Cameos first....
Walter Koenig turning up to voice his Son was great, as was naming him Anton.
Glad to see Tim Russ back again after his previous episode. I'd kind of hoped we'd see Janeway as she was name dropped a few times early on in the season, but she's getting enough attention over on Prodigy.
Was nice to see Alice Krige back to voice the Queen again. There's something in her delivery, especially for this character, that I just love. There's such menace hidden behind everything she says. Loved the make-up and effects stuff they did with the stunt-performer who played her.
In fact I loved the whole Borg Cube sequence. The "goodbye" scene between Picard, Riker and Worf was great.
I knew they would end up fighting a couple of drones, but I wanted that really decomposed Skeleton one to come alive.
The scenes on the Enterprise were so well done as well. All those shots on the bridge appear to use the same camera positions and angles as the original show, which I thought was a fantastic touch. The effects shots of the ship outside the cube were also really reminicent of the work they would have done back then if they had this tech. Loved it.
It may have been a little bit predictable in how the resolution turned out, but I don't care. It was executed wonderfully.
My only real issue was how easily Jack and Picard were able to shrug off the assimilation. It would have been nice to see them have some left-over implants or something, which they can then remove in the one-year time jump. Instead it was family and will-power and sheer determination.
Small thing, but I can't believe they destroyed Space Dock! That's been a Trek staple since Wrath of Khan!
Somehow they rebuilt it in less than a year!
The organic Borg thing I'm still not 100% sold on, but I figured out the Transporter stuff weeks ago. The only difference was I thought it was swapping people for changelings, instead of "stealth-assimilating" the people it worked on.
The prospect of "Horny Borg" was a little bit concerning though. Like once they wiped everyone not part of the Collective was it just gonna become a "Borgy"?
Then the epilogue stuff was mostly fantastic as well.
I'm not a huge fan of more Raffi, but given that she's the only original character from the earlier seasons of this show to survive (Other than Picard himself) I'm not surprised.
Seven really grew on me this season and for the first time I am all in on a Captain Seven show.
Loved the re-naming of the Titan to the Enterprise G.
Holy gooseberry fool they're going to "2 Doctors" this and cross over with SNW, like Lower Decks does aren't they?
The poker scene was a lovely way to end it as well. All Good Things was so much better than the way Nemesis left things. Nemesis should have been the triumphant farewell for this crew, but instead they send them off on a massive downer. This is how it should have ended.
So yeah Picard went from the worst season of Star Trek to what might possibly be one of my favourites. I've got whiplash from the change in quality and I'm putting it all entirely on Terry Matalas being able to turn it around, mostly by disregarding season 2 entirely.
Oh and strawberry float Jack getting a bridge seat though.
That nepo-baby should be scrubbing space toilets and cleaning out Holo-Deck biofilters. Gotta do the work or no-one will respect him.