you or any viewer values spirituality–it’s that it’s a type, and is therefore inherently limiting. And sure, she’s indispensable when it comes to advancing the plot, but you will never see a Guinan story. Because she exists to advance the stories of other characters, not to tell her own. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the potential to be a good character (and as mentioned, I personally like her), but when writing critically about this I have to acknowledge its place in a really problematic history of stereotypical portrayals of black women. Sadly, Whoopi Goldberg gets stuck in this same role later that year, in Ghost, where she plays a black psychic who functions as a plot device to help the main white guy’s story. Again, I’m not saying she can’t be great in that role. Rather, I’m saying that this is part of a long-accepted and ubiquitous cultural stock character that continuously marginalizes both actors and characters of color.
Re: the Shining, it doesn’t matter if other white characters are also psychic. They get to be heroes and villains and accountants and all matter of things, too. The problem is when the black characters get shoehorned into a typecast role.
@ 13 Lemnoc
Ordinarily Troi would fill that role, you’re right, which is why I think the episode deliberately chose Guinan to make a larger thematic point about oppression and slavery. That said, Troi really does earn her pay here when she gets Riker to talk out his issues about promotion. I would have so much less contempt for her character if she did more of this. Average, run-of-the-mill anxieties about work and friends and relationships. This ship should be full of them!
@16 Torie
Whether the idea of the magical negro is a long established concept in Film studies or African American Studies or American Studies doesn’t negate the personal experiences and opinions of others. Media, literature, art, movies, etc. are all subjective mediums and everyone interprets them and sees them through a different lens.
The magical negro is a concept in the study of film in the United States (as I understood it from wikipedia). I did not grow up in the United States, so I do not necessarily see stereotypes in the same way as those who did. As I said to begin, I was not even aware of this magical negro thing (and I have read dozens of Stephen King novels) and, now that I am, I still don’t see things exactly as you do or as the wikipedia entry you referred me to. I don’t think that magical or supernatural knowledge is inherent only to savages who can’t come by knowledge another way, and I don’t think they are secondary characters on whose backs the white hero saves the day. My personal belief and upbringing is that supernatural knowledge and insight is reserved for the very special and revered members of society. Shamans, priests, mediums, spiritual advisors are integral to many societies even if they aren’t the “hero”. They are that person without whom the hero wouldn’t have made it out the front door.
It is a fair point to say that some people do see supernatural knowledge as inferior and so the stereotype can be negative, and I think that was what I was getting at in my previous post about one’s perspective. I also believe I made it abundantly clear in my previous post that I think minorities don’t get anywhere near the amount of lead roles that they should. The fact that typecasting exists for minorities is alarming, but that doesn’t mean I am automatically disappointed in every character that fits a typecast in and of itself. In this case, we are discussing TNG and I like Guinan just as she is, but I agree with others that have said the only mistake they made with her is not to tell us more about her issue with Q and who she really is.
As far as heroes are concerned, I just finished watching the Dark Knight Rises for the third time in a row and I still think Alfred and Lucius beat Batman as heroes every time. So, to me, the white guy “hero” is not always the hero at all. He’s the idiot not listening to the real heroes, in this case his butler and his company employee. In fact, the whole Batman series asks a good question about what it means to be a hero–the person everyone sees and knows, or the person behind the scenes.
@ 17 RSM
This thread has gotten much too derailed. You don’t think she’s a MN; I do. We’ve made our points. Let’s move on.
Guinan’s usually the shabbiest sort of plot device but let’s get back to something more relevant with this particular episode: is she a plot device in this particular episode? Arguably, no. She’s in this episode not to supply Picard with some bit of information or exposition that she just happens to know cos the plot demands it; she’s here as a survivor of genocide. As such her character actually plays a worthwhile role. It anticipates the later, important part she plays in “I, Borg,” an episode I happen to like very much.
BTW, I think it’s a little funny how Capt. Picard cites the example of the Roman Emperor Honorius as the dividing line between the life and death of a civilization. The Roman Empire was effectively dead long, long, long before Honorius’s time. (But I admit that I tend to see the Empire as basically the zombie-like, rotting corpse of the Republic, propped up and animated into a ghastly semblance of life by its murderer, the tyrant Augustus. Or maybe I’ve read too much Ronald Syme.)
