Posted:
04:19:37 on May 25
By: O. Deus
Dept: Review Voyager
Reviews Ex Deus
Written for TrekWeb.COM by 'O. Deus'.
There are few things in life more insubstantial than a dream and few
more artificial than the Borg. Ever since they were introduced in the Next
Generation there isn't a weapon that Starfleet hasn't tried to use against
them. Phasers, photon torpedoes, anti-matter spreads have all been tried
and in the long run have failed. Whatever is thrown at the Borg, the Borg
adapt to. Whatever weapon can be thought of the Borg can counter drawing
from their seemingly infinite reserve of captive minds and stolen technologies.
Yet there is no empire so strong it cannot fall from within and no dictatorship
so totally in control of its subjects' minds that it cannot fall prey to
their desire for freedom. The Borg are the ultimate totalitarian state,
the logical cybernetic extension of Zamyatin's Science Fiction classic "We"
where citizens are known by a number or Orwell's "1984" in which
the human mind is just another tool of the state. And so it is almost inevitable
that despite all their conquests and their power the Borg fall prey to the
one weapon they cannot resist, the weapon that totalitarian regimes throughout
human history have fallen prey to, a dream.
The Borg are technology and power personified. They have no other identity
besides technology and power and no goal besides gaining more and better
technology and power. There is no escape from such a society, not even the
possibility of protest or dissent because if you cannot think, you cannot
dissent. But much as people do in the real world, thousands of drones with
a specific mutation have found an escape from their real lives through dreams
or rather through a collective dream of freedom in an unspecified forest
where they can be as they once were before the Borg assimilated them. While
the collective holds their bodies in eternal slavery, the souls of those
drones are for a time free. When everything has been taken from them, their
freedom, their bodies and even their minds; they are rebelling in the only
way that they can by finding a tiny space for themselves where they can
for a moment be outside the control of the slave state. This rebellion of
Unimatrix Zero though is a passive one and like many passive rebellions
seems doomed from the start. The name itself too is a curiously Borg-like
one for a group trying to rediscover their natural selves or perhaps not.
Zero is at once seemingly empty and powerless to the Borg obsessed with
acquiring quantities of things but in a sense contains all quantities of
numbers within it. The name signifies that by tapping into the dream the
drones have tapped into a source of power far greater then the collective,
a source of power that unlike the Borg is unlimited because it contains
within it all possibilities. This dream, the entire concept of finding possibilities
through dreaming is what Star Trek has been all about.
Of course hope begins with hopelessness and so from the beginning we move
about Borg corridors that seem darker and far more frightening without any
human presence, no Starfleet crewmembers giving us hope of an escape or even a human perspective. We
are in the home of the Borg the way it normally is, the way the drones exist
in it day after day and year after year. No one to talk to, nothing to think
about, nothing to see but the daily routine in the space going equivalent
of an industrial plant with no home to go to or family or weekends to relieve
the monotony of pure labor. Like a medieval castle the adobe of the Borg Queen
is dark and gloomy, full of men in metal and black clothing walking their rounds and their
ruler mysterious and cunning placed directly at the center of her web. At
first the shots of the massive Borg complex seem to reinforce their invulnerability
and their power but slowly as we learn of the rebellion within the complex it
seems more like a precarious fortress isolated and under siege. As the Borg Queen marks
drone position after drone we realize that a war is being fought, but unlike
all wars the Borg have fought before, this one does not take place in reality
but in a collective dream, the closest thing the Collective has to a soul.
It is a showdown between technology and power against hope and freedom fought
in the soul of the Borg for the soul of the Borg. The Borg have met the
enemy and they are them.
