Entertainment
Star Trek’s Most Hated Producer Predicted The Worst Part Of The Franchise
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Few Star Trek creators are quite as controversial as Rick Berman, who has been accused of everything from persistent on-set misogyny to running the franchise’s Golden Age into the ground with Enterprise and Nemesis. However, for all of his alleged faults, Berman actually predicted very early on what would become the worst part of the franchise: its overreliance on the Borg. Moreover, he implied that if Star Trek couldn’t find anything original to do with these iconic bad guys, they should simply stop being included in future stories.
Berman’s thoughts on this matter are quoted extensively in Captain’s Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages. He was discussing “Descent,” the two-part Star Trek: The Next Generation episode that explored what happened to the Borg after the Enterprise crew returned a Borg with a personality (Hugh) back to the Collective. The executive producer liked how the show used the villains in this ambitious episode, but he specifically enjoyed how they were written so very differently from their earlier appearances.
Star Trek’s Most Two-Dimensional Villains
“I find [the Borg] very two-dimensional in a way,” Berman said. “They are faceless characters without personality and without specific character traits.” While many fans would say this is what makes them so scary (they are basically the closest thing Star Trek has to zombies), Berman thought that their collective nature made them “sort of a one-beat group of bad guys.”
Berman did acknowledge that these “one-beat” villains could be used well in certain circumstances. For example, he noted that “In ‘Best of Both Worlds’ they represented a threat as opposed to characters, and that was a great episode.” This is a fairly astute analysis, really: being a Collective, the Borg were always going to fail at being interesting characters, but they worked astoundingly well as TNG’s first real existential threat to the Federation’s entire way of life.
Borg Of A Different “Hugh”
For Berman, the episode “I, Borg” (where a captured Borg develops a personality before being returned to the Collective) was something of a revelation. He enjoyed how this story transformed the Borg “into a character” who was “given a personality and something to be sympathetic towards.” He then made a bold statement that would prove weirdly prophetic: “My only interest in the Borg is when they’re used off-center in other than the way they were originally conceived.”
While Berman may have loved how different the Borg in “Descent” were, that sentiment wasn’t shared by most of the fandom. Many missed the cybernetic zombies that had first scared them in episodes like “The Best of Both Worlds,” finding them far more frightening than the group of angry, screaming cyborgs in “Descent.” Accordingly, Star Trek: First Contact brought the Borg back more or less as they were, with one twist: the addition of a Queen.
The Worst Of Both Worlds
Unfortunately, this ended up being “the worst of both worlds” from a creative standpoint. The Queen was (as confirmed by Brannon Braga and other Star Trek creatives) primarily added to give the Borg a recognizable figure who could both speak and be spoken to; that made for more compelling filmmaking than having characters like Picard and Data talk to the formless voice of the Collective. But the very idea of an individual queen went against the Borg’s whole deal, irking fans who wished these villains had stayed consistent.
Speaking of consistency, Star Trek never really made any major changes with the Borg as a whole after this. Sure, the Queen still popped up, but for the most part, the Borg were back to being robot zombies. As Rick Berman predicted, constantly using the Borg without making any substantive changes eventually provided diminishing storytelling returns.
Kissing The Borg Goodbye?
For example, they popped up so much in Voyager (a show that eventually added a Borg officer) that their appearances stopped feeling special. They popped up in Enterprise and, somewhat inexplicably, every single season of Star Trek: Picard. Heck, that show even made the Borg (complete with their unkillable Queen) the final Big Bad, signifying to fans that the writers had really and truly run out of ideas.
Rick Berman’s prophecy came to pass: the Borg remained one-note bad guys until the very end, never again receiving a character change as significant as what we saw in “Descent.” They were transformed back into a reliable bad guy, but one that ultimately became reliably boring. Now that the franchise has moved into the 32nd century, we can only hope the Borg never pop up in Starfleet Academy; otherwise, the iconic race might have to get several passionate lectures on the evils of cultural assimilation, punctuated by quippy phrases like “Resistance ain’t futile, bruh” and “assimilate this, b*tch!”
Can the Collective be defeated by pure, undiluted cringe? Here’s hoping we don’t have to find out!
Entertainment
Best Buy is running free Pokémon Trade and Play events this weekend — score free packs, trade, and shop exclusive collections
TL;DR: Best Buy is running free Pokémon Trade and Play events on Feb. 28 (12-2 p.m. local time). Participants can score free packs, trade cards, and shop exclusive collections.
We’ve made a lot of noise about Pokémon’s 30th birthday celebrations, and so has the rest of the world. We’ve seen genuine excitement over new Pokémon TCG releases, the first-ever Lego Pokémon sets, and the return of nostalgic Pokémon games, and it feels like there’s more to come from this special anniversary.
Best Buy is clearly feeling the party vibes. On Feb. 28 (12-2 p.m. local time), Best Buy stores across the country will host in-store Trade and Play events, with demo stations, Pokémon TCG trades, exclusive card drops, freebies, expert tuition, and a whole lot more. Attend solo, bring a friend, or gather together everyone from your neighborhood. This is going to be big.
Mashable Trend Report
Somehow still on the fence? Here’s a snapshot of what you can expect from these special events:
Before you set off, it’s important to check out Best Buy’s Pokémon page to find a Trade and Play event at a store near you. Once that’s sorted, you’re all set to capture the magic of Pokémon this weekend.
