LogFAQs > #972291919

Episode 23: I, Borg

A more intimate story was probably the best option for their next appearance.

Stewart's magnificent at making Picard wear his PTSD all over his face. Quite ready to leave alone, but hearing Worf's militant suggestions reminds him of his best self, weary as it makes him. Politely, but far too finally, shuts down Troi. Deep into madness when he suggests the infection plan. Completely dispassionate, yet internally frothing. Tries to sort of dodge Guinan's questions. Enjoys playing with dehumanising pronouns and speaks of Hugh with angry contempt. Utterly brilliant to go from lightly wounded at being called Locutus to immediately turning it into a plan. Left in a shocked whisper when Hugh demonstrates proper individuality.

Riker has a professionally understated reaction to Hugh. Fully in pragmatic mode.

La Forge finds quite a lot of decisions and suggestions a little dubious. Sarcastic to Hugh. His anger at Crusher suggests that he did have quite a problem with this before bonding with Hugh. Telling Guinan to listen is fucking brilliant.

Worf, as expected, advocates killing Hugh. Never thrilled with leaving his captain in danger.

Crusher has remarkable empathy and does the right thing. Once Third demonstrates that it's scared without the rest of the collective, I feel her arguments are immediately validated. Patient as hell with Hugh and finds his progress immensely gratifying.

I think Troi is getting increasingly frustrated by people refusing her help. Her face seems to suggest resignation at any rate. Little shocked to see her on the war side of the debate.

What is going on with Data? After kind of spinning his wheels for a good few seasons, hes suddenly picked up an aptidude for social affairs. Basically prompting Troi to talk to Picard with only a look.

I'm not sure about this use of Guinan. Usually, her role is to cleverly suggest the right philosophical choice. Here, she just plays into Picard's paranoia and trauma. Nice as it is to have her explore fencing, I not convinced it's the correct choice to have her lose, either, even if one was a feint. Her angry reaction to La Forge flags up the weirdness even more so. I get she's had history with the Borg and for any other character, this sort of development would be fine, but after being so immaculately moral and wise in every other appearance, it feels off to have her so against them. Even with the loss of her home and most of her people, I would've still expected her to be sympathetic to Hugh from the start. The problem might just be inflexibility on my part, especially since I quite like the late night visit scene and there's nothing glaringly wrong in any of her other scenes.

Hugh has some pretty good body language to indicate how lost he is. Naturally, La Forge's example gives him the first impetus to begin questioning things. The body language makes gradual changes as he explores individuality more. Its impressive how expressive you can be with just one eye. Rejecting Borg philosophy is a great moment. Giving La Forge one last look was quite sweet.

They're all correct: The star is pretty beautiful. The snow planet is quite nice, especially with the overhead shot. Surprised to see a dead Borg with an exposed brain. Picard gets a variety of closeups to emphasise his teetering on the brink of madness. Fitting the coupling manages to be an impressively tense scene.

He who fights monsters, then. Because, ultimately, the Borg are all about depersonifying people and literally making them drones in a somewhat vague machine. Armed with their respective traumas, most of the cast are perfectly comfortable with doing the exact same dehumanising to Hugh because, to them, he's just another piece of kit in the service of their enemy. And, following this theme of large institutions eroding humanity, fear and an undeclared war are used as additional justifications for the surrendering of ethics. Crusher breaks through this nonsense because the overriding philosophy behind medicine is an absolute insistence on showing compassion to all.

It's sort of necessary to avoid the Borg being little more than masterbatory cannon fodder, anyway. As soon as Picard was freed from the collective at the start of season 4, it became apparent that assimilation doesn't necessarily kill you, so, much as it just subsumed you. Considering the strides they've made with the Klingons (and occasionally tried with other races), suggesting that all other drones can just kick rocks and die, but Locutus is special because he was once a main character kind of violates the overall ethics they're going for. If Picard were never assimilated, maybe they could've gotten away with having a race of flat monsters, but it just can't really work now without some acknowledgement that being relentlessly militant is problematic to say the least.

Besides, what about Picard's (and, much as I still think, even with her trauma, that this wasn't the ideal role for the character, Guinan's) soul. Allowing their first instincts to be right means conceding that that they should be perpetually angry and wounded over what was done, which flies in the face of the big theme of healing that the past few seasons have kept flagging up.

By my count, we're three for three on great Borg stories.

On to The Next Phase.