Dark Frontier

 DVD, Voyager S5 (Dark Frontier)

The closest we'd ever come to a 'Voyager' feature film, unless you count the other feature-length episodes dating back to the pilot, 'Caretaker,' right up to the series finale, 'Endgame.' But 'Dark Frontier' above all others, certainly at the time, just seemed more film-like. It could be the obvious similarity with 'First Contact' (I'm surprised they didn't get Jonathan Frakes to direct it!), or the Data/Picard riff of Seven/Janeway, or even the flashbacks to when Seven went by the name Annika as a child, and her parents investigated the Borg, but whatever the reasons this story feels BIG and that's helped by the fact they chose to knit a two-parter together into one night of Borg fun. I didn't see it that way originally, as it was shown on the BBC as two distinct parts on separate weeks, but I always loved an event when it came to Trek, probably because they were so rare: you either had the film releases every two or so years (not that I saw any of them in the cinema - until 'Nemesis' anyway), or a two-parter (or, in the case of 'DS9' occasionally, a more-parter!), but rarely did we get an episode longer than forty-five minutes, simply because it was a greater undertaking. They'd do it for the pilots and finales (except 'Enterprise' which wasn't deemed to have earned a big conclusion, but which I still love anyway - take that all you who hate 'These Are The Voyages...'!), but that was usually all you got, at least until they rebirthed 'DS9' at the start of Season 4 when Worf came to stay in 'The Way of The Warrior.' You'd think they might have done the same thing with Seven at the start of their Season 4, but they preferred traditional 'TNG' end of season cliffhangers and resolution so it was not to be then. Instead it was left until mid-Season 5 and would not be seen again until halfway through Season 7, making it even more of a rarity than ever.

It's all well and good having a big event episode and changing the format to squeeze it all in, but it has to be a good story, first and foremost, it's not enough to rely on spectacle (see modern Trek for that...), it requires a good hook. A hook, a line and a sinker to get your teeth into, just like the opening encounter with what I'm calling a Borg Brick. We'd had Cubes and Spheres so now we get a Brick. What could be more momentous than another engagement with the series' most dangerous enemies? There were some small problems with how 'Voyager' used the race, it has to be said. They became too blasé about dealing with this fearsome nemesis in terms of how easy it was to escape them. The Borg were weakened way back in 'TNG' when they started trying to make them cuddly and identifiable, which is understandable since you can have more than one side to the species - they aren't even one species for a start, people snatched from their lives to exist as automatons, slaves to the hive mind, a terrifying fate of living death, witness to countless other takeovers as they sweep across the galaxy, and so there is another life within each drone that could be tapped into for great dramatic purposes, rescuing them from an abuse against their own way of life. Having Lore lead a gang of emotional Borg was the low point, but in 'Voyager' they found a way to reignite the facelessness and danger of the Borg, showing the Collective had survived the destruction of its Queen and were still a threat. It also gave more hope that those smothered in invasive machine parts could be retrieved, even after maturing and living an entire adult life within their grasp.

Seven of Nine was an inherently hopeful character (one reason I hate so strongly the destruction they brought to her in 'Picard,' which can never be forgiven), an example of someone who had effectively lived her life within an abusive 'family,' had been rescued and learned to live within a new and loving group that cared about her, even though she was at first resistant to the change. What if she had to go back to that abuse in order to save those she'd come to see as true family? That's the terrific premise of this episode, none other than the Borg Queen herself offers her a bargain: she'll allow Voyager and its crew to continue on their journey if Seven willingly gives herself up. It threw up a whole new concept with this story, that of the Queen deliberately allowing Seven to be 'saved' from her Borg heritage, living on Voyager to gain insight and experience with humanity, all in aid of one more attempt to assimilate the species. However, there are some flaws to this reasoning, one being that we can't take anything the Queen says as truth since she's a conniving, untrustworthy being of great power who appears completely corrupted as this wielder of vast empires of destruction or assimilation. Then there's her obsession with finally 'beating' humanity - do we really have that much to offer that she's so willing to do whatever it takes to achieve her goal? Or is it pure revenge after the Borg were prevented the first time they tried it on with Earth, and the second time when time travel was the preferred method? And even if she was telling the truth and Seven's time on Voyager was all part of a devious plan, what makes her so special, there are plenty of humans under the Queen's control, including Seven's own Papa, Magnus Hansen!

