The Best of Both Worlds Part II

This Story: Season 4 Episode 1 (production code 175)
TNG Overall: Episode 75
Trek Overall: Story 174b, Episode 177
Airdate: 24 Sep 1990
Written by Michael Piller
Directed by Cliff Bole

Notes

• George Murdock played Admiral Hanson in this episode, but was also “God” in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.  He was also Dr. Salik in the original Battlestar Galactica.
• The recap of the bridge part of the finale of Part I was refilmed, they did not just use the original footage.  This is most noticeable if you check the length of Gates McFadden’s hair, which is considerably longer in the reshoot.
• Michael Piller said that when he wrote Part I of this,  no consideration was given to how he’d get out of it in Part II.
• Later on in 1997ish after I had gotten married I showed Part I of this to my wife and then before we watched Part II, I asked her what she thinks happened.  It utterly annoyed the shit out of me that she got it correct.  First guess – completely figured out the ending and what would happen in the immediate aftermath of “Fire.”  To some extent that still annoys me because I remember what all of us who were fans at the time went through with months of guessing – nobody got it right.  My wife – disconnected from fandom got it first time out.  AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!
• The Battle of Wolf 359 happens in this episode, but we don’t see any of it, we just see aftermath.  The actual events of the battle are depicted in a limited capacity in the Deep Space Nine Pilot, “Emissary“. It was not shown due to budgetary considerations.
• Data refers to the area as “Wolf three fifty nine”, but everyone else just says the numbers – “Wolf 3-5-9”.
• The Battle Bridge set was both the bridge Riker commanded during the saucer separation as well as the bridge Admiral Hanson was on when he was killed.
• Barclay is mentioned in passing as being on the ship, but not seen.
• LeVar Burton was in hospital when this was filmed, which explains why O’Brien was helping to restore Picard and Geordi was only available in close-ups.
• One of the destroyed ships in the Wolf-359 battle was NCC-1701-A from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
• The first episode that stated that shuttlecrafts have their own transporters.
• The last time we see a Borg cube in Star Trek: TNG.

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