Voyager 7x1 "Unimatrix Zero, Part 2"

rating: ***

the story: Janeway's gambit to strike at the Borg from within proves challenging.

what it's all about: For a while, I didn't really appreciate what exactly "Unimatrix Zero" accomplishes.  I used to consider it as more or less Voyager's "Descent," the Next Generation two-part episode that posited the end of the Borg via accidental individuality.  I thought "Descent" thought too small.  And so did "Unimatrix Zero."

Essentially, "Zero" is about a hidden sub-Collective of drones who worked to subvert the Borg from within.  It felt like retconning Seven into being a good character all along.  Whether or not that's true, it's still fascinating, and arguably Voyager's boldest use of the Borg ever.  The Borg had become almost too powerful, maybe survivable if the conditions are right, but inherently relentless, adaptable to any challenge.  The end result of that is that the Borg will win, eventually.  It's basically the opposite of the Star Trek message. 

So "Zero" is the solution.  The problem is, it's a solution without an actual conclusion, and the next time the Borg show up, in their final chronological appearance to date, there's no indication that "Zero" had any actual effect; "Endgame," the series finale, seems to come to an entirely different conclusion as to how to deal with the Borg threat once and for all.

"Zero" posits a civil war, the ability of a drone to decide for themselves to leave the Collective.  It's the Matrix Revolutions solution, three years before that movie is even released. 

The notion of a civil war solving something in the franchise, in this series, isn't new ("The Q and the Grey"), but it's an appropriate one, in hindsight.  This is necessarily a bigger story than the crew of one ship can possibly address.  The notion of finally connecting disparate drones serving in ships across all of Borg territory is about as expansive as you can get, no matter how the story gets there.  It's the logical conclusion to the Borg narrative, certainly Voyager's singular vision of it, dating all the way back to "Unity" in the third season and including Seven's arc.  So in that sense, Seven's expanded biography becomes almost irony, but also entirely appropriate.  It's good that she reaches this point.  In a lot of ways, even if it's not the end of the Borg story, it's the culmination of Seven's.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Fans who grumble at Voyager's use of the Borg are not likely to like this.
• series - But it makes perfect Voyager sense.
• character - Seven's whole arc is revealed, and comes full circle.
• essential - Regardless of what follows, this is the perfect conclusion to the Voyager Borg experience.

notable guest-stars:
Susanna Thompson (Borg Queen)

Voyager 5x16 "Dark Frontier, Part 2"

rating: ****

the story: Seven struggles to free herself from the Borg Queen's clutches.

what it's all about: The conclusion to the audacious story that seeks to expand the significance of Voyager's Borg stories, this half is all about the Borg Queen having Seven question why she gained back her individuality, and whether or not she can become the new human collaborator the Collective needs to contend with pesky humanity.

Having Seven and the Borg Queen interact so closely is a little like what First Contact teased about what we didn't see in Next Generation's "Best of Both Worlds," Picard's original experiences with the Borg Queen.  What sets "Dark Frontier" apart is, of course, that Seven spent years assimilated as an ordinary drone rather than how Picard spent a limited time as a special kind of Borg mouthpiece.  The whole thing is almost Voyager's second attempt at a major continuing arc, transforming "Scorpion" into an opening act that eventually ends with the last episode of the series, "Endgame," in which there's a final reckoning between the ship and the Borg Queen, who seems as much interested in assimilation as she is playing chess.  Like the Kazon arc of the first two seasons, it's all about mental maneuvering.  The Borg arc will continue at the end of the next season and beginning of the seventh, "Unimatrix Zero," which borrows the idea of Seven secretly working against the Borg from within, as she does here.

"Dark Frontier" is the only "event" midseason two-parter of the fifth season, but it certainly makes the most of it by tackling arguably the most ambitious story Voyager attempted with the concept.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A big Borg story.
• series - Redefines the Borg in Voyager as a major new arc, plus gives the crew another boost homeward.
• character - Seven steps into Picard's role and offers new insights into his experiences.
• essential - One of the most ambitious stories of the series and, arguably, franchise.

notable guest-stars:
Susanna Thompson (Borg Queen)
Scarlett Pomers (Naomi)

Voyager 5x15 "Dark Frontier, Part 1"

rating: ****

the story: The Borg Queen comes calling for Seven.

what it's all about: "Dark Frontier" is likely responsible for much of fan angst over Voyager's use of the Borg. It not only brings back First Contact's Borg Queen (portrayed by a different actress), but it seems to retcon early human contact with the Collective.

Let's get the second point out of the way first.  Next Generation clearly featured a couple of traumatic early encounters with the Borg.  It's worth remembering, however, that as early as the first season, the presence of the Borg was being teased well before they made their actual first appearance.  The backstory of Seven's parents investigating the Borg, then, doesn't seem so outlandish.  Clearly their efforts ended in disaster, assimilation, and so their activities have no tangible effect on Picard's experiences with the Borg. 