The Queen always claims to be above emotion, yet also always demonstrates negative emotions of jealousy, rage, smugness or cruelty, as well as a desperate need for revenge, be it on Picard or Janeway. This version of the Queen, played by Susanna Thompson (herself a veteran of three previous roles on both 'TNG' and 'DS9'), is a much different proposition to the originator of the role, Alice Krige (who would eventually return for 'Endgame,' not to mention recently providing the voice for 'Lower Decks'), who played a much more alluring version since she was trying to win Data over to her side with the gift of fleshly sensation. This Queen is more like a teacher to Seven's pupil, and a maternal one at that. She sees Seven as unique, just as her predecessor saw Data in the same light, but in both cases it's only a way of getting what she wants: the ultimate defeat of humanity and its total subservience. In this story I do wish more had been explored about the potential for the Borg to provide a way home for our intrepid little ship, since if they're planning to deal with Earth, that means they have no trouble getting there. It also makes you wonder why there wasn't some big attack during these years, since just because the Queen lost Seven, doesn't mean she couldn't have used someone else, and what exactly did she want from her anyway? I like to think it was something like the Borg not wishing to send a load of ships when they knew there was a full-on war happening in the Alpha Quadrant at this time, though I'd have loved to see the Jem'Hadar go up against the Borg!

It was revolutionary to say Seven was designed to join Voyager from the start, rather than being a surprise addition to the crew, even if, as I said, it's not necessarily true, it's a big, bold move to change the very nature of a character's position. It also cements her place with the crew now that Janeway has so heroically gone back for her, risking all to make sure she doesn't leave one of her people behind. I'm not saying it was the sensible option, she doesn't always do what's best for the greater good, and could just as easily have got her whole crew assimilated for their troubles, but it can't be denied how inspiring it is that she would go back for the one who was lost. A good Biblical story in that regard, and Janeway even had an episode the following season called 'Good Shepherd,' so her character couldn't be more on the nose, and it's something about her that makes you love her more, for all her faults and inconsistencies. Seven hadn't had quite as much of the limelight as she did in Season 4, the characters were much more balanced this season, but it's almost as if they felt they needed to make it up to her by giving her this most ambitious, vast story. They could just as easily have made 'Timeless,' the hundredth episode, into a feature-length release, but I think the difference was that that was near the beginning of the season while this was specifically designed to bump up viewership during the important 'sweeps' period when ratings were crucial for determining advertising investment, that sort of thing.

At least it was more than merely a Seven of Nine story, with good scenes for all the characters, including a tense simulation of the Away Mission aboard a Borg ship. The impression was that even Chakotay on the Bridge was actually in a Holodeck so I really wanted to see the Bridge vanish, but I suppose you can only do so much. I wanted more of Neelix, but as it is they gave him a touching moment when he shares how much he'd love access to the amount of personal data and recordings that Seven's parents had made, a treasure trove of memories when he has so little to remember his own family by. We often forget his tragic past so it interconnected beautifully with Seven's own, putting her position in perspective at a time we're coming to realise how much resentment she has for her parents that they destroyed their family and got themselves and their daughter assimilated. It's the same facts, but two different attitudes on display, with Seven apprehensive about digging into all this old material. I really wanted them to explore the psychological implications for Seven of asking her to go back to a place of abuse, because at first she didn't seem as if it was affecting her in the least, but obviously that wasn't the case. She needed to confront her issues with her family, and while the episode perhaps didn't go far enough in that direction, I was glad it was taken on at some level. They could have done just as great an episode without the Borg even appearing if it was all about her mind, but they'd already dealt with such things in various episodes, in particular 'The Raven.'