@Torie, et al.
re: MN
I know you want to move on Torie, and I don’t disagree with you about Guinan as a magical negro in general (I’m half black and myself sensitive to these stereotypes), however, in this case I think you’re misapplying the concept to her interaction with Picard. In this episode she doesn’t dispense him mystic wisdom or advice. She doesn’t hold all of the clues or ward off the danger to him. Instead, she’s just a good bartender. She listens to his problem with a sympathetic ear and tries to reassure him as best she can (which is hardly at all, given the circumstances). If there were an episode where she epitomizes the MN, it’s ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’ (and to Eugene’s credit, he gives that aspect a sharp critique).
All that said, the Picard-centric episodes tend to be my favorite. Whether you think Locutus was a stroke of genius or a clumsy plot device, the character’s existence sets up some of the best acting in TNG. His anguish and sense of violation is palpable on screen. By the time ‘Chain of Command, Part II’ comes around, you end up feeling awfully sorry for Picard. He’s really been through a lot. It’s a wonder he can maintain his composure and dignity as well as he does.
@ 20 konkeyDong
The conversation I was having with RSM was about her character more broadly. In this episode, I agree with you and Lemnoc that here she is more of a bartender/Troi, and her presence is not to dispense mystical wisdom or advance the plot but to boldly and clearly make a slavery/diaspora comparison.
I also love Picard-centric episodes, and love First Contact despite some of its silliness because he gets to go out there and kick some ass. I know that Eugene counts “Tapestry” among one of his favorites, and I am looking forward to re-watching that one as well, because it tells us so much about his character and the choices that he’s made to become the person we know.
I remember quite well when this episode first aired, the ripples it sent through the Star Trek fan community. Some people hated it because it turned the whole Star Trek universe on its head by creating a hopeless situation. Most people were just blown away by how serious things had gotten. It was the first truly long summer of anticipation I’d ever experienced, waiting to find out how the cliffhanger was going to be resolved.
I think Riker’s dilemma is actually a pretty good one. It’s nice that they looked at a situation that doesn’t make a lot of sense — Riker remaining as long as he did — and addressed it. It might not be the most satisfying aspect of the storyline but I appreciate that it’s something that was explored.
Shelby…I really think she was a lost opportunity. They could have given us an ambitious female officer and made her an appealing alternative to Riker instead of an annoying one. It seemed to me at the time that it was intended as a cautionary tale about women in positions of authority (get a woman in command and she’ll just do whatever she wants!), which I freaking hate. Wouldn’t it have been so much better if they’d made her awesome, competent and smart? But no, that’s too threatening to males. Bah. All these years later she still pisses me off because of the statement I perceive the show is making (which, admittedly, may be my own baggage).
@22 Toryx
I don’t really find Shelby all that annoying, but perhaps it’s because I generally find Riker to be a self-important ass, a swaggering puffed-up bubble waiting to be pricked. She reminds me of one of those up-&-coming young Turks on those law shows that were the rage of the same TV era, brash yet competent.
She serves to reinforce what Hanson says, which is if Riker stands still too long, he’ll find himself moving backward. Picard seems well pleased with her personal initiative and a bit wistful he’s no longer seeing that in his XO.
Given her status as aide-de-camp to the admiral, I wonder whether Shelby was at this moment even really subject to the Enterprise chain of command. She was assigned to assist the captain, and if that assignment made the XO uncomfortable—tough. His problem(s) with her seem to be his problem(s) alone. I like her.
Following on,
Have we ever witnessed a moment in this series where someone was restricted or constrained from going directly to the captain with ideas and solutions? Happens all the time; yet now Riker is going to lower the boom and insist on a chain-of-command protocol.
Putting a different spin on it, perhaps this is how he always is in the presence of officers who are not misfits in one way or another—whether an officer without emotion or ego (Data), or a cultural orphan (Worf), or one with a disability (Geordie) or disorder (Barclay), or a child who has no business even being in the chain of command (Wesley). The doctor and counselor and bartender seem outside his little hierarchy entirely.
Maybe Riker is magnificent only in the company of a boatload of dysfunctionals, and when a REAL Starfleet officer shows up he gets smoked and all butt-hurt, starts acting like a petty martinet. The first time we see him as adjutant to a different captain (Jellico), he gets sent to his room to pout, career over.
