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It is probably easy to say that the Borg were — and still are — arguably the most popular villains in Star Trek history. As such, when the Fan Collectives were first suggested quite a long time ago on the official Trek website, it’s no surprise that this was the first they released.
Sadly, I’m not sure I was all that impressed by this collection. Yes, the episodes are great. There’s a reason why the Borg were so popular — they’re cool bad guys and the episodes they were featured in were often among Trek’s best. However the Star Trek Fan Collective — Borg features nothing but episodes. There are no special features outside of a few commentaries, none of which are new (for example, the “Best of Both Worlds” text commentary talks about writer/executive producer Michael Pillar, but doesn’t mention that he recently passed away). These are pretty much the same commentaries that were featured on the series DVD collections.
I suppose this isn’t the worst thing in the world, but I would have liked something more unique to this collection. This seemed a perfect opportunity to do a documentary on the creation of the Borg, who developed the idea and so forth. As a Trek geek, I pretty know the answer to that already, but a nice little featurette would have been sweet. Or perhaps a timeline that pieced all the Borg appearances together. There is a featurette on StarTrek.com that would have been perfect, I kind of thought perhaps that would have put it in this collection (you can see the two-part documentary here).
Okay, with my griping out of the way, let’s look at the positive. One thing I thought was smart is that they presented the episodes in chronological order, starting with “Regeneration”, the Borg episode from Enterprise. This pseudo-sequel to Star Trek: First Contact was one of that series’ best, regardless of what the purists would say. “Regeneration” restored the Borg to the creepy, dark villains that they were in the early outings of The Next Generation. I like the Borg, but over-exposure ultimately watered them down. The fright-factor slowly got weeded out by the end of The Next Generation, and was completely washed out in Voyager.
“Q Who?” was the very first episode to feature the Borg. In an effort to teach Picard and crew a lesson, the omnipotent Q sends the Enterprise into the far reaches of the galaxy to encounter a Borg vessel. These cybernetically-enhanced humanoids seek to consume and assimilate, devouring cultures and civilizations to take their technology and enhance themselves in search for perfection. They have no conscience, no remorse, and live only to absorb — and destroy anything else deemed unworthy.
“The Best of Both Worlds”, the next appearance of the Borg on The Next Generation, was a landmark two-parter that concluded the third season of the series, and opened its fourth. The cliff hanger was a massive success for the show, which finally escaped the original series’ shadow and became a pop culture icon of its own. And deservedly so, since “Worlds” is easily one of The Next Generation’s finest storylines. This is followed by “I, Borg”, which led to individuality being introduced into the Borg collective, and set up the events in the sixth season cliffhanger, “Descent”. While “Descent” has some good stuff in it, the Borg just weren’t the same at this point. The creepy factor was gone, and with that removed, the Borg weren’t the threat they once were. This fall for the Borg was accelerated in Voyager. Although the stories were pretty good, the Borg as villains just didn’t work anymore. They’d been defeated so many times at this point the threat they once represented had completely evaporated.
That’s not to say that episodes like “Scorpion” were bad. They weren’t, especially since it introduced the wonderful eye candy of Seven of Nine. Another terrific episode was “Drone”, which featured a Borg from the future. “Dark Frontier” had clever moments, and “Endgame” (which also happened to be Voyager’s final episode) was fun. I skipped over “Unimatrix Zero” because, well, I’m not a fan of that two-parter. But for the most part, the Borg episodes represent some great stories.
It may seem like I’m contradicting myself here, but I’m trying to make a distinction. I liked the episodes, but the Borg just weren’t as interesting in later years as they were when they were first introduced.
Borg fans will probably jump at this collection, which presents the episodes beautifully, but those looking for something more will be disappointed. If you already have these episodes in the season DVD sets, then there’s no reason to pick up this set. But I suppose it would make for a good gift for that Trekkie or Trekker friend or family member.
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