Moore recalls the writing of “All Good Things…” to be a very busy time. Not only was “Next Generation” wrapping up, but the cast and crew were busy preparing for “Star Trek: Generations,” the first “NextGen”-inspired feature film which was scheduled for theatrical release only six months after the last episode was to air. Regardless, he and Braga got very ambitious with their four-prong story, hoping to find an interesting and organic way to resurrect the Borg, the series’ most infamous villains. It was showrunner Michael Piller who ultimately felt that a Borg timeline was one toke over the line. Moore said:
“The first story outline, I think, had four timelines that we were going to go back to. The fourth one, which eventually got dropped from the final teleplay, was revisiting the events of ‘The Best of Both Worlds,’ when Picard was taken and turned into [a Borg named] Locutus. So originally, the finale was going to bounce between those four events. And Michael, I think, rightly said, ‘It’s one too many, and we want this to kind of be the beginning, middle, and end of his life.’ And that kind of simplified everything, and it became much cleaner and easier to go through it from that angle.”
It also may have been a blessing, as using the Borg in the final episode of “Next Generation” may have drawn focus from Picard and taken an extra step in the already-growing overexposure of the cyber monsters. The Borg already featured in two season-ending cliffhangers, and would later be featured in the 1996 film “Star Trek: First Contact.” Best to stay far away for the close-out moments of a “Star Trek” series.
Can you imagine bringing back the Borg to end another Trek series? Absurd!