Voyager Flashback: Child's Play

Star Trek: Voyager dipped its toe in the "continuing story lines" water in season six by introducing four new Borg children. Then, after one episode showing us that the kids really were going to stick around, they were in a position to tease us with "...or maybe they won't." That's the episode "Child's Play."

Voyager locates the home planet of the young ex-drone Icheb -- and even find his own family, who is shocked to have him back. But Icheb's parents are hiding a secret, and it turns out they may not be the most responsible people to raise him.

I think "Child's Play" has a really interesting story. It takes a big risk (for Voyager) by leaning into continuity; not only is it about the ex-drone kids that the crew has taken in, it specifically calls back the mysterious virus that infected the Borg cube from which the children came.

Generally, the "risk" of going non-episodic pays off here. Seven of Nine has to face her own emotions and realize that she's already bonded with these kids. Icheb goes on a journey -- not wanting to return to his family, before gradually coming to feel at home with them. Janeway has to play diplomat to Icheb's parents, and counselor to an embittered Seven.

Yet I can't help but feel like the emotions are dialed to about a "7 out of 10" here, where Deep Space Nine would have found a way to at least turn them up to a "9." Icheb's parents are written as too gentle and soft-spoken in the face of Seven's opposition. They're too patient, too understanding, in a way that really undermines the twist in the story -- you almost feel like they don't really want Icheb back. They're so patient, in fact, that they suddenly seem cartoonishly evil when it's revealed that they've engineered their own son as a weapon against the Borg.

That twist could have been justified better if you'd really been made to understand how threatened these aliens are. There's lots of abstract talk about the danger the Borg pose (plus a gnarly establishing shot showing their landscape with "scooped-out Borg holes"). But despite actual location shooting for the planet surface, it kind of just feels like any other agrarian society from any other episode of Star Trek. This doesn't really feel like a war zone, no one really feels on edge, and leaving Icheb there doesn't feel dangerous. This isn't the bitter "custody battle" it could have (or, I think, should have) been, with the parents having the "claim" of blood while clearly having the worse living conditions.

Other observations:

• Guest star Mark A. Sheppard would, in the years after this appearance, go on to become something like "Geek TV royalty." He'd make a big impact in just a couple appearances as Badger on Firefly, then become such an entertaining villain on Supernatural that they made him a series regular. I think he's got a scene in this episode that stands out, too: his character's conversation with Seven of Nine reveals a sense of guilt -- just not for the thing you assume at the time.

• After years -- decades even -- of fan theorizing about how the transporter could be used to beam a torpedo aboard an enemy ship during a battle, someone finally does it in this episode.

"Child's Play" is an interesting episode, but I can't help but feel like there could have been a better version of it. I give it a B.