Child's Play (2)

 DVD, Voyager S6 (Child's Play) (2)

Borg children again, urrrrrgh... That's the only reason I can assume my attitude changed on this one, the last time I saw it, as I did originally like it, but when I first rewatched the series on DVD, years ago, the Borg children were out of favour with me. This time round I haven't been put off (so far), I quite like Icheb (ignoring the terrible disservice made to his character decades later in 'Picard,' a thankless, pointless torture and murder that is one of the lowest points of that series, and that's saying a lot!), and seeing Seven's little gang as a chance for her to become a parent and experience the same kind of things Janeway did with her has been a good new way to further develop her. The downside is that it is solidly in the camp of the Seven/Janeway/Doctor focus of the series, with the other characters barely getting a line in each. That's really the only complaint: in episodes like this, slowly, very slowly is the emphasis on that triumvirate of characters increasing and we're not getting the same impression of a crew working together as a team. Sure, they all still play their part, but when Paris' role is to warn it's going to be tricky for him to fly away from the Borg instead of concentrating on giving him a hero moment, or Tuvok's big moment is providing a countdown in which to amp up the tension before Seven does what's needed to save them, or also in that moment, surely an engineering solution if ever there was one, B'Elanna is left not just unseen, but even un-called for, not any part of that key scene at all... Let's just say you know something's wrong with the balance!

Neelix gets a line where he puts his foot in it, and I'm not saying that wasn't a good moment, Ethan Phillips plays a lot in such brief exposure for his character (assisted by great direction), but it's all to serve Seven's story. Chakotay's on the Bridge as you'd expect the First Officer to be in an expected encounter with the Borg, Harry's at his station doing his job, but how much impact do any of these people have on the episode? Again, it's a criticism of the way these things are handled rather than a specific problem of this episode because here it all slots neatly together, there was no real need or room for a B-story like last time (another Seven story, ironically wanting to give up her role as mentor to her young wards!). The Doctor doesn't have much, but his one scene with Icheb is integral and is a chance to reflect on his own position - he has the task of explaining to Icheb the need for parents, from the man who has no parents, and Icheb even points this out, as he should! The Doc could be held as proof that a 'found family' can work, as seems to be an increasingly popular idea, continuing the belief you can choose every aspect of your being, even down to the physical: body, gender, family... at the expense of reality. From that perspective it's quite creepy, though I'm sure at that time they weren't espousing an anti-family agenda, it's just a theme of our times that can be easily seen in retrospect. The Doc admits he had his programming to fall back on. To this Icheb responds asking how his programming would respond to being asked to live with strangers - it would've been an ideal time to bring up his experience in 'Blink of An Eye' earlier this season where that exact thing happened: trapped on a planet running at a different rate of time and living out his life among strangers!

They aren't always good at appositely referring back to events of the series unless it's for a specific high-concept type of story, like time travel, but I liked that I remembered and it coloured my perception of how the Doctor would respond in such a situation. If it had been 'DS9' they probably would have cottoned on to the potential for more connection between doctor and patient through that, but this being 'Voyager' it doesn't get taken to the next level. Still, this remains a good episode in my eyes, the ending especially is terrifically Trekky: does Icheb throw himself upon the jagged rocks of despair in reaction to his whole existence being predicated on being planned as a weapon, reject his people, his parents, his whole genetic makeup and wish self-destruction on himself in a fury of emotion and confusion? Or does he look objectively at his situation, realise he has so much and 'assimilate' back into his old life (or his new life; his recent life, you could call it), learning something about himself? It's the latter. It's possible it was easier on him because he was just coming into his own on Voyager, he really didn't want to leave, he was entirely opposed until he began to see his duty to his people, that they could use his expertise perhaps more even than Voyager. It wouldn't be as it had been for him, it may not even have been better, but it would have been right. Now that has been removed and he has no duty to them, no obligation after their abuse of him. But he doesn't even seem to blame them for using him, as their only way of countering the Borg.

