While I was out finding Falling Skies: Season Three, I picked up Star Trek: Borg Fan Collection, which is 14 episodes from all across the Star Trek universe dealing with the Borg.

I remember watching Star Trek: the Next Generation when I was younger and I guess I didn’t really appreciate the vision of the show back then. I mean, I enjoyed watching it, but I never really saw how far ahead of its time this show was back then.

The collection starts with an episode from Star Trek: Enterprise, which was a show that I never watched. I guess that made it even more interesting to me because I didn’t know any of the characters or crew and I didn’t know where the story took place in relation to what I already knew or remembered of my days watching the various other Star Trek shows. I recall that Enterprise was supposed to take place as one of the first iterations of the Starship Enterprise.

I remember from watching the Next Generation that the crew of this show were the ones who originally encountered the Borg, which happens in the second episode on the disk. Q interferes with the ship’s mission and brings them into an encounter with the Borg, far away from the galaxies they currently have the capability of exploring.

So when I saw that the collection actually starts with an episode from Enterprise, I was a little surprised. The episode starts with a collection of Earth scientists digging up Borg technology and Borg drones in the arctic region. Being the normal scientist types that they are, they pull the individual bodies into their research area so that they can study the alien forms and learn from their technology. This turns out to be a bad idea (surprise!) and the Borg hijack a ship with which to leave Earth and start heading back from whence they came. I really liked the use of technology from this episode because it’s a combination of stuff that we actually have right now and how I can see the future moving forward. I also liked the opening sequence and how it shows the innovation of mankind. I’m not sure that I could watch the whole show, but it was really neat to see the vision and the ideas on what the future of space travel could look like. In a lot of ways, I’m a little sad that I don’t have the ability to explore space and I’m not likely to see that in my lifetime. Or at least that if it does happen in my lifetime that I wouldn’t be able to be a part of it.

I really liked how Enterprise referenced the knowledge that a fan of the Star Trek universe would know, like what happened in Star Trek: First Contact. The wreckage that the artic explorers found is from that movie and it shows another good combination of what the future might look like if we continue on our current technological trends.

The next episodes on this disk were all from the Next Generation and were episodes that I actually remembered. I really appreciate the science and the vision of the show. I mean, space exploration. How cool is that?

It’s so weird to me how much rewatching these Borg episodes that I remember from my younger days has interested me even more in the show and in space travel. I think this is a great thing, since my current project is a space adventure. Well, a space adventure that currently has a rather alarming death rate. I’m working on that.

The Next Generation is so much different than the current Star Trek movies with the new storyline and I like the Next Generation‘s way of doing business a lot better. Counselor Troy actually reminds Commander Ryker that he can’t go on the away team mission to the Borg ship because he’s currently in charge and it would be irresponsible for him to leave the bridge. Wow. That’s actually good leadership! So it turns out that they send the first officer and his team to do the recon kind of stuff and that the Captain stays on the ship to make the big decisions. So they have a person with proper rank and authority on the away team and a person with proper rank and authority with the ship. It’s a good plan.

I have a lot of respect for this show and it’s spiked my curiosity towards this show and maybe I’ll investigate more, just to get more space ideas. Overall, I’m glad that I purchased this collection and I look forward to watching more of it. I’d say this disk is easily a high three on my rating scale.