[Brad]

Originally Posted by chucker It is… rather unimaginative that this is the third season in a row that involves the Borg. Even the TNG films weren't like that; only one in four featured them. Besides, didn't VOY already milk them for what they're worth?

Voyager utterly neutering any power from the Borg is probably what I dislike most about that show. The Borg could have remained a menacing villain today if they weren't turned into a dumb monster of the week that any motley crew could outwit and outrun.

Originally Posted by chucker I guess I'm unclear how episode ten will resolve the rest. Did the Changelings work for the Borg? Vice versa? Is this truly a partnership? Is the weird hand/face thing a projection of the Borg Queen?

I expect that most of these, especially the hand thing, are just more mystery boxes that will never be opened. I hate this, but I have already accepted it.

Originally Posted by chucker I'm torn: yes, Spiner can still act Data/Lore really well. Yes, Worf still has the best dry-witted lines. (Picard with the carpet was good, too.) And yes, seeing that ship again was a fun reveal.

And Frakes! My god, that man has been a joy to see, even when he was burning pizza in season 1.

Originally Posted by chucker I miss the Star Trek that told little stories. Morality plays. Not big "the galaxy is on fire" longer-than-needed motion pictures.

Hear, hear. The morality plays, only interspersed with action sequences, were what made much of Trek so iconic and enjoyable and relatable and memorable. Most of those strongly stand the test of time. I mentioned before that I've been re-watching TNG from the start with my wife. We're in season 3 and recently finished The Offspring, the episode in which Data conceives his child Lal, and holy smokes was that episode's writing forward-thinking and amazingly relevant to current 2023 American politics. A story in which a person chooses their own gender? And nobody around them is making a big deal of it, just accepting them for how they feel most comfortable expressing themself? All while struggling with identity and emotions they can't understand? What year is this?!

Out of curiosity, I just now went over to the Memory Alpha page for that episode to see if there was any interesting behind-the-scenes drama that I didn't know. I was surprised by this story, which revealed some real-world controversy of its time: In one of the scenes with Guinan tutoring Lal about Human sexuality, a script line was changed in order to turn a strictly heterosexual explanation into a gender-neutral version. Research assistant Richard Arnold recalled, "According to the script, Guinan was supposed to start telling Lal, 'When a man and a woman are in love…' and in the background, there would be men and women sitting at tables, holding hands. But Whoopi refused to say that. She said, 'This show is beyond that. It should be 'When two people are in love.'" It was also decided on set that the background of the scene show a same-sex couple holding hands, but "someone ran to a phone and made a call to the production office and that was nixed," continued Arnold. "[Producer] David Livingston came down and made sure that didn't happen."

Trek was a great mirror and lens through which you could examine our history and culture and controversies, like parables and literary epics of old. It's a shame that the executives who control this franchise are so short-sighted, unable to see beyond nostalgia-fueled weekly view counts.