Unimatrix Zero

*** (3 stars out of 5)

The Queen of all Borg has won many billions of minds, but may not have won any hearts.

Unfortunately, she believes the way to an organic being's heart is through the disecction of the brain. You can ask her all about it. For some reason she's started monologing.

It seems that a small number of Borg drones dream free: a landscape known as "Unimatrix Zero" (manufactured by the subconscious minds of some handfuls of X-Men) allows a taste of dreamtime freedom. And the soul of Annika Hansen was free there. And she had a Dream Lover so she didn't have to dream alone. Seven's Dream-Beau Axum doesn't really appeal to ME, but perhaps he's someone's bland and handsome (blandsome) cup of meat.

The Doctor concocts a magic potion called a cortical inhibitor virus that spreads across the community of mutant dreamers wherever they are in the Borg Collective. Moving all across the quadrant through um... science? I Guess? Must be more like a computer virus than an organic one, although if that's the case maybe Torres should've invented it? Whatever it is, it means they can remember their individuality and desire for freedom while they are awake. Perhaps they will defect from the Borg and find careers on other, less tired television shows.

But that will be little comfort to Captain Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres, who have been assimilated while helping the Borg rebels. Yeeurgh! That's horrible! Still... maybe next year the Doctor will give them all blonde hair and skin-tight catsuits. The ratings will be higher than ever!

This episode got a fairly good review from Get Critical, and I'm glad it works for someone. I'm not saying it's BAD... because it's not. Like most of this season t's just very, very same-y. Join me for the final season starting tomorrow. I can't promise you'll love it... but I can promise you MORE of it!

Dark Frontier

*** (3 stars out of 5)

An itsy-bitsy Borg scout ship is no match for a single Voyager photon torpedo beamed inside! So, naturally, they scoop all the bits up. This is the stuff that auto-regenerates, right? And latches onto mobile emitters and grows baby drones and seizes computer control, right? Sure, crawl around in the debris. Put it right up to your face. Yeah, that's right, lick it!

Hey, only 143 people on Voyager? Didn't Tuvok just tell Noss there were 152? Were they offering some more sight-seers a lift somewhere? Or have they been dying left and right from this foolhardy BORG looting?

To hear Tom tell it, the new world economy took shape in the late 22nd century and money went the way of the dinosaur. (It evolved, developed spaceflight and emerged as a Delta Quadrant superpower?) Fort Knox became a museum. Even the Ferengi who tried to break in back in 2365 failed. So... the one thing that seems clear is Earth isn't on the gold standard anymore. Everything else about current currency is still up for grabs. Is Earth using replicator credits? Energy credits? Good faith? Fairy dust? No idea.

Speaking of not thinking things through... Seven reads the logs of her insane exobiologist parents who set out to find the Borg ON PURPOSE. Let me repeat: ON PURPOSE. Magnus and Erin Hansen dragged their tiny daughter into the reach of entities that destroy planets and souls. ON. PURPOSE.

I'm guessing if they asked an El-Aurian about the Borg the El-Aurian probably said "Sweet Space-Jesus! Are you people NUTS? Why don't you dip your kid in honey and tuck her into the mouth of a space-bear? Look, that's crazy- why don't you do a dissertation on Bolians? Bolians seem nice."

The Hansens invented a life-sign cloaking device called a biodampener. This device STILL works! Despite the fact that the Hansens and all their ideas were assimilated 22 years ago. Or is it all a ploy?  The local Borg Queen, contrary to the Borg philosophy, claims to want Seven of Nine back more than she wants the other 142 crew combined. Why? What makes her so collectible? Is Seven the chase figure?

Janeway's answer when Naomi Wildman pleads for a rescue of the seemingly traitorous Seven is one of the best things the Captain's ever said: "There are three things to remember about being a starship captain: keep your shirt tucked in, go down with the ship, and never abandon a member of your crew."

Chakotay believes the Hansens were overconfident. Janeway confidently assures Chakotay that she won't become overconfident.

The Queen claims Seven is the only Borg who's been restored to individuality. Uh... there was Locutus, Hugh, Lore's lost disciples... but best not to mention them if you need to butter Seven up for some reason. She wants Seven's help with that weak, paltry Species 5618 that keeps successfully resisting their direct assaults. Next plan: Earth's atmosphere seeded with nanoprobes.

And if that's what they want... well, Voyager stole one of their transwarp coils and got 15 years closer to home. That's kind of the same thing, right?

"Dark Frontier" is a feature-length event. which also gives us our first look at a Borg... city? Space station? Pretty cool. Lot of logical flaws, though. And I hate to say it, I'm getting bored of Borg.

Hope and Fear

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Captain Janeway has spent many sleepless nights since the Letters From Home got partly shredded by the Hirogen, trying to piece together the remaining gibberish.

What luck! Tom and Neelix found a friendly talking goiter who speaks over 4000 languages and learns new ones in moments. Would HE mind taking a look? Of course not! Don't even bother to learn his species' own name for themselves, either. Just keep right on using Borg designations, everyone LOVES when you do that.

