Star Trek: Voyager

“Unimatrix Zero, Part I”

3 stars.

Air date: 5/24/2000
Teleplay by Brannon Braga & Joe Menosky
Story by Mike Sussman
Directed by Allan Kroeker

"We'll see you soon, Harry." — Borg Queen, ominous unresolved mystery

Review Text

Nutshell: A reasonably engaging hour of sci-fi, as long as you accept that setup often substitutes for story.

A show of hands: Who thinks season-ending cliffhangers are gratuitous?

Oddly, the first season-ending TV cliffhanger I clearly remember is TNG's famous "The Best of Both Worlds." I was 14 years old and at a point where I was paying closer attention to TV as an avenue for storytelling. I was less cynical concerning plot devices (I wasn't a critic and didn't think in those terms then) and probably more open to possibilities. I had no idea how "Best of Both Worlds" would be resolved; it was one long summer. Would Picard die? Would Earth be attacked by the Borg? I really wondered. Maybe I was simply more naive and impressionable then. Maybe it's just that the cliffhanger was simply a lot better. Hard to say. Of course, it was probably also helpful that there wasn't the Web as we now know it to bombard us with spoilers. Or trailers that gave away half the surprises.

Ever since that TV season in 1990, I've been abundantly aware of cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger. On all shows. Even lame sitcoms, for crying out loud, where suspense and caring about the characters is contrary to the point. It was probably that way long before 1990, but from my point of view, it started with "Best of Both Worlds," which will never, ever be topped (DS9's "Call to Arms" and Homicide's "Work Related" come closest, but no cigar). One just can't go back.

But anyway. "Unimatrix Zero." Like "Equinox" last year, it's pretty hard to critique half a story. Like most cliffhangers, it's all setup and no payoff. And unlike "Scorpion" from three years back, the presence of the Borg is not even close to a novelty value. Since "Scorpion," thanks to the presence of Seven of Nine, we've probably had close to a dozen stories about the Borg, and more if you count the indirect examples. The Borg have been part of Trek milieu for 11 years now. How long can the cow be milked before it dies?

Well, in the case of the Borg, I'll accept them as storytelling devices so long as what they represent continues to evolve and remain interesting, even if by definition we can never go back. The Borg were once awesome villains, whereas now they're cool but not nearly as compelling. They've changed. A lot. They used to be one mind. Now they seem less like one huge mind and more like an entity controlled by an individual villain leader.

It's just as well that the Borg have changed. Like I said, one can't go back, and that also goes for the writers. They must go forward, and forward is in changing the Borg into something other than what they were. Is it as interesting? Maybe not, but it's either that or abandon the Borg completely (which might not be such a bad idea).

The new spin here is a high-concept masterstroke: "Seven is contacted in Borg cyberspace by drones who have created a virtual reality where they can exist as individuals." It's like The Matrix, except kind of in reverse, and with an outdoor natural setting rather than a mysteriously generic city with Chicago street names.

The drones who can exist in this version of the Matrix, which is known here officially as Unimatrix Zero, are very rare (one in every million). Something about their brains allows their imaginations to drift away from the collective whenever they regenerate. Through the Borg hive link, these drones have found a common place where they exist and interact while they sleep—a virtual sanctuary. This virtual world exists completely apart from the real world. When they're awake, they're ordinary drones with no knowledge or memory of their virtual sanctuary. The central problem is that the rest of the Borg consciousness has recently become aware of this "defective" subset in the collective, and the Borg Queen (Susanna Thompson reprising the role) is determined to snuff it out. It's indeed a very clever story concept.

This of course all involves Seven in a very central way. It turns out that before her liberation from the collective, she was one of the 0.0001% of drones (gee, how convenient!) who exhibited this condition and existed in VR. She lived this virtual life for 18 years, and even had a VR lover for six years, Axum (Mark Deakins), who is the one who now contacts her asking for help.

Quick statistics lesson. The "one in a million" notion is a bit of a stretch given who all we see in UM-Zero. The chances of Seven and another human (the one here who was assimilated at Wolf 359, which itself is still a mystery that hasn't been explicitly solved) both having the UM-Zero defect would mean the odds would require about 2 million humans having first been assimilated, wouldn't it? The Klingon character's presence would mean, statistically, about 1 million Klingons would've needed to be assimilated. This all seems somewhat of a probability stretch. Maybe races that we as viewers know about have a higher likelihood of carrying the defect. Yeah, that's the ticket. But never mind—it's only a story. Nitpick I won't (though I guess I already did).

There's a fight in VR that seems to take a few lessons from The Matrix, although I'm still waiting for the day when Janeway learns Kung Fu. Unlike The Matrix, if you die in UM-Zero, it would seem you do not die in real life—you simply are forced out of VR until you re-enter your next regeneration stage—which could be an interesting advantage for our VR good guys.

With the Borg Queen tracking down the secret of UM-Zero—and coming closer every day—the crew's dilemma in the story is what to do about Axum's call for help. Seven convinces Janeway to help save UM-Zero from destruction from the Borg. Discussed is the issue that in doing so, our heroes could find themselves in the middle of a "Borg civil war" (an interesting image, that) though Janeway settles for the term "resistance movement." This leads to a Daring Plan involving a techno-virus that will allow the UM-Zero drones to retain their memories once they wake up from VR. In order for this to work, however, the virus must be administered to a central distributor on a Borg ship. The crew tracks down a Borg ship and prepares to initiate the plan. I must say that any Borg ship that could be vulnerable to this plan probably needs better network security or upgraded anti-virus software. (Repeat after me: It's only TV. It's only TV...)

Meanwhile, there's the Borg Queen seeking out the defective drones. What's the Queen's purpose? I didn't exactly get it in First Contact. I certainly didn't get it in "Dark Frontier." And here it appears that, really, there's nothing to get. The Queen is simply the Borg personified for the audience's benefit, and on that level, it probably works. Thompson's take on the Queen is one of a calm exterior with an evil villain inside. She sees and hears all through her video screen, and smiles evil smiles when things go her way, and looks menacing when they don't. To Thompson's credit, she does all this with Borg-like restraint, without going over the top. And although the very notion of the Queen as a villain strips away some of what made the Borg unique, it's still kind of fun (though the unspoken notion of Janeway and the Queen being arch-enemies is maybe pushing it).