The appearance of the Borg Queen seems to be more problematic, but in First Contact she makes numerous vague comments about her existence that she claims simply isn't as easy to comprehend as might be assumed.  While seeing her again might seem to cheapen Picard's victory over her (and a rather grisly death scene), it's not necessary to view it that way.  Like most fan opinions about the greater franchise, you're absolutely free to think what you like.  It's just as likely that there's a kind of DNA template the Borg Queen uses to modify new hosts; being the central figure in the Collective she's certainly entitled to such perks.  It's no stretch to assume her memory can be easily downloaded from body to body.

Anyway, "Dark Frontier" also has Janeway plan another audacious plan against the Borg, and that in itself would be problematic for some fans, even though Next Generation did that, too, which is how Picard stopped being Locutus, after all.

I choose to interpret all this, as I do all of Voyager's Borg episodes, as a wonderful continuation of a rich ongoing story about one of the franchise's most distinct elements. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The Borg are back!
• series - Back in the franchise, back in this show!
• character - Seven explores her backstory as she actively dreads returning to the Collective.
• essential - Viewed by its own merits, this is rich material.

notable guest-stars:
Susanna Thompson (Borg Queen)
Scarlett Pomers (Naomi)

Deep Space Nine 4x6 "Rejoined"

rating: ****

the story: Jadzia is reunited with a symbiont who was a former host's wife.

what it's all about: The benefit of the fourth season fresh start is that it gave Dax a chance to start over, with the exact episode the character had needed ever since her creation: a direct response to the debut of the Trill in Next Generation's "The Host."  In that episode, a lot of things were exposed about Star Trek.  Fans and critics at large always assumed that Gene Roddenberry had essentially created a counterculture allegory set in the future.  But if you look back at the original series, you see a lot of refutations of essential counterculture lore, such as the episodes directed against both hippies and the drugs they helped make mainstream.  And yes, his was an inclusive, idealistic vision, but it was more a melding of the mainstream and countercultures than anything, which the extreme reluctance to embrace the LGBTQ community proved somewhat repeatedly through the years, and the outright allegorical repulsion exhibited at the end of "Host," in which Dr. Crusher ends up in a relationship with a Trill symbiont (she makes it past the original host and embraces the idea with Riker when he serves as a temporary substitute) but backs out of it when the replacement host turns out to be a woman. 

"Rejoined" is an allegory (an outright gay character wouldn't actually exist in this franchise until Star Trek Beyond and the forthcoming Star Trek: Discovery), but on the surface it finally breaks the mold in definitive fashion.  I know, because it caused great controversy in my own household when it originally aired a little over two decades ago.  Up to that point the family had been staunch Star Trek fans, and had happily continued watching it when Next Generation ended and Deep Space Nine became the handiest replacement (in our market, both shows aired on Saturdays, whereas Voyager, which instantly split fans more than ever before and as such was never a common viewing with us, aired on the UPN network during the week, which was less conducive to bringing everyone together).  Between the Breen armor that debuted the previous week in "Indiscretion" that bore an uncanny resemblance to the bounty hunter armor Leia dons briefly in Return of the Jedi and this controversial decision, I was to become the lone ongoing, regular viewer of Deep Space Nine in the house.

Anyway, ostensibly the big taboo is within Trill society, in which former lovers from previous hosts aren't supposed to interact in later lifetimes, so that Jadzia is strongly discouraged from spending time with the scientist who comes to the station as part of her work.  Yet Jadzia is too compelled by the thought.  By the time "Facets" aired at the end of the third season, the series had finally gotten a good handle on how to handle the idea that Dax wasn't just a young Starfleet officer but also the latest in a long line of hosts.  "Rejoined" is the next and ultimate step forward in that line of progression, a compelling drama that forces very personal feelings to come forth from a normally confident woman, who was as sure of herself as anyone in the history of Star Trek.  Suddenly, where a lot of other characters had risked their careers for various reasons, Dax wasn't just doing that, but flirting with expulsion from her own people (also a thing that'd happened in the franchise previously).  Yet it never really strays from being an incredibly personal and intimate matter, so that all you really need to care about is how she feels about the scientist, and whether or not the scientist is willing to reciprocate.

The big moment, the second most important kiss in Star Trek history (after Kirk and Uhura's in "Plato's Stepchildren"), is when Jadzia and the scientist kiss.  Honestly I don't know why it isn't talked about more.  Arguably it's the most important one now, because in 2016 (which is when I'm writing this) it's still more rare to see this sort of thing, in the mainstream, where it's not when looking at the state of white and black actors interacting in television or the movies (despite what so-called controversies at the Oscars will have you believe).  I mean, Will Smith, during the first decade of the new millennium, became the most bankable actor in history.  Can you say the same about an openly gay man, or any other differently-sexed actor?  Not by a longshot. 

