Star Trek: Voyager

“Unimatrix Zero, Part II”

2.5 stars.

Air date: 10/4/2000
Teleplay by Brannon Braga & Joe Menosky
Story by Mike Sussman and Brannon Braga & Joe Menosky
Directed by Mike Vejar

"You'll have to destroy the entire collective to find them all." — Janeway

Review Text

Note: This episode was rerated from 3 to 2.5 stars when the season recap was written.

In brief: Played out about how I expected. Surprises are scarce, contrivances are plentiful, but it's a pretty enjoyable hour.

The funny thing about the implausible but well-crafted "Unimatrix Zero, Part II" is that it more or less plays out the only way it possibly could've. Everything here borders on the inevitable.

Obviously, Our Heroes would not still be Borg drones by the end of the episode (beware the Reset Button). Obviously, the crew's plan to subvert the hive mind and help the individualized Borg in Unimatrix Zero would be successful. Obviously, there would be some snags in the plan along the way. Obviously, Seven's romantic theme would play into the human storyline. Obviously, the setup in part one called for an eventual Borg insurgence within the collective, which would happen here. Obviously, a big season-opening budget would provide us with all the production design, makeup, and visual effects to give it a slick, high-tech look — yet another episode that proves this is one of, if not the, best-looking sci-fi shows on television.

What we have here is a story that contains few surprises but works so efficiently that it hardly matters. This is not an inspired episode of Voyager, or even a believable one, but it is an entertaining and interesting one, and it hints that there may be a Bigger Picture™ concerning the Borg that might be revisited down the line.

What I expected of "UMZ II" was pretty much what I got — a solid-on-its-own-terms cliffhanger resolution that left me puzzled with questions about the Borg (and especially, of course, the Borg Queen), but provided enough change in the Borg's situation to justify the effort and revisions used to get there.

Oh, the contrivances and silliness are here. I for one would still like to know how any Starfleet officer wakes up in the morning and decides they're going to march into a Borg cube and get assimilated (here, saw my hand off while I sit and watch calmly). Convenient how Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres all manage to get Assimilation Lite, which means no amputations or ocular implants. Even more convenient that they're able to remain individualized — separate from the hive mind, thanks to a magical device called a "neural suppressor." (Why wasn't such a device invented long before this? It probably could've been the undoing of the Borg centuries ago.) This allows them to walk about the Borg ship without easily being detected or detained, so they can set the Master Plan in motion.

Said plan suggests that the Borg need to renew their McAfee VirusScan license, not to mention establish a firewall between possible individualized Voyager crew drones and crucial network areas of the ship. Janeway et al are able to (easily) make their way to the ship's "central plexus," where Torres uploads the virus into the system, where it promptly spreads through the Borg collective. This virus has been designed to allow the drones who exist as individuals in the virtual reality realm Unimatrix Zero to retain their individuality when they awaken from their regeneration state, severing them from the collective. It also allows them to remember what ship they exist on in real life when they enter UMZ, supplying the Borg resistance movement some tactical means to subvert the hive. This is a neat concept, even though it makes Borg security look like Swiss cheese. (With all those drones walking around doing who-knows-what, you'd think some armed guards protecting crucial network areas of the collective would be prudent.)

Meanwhile there's a problem with Tuvok; his neural suppressor is not getting the job done, and his connection with the hive begins to turn him into a drone. This also allows the Borg Queen to figure out Janeway & Co.'s whereabouts in the collective and realize what they're doing. You'd think that the last person to have problems resisting the collective would be the mentally disciplined Tuvok, but there you are.

Subsequently, Janeway is held captive and the Borg Queen attempts to negotiate a surrender of the individualized Borg drones in UMZ. In a potent scene, the Queen destroys two entire Borg vessels with tens of thousands of drones because a handful of Borg on board had been severed from the collective, outside its control. This plays Janeway's conscience and respect for life against her own need to see the Borg's undoing: It hurts to watch Borg cubes incinerated by the collective will because of her own actions, but she'll be damned if she's going to give into the Queen's attempt to put down the insurgence ("You'll have to destroy the entire collective to find them all").

There are some other nice character touches in the episode, including some mildly ironic debating between Chakotay and Paris concerning command decisions, where Chakotay plays the Janeway role and Paris plays the Chakotay role.

Seven's romance with Axum (Mark Deakins) is more or less by the numbers, but the fact that it's Seven we're dealing with makes it a situation that seems halfway new. There's also a wonderfully acted and directed scene between Doc and Seven where they discuss this possible romance. As always, Doc/Seven is a character pairing that never seems to fail on this series. The subtle nuances in Robert Picardo's performance reveal Doc's true feelings for Seven without needing a single line of dialog to remind us.

As for the Borg Queen ... there's a fine line between a mystery and a muddle, and everything about the Queen resides on the "muddle" side of that line. What is the Queen's purpose? She is the collective personified as far as I can tell, used solely as a narrative tool so the audience knows what's going on and why. There are scenes where the Queen talks to herself to explain to us that links have been severed. Unlikely, but probably necessary for a television story. And there's also a scene where the Queen tells a child that she also was assimilated as a child. 'Scuse me? I always figured the Queen — who has been "killed" twice — was a symbolic drone simply assembled on demand. After "UMZ II" there's nothing for me to do but admit but logical defeat; there is no logic to apply here. (I highly doubt that even Braga & Menosky understand, or care about, the Borg rules that they've written by.)

A lot of people are unhappy that the Borg have been reduced to a presence that is no longer remotely intimidating or threatening. I will not be arguing that position, because the Borg have not been intimidating for years. There's no going back to what the Borg were in their TNG heyday, so I'm all about moving forward. The direction that "UMZ II" takes seems to me like a reasonable direction. It's certainly a better direction than the one proposed (and ultimately rejected) by TNG's "Descent."

The conclusion provides what I mean: the simple but intriguing concept of a Borg civil war. Yes, I wondered how General Korok (Jerome Butler), the Klingon drone from UMZ, could take command of an entire Borg ship with thousands of drones against him. And in thinking about it, I'm even a little hazy about the notion of the Queen delivering the second virus in UMZ. (If these drones can be traced through the Borg network to UMZ, surely they can be traced back to their real-life locations? I suppose the UMZ drones have a better-trained network administrator.) But the sight of one Borg ship firing on another is so bizarre, twisted, and interesting that I didn't care about the logical questions. I for one hope the Borg are changed forever. Heck, I wouldn't mind seeing this arc played all the way through until the Borg collective has fallen. That seems to be the direction we're headed in, and we certainly could use a storyline with a direction on this series.

"UMZ II" is such an efficient hour of production, in fact, that in retrospect it almost feels mechanical and preordained. It's an exercise in technical mastery more than it is creative storytelling. It lacks passion. It's a Borg drone.

And yet with sly conviction, it peddles BS like only the best door-to-door salesmen. Even though you know it's BS, you still want to buy it. Logic suggests that this story is so full of holes it's an incomprehensible mess. But somehow, it's not. It's remarkably confident on its terms, and it swept me along for the ride. Resistance was, as they say (but not anymore), futile.

Next week: Seven comes face to face with her mortality.

Previous episode: Unimatrix Zero, Part I
Next episode: Imperfection

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Comment Section

104 comments on this post

    Janeway and co showing no ill effects of their assimilation in later episodes is something of a slap in the face to TNG's "Family", which showed just how damaged Picard was by his ordeal in "Best of Both Worlds". Coming up with a plan to voluntarily be assimilated is one thing, but for the plan to have no impact on the characters was unbelievable. One of the most frustrating things about Voyager was the complete lack of actions having real consequences. Episodes which set up interesting avenues for the future were rounded off with "I'll give you my report in the morning"....ponderous expression on other character's face....CREDITS". And then when the next episode came along, it was as if nothing had happened.

    I don't think you can compare this situation with Picard's after Best of both Worlds. Picard is mostly suffering emotionally. Compare Picard's situation with rape and Janeway's with Engaging in the Act. Picard was suffering from being helpless and stripped off his personality and dignity. None of that happened with Voyager's guys.

    About the Borg Queen: They could have been able to retain at least a bit of the Borg sizzle if she had acted more like a drone, as the culmination but not independent mind of the whole.

    Whatever, dude.
    Voyager was a watered-down version of TNG just like Friday the 13th was a watered-down version of Halloween.

    Voyager didn't do a great job with the Borg, but I don't have a problem with them making the Borg less scary. The main reason that they were scary in "Q Who" and "Best of Both Worlds" was because they were unknown. The Borg fights on Voyager were supposed to be happening 7-10 years later, so it makes sense in that time that Starfleet would know a lot more about how to handle them, and the "mystery" factor would be lost.

    Voluntary assimilation was going too far though. It's true that the characters shouldn't have been emotionally scarred by the assimilation, because they participated in it willingly. However, it's a huge risk, and the characters should've likely failed, and no one even acknowledges that, as usual.

    I watched this episode on DVD for the first time last night and I feel it's the worst episode of ST: V I've seen yet. I just can't believe that a ship stranded in the Delta Quadrant would so willingly offer its captain, cheif engineer and tactical officer in order to save the dreams of the Borg. It struck me as an irresponsible thing for Janeway to decide to do and for the rest of the crew to so willingly go along with it. UMZ is a VR world. None of it truly exists. Voyager basically put itself at extreme risk for Bog dreams. And the fact that none of the away team was fully assimilated strikes me as lazy. I'm sure it was done solely for the benefit of making sure their recovery to their former selves would be as simple as possible. This was just very disappointing to me.

    Although I'm not a big fan of the Borg queen, this episode did raise an interesting question about her, and about the nature of the Borg as a whole when she tells the child in Unimatrix Zero that she was assimilated at about his age.

