1x12 Let Sleeping Borg Lie

[7.4/10] I heartily approve of letting the Borg be scary again! For all that Prodigy rightfully pays tribute to Star Trek: Voyager, the earlier series nerfed the cyborg baddies more than a little. Between Seven, a return engagement from the Queen, and all sorts of anti-borg tech that Janeway’s crew developed, it felt like Starfleet had a handle on the cybernetic baddies, and they’ve never posed the same level of menace since.

How do you fix that? Mix the Borg with a crop of kids who have the benefit of Holo-Janeway’s experience but have never encountered these cyborg villains before and don’t really know what they’re doing. Something about watching Dal, Gwyn, and company try to fend off the techno-zombies in a dormant Borg cube makes them seem legitimately frightening once more. With animation, the show’s creatives can get a little funkier with the designs (see: the scary “Rhino Borg” who intimidates our heroes). The design freedom and moodier atmosphere pays real dividends.

I also like that this is largely a Zero story. They’re still full of sorrow over how their natural form hurt Gwyn, and looking for a way to make up for their perceived mistakes. That’s what make them willing to take the risk of interfacing with the Borg Collective via the cube’s vinculum (another Voyager shout out). The scenes we get, of a free-floating Zero communicating with the hivemid’s voice, is impressionistic and a little stirring given the emotional notes at play. Zero is looking for information, but finds comfort in being part of a din rather than an individual voice. It’s a way of escaping fading into the woodwork, letting the broader crowd assume all agency in a way that lets you retreat from any personal responsibility.

So it’s scary, but also sad, when Zero shows up having been assimilated. The lighting and direction choices emphasize the terror of it, and the way it comes through as Zero giving up makes it a pathos-ridden choice. The loss there makes it that much more affecting when Gwyn convinces Zero that loss is a part of life, something all of them chose by engaging in this life, and that the bad that happened isn’t Zero’s fault. Zero was trying to do good, and as the Medusan themself affirms, they’re part of a collective stronger than any the Borg can offer. The idea is a touch trite and simple, but once again, it’s age appropriate, and the writers’ hearts are in the right place.

I’m intrigued by the increasing hints that, as Vice Admiral Janeway hunts down Chakotay, she’s increasingly likely to view the crew of the Protostar as bad guys who stole a ship and possibly hurt her best friend, rather than noble, scrappy kids who need her guidance. Color me intrigued by the likely disconnect there, and impressed at the show’s ability to lay out misleading clues that would justify Vice Admiral Janeway reaching that conclusion.

The theme of this half-season seems to be the Protostar crew proving themselves as good guys, trying to solve problems out in the galaxy so that when they do reach Starfleet, they’re seen as do-gooders in training not ill-intentioned pirates. The weapon aboard their ship and the likely misleading words from the Diviner are working against them, but I’m excited to see them try.

Speaking of that weapon, we get a little more detail here. It’s called “the Living Construct” and even the Borg can’t disarm it. For what it’s worth, there’s some cleverness amid the naivete of Dal’s idea to use the Borg’s vast knowledge of the galaxy and ability to neutralize weapons against them to try to find a way to deactivate his secret armament on their ship. The fact that it seems to be reactive and possibly even alive intrigues me.

Overall, I was a little leery of this one utilizing the Borg, since they’ve been done to death at this point. But this episode not only found a way to make them frightening enemies again, but used their unique qualities to tell a nice character story for Zero and set up an intriguing conflict to come. Good stuff.