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Star Trek: TNG 3x26 Full Reaction! (Patreon)

Published:
2025-03-08 18:00:05
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2026-06
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Star Trek TNG 3×26 Full Reaction

Download Full Reaction (3.8 GB) Full Reaction You are now able to stream the full reaction directly from this website. Alternatively, you can download it to your computer using the button underneath the video player. You must provide your own footage to watch alongside the full

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Thomas Corp

Yeah, I have been noticing premiere dates of shows this spring, and worry and concern for you is great, Jess. Praying for you on that one. Now to this episode. My question going into this was simply, “Does she know?”. Seeing your initial reactions to the beginning makes me then say, “So she doesn’t. Good.” To clarify, the question was do you know that this would be the behemoth episode that it is, and you did not. You say that you did know of the big ending of this episode, and it occurred to me partway through that you would be aware of that. Among other things, you spoke of seeing the image, and anymore, it is comparable to Spock’s death in Wrath of Khan, or Darth Vader being Luke’s father, where even laymen happen to know about that as it is borderline common knowledge. I went through a similar thing over a decade ago with this episode in that you knew going into the show that it was coming. I will return to the topic momentarily. First, we talk about other aspects of the episode. Kickstarted by the Borg coming out to play. And it establishes a terrible truth: the Borg is here, and the Federation and our heroes, they are unprepared, and caught off guard. Even with Q giving them a wake-up call, the Federation still didn’t see this coming. Or at least not this soon, and they will undoubtedly live to regret it every day of their lives. I would imagine fans back then put themselves in the shoes of our crew, and they regretted it as well. I know I would have. As a matter of fact, I do regret it, and I wasn’t even born yet. Of course, the Borg will soon have their own regrets, for they made the tactical error of they went about mistaking the Enterprise and her crew for some whole other body. They just think that the Enterprise will be as easy to defeat as the other species and worlds they’ve assimilated. Little do they expect the resistance, despite the warnings that said resistance would be futile. As is said in Hosea 8:7, “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”, and the Enterprise, is that whirlwind. First, however, they do need to live through this horrific ordeal. A task that is easier said than done. Shelby is a great character, and Elizabeth Dennehy is wonderful as Shelby. Shared thing of sort of liking her. I get Riker’s frustration with her. We both agree of loving her zeal and ambition, and she has great ideas. In Riker’s place there’s a similar thing of I don’t mind much what she did, I mind the way she did it. The big one being Riker says to her that he’ll pass along to Picard her one strategy, and she then goes over his head. Leads to that elevator scene that we liked. Riker serving that marvelous Xanatos energy was terrific. And yeah, everyone was giving Riker shit for not taking captaincy. Shelby even calling him out on playing it safe by hiding behind Picard. Whereas like you said, maybe Riker is content where he’s at. And, well, the Melbourne won’t have Deanna onboard. Hell, we saw how despondent Picard was in the year without Beverly, Riker is NOT wanting to go through that experience. By the same logic, Picard should be higher on the food chain than he is, and they don’t push him. And I hold the logic of it’s like the original series, one could ask why Spock stays first officer, and why is he always one step behind Kirk. The answer: Because if Spock wasn’t, Kirk would be the most popular military professor at Starfleet Academy. Love Deanna’s talk with Riker. Marina is always so good. The Borg kicked up the fuss, and the tension was great. You say it made you feel on edge. Watching it myself, I’m nervous. And it takes a lot to scare me. Like yourself, I love the sensation. Obviously, you don’t like the snakes, and since picking your phobia up, the feeling is shared. I definitely share the thing of it being a separate type of fear when it comes to needles, as that’s absurdly unpleasant. We’re completely simpatico on hating the needles. Rather love your strategy of the Enterprise heading to the Winchester, having a nice, cold pint, and waiting for all this to blow over. You do see the penny begin its descent when the Borg say they want Picard, and it is the strength of this that even though you know what’s coming, the power of it all loses none of its potency. The heart and stomach sink like an anvil when Picard gets taken. God, it was getting me emotional seeing how you got emotional dreading what was to come. My point exactly about this still holding the power that it has. It leads to the obscene gut punch when Beverly is the first one to see Locutus. Gates sold the moment perfectly, and the sobbing on my end was strong. It leads to a great moment when Shelby is advocating trying to rescue Picard, and Riker belays the orders. Showing how Shelby gets the wake-up call that she’s not as ready to make the big decisions as she liked to think and Riker is, and you see the two of them settle into better ground. Bringing us to the big final moment of Locutus delivering the big threat, and Jonathan going above and beyond with the cool line delivery of Riker’s order, leading to the biggest cliffhanger in television history since the Who Shot J. R. what have you. And now it brings the question of do we want part two next week or two weeks from now. I’m happy to wait. If you want to upload the reaction to the next episode next week, then by all means, go for it. I did watch both parts this week if you had both today. You only had part one. Well, better safe than sorry. So, I was wrong this time. But “Better to have and not need than need and not have.” as my Grandma used to say. This week or next week, I will rewatch the episode following to refresh my memory. The decision of when the reaction is upload, again, I leave that to you, Jess. I confess that the biggest surprise of the reaction was the fairly subdued reaction to Geordi having the DAMN FINE moment with the Epic Geordi Maneuver™. You need John Williams with the Raiders’ March for that part. Now you did have a great look at that part, so it’s all good. Also, to briefly talk about your memory of this show, it sounds like you didn’t watch this as much as I ate, slept, and breathed M*A*S*H over twenty years ago. Or it just has been that long since you watched Next Gen. We both have the same thing of there are two episodes of Next Gen that we watched the most that are burned into our brains. We’ve gotten to one of mine with Déjà Q. The second of mine is still some time away. I look forward to your two. Oh, this reaction was terrific, Jess, thank you so much.

