S7 E01: Unimatrix Zero, Part II

Assimilated Janeway, Torres, and Tuvok succeed in spreading the virus through the weighted companion cube central plexus, but are captured when Tuvok is overcome by the collective. The Borg Queen attempts to force Janeway to give up by destroying whole cubes in order to eliminate the few infected drones aboard each one, but gets nowhere. Instead, she develops a counter-virus that will kill all the drones affected by the mutation, but the only way she can spread it is through Unimatrix Zero. Voyager works with the freed drones to disable Unimatrix Zero, leaving them unable to communicate with each other, but safe from the Queen. A sphere that has been taken over by the rebellion assists Voyager in freeing their captured crew members.

It seemed odd to me that the away team wouldn't have just infected themselves with the virus from the start, since that would have protected them from the Queen's influence. I suppose that maybe the virus only works for those drones who have the mutation, and since no one seems to know what that even means (hardware, software, biological, mechanical, etc) they couldn't count on using it to their advantage. Plus, it gave the writers another chance for Tuvok to be the weakest link, which they seem to love; his conversion seems to be the only plot reason for not using the virus in that way. It is also strange that, while the drones are no longer connected to the collective, they are still connected to Unimatrix Zero. That makes the virtual reality into some kind of long-distance telepathy, but I never really liked it anyways, and I'm just thrilled that the solution to this episode wasn't some sort of climactic battle in there.

As for the scenes between the Queen and Janeway... I sincerely hope that the Queen did not really believe that destroying cube after cube would in some way make Janeway reconsider. "So, my options are help you re-assimilate all the lost drones or watch you do my dirty work for me? Let me think about this for a while. No, keep blwoing up cubes in the meantime, it'll help me think." The insults that they hurl at each other sound like your average internet forum debate on creationism, by about page thirty when all the sane people have left and it is just two zealots saying the same thing over and over. Really, Janeway, you think that the Queen is genuinely afraid that a taste of individuality will win her over to your side? And Queen, do you really think Janeway would rather see the drones reassimilated than dead? To her, assimilation is worse than death.

Part of the problem here could be that, in between watching parts one and two, I played through Portal 2, and man, GLaDOS would have made such a better Borg Queen. Hard not to go into details without going into spoiler territory for Portal, but suffice it to say that they have a lot in common, except that GLaDOS is hilarious and awesome. The Queen isn't really Voyager's fault, but considering that the Borg are so much weaker in Voyager she does come across as being kind of pathetic.

The romance that made no sense in part I is back, but as long as you forget that part I happened, it is relatively benign here. The Doctor's scene with Seven is nice, and while it is consistent with a terrible episode, it is at least consistent, and not too uncomfortable. In the end, it is kind of a shame that we'll probably never see that guy again. Maybe we'll see the Klingon drone who comes to Voyager's aid again, I have intentionally not looked him up so that I can cling to that hope. Also, it was nice that they did kind of use Paris' promotion in this episode, if only to reinforce how much more appropriate a choice Kim would be for a promotion.

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: While, yes, I'm going to try not to get too snarky, this simply wasn't a very engaging episode. I've seen them in Voyager, plenty of them, but this just wasn't one of them. It was, however, an improvement over the first part, so that's worth a 3.