534. The RavenFORMULA: Birthright + The Swarm + Brothers
WHY WE LIKE IT: The secret origin of Seven part 1.
WHY WE DON'T: Part 1 is pretty slim.
REVIEW: When she gets a signal from her "origin point", Seven leaves the ship under alien influence in a manner that showcases how she could destroy them all if she wanted to. In other words, she "pulls a Data". Sadly, what could have been the secret origin of Seven of Nine is sorely lacking in new information. We already knew she was assimilated as a child, as were her parents. Though we find out their ship (the Raven) was in the Delta Quadrant, it's not revealed how or why.
It's less an origin story than it is an experience. As part of her integration/humanization arc, it allows her to finally feel fear and negative emotion vis à vis assimilation. Though she still wishes to rejoin the Collective and leave the discomforts of humanity behind, her instincts have changed. I have reservations about the way this is handled though. The repressed memories manifest themselves as strange waking nightmares, including the appearance of a fearsome raven, symbolizing, one later learns, her home ship. This is pretty odd, though I can't say I'm an expert. The scenes where an adult Seven acts the part of the child are visually striking, if at times make it seem like she's suffering from split personality.
Aside from the flashbacks, she does get to do a lot of fun things, including nerve pinch Tuvok and learn to eat with Neelix. (Who's going to teach her about the downside of that?) She engages the Bomar in a brief, but unusual way, playing bumper cars with their ships. The weakest moment is sadly her visit to Leonardo's workshop, in part because he's not there, and in part because it's too long. I don't need much of Janeway's speeches about humanity to carry me through the day. Too much and I get an indigestion.
And speaking of the Bomar, they're the official villains of the piece, yet another Delta Quadrant xenophobic culture that won't let Voyager pass through its territory. The many rules attached to their permission provide some amusement, but Seven forces the issue and Janeway risks war by heading into their space and disabling their ships. I believe in being fair: This isn't one of those instances where Janeway is being absurdly reckless. You know any of the other captains would have done the same to rescue a crew member.
LESSON: There were 3040 species assimilated between the Talaxians and the Vulcans. (Species 218 and 3259 respectively. By the way, we're Species 5618, so the Vulcans were encountered a long time before humans.)
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: Could have been an important Seven episode, but there just isn't enough meat to it.
Comments
One could, I suppose, argue that First Contact (and, later, Enterprise) managed to change just enough of the timeline to make the Borg a curiousity/mystery (without changing any other bits of history whatsoever; a nice trick, that), but then Humans would have gotten a much lower Species Number in the process, wouldn't they?