TNG S03E26 & S04E01

"The Best of Both Worlds" (S03E26 & S04E01)

• The tone of this episode is set so perfectly from the very beginning.  The eerie and understated music, the vagueness of Captain Picard's opening log entry, the hurried tone of the away team and finally the utter desolation of the New Providence colony.  
• "If this is the Borg, it would indicate they have a source of power far superior to our own."
     
  Although that source of power isn't detailed on-screen for quite some time, we can assume that the mystery technology to which Captain Picard refers is what we end up knowing as the Borg transwarp conduits--although of course Starfleet doesn't even know that technology exists at the time of these events.
• Commander Riker is offered command of USS Melbourne (NCC-62043) in this episode, a Excelsior-class starship that will later be destroyed at the Battle of Wolf 359.
• "Got another king in the hole, eh Data?"
     
  "I am afraid I cannot answer that, Wesley.  And as you are a new-comer to the game, may I say:  it is inappropriate for you to ask."
• Lt. Commander Shelby:  The She-Riker.
• "We have engaged the Borg."
• The evacuation of engineering early in the encounter with the Borg cube is the source of one of my favorite images to use when locking a thread over on the Ars OpenForum:
  
  
  
• "You do an end-run around me again, I'll snap you back so hard you'll think you're a first year cadet."
• Captain Picard makes two great history references in this episode:  Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson and the HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and the Roman emperor Honorious and the Visigoth sack of Rome in 410 CE.
• If efforts by Commander Riker and Lt. Worf are any indication, the possession of a beard does not offer one any significant advantage in a hand-to-hand fight with a Borg drone.
• "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 us."
     
  "Impossible!  My culture is based on freedom and self-determination."
     
  "Freedom is irrelevant.  Self-determination is irrelevant.  You must comply."
     
  "We would rather die."
     
  "Death is irrelevant."
• The away team beaming from the Enterprise to the Borg cube to retrieve Captain Picard while both ships are at warp is one data point in a much larger series of inconsistencies with regard to what can and cannot be done while a vessel is traveling at warp speed.  In some cases, little interaction with the environment around a ship (including with other ships) is possible when a starship is at warp.  In others, almost anything can be done.  That's not a nit that I'm picking with this particular episode (which is one of my and probably every other Trekkie's favorites), but this is one of the more prominent examples of those inconsistencies.
• Back when I first became aware of Ethernet and started having small LAN parties with my friends using 10Base-T hubs, I wanted equipment that looked like the Borg distribution nodes :) 
• Counselor Troi's primary function in a crisis seems to be supervising evacuations :P
• Commander Riker "makes the hard choice" and orders the use of the improvised deflector weapon, even though it might kill the now-assimilated Capatain Picard.  Lt. Commander Shelby, despite her earlier tough talk, is willing to lose the opportunity to (possibly) stop the Borg cube in order to try to again to save Captain Picard.
• "Your resistance is hopeless, Number One."
     
  Locutus is just, like...super menacing, isn't he?
• Okay, confession time:  As much as I joke about hating Riker (and I seriously do sometimes), and as often as I've held steadfast to the opinion that he was never a true "Captain of the Enterprise", I actually think he's great in this episode.  The role is well-written and Jonathan Frakes puts in as fine a performance as I think we get to see at any point during his Star Trek career.
• Guinan states that her relationship with Captain Picard was "beyond friendship, beyond family", but doesn't elaborate any further.  I don't think that backstory ever gets told.  I'm not saying I would have wanted a whole "Guinan & Picard" flashback episode, but I have to admit that I'm modestly curious.
• The Star Trek crew put in a lot of effort to create the "graveyard", the aftermath of the Battle of Wolf 359.  Studio models were kit-bashed and destroyed to create a variety of destroyed and disabled ships, including USS Tolstoy, USS Kyushu, and the aforementioned USS Melbourne.  Several newly-defined ship classes came out of this effort, including the New Orleans, Cheyenne, Springfield, Challenger, Freedom and Niagara classes.
     
   As always, Ex Astris Scientia has a wonderful set of well-researched articles about the ships of Wolf 359--including reconstructions of the studio models--on its Starship Articles page.
• The rescue mission to retrieve Locutus/Picard is a just a great sequence.  It's as exciting to watch today as it was when I first saw it.
• The final tactic taken against the Borg, which succeeds, is the time-tested tactic of taking your opponents greatest strength (in this case, the Borg's collective consciousness) and using it agains them.
• "How much do you remember?"
     
  "Everything."
     
  Well, the good news is that Starfleet isn't going to hold that against you.  Oh, wait...
• There's an extended shot of the haunted look on Captain Picard's face at the end of this episode that's just amazingly well-done.