Importantly for him, Seven acknowledges he's grown up from his considered, balanced reaction to what was a horrible abuse, and shows it in as simple a way as basically allowing him to make his own decision about when to go to bed. It really is that simple, and its simplicity is its joy. The problems with the story logic come when you begin to think about the position of this race, the Brunali: right from the start I was wondering why the Borg wouldn't have finished them off in one fell swoop? We don't ever get any mercy from them, they're a practical set of beings, not sure we can really call Borg a race since they're a bit like the species that procreated by stealing the dead of other races in the last episode - in other words they take what's there and make it their own. So why would they leave prime drone material to live on? Usually, you get the impression, the Borg strip mine everything of a people and their planet, they don't discriminate (hence the news they didn't want the Kazon is such a good putdown on them!), they only assimilate (hey, that's a good slogan, maybe they should use that instead of 'resistance is futile'?), they need every able-bodied being to spread their search for 'perfection,' so it made little sense they'd leave any viable biological subjects behind (especially as they're physically active, being farmers of the land who exercise and eat well). That's when Voyager should have been asking the question: how come there are survivors?

The first problem is solved when we learn the Borg have a reason to leave them alone: like when a predator picks on a skunk and ends up running away, or innumerable other examples in nature of creatures making themselves a bad meal, if the Borg suffered from a virus genetically passed on they might stay away from that people (more likely they'd just eradicate everyone on the planet, but then there wouldn't be a story!), and it mirrors what eventually happened to them at the end of the series on a larger scale. So it does make sense to some extent the Brunali can continue their lives. But still, you'd think the Borg would send more than one vessel (as they do this time, sending a Sphere), over time, but maybe that's answered by the Brunali's lack of technological development, so they pass under the radar, though I don't buy they'd have no interest at all in non-tech planets. Although that makes you wonder why the Borg came in the first place - we know, or think we know, they were attracted to something they'd built, but that was just the story Leucon tells to avoid the real story of Icheb's assimilation as a child sacrifice in space. And that's what it boils down to - they may well be technologically sophisticated enough to be able to travel into space, and they know the Borg aren't 'gods,' but they behave like a pagan culture: sending off a child to its death to 'save' themselves by 'appeasing' (countering), forces more powerful than them. It shows the Brunali are not backward due to their mode of living (healthily working the land and living off what they produce is actually sensible), but due to their mode of expression, the choice they make to save themselves at the expense of their offspring.

We don't know how many times this may have happened. We don't know if the whole community was in on it or they really were simply glad to see their friend again. You would think to be safe they'd need to be 'growing' a whole host of children ready for next time the Borg might venture near, in which case why would they need Icheb so badly to fulfil the 'destiny' he wonders is his? Perhaps the story should have taken an even more horrifying turn and we could have learned that all their children are programmed to carry this virus that will attack the Borg. This would at least make them innocent when they call for Icheb to play games with them. That would suggest that either his friends were good actors and were trying to lull him into a false security, or, more likely, they were genuine and knew nothing of what his parents did. There didn't seem to be a community leader who was urging the parents to go through with the plan again, it was down to his Mother and Father to argue about it. Were they the leaders, or were they simply more advanced in genetics and in charge of that side of things? You do wonder how much complicity there was in the adult community because it does seem to come entirely from them. That's probably more to do with budget and not having room for more characters to make that point since we already have a crowd of extras on location, but thinking about it afterwards it is strange that it all comes from the parents.

