Forget the salt-shaker props, the ridiculous costumes, the cardboard characterizations. Give the show its due: Star Trek presented an imaginative vision of a future filled with high-tech transporters, warp drives powered by mysterious dilithium crystals and hot alien babes eager to get their hands--or whatever--on Kirk.

Even though Trek was canceled after only three seasons, it lived on in syndicated repeats and spawned an industry that today includes three spin-offs, a cartoon series and a collection of books which, if laid out end-to-end, could stretch from here to the Klingon homeworld.

Now comes First Contact, the eighth--yes, the eighth--installment in the series of Trek movies. With First Contact, the Next Generation cast firmly takes control of the franchise and delivers the best Trek film since 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. This is a slam-bang action flick that's sure to satisfy hardcore Trek fans. Mercifully, it's also completely Whoopie Goldberg-free. (She must have been making Eddie that week.)

First Contact pits the crew of the Enterprise against the Borg, the nearly omnipotent cyberhive that transformed Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Steward) into a bionic stooge named Locutus in a cliffhanger season finale a few years back.

The Borg, seeing the earth as an shiny apple ripe for the plucking, dispatch a cube to conquer our planet. After the Enterprise repels the invasion, the Borg assimilate a plotline from Terminator and travel back to the year 2063 to prevent the Federation from ever forming. The Enterprise follows in hot pursuit to stop the cybervillains from carrying out their dastardly time-altering scheme.

Once in the past, most of the cast get stranded on earth--and in a storyline that goes nowhere--while Picard and Data take center stage on the Enterprise, where they must stop the Borg from taking over the starship.

The action aboard the Enterprise is surprisingly well-done. As Picard struggles to prevent the Borg's assimilation of the starship, Data (Brent Spiner) must resist the seductions of the sinister Borg Queen (Alice Krige), the sexy central processing unit of the robotic hive. Bolstered by an outstanding make-up job (and an amazing introductory shot), Krige turns in a terrific performance as the Borg Queen, at once repulsive and eeriely attractive.

Sure, there are plenty of flaws in the film--time travel storylines have been overused ad nauseum in the Trek universe and, as always, the earth-bound Enterprise crew repeatedly--and pointlessly--violates the Prime Directive. There's even something of a deus ex machina ending--but given the storyline, what else do you expect?

As directed by Jonathan Frakes (who plays the dashing Wil Ryker), First Contact doesn't exactly go where no movie has gone before--Frakes swipes many of his visual cues from other sci-fi flicks, from Aliens to 2001. But he turns out a credible job, aided by the wizards at George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic, who create Trek's most spectacular special effects yet, beginning with an arresting opening shot that tracks from a close-up on Picard's eye to the exterior of a Borg cube. The Borg look great on the big screen, as does the sleek new Enterprise E. (As you may recall, the Enterprise D was destroyed in a crash-landing in the last film, although the crew somehow survived planetfall with nothing worse than a few scratches.)

While it's not likely convert new Trekkies, First Contact suggests the Trek franchise will live long and prosper. Coming in 1997: Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton.