Product Description

The Borg Fan Collection has the top ten most popular Borg episodes as picked by the fans! Witness all the characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Enterprise and Voyager as they defend their ships, galaxies, and their own kind. For thousands of years the Borg have been spreading throughout the galaxy, conquering, assimilating and thus destroying countless civilizations. Following every encounter, the Borg catalogue each new species with a numerical designation instead of a proper name. The goal of the Borg, in most cases, is to completely assimilate each species by incorporating their knowledge and technology into the unified Borg Collective. One by one, each living being is converted into Borg Drones. In many cases, all that remains of an assimilated civilization is the memory of its unique contributions that now resides only within the accumulated knowledge of the Borg. That and the numerical species designation. Often even the name is lost, forgotten or deleted as irrelevant. Conversely, the species designations give a sense of the long and terrible history of the Borg and the thousands of species they have encountered and absorbed.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5460 in DVD
• Brand: Paramount
• Released on: 2006-03-07
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 4
• Running time: 719 minutes

Amazon.com
While hardcore Trekkers may not find a lot of new material in Star Trek Collective: Borg, newcomers experiencing 16 action-packed, fan-selected episodes of the Federation's greatest villains may have to prepare to be assimilated. All the episodes have been previously released on DVD, but there are new text commentaries on three of the episodes, and the per-disc price is significantly less expensive than the full-season Trek sets. It's a great entry point for novices, or for budget-minded fans.

The episodes are presented in Stardate order, which means starting with Enterprise, the latest series but also the earliest in chronological order. In "Regeneration," an exploration team finds a pair of apparently dead humanoid-mechanical hybrids that turn out to be members of the Borg, a nearly invincible race whose simple goal is to absorb--"assimilate"--every individual organism it encounters into its collective being. Because the Borg has the ability to adapt itself to resist any threat, resistance is futile. Shift ahead to The Next Generation and a visit by the quirky god Q turns out to have deadly implications when, in a pouty mood, he throws the Enterprise into their first encounter with the Borg. That's followed by the classic two-part cliffhanger (bridging seasons 3 and 4) "The Best of Both Worlds," in which Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) is assimilated into the Borg and a frustrated Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) has to make a fateful decision. "I, Borg" attempts to give the Borg a humanized aspect, and the two-parter "Descent" has some interesting developments for Data (Brent Spiner). Skip Deep Space Nine in favor of Voyager, the series in which Captain Janeway's (Kate Mulgrew) ship is stranded far from home in the Delta Quadrant. That happens to be home turf for the Borg, so they had a number of run-ins. The first two-parter (which bridged seasons 3 and 4) is "Scorpion," which introduces the Borg's nemesis, Species 8472. By the time of "Drone," the ship had its first Borg crew member, the sexy Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), but her loyalties are tempted by the Borg Queen (Susanna Thompson) in the double-length "Dark Frontier." In the "Unimatrix Zero" two-parter, which bridged seasons 6 and 7, Seven discovers an idyllic haven for members of the Collective that the Queen is determined to find and destroy. That eventually leads to an ultimate confrontation with the Queen (now played by Alice Krige, repeating her role from Star Trek: First Contact) in the series finale, "Endgame." --David Horiuchi

Customer Reviews

Excellent collection to assimilate!
Designed for "Trek" fans who don't want to purchase (or like myself can't afford) to buy all the of the boxed sets for all the Trek series, "Star Trek: Fan Collective Borg" Assembles 14 of the finest episodes produced by the "Trek" franchise. This set features episodes voted on at the Startrek.com website by fans. Running chronologically the set begins with the "Enterprise" episode "Regeneration" where the survivors of the Borg sphere destroyed in the film "Star Trek: First Contact" are discovered buried in the ice by a group of Federation scientists. Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) must deal with this unknown menace as the Borg proceed to try take a Federation vessel and assimilate his doctor. Next we get "Q Who?" the episode that introduced the Borg. The all powerful Q challenges Captain Picard's assertive statement that they don't need his help to get out of jams by flinging them across the galaxy to their first encounter with the Borg. Unprepared, outgunned and with the Enterprise being carved apart by the Borg Picard must decide whether or not he wants to swallow his pride and call on Q to help them escape. "The Best of Both Worlds" is a two part episode and, perhaps, Next Gen's finest hour. Written by the late Michael Piller, the Borg finally arrive and begin assimiliating entire worlds as they move towards Earth. Picard and his crew must stop the Borg but not before a key member of the Enterprise crew is kidnapped and turned into a Borg against his will threatening the Federation and all of humanity!

"I Borg" humanizes the Borg a bit. The Enterprise receives a distress call and when they arrive to help they discover the lone survivor of a crashed ship is a Borg Drone. As he spends time with the crew he wants to explore his individuality. Picard is torn because Star Fleet wants to use "Hugh" as a weapon to destroy the collective. "Descent" is another two part episode in which Lore Data's "brother" trains Borg cut off from the collective to serve him. It seems that Picard's plan to reintroduce Hugh the young Borg they saved in "I Borg" has worked all too well introducing the concept of individuality but at a terrible cost.

