Season six seemed to go by pretty quickly for me. I can hardly believe that I just watched...
"Unimatrix Zero, Part I"
How do you think this one is going to turn out for me?
1. It's a Borg episode
2. Featuring the Borg Queen
3. Action on an epic scale
4. We learn more about Borg culture
In other words, four things that just don't do it for me. The less you see of the Borg, the more effective they are, and by this point they've been over-exposed. Plus, didn't Kes throw them 10,000 light years away from the Borg three years ago? But they just keep popping up.
Here's how I would have dealt with the Borg. After they find out Icheb has that virus thing, Janeway twists the Doctor's arm into engineering an airborne version. They then fill a shuttle with some TECH that will grab the attention of a cube. The re-engineered virus has a six-month delay, so instead of keeling over right away, the drones spread it throughout the cube, which then spreads it throughout the Quadrant. By the time drones start to die, there's nothing they can do to stop the virus. A few scattered outposts of Borg are left. Maybe they all band together in a single system that's put under quarantine.
To ensure that the Borg never become a threat again, Janeway gives the virus to the systems surrounding the remaining Borg, modified so that it now acts much quicker. Now, they've effectively inoculated the Delta Quadrant against the spread of the Borg. You could have a great "Do I have the right?" moment as Janeway grapples with her morality, and then in the following season have episodes that deal with the unintended consequences of the Borg's demise.
But instead we just have Voyager going up against a quadrant full of Borg by itself, again.
There was something bothering me about this episode from the start. It wasn't until it was almost over that I realized it: it's extremely derivative of The Matrix, to the extent that "Matrix" is actually in the title. A group of drones plugged into a collective experiences a reality in which they look as they want to, not as they really do. That's a bit too close for comfort for me.
By the end, where we've got the Captain, Tuvok, and Torres assimilated, there's more than a passing resemblance to "The Best of Both Worlds," as well.
And why do we have to see the Borg Queen getting put together every time we see her? It's megacool and all that, but I just don't get what that sequence is trying to tell us, besides that it looks cool. Neat that they can do something we saw in "BEM" that looks so realistic, but what's the point?
It was a well-made episode, to be sure, but it just was lacking...something. For my tastes, at least.
