69 – Scorpion, Part 2

Grade: B

Summary

Janeway is on the Borg cube, negotiating with the enemy to try to get safe passage through their space. She asks for Tuvok to join her on the ship. Once he’s over there, Janeway asks the Borg to have an individual drone represent the Collective to make it easier to communicate with them. A Borg named Seven of Nine joins them to work with them on defeating Species 8472.

Commentary

As Janeway and the crew of Voyager work closely with the Borg during this episode, one thing really struck a chord with me: the idea that dissenting opinions can often lead to inefficiency and maybe even complete breakdowns in productivity. But it doesn’t always have to be that way. In this episode, however, Janeway and Chakotay disagree on this alliance and when Janeway is unable to keep functioning, Chakotay pulls the plug on the deal.

Personally, I liked Chakotay’s decision a lot better than Janeway’s original idea. I think the episode takes a bit of a cop-out when Janeway makes a sudden and complete recovery and has to re-initialize her alliance with the Borg. She tells Chakotay that she’s all alone because she can’t depend on him to support her decisions. Honestly, up to this point in the series, I haven’t really liked Janeway as a Captain or even as a character. But now after this episode, I’ve reached a point of no return. She has become my least favorite Star Trek Captain of all time. I would never want to work for her.

Here’s the problem with Janeway – she can’t stand differences of opinion. She has to be right about everything all the time. If anyone suggests anything different than what she has already decided to do, she considers it insubordination and threatens to throw them in the Brig. Hmm. And yet a few moments ago, she was just arguing with the Borg about accepting and working with dissenting opinions. How typical of this series and this character.

Janeway is a lot like some people I’ve worked for (and with). She can’t handle it when her First Officer doesn’t agree with her. Chakotay acted in exactly the way that a good 1st Officer should have – he privately counseled with her and gave his opinion. It wasn’t out in public where all the rest of the crew could hear. If he didn’t give her his opinion, he would be useless to her. Why does she even need a First Officer if she’s just going to steamroll over him and the rest of the crew? Ultimately, Janeway has a lack of self-esteem. The writers did a good job of making her hypocritical, but I wish they had instead made her a better Captain and a nicer person.

But that’s not the only problem I have with this episode. I hated it that both Janeway and Kim recovered from their injuries so quickly. I hated it that Voyager was able to withstand attacks from ships that were strong enough to destroy planets. I also hated it that Voyager was so easily able to destroy those ships with microscopic weapons. But I did rate it fairly high because it does have some excellent character moments in it. You’ll like this episode a whole lot more than I did if all you want is explosions and a well-endowed female in a tight costume.

Of Note

In this episode, we find out that Voyager has 32 photon torpedoes. Of course, that means they have only used 15, since that’s what they started with in the beginning of this series.