    So the Borg existed before the queen--does that mean that she somehow emerged as an individual but remained linked to the hive, thus changing the nature of the Borg? Or have there been a succession of queens (or kings)? If that's the case, how do they come to exist? Are they created by their predecessors, as the queen attempted to create Locutus? Or are they originally drones? Was this perhaps the role that the queen had for Seven of Nine when she brought her back to the Collective in Dark Frontier?

    Interesting questions--but unfortunately this episode will forever be hampered (for me anyway) by a glaring problem in the story--how do Axom and the others in Unimatrix Zero know that Seven has escaped the Collective? If they can't carry memories between Unimatrix Zero and the real world it seems there's no possible way they could know what's happened to her. She would have stopped appearing in Unimatrix Zero, but she could simply have died or been "deactivated" or whatever.

    Maybe this isn't a major problem in terms of willful suspension of disbelief, but it messes up the story for me.

    You know, this story started off really well. The idea of helping Borg regain their individuality was great. The idea that Janeway finally had real power (and could instill real fear in the Queen) was great. The 'let us get assimilated' method? Insane.

    This episode lost me as an interested viewer when the Queen says to the little boy, re: assimilation, "It's fun."

    Chakotay continues to go unused. At least he gets to sit in the Captain's chair.

    Neelix is at the comm station. Training? What?

    Tom gets promoted...Harry is still stuck as an Ensign at Ops. I'd file a complaint...or at least, get thrown in the brig first. Such a thing would appear to be a pre-req for more pips.

    The whole trippy "Borg dream" business smacks of Brannon Braga. Too bad that Axim character was such a shmuck, otherwise I might have had some sympathy for these drones.

    Meh, at least "Body and Soul" is coming up soon. That line about cheesecake always makes me smile.

    Voyager's episodes with the borg were a real disaster for the borg idea. InTNG the borg were mysterious, truly allien, truly different, the exact opposite of humanity but yet so similar to federation. After all was perfection an absolutely different goal from humanity's objective to better itself? it was the eans that were so different and it was the means that made borg so frightening. And then came voyager. The borg were transformed from an awesome villaint to something dangerous but also trivial loosing their radical difference. just another villaint race. In comparison with voyager's borg the dominion look much more threatening amd much more different. Thy were also trandformed from a race with truly collective consciousness to one with individual leadership. Their collectiveness was also destroyed with their transformation into mindless automata but collective consciousness amd mindless automata are two different things. Well what remained? almost nothing.

    I can live with the idea of doing new things with the borg, otherwise they're going to get pretty boring after a while (being the same one-dimensional "you'll be assimilated" over and over again). The trouble is that Voyager turned the borg into a horribly confused mess.

    Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres are lucky that none of them lost an eyeball.

    And what's the story with hair? Within 48 hours all three had their full coiffures back...

    The story with the hair is that the Doctor stimulates their hari folicles so hair grows again or some such thing. He did the same thing with Seven of Nine. I didn't UMZ was as good as Equinox and is one of the weaker Borg stories of Voyager, but still pretty enjoyable. I didn't mind Voyager adding mroe dimensions to the Borg. When a villain's been around that long you have to find something to make them more interesting.

    Way too many of you guys didn't get the episode. Which I guess qualifies as a flaw, but not for the reasons listed. Shows rarely explain everything, so here's a list of reasons for all your objections.

    1. A neural suppressor is not a device, it's a drug. One that the Doctor obviously created to combat being assimilated. It makes sense that this wouldn't have happened before, as, never before have they had a Borg to work with. Technology increases as it goes along.

    2. The Borg have no firewall because they gain knowledge solely though assimilation. And no other species has done anything like that before. They are also quite arrogant: "Resistance is futile", remember? They don't know their own flaws. Heck, Picard was able to tell Data how to hack the system by giving a sleep command. (Apparently the Queen was not activated at that point. More on this later.)

    3. Tuvok's brain, is different than everyone else's. Being a telepath is actually a problem here. It gives you a way to get into his brain despite the stuff blocking the probes. His inner strength could also be a problem. It means that, once the thought gets in his head, it's a lot stronger than everyone else's. So not only does it make sense froma plot view (Tuvok goes evil a lot), it makes sense from an in-universe view.

    4. THe Borg Queen is an admission by the Borg that sometimes an individual is necessary to make quick decisions. You'll notice she's not always active, but only comes into play when she's necessary. Data and Picard beat the Borg beat them with the sleep command when she wasn't active. If she were, she could have overridden it. But now they knows that, whenever humans are involved, they need her.

    As for her being assimilated as a child--remember, she has all the memories of every drone. I mean, if Seven can have residuals from those she assimilated, surely the queen has more. There's got to be at least one drone that was assimilated as a kid, So she can truthfully say "she" was. But, even if not, why couldn't the villain be lying?

    5. The Klingon was probably not alone, and being Borgified, can get past all the security as easily as Janeway and Co did. With his individuality intact, he's essentially cut off from the Queen. He can use his willpower once he's killed enough drones (which don't expect anything. More on that later.)

    6. The Unimatrix gene obviously makes it hard for the Queen to track what's going on. This one's explicit. The virus just activates the gene even when they aren't regenerating. Unfortunately, this disconnects them from the network and she can trace them. But it takes a little bit of time. Otherwise, why wouldn't she have just blown up all the rogue ships at once? And apparently, do to the arrogance-induced lack of security mentioned above, the cubes themselves don't have a contingency plan.

    7. Of course they show no ill effects. Tuvok was the only one who was actually assimilated. And he's Vulcan, and isn't going to show his pain. For the rest of them, their minds stayed intact the whole time. It wouldn't make sense for them to have ill effects, other than maybe some physical problems. But Neelix has had nanoprobes in his system for a while, and it hasn't been a problem.

    8. Voluntary assimilation: yeah, that does seem weird. It would make more sense if it were a life or death situation. But perhaps regrowing limbs and eyes isn't impossible with Doc's medical science. And the neural suppressant, by it's very name, would probably double as a pain killer.

    9. Harry is a bit character. They were even going to get rid of him rather than Kes at the beginning of season 4. There's no reason he deserves a promotion now more than he did in the past. Also, don't forget the weird bureaucracy mentioned later that you can't promote an ensign in the field. Remember Tom's promotion is purely restitution for a demotion. (As could be Tuvok's--if you watch the early episodes carefully, you'll notice he originally had the bars of a full commander.) And, anyways, rank is pretty arbitrary out here. Kim's been getting leadership positions despite his rank for a while, as has everyone else on the bridge. The ranks don't mean much, other than indicating the captain's approval.

    Yes, some of these are a bit fanwanky, like #4a, #5,#8, 9b. But the point is, if you don't come in looking for flaws, and take the time to think about the ones you do notice, you can resolve most things. I see no more plot holes than anything else I've ever seen.

    If you want to get started on anything, talk about the acting. Yuck! I originally read these all in recap form, where they seemed a lot better because I could imagine how the actors sounded. Seeing the real thing is a disappointment. And this goes for all of Voyager, as well as Enterprise.

    I might also add that the klingon was on a really small ship: It wasn't crewed by thousands of borg.

    What I found hard to believe was that Voyager was able to hold its own against that cube. Unless your techonology is far superior, you shouldn't be able to take on an opponent who's 20 times your size.

    "3. Tuvok's brain, is different than everyone else's. Being a telepath is actually a problem here. It gives you a way to get into his brain despite the stuff blocking the probes. His inner strength could also be a problem. It means that, once the thought gets in his head, it's a lot stronger than everyone else's. So not only does it make sense froma plot view (Tuvok goes evil a lot), it makes sense from an in-universe view."

    Do you honestly think Spock would've succumbed so easily to the collective had this been a TOS episode?

    I agree with Jammer's reviews, that the Borg have been watered down: they seemed most frightening as a cold, relentless, ruthless collective mind (i.e. Seven's threat to transport 500 drones to Voyager in Scorpion Part 2).

    Introducing the Borg Queen made the Borg personal rather than a ruthless Artificial Intelligence. Allowing characters to be assimilated willingly and easily undo that experience made the Borg too easy to defeat.

    In any case, this is only a TV show, and it was still fun to watch the action/adventure. The virtual reality element was really neat, and seemed a legitimate way to rebel against Borg assimilation.

    Voyager was left at the end of Season 6 with the Borg cube kicking its ass; yet here we open with the ship intact and no Borg in sight.

    Just a couple of things to comment on: The Doc encouraging Seven to "explore" (*rolls eyes*) her amorous entanglement with Whatsisname in Unimatrix Zero. Why the hell can't they all just let her be her?! Is The Doc (BTW, I thought he had settled on the name Schmalus, Schweitzer, Schlemiel or somesuch(?)) going to be there telling her how to f**k in the most "human" and sensual way, too, when the time comes?!? Honestly... I found the schmaltzy shots of her and Axum "bonding" fake and superfluous. I'll tune into some cheesy Mexican telenovela for that, thank you. And scenes of Seven smiling and acting all girly were just uncalled for.

    And where the hell did Torres spring out from at the end? Hadn't she been seized together with Janeway? This time it wasn't deus ex machina but Torres ex machina.

    Ah yep, and Harry "Can't-Get-A-Lock" Kim couldn't get a lock, twice this time around. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! This is what, the 200th time!?! What a schmuck! LOL!!

    Heheh as Dean says above: It's just a T.V. show :)

    Worst Borg episode ever, for 2 reasons:

    - Voluntarily assimilation = insane
    - Motivation of the Borg Queen = insane

    "Ahm a gonna bloooow up my own ships! You better stop meeee!!!" As a starfleet captain, I would be ecstatic. Since it is unlikely that most borg drones could ever be saved, and that billions of individuals WOULD be saved from future assimilation, it's a no brainer. Sure! Let's blow up more of those cubes, can I help?

    As for their lack of trauma vs. Jean-Luc in 'Family', remember that Jean-Luc was forced to lead an attack and betray and kill thousands of starfleet officers. Not the case here.

