“First Attack/Looks/Tell It Like It Is” by Ron Jones

Ron Jones’s score to “The Best of Both Worlds” is a tv masterpiece. Building on his also excellent score to the season two episode “Q Who?” Jones effectively conveys the tension of the looming Borg threat; the emotional impact of potentially losing Captain Picard to assimilation; and propels the story during the action set pieces.

One of my favorite cues of this episode is the first battle between Enterprise and the Borg ship. The crew of Enterprise scrambles with what they hope will be effective defenses1 against the Borg. Ron Jones scores these opening moments with a prominent leitmotif for Enterprise and company playing off of a relentless rhythm and orchestral strikes that call back to similar scoring in “Q Who?”.

Some random moments both on screen and in the music that I love:

• The music playing over the evacuation of engineering, featuring the original “Geordi roll under the closing door” moment
• The ramping up in the score as Shelby (Elizabeth Dennehy) figures out how to break free of the Borg’s tractor beam 2
• The harps in the score as Enterprise approaches and enters the Paulson Nebula.

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