Unimatrix Zero, Part II (2)

 DVD, Voyager S7 (Unimatrix Zero, Part II) (2)

A Borg Queen's holiday. After Janeway challenges her to visit the sleep haven Borg dream of, goading her she might experience individuality herself, she does, like the serpent entering Eden, and she does meet an innocent whom she plans to corrupt. But the problem with Janeway's jibe is that the Queen appears to already be an individual, that's the point - we don't really know enough about them, even now, to say exactly what the Queen's function is or much of anything about her, but it does seem to be her will that guides the entire Collective which is what turned the Borg from a hive colony of insects into something perhaps a little less alien. It can be debated whether her addition to the mythos was wise or not, the Borg, despite being one of, if not the most popular Trek race, at least as far as villains go, yo-yoed up and down in danger and threat even in the parent series, 'TNG.' I wish we could have found out more about the Queen - sometimes that can mean she becomes too approachable, moving out of the shadows, no longer a creepily unknowable enemy, but she could also be more horrific seen in the full light. I don't think Susanna Thompson's version was the best (in any case this episode marked her final role in Trek, her fourth character and either third or fourth appearance as the Queen, depending on if you count 'Dark Frontier' as one or two episodes), she didn't have the sliminess of Alice Krige's original, nor enough intensity - even when she reacts to Janeway by unthinkingly thrusting out a hand with which to throttle her, gaining control before it closes round her neck, it's still quite mechanical. I felt they shouldn't have shown her talking to herself, better to hear her thoughts and express them on her face, at least when she's alone as I can imagine physical speech would be distasteful to her, but we don't get enough insight into the Queen and her manners for more than a surface level evaluation.

Even with being indoctrinated by modern Trek's aesthetics with its cinematic widescreen and oodles spent on shiny floors and high definition detail I found this episode a terrific reminder of just how beautiful and detailed Trek was in that era. It may be constrained in its boxy format, but it's expertly produced in every area and has so much more depth to its characters even in a typically action-focused season opener. New Trek would be trying to carry this kind of large scale drama every week (on its limited and limiting ten-episode schedule), but rarely does it succeed. I wouldn't say "Unimatrix Zero" Part II (as the title appears on screen - I'd never noticed before that the Part II is outside the quotes), was a solid gold example of Trek at its best, it's a functional conclusion to the big Season 6 finale, about as good as that was, but as I said, it looks excellent and it deals with a few people very well, namely Seven, Janeway and Chakotay. With only forty-five minutes (okay, forty-two to be exact), it doesn't have time to give everyone meaningful moments or even dialogue (Neelix only appears since he's apparently been given a station on the Bridge merely so we can see he's still there!), but it has just enough of those scenes: the Doctor prodding Seven about her connection to Axum, then wistfully looking at her face once she's entered regeneration; Paris coming in to Chakotay in the Ready Room, an impression of what things might be like if he was First Officer and Chakotay was Captain; Seven getting to the realisation she does care for Axum and that they'll probably never see each other again...

I've said this before since seeing 'Picard,' but it's such a joy to go back and witness how wonderful a character Seven was before she was twisted and ruined by that recent series - in this we get to see what a naturalistic, fully human Seven would be like, and Jeri Ryan's performance is subtly different, more feminine, more relaxed, but not in a hard drinking tough guy boozer way as they turned her into. It's what you'd want to see her become had the series gone longer or turned into a film series: losing much of the formality and constraint of her Borg nature, as much as I like to see that, being more honest to herself and others, less concerned with struggling with and hiding emotion, and this from someone who can't stand how openly emotional modern Trek characters often are. Here it's not a departure from the character, but a fulfilment and her interactions with Axum seemed very truthful and pleasant, far from the dark route they took the character down in 'Picard' where identity politics took over and brought a once great character crashing down - even in Season 3 when she's pulled back into line as a Starfleet officer she goes back into a more constrained attitude rather than a genuine development from her 'Voyager' days, but it just shows you can't always go back to playing a character from long ago, especially if it's been such a long time.