    Why is the Queen bathed in green light even in the Unimatrix?

    Torres speaking with that vocal thing sounded like Janeway normally. Maybe Kate Mulgrew has been a Borg sleeper-agent all along.

    The Borg just don't interest me all that much I have to say (maybe because I've never really watched TNG and so missed them actually being scary). I always hate whenever the crew transport to a Borg ship and just casually dander past all these drones doing nothing - just makes them seem dopey and not a threat in any way. Where did the Borg come from anyway? I assume they must have been man-made (or alien-made). Were they an experiment that went out of control?

    The Borg Queen telling the kid about the joys of being in the collective was actually a very good scene to my mind. Yes, I agree she doesn't make much sense, but I think the writers do well with what they've got.

    If anything Harry should be demoted for never, ever, ever, ever, ever getting a lock. Why does he even bother turning up for duty?

    Paris is the 4th highest ranking character? What about Lt. Chapman from Someone to Watch Over Me? When will he get his time to shine? ;)

    Am I the only one who finds Chakotay to be a far better captain than Janeway? He's not a nutcase and seems far more approachable and doesn't act like a passive-aggressive mother hen to the crew.

    @Chris''One of the most frustrating things about Voyager was the complete lack of actions having real consequences. Episodes which set up interesting avenues for the future were rounded off with "I'll give you my report in the morning"....ponderous expression on other character's face....CREDITS". And then when the next episode came along, it was as if nothing had happened.''

    Sums up my Voyager feelings exactly. Loved the first two eps. The rest - BORING. ... Even in TNG's early years with the ATROCIOUS episodes you could be entertained by the vileness and laugh at their absurdity. Not so, Voyager.

    @ all those arguing Chakotay was a better leader and more interesting character than Janeway that was shockingly underused......I agree completely.

    One major flaw to me is the fact that they didn't change their command codes. Hey lets voluntarily be assimilated and don't bother changing the command codes as we are certain the neural block will work.

    Lol at Tony's comment:-

    "Do you honestly think Spock would've succumbed so easily to the collective had this been a TOS episode?"

    I just watched Stand By Me the other day (it's been 25 years) and this reminds me of the "Do you think Mighty Mouse would beat Superman in a fight?" question in that movie. These kind of pointless debates are better left to a certain age group.

    Whenever someone is run through the transporter, they are essentially recreated from new matter. And in TNG S2's "Unnatural Selection", we found that DNA can be used to rematerialize someone even from a former state. All that being so, it would seem that any being could be "un-Borged" simply by running them through the transporter with their pre-Borg DNA.

    Again, ditto to all the criticisms made above.

    Also...if the Borg Queen's nanoprobe disease could be administered in Unimatrix Zero, why did Janeway, Torres, and Tuvok have to go to the Borg ship in person to administer theirs?

    Did I miss a line of technobabble that explains this INSANE GAPING PLOT HOLE?!

    ""3. Tuvok's brain, is different than everyone else's. [...]"

    Do you honestly think Spock would've succumbed so easily to the collective had this been a TOS episode?"

    He succumbed to those 'givers of pleasure and pain', so why not :)

    "I agree with Jammer's reviews, that the Borg have been watered down: they seemed most frightening as a cold, relentless, ruthless collective mind (i.e. Seven's threat to transport 500 drones to Voyager in Scorpion Part 2)."

    Yes, but it's almost cringe-worthy to hear the Borg say in their first appearance (in whatever TNG episode that was), "If you resist you will be punished," given what badasses they were drawn as later.

    @Jammer, I believe the Borg subscribed to Symantec, not McAfee. That would explain why they had so many problems with Starfleet viruses...

    @trkly,

    Since you seem so adept at resolving plot holes, maybe you can explain the most glaring.

    How could Seven's love interest in UMZ possibly have been assimilated at Wolf-359? That cube was destroyed.

    Also, WTF is the point of the "vocal sub-processor"? I thought talking was irrelevant...

    @Justin

    Good point about the vocal sub-processor, they just use it to try and scare people I think.

    Sometimes I curse "The Caretaker" for being so good. It got me hooked into this show and for the most part it's been a tedious ride. This episode really takes the cake though. Other reviewers try to explain the plot holes, but I don't think there's anything to explain. I think the writers just stopped caring. Getting Picard back in "Best of Both Worlds" seemed like such an impossible feat, viewers spent the whole summer in suspense. In this case, we know everything will be back to normal with some technobabble explanation. If salamanders can be turned back into humans without a second thought, why not Borg? Why not anything? I know "Threshold" isn't supposed to count, but it's really only a step more ridiculous than this. A small step.

    Regarding Michael and everyone's assumption that he is a troll, (I know it's not mentioned by anyone here but it is in lots of other threads) I beg to differ. I suspect Michael probably has Asperger Syndrome and therefore any scenes involving emotion are, as the Borg would say, irrelevant. (I apologize if I'm way off the mark, Michael) Regardless, it's all a matter of opinion so why get upset? I'll never understand why people will say a review is "wrong." How can an opinion be wrong? Reviews are fun because they give you an idea of what other people are thinking and offer fresh perspectives, but any review should be taken with a grain of salt. Unless it was written by your clone, you're not always going to agree with it. I usually agree with Jammer, but I think "Barge of the Dead" and "Muse" are both awful episodes, and I loved "Tsunkatse." Repeat after me: "It's only an opinion. It's only an opinion..."

    The only thing I would like to add to this review is that the scene where the Queen visits UMZ was VERY good. I found her conversation with the child to be one of the most chilling scenes in all of Star Trek and the actress playing the Queen in particular absolutely NAILED it. Nevermind the logical inconsistencies (that should be the tagline for the entire series, though, shouldn't it?), that scene was CREEPY and the "Serpent in The Garden" symbolism was not lost on me. I would give the half a star back based on that alone.

    I writhed agonizingly in my chair when the queen got Voyager's command codes from Tuvok. Do these people ever change their bloody command codes during a possible compromising situation?! This isn't the first time something like this has happened and in every single situation, it's STUPID!

    Anyhoo, parts of this episode were kinda cool, parts were pretty bad. Production was top-notch so at least it was nice to look at. Overall, it gets a slightly upbeat "meh" from me.

    @trlkly
    I think you need to comment on every episode to explain away the plot holes. I think most people over think them. i enjoyed that response. i feel like i could do it on every episode but then it would be tedious.

    good episode, but the voluntary assimilation is lame. they should have found a better way. cause..as someone pointed out. you dont want your 3 BEST officers ASSIMILATED! and dang, that would be SCARY!

    4 stars for action. 3 stars for plot

    I realized about 15 minutes into the first episode of this two-parter that I would have to shut off my logic machine to get any enjoyment out of the rest of it. Boy, is that a hard thing for me to do. Here is what I liked about the episodes:

    - Good special effects
    - Good make up (the goryiest episode of tv Trek by far, I think)
    - Good set design
    - Decent acting by the cast

    And, that's about it. There is simply no logic anywhere to be found in these episodes. The Borg is an absolute mess at this point in the series history, and I mean a mess premise-wise.

    And, yes. I find things like cliffhanger season enders to be scummy, manipulative, dirt-bag TV moves, one of the many bullsh*t things tv does that that keeps me watching it in any way that will allow them to make money. If they are going to be aholes to their audiences, I will be an ahole to them and watch their mostly crappy dreck for free forever. ha ha ha. TV is the only thing in the universe I feel comfortable stealing.

    I'm back after taking a bit of a break from Voyager! For the most part, I liked it even if I feel as though it just wasn't enough to get excited about. Jammer rightly points out that you know exactly how it'll unfold, the familiar format of the plot and an ending that lets Voyager sail gracefully away with everything as it was.

    I still like this episode, especially the second half, and as always I can't fault the character work or the dazzling direction and fun touches. I only wish Voyager had been more willing to sometimes be unpredictable and challenged convention just to keep everyone guessing and inject more fire into the proceedings...

    2.5 stars sounds about right for a fun, if unspectacular, ride!

    The Queen now has the power to unilaterally destroy other Borg individuals, even vessels full of them...so much for a hive mind.

    Also, Icheb's absence was absolutely screaming throughout this episode, all things considered.

    Also...what is the insignia Chakotay has on his collar? It's not the usual 3 pips of a commander / first officer, but rather a long rounded bar.

    In regard to Jammer's review:

    I don't get why Jammer so often would come down hard on a Voyager story for being "predictable". Sure, the stories are predictable - every single TV-show has loads and loads of predictable episodes - among those shows are TOS, TNG and DS9.
    There areonly so-and-so many kinds of stories you can tell, and only so-and-so many ways you can tell it. Star Trek is basically the same five stories told over, over and over again throughout the diffrent series (and movies) with basically the same crew of characters (with small differences inbeteween crews). There are only so-and-so many points of view you can use to tell the story, only so-and-so many plot-twist-devices you can use ... and so on.

    Not even any of the TOS episodes where ground breaking or even original compared to the many, many years of storytelling, on TV, in books and so on, that had come before.

    To me, the episodes of Voayger are no more or less tedious in their predictability than mos other TV-shows (including other Trek shows), and I feel Jammer wasn't being "fair" to the show when calling the stories predictable, inevitable and all the other stuff.

    To me, Voyager WAS the weaest of all the Trek shows (yes, including Enterprise), but that has nothing to do with predictability of the stories.

    On this episode:

    I found the scene with the Borg Queen and the kid to be fantastic - other than that, a horrible mess. The fact that someone feels the need to write a very long post explaining how plot holes MIGHT be explained just cements the fact that the writers were incredibly lazy ... the big point being, that if the writers had done their job to any satisfaction, there should and would be NO NEED for such a list.

    Voyager was scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one.

    MILDLY AMUSING MOMENTS:

    - janeway gets a blue laser.
    - the Borg effects, needlessly gory with the vivisection, were on par with Borg lore.