Just saying.
It’s a little weird how TNG flirted with the acknowledgment that Riker’s situation really was a strange one. The show wanted to give us a stereotypical television happy family, really: a group of people, all with their quirks, maybe not the best of friends all the time but in the end they’ve got each other and that’s all that matters. You know, like “M*A*S*H”. It led to some pretty ridiculous situations, like Worf’s unexplained reappearance in TNG movies.
Yet every now and again TNG wanted to remind us that these men and women were also supposed to be career military officers and that led to trouble. The interesting thing is that the show did not always take the “M*A*S*H” happy family route. Whenever officers from the outside popped up to disrupt the equilibrium of the 4077th, he was invariably shown by the end of the episode to be an incompetent martinet who didn’t understand that We Do Things Differently Around Here. You get a flavor of that in TNG, as in this episodebut then there’s the appearance of Capt. Jellico. He could easily have been cast into the “M*A*S*H” mold and portrayed as a petty tyrant who ultimately couldn’t handle the job because he was too brittle, but that’s not what happens. Jellico comes across as tough, competent, forcible–and when he smacks down Riker and tells him he’s a poor XO, you’re on his side. Maybe that’s not how it was meant? I wouldn’t be surprised if Ronny Cox, a capable and engaging actor, impressed himself on the role to an extent. Anyway, you definitely get the idea that Jellico’s right about Riker: by any objective measure he’s not all that good at what he does. It’s intriguing that TNG would even hint at that.
@25 monoceros4
What’s interesting about that episode is that, even though he is a relentless hardass, Jellico handles the situation pretty well, his plan is a good one and works, he seems to “get” the Cardassians, and Riker’s outbursts are unprofessional and out of line. Jellico also delivers a (glorious) smackdown to Deanna, too, but she bucks up and rolls with it. Riker gets sent to his room. The “mission” Riker gets sent on, because “he’s the best there is,” seems fairly ginned up, an invention designed to haul his ruined career from the fire… when have we ever seen Riker was an extraordinarily gifted shuttle pilot? Data’s inerrant machine precision should have been the natural choice.
Anyway, it’s interesting here that a top-flight SF officer Riker can’t charm the pants off of (literally) gets under his skin.
The Riker career drama is a pretty weak attempt to make the Federation resemble the military. What’s unrealistic isn’t just that Riker hasn’t accepted a promotion or gotten one, but that he hasn’t been rotated to another position. And this pretty much goes for every member of the crew. Not every officer in the military makes it to the highest levels of command, but everyone gets regularly rotated to other assignments…and, as someone said much earlier, without the person’s permission. The show wouldn’t be the same if the crew changed every season, so we have a false moment of tension and move on. I also think this Riker career stuff is one of those many reminders we get that working on the Enterprise is awesome, the best, etc.
The only time they had a transfer that made sense was Dr. Crusher/Polaski, but that was because in real life, they fired Gates McFadden from the show.
—this is the benchmark for episodes that precede it—the gateway for next gen’s greatness—the point at which it became iconic—
@27
In the early days of the original series, they didn’t have to deal much with the officer rotation idea because the adventures of the original series were supposed to be taking place on the “final frontier”…far and away from Starfleet and Earth. It was a ‘five year mission’ which generally indicated that the ship and crew were on their own out there for the long haul. There was often the dilemma of waiting for orders/permission from the hierarchy or simply doing what the Captain deemed as correct and dealing with the consequences later ( see: “Balance Of Terror” ).
This was one element I felt was lacking in TNG overall. It was too easy to turn around and go home, or call Starfleet for a strategy plan. It lost a lot of the autonomy and subsequently the burden of responsibility that weighed on Kirk’s shoulders. I think some of the excitement of being explorers on the edge was missing in Next Gen.
Of course, the same conceit of keeping the gang together began to really strain credulity when it came to the TOS films. Everytime you turned around, the old gang was on the same ship, doing ( pretty much ) the same duties they always had. The only one who seemed to get anywhere was Chekov, when he was science officer on the Reliant ( but they hit the reset button on that real quick ). Of course, Sulu finally got command of the Excelsior, but that was when they knew that Star Trek VI would be the swan song for TOS.