The Voyager episodes featuring the Borg were among the finest the show produced. Starting with "Scorpion" we're introduced to 7 of 9 (Jeri Ryan)and a war brewing between Species 8472 creatures from fluidic space (from another dimension)as alien as the crew has ever encountered. Janeway agrees to help the Borg develop a weapon against the creatures in return for safe passage through the quadrant. When the crew terminate their agreement with the Borg 7 of 9 is trapped aboard Voyager. She slowly begins to rediscover her humanity. In "Drone" A transporter accident causes the advanced circutry of the doctor's mobile emitter to combine with Borg technology creating an advanced drone who calls himself One. In the two part "Dark Frontier" Captain Janeway decides to steal a transwarp coil from a Borg ship that would allow them to get home faster. 7 of 9 volunteers for the mission but elects to stay with the Borg. In "Unimatrix Zero" 7 of 9 discovers there's a collective "dream" where Borg meet to explore their individuality. Her involvement with these people threatens Voyager. In the final two hour grand finale for Voyager "Endgame" Admiral Janeway travels back to the past to offer Captain Janeway technology from the future that will allow Voyager to get home quicker. While her reasons for doing so are somewhat mysterious Captain Janeway accepts her offer. Unfortunately the Borg detect the technology and want it for themselves.

This set has text commentary tracks on "The Best of Both Worlds Parts 1 & 2" by Michael and Denise Okuda as well as on "Unimatrix Zero Part 2". There's also the original commentary track by writers Mike Sussman and Phyllis Strong on "Regeneration". There aren't any featurettes or documentaries on this set. A pity that there aren't any audio commentary tracks for the other "Next Generation" episodes. You'll notice that there aren't any "Deep Space: Nine" episodes here because the Borg didn't really appear on the show.

This is a great place to get your "Star Trek" fix with the show's most memorable villans. Image quality varies quite a bit as these feature the exact same transfers as the original boxed sets but overall they look pretty good. Only "Enterprise" is presented in widescreen and actually looks the best of all the series here simply because it's the most recent.

Episodes List
For those of you who are curious exactly what Borg episodes are contained on this set, I'll list them below for you.

Disk 1
Star Trek: Enterprise - Regeneration
Star Trek: TNG - Q Who
Star Trek: TNG - The Best of Both Worlds, Part I
Star Trek: TNG - The Best of Both Worlds, Part II

Disk 2
Star Trek: TNG - I Borg
Star Trek: TNG - Descent, Part I
Star Trek: TNG - Descent, Part II
Star Trek: Voyager - Scorpion, Part I

Disk 3
Star Trek: Voyager - Scorpion, Part II
Star Trek: Voyager - Drone
Star Trek: Voyager - Dark Frontier

Disk 4
Star Trek: Voyager - Unimatrix Zero, Part I
Star Trek: Voyager - Unimatrix Zero, Part II
Star Trek: Voyager - Endgame

I hope this helps!

Excellent Collection! Great Choices!
This is one heck of a great collection for people like me who don't want to get all the episodes from all the series. As I really like the Borg episodes and I already have the complete TOS and DS9 collections, this is excellent as no TOS episodes(obviously) and no DS9 episodes are on this which means I get to avoid any overlaps!

This collection starts with one of the few good Enterprise episodes, "Regeneration" where Borg are discovered on the North Pole, remnants from the encounter with Cochrane and the time-travelling TNG crew as detailed in the Borg movie, are inadvisedly revived by clueless scientists and it's up to Archer's gang to clean up the inevitable mess that's caused.

We next get the introduction of the Borg as Q decides to teach Picard a lesson in humility by sending the Enterprise into the Delta quadrant to face the Borg. Once this Pandora's box is opened, the episode ends with the foreboding feeling that this would not be the last time that the Federation would have to face the Borg.

We then get the 2 episodes of "The Best of Both Worlds" which end disc 1 where Picard becomes assimilated! Disc 2 begins with "I, Borg" where Picard faces the ethical dilemma of using an "innocent" disconnected member of the collective as a vehicle to infect the Borg with a killer virus or to send "Hugh" back unharmed? The next 2 episodes, "Descent, I & II" are probably the weakest ones on this whole collection as we get to see Hugh again but with Data getting his loyalties confused due in no small part to the designs of his evil brother. The plot is weak and the episodes very weak overall but fear not as the other episodes more than make up for this.

We now get Voyager episodes that are among the best ever of the series in "Scorpion I & II" which introduces us to Seven of Nine and a species that is actually stronger than the Borg! Next we get an episode that is very similar to "I, Borg" except that "One" instead of "Hugh" gets to be the star for an episode. Disc 3 ends with "Dark Frontier", where we get to see the Drone Queen in all her dark majesty.

Disc 4 contains both episodes of "Unimatrix Zero" where we see Janeway and her crew manage to plant the seeds of dissent and individuality into the collective mind and finally with my favourite Voyager episode, we get "Endgame" where Janeway defies Starfleet and goes back into time to secure a better, alternative future for her crew.

All the episodes here are ordered so well and all tell of a very unique element of the Borg while introducing key characters in doing so. As I'm not a fan of Q and I had to tolerate his appearance on thankfully just the one episode on these discs and as I already have the best time travel and Klingon episodes both here and on TOS and DS9, until they release other themes of Fan Collectives, this Borg Collective is all I need for now.

Very highly recommended!