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| Seven and B'Elanna observe as a Borg drone matures on Voyager! |
B'Elanna, Tom, the Doctor, and Seven are in a shuttlecraft, investigating a proto-nebula, when their shuttle gets caught by a gravimetric surge. Voyager beams them back fast, but distortion from the nebula makes it a difficult transport. The team's patterns briefly merge - Not a lasting problem for the organic crew members, but a big issue for the Doctor's mobile emitter, which begins malfunctioning immediately.
The Doctor is beamed directly to sick bay before his program can fail, and B'Elanna promises to look at the mobile emitter. Before she gets the chance, it becomes clear that Seven's Borg technology has interacted with the device. Within a day, the Borg technology has created a maturation chamber in engineering - Giving birth to a new drone known as "One" (J. Paul Boehmer).
The mobile emitter has its origins in 29th century technology, resulting in "One" being a hyper-advanced Borg drone. Janeway puts Seven in charge of nurturing him, to make him an individual like Seven has herself become. But "One" begins asking questions about its origins and about the Borg Collective, causing Seven to worry about the Borg assimilating him and becoming even more of a threat than they are already!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Janeway: Resists calls to kill the drone before it wakes. She doesn't want to kill unnecessarily, believing that if Seven could become an individual after a lifetime in the Collective, then this drone can surely be raised to be its own individual as well. When "One" begins asking questions about the Borg, Janeway suggests telling him - But she doesn't order Seven to do so, respecting Seven's choice to wait.
Seven of Nine: At Drone's center is a superb performance by Jeri Ryan. She has to walk a fine line in this episode, maintaining Seven's characteristic reserve while infusing an increasing amount of emotion into her scenes with "One." Ryan pulls this off splendidly, and the mother/son relationship that emerges between Seven and "One" convinces in large part because of her performance. It's worth observing that this episode is exactly one season after The Gift, in which Seven's fondest wish was to return to the Borg. Now she is the crew member most adamant about how dangerous the Borg is, and most in fear of the Collective - Having grown to treasure her individuality, she does not want to risk losing it again.
The Doctor: Is obsessively concerned about his mobile emitter when it stops functioning. This is played largely for laughs, with him badgering a sleepy Torres about the status of his emitter. But if you think about it at all, his anxiety is hardly unreasonable. Without that device, he's back to being a prisoner in sick bay and the holodeck - Effectively reduced from full crew member back to being just "the hologram." Even so, once "One" emerges, he ceases to even mention what he's lost. When the drone brings it up, asking if he's unwelcome, the Doctor insists that this is not the case:"Our primary mission is to explore new forms of life. You may have been unexpected but, given time, I am sure you'll make a fine addition to the crew."
Neelix: Though he has only a small role, his basic personality is used very well. Even as the rest of the crew responds warily to the drone's existence, Neelix is entirely open and friendly, completely welcoming. "One" responds to this openness, and when it begins researching data, Talaxian cooking is mixed in with the other, more technical material.
The Borg: It's confirmed that Borg reproduce through assimilation only, but the existence of the maturation chamber gives context to the infants the Enterprise crew found in Q Who? - As assimilated children, connected to a maturation chamber. Once matured, a drone's responses are fully automated - It must absorb data before it can interact in any way other than a pre-programmed scenario. By the episode's end, the Borg are aware of the existence of advanced future technology on Voyager - Something likely to pose a danger in coming episodes.
WOUND THE REDSHIRT!
Ensign Mulcahy (Todd E. Babcock) bears a mention for his stiff competition for a Darwin Award. On arriving at his work station and discovering it glowing green in a way that would be familiar to every Voyager crew member after Scorpion, does he run away while calling security? Or even keep a safe distance while calling security? Why, no! Ensign Imbecile walks merrily into the green glowing room. Fortunately for him, the script wants our sympathies to be with "One," so Mulcahy survives his Borg encounter with his humanity intact... But honestly, if he had died or been assimilated, it would have been his own stupid fault.
Idle question: If the Borg can become more dangerous by assimilating things more advanced, would feeding them a steady diet of idiots make them less dangerous?
THOUGHTS
If Scorpion was Voyager's The Best of Both Worlds, then this episode is its I Borg - a story focused on a single Borg drone, which emerges as a sympathetic individual over the course of the story. I Borg's complexity is replaced with more overt manipulation, and its difficult ending choice is replaced by an action set piece... But then, this is Voyager. And while Drone isn't anywhere near as strong an episode as its TNG counterpart was, it is still a highly effective installment.
The script is credited to Bryan Fuller, Brannon Braga, and Joe Menosky. The strengths of all three shine through, though. It has the fast pace of most of Fuller's scripts, with new elements and complications being built into the situation at every Act break. It also has the high concept of a Braga piece ("Borg baby") and the humanism of Menosky's best work. In short, the three styles mesh instead of clash.
Seven and the Doctor have emerged into a strong character pairing, with Seven disapproving of the Doctor's flippant attitude even as she privately takes on board his "lessons" in interacting with humans. With "One" talking to both of them about him being "born" by accident, the subtext becomes very much that of them being unexpected parents of this drone - Something that works even when the script hits it a bit too hard on the nose.
I do find myself wondering about the casual attitude toward the Doctor's mobile emitter. It's obvious by this point that B'Elanna can repair it when it breaks. Has she even tried to replicate some back-ups? Just a line of dialogue to the effect that the 29th century technology is beyond the ship's ability to reproduce would be enough - As it stands, it looks as if the crew thinks a single mobile emitter is all they need, and that they aren't even trying to provide redundancy for the only piece of technology that allows their only medical officer the ability to go down to planets or even to other parts of the ship!
Overall, and setting comparisons to I Borg to one side, this is a well-scripted, well-acted episode that does its job of creating some genuine emotional investment in a single-episode situation. It also ends with hints of things to come, leaving me actively anticipating the ship's next Borg encounter.
Definitely a good episode.
Overall Rating: 8/10.
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