Sorry for taking so long to add my two cents, but Dragon Con followed by a bout of con crud have kept me occupied…
These are my thoughts on the episode, before reading Torie’s post or any of the comments here. I had very high expectations of this episode as one of the best of the series, and I’m happy to say it lived up to them. Although I knew how this one would end (or not end, as it happens), I still found it a tense hour of television.
Right away, this episode feels different from most, partially because of its shocking opening which immediately raises the stakes and starts the ticking clock on an encounter with the Borg, and partially because it was able to hit the ground running. With the Borg already established in season 2’s “Q Who,” there was no need to build them up as a significant threat–and in fact, this moment had been foreshadowed. So this episode is already part of a larger story that could not have been told in a mere 47 minutes. “The Best of Both Worlds” is actually much more than a two-part episode, it’s part of a linked series of episodes that would includes “Deja Q” and the forthcoming “Family” and ultimately Star Trek: First Contact. It even provides a launching point for DS9’s “Emissary,” making the events of this episode one of the most significant in the franchise, if not the most significant in that universe, with personal and galaxy-wide consequences that rival the scope of the feature films up to that moment.
The other great thing about this episode is that it is firmly grounded in the characters we know and care about. You might consider this an episode about Captain Picard, but it’s really about Riker, who is deciding whether he should move on from Enterprise to take his own command. We’ve seen that plot point before, but this is the first time it actually carries any weight, and it provides a rare source of conflict between Starfleet officers. I thought it was kind of funny that they were talking about how much Riker has matured since he was a young officer–a whopping 3 years ago!–but it does highlight how much his character has evolved over the years.
Finally, it is really clear how much everyone cares about their captain when they return to the ship without him. He’s been taken before, but this is more horrific because he’s been changed, and now he’s their enemy. “He is a Borg!” Worf says, conveying just how hurt and helpless he feels.
This episode is infamous because of its cliffhanger ending, which was much less common in 1990. It was even more of a surprise on TNG because there hadn’t been a two-part episode yet (aside from “Encounter at Farpoint”) and because the episode title simply says “The Best of Both Worlds”, not “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I”. By the time I saw this episode, sometime around the sixth season of TNG, I knew that Picard was going to turn out just fine, and I had probably even read a synopsis of these episodes. But then and now, it’s a riveting story that provides a perfect balance of action, drama, and character development.
Warp 6.
@4 RSM
I often wanted someone to jump out with a machete and just chop their heads off or shoot them with an assault rifle.
I think those Borg shields would work against low-tech weapons too. Doesn’t Locutus knock Worf backward with one? Although, Picard does use a machine gun on them in the holodeck with the safeties off in First Contact, which makes total sense.
@5 Lemnoc
The very fact that the script expertly sets up the possibility that Riker has outspent his time as XO feeds directly into the uncertainty and apprehension we feel about Picard. It might be possible—this episode sets up so well—that either Riker or Picard might not be around for Season 4.
That’s a really good point, and in fact, weren’t there rumors about contract negotiations for Patrick Stewart to return that fed into the idea that he might be killed off?
@8 RSM
The first time they meet the Borg and go on their ship, they find a baby Borg in a drawer.
I had just assumed that they found those babies and assimilated them early. There’s no reason why they can’t age–after all, we see young Hugh later on, and of course, there’s Seven of Nine on Voyager, who was found at a young age, teenager, I think.
The thing I wanted to say about Guinan is that she should have known that they would get through this and Picard would survive because she met him in San Francisco in the past, and that hasn’t happened yet. But I know, “Time’s Arrow” hadn’t been written yet, and retconning is par for the course in Star Trek.
The other thing that surprised me about this episode on re-watch is the fact that the Borg are specifically after Picard, which I had totally forgotten. Though I don’t like that the Borg Queen was retconned in, Torie’s right that she makes sense in their hive collective, and I could see her making a strategic, psychological decision that the rest of the Borg wouldn’t be capable of.
Also, on a side note, I watched the remastered HD version of this episode, and yes, it does look stunning. I immediately compared it to the version streaming on Netflix (which seems worse than my DVDs), and it was a remarkable difference. And Torie was right–it was very hard to stop watching after Riker orders them to fire on the Borg, but I wanted to write my comments without having re-watched the second part yet. Though it’s nice to have a “theatrical” cut of the two-parter, I do miss the dramatic music cue after it fades to black with “To Be Continued…” onscreen.