Aboard Voyager Seven dreams for the first time and never having entirely left the Borg collective behind her, Seven fears the dream. Like the Borg she
understands that the dream cannot be contained within the boundaries of
sleep and contains revelations that threatens the integrity of the life
she made for herself. Like the rebelling drones Seven is more human in the
dream of Unimatrix Zero but she is also less human than they are, less prepared
to completely free herself of everything the Borg have done to her. On Voyager
Seven has accepted a modicum of humanity, she has come to care about people,
learn to deal with them but she hasn't really opened herself up to the possibilities
of being human and so she remains suspended between being human and being
Borg. Only in the dream can she allow herself to be called by her real name,
Anika. Only in the dream can she experiment with reclaiming her human heritage. But when threatened with a real relationship she retreats from the dream and demands that she be called by her Borg name again. For the first time a plausible emotional relationship is presented for her and she predictably retreats. Seven is a character who for better or worse has developed right before
our eyes. When comparing her with the Seven of "The Gift" she
seems to have come very far, but among other things, Unimatrix shows us
how far she has to go and that the potential is in a sense already being
expressed within her.
While the drones are dreaming of a better life, everyone on Voyager is
going about the very real business of surviving in the Delta Quadrant (occasionally) according
to Starfleet ideals. Janeway answers a distress call to a destroyed colony
that she has come too late to save. When she hears about the "distress
call" from the Unimatrix drones she sees it as the chance to save all
the colonies and the planets the Borg threaten. A weakness in the Borg can
be exploited and possibly even the entire collective can be brought down
and so mixing Starfleet ideals and her own special brand of cunning and
vengeance Janeway comes up with a plan quite similar to the one she employed
in her previous confrontation with the Borg Queen. (So similar in fact that
the Queen comments on it before Janeway and Co. meet their untimely fates.)
In a meeting managed through Tuvok's unique version of AT&T Janeway
meets with the closest thing the drone rebellion has to a leader and convinces
him to change his rebellion from passive to active. Once again Janeway ventures
into the Borg lair and though this time she knows enough to leave Seven
behind, she seems to have discarded most of the techniques that worked somewhat
in Dark Frontier. The result is her capture and assimilation and the assimilation
of Torres and Tuvok. When we see Janeway, Torres and Tuvok at the end as
drones their appearance is quite shocking but Chakotay's planned getaway
and Janeway's original refusal to initially take them along robs this scene of the
impact of Picard's assimilation in Next Generation's "Best of Both
Worlds."
In Best of Both Worlds, the Enterprise has been tricked, Picard mutilated
and transformed and Earth doomed. The forces of good seemed and were confused
and in disarray while in Unimatrix Zero it is clear that there is a plan
operating here, a dangerous plan but one in which Janeway and Co. are in
control for now. If the script had done a better job of hiding this, Unimatrix
could have ended on a much stronger note than it did. That is a common problem
for this episode that has the vision, the suspense and the plot but somehow
seems a bit listless at times in comparison to Scorpion or Dark Frontier.
A good deal of time is spent on Seven but she is excluded from any direct
participation in the events of the final act, which makes those scenes seem
like a waste of time. From the perspective of the two parter this will eventually
become it might work, but here and now as a one hour episode the Seven material
relegates her to the three P's of the Kes role. Namely psychic powers, personal
growth and passivity. It didn't work that well with Kes and it works even
worse with Seven of Nine who isn't remotely built for that kind of role.
More problematically the Borg Queen is relegated to cartoon villain scenery
chewing. While Thompson does an excellent job of maintaining ironic distance
and the attitude of a powerful leader, the medieval castle analogy hits
too crudely close to home when she paces the room, holds conversations with
drones, threatens them and mutilates them. She seems not particularly in
control or possessed of the kind of knowledge and power she radiated in
Dark Frontier. All in all she's much closer to the Queen Arachnia of Captain
Proton and considering that Janeway had already duplicated the Captain Proton
trick assault in Dark Frontier, repeating it with a few assimilations for
shock value seems like a bad idea. The Queen's offhand comment to Harry
has so much more effect then all the scenes of the Queen examining mutilated
Borg heads. This entire concept is based on demonstrating the complete cruelty
and evil of the villain but with the Borg this is completely beside the
point. The Borg are beyond good and evil, beyond petty ego trips or torture
for fun and pleasure. These "Borg Yorrick" scenes take us back in a bad way to "First
Contact" and Krige's Borg Queen played as a refugee from the cast of
Chicago or a Bond Movie.