As great a story as this is, it's not without its flaws, and there are some confusing timing related issues. The history of the Borg is heavy with continuity problems and how much who knew when, and this episode can't help but dredge all that up, in large doses! Unfortunately they didn't approach it as an opportunity to clear up the mess, instead making things even more inconsistent, and it's probably the most mistake-heavy race in all of Trek continuity as a result. The biggest thing is obviously how the Hansens even knew about this cybernetic race in the first place - that's not a problem if it were just rumour and myth, but they seem to know everything about them: that they have a Queen, the ships they use, everything that we've slowly learned about them over the years, apparently the Hansens knew early on! I can see how this happened, as it occurs all the time with things that continue a storyline. Take the Vulcans: in 'TOS' they were a very mysterious race that humans knew little about, but over the years we found out so much, and now it's as if we always knew all that information because that's easier than trying to insert a story into a time we didn't know this or that, and being consistent with the level of knowledge at that time. It would also mean the audience is way ahead of characters if we'd followed the unfolding storylines of Trek over the years. Still, they should have worked to tighten up exactly how they knew things, and when.

I appreciated a mention of the Romulan Neutral Zone which they've apparently crossed into against Federation laws, because of course that is where the Borg first made their presence felt, way back at the end of Season 1 of 'TNG' when Romulan outposts are being destroyed. So there was at least some sense of correct continuity there, but still, that would only have been around twelve years previous, while if we assume Seven is in her late-twenties, and was five or six years old when she was assimilated, it would still be a good few years earlier that the Hansens were exploring that area, and in fact the Romulans wouldn't even have made contact out of their isolation at that time. All we needed was a line from Magnus saying they don't even know if the Romulans still observe the Neutral Zone since no contact has been made for the best part of a century. That would have fitted in neatly, plus would have made the setting more solid for us continuity buffs. I really wanted their ship, the Raven, to be reminiscent of early 'TNG' rather than looking the same as 'Voyager' and its panels. They could have seen it as an opportunity to bring back old-looking tech, and while they couldn't do the uniforms of that era since the Hansens are civilians, they could have found ways to make it seem older. The real mistake was in calling it the USS Raven when in its original appearance ('The Raven'), it was called the SS Raven, denoting that it was a Federation vessel, but not Starfleet. Now it makes it seem like it would be a Starfleet vessel and the whole thing unravels. At least if the Hansens weren't connected, or only loosely, to official Federation organisations you can find it easier to believe no one had heard of the Borg, but now it's harder to reconcile that.

Even young Annika knows things about the Borg that while general knowledge now, would have been major reveals at that time. Granted, her parents would tell her things, but it only adds to the impression of complete familiarity with a race that should have been a mystery. How would they even know they were called Borg, other than the fact that they announce themselves before assimilating a race, and so it could have been learned from a third party. But still... I did love the flashbacks, seeing a young Seven with her parents, though you can understand her point of view, they were extremely rash to not just go and seek this dangerous race, but bring their young daughter with them! It can be argued they didn't know what they were getting into, but they seem so cavalier about it all, going aboard vessels and carrying out their research - it's the kind of thing I can imagine being done at this time in the Trek world when so much is known, but then again I suppose the point was that they were naive and didn't realise what they were getting into. It's no surprise Seven had so much pent up resentment about it all. But it shows how far she had come that she would sacrifice herself for Voyager. In a way it also shows how far she still had to go since she should have made Janeway aware of the Queen's ultimatum, then at least the Captain would have been prepared and a new plan might have been put into action with that foreknowledge. It was a dangerous risk the Queen took in contacting Seven like that and assuming she'd go along with the coercion, but Seven is still relatively 'young' and inexperienced in life, she understands efficiency and doing what's needed more than the possibilities of her crew's ability to protect her.

