Customer Reviews

Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 123: I, Borg [VHS]

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4 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This episode is very emotional. The crew of the Enterprise find a Borg drone. Geordie and Beverly name him Hugh. Geordie, Beverly, and Guinan try to save him from Jean-Luc Picard. This episode is for anyone who enjoys who has children and wants to teach them ethics, not for the action type.

The Enterprise investigates an automated distress call on a small moon. Sensors reveal scant, faint signs of life from a crashed ship. When the away team beams down, they find the remains of 4 dead Borg - and one (Jonathan Del Arco) that is barely clinging to life. Dr. Crusher takes her Hippocratic Oath to the extreme when she insists that the Captain allow her to beam aboard not only the Federation's most deadly and feared foe, but the same race of aliens that once abducted and maimed him, forcing him to act as the aggressor against earth.

Picard bends to Crusher's will, then has an epiphany. Once the Borg is healed, they would have to beam him back to the crash site, to await the arrival of his fellow Borg to rescue him. Why not use this opportunity to finally destroy the Borg - all of them, by supplanting this one with a virus that will eventually make their hardware/software components unusable. Crusher objects, but Picard is determined to use this young Borg as the ultimate in assymetrical warfare.

Some of his chips are damaged and must be replaced to save him - and Geordi is given the task of introducing a program into the chips that will cause a systems crash when the Borg is picked up by his compadres. The Borg continues to rant on about "Resistance is Futile," and "You will be assimilated," and Geordi takes it stride with a smirk and a smart retort. In an effort to engage in a more mind-stimulating dialogue with the Borg as he makes repairs to his circuits, he names him Hugh. The name sticks.

Guinan, whose people were scattered throughout the galaxy because of the Borg, hates the species and looks forward to the end of all of them - until she meets Hugh and realizes there is a person under all those implants.

Del Arco has an innocent, sweet face that adds to the allure of this gentle child in Borg clothing. Perhaps assimilated as an infant, he has never known individuality before he was on the Enterprise, and it changes him profoundly. Picard, on the otherhand, has been a strong, hearty individual his entier adult life and yet his individuality did nothing to affect the Borg when he was assimilated. The Borg do not procreate, they assimilate... so everyone in the Borg Collective was once an individual - some were assimilated later in life, and yet none make an impact upon the Collective.

The crew somehow thinks that Hugh will be different, however, making changes in the hive mind. As Spock would say, "highly illogical."

Despite this major hole in the plot, no episode with the Borg will bore the viewer. The mere thought of them sends chills up the spine of any Trekkie or Trekker. They are the epitome of evil - right in the same company as Alien and Predator - except for at least the Predator plays fair.

This episode struck a blow to the face of prejudice and racism by showing that it's teaching and conditioning that make a person "good" or "bad," not the color of skin (or planet of origin). It showed that, if we are offered a choice, everyone can choose to be good, even a member of a race as evil as the Borg. Everyone needs to be viewed as an individual and not generalized or categorized based on race or gender.

Another great entry in ST:TNG's Borg saga, "I, Borg" features our Starfleet stalwarts facing the standard weekly moral dilemma(s) and their own prejudices & preconceptions following the rescue of a single Borg, eventually given the name Hugh, from a crash site. Captain Picard is especially torn between his respect for life in all its forms versus using the Borg captive as a weapon against its own kind (being thrown into the collective and forced against your will to kill and destroy will do that to you). His role playing of his Borg persona Locutus from the "Best of Both Worlds" cliffhanger at the climax makes for one of the episode's more disquieting moments. Through it all, Hugh develops from a part dependent on the whole into a fully realized individual, with repercussions that would be followed up in the subsequent Borg saga two-parter "Descent". If you're a big time Borgophile like myself, this one's unquestionably a must-have!

Sadly, I used to enjoy this eppie a LOT more (as well as all the others) before a Trek-viewer friend pointed out that Captain Picard has a bit of a lazy eye! It's not as obvious as Worf's (Michael Dorn) slight lack of proper ocular alignment, but it is perceptible if you look hard enough. The hell of it is, I never noticed it before! But that's not the worst of it... every time I do see Patrick Stewart on the tube now, be he Picard, Gurney Halleck, Leodegranz, or that guy in "Conspiracy Theory", I see it each and every time, to the point of being somewhat distracting.

Yes, I know, you're probably thinking, "what kinda sick weirdo focuses on- and is distracted by- some TV star's physical shortcomings? Get over it!" Hey, I can't explain it... it's just one of those weird things. Shatner had his hairline (before his priceline, heh), Doohan had his missing finger, Nimoy had his substabdard singing ability... and Stewart has his eyeballs staring in slightly different directions. It's just kinda freaky, you know?

Needless to say, I have one less buddy I watch TV with nowadays...

`Late!