Descent

The Borg are acting weird, but they are not the only ones. Their erratic behavior may have rubbed off on Data. He’s showing anger and, seemingly, enjoying it. When the Enterprise pursues the Borg, they find Hugh’s individuality has set them up to be brainwashed by a charismatic figurehead… Lore. Descent and Descent Part II go into this week’s Mission Log. Sadly.. w this in depth analysis of TNG we’ve been doing, I realize this episode was the death knell for this show… the bumbling of 2 of the shows best villains and concepts, the Borg and Lore… really foreshadowed the writer’s were running out of steam! … and I don’t mean steam for a steam powered holodeck train heading to Vertiform city!!! But the low quality episodes ahead of us are the real reason this episode is titled “Descent”. Man, this is all just coming to me now… Geordi’s floating robot and surprise parents, Crusher’s horny ghost, Data’s mask fetish…Worf’s brother & Data’s stepmom?!!? Lol- “scary mutation” episode, “oh yeah, Wesley Crusher” episode…. Worf/Troi hookup; time warp Alexander and fake son Picard, and “oh yeah, Ensign Ro”…. we are in for some rough times. Imagine, my head canon. “Best of Both Worlds” saved till S5. S6 Picard convalesces on Earth for 9-10 episodes. Riker is captain of Enterprise!!! When Picard returns Riker feels weird, eventually has to go take over USS Titan… but before he leaves…PROPOSES TO TROI!!!!! S6 finale do Riker/Troi stay? Leave? They leave but come back for last S7 arc series finale and movies of course! Ok… rant OVER…. for now…. We still get Parallels, The Pegasus, All Good Things, to name three. All among the very best episodes of TNG. That is just how TV was made back in those years. The X Files I believe was the show which changed everything, as far as the sci-fi genre was concerned! I’m with you with Pegasus (my 5), but I never shared in the love for the others. All Good Things in particular can be boiled down to four words: Treknobabble problem, Treknobabble solution. Sure, it’s maybe a fitting ending for the show, but is it really a good one? Though, contrary to what someone above quipped, Season 7, while weak for TNG, is still far more solid than Season 2. That’s just nuts. Nice job man! Will keep it on hand for when I get into moral dilemas And it was great to see another episode of a strong female in command. Beverly did a kick but job while in command. I think we, (and the writers), forget that even though positions like Beverly and Troi are the “softer” side of Star Fleet, they still had to go through the same basic training and command school as any other officer. Sure, their higher level training would be in their respective disciplines, but they had to earn their command pips. “Plot hole radar”- lol. But, that is something we should not have to do, when TNG gave us such incredible episodes like “The Defector” and “Yesterday’s Enterprise” oh well. It’s just the way the cards fell…. writer’s moving on, no true real grasp of an ending? Not sure. I wonder if anyone involved w “Encounter at Farpoint” thought the series would conclude w “Q”? Hard to believe since they seemed to be in fear of cancellation at the end of each season? Anyway… even w/o grand intergalactic story arcs, I really just wanted more development of characters, in depth, profound evolution. Lore should have been caught somewhere trying to impersonate Data on some starbase or ship at least once during this 7 year run. The Borg could have just been mentioned as active and FEAR would prevail throughout the entire episode…..i.e. Klingon strikeforce decimated by Borg scout craft….oh well…. just a shame TWO magnificent villains went out like this…. I initially watched these episodes last week while doing other things. I was not paying too close attention and enjoyed it. Then the show was off for a week and I rewatched these episodes paying closer attention and yikes. So many issues. My first real head scratcher was, Why is there this nice, well