    Wow, that's about it.
    The Borg are now so watered down, they're about as scary as a basket full of puppies. surprise surprise, the borg have a holo deck ...oh excuse me, a dreamworld, same concept really.

    We're left with a lowest common denominator episode, lacking in both scifi conceits, storytelling tension, suspense, or even the need for sympathy for the characters. That the entire exercise was completely avoidable made it even more pointless. 1 star. ;)

    Here's an idea, instead of the unbelievable and crazy assimilation plan: how about if Janeway, Tuvok and Torres just beam over and Borg-looking suits? They could get all suited and make-upped up and just look like Borg! Because, from the episode, we can conclude that the Borg simply accepted them as Borg because they look like Borg, not because they could also hear their thoughts. If it was a prerequisite that the other Borg could hear Janeway, Tuvok and Torres's thoughts, then they would've had a problem early on because of the "neural suppressant".

    @Jack: Yes, where were Icheb and the other ex-Borg kiddies in this episode? Would've been nice to have a scene looking at how they were doing during the conflict between Voyager and the Borg vessel. I imagine they might have been nervous about getting assimilated again… But that would have meant less action and more character development.

    One thing I thought was a nice aspect of the episode was the way that Seven was different inside of Unimatrix Zero. I thought Jeri Ryan did a nice job with that. And, it was nice to see her in some more normal looking clothes. I hate the sparkly jumpsuits!

    I couldn't get past the insane choice to get assimilated and even that lost its horror when I see bad rubber suits (Esp. Janeway) and bad airbrushing. Just because they kept their thoughts doesn't mean they walk and have the mobility of their old selves. Walk like Borg!

    Restored crew nit pick: These three could never be 100% organic again. Or seven would. They would still have robotic components in vital areas and nanoprobes in their blood which brings me to why didn't Janeway or the others ever volunteer their nanoproves to heal the radioactive people in Friendship one? Or trip on when Borg are near :-) Something acknowledging they're forever changed would have been cool.

    Queen to deactivated drone: "Too bad you're not awake to experience the joy of disembodiment. It's so ... perfect."

    LOL.

    I think the second part may be a slight improvement over the first, but it makes sense that you downgraded the rating when you wrote the season recap, because two major things could have and should have come out of this episode, and didn’t (should we be surprised?)
    One is the Borg resistance movement, which never got even a passing reference, not even in the finale. So what was the point of these episodes if not to set up the demise of the Borg?
    The other is Seven’s personal development… This would have been the perfect opportunity for her to change her appearance and attitude to a more « human » one, the way she acted in the VR. But of course UPN probably feared that would lead to a Felicity-style ratings disaster.

    Also, what seriously hampers the drama is the fact that all of the characters seem aware of the Reset Button. The Doc and Seven both say « WHEN this crisis is over », not « If ». That being said, the moment were General Korok arrives, having taken over the sphere touting « We’ve come to join you in battle » still gets me cheering.

    An action episode that is not totally bad in its action. One or two scenes are mildly chalenging - and therefore rewarding - like the Borg Queen destroying Borg ships in front of the captain and forcing the captain to be tough.

    However, while still better than the first part, it only can't pass over the absurdity, stupidity, that was set by its first part. The ridiculous watery of Seven, now portrayed as a "previously chosen one", since she is a character that already had individually blooming much before. In the end, a ridiculous two-parter, one of these that makes I wish the show was finished before.

    PS: the Avatar nature of Unimatrix Zero is intriguing.

    PS2: here the spherical ship of Korok looks more similar than always to Star War's Death Star.

    "Something acknowledging they're forever changed would have been cool."

    Voyager didn't acknowledge things that happened in previous episodes. Continuity was an extreme rarity. And even when continuity did happen, it made no sense and was fairly badly written, as in the early season and with Fury.

    There are some good concepts here, but the Borg have served as tired villains through almost every appearance on Voyager. Part of the problem is that the intrepid (no pun intended) crew of Voyager seemingly always defeat them, leaving the Borg Queen more akin to a Scooby Doo villain in competence.

    That is,
    "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for meddling Captain Janeway!"

    Part of the problem is the Queen herself. Before First Contact, the Borg were faceless, monolithic, utterly inhuman. While a good movie, I still don't think the reconceptualization of the Borg as a more conventional villain really worked. On Voyager, the Queen makes a decent antagonist for Janeway, but the results are inevitably preordained. Voyager, with its limited resources, will be able to thwart the Borg Queen's plans again and again with hardly any consequence.

    The assimilation of Janeway, Torres, and Tuvok is the perfect example of a lack of consequences. Picard wasn't left unscathed - at first physically, and later emotionally - and seemingly permanently. That was what made First Contact successful as a character story.

    In this episode, we get some interesting stuff for Seven, but the actual "romance" is pretty by the numbers. Where the episodes doesn't quite work is its lack of focus. Janeway's confrontations with the Queen are pedestrian.

    Unimatrix Zero on the whole struck me as nothing more than a rip off of the then popular Matrix film, it was trying to rewrite the Borg as machines enslaving flesh with the lull of perfection. Doesn't work because it was badly executed and the Borg suffered as a formidable nemesis due to overuse and too many writers.
    I did like the Queen in Unimatrix Zero though, too bad that kid was ignored by everyone otherwise everything the Queen said was a lie, Seven and other liberated Drones said they hear the thoughts of millions of others as a noise in their heads suggesting there's no direct communication. The Queen also lied about emotions, that boy will be raised - as Seven was - to be a Drone. Instead of having a Drone persona supplant his own like his and the Queens parent, he'll be raised to think and speak as the hive mind voice that sometimes speaks to the Queen. Of course, one year later, he's dead through future Janeways actions....

    It has all been said above, and I already commented in the Part 1 comments, so I'll just say I liked this episode overall. 3 stars

    P.S.
    @Adara
    Trust me. If I was cloned, we would not always agree with each other. I'd be sleeping with one eye open, and I guess so would he.

    @Lt. Yarko
    I don't mind Cliffhangers, as long as the next Season actually airs. For example: There was a Season 3 Cliffhanger for the show Kyle XY, but the show was cancelled. I need closure. OCD OCD OCD

    I thought this was OK, some decent action, some nice character moments, Korok the Borg Klingon in attack mode, what's not to like? The voluntary assimilation is however somewhat problematic - I guess it's really just as well they didn't take off an arm - and I'm also slightly disturbed by the Doctor's closing "I managed to remove most of the Borg implants". So what's left behind then...? 3 stars.

    (With apologies to No Doubt)

    Don't think
    We don't know what we're doing
    But the plot must keep on moving
    Turn your brain off 'cause it hurts

    This has got to be the worst two-parter in all of Trekdom so far. When Voyager first encountered the Borg, there was some serious urgency there, elevating Scorpion and the show overall. When Best of Both Worlds aired, there was tension and fear in practically every scene dealing with the Borg, and so many tiny little touches told you that this was real, this was serious. Here? Enh, whatever, just another day in the office.

    I know people think the Borg were neutered before this episode, but other than Dark Frontier's admittedly silly ending, we never really had a direct confrontation with the Borg. They were a side piece to the tale of Voyager, which arguably was far superior to actually using them as an adversary since, naturally, Voyager stands no chance.Yes, Dark Frontier's ending... but we can explain it away as only a one-time thing. Personally, this episode I think is the one that fully neutered the Borg.

    It's not just that there was no real element of danger. It's that there was no real element of, well, Borgness. There was no real fear there. And no real characters. Everything was thrown aside to service a shaky plot. Logic was destroyed. Characters were absurd. Tension was erased. Coincidences were everywhere. We were going to hit the action scenes we wanted to show and push the tale along, and hope our audience is too distracted by the fact that it's the Borg.

    - If these people in Unimatrix Zero are unaware of anything in UZ when they're awake, and they can't interact with the real world when they're in UZ, how was Axum able to know Seven was severed from the collective and not just dead (surely they would have noticed several members of their community disappear forever at that time, given that 8472 was blowing up planets and all)? And how did Axum contact Seven? Um, a wizard did it.

    - If the Borg Queen is completely connected to each drone, why was she torturing one of the drones for information? Doesn't she already know everything? Oh, but it makes her look more sinister to be a generic Bad Guy rather than part of the Borg collective. Well, at least according to the producers. Just looked silly to me.

    - Speaking of turning the Borg into generic villains, what's with communicating with Voyager and taunting Janeway and Harry and all? Seriously, what's the point? I know people hate the idea of a Borg Queen, but I thought she was ok in First Contact. There was no reason not to assume that she was just a personification of the Borg collective, meant to communicate with Data. She wasn't necessarily an individual controlling mindless minions. But here, she definitely is, and that diminishes both her and the Borg. She has no character of her own anymore. She's just Bad Guy. Torturing her minions when she doesn't get her way, taunting the hero, and failing in the end. This isn't the same chilling collective from Best of Both Worlds. It's not even the chilling collective from Scorpion!

    - So, 1 in a million drones has this mutation. What a coincidence that Seven was one of them. Oh, and someone from Wolf 359 (seriously, weren't there only 60 ships there? At most, maybe 20k people were assimilated...). And MULTIPLE Klingons? Wouldn't we have heard about it if the Klingons were waging war with the Borg? Wouldn't they have requested assistance from their Federation allies? But hey, fans like Klingons! So let's just show them instead of any other random alien!

    - So the existence of UZ is an existential threat to the Borg. And the Queen discovers she can send her own drones in to attack the UZ population. Therefore, the leader of a race of hundreds of billions of drones... sends in a dozen at a time. Dude, you've assimilated humans, surely you've read Lord of the Rings. Go all Sauron on them and just overwhelm the little hamlet with millions of soldiers. You're the Borg, crushing resistance is what you do! So why didn't she? Because shut up, that's why. It would ruin the plot!