The crew's Daring Plan involves Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres beaming onto the Borg ship to administer the virus. Because this is a cliffhanger, things don't go as planned. Actually, yes they do. The three of them are assimilated, but the story's twist reveals that their assimilation was part of the Daring Plan. I would guess that they're carrying the virus, and have still more tricks up their sleeves.

About that. I'd have my doubts about any plan that includes willfully being assimilated by the Borg. This goes beyond bravery and into the territory of implausible. I just have a hard time believing anyone would do it. If I locked you in a room and said, "Okay. Here's a hacksaw. I want you to saw through your forearm until it becomes detached, and don't worry about the blood, pain, or permanent disfigurement," would you do it? I doubt it. And I tend to doubt Janeway & Co. would so easily accept the horrors of assimilation in the interests of some master plan.

On its bottom line, "Unimatrix Zero" is another Voyager action show. (Seven's personal dilemma and any potential psychological VR implications are put on hold.) As such, it shows the Voyager virtue of visual panache. This is almost as good-looking as "Dark Frontier," which was one of the best examples of production design and special effects I've ever seen on the small screen.

There are a couple standout brain-dissection scenes where we get to see disembodied Borg heads. Very cool. And beautiful sets. And a nifty new Borg vessel that looks very "armored." Yes, as production goes, this is top-notch stuff which on its own is almost worth the hour's view.

But I also recommend the story, despite the holes and the fact that Janeway and her crew must be about one inch shy of insane. The concept is neat, and the story moves confidently through its motions as a techno-thriller. There's also some reasonable character work here, like the Janeway/Chakotay scenes, which choose not to go the "Scorpion"/"Equinox" route of conflict, but instead have Chakotay supporting the captain—they agree this time. It's one of few times all season we've seen Chakotay exhibit any sort of opinion.

Also noteworthy is the potential here for Seven, whose existence in UM-Zero takes an interesting spin; she's more human-like when her VR memories begin to resurface, and she even goes by her human name, Annika. Ryan brings additional humanity to her character with a toning down of the Borg qualities and inserting some subtle emotion in her speech and facial expressions—that is, until after the entire gravity of the situation reveals itself, at which point Seven asserts her true personality over her virtual one ("My name is Seven of Nine," she tells a mildly lovesick Axum).

There's also the re-promotion of Paris to lieutenant at the beginning of the show, which is handled by Janeway leaving a box containing a collar pip on his chair. This prompts Harry to comment, not without reason, "I didn't see a little box on my chair." This guy has been an ensign forever. What gives? Maybe Janeway is still punishing him for inappropriate pursuit of, um, another type of box back in "The Disease." (Did I just violate my PG review rule? Many apologies.)

I must admit that spoilers undercut the shock value, as it were, of the ending. Not simply Internet spoilers, but also the ones revealed in the trailers—Janeway getting injected with nanoprobes, the Delta Flyer being destroyed. Indeed, marketing of entertainment these days gives away anything if it's something that might make you want to watch.

"Unimatrix Zero" is still well worth an hour. It has potential. It's an incomplete story, and as always I don't expect any big impact on our crew to come out of it (including for the three who are now Borg drones). But as an entertainment and a season-ender, it gets the job done.

Upcoming: Rerun season. Stay tuned for the usual season recap and commentary article, which I'll have ready sometime this summer.

Previous episode: The Haunting of Deck Twelve
Next episode: Unimatrix Zero, Part II

End-of-season article: Sixth Season Recap

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Comment Section

72 comments on this post

    "I just have a hard time believing anyone would do it. If I locked you in a room and said, "Okay. Here's a hacksaw. I want you to saw through your forearm until it becomes detached, and don't worry about the blood, pain, or permanent disfigurement," would you do it? I doubt it."

    Hee - Jammer, I think you just outed yourself as being the founding father of the entire torture-porn genre. Who knew the director of Saw was reading your recaps?

    Voyager continues to chip away at the Borg concept. In this episode's teaser we see 1) the Borg queen talking to a drone as if he's an individual, 2) the drone responding with "I" and 3) the drone exhibiting fear of death. What is going on? Whatever happened to the Borg of TNG?

    I would like to say that when the Queen is speaking to the disconnected borg, it doesn't go against the borg ideal as much as you think. I mean the drone is just like a finger or something to the queen and now she can't feel it anymore and so she is basically talking to herself asking why she can't feel it. People talk to themselves all the time. I suppose it would've been funny if she'd acted unnerved when her finger spoke back. But she just looked ticked...

    Cool new feature:

    We have known you can beam out people from an exploding ship to Enterprise or Voyager. They get stored in the transporter buffer during the explosion and materialise afterwards just fine.

    Now with the delta flyer we see an exploding ship can beam the passengers out of it, explode and then the passengers materialise ... must be some etherial transporter buffer with rematerialisation circuits ...

    I remembered liking this episode a while back, but I must have forgotten about the whole "getting assimilated on purpose" thing. That's just ridiculous. What if the cube had transwarped away, and Voyager couldn't get her crew out?

    It's not ridiculous. They probably assumed they wouldn't be coming back. They were acting selfless in order to help the resistance movement. Janeway did it again a year later when she came up with a plan to destroy the transwarp hub rather than taking the easy road home. She was thinking of the countless lives at stake in both situations. They just got really lucky. I mean of course they did, otherwise we'd be watching Chakotay macking on 7 of 9 for a whole season. Bleck.

    Maybe the Borg cube should've transwarped away. It would've made a more interesting cliffhanger

    can you say BATSHIT INSANE CRAZY PLAN OF STUPIDITY...

    seriously, BORG TACTICAL VESSEL. its not some junker scout ship blown half to space trash by some ion storm, its a TACTICAL ship, this means to me that they are the rank and file of the borg offensive lineup here. they tackle a field kicker with a broken leg and think they can take out a linebacker?

