10 Most Intense Star Trek Cold Opens

6. The Best Of Both Worlds

The finale of The Next Generation's third season is, of course, one of the most renowned episodes of Star Trek overall. It, when combined with its conclusion, shaped so much of the franchise to follow. How many times have other events been compared to Wolf 359 by now?

The first part opens with the Enterprise-D arriving at Jouret IV, responding to a distress call that was abruptly cut off. Though the ship is ready to assist, they find their services no longer required, as there is no one left to need them.

It is a dark, frightening way to kick things off, with that matte painting, based on a meteor crash site in Arizona, according to the text commentary on the Star Trek Fan Collective DVDs, giving the scene a sense of scale. To anyone familiar with that arc, this was a direct reference to the colonies 'scooped up' in the first season finale, The Neutral Zone.

The Next Generation had not ventured into horror, barring an exploding officer or two, before this opener. The scene set the stage for the arrival of the Borg in the Alpha Quadrant and the fundamental shift in the Star Trek universe forevermore.