    - Once again, we have the Voyager cliche of Janeway deciding something (I'm going alone!), then someone talking to her (Chakotay), and then Janeway reversing her decision. Is this supposed to be meaningful character dialog? In this instance, having it be Chakotay strongly disagreeing with her actually works given Scorpion and Equinox (as well as their earlier discussion), but the fact that this is so prevalent bugs me. It makes Janeway look weak and indecisive, which is definitely not their intent. And besides, it's been done so much it's boring now.

    - Next, of course, we have the assault on a tactical Borg cube. In Dark Frontier, they needed outside-the box tactics to defeat even a tiny scout ship. In First Contact, the entire fleet needed Picard's inside knowledge to defeat a normal cube. Here? Enh, whatever, just go in guns blazing, it'll be fine. You know how, in the Avengers movies, all the rest of the superheros basically freaked out when the Hulk hulked out? Imagine if, instead, one of the normal humans like, say, Hawkeye, just casually said he'd take care of it and then fight the Hulk to a standstill. It'd be a joke. The whole Marvel Universe thingy would be ruined. So why should we accept that here? Because the plot said so. And the plot wanted to ratchet up the tension by making it be a supercube. Except that, by failing to address how suicidal that mission was in the actual action scene, it meant nothing. Other than to anger anyone who wished for any sort of continuity on this show.

    - I'm not even going to get into the stupidity of assimilation being part of the plan. Everyone else said that enough...

    - So Tuvok's telepathy is now a way for the Borg to take him over. That's rather random. But hey, the plot needs tension, and we already threw everything else out the window with this episode, so why not? Maybe the crew should have thought that through before just giving this trio neural suppressors and just diving in to the mission. Shouldn't their technobabble have thought of that?

    - Why did Seven react so negatively to Axum saying they used to be lovers? That giant emotional outburst doesn't seem to be in character for her. It doesn't seem to be in character for anyone. Sorry you lost your memory of this place, Seven, but he's just telling you the facts. And yeah, he probably wants to rekindle the relationship. But all you gotta do is say no. You don't have to freak out and overreact. But, well, this is Voyager. Voyager's idea of character development is to have a character act in an extreme way in the first half of the show, then have a quiet chat with another character, then completely change their mind. It's stupid, of course, but it's the typical approach they use. And that's the exact formula we have here. And why bother deviating from the formula when it's failed to work so far? At least, that's assuming that was what happened. Honestly, I really struggled to pay attention in the second half of the show.

    - Wait, so the Borg Queen's evil plan to convince Janeway to do what she wants is to blow up her own ships? Didn't Picard seriously consider genocide against the Borg? Wasn't everyone pretty much on board with that plan? Isn't everyone in the Delta quadrant trying to destroy as many cubes as possible? Just how exactly is this supposed to convince Janeway of anything? Sure, some of her new-found allies are on those ships, but she's the one who wanted them to go to war. And we've been told that assimilation is a fate worse than death anyway. So, um, shouldn't Janeway be happy that those ships are self-destructing? And for that matter, doesn't the Queen have a giant tactical cube sitting right by Voyager that could probably curb-stomp it in 2 seconds if it wanted to? Shouldn't that be her bargaining chip? But nah, we already turned the Queen into generic bad guy, might as well transition her to crazy bad guy.

    - Oh look, out of the thousands of light years of Borg space, Korok just so happens to be on a ship right by Voyager. Just one more random coincidence that we aren't supposed to think about to end this episode.

    By the way, those are just the MAJOR issues. I didn't even bother to list all the silly minor things, like the Doctor saying UZ is not during REM sleep despite the episode opening with a Borg in REM sleep, or Tuvok being born on Stardate 38774 (uh, 15 years ago?), or Neelix manning a bridge station during a time of crisis.

    It's not that I can't turn my brain off for episodes; Genesis is a guilty pleasure of mine. But for that one, the episode just isn't a big deal. Trek wants to do a horror movie? Fine, we'll let them. Just one episode, turn the page. But this is the season cliffhanger, meant to be dramatic and filled with tension and keep you excited anxious for the new season to start. It's the exact opposite of fluff!

    It's hard to take anything that happens in this episode seriously when the writers didn't take it seriously. The Borg are no longer an existential threat; they are the generic villains of the week. The Borg no longer instill fear in anyone, everyone (except Paris and the Doctor) just takes the idea of attacking a giant cube as just another day in the office. Assimilation is no longer a fate worse than death; it's all part of the plan! And everything must follow our standard plot, and we'll just rush past any stupidities or inconsistencies and hope you didn't notice. Well, sorry Voyager, but I did.

    You can try to defend this episode by saying you were still entertained, or it was exciting, or whatever. If so, that's your preference, and there's nothing wrong with that. But from a writing standpoint, it's terrible. There is no consistency, either with the series as the whole or within the episode itself. There is no connection between the various scenes, the narrative feels false. You can't root for your heroes when the rules change with whatever whim the writers have. I am reminded of the conversation between Tuvok and Paris in Worst Case Scenario. Tuvok claims a plot should follow logically from the characters personalities; Tom claimed plot twists were fun regardless of if makes sense.

    Voyager has had a pretty decent run over these past three seasons, but this is a terrible start to its final year.

    Skeptical,

    Agree. I skip this one on every rewatch. I consider Voyager to have most of the finest 2-parters in the franchise, but they really tanked it with this one.

    @Skeptical

    "Speaking of turning the Borg into generic villains, what's with communicating with Voyager and taunting Janeway and Harry and all? Seriously, what's the point?"

    Absolutely, what was the point of taunting Harry? I've never understood that. Was it just to make her seem more intimidating? Because if so it failed miserably.

    "Wouldn't we have heard about it if the Klingons were waging war with the Borg? Wouldn't they have requested assistance from their Federation allies? But hey, fans like Klingons! So let's just show them instead of any other random alien!"

    That one's not quite fair. There is a throwaway line in "The Best of Both Worlds" when the admiral tells them that the fleet is going to meet the Cube at Wolf 359 which deals with the Klingons. He tells the Enterprise crew that the Klingons are sending ships. So, I'm willing to believe that it's possible that Klingons would have been assimilated at the Battle. But believe me, there are plenty of other problems with the Klingons in this two-parter - not the least of which being that Korok just happens to be anywhere near Voyager.

    "Dude, you've assimilated humans, surely you've read Lord of the Rings. Go all Sauron on them"

    Obviously she hasn't. Sauron is a puppet master, skillfully pulling all the strings while he sits, supposedly, safe in his fortress. The Borg Queen is nowhere near as smart as Sauron. She's more akin to Doctor Chaotica.

    "Next, of course, we have the assault on a tactical Borg cube."

    Yeah, the Federation barely survived by the skin of its teeth twice against a normal run-of-the-mill Cube. The best Starfleet could do was nothing against the curbstomp power of a Cube and it was basically only luck that saved the day. But now, Voyager alone is going to go up against the ship the Borg send in when shit really gets real? It doesn't get any more stupid than that!

    I still remember the first time I watched "Q Who", back in TNG's second season, and thinking WOW, the Enterprise is actually going to lose.. they're going to all get destroyed by the Borg..

    Now of course it'd be silly if that'd actually happened but the thing was the Borg were a FAR SUPERIOR adversary that our guys had no chance against whatsoever. It made it much more gripping because you finally had a real enemy that your weekly heroes just couldn't defeat.

    BoBW (both parts) and the first one with Hugh are other standout Borg episodes I can rewatch again and again (and have!)

    But even maybe going back as far as the Descent episodes the Borg have just been continuously watered down time and time again. Just another thing DS9 did right- either by accident or design- it was that they never had the friggin' Borg in it!

    Del_Duio: "Just another thing DS9 did right- either by accident or design- it was that they never had the friggin' Borg in it!"

    Ahem. Never, except for the first scene of the first episode.

    Agreed that there's a lot of goofy things going on in this episode and after a lengthy de-fanging campaign of the Borg the writers still manage to find a few more fangs to pull, but somehow it ends up being entertaining and greater than the sum of its parts.

    And the Borg Queen always has an ominous green light on her at all times, even within the natural outdoor lighting of Unimatrix Zero because of her loyal retainers who dutifully follow her around with portable lighting stands, yet furtively conceal themselves behind bulkheads and bushes so that they are barely noticed.

    Bryan,

    "And the Borg Queen always has an ominous green light on her at all times, even within the natural outdoor lighting of Unimatrix Zero because of her loyal retainers who dutifully follow her around with portable lighting stands, yet furtively conceal themselves behind bulkheads and bushes so that they are barely noticed. "

    lol ....

    Kind of like the white 60's babe glow on the women and woman aliens in TOS... those invisible retainers also had equipment to give us "babe" music :-)

    @ Grumpy-

    You know what I mean lol!

    At least that was done very well, and portrayed them like they should've always been.

    I'd like to say the idea of a Borg civil war is genius - it is however extremely obvious - but that does not detract from the concept.

    That idea however should have been implemented a lot earlier - and it would have allowed a lot of the other Borg episodes to actually make sense - the Borg with internal fractures would be a lot weaker, and that matches how they have constantly been portrayed in Voyager.

    Having said that - the premises of the story are ridiculous - there are literally an infinite number of other methods in which this could have been achieved. The concept of the UMZ itself was ok, and could have been kept - but the Away Team Assimilation Plan is so toxic and lacking logic, and so plainly BAD - how could any writer convince themselves that this was a valid approach?

    The whole 'Dialog with the Borg' idea - especially the Queen is really annoying - everything could have been accomplished with limited chit chat with the Borg directly - and Janeway poncing around and acting tough is just so stupidly overdone bah .. she would have crapped in her pants .. lets be realistic.

    As for the Borg blowing up its own ships - jeesus .. I would have cracked up laughing .. "Great strategy Queen .. keep at it .. Im about to break .. just blow up a few thousand more ships."

