Star Trek Retro Review: "Descent" (TNG) | More Borg Episodes

Dr. Beverly Crusher is not just the most underrated character in the history of Trek, she is also a hardcore badass. She may have a soft voice, but she's never soft spoken. She stands up for what is right even if it means going toe to toe with the captain. She's even hardcore with Lore. In "Datalore" she points a phaser at Lore and threatens him in order to back off from Wesley. In "Descent" she takes on Lore's minions and defeats them through sheer tactical brilliance. It's sad and kind of sickening that this overlooked and disrespected character will always be remember for that dipshit "ghost candle episode". Dr. Crusher and Gates McFadden deserve better.

The scariest thing about the Borg was their hivemind, the implacable singular drive that directed millions of bodies in a common purpose. Descent showed us how weak, and more importantly how sad the Borg are without it. That they turned into a group of bitter, angry, easily radicalized jerks makes perfect sense to me, and might the best thematic element of the episode.

Re: security desk guy, as a security officer, staying out of whatever the hell the command crew are doing is probably the best way to stay alive. You speak up, suddenly you get volunteered to join an away mission.

6:45 for the authentic Star Trek experience, pause here and come back in three months for the conclusion.

Funny how the most memorable part of this episode for me was that poker game. I was a teenage fan of Stephen Hawking, and seeing him as himself, playing poker in such lofty company on Star Trek of all places made me a very happy little nerd. I hope he had half as much fun filming that as we did watching it.

The Beverly subplot was the highlight, and good callout that her solution to the conflict was a callback to something only she would've had experience with.

"Yes, Jean-Luc, here are the keys back. I had the Enterprise washed and waxed, filled the dilithium tanks, changed the air freshener, and wiped out the Borg. Thanks again."

As someone who used to work security, that security guy doing a crap job is pretty accurate considering he's clearly zoned in on whatever deskjob task he's doing 😂 He was probably monitoring security alarms to look busy or writing a last minute report he'd been putting off, and most definitely did not hear one bit of dialogue and got got before they left.

While touring the sets, Hawking is purported to have looked up at the warp core and said something like, "I'm working on that."

The Sons of Soong should’ve teamed up as an evil villain team with the Duras sisters… 🤔 Hang on. Completely unrelated to anything, I need to go write an erotic fan fic real quick

I actually kind of liked the Barnaby and Tate thing, but the fact that there's no follow-up in a later episode, not even cameos, kind of makes it feel a little pointless. It just would've been nice to see Tate later on getting pinned as a Lieutenant JG or something basic with Barnaby cheering at the ceremony.

I always liked Lore’s costume in these episodes. Just looks neat and evil

pushes nerd glasses up "actually it was Redemption not Reunion" 😂

Hasn’t Data ever used a laser pointer before? What kind of psychopath would fire a phaser in the same room as his pet cat?

Of all the TNG two-parters, this is definitely one of them. (Happy 69th like) EDIT: Oh my god you make the exact same joke in the video

5:47 apparently Jean Luc knew the doc would be scary effecive at blitzing the Borg, sad she didn't get a chance this time....

The brilliance of this episode is the allegory of the Cardassian invasion and occupation of Bajor. The Bajoran Starfleet officer sitting in the brig watching Data and Chrosus illustrates that history perfectly.

In the 1992/1993 TV season the Borg appear in two episodes: DS9's "Emissary" and TNG's "Descent". "Emissary" is the last true time we see the Borg in their full horror as villains in both the destruction of the ships at Wolf 359 and in the crumpled weeping figure of Ben Sisko. It's a sad switch over from that to "Descent" and the Borg have never recovered since after all these decades.

Im glad im not the only one that compared the Borg compound to the command center from Power Rangers lol

Now that Discovery has concluded I expect a revision to your star trek's number 1 most awesome and handsome badass video with Saru at the top of the list. Starfleet captain. Savior of his own people and ambassador for his home planet. Graceful and mature Vulcan wife. Paris can warp 10 the delta flyer to second place where he belongs