Star Trek Picard: Everything You Need To Know About The Borg

It would take another year before the Borg would return. The original plan for the end of The Next Generation's third season was to ignite the Klingon civil war. However, this plan was put on hold and the Borg story line was pulled forward. Maurice Hurley, the creator of the Borg, had since left production on TNG and it was down to writer Michael Pillar and director Cliff Bole to give the Borg life.

The Best of Both Worlds is frequently and deservedly credited as solidifying TNG as one of the stand-out examples of science-fiction television, stepping outside of the shadow of The Original Series. The cliffhanger at the end of part 1 was and arguably remains the greatest cliffhanger of the franchise - an assimilated Jean Luc Picard speaks, as Locutus of Borg, to Riker, echoing the familiar catchphrase 'resistance is futile' before the music swells, the camera closes in and Riker gives the order to fire a kill shot directly at the cube containing his Captain.

For this story, the writers addressed what would become a common issue with the Borg - speaking to the collective only had power for so long before it slipped. This episode sees the Borg search for a liaison to assist in the assimilation of humanity and for that they choose Picard. In writing this storyline, Star Trek would be forever changed.

This story came in the days before serialized television as it is known today and the idea that Picard would carry scars from this wasn't even considered. The second part of the episode shows a clearly traumatized Picard looking out of his ready room window, haunted by his experience. In a Star Trek first, the following episode Family showed his clear pain and fear over what had happened.

The two-parter itself is thrilling, giving true power to the Borg. The infamous Battle of Wolf 359 occurs off-screen early into part 2 and the Federation suffers its worst ever defeat when 39 vessels and 11,000 lives are lost. The shot of the Enterprise arriving to the graveyard of ships is chilling, not least when the camera lingers on the broken engineering section of a TOS Movie-Era Constitution Class ship, dropping the subtle hint that even Captain Kirk would not have stood a chance against these foes.