    Overall an enjoyable show, as for the the Borg Civil War - I say, about time. However the realistic dread and fear that should have been apparent, was starkly absent - giving it a totally cartoonish feel.

    I always imagined that this was a story that Neelix told to the borg-children after he finished the other story from "The Haunting of Deck 12".

    I don't know if this is the worst episode of Voyager, but it comes close for me. The more I think about it, the less I like it. At every point I think "wait, that wouldn't work".

    Example: The Borg Queen sees Janeway in Unimatrix Zero. Drones not under the control of the collective are a vital threat to the borg apparently. There is a Tactical Cube within 3 lightyears of Voyager. Soooooo .... destroy Voyager? Episode over, series done? No.

    Janeway is onboard of your tactical cube. You are the Queen. You know everything. You assimilate Janeway. You can't hear Janeway. Kill Janeway, while tracking down Voyager and assimilating it. If you can't assimilate it, kill it. I was fine with the Borg ignoring intruders before when they didn't view them as a threat, that was fine in TNG and earlier in Voyager. But now you KNOW they are a threat.

    A Tactical Cube has no tractor beam apparently.

    A super advanced torpedo from a megapowerfull tactical cube that has Voyagers shield frequency instantly destroys ... half a hull plate of Voyager.

    Voyager shoots the Cube. Harry says "Direct hit, no damage to their shield emitters". Later, the cube needs two hours to repair his transwarp drive. Why? You didn't even scratch the shields.

    How does that "Neuro Supressor" even work? The borg uplink is physical, not psychological.

    The Queen tries to supress the interlink frequency of UMZ. She fails, but recognises that it is a triangulating signal or whatever. But instead of adapting she --- gives up. Later, the Voyager supresses the same frequency. The fuck?

    The Delta Flyer beams Janeway aboard the Cube - after being destroyed. Given that the transporters on Voyager fail if somebody sneezes at them ... this is totally believable.

    The Queen wants to spread her virus in UMZ. That is like spreading cholera in an internet chatroom.

    One guy in UMZ says that the queen has identified them all. But she does not kill them all? I thought if she found one - she could identify them in the real world, as demonstrated earlier.

    The collective is comprised of hundreds of billions of drones. There are maybe 20.000 in UMZ. The queen sends small groups of up to 12 drones at a time. Why not 12 million? A Billion? One hundred billion drones?

    Seven does not remember UMZ, even when inside UMZ. Later, she remembers shit from UMZ. SHE kisses Axom, says "We had something more", then SHE is angry at him for saying "yes we did"? And apparently being frightened by his advances or something? Her reaction made no sense to me, and was out of character for her.

    Btw, how the fuck did Axom contact Seven if he can't act in the real world? If she has the mutation - wouldn't she always be in UMZ when she regenerates? Why can she remember shit from UMZ in the real world? If you are severed from the collective, can you still reach UMZ? I thought that UMZ is a subset of the hivemind, and relied on borg infrastructure.

    Well, and Janeway sucked as well, but that's nothing new I guess.

    So, my TL;DR: Nice special effects, but you can cover a turd in sugarcoating, it will still taste like shit.

    I'm imagining this as a How It Should Have Ended short:

    Borg Queen: "Give me the frequency or I'll blow up this cube and all of the innocent drones!"
    Janeway: (sarcastically) "No! Please don't! How could you do such a horrible thing?"
    Borg Queen: "Too bad!" [KABOOM] "And I'll blow up this cube if you continue to not comply!"
    Janeway: (sarcastically) "Oh, you're going to destroy another Borg cube? I'm soooo scared!"
    (KABOOM)
    [Hours later]
    Borg Queen: "And this is the last cube left in the entire galaxy. Will you or will you not give up the frequency?"
    Janeway: "Never! But spare just these drones!"
    Borg Queen: "Nope!" (KABOOM) "I win!"
    Janeway: "Ha ha, jokes on you! I just tricked you into destroying the entire collective! Sucker!"
    Borg Queen: "But you killed all those drones who were free in Unimatrix Zero!"
    Janeway: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
    Borg Queen: "AAAAARGH!" (assimilates Janeway)
    Janeway: "...totally worth it."

    On his blog, my friend Andy has often made a comparison between the Borg and the Cybermen in Dr Who. He then usually adds that the Cybermen have become a bit of a joke: neutered of all their original power. Only fit to be cannon fodder for the Daleks, in an embarrassingly one-sided showdown during the David Tennant years. After seeing this, and just how easy it was for Janeway and chums to survive an apparent assimilation, I'm beginning to feel that way about the Borg. As I still have a clear memory of being overwhelmed by TNG stories like 'The Best of Both Worlds' and 'I, Borg' it makes me sad. I have enjoyed some of Voyager's Borg episodes - especially 'Drone' - but it does feel like a case of diminishing returns. Seeing Seven acting like a simpering schoolgirl didn't help.

    So.... why are the drones able to be killed in UMZ ... I mean physically? Aren't they just FRAKIN DREAMING!!!!

    ...or not....

    I actually made myself watch this this last weekend.

    I know, dedicated am I....

    I can't even go 2 stars here... it's just so damn implausible...

    I'm all for outwitting the Borg when the opportunity presents itself, but this is a FRAKING TACTICAL CUBE DRONE class four thingy...

    I LOVE Susanne Thompson but...

    They just blew it here.

    NCC-1701-Z hit the nail on the head... Janeway should have asked for a pot of coffee and let the BQ blow up her empire.

    1 star each for both halves.

    The idea of an intrepid class light cruiser facing down a Borg battleship is pretty insulting. I suppose we've got to remember Voyager has incorporated a lot of advanced and powerful technology and it does have ex-Borg on board, which mollifies it somewhat. And it was a visually exciting battle.

    My main problem was the utterly moronic plan to get Janeway and two senior officers assimilated. One, surely the Borg Queen would immediately realise something was wrong and would have them terminated, because she'd know exactly where they were.

    Two, assimilation is a horrific, mutilating experience which involves amputation and extensive surgical augmentation. This is not just wearing a Nintendo power glove. This is butchery and torture.

    Three, they risk giving the Borg every single iota of information they would need to assimilate Voyager and upgrade their own technology based on what the Voyager crew had learned.

    However, these exceptionally huge plot holes aside, I enjoyed these episodes. This was an attempt to do something new with the Borg and maybe to sow the seeds of their destruction.

    I don't think Bermaga were expecting Trek to survive much past the end of Voyager, they were certainly running out of creative steam (their bungled efforts with Enterprise seem to confirm this) and this is where they were pulling the threads out of the Borg tapestry.

    I do genuinely feel that in this instance, they got it right, amazingly enough. The Borg were ruthless, cold, implacable and terrifying again.

    I liked it.

    I can understand the neutering of the borg. I actually think they started out being too powerful. Makes it hard to come up with convincing stories if they're virtually invincible. I do share the criticism regarding the queen however. The writers seem to have forgotten why she was created in the first place. I would much rather see our heroes talking to the disembodied voice of the collective than this queen idea. I do think the actress played her pretty well though. If we have to have a borg queen I'm glad it's this one.

    Oh, and it was nice to see B'elanna in an episode where she wasn't being a complete dick to everyone around her. Guess she was on her best behaviour for the captain. Definitely like borg B'elanna.

    Oh, and I thought borg janeway looked really creepy.

    Why is it that the writers can't understand the difference between upload and download. It's very distracting. Like watching a serious movie, and the main character keeps saying push instead of pull.

    @Jack

    "Also...what is the insignia Chakotay has on his collar? It's not the usual 3 pips of a commander / first officer, but rather a long rounded bar."

    That is a Starfleet field commission insignia that all of Voyager's Maquis wear. If you look close, they all have various numbers of bars/slashes on them in the same way the pips do to denote rank. Interestingly, Chakotay's has two good bars and one black, making his field commission actually equivalent to a Lt. Commander, despite him only ever being addressed and listed in the opening titles as "Commander" (Torres likewise actually shows a Lt J.G. pin) Second interesting thing is that in "Before And After", Chakotay wore the proper four pips of Captain after Janeway had died. Is there no field commission pin for Captain, or did he pull the pips off Janeway as they closed the lid on her torpedo?

    But yeh, they're field commission ranks as I doubt Starfleet protocols allowed Janeway to give actual Starfleet ranks (or NCO ranks) to what were effectively captured terrorists. Paris got a normal Starfleet rank in "Caretaker" presumably because he had been captured and was being punished at the time, so he was "free" so to speak.

    So, the reason they had to invade the tactical cube was so that they could "infect" all of the drones who were part of UM-0 at the same time through the central thingy. Ok.

    Later, when those drones had been cut off from the collective by the virus and the Queen had no way to access them, she threatened to "infect" the drones with the same virus (only modified to kill them) by using UM-0.

    If you could run the infection through UM-0, to get at the drones who were part of UM-0, why bother with the cube?

    Agree to much of what has been said here. Being a star trek fan but not really convinced of Voyager I am maybe more prone to criticism.

    The plot is a high mess.

    Self assimilation... Ridiculous. What were the odds of survival? The Borg were the greatest enemy and assimilation certainly meant something comparable to a death sentence.

    Developing a virus just like that? Ok we have seen something similar in TNG but nothing that simple and linked to a crazy plan.

    Borg queen threatening janeway with destroying the Borg? Be my guest...

    Why are the Borg so weak? They were the archenemy
    Of the federation... And now? Voyager alone can fight the hardcore steel coated cube??? In what reality??

    But tuvok's access codes were not invalidated when he was assimilated? Noob mistake. But then... That is the Voyager crew... Can't think for 50cents.

    So let me ask you... Where these drones really worth it strategically???

    I put off watching Voyager for years. Finally gave in and started binge-watching a few weeks ago (hooray for netflix). Made it all the way to this point without getting mad enough to read online reviews or comment on anything. But these two episodes just left me pissed off. I read this entire review and all the comments. So many good talking points already covered in here so I'll be brief.