One character who is more of a secondary presence in this, but was also noteworthy, was B'Elanna, one of the three with Janeway and Tuvok who go through the invasive transformation into assimilation by the Borg. She's subtly altered with a vocal processor that makes her more Borg-like than the others and she's mostly in the background, but I liked when we see blunt force still works best in fighting Borg, mirroring the way Worf dealt with them in 'First Contact,' and since they're both Klingons it makes sense (more than Janeway's weedy half-elbow bump as she halfheartedly comes to be captured by Tuvok and other drones). Paris never says her name once, but we know it's her he's most concerned for. It's good to have another Klingon along for the ride, too, with Korok a worthy ally - easy to forget that Klingons were rarely seen on this series since they were so far from home space, and I liked that he comes to their aid, taking over the Sphere he's stationed on. There is a question of how that happened, whether there were a lot of other liberated drones, and how they were able to hide their rebellion from the Queen who would surely be aware if a ship went against her will, and activate its self-destruct. But at least it mitigates the issue of Voyager being able to go up against a full Borg Cube alone and still surviving, one of the weakest flaws of the story. Having the Sphere gives them a touch more credibility, but only a little.

The idea of sending three Starfleet officers in to be assimilated was itself a bit of an undermining of not just the Borg, but some great characters that have gone before: Picard had an entire episode to unravel his deep trauma of the experience (in an era when they didn't give over time for such things), and more recently Seven had been given practically the whole of Season 4 to reverse her programming, so it does seem too convenient our brave trio could so easily be converted and then saved - at the end of the episode we see B'Elanna (who really deserved a scene with Paris - a big missing piece), and Janeway are at the stage of pleasant recovery where they can drink coffee and chat, and this is only forty-eight hours after their escape. Tuvok's said to need more time since he was actually taken over by the Queen, but it looks like they're well on the way to mending. As I thought about it, while it does add yet another straw to the camel's back of Borg looking weak and ineffective after they'd previously been portrayed as the ultimate threat, I also realised this is a different scenario to what we'd seen before: it didn't have the supreme psychological torture that Picard went through as a man used to kill so many of his own people against his will, and in Seven's case she's spent most of her life as a drone before she was liberated so it would be a much bigger process to learn how to not only be human, but to be adult (hence why she seems like a teenager in so many of her early episodes). Janeway, B'Elanna and Tuvok were all fully independent adults with strong wills who weren't forced into anything. The invasive surgery was the worst part for them and it was fortunate they didn't have an eye removed or something like that, it was more physical discomfort than anything else and they were acting under their own wishes.

Tuvok is a slightly different case since he was attacked mentally, which is quite ironic considering he should have the strongest block as a Vulcan, but perhaps that also made his mind more potent a signal to the Queen and if she'd tried to control the others it would have been easier. It was also the neural suppressant failing in Tuvok's case, again perhaps because of his superior Vulcan brain cutting through it and making itself a target. It would have been nice to see the characters go through more detailed and lasting rehabilitation, but I'm sure they moved on with the next episode and never mentioned it again as that was the series' way, to its detriment. Not that we needed scene after scene of them showing pain or trouble adjusting, just an acknowledgement of the toll it took to go through such a drastic change. Something that did stand out after so many episodes of modern Trek is the easy professionalism that pervades character actions, most clear in the moment Seven shows reticence in the idea of going back in to Unimatrix Zero to update the rebels and Chakotay says if she has a problem with any of them she needs to put it aside. Not encouraging her to discuss it with him, it wasn't the time, not suggesting she could wait until she's ready, but just do it whether it's uncomfortable or not. And even better, Seven promptly agrees and gets on with it. I loved seeing that and I miss such straightforward attitudes in Trek. That, and the casual 21st Century way they talk are two of the biggest things that prevent modern Trek from succeeding for me and it's a joy to get back to the heyday when it was seen as a period piece with its own unique style and mores.