It did look good, both the planet setting and the effects work that went into Voyager's encounter with the Sphere - it was noticeable they were trying some different shots, like the ship passing through the camera which could only be achieved with CGI, and the last-second warp effect as the Borg explode, worked very well. It's good to see they're no longer tied to the specific stock shots, as much as it's good to have those for a reassuring sense of continuity from week to week, giving us new imagery is good, too. I wondered if the Brunali settlement itself, within the huge, gouged-out crater of what must have been the Borg attack, was a modified reuse of the matte from 'The Best of Both Worlds' as it looked similar and panned round in the same way, too. I wouldn't be surprised, and it would make sense since they're both examples of Borg attacks. A clue that all was not right, despite the episode technically not needing anything beyond Icheb having to adjust to a new life, and more importantly Seven to adjust to life without him, is one, that there's still a third of the episode left when he leaves the ship, and two, I didn't believe they'd pass up the chance for goodbyes between Icheb and the other Borg children - they never showed that and it felt off. You could argue that Seven is the important character here, and they all had a scene earlier where they were questioning what was going to happen to him, but even so...

One other thing that worked well was Seven's honesty. It's far from the first time she's called the Captain in the middle of the night and espoused a wacky conspiracy theory (I can think of 'Retrospect' and 'The Voyager Conspiracy' off the bat, but I'm sure there were other examples), but in the past she had an arrogance about her rightness, brooking no argument. Here she's much more humble, admitting her emotional involvement, the parallels with her anger at her own parents' fault for getting herself and them assimilated, she understands she has a dog in the race because she can't bear to see Icheb leave just when he's developing so well, but at the same time her Borg brain has hold of the facts and they don't add up. Janeway, too, has been in this situation before, but now she trusts Seven and sees that she has self-knowledge and isn't acting out of selfish motives or wild fear. These kinds of developing character dynamics are what makes Trek tick (it's a shame the writing is generally so average and dull in the modern era that they're unable to pull off simple good writing like this), and it is a delight to see them play out. I'm not suggesting this one is anything close to a classic, it may even be that they didn't allow enough screen time to get Icheb to the point where Seven looks on him as a proud Mother would, but they might have just edged it in that regard. Either way, this episode does sell her deep affection for him and the others, her maternal qualities, stiff and formal as they may be, and though Icheb's real Mother seems warm and caring, in reality she doesn't have anything more than a hardness when it comes to his role.

Leucon, his Father, is much more nuanced. At first he seems merely combative and more openly hostile to Seven's, admittedly, bluntly framed questions. His pride in his people and their minor achievements compared to the level Starfleet is at makes him seem a little backward, and of course they wear rugged outdoor clothing, simple and agrarian, and don't fit into the highly technological, uniform environment aboard Voyager, emphasising a distance between them and Icheb. That changes when he tastes something his Mother used to make and realises there is a connection there, but it's a real tragedy that it's all a ruse. Going back to Leucon, we realise the reason he's so spiky isn't down to personal flaws, it's because he wants his son back, he doesn't want to go through with the plan which is wife is so set on carrying out, though he proves to be too weak to prevent it. It seemed wanton and wasteful that they knock him out and send him off in a ship (like the opposite of Superman!), to take out a Borg vessel. Were they anticipating the Borg returning soon and were buying more time? Did she just have a hatred of the Borg and was desperate to have the opportunity to hurt more of them, in which case to sacrifice Icheb was a waste - how much time would it really buy? It made it all the more chilling that it was the Mother who was instigator, in stark opposition to the natural maternal instinct you'd expect, and though neither of the characters I would say were likeable, they were well played (if I didn't already remember they had a nefarious plot!).

Was Icheb showing he hadn't rejected them when he's studying genetics at the end? Or was he only digging into the plot they created him for? I got the impression of the former, partly because he states his parents believed he would have an aptitude for it, and partly because he isn't raging about it and seems at peace with what happened. If only his parents could have seen that I think they might have changed their minds about him, that he was truly worth more than the initial conception, had become more. You could say that he's learned so much since being aboard Voyager, even though it's been such a short time, proving the positive environment there allows people to flourish. That's something that happens in all (well, maybe not so much in modern-era stuff), Trek, but 'Voyager' especially seemed to make that point about what a good system being in Starfleet, or with Starfleet, could be: Neelix, Kes, Seven, the Doctor... All these people bloomed thanks to being aboard and Icheb has, too. It was the first prospect of losing the Borg children, Seven's little collective, and you'd think Janeway would have told her about contact being made with Icheb's parents as soon as it had happened, not wait until the Science Fair! An example of the vagaries of television, needing to insert drama, but not having enough time elsewhere, I suppose. Icheb, too, although I grant there was more need for tact and care in how to break it to him.

