A group of three former Borg drones with a past connection to Seven of Nine comes looking for her. The trio has been locked together in a psychologically torturous neural link, and they're convinced that the solution has something to do with an event all four shared in their past. Will Seven feel a debt to these people and help them, or turn away from painful memories she doesn't want to dredge up?
Television viewers who don't pay attention to writer names (and honestly, that's most of them), may not know who Ronald D. Moore is -- but I'd wager a longtime Voyager fan would sense on some level that something is different about this episode. It's not even a matter of quality; I'm not offering this up as a top-shelf episode of the series. But there are many markers in how this episode is written that set it apart from most Voyager. It's no wonder Moore immediately knew this wasn't the right working environment for him.
In short: character matters a whole lot more here than in the average Voyager episode. That feels a bit funny to say, given that this is a Seven of Nine episode, and she becomes more and more featured in the final seasons. But this episode doesn't simply center on her, it's structured to illuminate something particular about her -- her feelings about family. The episode gives her a "family" in a trio of intriguing guest characters with distinct-yet-intermingled personalities. It integrates Seven's relationship with Naomi Wildman. It sets up how Seven must re-embrace what she's turned her back on in order to help those she cares about.
But almost more notable is in how many other characters get interesting moments around the periphery of the main story. Tuvok cracks dry Vulcan jokes ("I am pleased that you are pleased."). B'Elanna is an insightful sounding board. ("You may not have nostalgia about the past, but you definitely have feelings. Strong ones.") Janeway and Seven have their best heart-to-heart in a long while, as the captain helps clarify the emotional and personal stakes at play here. Chakotay also helps draw Seven out on her thoughts in the most substantial scene the two of them have had... ever? The Doctor poses the potent question of whether Seven ultimately chooses what the three former drones would want, or is choosing just to assuage her own guilt. Tom Paris and Harry Kim have a playful little scene recounting their hijinks aboard an alien station. (It's not hard to imagine such a scene played by Julian Bashir and Miles O'Brien on Deep Space Nine.)
In short, it feels like this script is trying awfully hard to give as many characters as possible their little moment to shine amid another character's featured episode. That it's notably awkward at times showcases how unlike Voyager it is to do this... and so it comes as no great surprise that Ronald D. Moore didn't want to stick around on a show not interested in its characters in this way.
Elements of the production feel strangely different here too, perhaps serving to magnify the things that feel different in the script. The inhabitants of an alien station come swarming onto Voyager, giving us far more background actors that we usually see on the series. The lighting of some sets feels subtly different, brighter. (Janeway's ready room in particular.) The musical score is more prominent than usual, and tinged with some stylings more common in horror movies than Star Trek.
Don't worry, though -- this is still Star Trek. Every one of the three main guest stars had appeared in the franchise before. And one in particular -- Vaughn Armstrong -- would ultimately take the record for playing more characters than any other actor in Star Trek. (Yes, beating even Jeffrey Combs, though more of Combs' characters would recur.) Trek fans also get to see Jeri Ryan briefly returned to full Borg makeup (I'm sure she hated every minute of it), a redressing of the jungle "outdoor" set (used here as the Borg crash site), and other trappings like a Bajoran appearing on Voyager.
It's possible that the trio of drones overwhelms the story a bit too much; their plight feels more interesting than Seven's, and I'm left perhaps too interested in what the final weeks of their lives will be like after this episode. Still, I like the ultimate message here, that "survival is insufficient" when compared to a fulfilling existence.
Other observations:
- Perhaps three Trek veterans are cast as the drones because the whole gimmick of them needing to finish each other's sentences is actually quite difficult to pull off. It would have helped to know you have people who can handle the rest of it already: the makeup, the technobabble.
- Young Scarlett Powers, who plays Naomi Wildman, gets "demoted" in season six. Her name used to appear in the episode credits at the beginning of act one. Here (and for the rest of the season), she's only listed in the end credits.
I think that if Star Trek: Voyager had been more like this all along, or had grown to be more like this in its final seasons, I personally would have been more of a fan. But this is an odd outlier, and I see it more of a grade B episode.
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