THE greatest cliffhanger, ever! At the time, more people tuned in to watch the second half of this than anything else in the history of television that wasn't a Super Bowl. The Nielsen rating was off the charts. This pretty much single handedly saved Star Trek on television as TNG wasn't doing so hot otherwise (the first couple of seasons were extremely forgettable).

YES!

They tried so hard to replicate this high point, and never succeeded.

+phuturephunk Worf has a lot of respect for his captain. It's very endearing and one of the reasons he's such a great character.

+phuturephunk Honestly I think it would have been easier for him if Picard had been killed. I imagine a Klingon would see assimilation as being far worse than death.

Data and Worf came off as so unintentionally adorable lol. They’re both like two little running back to dad and explaingjn why they’re so sad.

John Landon Cliffhanger endings can be bad, too; especially if the follow-up doesn't live up to they hype. Trek had some good ones (this one probably being the best), but they had some real stinkers, too; culminating in Season 3 of Enterprise where the cliffhanger was time-traveling alien nazis.

Who Shot J.R.? on Dallas is what really started the season finale cliffhanger craze. But this one from TNG is definitely my favorite.

> Seems to work. Except if the higher-ups at the network cancel the series, and then you have a lot of ticked off fans. Which then perhaps means people won't *start* watching a series because they know that if it's good and they get "invested" in it (and part of "being good" is having actual plot arcs), and then it gets cancelled, they'll be ticked off. They don't want to be ticked off, so they don't watch, and wait until the second season to make sure that plot arcs which started in season 1 will actually be *continued* before they get invested.. Self perpetuating "TV doom loop". I read somewhere that with Stargate, in the beginning the network (I forget which one) would green-lit two seasons at a time once or twice, which was just unheard of for a network show at the time, so the writers and actually *could* develop long arcs and know that fans wouldn't be ticked off if the network killed the show before they concluded. It's a loss to the art of story-telling, at least for old-style (non-streaming) TV that depends on ad revenue. (Yeah, I'm a dinosaur who distantly remembers "network television"). The problem with (some) newer shows (I think, from what I've read) is that they have too *many* plot arcs and are so complicated, and the risk that the creators will simply "dribble it on forever" and never come to any real conclusion to ANYTHING. Sherrilyn Kenyon/McQueen's Dark Hunter/etc series(es) has been getting like this for a long time now (At least 5 years). And now is crossing over DH with her other series.. DH crossing with her Lords of Avalon series (I think) at some point recently, and then crossing over a bit with Deadman's Cross at some point, and the, whatever her Chronicles of Nick series does, and the Hellchaser series. And I really dislike that she perpetually enthralled Fang to quasi-eveil/maybe-not-quite-evil Thorn, basically two or three steps away from being a slave and having no real agency over his life depending on whether Thorn is having a good day or not, despite what Varyk said in "Bad Moon Rising" (p 339). Or has he managed to wiggle out of that bad bargain somehow (time travel, Dr. Strange like reality bending of some kind, invocation of the whatever god(ess) is in charge of a *really* strange cat named Schrödinger hiding in the attic at Sanctuary - at least sometimes he’s there, etc, etc)?

Jinjajamie I Like Riker he is very cool and badass :D

it's hard to turn one of the best scenes of sci-fi history into an appropriate meme.

That's subjective, considering this reply three years later. Three years and it's still going strong for me. TNG. (1987-)

"He is a BORG"

Watch it on NETFLIX.