Where Dark Frontier managed to merge the Seven story and the story of
the Borg, to show the Borg Queen as the representation of a greater and
powerful force with plans stretching into the past and the future; Unimatrix
Zero gives us the strong story of the rebellion of the drones, a few brief
and hurried scenes on Voyager and a Borg Queen about as plausible as Queen
Arachnia. When comparing Seven's experience in the assimilation chamber
and what that did to make the Borg terrifying again with the Borg Queen
pacing around and delivering stock evil empress lines to her subjects it
is clear that the writers have once again made the mistake of humanizing
the Borg too far and too fast. It is fascinating to look at a drone and
wonder about his dreams, to see them as individuals hiding terrible secrets
beyond even the reach of their own conscious minds, but this has to be combined with
recognizing the power and dread of the Borg and the fact that we are dealing
here with something that transcends normal regimes and rulers. The two can
be combined but it requires careful work and steady steps.
In a very large sense all of the Borg stories have been leading up to
this moment since Hugh innocently stepped on the screen in "I. Borg." "Descent" parts
1 and 2 looked at Borg drones liberated from the collective and tried to
merge that into an unfortunate Lore as Charles Manson story serving as one
of the Borg's worst moments yet and a perfect example of exactly what was to be avoided. In "Unity", Voyager's first Borg
episode we looked at former drones forming a different kind of collective
(something that may well be the long term outcome of Unimatrix.) In Scorpion
we looked at the Borg taking a severe beating and their downfall seemed
plausible even if Janeway's actions were not. In "Dark Frontier"
the Borg were somewhat reduced in stature but it was clear that Janeway's
overconfidence was a mistake and she paid the price only temporarily outwitting
the Borg through ingenious gadgetry and desperation. In Unimatrix though
Janeway seems far too casual about engaging the Borg, treating them like
just another Delta Quadrant enemy. Even if her plan is to be assimilated
that only adds to how casually she treats the matter. Her act can either
be seen as foolhardy and contemptuous of the Borg's power or a brave and
risky sacrifice. With little focus on her plan beyond the usual meetings
and Janeway-Chakotay bickering it seems more like the former than the latter.
The Borg may have been weakened but are they really that weak? And if they
are so much of the drama just leaks away.
All along a Borg revolution was in the pipeline and while Unimatrix handles
the material far better then TNG's Descent, Unimatrix Zero still leaves
much to be desired. Common complaints about two part episodes and cliffhangers
are that they come with a strong first part and a weak conclusion. Unimatrix
though seems far more geared towards the conclusion then the first part
and consequently seems rushed and sparse. The concept of Unimatrix Zero
is probably the best possible idea for a Borg revolution anyone could have
come up with. The rendering of Seven's story and the Unimatrix is very well
handled and would have worked much better in a different episode intended
to set up Unimatrix and the Borg revolution. Voyager's infiltration has
a shocking cliffhanger to leave the fans with but overall seems like everything
we've seen before. Janeway and Chakotay arguing about her safety and her
initiative and their level of trust in each other. A mostly unnecessary trip by Janeway
to the Unimatrix, material that would have worked better if Tuvok alone
or the Doctor had made the trip. The scenes of the drones fleeing attacks
by other drones seem a bit silly. (Since they can alter their appearances
at will they should be able to easily defend themselves instead of behaving
like extras in a horror movie.) A plan to infiltrate a Borg cube to do some
damage, Voyager going head to head with a cube that looks suspiciously like
a futuristic crate, a plan going horribly wrong inside the cube, people
we care about falling into the hands of the Borg. This is all stuff we've
seen before and weak direction and a haphazard script don't manage to make
it look fresh or new. In the end Unimatrix is a good episode, but not a
great episode. Normally this might be enough but a story so many years in
the making with such major implications for the whole Star Trek universe
needed to be so much more.