But none of that matters if the episode itself doesn't ring true, and it does.  It's Jadzia's big chance to finally blow past all the barriers initially expected of a character who might otherwise have been pegged as the pretty girl, and she nails it.  And yes, it's somewhat ironic that by the end of the series, a different Dax host is kind of fighting the same battle, without any Trill butting their heads into her affairs (well, for that reason, anyway).  That's how you make interesting drama out of an alien species.  Usually this only happens for Klingons.  So it figures that only a few episodes later Jadzia begins the initial steps toward a relationship with one...

This was a season that forced the series to redefine its vision, and for a while that proved to be more trouble than anyone might have realized, but "Rejoined" is the moment everything crystalized.  It was an episode that seized the unexpected opportunity, and created something special because of it.  That's how "Plato's Stepchildren" happened, too, in the midst of a third and final season of the original series, when there were no more guarantees about its future.  So it went for broke, literally breaking new ground with the first interracial kiss in dramatic programming history.  Thankfully, Deep Space Nine lasted the rest of its fourth season, and for three more. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Truly went where no Star Trek had gone before.
• series - A definitive statement on the continued viability of the original Deep Space Nine model.
• character - The definitive Dax episode.
• essential - You saw "definitive" used twice already, right?

notable guest-stars:
Susanna Thompson
Ken Marshall (Eddington)

The Next Generation 6x21 "Frame of Mind"

rating: **

the story: Riker tries to figure out why he's been committed to an asylum.

similar to: "Phantasms"

my thoughts: This is a fun Riker episode, one of his most memorable (things kind of got sparse for Number One after the second season, when he was still in the running to replace Picard as the most interesting commanding officer of Next Generation; strangely enough, this was the exact fate of Chakotay in Voyager, too), in which numerous perspectives are juggled, including his memories of performing in one of Crusher's plays, his being locked in an asylum, and deciding if he's really crazy or someone's just trying to make him think he is...

So, I repeat: fun!  Although, like the later "Phantasms," the basic idea seems to have been inspired by Data's dreaming in "Birthright, Part 1" (I guess I'm not the only one who felt unsatisfied by how that played out). 

Bottom line, without too much analysis required, is that you can lose yourself in this one without worrying too much about its significance.  That's the mark of a good, not great, episode.

criteria analysis: franchise - series - character - essential

notable guest-stars:
Susanna Thompson

The Next Generation 5x24 "The Next Phase"

rating: **

the story: Geordi and Ro are presumed dead after a transporter accident.

similar to: "The Tholian Web" (original series), "Whispers" (Deep Space Nine), "Vanishing Point" (Enterprise)

my thoughts: This is another appearance from Ro, who like Alexander quickly became a victim to fairly pointless guest-star status after a newsworthy introduction.  As a member of the supporting cast, Ro became a fairly bland presence though certainly a notable one, especially in appearances like "The Next Phase," where her role could literally have been filled by anyone.

The story itself also squanders the Romulans once again.  For whatever reason, the series continually shifted from meaningful to pointless with them, too.  Here they, too, could have been replaced by any other species.

It is interesting, though, as Geordi and Ro attempt to prove to their crewmen that they're still alive.  Like Enterprise's later "Vanishing Point," it's far more interesting to follow the desperation of the missing characters than to see the reaction of their crewmates.  Data evoked far more sympathy in his various existential crises than these two manage, but maybe that's simply because the audience is in on it the whole time (Hoshi has a somewhat different experience, akin to O'Brien's in the Deep Space Nine episode "Whispers;" both of them are wondering if it's everyone else who has the problem).  It's certainly not like Spock and McCoy battling over command in "The Tholian Web," alas.

Still, you end up rooting for their cleverness as they figure out how to communicate.  It's a minor triumph, next exactly worthy fifth season material, but you can forgive the show for something like this.  It fits with the lesser efforts from the season, at least.

criteria analysis: franchise - series - character - essential

notable guest-stars:
Michelle Forbes (Ro Laren)
Susanna Thompson
Thomas Kopache

Voyager 6x26 "Unimatrix Zero, Part 1"

**

Much like Next Generation started its final season concluding the lackluster "Descent," Voyager returns to the Borg as a threat with nothing quite as much at stake as in earlier and later stories featuring the Collective.

Basically, Seven is reminded about another part of her past as a drone, a relationship she had and a whole underground scene that Janeway immediately recognizes as a potential weapon against the Borg.  So she gets herself assimilated (sort of) to set up the cliffhanger.

It could have been better, and in this instance revealing a hidden part of a character's past seems a little forced, and hardly seems to really matter to Seven (personally, I would have at least ended this story with that love interest at least making recurring appearances during the final season), and the whole plan not a worthy comparison to either "Scorpion" or "Endgame."

But like I said, there was precedent in the franchise, just not a very good one.  Forget "Descent," and just try to find out for yourself if "Unimatrix Zero" added something worthwhile to Voyager.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Susanna Thompson

Memory Alpha summary.