Star Trek 519: Unity

519. Unity

FORMULA: I, Borg + The 37s + Behind Enemy Lines + Hippocratic Oath

WHY WE LIKE IT: The Borg are back. I guess.

WHY WE DON'T: A boring Chakotay romance.

REVIEW: This is the last episode to take place inside the Nekrit Expanse, and as far as I'm concerned, only the second one. It is described here as sparsely populated, and it's true that we haven't seen much life since Fair Trade, but those big pink clouds have been absent too. An "expanse" could indeed be a wide area of space with a common property, and the clouds seemed to be that property when we first saw them. And here they are again. It's just odd, that's all. But maybe I shouldn't be picking on details when the episode also stars humans who were assimilated by the Borg at Wolf 359. Those that were on Locutus' Cube. The same Cube that got blown up real good at the end of The Best of Both Worlds.

The plot focuses on Chakotay, wounded and alone on a makeshift colony world inhabited by former drones who have been cut off from the Borg Collective, many of which are representatives of Alpha Quadrant races. Riley Frazier is the love interest, though she's basically an infodump machine. She's there to tell the story of the "Cooperative", then their true story, then their plan to unify the colony though the Borg link. There's also some silliness involving the collective consciousness having healing properties, and so Chakotay gets to "link". Shades of Odo boogieing with the Founder Leader, it's a seductive experience. But Chakotay basically having sex with himself an hour later? The romance just turned from dull to dull AND creepy.

Meanwhile, Voyager discovers a dead Borg Cube and the Doctor reawakens a drone by mistake. There's a fairly high production value here thanks to sets and costumes left over from the First Contact production, and nice atmosphere as well. Later, Chakotay will be manipulated by the Cooperative to turn the Cube back on and as drones are waking up, make the Cube self-destruct. A small taste of excitement about the episodes ahead.

As for the Cooperative, they force their collective consciousness on the whole of the colony and establish peace. If the Borg have often represented dehumanization in an industrial or totalitarian context, it has never had the emotional background to model a cult. But that's what the Cooperative feels like. A group of slightly zonked-out indoctrinators who keep Chakotay in a bunker and reprogram him. When we lose our individuality to the collective will, we become Borg, no matter the reason. Unity has a strong idea behind it, so it's too bad it comes off as just a little bit boring.

LESSON: Once a drone, always a drone.

REWATCHABILITY - Medium: A lot of talking and a protagonist reeling from a headache all the way through. The Borg returning is cool, but they're not QUITE back yet. Voyager head count update: 143.