Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Best of Both Worlds," Part I

"The Best of Both Worlds," Part I. Star Trek: The Next Generation. 18 March 1990. Cliff Bole, dir. Michael Piller, script. Part II, 28 Sept. 1990.

An extensive handling of the Borg: STNG's cyborg enemies. See Part I for presentation of Borg as white-skinned men, speaking in chorus in voice-over, and dressed in what look like black wetsuits with mechanical gizmos attached very inelegantly; the mechanized environment of the Borg spacecraft—a cube whose outer surface looks like a circuit board or an electronphotomicrograph of a computer chip; and for the initial cyborgization of Capt. Picard. Listen to Part I for Borg plan to absorb the Federation and for the assertions that "Freedom is irrelevant; self-determination is irrelevant," plus the so-far undeveloped subversive suggestion that the Federation's weak spot is, "Your primitive cultures are authority-driven." Part II shows the near-complete cyborgization of Picard and a "First Contact" between Data (who uses the phrase) and Picard as a member of the Borg Group Consciousness. See below, the episode "Q—Who?"