The Borg are the most popular villains in Star Trek: The Next Generation but Jonathan Frakes and producer Rick Berman don’t see eye to eye about them.

Since their introduction in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2, the Borg have become one of Star Trek’s most iconic and prolific recurring villains, but not everyone involved in TNG sees eye to eye about them. Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) was the first Starfleet captain to face off against the Borg when the omnipotent being known as Q (John de Lancie) threw the USS Enterprise-D across the galaxy in TNG season 2, episode 16, “Q Who.” Q’s actions made the Borg and the Federation aware of one another years before they were meant to meet. The Borg would go on to appear several more times in TNG before eventually becoming the main antagonists in Star Trek: First Contact, as well as in Star Trek: Voyager.

The Borg’s most notable appearance comes at the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation season 3, in “The Best of Both Worlds,” which sees Captain Picard assimilated and named Locutus of Borg. The two-part “The Best of Both Worlds” became one of Star Trek’s most acclaimed stories and contains one of the most iconic television cliffhangers of all time. As popular as the Borg are, the creative teams behind Star Trek have had mixed feelings about them. In the Star Trek oral history, The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, Jonathan Frakes and TNG Executive Producer Rick Berman expressed differing viewpoints on the Borg. Read their quotes below:

Jonathan Frakes: The Borg were the greatest invention we had on the series.

Rick Berman: I’m not a big fan of the Borg. I find them very two-dimensional, in a way. They are faceless characters without personality and without specific character traits. They’re sort of a one-beat group of bad guys to me, and in “Best of Both Worlds” they represented a threat as opposed to characters, but that was a great episode. My only interest in Borg is when they’re used off-center in other than the way they were originally conceived.

Which Star Trek Shows & Movies Do The Borg Appear In?

As one of Star Trek’s most iconic villains, the Borg have made many appearances in various franchise projects over the years since their introduction.

The Borg Became Less Frightening Over Time

Did Star Trek do too many Borg stories?

In Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “The Best of Both Worlds,” the Borg were at their most frightening, and they served as the perfect foes to tell that particular story. The Borg became less frightening in some of their subsequent appearances, and opinions on the cybernetic, hive-minded drones remain varied. The Borg have appeared in several iterations of Star Trek, some scarier than others. Star Trek: First Contact revisited Picard’s history with the Borg, telling a time travel story of First Contact that introduced the infamous Borg Queen (Alice Krige). In Star Trek: Voyager, the Borg’s greatest adversary became Captain Kathryn Janeway, who eventually dealt the Borg Queen and her collective a crippling blow.

Star Trek: Picard incorporated the Borg into all three of its seasons, but Picard season 3 saw the most disturbing version of the Borg. After being nearly destroyed by Captain Janeway, the Borg Queen seeks help from the Changelings, and develops a terrifying new way to remotely assimilate hundreds of Starfleet officers at once. Picard season 3 seemed to put an end to the Borg threat once and for all, although Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) and her benevolent Borg Collective from Picard season 2 could still show up in a future Star Trek project.