Star Trek: The Next Generation, 7: Up the Long Ladder/The Emissary/Shades of Gray

For this second volume of music from the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, one of the show's most popular episodes, "The Best of Both Worlds," has been chosen. This was the famous two-part program on which Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is kidnapped by the Borg and partially transformed into a member of the Borg himself. The Borg were to Star Trek: The Next Generation what the Klingons were to the original Star Trek, the most interesting set of villains the series produced, and "The Best of Both Worlds" led directly to the 1996 Star Trek: The Next Generation motion picture feature Star Trek: First Contact, which picked up with a partially Borgian Picard. So, it's a good choice for a soundtrack album, even if Ron Jones' score is somewhat pedestrian. In his cues, lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes, Jones conveys the suspenseful and action-dominated sequences efficiently, but with little individual flair, his efforts easily outdistanced by the repeated use of Alexander Courage's "Theme from Star Trek" and Jerry Goldsmith's "Theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture."