146 – Unimatrix Zero

Grade: B-

Summary

A Borg drone is dreaming during his regeneration cycle. When he wakes up, he is captured by the Borg Queen and dismantled. She apparently has detected that this is one of the Borg that are ill and/or malfunctioning.

Meanwhile, Seven has a dream during her regeneration cycle. She goes to a forest and meets someone who calls her Annika. It turns out that these are current Borg drones who come to a dreamworld called Unimatrix Zero during their regeneration cycles. When they are done regenerating, they don’t remember having been there.

Commentary

This was a pretty enjoyable episode for the most part. I would rate it higher, but there are just too many clichés here. The story takes an original idea, makes it fairly interesting, attempts to add a romantic subplot, then morphs into an action story which we’ve already seen before and we’ll see again.

This being a season finale, of course we should have expected the Borg to show up again. And the ending shouldn’t have surprised anyone. The only real surprise is why Janeway and crew took phaser rifles with them, because they clearly intended to be captured.

There are also no surprises that Janeway and Chakotay have a disagreement about her plans. The writers have made her out to be very irrational. Chakotay may have hit it on the head when he said the Doctor might be persuaded to certify her as unfit to be Captain.

I could list off a bunch more clichés that I’m tired of seeing in this series, but I’ll just say I thought the storyline was lacking some original thinking. It was a good idea, but it just wasn’t executed well. I wish they had taken more time exploring Unimatrix Zero before they turned it into yet another Janeway vs the Queen of the Borg story.

But I will say this, though. Jeri Ryan gave an excellent performance. She’s actually quite talented as an actress. Notice the subtle changes in Seven as her humanity resurfaces completely while in Unimatrix Zero. Then she retreats back, but it’s far too late for that. Anyway, I was impressed since we have only seen the Borg side of her during this series.

Of Note

When she first meets Mark Deakins’ character, he says his name is “Zaxum”. Then later, he’s referred to as “Axum”. It’s probably just a mistake at the beginning of the episode. Oops.

Tom Paris becomes re-instated as a lieutenant near the beginning of this episode. Meanwhile, Harry Kim is still an ensign.

By the way, Jeri Ryan is much more attractive as a human than she is in her Borg catsuit. I wish they could have just let her wear regular clothes in this series.