Quick as a wink, their good chum Arturis has revealed a message from Admiral Windbag. Voyager's not so very far from U.S.S. Dauntless. That's a brand new starship with an unheard-of advancement in speediness called the quantum slipstream drive. Starfleet was kind enough to throw it to them. And it's empty, just in case. Don't ask just in case of what. It came 60 years distance in 3 months. It even has that new starship smell. Everyone hop in!

Thankfully, the crew spends so much time staring deeply into the maw of this particular gift horse that only Seven and Janeway are trapped aboard when Arturis shows his true colours. Can they stop barking at each other long enough for the Captain to jam a hairpin in Seven's eyebrow to open the jail door? (Don't even ask, I have no idea how that worked.)

"Hope and Fear" brings our season of All Borg, All the time to a close. Was it worth it? Perhaps. Are you as sick of Borg as I am? Well, probably not.

And if there is a villain here, maybe it WAS Janeway. Hear me out! Arturis' entire race got shafted mainly thanks to her Deal With the Devil. Does she express a moment of regret? Of course not! Screw them and their goiter heads, anyway! That's what they get for living here. Go Team Borg!

Scorpion

 *** (3 stars out of 5)

Borg are being destroyed, eaten alive, and left in piles by a species not entirely dissimilar to Ridley's Xenomorph AKA Giger's Alien AKA That Superior Version of This Crap-->

The Borg call them Species 8472, and in a stunning display of offensive indifference, our Starfleeters never bother to learn their real name. Granted, they're vicious, creepy, giant monsters who make piles of corpses and even a tiny scratch from their claws will painfully devour you alive, but diplomatic relations are never going to get anywhere if the first words out of a human's face hole are the Borg Designation.

Voyager is caught between the frying pan and a bunch of rickety CG ghoulies that are nothing like a frying pan.

Holographic Leonardo da Vinci's advice to Janeway is to pray. Janeway decides instead to appeal to a lower power: the Borg. "The Devil", if you will. Because Janeway thinks negotiating with "The closest thing to pure evil" is better than negotiating with something more powerful than the Borg that hates the Borg and is already killing the Borg.

Chakotay relates that story of the buzzard who took a monkey for a ride in the air wherein the buzzard refused to straighten up and fly right. No, sorry, the story of the fox who carried a scorpion across a river on its back and was stung to death, drowning them both. Janeway archly refuses Chakotay's excellent analogy and runs right up to hug the Borg.

So... uh, won't the Borg just assimilate her and thereby learn everything she knows? Well, yes, historically.

Only Janeway says that won't happen today! And apparently the Borg are so desperate or drunk or something that they agree. All Captain Kathy holds over their head is a rather flimsy threat: 'We won't give you our weapon research unless you leave us unassimilated.'

Somehow it does not occur to the Borg to assimilate them anyway, thus taking the information directly out of their minds. You know, as BORG DO and HAVE ALWAYS DONE.

Why doesn't it occur to them? Because we're doing a thing here that won't become clear until next year.

What we know so far is that those three-legged monsters are bigger badasses than the Borg because they slowly kill with a touch and blow up planets. Kill BORG with a touch. Blow up BORG planets.

I'm not saying Janeway necessarily backed the wrong "Scorpion", but she makes no attempt with the enemy of her enemy. So, no new friend. If the Federation rejected everyone whose motto is 'The weak shall perish' they wouldn't have Klingon allies, either.

Q Who

***** (5 stars out of 5)

Ensign Sonya Gomez is excited to be on the Enterprise. She is courteous to food dispensers, and when spilling hot chocolate on the Captain. I like this actress and I'm sure it isn't just because her credits include "Triple-Breasted Whore of Mars".

Q encountered Guinan two centuries ago by another name, calls her a troublesome imp. Guinan gets 'the shining' where Q is concerned. But if she were a Highlander immortal she'd have a sword, and if she were a Time Lord she'd have a TARDIS. Just one of life's mysteries. (Probably not a leprechaun.)

Q has been kicked out of the Continuum, and wants to join the crew. Picard is dubious. They really don't need an insane all-powerful janitor. They're not 'Scrubs'.

"You may not trust me, but you need me. You're not prepared for what awaits you... Terrors to freeze your soul."

Q wants to prove it, so he snaps his fingers. Hurls them 7,000 light years into the unknown. Guinan's people have been here before, and her advice is simple.

"If I were you, I'd start back now."

System J-25 is just empty roads and pock marks where cities should be. And a starship shaped like a cube. Guinan's people met them a century ago: they are called the Borg. They swarmed across her civilization and left nearly nothing behind.

Robot Zombie #1 is downed by Worf. Troi senses no single leader, a group consciousness. The Borg cut a chunk out of the saucer section: a sample that incidentally has 18 people inside.

Guinan knows the Borg have been a threat for thousands of centuries, a fusion of organic life and technology. Focused locusts.

The Borg don't especially care if an away team noses around their ship. Riker encounters infants fitted with implants. It's the logical progression of 'Toddlers In Tiaras', and just as unsettling.

The cube heals itself, adapts to torpedo fire, and gives chase.

"If we all die here... you won't be able to gloat." Picard admits he needs Q to save them.

Buttered up, the entity snaps them home again with a parting taunt. "It's not safe out here. It's wondrous-- with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross... But it's not for the timid."

"Q Who" brings us ghoulish new villains to fuel the nightmares, and as Picard puts it: 'a kick in our complacency'.