    This is quite a good episode. There could've been less soppiness and sentimentality in places (e.g. Seven frenching that guy in Unimatrix Zero) but it wasn't too bad.

    What DID annoy me though, and supremely so, is how impotent the Borg have been rendered thru the Voyager series. From the baddest-ass race in the Universe they've become barely more than a passing nuisance; just another conundrum for the Voyager crew to attend to, all in a day's work. I mean, for the "Borg queen" to be reduced to having to engage in a repartee with Janeway across the bridge screen (I'm sure that thing has a name but can't think of it now)... What next: The two will get together over a pot of coffee and a game of kal-toh!?! LOL!! We're talking about a collective of billions of drones, vastly superior technology, hundreds of thousands of spaceships available at a moment's notice, and yet Janeway and her motley crew of 150-odd members run rings around the Borg time and again.

    And what's up with the "Borg queen" anyway?! What's her purpose? And why does she issue audible oral commands to scions that are part of her neural network?!?

    Ah, forget it. Yeah, loved the episode. 3.5! Next!

    The Borg were forever ruined by the First Contact film when a Borg Queen was introduced. The best thing about the Borg was that they were a unified mind, without a hierarchy.

    The entirety of Voyager did less overall damage than that one movie did.

    In First Contact, essentially all Borg transformation was done by nanoprobes...but here we have a throwback to BOBW, where hardware is manually fitted to their heads...

    I wasn't sure if the assimilation was part of the plan. I thought maybe Chakotay and co were just oblivious when they said everything was ok and warped off. If so though then yeah, it's suicidal and batshit insane.. will find out next episode I guess.

    An enjoyable action episode anyway. I think it's a little blatant in trying to outdo BoBW ("This time we'll assimilate THREE of the crew! Hell yeah!") and am already preparing to cringe at the 3 of them being instantly restored by Doc as if you can be assimilated and unassimilated as easily as you put your clothes on and take them off, undermining the achievements of unassimilating Picard and Seven. I'm also ready to cringe at a new Delta Flyer undoubtedly appearing within an episode or two (like with the Defiant on DS9). But never mind.

    The biggest thing that grates is the "one in a million" hole and all the implausibility that goes with it. How very convenient indeed that Seven was one of them. I'm going to consider it hyperbole on the part of Axum as it's the only way for it to make sense.

    Poor Kim :) Sorry Harry but your key performance indicator for "successful acquisitions of transporter locks" is still incredibly poor, no promotion for you. You don't hear Paris saying "I can't start the engine!" every time he's asked to go to warp.

    Despite all its holes and suicidal leadership (maybe it's best not to analyse it afterwards) I was glued to the TV all the way through this episode and that's not bad going. 3.5 stars for me, though 3 is not unreasonable.

    I love the way none of the crew even take notice of Harry's "I didn't see a little box on my chair." The idea is clearly so ridiculous there's no point even discussing it - Harry has essentially become a parody of himself. I also like the way he's referred to as Young Harry by the folk in Fair Haven and by the aliens in Muse yet he's clearly at least 30 by now.

    Anyway, I though this episode was ok, but I'm so sick of the bloody Borg.

    I dont understand how if they can't remember whats what happens in Unimatrix 0 then how is it that seven can? How did that lover of hers die, then come back in the unimatrix? All in all part 1eft me confused. I get there are there to plant a virus to kill all borgs, but i don't understand how the hell the memory thing works. Arg. Two popcorns because im lost in the delta space.

    The new Borg cubes with the bizarre plating look hideous.

    The Borg seem like "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" kind of guys...I can;t imagine them remodeling things.

    Ditto 90% of the issues raised above.

    "It's one of few times all season we've seen Chakotay exhibit any sort of opinion."

    Holy cow, no joke. Throughout seasons 5 and 6, I've been thinking they've been setting us up for Chakotay leaving Voyager. Janeway consistently turns to Tuvok for trusted counsel and to make secret plans, leaves Harry in charge of the bridge, engages 7/9 in personal activities -- it's like Chakotay is just some enlisted nobody instead of her first officer and second in command.

    Seeing that over and over, I expected that it was a conscientious plan by the writing/creative staff to distance Chakotay and Janeway. I fully, fully expected something big to come of it.

    It seems, instead, to just be more crappy writing. Chakotay is suddenly just the lapdog, happy to get whatever scraps of attention Janeway has to give.

    Oh well...maybe it'll come to a head in Season 7. Hope springs eternal with this Trek fan. It has to, or I would have stopped watching when Kes left. (The first time, that is. We don't acknowledge "Fury" in my household.)

    A recessive mutation? Of what? Do the nanoprobes reproduce with genes and such?

    Speaking for myself, I never got sick of the Borg. Even when I felt they had been essentially neutered as a humongoid thread, I still enjoyed every Borg (and Seven-centric) episode.

    That being said, the one huge sticking point (aside from the batshit insane idea of Janeway/Torres/Tuvok willingly being assimilated) is the UM-Zero human who was apparently assimilated at Wolf-359. Um...hello? That Borg cube was DESTROYED, remember? If he was assimilated at Wolf, he's particlized atoms by now. This is the kind of continuity that you can't ignore or sidestep. What's worse, it's manufactured continuity. This is the writers making a concerted effort to link VOY to TNG - and failing. Miserably.

    Seriously, have any non-canon nerds out there tried to retcon this one? How did the new human assimilatees survive the regeneration feedback/overload that blowed their cube up? Anyone...?

    I didn't mind the queen when she seemed to be an appendage the hive could create when it made communication with individuals easier. But as an actual leader complete with twirling villain mustache, she could never be as scary as an entire cube saying in one voice, "We are Borg."