Thomas Corp
>>167139354

And the cliffhanger allows Next Gen to become the best Star Trek show ever. And that is destiny fulfilled.

Ryan

Well, this has been a pretty rough week with both Foggy and Rex Splode, but at least we get to end on a show that's all about having fun hanging out with a bunch of people everybody loves. And what episode is next...Oh. Well, shit. I was expecting you to already know about the big twist here, with it being such an essential cultural moment. For 6 year old me, it was the first time I ever became aware of the show as anything but background noise, because the next day everyone was freaking out about it, and that whole summer was packed with speculation about how Season 4 could possibly pick the story back up. And what none of us knew until years later was the show's own crew was wondering the same thing. After three seasons, Patrick Stewart was starting to get a bit tired of the role and looking to move forward in his career, and still hadn't made a decision on renewing his contract during production. So Michael Piller put this story together as a way to accommodate whatever happened there, though without any actual plan for what would come next since he was also looking to leave the show after rescuing it from the gutter during this season as show runner. And it's now easy to see that situation reflected in Riker's story of continually being prodded to leave his safe, comfortable job to realize his true potential, and ultimately showing that he can make the hard decisions. I don't think it's really a spoiler to say that Stewart did stay on, but it's pretty clear that if he hadn't Riker would have taken over as the Captain with Shelby as his First Officer. And that could have been pretty interesting, bringing back Roddenberry's original idea of a tough female XO that the studio made him scrap, but I think we can all agree that getting as much more of Stewart as we did was the better outcome. And in the meantime, this is just a plain fantastic episode. There's a sense that everyone knew this was going to be a special one, and finally pulling the trigger on the Borg a year and a half after Q Who would require all their best. As you note, there's a real Zulu/Helm's Deep vibe where the wait for a seemingly hopeless battle to start is actually worse than being in it (see also that one Game of Thrones episode that even the biggest haters of Season 8 admit is pretty good). We've been wondering all this time how they can beat the Borg without Q snapping them away, and at the end of this second appearance we still don't know, which adds a ton to the fear they impress both onscreen and for everyone watching. It's not for nothing that one of Ron Moore's biggest rules on Battlestar Galactica was to keep the Cylons as scary as the Borg started out, rather than where they were by the end of Voyager. It also really says something that a moment which in a lesser episode would suffer decades of horrendous mockery, with Levar dramatically rolling out of engineering when he clearly still had time to just walk under the door, just gets a bit of light ribbing on the same level as Return of the Jedi's "force kick" just because no one wants to insult something this great. As Season 3 goes out, we must also bid a heartfelt farewell to Ron Jones, whose music was always on point and inventive, and he goes out with a real bang here. The electronically distorted human voices perfectly capture the exact nature of the Borg's menace, and that bit coming back with Picard's head turn, followed by a desperate, dramatic rendition of the show's theme song with the full body shot is just as important a part of what gives the scene its power as the rest. And then he plays us out with what everyone still likely thinks of as THE iconic cliffhanger music even if they've never seen the show. Bon voyage, sir, Rick Berman didn't deserve you.