Topics
Pokemon
Trading Cards
Entertainment
Get the 65-inch Samsung The Frame Pro for $600 less at Amazon
SAVE 29%: As of Feb. 27, you can get the 65-inch Samsung The Frame Pro LED Smart TV (LS03FW, 2025) for $1,497.99, down from $2,097.99, at Amazon. That’s a 29% discount or $600 savings. It’s also the lowest price we’ve tracked to date!
$1,497.99
at Amazon
$2,097.99
Save $600.00
To say I despise the look of a giant TV sitting at the front of my living room would be putting it lightly. It’s just not my idea of a relaxing setting. That’s why I’ve always loved the concept of Samsung‘s The Frame TV. It’s designed to blend in with your decor and doubles as a piece of art when it’s not on.
As of Feb. 27, you can get the 65-inch Samsung The Frame Pro LED Smart TV (LS03FW, 2025) for $1,497.99, down from $2,097.99, at Amazon. That’s a 29% discount or $600 savings. It’s also the lowest price we’ve tracked to date!
The 2025 Frame Pro upgrades the standard viewing experience with a virtually glare-free screen featuring a subtle matte texture that makes the digital artwork look like a real, physical print. When you aren’t watching your favorite shows, it shifts into Art Mode, which lets you display a curated collection of museum-worthy pieces from the Art Store or even upload your own photos. Bonus: It comes with a Slim Fit Wall Mount to ensure the TV hangs nearly flush against your wall.
Mashable Deals
It uses a Neo QLED panel with mini LEDs for precise lighting, and it features a Wireless One Connect hub so you can hide all your messy cables away from the screen itself. It’s basically the most aesthetic TV on the market.
Entertainment
Raunchy, R-Rated Action Comedy From South Park Creators Nearly Broke Them
By Robert Scucci
| Published
There’s only one thing more amusing than watching 2004’s Team America: World Police, and that’s listening to the Season 8 commentary tracks on the South Park DVDs. Not only did Team America: World Police require a biblical amount of work from Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and their puppeteering production crew to pull it off, they were also concurrently working on their flagship series, a time they now refer to as the year from hell when looking back at this era of their careers.
Parker and Stone worked themselves into the ground with Team America: World Police, resulting in some of the most unhinged episodes South Park has to offer.
Episodes like “Cartman’s Incredible Gift,” which I consider essential viewing and a perfect entry point to the series, have commentary tracks from Parker and Stone suggesting they don’t even remember making the episode because they were so locked in at that point that they were putting very little thought into the minor details. They were contractually obligated to stick to their grueling production schedule, and relied on their manic, do-or-die energy to pull it off. The finale, “Woodland Critter Christmas,” one of South Park’s most notorious episodes, is another example of a zero-hour effort that was constantly reworked until just a day before it aired.
Team America’s Grueling Production
Always leading with what’s funny and figuring out how to do it later, Parker and Stone had no idea how complicated it would be to pull off their movie, which they fully intended to play like a Jerry Bruckheimer production starring marionettes. Dozens of scale replica set pieces were constructed, including Paris, Cairo, the Panama Canal, Mount Rushmore, and North Korea.
Their vision was simple. They wanted each location to look like how it’s depicted in action movies, and therefore how the average American thinks it looks.
Additionally, 270 puppet characters had to be built, along with over a thousand costumes to make Team America: World Police possible. Given the puppets’ roughly two-foot stature, countless props had to be custom made to accommodate their size, along with multiple animatronic heads that would be attached to their bodies. Controlling the puppets proved exhausting, resulting in unthinkably long shooting days with only a handful of usable dailies passed off to editors compared to films made through more conventional means. Rumor has it that designing Kim Jong-il’s glasses was a painstaking process due to camera glare, making them one of the most expensive props in the movie.
America, F*** Yeah!
Team America: World Police centers on the titular international counterterrorist organization, run by its fearless leader, Spottswoode (Daran Norris). Under his command are psychologist Lisa, psychic Sarah, martial arts expert Chris, Carson, and all American jock Joe. Together, they fight terrorism by causing so much collateral damage to whatever locale they visit, that a terrorist attack would actually leave the area better off. When Carson is killed and a new threat reveals itself, Spottswoode recruits Gary Johnston, a Broadway actor, to use his acting skills to infiltrate various terrorist factions.
Meanwhile, Kim Jong-il is revealed to be the true mastermind behind the terrorists, and the supplier of WMDs, unbeknownst to Team America, resulting in the Film Actors Guild throwing Team America under the bus for their sloppy, reckless work.
If you’ve never had the pleasure of watching Team America: World Police, all you need to know is that it carries itself like every over the top action movie, but with enough raunch that it almost landed an NC-17 rating.
By then, knowing exactly how to work with censors, Parker and Stone knew what they had to do. By filming a prolonged sex scene with the puppets that was far longer than what they needed for the film, they simply waited for the production notes explaining how short the scene would have to be in order to secure an R rating.
Appreciate The Hustle
Though it’s not my favorite Trey Parker and Matt Stone vehicle, Team America: World Police is indirectly responsible for some of the best episodes South Park has to offer. Had they not taken on such an ambitious project while also working on the series in tandem, we may have never gotten episodes like “Good Times with Weapons,” “Awesome-O,” “Goobacks,” “Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes,” “Quest for Ratings,” or “Cartman’s Incredible Gift.”
Don’t get me wrong. Matt Damon only being capable of saying his own name, poorly, in Team America: World Police because his puppet came off the production line looking a little dim is comedy gold. But topical political humor is fleeting. South Park is forever.
Team America: World Police is streaming on Paramount+.
Women's Top 25 roundup: Liv McGill, Florida upset No. 19 Ole Miss
Ryan O’Reilly’s late winner propels Predators to divisional victory