    It would've helped if she'd kept referring to herself in the first-person plural, though. "Bring us the data" is at least a hundred times spookier than "Bring me the data" any day.

    i dont think they were getting themselves assimilated on purpose. But they needed a Backup to carry out their plan.

    @Cail Corishev: Totally agree. Queen was supposed to be a spokesperson rather than giving orders to other drones.

    As many mentioned it seems the borg are made dumber and less dangerous every episode. For eg. a few thousand drones against the whole empire? And they are easy to identify. You cannot connect to them. It is like 3 drones in a 64K drone vessel. Very scary for the empire. And some of them are children and most of them civilians (not warriors like the Korrok).

    When the queen found 3 are not reachable, she can ask the 64K-3 drones to find them and kill instead of destroying all 64K. I don't even understand why she is afraid of the resistance. "Resistance is futile" isn't it.

    I liked the episode though :)

    Yeah, the Borg aren't really intimidating anymore. When that cliffhanger of BoBW aired, it really made my jaw hit the floor in a genuine, "OH SHIT!" moment. And it was established that the experience permanently affected Picard. Here, I just can't bring myself to care. I know everything will be completely resolved and fine by the end of Part 2.

    That being said, I liked the concept and thought the episode was well done for what it was. The actress portraying the Borg queen does a fine job and though her presence as a character actually diminishes the fright-factor of the Borg to a great extent, she plays the part with as much controlled menace as she can. To be honest, if they left her as just the bust dangling from wires and apparatuses, she'd be a lot more intimidating than walking around like any other humanoid.

    I also think it would have been more effective if she had not spoken aloud but instead, we heard her voice echoing as if we were privy to the collective's communication...and put that flange on her voice that they used to use for the Borg in TNG. That would reinforce the idea that she's not a puppet-master but rather IS the heart of the collective.

    One last thought: I would lament losing Tuvok and Torres, but leave Janeway as a drone. Let Chakotay become Captain. He proved last week he's more than capable and I think he's FAR more level-headed and consistent of character. Just my opinion.

    Suspenseful but the decapitated heads getting their brains picked apart on camera was a bit gruesome for my tastes.

    fun episode.

    people who know the history of all the star trek dont get to enjoy the shows ..that is what i notice.

    it does seem silly to get them selves assimilated. but hoping it was some virtual assimilation.

    i dont care about continuity. as long as the show makes reasonable sense. i dont need to know...if a klingon or another human is possible in UM0. i dont need to know transporter technology.

    ami entertained??
    yes.

    3 stars

    Tee hee Cloudane, Harry's KPI's really were rather woeful.

    One nitpick to Jammer... the mutation affecting 1 in a million doesn't necessarily mean that a million have to be infected before a mutation arises... averages mean that in 1 particular million you may have 3 or 4, and then none in the following millions.

    As for the Queen... for me, sure, she's the embodiment of the collective as needed when needed. I don't know if I agree that the Borg have been neutered... if they hadn't been, then they would have assimilated the whole galaxy a long time ago. As consistent with earlier visions of the Borg as that may be, an absolutely perfect enemy is just as poor story-wise as an enemy who's defeated easily. And let's not forget that in BOBW 2 they were actually defeated rather easily. As for how the human got from Wolf to the collective, who knows? As fans, we could possibly imagine that there are many things that happened on that particular cubes adventures that we don't know about... perhaps some drones were sent off on a smaller vessel through a transwarp conduit back to the collective, for just one idea.

    For me all of Voyager's "victories" over the collective are in fact setbacks and it remains as relentless as ever, growing like an out-of-control vine across the galaxy despite the efforts to prune it, even in Endgame. Therefore, they remain just as terrifying as ever, especially since they would probably learn from their defeats with Janeway.

    And as has been said... story-wise, the original incarnation of the Borg would not have been interesting forever.

    If they can plant a virus to let the drones remember unimatrix zero, why can't they plant a virus that just destroys the borg? Ugh, I have decided that the entire crew of voyager is slightly mentally retarded. after that I could enjoy the show a lot more.

    @ Cail...

    True, but we saw later than the Borg could have a spokesperson without also being a Queen...that's precisely how they introduced Seven of Nine.

    And even before that, it was done from the other direction with Locutus, he, too, was supposed to function in that role.

    Why the HECK did the borg queen state everything she thought or saw on the screens out loud?!
    Who was she adressing? The mindless drones sorruonding her (despite the supoposed mind-link between all Borg)? Or was she supposed to be excentric, talking to herself?
    In a series full of badly excecuted exposition, this takes the cake. Awful, just awful. This in and on itself ruined the episode for me.

    Don't get me worng: Susanna Thompson is not only a ridiculosuly hot woman (yowza!), she's also a very good actress. She's proven that in countless other roles over and over again.

    I blame the script and the direction.
    Don't act as if you're shocked - you've seen the rest of the series and know that I'm right.

    I don't get the arguments about the Borg being overdone, too wimpy, etc. I agree that they became something else than what they were in early TNG episodes, but one can only watch those so many times! They became a permanent fixture of the Star Trek universe, along with the Klingons, Romulans, etc. I don't blame the writers for binging the Borg back over and over - they're fascinating! The side effect, of course, is that they can't stay the übervillans for long that way - they have to be approachable in some way or another in order for starships to interact with them. But I don't think they were dialed down so much as to make them seem a different species, or that it wasn't believable- they have always maintained their basic identity.

    I always liked the Voyager Borg episodes...I mean, they were in the Delta Quadrant, Borg central! What did we expect? Much better than the Kazon episodes - ugh!

    The show has completely disintegrated. The writing staff are just making whatever they want happen, without the slightest care for logic.

    But never mind—it's only a story
    ----------

    Jammer, you do realize that saying is completely at odds with what a proper reviewer SHOULD feel? You can't review a show if you are going to have that attitude. If a story has bad writing, it's your job to criticize it.

    How you have given this episode the rating you have is mind-boggling.

    I’m sure it’s not just a question of being more naive and impressionable. I was 14 years old when this episode aired, and sure I thought it was cool, but even then I knew it was not anywhere near « Best of Both Worlds ».

