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Star Trek Voy - Season 5 - Episode 15

Star Trek Voy - 5x15 - Dark Frontier, Part I

Originally Aired: 1999-2-17

Synopsis:
Seven is lured back to the Collective. [DVD]

My Rating - 9

Fan Rating Average - 6.57

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Problems
None

Factoids
- The actors hired for Seven of Nine's flashbacks are the same actors hired for her previous flashbacks in Voy: Scorpion and Voy: The Raven.
- Seven's parents measured the Borg cube at 28 cubic kilometers with 129,000 drones aboard.

Remarkable Scenes
- Voyager's conflict with the Borg probe.
- Janeway: "Now this is how I prefer the Borg. In pieces!"
- Kim: "Captain! Don't touch that!" Janeway: "What is it?" Kim: "I don't know. But a few minutes ago it was crawling around the floor."
- Janeway's recreation.
- The heist.
- Seven deciding to stay.
- The sight of the unicomplex.
- The Borg queen's assemblage and greeting to Seven.

My Review
This is probably one of Voyager's most controversial episodes, as much of the trivia seems to contradict TNG. The Hansens made first contact with the Borg, not Picard. And it seems the Borg Queen somehow survived the ordeal in Star Trek VIII: First Contact. This stuff isn't as bad as it seems though. The Hansens were chasing after a Borg "myth". Nobody in Starfleet took them seriously at all. Also, they crossed the Neutral Zone to do it, which seems continuous with the Romulans complaining that their outposts were being picked off in TNG: The Neutral Zone. Additionally, in TNG: Q Who, Picard said the Federation needed a "kick" in its "complacency", this could be loosely interpreted as Picard saying, "looks like the Borg rumors were real after all." As for the queen, another body was probably selected to represent her, much the way the Founders are presumed to work on DS9. In short, I don't think this episode really conflicts with TNG. Getting to the good stuff, it's awesome that Janeway is finally starting to realize "hey, let's steal Borg engines and get home really fast!" The writers gave us a convincing model of how it could be done without looking too easy or too hard. I like how they made it possible through a unique situation, mostly explaining why they never tried it before. The Borg Queen's interest in Seven of Nine remains something of a mystery, but then her interest in Picard or Data wasn't exactly easy to explain either. Overall, a highly exciting episode with a decent cliffhanger.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Dave on 2009-08-03 at 2:36am:
    Not quite so sure I would dismiss the continuity problems with TNG's Borg history quite so easily. I'm sure they can be rationalised away - perhaps it would have been nice for Janeway or one of the crew to have at least expressed some curiosity about it. After all, in Scorpion, Janeway does say "from the moment Q flung the Enterprise into the path of that first cube" - meaning it was still believed Picard had first contact with the Borg.
    Besides that - having just seen The Raven again, I'm puzzled. Janeway says files from the USS Raven have been "gathering dust" in Voyager's database for a year. Really? When were these obtained? Presumably from the encounter with the Raven, of course, but how exactly? Neither Seven nor Tuvok had time to download them, as the ship was under attack from the Bomar aliens of the week. And once they left the ship, they saw the Raven fall to pieces before being beamed out by Paris. Hardly an episode breaker - but a bit annoying!
  • From Spacebard on 2012-10-28 at 6:13pm:
    Not too long after the Doctor had deleted the Crell Moset hologram on ethical grounds in “Nothing Human”, he is seen enthusing over a piece of Borg medical equipment presumably derived from the forced assimilation of billions of sentient beings. Then, under Janeway’s direction, the crew formulate a plan to steal a Borg transwarp coil with seemingly no ethical qualms. A touch of double standards, methinks.

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