Borg Cube Advent Calendar Week 3

Borg Cube Advent Calendar 
Week 3

Day 15.

Stickers which are always useful and already applied.

Day 16.

A very significant piece of metal described as a paperweight in a classic design.

Day 17.

Early Ben Sisko pin, you know when he had hair because he would have been too intimidating otherwise.

Day 18.

The artwork of Juan Ortiz is pretty spectacular, I already have The City on the Edge of Forever framed on the wall and these postcards are just as nice.

Day 19.

If you can't tell this is a metal bookmark, would not have guessed that without the hint from the included card.

Day 20.

A folding plastic "case" for a travel card or similar. Gotta say it's hard to drum the enthusiasm for some of these items.

Day 21.

An espresso mug, my thought whenever I see such a mug is WTF humanity so no real joy here.

Borg Advent Cube Week 1

Borg Cube Advent Calendar 

Week 1

Did I need this, well no I didn't but I did want it so here we are ☺

Day 1

Well they didn't open big but any Trek fan would see this playing card set as worthwhile.

Day 2

Pins are quite popular now so a solid reward unless you already have this one.

Day 3

Now this was impressive, feels very solid and looks like it's worth more than you would expect.

Day 4

An art print on well sturdy paper entitled "Vashti" which I figured out was from Picard.

Day 5

It was inevitable that socks would be involved somewhere...

Day 6

They are doubling down on Pins which if you like that sort of thing is great.

Day 7

Original Series Coasters, quite nice and well made.

So that is the first week over with. A couple of nice items, a couple of well ok fair enough and two that I know many collectors will love. Overall positive given I knew we were not going to wowed by the items at the calendars price point.

My Random Journey Through Trek #4

Voyager

S7 Endgame

Well of course a random number generator would spill out the Voyager finale, oh well here we go:)

Endgame the feature length finale begins with scenes from the future as survivors of Voyager gather together to celebrate their return to Earth, there are some crew missing and we learn they died during the total 23 year return journey. The aging makeup was very hit and miss and so easy to do the Doctor who as a hologram looked the same but now he has a name and is married, god bless modern technology. We quickly learn that Admiral Janeway has plans to change the past, the deaths and other consequences of their return took too much of a toll and she goes ahead with her plan and arrives on Voyagers doorstep 16 years earlier at a pivotal event in their lives.

After escaping a Klingon arms/technology dealer ( Vaughn Armstrong ) and Captain Kim who had been sent to take her into custody the Admiral makes good her escape and lays it all onto the current Captain Janeway who is rightfully sceptical but not everything is revealed, maybe to protect the timeline but more likely as it turns out to prevent the younger woman's own ethics and morality from preventing her from taking the ship home despite the consequences elsewhere. Those consequences are the continued existence of the Borg transwarp hub / nexus one of only six in the galaxy which allow the Borg to deploy cubes anywhere within minutes and of course once the Captain learns of this fact she is willing to put it's destruction ahead of returning to Earth.

As is pointed out in the episode itself, with two Janeways the opportunities for success and achieving multiple goals increase immensely and that is ultimately the path taken, a plan is hatched to play the Borg Queen once again played by Alice Krige and on the verge of her victory as in Scorpion the rug is pulled from under the collective.

Endgame is good finale for Voyager, not perfect because I really didn't feel committed to the Seven/Chakotay romance which felt like padding and a lacklustre piece of emotional manipulation to drive the plot. The birth of Tom and B'Elanna daughter was good more so because we see the woman she would become in a the future timeline and no question the visuals were beautiful except for the fireworks at the start, that didn't look good. Personally I would have gone for a much darker finale, Voyager saving the day by all means but it was all too much of a happy ending which I guess we really shouldn't be surprised about.

IMDB

Rating  8

Bumper DVD/Blu-ray bonanza

Well everything seemed to come at once so I have finally picked up the third season of Justified on Blu-ray, imported from the states. I've also got a couple of "b" movie boxsets, one a creature feature the other a scifi disaster compilation. To wrap things up nicely the TNG blu-ray of Best of Both Worlds just arrived literally minutes ago:)

Star Trek TNG Best of Both Worlds

Best of Both Worlds

I pre-ordered the Best of Both Worlds feature on Blu-ray, I won't be buying the TNG season boxsets but this is one of the few episodes worth owning and not acquiring via other means.
I placed the order with Zavvi for £7.95

Star Trek Enterprise Marathon Part 13

Star Trek Enterprise Marathon Part 13
Season 2 Disk 6

The Breach
An emergency extraction of a Denobulan scientific group and a moral dilemma
for Phlox both of which really contribute to a dull episode.

Congenitor
An advanced space faring culture is open to friendship with the crew of the
Enterprise and seem willing to share technology, a great boon to the human
race until Trip sticks his nose in.
I repeatedly yelled at the screen for anyone to smack Trip around the head,
when will he learn not to interfere where he doesn't belong. On the upside
well done Malcolm, he shoots he scores and the late great Andreas Katsulas
plays the alien commander.

Regeneration
The wreckage of the Borg sphere destroyed in First Contact is discovered
on Earth and a couple of Borg regenerate and escape Earth and attempt
to contact the collective in the Delta Quadrant.
The Borg may have been over used in Voyager but this was a decent episode
which took a solid foothold from the movie, still a little easy to kill but they
had to be I guess.

First Flight
Captain A.G. Robinson a compatriot of Archer is dead, this story tells in
flashback the story of their competition for commanding the early warp 5
engine tests which ultimately led to command of the NX-01.
An entertaining episode, suffers a little because the scale should be bigger
but an excellent performance from Keith Carradine.