17120--Missed Opportunity?

Way back when, the eighties nearly over, Star Trek: The Next Generation had its first season in the rearview, though its pungent stink lingered on (Professor Farnsworth of Futurama has since demonstrated for us that smells can indeed be transmitted through space.  I think it has something to do with dark matter.) like someone had been sprayed by the giant blue tree sloth skunks of Auriga VI.  If you didn't pack marshmallows for them, it's your own fault. 

Anyway, the show's creators had charged on into season 2 with the realization that the only threat the Ferengi presented was as a threat to credibility as a credible threat.  They had given up on twitchy, snaggletoothed scavenger/traders who still lacked solid definition and were looking for a new alien menace.  An idea emerged to make that race insectoid, possessed of a hive mind.  Well, it turned out that insects presented budget problems, so when Q threw the Enterprise-D into the deep end ("Q Who", Season 2, Episode 16) on May 8, 1989, it was to swim with the Borg.  The Borg weren't so much hungry sharks as they were communists to whom "no" meant nothing on a perpetual recruiting drive.

Don't bother to pack.  The cult will provide all your needs.

The point of Q's uber-mischief, tossing the ship and crew to the grinder, had been to show them that there were threats for which they were unprepared.  Before the episode's end, Captain Picard conceded the point.  Q rescued them and returned the ship to where he had found it.  Picard vowed that they would ready themselves for future encounters.

Again, Picard let us down.  What should've been obvious was that they needed people on their side who had more experience with the Borg.  Whoopi Goldberg as the mysterious Guinan wasn't nearly enough.

Who they needed apparently was Michael Jackson.



Michael Jackson had been working as the dazzling Captain EO since September 12, 1986.  That meant he had almost three years of experience dealing with their queen, deassimilating not only her but her cyborg collective.  If you haven't seen it, check his "resume" on YouTube.  Then, come back and tell me those don't look like Borg.  The Enterprise didn't need phasers.  They needed musical superpowers to thwart the Borg cybernetics and reawaken their biological distinctiveness.  And we thought Species 8472 was impressive.



Imagine all the trouble they could have averted, if only they'd scheduled a few musical numbers.  If nothing else, imagine the forces of Star Fleet dancing and singing back-up for Michael Jackson while the Borg cubes transform into a Disney-esque colorscape of clouds and Grecian temples.

Wow, if they could've booked David Bowie to flank them as Jareth the Goblin King, the galaxy could have been Borg-free by lunch.

Somebody get JJ Abrams on the phone!