| The Next Generation | |
| 153 | |
| Descent, Part II | |
| 47025.4 | |
Continued from last time...
It's the Borg football team! The boys haven't be doing too well of late, and were defeated in the last superbowl by a Federation team who used dubious tactics to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. This time things are going to be different, thanks to Coach Lore who's found his true calling in life - the destruction of all obsolete biological lifeforms! It's pretty tough talk, but can he survive 43 minutes of gruelling play...
The Bald Avenger gave Acting Captain Social Conscience extremely clear instructions - at the first sign of trouble, head straight back to Federation space. Do you think she can mange to obey this simple command? Of course not! The Borg ship reappears, and rather than flee, she starts pulling away teams back off the planet. Maybe she's having trouble understanding the scale of the Borg ship - it's big. I mean it, really big, in fact so big that the Enterprise would be a mere bug on the windshield if they collided. Now where was that warp conduit again?
"My life is dull, colourless and boring" whines Data. That's the problem with being an android on a space-age sitcom - do you really think C3PO had it any better? Since Lore showed him the light, he's realised that his life with Starfleet was misguided, and that now they serve a higher purpose. Oh oh, that sounds like a dose of old-fashioned religion. "Sacrifices must be made for the greater good" he preaches. Has Pinocchio cut his own strings, kicked Geppeto in the guts and run off to join a gutter gang?
One sacrifice that's demanded is the surrender of Geordi's visor. Is it so that Lore can make a new fashion statement, or could it be because Geordi could see a carrier-wave emanating from the evil twin? In a stroke of genius that could only have come from reading the script, he realises that Lore must be using it to project emotions into Data, and must have somehow overcome Data's ethics program! Wow! What can they possibly do? How about projecting a PhasedCadianPulse™ into Data to reboot his ethics program. You've got to be kidding...
Worf and Riker hike off into the mountains to try and track down their buddies, and using the same amazing powers of observation that Troi has, manage to recognise the strange building for what it is - a building. They don't have much time to congratulate themselves over this amazing feat, as they are captured by a roving Borg patrol. They didn't even fire a shot. Two more for medical experiments...
...or maybe not. Instead of being taken into the compound, they are hurried into the tunnels below. Guess who? It's Hugh! These are rogue Borg from the rogue Borg, and they're not happy. "Hasn't the Federation caused enough damage?" cries Hugh. Absolutely! Is it time for summary justice? When they sent him back to the collective, it nearly destroyed them, by giving them the most serious case of multiple-personality syndrome since Sybil. Then Lore the therapist saviour arrived and offered to reshape them in his own image. Ugh. Hugh shows them how to get into the compound through the air-conditioning ducts...
Bev returns, and using a combination of precision flying and hiding behind a small paper fan, she manages to recover all but six crew-members from the planet before the Borg ship arrives. Not surprisingly, the six includes Riker, Worf, Picard, Troi and Geordi. Boom! One of the nascells is hit and there's no way to warp out of trouble, unless... they fly straight into the sun. Yeah that's bound to fool them.
Icarus flies higher and higher and then invokes the MetaphasicShielding™! How convenient that Geordi had been working on it quietly all this time. Of course it's never been tested, but it's bound to work. But not forever. The Borg just cruise around waiting for them to stick their heads out. They'll never get out of this one alive, unless they fire at the sun and force it to blow a bubble that will destroy the Borg ship. Now why didn't I think of that...
Troi and Picard convince their Borg guard to enter the cell, and then overpower him! Now they can escape - NOT! Trust their luck to pick the exact time that Data was returning Geordi to the cell. Too bad. All is not lost though, as Picard managed to steal a cufflink from the Borg, which amazingly can be modified to produce the required pulse. Now we kick it into the forcefield and hope that it has enough power to radiate to Data. What a complete crock.
Here's Data again, and this time he's come for the Captain. Coach Lore needs him for a special ceremony! When the whole team is assembled in the locker room, the Coach introduces Assistant Coach Data, and says for his initiation into the team, he must kill the Federation's mascot! "No, that would be wrong" he says. Someone's not being a team-player here. Goodbye Data...
Wait! Hugh intercepts the phaser, and it's Borg versus Borg in the BloodBowl tonight. In the ensuing mêlée, Lore slips out the back way, followed closely by Data. "We're brothers" claims Lore, "I'll give you the emotion chip if you let me go." Yeah right. Draw partner - zap! Goodbye Lore...
Later, on the Enterprise, Data's finished tagging and bagging almost all of Lore's bits. There's just one piece left - the emotion chip. Unfortunately it was damaged when Data shot him, and he thinks the best thing to do is destroy it, because it caused him to be bad. Geordi snatches it before he can phaser it and says "Maybe someday, when you're ready..."