Going in to the Borg's den cuts both ways as we see Tuvok compromised and thus the Borg have Voyager's access codes which means, if they couldn't already devastate the tough little ship, now they can. But of course a hulking great Cube should have not a jot of trouble from one inferior vessel anyway, it seems the Queen was merely toying with them since she keeps threatening Janeway she'll destroy the ship, using it as bait or a potential hostage perhaps, but never simply ordering her big bad Borg boys to turn around and swat this fly! Instead Voyager can catch up with impunity, take potshots and get away. It was necessary for the story, but I do sometimes wish they were able to keep the Borg's incredible sense of power because otherwise it does belittle and demean the serious threat they were supposed to pose. Saying that, shouldn't they have had Tuvok essentially demoted from his position in order to go on this mission - change all the codes, have a subordinate who works for Tuvok take over his duties and role? The same goes for the hierarchy: Tom says he's basically First Officer, but shouldn't there actually be one nominated by the Captain, especially since they're going into such a dangerous situation! I can only assume time was of the essence, they didn't have it to sort out all these details, and Voyager is used to acting on the fly anyway since although it's a Starfleet ship they've been operating without backup for the past six years and Janeway doesn't always follow protocol to the letter - perhaps a sign of the more casual, not-quite-Starfleet situations of our current era of Trek, in embryonic form?

I hate to blame 'Voyager,' my second favourite Trek for any of the misdemeanours of the modern age, but you can trace certain things back, and even further, though sometimes it can be as minor as a precedent through so many episodes having been made that later producers and writers decide to expand on, but I can't help but notice the Starfleet crew that is actually a rebel group or not actually in Starfleet, or don't act like they're in Starfleet is a trope of modern Trek. Certainly the idea of destruction on a massive scale is something seen more regularly in modern Trek as they try to constantly up the stakes. Here, I was mixed on the Queen's horrific determination to sacrifice tens of thousands for each single rebel Borg on a ship, but it's hard to see a Borg vessel go up in flames and be sad about it when you consider the damage they do. Maybe we needed a more personal image of what was happening, like when one of the drones in the Queen's own area wakes up. Yet it still has an impact because we know these are basically innocents who could be rescued and rehabilitated - if Seven can spend her puberty, adolescence and adult life as a drone and she can be freed from it, then anyone can, that's the great message of that character, for all her struggles and backward steps, but that was the joy and fascination of watching her on the series, so seeing thousands of potential victims for recovery like her go up should have an impact.

The Queen telling Janeway to go to Unimatrix Zero as her diplomatic envoy and get the rebels to cease since they're now individuals and can be given a choice between death or servitude turns into Janeway saying the Queen won't go because she might get a taste of that individuality herself, which could have been interesting to explore, though as it is we only get that little exchange between her and the young boy when he asks, like a child would, wouldn't she like to be with her parents - we learn her parents are with her, assimilated into the Collective. It's the closest we ever come to the Borg Queen having a past and something personal other than rage against humans or cunning deviousness and I wish they could have expanded upon that, it was a nice idea for her to have that scene and always Trekky to find common ground with even the most implacable foes. Other notables were hearing a couple of facts about Tuvok as he tries to focus when under mental attack, and one is that his daughter was born in the city of T'Pol, or that was what it sounded like. Sadly, the 'Enterprise' producers weren't doing some very early setup, it was actually T'Paal, but it would have been a nice seed to throw in if it had been intentional as they'd have been in the early stages of working out what the fifth Trek series would be (for example, we know Dominic Keating was held off from a role on 'Voyager' as they wanted him for Reed). There's also the odd mention of Species 8472 from Axum who suggests he might try and contact them to see if they'd help against the Borg, but I don't see them caring in the least for petty internal differences.

The Queen rationalises Janeway's appearance in human form in their holographic communications as humans being so vain, but of course the reality was that it would save a lot of time and discomfort in makeup, both for Kate Mulgrew and for the makeup artists so it made sense, and it would have been a shame for the whole episode to have featured the Captain of the series as bald and ugly the whole time - even Tuvok mistakes her for a man from behind when he goes to nerve pinch a Borg drone! I imagine the conversation at the end when Janeway tells Seven to remind her of this day if she fails to recognise what Seven went through as a drone, could easily be the actress' comparing notes on the rigours of such extreme makeup and costume, but it sends the episode out nicely with understanding and a poignancy for Seven. I could wish for more with the rest of the cast, but it would be difficult to have many more resonant end scenes and wouldn't have been such a neat and tidy conclusion if so. It's just a pleasure to go back to when Trek was great since it's come so far away from that, and while I've been concentrating on the better examples of the current era for the last year or so, even the best of it doesn't hold up to old Trek, so although I've already done reviews for this season I felt it was worth finishing out 'Voyager' with extended versions that also reflect on the state of Trek then and now.

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