Paul Hayes

I had a feeling this would probably be one of the episodes you knew something of - as you said, it's quite a well-known television moment so difficult to have missed if you were someone even vaguely interested in TV sci-fi and fantasy in the 1990s. I mean, Buffy even has Xander call Giles "Locutus of the Borg" early on, as I recall! I remember once reading someone describe the Borg as "the Cybermen done properly".

Thomas Corp
>>167147239

Yeah, I had the similar thought of the timing of this being the same week that we lose Foggy and Rex. And, given the outfit selection, Jess filmed this the same day that we lose Rex. The day after we she filmed the reaction where dear Foggy was lost. Hell of an emotional week, yes? Curious where Jess is at with Supernatural as I hope those were lighter ones that she filmed this week. Seems like we all anticipated that Jess would know at least the big cliffhanger, given its impact in pop-culture. You speak of your own experience thirty-five years ago where seeing as I was not quite yet conceived by the time the episode aired, I can’t imagine the hype and build up of everyone freaking out, going, “How the FUCK is this going to end!?” Given how my mom talks about the Who Shot J. R. business, I imagine it’s a similar thing. They set everything up so well so that all the options are open for Patrick, Jonathan, and everyone. Riker and Shelby being the leads, and thus Riker and Deanna supplanting Picard and Beverly being the heart and soul of the show would have been very interesting. Much though such an outcome would have been marvelous, we were not letting Sir Patrick Stewart leave, and it’s impossible to be mad, though the curiosity remains as to what could have been. This is one of the episodes where everyone just senses that you’re doing something big, and everyone steps up to the plate to bring the excellence. As someone who is overall completely fine with season eight of Game of Thrones, whilst conceding it got rushed, (And there are two very specific grievances that can very easily be rectified if they ever do a continuation,) yeah, there is that energy of the waiting is bigger and better than the battle. Staying with Game of Thrones for a second, Blackwater honestly was the best big battle on that show for me. The Helm’s Deep energy was strong on that one. The Borg live up to their reputation of being the unholy terror that they are, matching Khan as the Federation’s greatest enemy. Even if they had diminishing return appearances by Voyager, they are still damned scary. The Force kick is something that I never noticed until someone put up the slow motion gif on the internet, and even then it’s just a moment where yeah, slight ribbing aside, the scene that it’s in is so great, you let that slide. The Epic Geordi Maneuver™ has a similar thing, and I can see LeVar thinking that if this is his only big “action” moment of the episode, he’s going big with it, and I love it. And yes, we bid adieu to Ron Jones. Completely concur with your words on him.

Ian Smith
>>167139354

That final line of dialogue! When I first watched this it was on VHS (the BBC in their wisdom refused to broadcast TNG back in the day,because "science fiction is rubbish" was their attitude at the time). CIC video had no such qualms, fortunately; but having to wait months for them to release the first two stories of Season 4 was torture!

Jenny Chalek

I would LOVE if you showed the conclusion next week THEN took your break. Just my two cents'

Dave Hampton

I am fine either way on uploading part two next week or waiting a week. I have been wondering which episodes were the ones you had seen "a lot" and more so wondering if they were Geordie episodes. At least one of them HAS to be considering the love for him you came into the show with. I am not surprised the episodes were not in the first two seasons, but this season could have had some. Plenty of good ones to come. It will be fun when we get to one. I think I remember random TNG episodes sold on VHS with two episodes per tape. I am guessing maybe it is one of those tapes you may have watched a lot. As far as this episode goes, I enjoyed your reaction. I liked your thoughts on Shelby and Riker. I have move thoughts on that, but I will hold them back for mild spoilers. I also thought the color of your dress looked nice with the colors of the Nebula that you thought was pretty. Those colors together remind me of the 80's. I like that though you have knowledge of the ending of this episode you have no idea what is to come in part two. : )

Thomas Corp
>>167156674

As I said, when Jess decides on when the upload will be up, I’ll leave that to her. I’m good either way on that one. It seems a foregone conclusion that at least one of the episodes Jess talks about is a Geordi episode. Curious to find out if it’s my own favorite Geordi episode that’s one of my, as Jess calls them, chapter and verse episodes; an episode that I’ve rewatched a lot, albeit my favorite Geordi episode isn’t one of the top two for me. One or two of the first or second season episodes I could have seen Jess rewatching a lot. We have plenty of good ones to come. The tapes you mention, yes, I’ve seen them come through at work over the years. I’d imagine either Jess and her family had those tapes, alternatively syndication. It’s like how The Andy Griffith Show was always on growing up. Same with M*A*S*H, though there were also the dvds there. The shade of blue on the dress that Jess has, yeah, it does sort of match the nebula, true. Shared excitment how Jess said she didn’t know what’s after this episode.

