In this episode, the almost-omnipotent entity known as "Q" (John de Lancie) arrives on the Enterprise and decides that Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is ignorant and overconfident.
Q then sends the ship across the galaxy where the crew make first contact with the cybernetically enhanced assimilating race known as the Borg.
Costume designs were created by Dorinda Wood, while Michael Westmore developed the prosthetics worn on the actor's heads.
The designs were reminiscent of creations of H. R. Giger and the character Lord Dread from the television series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.
On his way back to his quarters, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) steps off a turbolift and instead of finding himself in a corridor onboard the Enterprise, ends up on board a shuttlecraft with Q (John de Lancie) at the controls.
Picard demands to be returned to the Enterprise; Q calls him "an impossibly stubborn human" and refuses to take him back until he agrees to at least hear Q's requests.
Q reveals that he wants to join the crew to assist them as they push further into unexplored regions of the galaxy, asserting they are not ready for the threats they will encounter.
The crew discover a nearby planet that shows signs of a previous civilization but has been stripped of all industrial and mechanical elements, similar to destruction found several months ago at Federation outposts bordering the Romulan Neutral Zone.
Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) initially attempts to incapacitate the intruder with his phaser set on stun, which has no effect.
Immediately afterwards, a second Borg appears and continues probing the computer, now proving to be completely immune to phaser fire.
Picard reflects that perhaps Q did the right thing for the wrong reasons by bringing forward their encounter with the Borg, as it has informed the Federation what lies ahead of them as they continue to explore.
The episode featured the third appearance of de Lancie as Q after "Encounter at Farpoint" and "Hide and Q", the latter of which had been written by Hurley under a pseudonym.
Lycia Naff was introduced as the overeager young ensign Sonya Gomez, who was intended to be a recurring character in the same manner as Chief Miles O'Brien played by Colm Meaney (who also appeared in this episode).
[2] The overspending on this episode and "Elementary, Dear Data" resulted in the budget-saving production of the clip show "Shades of Gray".
[2] Gene Roddenberry was keen not to re-use aliens from The Original Series, and so the Ferengi were developed to be the main villains for The Next Generation.
After the new aliens' first few appearances, it was decided that they were too comical to suit such a role, and instead the production team began looking for a new adversary for Starfleet.
[2] Writer and co-executive producer Maurice Hurley developed the idea of an insectoid race with a shared hive consciousness.
[8][9] It had been originally planned to include the Borg in the first season episode "The Neutral Zone", but due to the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike, the time to write the script was cut short.
[13] It was nominated for, but failed to win for Outstanding Special Visual Effects, with the award going to the miniseries War and Remembrance instead.
[1] He called de Lancie's performance a "triumphant return", said that Goldberg brought "mystery and depth" to her role and that Stewart "just kills" as Picard.
[1] SFX described the episode as "thrilling" in their review of the season two Blu-ray release,[18] while IGN referred to it as a "classic".
[22] In 2015, they ranked the presentation of the fictional Borg cube spacecraft as one of the top ten "most stunning" moments of this television series.
[38] That release included an audio commentary for the episode featuring Rob Bowman, Dan Curry and Michael and Denise Okuda.