    Today, I’m not even sure I’d give it 3 stars. As much as I loved Star Trek: First Contact, I wonder if what turned the Borg from fascinating and frightening foes to plain cardboard villains was the addition of the Queen. In this episode she acts like a cardboard villain; she « negotiates », she gets worried, she makes threats. And then Voyager is able to withstand a several-minute assault from a tactical vessel when a regular vessel destroyed 39 starships in a cinch a mere 10 years ago. So yeah, the Borg aren’t what they used to be.

    There was a lot of potential in the idea of a Borg VR, but what we’ve seen so far doesn’t begin to tap into that potential. If they, as Axum claims, can look however they want in this world, why, when the Borg attack, don’t they disguise themselves as drones, or turn into giants, or masquerade as rocks? Maybe I’m the one who has too much imagination… And of course Jammer’s right about the Borg having poorer network security than Internet Explorer. They obviously never assimilated any computer geeks.

    Then there’s the issue of Seven’s dreaming. Seven dreamed before in « Waking Moments » and « One », and here she doesn’t even seem to know what a dream is. That is a big retcon to swallow, even by Voyager standards. The best scenes in the episode were the short character bits: Paris being re-promoted, the Janeway/Chakotay interaction.

    1) So here it is the recipe of how to destroy a character.

    Seven of Nine has always been great. But treating her as so much previously prepared to individuality, is something that weakens quite a lot the development we have been seen for her before this. Not to mention that it makes flatter some of the inner issues she has been dealing with.

    What a stupid decision, that of treating Seven as a sort of lucky Hollywoodian "chosen one", not as a random human assimilated that is being desassimilated. Sure it is not the first time. Such stupidity was already present in the episode where we learnt that Seven was separate from the collective before. Referring to that episode, she herself recently said that it might have done her deassimilation much easier than it would have been for other people. Now we find out that it is even more than that: Seven was also already fighting the collective nature of Borg long before meeting Voyager.

    This is lame. This is an unbelievably mistaken writing decision. This means watering the character. It is as if Voyager's writers and producers just weren't able to deal with a hit, a success, and had to destroy even it. Shame.

    Besides,

    2) if Seven was so very much used to individuality as the other dreaming Borg, and she start to realize that, well, she has to come after the episode as quite human-like. Without her lovely nice Borg mannerisms. What, of course, I doubt will come in the next episodes. Ridiculous.

    3) but I guess it was an unable excuse for silly, artificially introduced romance-ish.

    4) it seems like the Borg have developed a much faster way of assimilating, huh?

    5) the last "supposedly shocking scene" only shows how this episode was desperate to deliver. What, of course, always means it didn't. Old trick played with a heavy hand.

    I wish the show had ended before delivering such a mess. I have to agree with DLPB above: at this point, the show has completely disintegrated.

    Yes, the introduction of the Queen made the Borg seem... less intimidating, at points. But consider this:

    Before the Borg Queen, we saw that the Borg had some significant vulnerabilities; as a hive mind we saw that seemingly simple things could cause total chaos within the collective. A mathematically impossible puzzle, for instance. Look at what happened during the events of the Descent episodes.

    I see the Queen as an adaptation the Borg created in order to prevent the entire collective from collapsing due to the malicious introduction of individuality. She's a buffer. She herself in fact states that she "Brings order to chaos".

    This is why they just manufacture another Queen every time one gets vaporized.

    Given what we saw in First Contact and Dark Frontier where the Borg will amputate an arm and remove an eye, there is no reason why anyone would volunteer to be assimilated by the Borg. Of course there is no discussion. Where is that Vulcan Logic that would question the stupidity of it.

    Finally (and I know this happened in Part 2), why did it take the Queen Borg so long to figure out she could not hear Janeway and Co. voices? Why not the other Borgs around them?

    The overuse of the Borg and the introduction of Seven of Nine was one of the things that made VGR the weakest of the modern Trek series by a long shot (aside from the repetition of TNG scripts with only the characters and ship changed). 39 starships are wiped out at Wolf 359. The Defiant, specifically designed to fight the Borg, had main power, shields and weapons down and was adrift "but salvageable" (as a courtesy for future DS9 plots) during the 2nd Borg attack in "First Contact". But with a former drone to punch in a few Borg commands, a 140-person scout ship (as Voyager was classified as), with 32 photon torpedoes (as the Borg scanned their defenses during Scorpion Part II") can go toe-to-toe with a Borg TACTICAL vessel, more heavily armed and armored than a regular cube that destroyed dozens of stronger Federation ships, and survive. One blast of a Borg tractor beam should have knocked out shields and weapons. A second blast should have knocked emergency power out and destroyed three or four decks, along with the port nacelle and put Janeway out of her misery. But thanks to her plot armor, Voyager went toe-to-toe and was still standing at the end, so Chakotay could give away the plot of Part 2. Ugh. I hated Seven of Nine. She and Janeway should have marooned the rest of the crew on a planet and gone off to have their little lesbian fantasies on Voyager alone. Chakotay, Kim, Torres and Paris were pretty much pushed aside. Instead we get Neelix, who was irritating beyond belief, The Doctor waxing about opera and literature, Tuvok being more illogical and emotional than humans, and Seven of Nine remaining in a state of permanent naiveté for three years except for Janeway's attempts to help 'humanize' her with her bipolar rantings.

    Even here on Earth, some races are more prone to certain diseases and illnesses than other races. There are people who play the lottery every week and never win, and others who have won the first time they play. The one in a million is out of the trillions of borg and thousands of races. Some races may not have even one infected, where another race might almost all have the mutation. Humans are obviously more susceptible which I can buy into.

    Harry will be promoted when he gets 3 successful locks in a row. Torres should have taught Harry how to perform a "Skeletal Lock" like she did in one of the first episodes. What the heck does Harry actually trying to get a lock on to anyway?