It gave the story great heart as in the past we'd seen so much antagonism and battling between Janeway and her charge, but now we see her grown to the point where she can plead to be put back on Away Team, saying whatever is necessary so she'll be reinstated in order to save Voyager, and also the lengths Janeway would go to save her. The best moment in the whole thing is when Janeway sends through a message of hope that sustains her at her absolute lowest moment when it seems there is no way out and she's completely beaten. It was also terrific to see her show such compassion for even just that small group of individual aliens about to be assimilated. They represent more than just a motley collection, they represent individuality and one last desperate attempt to prevent herself being completely overwhelmed by the Borg. Even the way Janeway leaves Seven's alcove functioning, left on like a beacon of hope that she will return, was a beautiful image, much like when Sisko left his baseball behind on abandoning DS9. These symbols are the subtlety of message completely lost in the modern era of Trek where everything must be spelled out and hit on the head, one approach to view the audience as adult, the other as juvenile, so it's a real pleasure to return to one of the great episodes. It could even be the last great Borg story, because while there were many more to come on the series (and not forgetting the one on 'Enterprise'), they were usually some kind of unique spin on the race rather than full-blown filmic encounters, or when they did do a proper meeting and brought in the Borg Queen, they were never as good in the story department as this one was.

The strength of the episode is that it's not just fighting the Borg, it's the messages of hope, it's the psychological aspect, but it's also the way other characters are part of it. I already mentioned Neelix and how his past life intersected with what Seven was going through, but there's also an element of casual attitudes to the Borg and their situation, or Seven, were perceived. When Tom talks about them being mindless drones and fails to realise that they're all individuals held captive by the hive mind, just as Seven comes in, an example of someone who was freed from that slavery, it's hard to take. Every time they kill a Borg it's effectively putting out the light of a stranger who had a life once and if they had anyone to care for them in the way Janeway did for Seven, might have been rescued and rehabilitated. But Paris is just seeing them as cannon fodder, essentially. B'Elanna is equally callous when she assumes Seven's motives for abandoning the ship show that she never truly left the Collective, but she doesn't know what the reasons were - she's being a typical judgemental person without all the facts, and I wish there could have been some small scene at the end where she apologised for jumping to conclusions. It made sense for her since she and Seven had butted heads on numerous occasions, and it was important to see that viewpoint, and it also gives us a glimpse of the old adversarial way she and the Captain would interact at first before Seven stole that role and B'Elanna softened.

One character used especially effectively was Naomi Wildman, in whom it's easy to see a parallel with the young Annika, both around the same age. Since Seven was that age the last time she was an individual it makes perfect sense that she would be able to identify with this little girl and further cemented their friendship and bond. I really liked how they turn it on its head and have Naomi be part of a nightmare where she won't stop questioning Seven about being a drone and then suddenly is a Borg herself - really creepy and effective, though I imagine it could be confusing if you didn't know the series intimately, as you'd wonder what that scene was all about! But they continue to succeed at achieving an atmosphere with the Borg, even at this late stage when it's becoming increasingly easy for Voyager to survive and escape, reducing the effectiveness of the nemesis. Here, a Borg ship still comes across like a haunted house full of hidden dangers that can appear at any time, dark corners, painful flashes of light, the internal is an almost physically painful place to be, a far cry from the awful reinterpretation of it for 'Picard' where everywhere was sparse and tidy! Here it's messy and full of horror, not a pleasant place to visit at all. And while my trained eye can begin to see that they're just going down the same corridor again and again from different angles, it's well enough disguised that it didn't take me out of it.

