S7 E02: Imperfection

Three of the Borg kids are dropped off with a foster species, but Icheb remains behind since his parents wanted to turn him into a bomb. Once of Seven's implants is malfunctioning, and it cannot be replicated, and when Janeway salvages one from a dead drone it turns out that only one from a live drone will do. Icheb hatches a plan to use his own implant for Seven, and use his youth to help his body adapt to its abscence. Seven doesn't like the risk inherent in his plan, so he takes matters into his own hands and deactivates his implant himself. Janeway and the Doctor are now faced with two patients who are refusing treatment, but Seven relents and accepts Icheb's help. Fortunately, the transfer is a success, and Icheb recovers as well.

When the three youngest Borg kids left in the beginning of this episode, I started wondering how they'd get rid of Icheb by the end. It felt like the writers were trying to unload last season's baggage, and when it became clear that a live drone's implant was needed AND we'd spent all that time talking about Icheb's future plans to join Starfleet, it seemed pretty obvious that he'd have to make a heroic sacrifice, thereby cleaning out the rest of the season six luggage. I was completely floored when he lived through the episode.

It was interesting tracking my feelings about the episode as it progressed. Every episode starts out at a three out of five, and goes up and down from there based on a number of largely subjective elements; as the plot continued getting less and less tidy, I felt better and better about it. Early on, it seemed like a fairly generic Seven story, and even annoyed me by lampshading the ease of replacing the Delta Flyer. It went on to overuse the "oh, by the way, the last five dramatic minutes were all a holodeck simulation" trope. Of course, the first half of the episode was also home to some fun dialogue; the Doctor goading Seven into playing a game with Neelix was delightful, so I was content to call it a wash.

Things really started to turn around when Seven escapes from sickbay and takes refuge in engineering with Torres. Those two have had more time together than they've deserved, but their interaction here is one of the most touching parts of the whole episode. Despite their previous differences, they carry on a geniunely moving dialogue, punctuated with appropriate humor and existential angst. Icheb's discovery that he could help Seven initially worried me (based on my initial assumptions about the direction of this episode), but his confrontation of the Doctor with his plan is well delivered and paced. I was still certain he was going to die, but they'd given him his meatiest part of the series, so I figured it was worth it.

In a Trek where the most compelling character is the Doctor, you're going to get a lot of patient's rights themes shooting around. Here, it is particularly related to Seven's refusal to undergo a procedure that could save her, but might kill Icheb. You might remember from Nothing Human that Janeway's previous stance on the matter was that she could override the patient's wishes as the captain, since she must take into account the welfare of the whole crew where a critical crew member is concerned. While this episode may seem like a bit of a departure from that stance, since she does not force Seven to undergo the procedure, I do think that there is are several significant differences between the two instances. Overriding Torres (in Nothing Human) would result in no physical harm to her. While emotional harm is something worth considering, I'm okay with it taking second place to physical harm. But here, overriding Seven could result in physical harm to Icheb, and isn't even 100% guaranteed to help Seven, which makes it a significantly more complex dilemma, and one I would not be eager to make a choice on for someone else.

But the icing on the cake for me is Icheb's solution, which is to make the dilemma even more complex. He sabotages himself, then refuses treatment that would restore his implant, so that they now outright have to choose between two conflicting desires. SO AWESOME. This is entirely what I came here for. And, since we've already got the icing on this cake, I'm really not sure what to call the writers' bravery that allowed Icheb to live until the end. Candles? Another cake on top of the first cake?

Watchability: 5/5

Bottom Line: I love complicated stories, I love problems that don't have simple solutions, and I love this episode. This is hands-down the best use of any of the Borg kids.