    Captains are not supposed to go on away missions, never mind suicidal ones to purposely get assimilated. And then take your Chief of Security and Engineer as well. I call that bull$#1t. It would have been more in Janeway's character to send 3 of the Equinox crew over to complete the mission. Give them a chance to prove themselves. It would have also made for a better cliffhanger, because we really wouldn't know what would happen to them. Of course Janeway/Tuvok/Torres would be saved.

    Goes some way to repairing the Borg as a decent set of villains, although not so much that the big closing shot is undermined by the sure and certain knowledge that this is a deliberate ploy. Like others, I am also not convinced by the assumption of the Borg Queen as the single driving factor of the Borg - it does have a certain mustache-twirling element to it.

    Otherwise, I thought this was perfectly serviceable, lots of set up indeed but it all flows together nicely enough. I do agree however with the comment above that it seems a fairly lazy plot line to have Seven as some kind of Neo-style chosen one who has just forgotten her time in Unimatrix 0. But overall, more to like than not. 3 stars.

    I need to watch this before commenting.

    I haven't seen it in years because I didn't like it at all so I always skip it.

    I just can't remember what turned me off :-)

    I'll be back

    I think this is the episode where the Borg officially got demoted from uber-threat to boring generic threat. Voyager is able to hold its own against a tactical cube solo? Sorry, but I call BS on that. Think about it - swap out the Borg in the ending battle for any other baddie - Kazon, Viddian, you name it - and it's indistinguishable from any of Voyager's other pointless generic battles. This is after all the same Borg which effortlessly immobilized the Enterprise-D back in the day and presumably learned from the encounter, and in ST First Contact it took an entire fleet to bring down a single cube and even then, Starfleet lost half their ships.

    And this is where the Borg Queen becomes more of a liability than an asset - she just seems like a generic villain directing her minions. She was great in First Contact but after that, she lost her punch. Give me back the Borg speaking with one collective voice again - now THAT was a thousand times more menacing that a hard-headed bad alien leader uttering meances through the viewscreen.

    If there ever is another Trek series set in the 25th century, a lot of work will have to go into making the Borg a feared enemy once more. And Doctor Who could be a role model here - the first season of the revival dedicated an episode to re-introducing the Daleks as a fearsome foe, where they deconstructed everything that made the Daleks look silly in the classic series and made them freaking terrifying through showcasing the damage just one Dalek could do (as in, wiping out an entire paramilitary force without sustaining a scratch). Granted, later episodes watered down the Daleks significantly, but the point still stands. Do for the Borg what DW's "Dalek" did for, well, the Daleks.

    To be fair, a tactical cube is considerably smaller than the full-sized cube Enterprise D encountered in "Q Who". Now that the fairness has been dispensed with, yes, it is total BS that Voyager can survive any encounter with the Borg.

    @Markus
    > I don't get the "box"-punchline... :(

    See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secret_History_of_Pandora%27s_Box]

    @ Justin
    > How Axum was assimilated at Wolf 359 [..] Seriously, have any non-canon nerds out there tried to retcon this one?

    I suppose you could assume that there was another Borg cube there (backup?) that no-body saw somehow. Maybe they assimilated a Romulan cloaking device. (That they never seem to use.. Maybe it takes too much energy, even for a species that uses.. who knows what.. for power)

    Maybe they have escape pods? Nah, they'd just leave them behind, like the Borg Kids.

    Or, if you want to go the full silly-technobabble route, you postulate there was a solar flare at the same time that they blew up the cube at W459, which then interacted with a polaron field and cross-polarized neutrinos emitted from the Borg Eye Of Harmony power source, which opened up a wormhole to the nearby Borg transwarp conduit, as well as simultaneously creating a spatial divergence field. You know, like the one in TNG "Second Chances", VOY "Deadlock", and DS9 "Children of Time" (well, not really).

    What all that nonsense means is that while one Borg cube was indeed destroyed, the other one slipped down the rabbit.. er *worm*-hole and returned to the Delta Quadrant.

    Or more likely, it ended up stranded who knows where, because the divergence field and the cross-polarized neutrinos threw the cube into some random spot in the transwarp network. Sort of like that ship in Andromeda that lost it's captain, and so wandered around in the slipstream for a number of years.

    Anyway, they got found eventually, and so Axum finally joined the collective.

    3 stars. A very good season finale

    I enjoyed this one quite a bit. I was really hoping this would end up leading to the downfall of the Borg and provide a bit of an arc going into the final season. Needless to say I was disappointed in the second half and the fact that it played no role in the final season

    This story had a lot of potential and was a good story. I liked this approach to the idea of a Borg civil war rather than in TNG Descent. Because here we could have a larger battlefield and the idea of drones regaining their individualitues on Borg ships across the galaxy and secretly taking control undermining the Collective from within was neat. I liked the idea of Janeway tuvok and Torres becoming Borg and struggling to maintain their individualitues. Whoa! The delta Flyer getting destroyed heightened the high stakes of the hour

    I would have liked to learn more about the origin of Unimatrix Zero and the writers would have been better served to not try to hide the fact that the away team intended to get assimilated and dramatized the debate at arriving at that decision. Afterall janeway had a front row seat over the years most recently earlier in the hour with the plague that the Borg had been-Wolf 359,-Caatati, Arturis, the aliens in Infinite Regress, Icheb and his home world etc--could have been enough to justify the risky gambit. Plus janeway saying that Starfleet would have a problem with her getting involved in the Borg internal conflict was a continuity error because Nechayev made it clear that if an opportunity arose to destroy the Borg it was to be exploited. The Axum/Seven "romance" didn't do anything for me

    Janeway Borg reaction at the end is pure comedy :D

    It's like Muppets Beaker.

    You guys may be interested in a website I like called SFDebris (sfdebris.com), unless you found it already. It's run by Charles Sonnenburg. He does loads of Trek reviews.

    In regard to this episode, I quote him: EMH says, "It's ridiculous" Charles: "That should have been on the promotional material: Unmatrix zero - it's RIDICULOUS!"