Josef Schiltz
>>167156674

My favourite is practically upon us. If I say the line, "Why do you walk away?" I think you know to which actor, character and scene to which I am referring. I also loved the way he delivered the line, "Never sought? Never sought?" I also remember him delivering the insult, " Jack-in-office!", but I am damned if I can remember where! Of course! He delivers it to “Holmes, the Scotland Yard Jack-in-office!” He played Dr. Grimesby Roylott, of Stoke Moran in The Adventure Of The Speckled Band! Not a story that Jess would find favour with due to her most famous phobia! After some brief verbal sparring with Holmes - played by Jeremy Brett - he then seizes a poker from the fireplace and bends it into a curve and then stalks out. Holmes, remarks that he is a "very amiable fellow" and, with an effort, straightens the poker again. I have that actor in question as King Leontes in the BBC production of The Winter's Tale. Finally remembering his name. It is Jeremy Kemp. King Leontes was a character that has also been played by Henry Ainley - father to Anthony and Jon Pertwee's godfather - and Patrick Stewart also played the role in a RSC theatre production in 1981.

Thomas Corp
>>167156674

Yes, “Holmes the meddler, Holmes the busybody, Holmes the Scotland Yard Jack-in-office!”, followed by a slight Jeremy Brett guffaw in response, if I recall. The Next Gen episode in question, damn good pick for one’s favorite. The reaction that Jess will have to it will be one for the books. This much is certain.

Josef Schiltz
>>167156674

Auprès de ma blonde, Qu’il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon, Auprès de ma blonde, Qu’il fait bon dormir.

Josef Schiltz
>>167156674

Kemp also played Dr. Ernst Queller in the Space 1999 episode, 'Voyager's Return'. A long time since I've seen that. Moonbase Alpha is placed in dire peril because of the Queller Drive that the craft is using.

Geordie Joe

This was a great reaction Jess. I'm in favour of seeing the next part and then having the break after if it's not too much trouble for you. Well, at least you won't have to wait three months to watch the next part like everyone else in 1990 when the episode first aired. There was no binge-watching TV shows on Netflix back in those days. I'm interested to find out which episodes are your favourite and if your thoughts on them have changed at all after seeing them again after so many years. I like how when Picard is first revealed after being assimilated on the cube, the music that plays is an almost Borg assimilated version of the Star Trek TNG theme. The pointless feud between Riker and Shelby is my least favourite thing about this episode. There is a very good chance The Borg are about to assimilate Starfleet and the entire Federation, so there won't be a first officer position left for them to fight over. Their constant back-and-forth bickering over trivial matters just feels childish considering what is at stake in this story. "I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile." The name Locutus is Latin for "he who speaks". “Freedom is irrelevant. Self-determination is irrelevant. You must comply.” The Borg with some far right, Trumpian rhetoric there. Maybe The Borg were created by one of Elon Musk's spaceships. 😆

Thomas Corp
>>167185447

That is true. Regardless of when the next reaction is up, Jess doesn’t have to wait all those months like everyone had to do back in the day. Something that is rather lost in the streaming era, though a few shows can still indulge on occasion having a big cliffhanger that everyone has to wait months or years for the resolution. They were sneaky with the music during the big reveal. The first officer bickering back-and-forth is very much a secondary concern compared to the threat of the Borg. The threats from the Borg do bear quite the uncanny similarity to the MAGA/Trumpian methodology and rhetoric, like you said. Wouldn’t surprise me if the Borg is the work of one of Musk’s spaceships.

Bob Nicholas

I hope you have the conclusion next week. Keep in mind that I believe going forward every last ep of a season is now a 2 parter continuing into the premier of the new season.

Josef Schiltz
>>167185447

I hear there's a rumour that Musk is going to create robot chickens from the rocket debris to combat the egg problem. I would suspect their edibility, but not their combustibility. It's not pretty when they blow!