Clearly they didn't have the budget of a feature film like 'First Contact,' so it was brave to even try to approximate a recreation of the Borg Queen's grand entrance, but they did it. It doesn't have the power and awe, the theatricality of the film version, but it was more than adequate and somehow fitted with Thompson's more toned down version. The makeup is in no way toned down, but is as effective as ever, as you'd expect from Michael Westmore who originated it for the film, right down to the silver contact lenses - it was almost like the Queen wanted to see Seven as she was when she first boarded Voyager with her silver catsuit! I can't remember if it was scheduling issues at the time or Krige simply didn't want to reprise the role, but I wish she had in some ways, and in others not. Just as Q was different with Janeway than he was with Picard, the Queen needed to be different, too, and when Krige eventually did return for the finale I seem to remember she was a more savage, biting, snappy version since it wouldn't have worked for her to behave the same way as she did with Picard and Data. It's fascinating the ins and outs of the character's appearances, starting as Krige, then Thompson taking this and the 'Unimatrix Zero' two-part end of Season 6/beginning of Season 7 cliffhanger, Krige reprising the role, then again over twenty years later in 'Lower Decks,' and finally Annie Wersching inhabiting it for 'Picard' Season 2 (which I have yet to see play out). I've always been in two minds (ironically!), about the Queen, because she did make the Borg less faceless and scary from that perspective, but at the same time she added a new dimension. A sometimes petty, too-human dimension, but a new layer nonetheless.

The Queen mentions the failed 'first attempt' to assimilate Earth, and that got me thinking: was she talking about the single Cube of 'The Best of Both Worlds,' or was it the Sphere in 'First Contact' - makes me wonder if the Borg even know about that attempt because the timeline was changed, or repaired, so maybe they'd have no memory of it, unlike the Enterprise crew, who survived the experience? Another intriguing reference thrown in was Tom Paris talking about money going the way of the dinosaur in the late 22nd Century when the New World Economy took over. I always love any reference to that century, especially before 'Enterprise,' because so little was known. They would occasionally like to fill in a bit of our knowledge of the chronology, but money is a very confusing thing to deal with in Trek because usually in the 24th Century it's clear there is no money (until the modern TV shows upset the applecart and said there was money...), while in 'TOS' there were implications of being paid, etc, so it must still exist. Confusing, and this comment just added fuel to the fire of debate that no doubt rages somewhere in Internetland. Though fun trivia, why would Ferengi try to break into Fort Knox since gold isn't of value any more, and why would Fort Knox even store gold anyway (maybe they didn't, maybe it stores Latinum these days - in which case there hangs a tale I'd like to see: The Great Ferengi Fort Knox Heist...).

I wish Chakotay had had more to do as it seemed like he should be the one heading Away Missions rather than the Captain, but that attitude of early 'TNG' to protect the Captain had long been forgotten, I feel. The thing he said about knowing Janeway was about to drop a bombshell because of the way she was fiddling with her combadge is one of those things that has never happened before yet we're supposed to believe is a common habit, which was a bit annoying! I could also say that perhaps the idea of the bio-dampener technology was a bit too advanced for the Hansens' time, and the Borg should have long ago adapted so they'd be able to detect it in case anyone tried that in future, but in the same way Janeway had to be there on the mission because of the personal drama and connection between her and Seven, the dampener was there to increase the drama potential as obviously Janeway is then separated from Tuvok (who I'd have loved to see grappling with Borg if they caught up with him, since he has greater strength than humans). While I'm complaining I'd also mention how easy it was to blow up the Borg Brick ship, although even there I can find an answer that maybe it was meant to be an impetus for them to then search around for another weakened Borg vessel, all part of the lure to get Seven back to the Collective. The big end result of the story was that Voyager was successful in using a transwarp coil to boost themselves twenty thousand lightyears closer to home, though I wish they'd said how many more lightyears they had to go as they seem to have had several big jumps in the last couple of seasons, what with the Borg and Kes' parting gift... And I can't end without saying how much I loved the final scene where Janeway effectively orders Seven to go to bed, then wishes her sweet dreams as she plugs into her alcove, all back as it should be, like she was the little girl she'd been all over again. Aaah.

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