    1 - How the hell do they expect any doodad, force field, or intergalactic tamiflu pills to 'suppress' having freaking implants drilled thru your damn skull into the grey matter (as was shown)?! total B.S. (as another commented, assimilation is physical not just psychological)

    2 - Why did we NOT get a full on bitch-fight between Janeway and the Queen??!! I was hoping that would be the case, lots of grunting and pieces flying off suits and body slams into bulkheads. Woudn't Janeway have had cyborg strength too?! Instead the same old "1 talks intently while 1 acts evil" we've been accustomed to.

    3 - Up till now, I've been personally referring to him as Harry "never gets any" Kim, but I've come over to the "can't get a lock" club now. (yes, I remember he finally got some in that one episode, but at what a cost!)

    4 - They wasted Tuvok in these 2 episodes. it would have been so much better if he'd tried a remote meld thru the collective with the Queen and we got to see them facing off in their minds. But no...borg-bitch #174984934745 he becomes and does nothing more for the story after that.

    5 - don't expect me to believe they can de-drone Janeway, Torres, and Tuvok as easily as that. it took 7-of-9 several episodes to alter appereance and two whole seasons to get sorta 'normal'. As other pointed out, its a surgical procedure, hands, legs, eyes are removed usually. How lazy did the writers get at this point?!

    6 - Lastly, as others have mentioned, the idea of a Borg Civil War is awesome and a real intriguing prospect for future Star Trek story lines. You could get whole seasons with remote Star Fleet vessels meeting and working with the 'collective resistance'. I don't yet if they re-visit this premise in season 7 but I bet its crap too.

    I'm sure it's been said by others, but it can't hurt to hear it once more:

    JANEWAY, TORRES AND TUVOK WERE NOT REALLY ASSIMILATED.

    That is why they didn't have the psychological damage that Picard and Seven of Nine had. Janeway DISGUISED as a drone; she never had her mind stripped away and she wasn't forced to commit horrible acts.

    Just to be clear, my last post was NOT directed at you Jammer. Just some other people on this board. (I really wish we could edit posts here...)

    Oh I dunno, Warp10... kinda looks to the rest of us that that was aimed directly at Jammer. I’d keep a close watch on your 6, he’s had ninja training.

    As for your comment, you’re saying you believe they just dressed up like Borg? I mean... seriously?

    Here are some things I liked:

    1) The scene between the Doctor and Seven in Cargo Bay 2. The acting is strong here, as usual in scenes between those two; what I appreciate here is the way Picardo manages to play the Doctor's dancing around Seven's romantic engagement and his own feelings about it, showing him making real efforts to push past and hide his own attraction for her and (perhaps in overcompensation) encourage Seven in what he thinks is best for her. Meanwhile, it's the scene where Seven's conflicted emotions make the most sense for me. Seven is in many ways still a child emotionally, and she's basically confused and upset by strong emotions.

    2) It's mostly hokey and I have to mostly blot out what the Borg have been in previous episodes, but I kind of like the moment where the Borg Queen talks with the child in U0, and strains to lay out her case for the Collective as a superior alternative to whatever ramshackle backward life this kid has. Susanna Thompson tries throughout the episode, but the main moment I felt like she really nailed it was the way Queenie strains and forces herself to say that yes, it's "fun." This scene feels like an almost whimsical scene from a completely different franchise, which is a hell of a caveat I know.

    3) Chakotay's getting Janeway's hidden message is not really that great in practice, but in idea I appreciate the idea that this episode pays off their relationship as having become better than over the last few finales, in a way that enhances the little hand-holding moment in Part 1. It's small but it feels like some sort of development and movement toward the series' end. It's funny, because the only times Janeway and Chakotay even have conflict are in these big Season Finale Two-Parters, but it still feels like a big deal that they are in alignment here after Scorpion and Equinox.

    4) There were 64000 drones -- a perfect cube! -- on the Borg cube. Cute. OK so 40 a side, then.

    As for the rest, I would say I did not like it. It's true enough that the Seven/Axum romance is "new" but to what end? The relationship is somewhat random from one scene to the next, with Seven I guess regaining her memories partway through? One of the handful of intriguing moments in U0: Part 1 is the idea that Seven can embrace her Annika identity in the U0 land, but it feels like a half-thought-through idea; I think, yeah, Seven is more aware of her Otherness on Voyager and so can't give up the Borg psychology whereas in U0 she and the other individual Borg are (mostly) on the same page. Still, it feels incomplete and partial. U0 itself is a weird, barely-sketched-in idea -- why is it a forest, anyway? How do they deal with conflict, an obvious problem for drones suddenly disconnected from the Collective? what even *is* this dreamland anyway? The Queen is moronic throughout, has to continually bark orders, and is unable to parse obvious treachery.... The mass executions by the Queen to goad Janeway could also have created a moral dilemma of sorts -- what if some of the Unimatrix Zeroids didn't actually want to have them and possibly their family members, drones or no, get killed off? -- but, yeah, no, it doesn't do anything.

    And, oh yeah, the plan involving Janeway, Torres and Tuvok getting themselves assimilated as casually as Kirk gets some Romulan makeup in The Enterprise Incident is...I don't know what word to use. Bad? Awful? Abysmal? Here too, as with comment (2), it feels like maybe if this were a different universe then -- uh, well, okay, yeah, horrific disfigurement, right. I'd say that Part One still gets the biggest downvote on this part, because that introduced the idea that this was their plan, that the Borg's assimilation was so instantaneous that even their clothes changed in a moment, etc., but this one also has the idea that the Borg assimilate them and then...when their magic tech that prevents them from being subsumed into the hive mind works, the Borg just...don't notice that they aren't part of the Collective until like hours later, the Queen figures it out or something? What?

    That said, I think this episode is still better than Part 1 -- Part 1 has the advantage of having the cool idea (of dreams as escape from totalitarianism) but it did very little with it, and Part 2 at least moves. And yeah, there is something potentially stirring about the idea of fomenting revolution and civil war from within the hive mind state.

    I don't even know how to rate this. Something low. I'll try to figure something out eventually.

    -Hey Korok, can you please give us a lift to Earth using that transwarp thingy you just used to come help us at the last possible moment?

    -Sure, np guys.

    Series over.

    "Hey Korok, can you please give us a lift to Earth using that transwarp thingy you just used to come help us at the last possible moment?

    -Sure, np guys.

    Series over."

    Haha

    Prince of Space. The guy you replied to is right. Putting Tuvok aside for a moment, Janeway and Torres were essentially just humans dressed up (very convincingly) as Borg. They were not connected to the hive (evidence by the fact the Queen could not hear their thoughts). They could not hear the hive mind in their own heads. They were acting of their own free will and were always in control of their own actions.

    There really is no reason why they would suffer any significant psychological trauma. Especially considering the shit that they’d gone through over six seasons to get to that point. B’Elanna has been kidnapped by a psycho; travelled to the gates of hell to save her mother; found out all of her friends back home have been killed and has suffered from severe depression causing depersonalisation and anhedonia. Janeway has been killed multiple times; is responsible for the deaths of quite a few people including several of her own crew; got turned into a Salamander and had sex with Tom Salamander Paris and got dumped by her fiancé amongst many, many more traumas. By comparison, being physically assimilated would be a cakewalk.

    Tuvok might be another matter. But he was only mind-controlled for a relatively short duration, he didn’t commit any atrocities and it’s well established that his mental discipline is at least an order of magnitude superior to any human’s so it is completely plausible that he too would suffer no long term psychological scars.

    Didn't quite reach the interest level of Part I -- agree with Jammer that Part II is a mechanical exercise in getting from A to B. We know what B has to be although where it leaves the Borg is up in the air -- the resistance is alive and kicking. There are, of course, a lot of fortunate developments and some seem quite unlikely (Korok taking command of a sphere). I don't get why the Borg Queen thinks Janeway has some sway with the Unimatrix Zero Borg such that she can put an end to the cubes needing to be self-destroyed or something. Strikes me as the Borg Queen has too much respect for Janeway and is not ruthless enough -- or is too stupid.

    The Borg Queen orders cubes with "individualized" drones to self-destruct and Janeway finds this objectionable due to Star Fleet life preserving principles. I think it would be highly idealistic on Janeway's part to think she could liberate all the drones who have the ability to get to Unimatrix Zero without excessive cost (i.e. a big response from the Borg). But then we wouldn't have an episode. (I'd be like "go ahead and destroy your f'n cubes".)

    7's romance is a a bit sappy and artificial for me but at least we got the Doc/7 scene discussing relationships. Doc is a good character for this kind of thing and him and 7 make a great combo -- one of VOY's character strengths. Personally I think the episode could have done without 7's romance.

    Also interesting that Paris steps up and provides some council to Chakotay (like the former Maquis used to do for Janeway) -- guess that being a lieutenant again was made use of effectively.

    Again, I liked the Borg Queen as a character but not for what she represents as it relates to the integrity of the Borg. I was curious where the scene with the little boy in Unimatrix Zero would lead -- this was a good scene that had an element of unpredictability to it (something this episode lacked overall).

    2.5 stars for "Unimatrix Zero, Part II" -- again, definitely watchable although slightly less "believable" than Part I. Loved the production and effort put into making everything grand. Some subtle character moments were nice although largely drowned out by the overwhelming theme of action action action. Unimatrix Zero gets destroyed but it had to be done -- the Borg can be pragmatic. Decent stuff overall but somewhat shallow.

    2.5 stars

    A mixed bag. I had high hopes for this storyline and the writers just wasted it

    I was willing to overlook the contrivances of the story with Queen acting like she felt the trio in the hive mind then in this episode realizing a while later couldn’t hear tuvok.

