Descent

This particular TNG story has the famous poker game. That old earth card game certainly flourished in the future with the Enterprise brass enjoying it for all it's worth.

But Brent Spiner has got himself a holodeck program with 3 of the greatest earth minds ever, Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and the real Stephen Hawking. No bluffing in that game.

The bulk of the episode consists of Data dealing with a flash of a human emotion, specifically anger in an encounter with the Borg. Not just any Borg, defectors from the collective who have their own mission.

But it's the poker game you will remember.

To me the renegade Borg potentially pose a far more dangerous threat than the Collective, as they have hatred, and want to be cyborgs (which Data is comlpetely). They hate biological life, but they also have feelings and take their Collective traits to sadism, as the Borg were based on non-Anglo Germanic groups who weren't Spaniard, and all have a history of barbaric, and brutal imperialism. Think Denmark and their major empire, Belgium with the Congo, Prussia in parts of sub-Saharia, Russia and their major empire. And we know what the Danes did to anyone who insurrected against Danish rule. The Borg were written as symbols of that without the emotions and needless cruelty.

The episode starts rather hilariously, "Seinfeld"-like as an episode where Data is playing a card game with Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein and Issac Newton. The old historical figures are arrogant, while Stephen Hawking is just cocky and daring mostly. It's all hilarious as they talk about the game of probibility. The nice thing is that this scene is smart and treats the viewer with intelligence, which this show, that often glorifies elitism and killing red shirts, fails at a lot. This is cut short when the crew run into a mysterious ship, and receive a report that Ohniaka III, a Federation base, was attacked. They investigate the ship and eventually Picards sends the Away Team. They see a very graphic den of dead bodies, and its downright R-rated and bloody. Again this was "TNG" which was syndicated (and being this aired, usually on what would be, 2 years later, UPN stations, meaning they were independent, and on Fox stations they got away with more) and usually on independent stations. When Data opens up the base's door, the terror begins, a Borg has been waiting to ambush them.

This is part of the confusing behavior. The Borg fight the Away Team and the differences are quickly noted. The Borg have feelings. It's really disturbing. They hate and and have revenge. They kill one of the crew and the fight carries on. The Borg retrieve their dead. They go back on the ship and attack the Enterprise. The Borg has a new invention, transwarp. At the Ready Room, after the fight, they notice the Borg are acting differently. This leads to a disturbing conclusion, that they are far more dangerous and angry now, as a Collective. Data trying to understand his behavior is also very disturbing as well. He tries not to be angry and he tries to find out why he was angry. Unknown to him is the fact that someone is controlling him and giving him the emotion chip. It gets ugly not long after when the Borg finally attack them. This is a very frightening episode that keeps true to the Borg, even as renegades, more than what "First Contact" and "Voyager" did to them. See it for yourself.

'Descent' is one of the many episodes I've never seen before, and I can honestly say I have no idea how this will end. The best parts are all in the first half; a charming poker game with Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein; Borg drones that behave like individuals; and Data's surge of emotion (anger that veers towards sadism). But even with all the phaser fire and crewmembers dropping like flies, it's never as good as those opening mysteries.

6/10

Q (and other all powerful aliens), Lore and the other Frankenstein stories and the Borg are the 3 overdone themes of the Next Generation. In this (and the following episode), the writers combine the Borg and the Frankenstein themes and make a terrible pair of episodes. Some of the decisions made by Picard are downright bizarre (supposedly leaving only a skeleton crew on board the Enterprise under the command of Dr. Crusher and beaming everyone else in a crew of 1014 personnel to operate in search teams of 4 and only getting 15 search teams). And one of those search teams has the Captain, the Chief Engineer and the Ship's Counsellor in it. And when the Enterprise leaves, it leaves all the senior officers except Dr. Crusher on the planet. The entire plot is absurd.

After one of the best opening scenes in all of Star Trek (featuring noted physicist Stephen Hawking in a wonderful cameo), this episode quickly turns to crap: Starfleet can't remember its own motivation, Picard can't competently run a ship, and everyone is forced to go along with what will be a tedious and nonsensical plot. Sometimes we can enjoy a lesser episode as at least being well-intended, and having some good idea to get across, but this is simply time-filling. The only excuse for such an lobotomy of an episode was to have a melodramatic cliffhanger for the season's end -- and that's all it succeeded in being.

P. S. Part two won't get better.