    The point other than the regular cast, no-one in this damn story can act. They are so bloody wooden. It's awful. And as for the Queen's blowing up my own ship thing, that was insane.

    The one cool, amazing idea in this episode is this: in a totalitarian regime, the only place people can continue live their individual lives is *in their dreams*, and, naturally, even this bit of freedom is seen by the despot as too much.

    That is neat and there are some moments that play on that, but mostly I think the ep gets lost in nonsense plotting and awful supervillain monologuing, culminating in the impossible plan at the end. Chakotay makes a reference partway through to turning the tide of "our" war with the Borg, as if Voyager and its 150 people were a match for the trillion-strong technozombie army, one cube of which decimated the Federation fleet. Oh well.

    Look, I get the urge to make fun of Harry Kim as much as the next guy, and I do not think he's actually Command Material [TM], but given the wide range of duties he has on the ship, why exactly is he still an ensign? I'm willing to accept that Tom earned his promotion, not so much for anything we saw on screen, but for the fact that he did step up to be the actual acting CMO for a whole month during the offscreen section of Life Line, and, yeah, that's not insignificant. Ogawa got a lieutenancy in TNG s7 after all. But promoting Paris over Kim at this point actually seems almost deliberately hurtful. "I don't see a box on my chair" indeed.

    And I mean, really, Paris was demoted for a reason in Thirty Days, and he didn't even seem to particularly indicate he wouldn't do the same thing again.

    It’s already been pointed out above that the “one in a million” thing doesn’t require millions of humans or a million Klingons to have been assimilated to plausibly explain Annika and Korok’s presence in Unimatrix Zero, albeit Seven’s appearance is clearly a ridiculously improbable contrivance that I would nevertheless argue is acceptable given the necessity to create stories about a small number of regular characters.

    Of course, though it’s a minor nitpick, the writers unsurprisingly managed to contradict themselves within the same episode by creating a more egregious inconsistency with respect to statistics. The vast majority of Borg ships shouldn’t contain even a single mutant yet the Queen destroys a cube of 64000 with 3 mutants on it as well as a sphere of 11000 containing a single mutant. 4 in 75000 is far enough away from 1 in a million to raise an eyebrow. That’s without considering Korok’s ship, which presumably contained several mutants given that he must’ve had some help taking over the whole ship and it was only a small sphere of a few thousand drones on board, max.

    I realise many feel such nitpicks aren’t important and in isolation, it isn’t. However, the layer upon layer of inconsistencies with canon and continuity (another example within this episode is the fact that Seven has had dreams in two previous episodes) created by the writers simply add up to the impression that they didn’t really give a shit. And if the writers don’t give a shit, a lot of viewers and potential viewers won’t either.

    Doesn't come close to hitting the heights of "Scorpion" but this episode has a good, intriguing concept and decent action scenes -- unlike some VOY action scenes where we don't care as much about one of the parties. VOY goes all out for this 2-parter and it wins points from me for the elaborate production. Yes VOY overuses the Borg and, for me, declaw it but it still provides for a can't miss villain. There's also the 7 romance element, which I found out-of-place but perhaps it is to appeal to a certain type of viewer amid the grand action adventure that this sets out to be.

    Janeway puzzles me, although by now she shouldn't. She plans to go solo to plant the virus -- this is suicidal - not unlike "Year of Hell" where she takes unreasonable risks. Anyhow, it makes more sense with Torres and Tuvok alongside and it was definitely cool to see them as Borg. But I agree with Jammer that it is ridiculous to include being assimilated as part of the plan!

    I have mixed feelings about the Borg Queen. I don't think there should be one in the first place -- the Borg should just arrive at a collective decision and not be dictated to by 1 individual. That being said, Susanna Thompson does a very good job portraying a calm but cold-blooded villain. Loved the threat to Harry after she finishes bargaining with Janeway, which was a well-done scene. She makes the Borg more interesting but also compromises its integrity for me.

    As for Unimatrix Zero, I think it is believable considering how many drones have been assimilated (presumably billions) that there can be some defects with brain functions such that some individuality can resurface in a subconscious state. To me, that is interesting sci-fi that doesn't violate the paradigm. And it is a good premise that Janeway wants to save these Borg and potentially eliminate a major threat.

    3 stars for "Unimatrix Zero, Part I" -- definitely a very watchable hour of VOY with an interesting twist on a familiar and formidable enemy. I guess it may not strictly be original as there are some elements of "I Borg" here. VOY overuses the Borg and 7 but it still generates good episodes. We get Janeway and Chakotay having their heart-to-heart about the captain's decision but maybe by now the 2nd in command figures it's useless to challenge his boss. But in the past when those 2 have been at odds, it's made for some strong scenes ("Scorpion"). Good way to end a season.

    There is one thing in this episode that really intrigues me. I've been investigating various aspects of the Vulcan mind-meld, and in one scene Tuvok performs what he calls a "bridging of minds". As near as I can figure out, this is a variation of the double mind-meld in which he melds with Janeway and Seven of Nine simultaneously and acts as a conduit so that those two, who are not telepaths, can link up and communicate telepathically. I'm still trying to understand this unusual technique.

    Borg heads really creepy. Concept of Unimatrix Zero very creative and interesting.

    I see Janeway is now bald. Will she be more like Picard now, or is it about more than the hair?

    Onto part 2.

    I'm usually more than willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt and tell people to lighten up, but this episode is awful! I agree about the addition of a Borg Queen being the beginning of the end for the Borg, but in this episode too, there is a Borg Cube that is supposed to be even stronger than the standard one, so Voyager should have been a fly on a windshield. Instead, it fights for awhile exchanging fire and then flees. NO! The Borg should have adapted right away to their weapons (and taken little or no damage) or at least have tractored Voyager so it couldn't get away!

    Also, if only 1 in a million drones are "infected" with Unimatrix Zero, what's the point in Voyager risking everything to start a civil war (or excuse me, a "resistance")? Picture this-a small town in your area fighting against the world! That is the 1 million to one odds-about 6000 people vs the world! And they aren't even together, but they are spread out thru the whole collective! It makes no sense!