    But we learned nothing about the origin of Unimatrix zero. Too much time was spent in chronicling the efforts to download the nanovirus rather than on liberating the drones and ships to get civil war underway

    In hindsight I think they should have held off on this story til towards the end of the series final season. It could have made for an epic sendoff where an assimilated Janeway sacrifices herself to help the uz drones and getting a liberated cube to take voyager home to the alpha Quadrant. You could have enlisted Starfleet, Barclay, species 8472 and others wronged by the Borg in helping bring down the collective once and for all.

    I also would have gone with mike sussman’s Original pitch of Unimatrix zero being the creation of Mathis as a cyber underground staging area for acresisyance and him reaching out to Seven rather than choosing. An univomving one off romance with no emotion for Seven.

    This was also a perfect chance for the writers to finally explain the Borg Queen and her origins. Clearly by now the writers saw her as an individual—the leader—of the drones. Did she create the collective? Is she a clone? Was she groomed to be the queen ? Seven and she were both assimilated as children—blank slates as it were—more easily indoctrinated in Borg beliefs so is that how queens are chosen ?

    I didn’t like the way the episode ended. Voyager instigated this and instead of being in the fray seems to just wash their hands of it and carry on with exploring.

    But even with all those annoyances and issues I can’t help but enjoy parts of this episode anyway—mainly the early parts

    As for how the nanovirus was easily downloaded in the central plexus—I’d think give. That it is a borg program designed by uz drones that any virus detectors would have allowed it to be distributed. I’m
    Sure non Borg programs would be caught and filtered out

    Held my interest. I liked the unimatrix romance. Clever and interesting solution to keeping the Queen from carrying out her plans.

    I loved the Klingon general taking command of the cube. And I always like Chakotay in command.

    I'll say this again, this would have made a lot more sense if at least 1 in 10 drones were affected by Unimatrix Zero. One in a million is ridiculous-barely worth the Queen's time

    Come on, people...! Your animus and bias is all too palpable.... Again, the writers are working under SEVERE time constraints not to mention ST canon expectations set down by ‘The Great Bird of The Galaxy ‘.... Present a problem, develop tension, display inhumanity then conquer said inhumanity with humanity, all the while displaying appropriate amounts of flesh and sex appeal and do it all in 45 minutes or less. In my humble opinion, STV does that as well if not better in most cases than any other incarnation. I liked UMZ...1 and 2. Given the above parameters, I think it succeeded remarkably well. Was it ‘perfection’? Of course not! But I can live with the imperfections....

    @ Momofsix

    Well said on your main point. Especially when you measure these episodes against a lot of the material out today.

    "I don't compromise with the Borg."

    Wasn't that exactly what Scorpion was about? Over all I really like VOY, but I get the feeling the writers stopped caring in the middle of season 6, and it's a damn shame. I've been very forgiving for a long time now; however the lack of love for the show from the production team is starting to get to me.

    The Unimatrix Zero 2-parter gets 2 mild Stars from me.

    I will hereby take a break and go watch some TOS I never got around to before I continue with season 7.

    And yeah, what the hell was Neelix doing on the bridge? Plus: Ensign Kim once again struggling with getting a lock, perhaps that's why.

    It was my assumption that when the Borg injected you with nanobots, not only did it start the assimilation process but it also had some sort of paralyzing/sedative effect, to decrease resistance, which is why you see victims go limp and pass out before getting assimilated. But with the neural suppressor, it seems like Janeway and co have total control over their faculties. Wouldn’t that make the assimilation process even more traumatic? Feeling the Borg cut into you and drill machinery into your head and body? So they should be even more traumatized than Picard. Other than the insane leaps over logic, I did find this interesting, and rather enjoyed watching someone actually team up with Voyager for an attack.... and a Borg sphere no less! 3/4 stars from me.

    @Skeptical
    “ (With apologies to No Doubt)...”

    You don’t ever have to apologize to No Doubt. In fact, in many respects, ‘No Doubt’ was the ‘Voyager’ of music. Both took beloved cultural properties (The Star Trek franchise v pop/punk/alternative), both ultimately became corporate sellouts, neither had consistent depth, and despite having great talent, neither aged very well past the late 90s/early 00s.

    Just to counter some nitpicks Jammer has

    The virus they released was a Borg computer program as evidenced by the graphics in sickbay in part I. So I do t have an issue that a borg program could be released undetected or unchallenged I also assume for Torres to be able to have it on Her person it just have been stored in some Borg tech implanted in her before going on the mission

    As far as Tuvok. Yes you’d think he would be last person to succumb to the collective give. His mental discipline but you also have to remember Vulcans are telepaths so I’m sure that made him
    More susceptible to the collective

    I liked the episode/conclusion, and I have two counterpoints to thoughts about the concerns the Borg were used too often and watered down:

    1. It was established in the first Borg contact episode on "Next Gen" with Q that they were in the Delta Quadrant. It's also logical to assume they'd control a vast section of DQ space given their capabilities. Therefore, it's logical to assume Voyager would run into them -- and more than once or twice -- on the way home.

    What would expect out of the show? One big encounter and that's it? Really, if you think about it, they didn't have that many Borg episodes given the vast territory the Borg must have operated in.

    2. Normally, Voyager should have been wiped out by the Borg. I agree. But the first big encounter with the Borg on "Voyager" was in the middle the very fortunate war with Species 8472. On "Next Gen," the Federation never had the luxury of the Borg being distracted. Voyager did. That put in them in a clever and unique position. And at the end of the episode, they had Seven of Nine -- and all kinds of insider intel the Alpha Quadrant ships never had.

    I think Voyager came up with a rather plausible way to explain how it was able to survive Borg encounters single-handedly. The Species 8472 and Seven of Nine gave them advantages -- along with all the skills The Doctor hologram picked up along the way.

    Seven gave the series a desperately needed spark of life, but it feels like the writers have wrung every idea out of their muse by this point. Well, "Body and Soul" is pretty great, but the days of (almost) every Seven-centric episode being good to great are long gone.

    Jay said:

    "Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres are lucky that none of them lost an eyeball."

    Speaking of eyeballs...it was strange that the doctor could tell Seven's emotions from her "pupils dilating", since only one of her eyeballs is real. The Doc crafted the other one himself.

    There's no way Voyager could've lasted for 5 minutes toe to toe against a cube, let alone a "tactical cube" which I guess is a much stronger version. A whole Federation fleet couldn't take down a cube. They were only able to because Picard swooped in and gave everyone special knowledge about what to fire on. Seven could've done that, but it was never explicitly stated, and Voyager's firing pattern was all over the place. It just was not that believable.

    I can buy that there were no emotional scars from assimilation, but no physical alterations is preposterous. Almost every drone has an eye missing, or an arm. Also, the speed at which the three of them were assimilated didn't make sense either.

    Jammer is right, all logic went out the window with this one.

    Why the Borg don't just divert a few cubes to swat Voyager like the fly in the ointment it is to them, I'll never know 🙂

    The Queen was fairly well explained when introduced in First Contact. She's a manifestation of the Borg, not a commander or anything like that.

    She's essentially a user friendly Borg interface for humanoids.

    Voyager did muddle the Borg quite a lot.


    The actions of Voyager in this two parter are beyond laughable considering the lack of stakes.

    One thing I hated about this episode (other than knowing that nothing going on there won't have any Impact for the rest of the show and other that everything mentioned in the review and comments) is the implication that Seven was an individual and human all those years. I mean it retrospectively ruins the only good story arc this show ever had – Seven discovering her individuality and slowly becoming more human.

    @Godfrey

    What about The Doctor's arc of becoming more human, self improvement, gaining freedom from his mobile emitter? Check out "Author, Author", it's Voyager's answer to TNG's "Measure of a Man".

    - How can a virus be transmitted over subspace?
    - How did the Borg lower Voyager's shields? Why weren't Tuvok's access codes changed before he went on the away mission?
    - How was the away team assimilated so quickly? How could all their Borg implants be removed to restore them fully to their non-Borg selves?
    - How could Voyager and a single sphere disrupt the frequency for Unimatrix Zero for the entire galaxy?

    This episode was fraught with magic reset buttons. Not to mention we never see or hear from Axim again.

    The Borg queen as a recurrent “character” was a mistake. As a personification of the collective, meant to better interface with humanoid lifeforms and such it makes sense, that is after all what both locutus and seven of nine were used for. But once the queen failed in first contact it seems like the Borg would have abandoned the strategy of a single, weirdly slinky queen persona. In the context of voyager, it seems that any drone could take the “queen” role, like seven sort of did originally. But instead, here, we get the queen essentially orchestrating the collective like a Bond villain. It creates more head scratching than it generates interest. At least from my perspective.

    I have to reiterate the many comments that point out the doofiness of voluntary assimilation. Particularly having your chief security officer assimilated without first changing your security protocols. Talk about sloppy. Additionally, deborgifying the team seems like it would have consequences, the three likely would have been given the full Borg treatment, implants, amputations, etc.. resetting that is a real abuse of the ol’ reset button voyager is so fond of.

    My biggest issue with this episode is the rather fantastic coincidence of all these alpha quadrant species being so prominent is UMzero. Stuff like that is frustrating, mainly because it’s so unnecessary. It doesn’t take much creativity to make sense of a plot contrivance, but leaving such an obvious coincidence unexplained looks lazy, even insulting. A cyberattack originating from an alpha quadrant adjacent species that tends to impact alpha quadrant species with higher frequency would pretty much set the stage. I found the one in a million gene mutation to be pretty weak rationale. Maybe it’s just my own pet peeve. But while I’m indulging, I’ll also ask why the Klingon in UMzero got to have a batleth? If culture specific weapons were possible, why couldn’t they dream up some phasers?

    I have so many issues with this two parter but I don't have time to right an essay. So I'll just recommend SF Debris's review of the episode. It pretty much sums up all the problems I have with it.

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