One other theme is strong in this episode, and that's the importance of Home. Voyager has become home to so many of them, but still, as Leucon says, despite all their advances and all the opportunities they have to explore, their primary goal is still to get home. Icheb recognises that and thinks he's found his home, only to be rejected and used, and rediscovers home on Voyager. The Brunali act out of how much they value their home rather than fleeing to somewhere safer. It's important, especially this late in the series to reiterate that it's all about getting home. I know those in charge, Rick Berman and others, claimed they felt Voyager was pointing the wrong way and should have been about boldly going out rather than concentrating on going back, but I think that was one of the series' unique features that made it different to all that had come before. I believe they were just trying to rationalise why viewing figures were going down over time, but it was more to do with shifting tastes and a changing world than that Trek wasn't firing any more. There's something poignant about getting home, returning to a place that nurtured you or has special memories - it's no surprise that getting home for Christmas, for example, is such a strong concept, and such an attractive one. There are things you can't change about yourself, no matter how much the world says you can, and family is one of them. You're forced to live with those you have no choice about (in the same way you can't choose your neighbours, other than moving to escape!), and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.

For Icheb it didn't work so he was fortunate to have a foster Mother who cared about him, provided for him, wanted the best for him, and there lay a great representation of what it's like to be someone that takes a child or young person under their wing. Seven hadn't had the experience of dealing with ex-family members so she was abrasive and hard with those she saw as having failed her charge. Though she didn't know it went far beyond mistakes I'm sure she would have learned to temper her own feelings when dealing with the same situation in future. I don't remember how much they did with the other children leaving the ship, but this was invaluable experience just on that level. And it created a strong bond between her and Icheb for the rest of their lives, only tragic how it was abused by the 'Picard' writers for shock value. To undo that there's very little that could be done unless we went back to a time shortly after Voyager reached its goal and saw them as they were back then. It's unlikely that would ever happen and we just have to accept that modern Trek has done so much damage in so many ways to the veracity, quality and greatness of these and other characters. I'm not saying it's all wrong, but the general attitude and tone is far more wrong than it's ever right, and watching episodes of the 'Voyager' era serves to remind me that Trek really was a powerful and good source of inspiration back then.

Naomi Wildman gets another small role, talking about her homeworld as a project in the Science Fair. The writers seemed to forget the planet had already been named Ktaria VII, because it gets an alternate name of Katarus here! I'm not against planets having more than one name (the Klingon's home planet is called Kling, Kronos and Qo'noS, variously), as it adds more texture to a species. At the same time the Ktarians are such an undeveloped C- or even D-species given they had so little attention paid to them - I think the only other example of their race was Etana Jol in 'The Game' from 'TNG' and you can see Naomi (half-human as she was), was picked as that race merely as a fun little nod to Trek history rather than as a potential to flesh out a named species more fully. So I'd have preferred this particular reference to underline what we already knew, in this case calling the planet Ktaria VII, because it makes the writers look like they didn't remember what had been established... Another planet that gets a little onscreen reference is Nimbus III (on the Astrometrics display), along with a few other Trek worlds such as Organia. I probably wouldn't have noticed that so much in the past, but now I'm more careful to pause and take a look. And it was nice to see Janeway reading in her Quarters - not a PADD, but a real, physical book, another example of the kind of reverence for the past that Trek used to exhibit. And finally, Leucon is played by Mark A. Sheppard, as opposed to Mark Allen Shepherd (Morn in 'DS9,' and cameoed in this series don't forget!), the son of the great W. Morgan Sheppard, a familiar face across various Treks, and indeed 'Voyager,' too.

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