    Also, the Unimatrix Zero fights to me made no sense. I would guess the sleeping Borg who are individuals can imagine anything they want in that world (like the Klingon having a Bat-leth) Why didn't take picture having weapons? Bullet weapons the Borg can't adapt to? I mean the Borg never adapted to the Batleth, so there you have it!

    Also, the Borg seem weaker physically here with Tuvok and even the Captain knocking down a few. From First Contact, we saw that no organic being was even remotely as strong as them-only Data can best them in hand to hand combat (I don't mean Worf with the Bat-leth-I mean just blugeoning them with the phaser rifle).

    Yea, Voyager made the Borg a much weaker villain, and it really hurt them in my opinion. In my opinion, the Shatnerverse has the best end for the Borg (William Shatner may have been an egotist in his writings (Kirk saves the day while everyone else marvels at how awesome he is), but his ideas on the lore of Star Trek to me hold true.

    Ok. Rant over-I'm going to watch Part II now and see if any of these issues were resolved (I'm rewatching the entire series for the first time since they first came out, and back then I missed a lot of the last couple seasons as I got too busy to watch TV regularly)

    As someone already said, doesn't even come close to Scorpion. What bugs me the most is the decision to go on the Borg ship, I mean they are more than half way from home, but still decides to risk it all for ... what, really? Getting Voyager and its crew home was always Janeways priority, but now... I don't like it.

    And I'm tired of Seven and The Doctor. It really is a shame Tuvok, Chakotay and Torres didn't get more spotlight in the series over all. They got some in this one, but still.

    With that said, I very much enjoyed:

    1. Harry Kim "I don't see a box on my chair"
    2. The Borg Queen threatening Harry Kim.
    3. Janeway beating the crap out of a Borg drone with a Bat'leth.

    2,5 Stars.

    @Jay, respectfully i dont think the Borg Queen introduction implied a hierarchy in the Borg. She was NOT their leader..just sort of their collective voice personified..which i think is a pretty unique concept..would you agree?

    ^

    That's also how I viewed her: she's literally a central processing unit (Unimstrix Zero) functioning as a mouthpiece.

    As much as a unified collective without a leader is something I would dear more, introducing a central character that could control them, does make sense imo. There is no way all those Borg drones would be able to do much of anything without at least the one person telling them what to do.

    What would make a compelling story though, imo is how the queen came to be and what makes her so special.

    Harry Kim's plight reminds us of the situation the show was in... it's writers didn't even understand that en ensign is supposed to serve as an ensign for a couple of years, then make lieutenant. Given that supposed professional writers didn't understand something that a 9-year-old kid with working knowledge of military ranks would know, it's amazing that the show was as good as it was.

    Did anyone notice this. While the borg attacked the matrix, Axum talked about Hirojin hunting parties? I thought it was said in an earlier episode that the borg have not encountered the Hirojin yet.

    At this point I'm sure the writers acknowledged in-universe Harry not being promoted is an inside joke. "I don't see a little box on my chair!" and then everyone just looks at him bewildered like they wonder why he's asking that.

    Kind of reminds me of the characters in comedy shows everyone always makes fun of, like in Family Guy. Poor Harry.

    If those writers actually thought that was funny, they were even more pathetic than I thought.

    Axum was NOT the one assimilated at Wolf 359. That was his friend the human woman. He's from an unspecified alien species complete with nose and forehead ridge.

    I agree with Ric that this episode seriously undermined Seven's character arc. The tragedy of Seven is that Annika didn't get a chance to grow up. Now we're just supposed to accept that she experienced 18 years of human development after all? What a cheapening of one of the best character arcs in Trek. She also had zero chemistry with Axum. At least in Part One she felt no romantic feelings for him. That was spoiled in Part Two.

    But the worst part for me remains that Annika never lost her childhood after all. She grew up in a caring environment where she learned healthy relationships. That Annika has been inside her all along but is of course never brought up again, either. It pulls the rug out from under 3 seasons of, at times, heart wrenching development for a tragic character given new hope. I loved the concept of Unimatrix Zero but hated that Seven had been part of it.

    @ Jammer @ Everyone does everyone agree this episode is NOT DERIVSTIVE OR A REHASH OF the MATRIX or anything else..a little similar tonthe Matrix but different enough to be very ORIGINAL and creative? Hope to hear feedback..

    STORY IDEA What if SOME VIDIIANS HAD ALLOWED THENSELVES TOBE ASSIMILATED TO FIND A CURE FOR THE PHAGE if the THINK Tank had never cared them..anyone like it??

    The Borg encountered the Hirogen after Seven left, Hirogen drones were seen in the episode Infinite Regress.

    Another huge continuity error: Tuvok says to the doctor that this would be his first mind-meld, and that he has witnessed the procedure from a Vulcan Master. WRONG!!! He has done several mind-melds through-out the series, too many to list here, but he did one with Suder back in the episode called "Meld". There's also jokes about Tuvok's Mind-Meld addiction on Reddit, because there are so many. I can look past techno babble, cliches, and far-fetched ideas, but I do get upset when the writers of the show forget what they have written or just don't care. I would have hoped writers would take the time to watch previous Start Trek series, but at the absolute least, if you are a writer for Voyager, at least watch the previous Voyager episodes.

    Of course the problem with making the Borg have a villain controlling them, Is it you can't believe that such a huge ship wouldn't just destroy the ship and everyone there if it was directed by a villain. The whole point of the board was that they didn't pay attention to you so you can walk around and do stuff.

    I'm glad to jammers thinks it is implausible that someone would assimilate themselves. I wonder how he thought of it in Star Trek Picard S3.

    Dunno if anyone mentioned this but Laura bothers me. She was assimilated at Wolf 359? Fine, but all the drones, new or otherwise on that Cube were destroyed?

    Did the Borg drop off some of their new recruits before heading into Sol? Bleh.

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