| Icheb, the eldest of the Borg children, has just begun to fit in when Voyager finds his homeworld - and his parents. He's not excited about returning to people he doesn't remember, but Seven is even less excited. She has become attached to him, but is also concerned for his safety on an agrarian world that is the site of frequent Borg raids. Janeway convinces her to give the parents a chance, and they win Icheb over. After Voyager leaves, Seven discovers some inconsistencies in the father's story; but when they return to ask more questions, Icheb has already been sent away. You see, Icheb himself was genetically designed to be the biological weapon that infected the Borg cube that he was found on. Voyager rescues him from the sphere he'd been sent to destroy, and he happily remains with the crew. |
Normally, I'd pan an episode (or at least whine about it) for focusing on a minor character rather than spending time on one of the underused major characters, but I think it works here. Any time that a major character has a chance to leave, particularly mid season, it is very hard to take seriously (see, for example, Virtuoso). But Icheb occupies a plot space between major character and background nobody where he could actually leave the show, and it would kind of matter. Additionally, the episode does a good job of tying his departure emotionally to Seven, so it doesn't just matter to Icheb what Icheb does.
Of course, Icheb's choice and Seven's mixed feelings open us up for one of those miserable Seven-Janeway debates. You know the ones I'm talking about: Janeway behaves condescendingly towards Seven, makes arguments that boil down to "I'm Janeway and I know what's best" and/or "individuality is the best because it is awesome." Other than the one from Latent Image, these debates have consistently been the conversations most devoid of intellectual merit on the entire show - made worse by Janeway's ability to always be right (again, except in Latent Image), meaning that everything Seven says will be thrown in her face by the end of the episode. To this episode's credit, some of Janeway's arguments aren't exclusively tautological, and Seven displays some excellent emotional maturity in her ability to recognize her own bias, so I'll give this part some leeway.
Icheb's dad is played by Mark Sheppard (Badger from Firefly, Romo "that lawyer guy" Lampkin from BSG), and boy is it weird to hear him without a cockney accent. In general, Icheb's parents do a good job of making the "boy, we sure wish you remembered us" scenes not that awkward. The process by which he becomes more enamored of leaving Voyager and the astrophysics that he loves, and begins to see a life for himself with his parents feels natural, but somewhat rushed. I was enjoying the episode well enough up until the 28 minute mark where they leave Icheb on the planet and you know something is going to go wrong. You know that all the subtleties of Icheb's choice are going to go out the window and we're going to find the dirty secret.
Then I started thinking about how the conflict is kind of contrived to begin with. I mean, Borg engaging in raiding tactics? When, in the Voyager Borg cannon, have we heard of the Borg just taking what they want and leaving - essentially farming a society for technological advancements and going back to harvest periodically. Actually, now that I think about it, for the Voyager Borg, who don't develop new technology, this is a pretty great scheme. Keep the smart people unassimilated and just harvest their idea crops from time to time. I'm of two minds on the ending too. Icheb being the biological weapon that infected his ship, that's a pretty interesting idea, even if it undermines the whole first two thirds of the episode. But Voyager weaponized the pathogen in a couple of hours already, so the need to use a living, sentient host is kind of moot, but that is never addressed here. It all seems to be half-thought-out, and left me generally irritated.
Watchability: 3/5
Bottom Line: While it is generally a well-constructed frame of an episode, the details frustrated me more often than not. It isn't great, but it is never outright bad either, and it has good ideas but some of them feel accidental.
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