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| Chakotay finds himself on a colony of former Borg. |
Chakotay is on a scouting mission with the predictably ill-fated Ensign Kaplan (Susan Patterson), trying to find the best path through the Nekrit Expanse. They receive a distress signal from a populated planet - sent by a caller who recognizes them as Starfleet! Chakotay lands to investigate, and is immediately attacked.
Kaplan suffers the fate of redshirts everywhere. The shuttle also joins pretty much every vessel Chakotay has piloted in the series when it is also destroyed, cannibalized by the attackers for parts. Chakotay is rescued, however, saved by Riley Frazier (Lori Hallier), a former Starfleet science officer who was one of many people kidnapped from the Alpha Quadrant. She explains that they escaped and founded this colony, but that the many different cultures could not cooperate long-term. She and other peaceful colonists founded the Cooperative, while the rest became raiders, attacking on a regular basis.
There is more to the story, however. While Chakotay is recovering, Voyager stumbles across the vessel the colonists escaped from. A derelict Borg cube - with the colonists escaped former Borg drones!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Janeway: Upon encountering the derelict cube, Janeway's science officer instincts kick in. Her instinctive reaction is to study the Borg technology. She is able to back that up from a pragmatic perspective, though, saying that study may help them prepare for a functional cube if they encounter one down the road (something which must be on her mind after the discovery at the end of the last episode). She is sympathetic in hearing Riley's request, showing respect and compassion to her, but she has severe doubts about reactivating Borg technology and worries regarding the ethical implications. Thankfully, the words "Prime Directive" are never uttered.
Chakotay: Every time I decide that Robert Beltran is just a lousy actor, he goes and gives a performance like this. Beltran is very good in this episode. The shifts in Chakotay's character are subtlely done, but they are tangible throughout - from "normal" Chakotay in the teaser to the stunned Chakotay suffering from neural shock through the episode's first half. Beltran avoids being showy, even when his character practically curls into a fetal ball while reacting both to the pain of his condition and the fear of using Borg technology to cure it. Once cured, he shows a bit of extra energy, Chakotay actually seeming happier with Riley and the colonists than he generally does aboard ship - which makes it all the more apparent when his behavior shifts again near the end. It's good work, which does raise the question: If he can be this good here, why is he so bad so often in other episodes?
Torres: Her friendship with Chakotay is shown when she notices on the shuttle that his behavior isn't quite right. At first, she tries to cheer him up by making a date to play hoverball in the holodeck to clear his mind. But when his responses continue to seem out-of-character, she quickly pivots to contacting the ship to request the Doctor look him over.
Hot Space Babe of the Week: Riley Frazier was a Starfleet science officer assimilated by the Borg after the Battle of Wolf 359. Freed of the Borg influence, she has become a leader in creating a Cooperative among the former Borg. She is drawn to Chakotay, who likely represents the life the Borg stole from her. Even so, her first priority remains the safety of her colony, and she does not hesitate to take decisive action on behalf of her people. In visual terms, director Robert Duncan McNeill frames her in a way that recalls a Borg Queen, adding a sinister layer onto her (mostly) benign actions.
The Borg: It's counter-intuitive, but presenting the Borg at their weakest actually makes them more sinister. When the Voyager crew are examining the derelict cube, there's a constant sense that something might jump out at them at any moment. This more or less occurs when the Doctor performs an autopsy on a drone and it briefly reactivates, and it occurs again at the climax. Both moments provide definite audience "jumps" in a horror movie way. In the main narrative, we also see the lingering effects of assimilation on the former Borg, who retain a thirst to act as a Collective and to establish direct mental links among each other... Showing that even after shedding most of the implants and regaining individuality, they retain an instinct toward forming a Collective.
Then there's the question, asked but not answered, as to what might be even more powerful than the Borg...
THOUGHTS
The otherwise interminable Blood Fever closed with a tantalizing tag - the discovery of a dead Borg drone in the ruins of a colony. That tease gets delivered on here, with Voyager's first Borg episode.
It's a good episode, possibly the best so far this season. I think part of the reason it works so well is that it doesn't use the Borg in the usual way. Writer Kenneth Biller takes a page from TNG's I Borg, which showed how a Borg's individuality could reassert itself when severed from the collective. Here, we see a colony of former Borg, all of them now individuals. They are relieved at no longer being Borg, but their thirst to be part of the Collective again shows itself in many ways, from the structure of their "cooperative" community to their ultimate request of Voyager at the episode's end.
I haven't always been the biggest fan of Biller's scripts, too many of which have been characterized by laziness and half-formed ideas. But he must have been energized by the ideas he was working with this time, because his writing is sharp, smart, and convincing. He establishes both colony and Borg cube very quickly in the episode, but holds back on actually connecting the two until Chakotay begins to feel something's "off" about his rescuers. Then Biller brings the pieces together, managing to do it just as the audience is starting to connect the dots mentally but before the audience has a chance to grow impatient waiting for the episode to catch up. It's well-judged and extremely well-done.
As director, Robert Duncan McNeill previously managed to bring some visual style to Sacred Ground, an otherwise weak episode. He applies the same visual sense to stronger material and - no surprise - gets better results. Early in the episode, he brings a sinister atmosphere to the scenes in the colony. When Riley talks with Chakotay early on, she is shot from a low angle, with noticeable separation between her and the background. It's a "villain shot," even though there's nothing villainous in her words or behavior, and it creates a sense that something's wrong. When Chakotay gets out to the colony, just before the reveal of the colonists' pasts as former Borg, we get visuals emphasizing mechanization. This may be a colony of individuals, but it already looks like a Borg residence - even before we know that these people once were Borg!
While Season Three has been a better season overall than Season Two, it has been very light on anything resembling "standout episodes." Unity bucks that trend with an intelligent and fast-paced script, one that takes a Trek mainstay and does something with it that's both different and successful.
Overall Rating: 9/10.
Previous Episode: Blood Fever
Next Episode: Darkling
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