Star Trek Voyager Reviews Written by Someone Who Actually LIKES the Show! -- Scorpion

Yes, kids, it's the toy we've all been waiting for...New from Mattel! It's Der Wunderborgen! Pile your Borg cubes to make a skyscraper! or a pyramid! or use them separately as paperweights! or line them up to form a obstacle course for your skateboard!

And don't forget My Little Der Wunderborgen for Girls, which comes with blond, red, or black hair that really grows! Brush Der Wunderborgen's long tresses, paint Der Wunderborgen with washable colors, and stick on one of seven different star or rainbow stick-ons!

And for adults, it's Der Wunderborgen Ice. Put these cubes in your G&T and avoid water dilution. Or you can just use them to prop up that shaky table.

Anyway...

This here's a spoiler-filled review of Star Trek Voyager's latest episode, "Scorpion." It's intended expressly for the enjoyment and knuckle-clenching of Voyager fans, so if that ain't you, may I suggest that rather than reading about modified Borg nanoprobes, you go have fun someplace else?

How about The Microbe Zoo?

Nope? Okay then...

INITIAL VIEWER EXPERIENCE
HA HA HA! Stupid Borg...da Vinci isn't too bad an idea after all...Aw! Poor Harry!...Pretty gutsy plan -- how very Janeway!...(Groan) We've all seen The Crying Game, Chakotay...Well, it's gonna be a long summer.

PLOT
Two Borg cubes zoom toward us, telling us that resistance is futile and we will be assimilated. In reply, two massive electrical charges zap those cubes into rubble.

That'll learn 'em.

We are in the workshop of Leonardo da Vinci [Kids: he was an important artist/inventor who lived a long time ago and painted the Mona Lisa.], and everything is wood and candlelight except for Janeway and da Vinci himself, a Santa-bearded John Ryhs-Davies. Seems Janeway is trying to negotiate for a bench in his workshop where she can pursue her own projects while basking in the inspiring presence of the Master.

He's not thrilled at the prospect, though he likes her fine and enjoys showing off his latest thingamajig: a torso with one moving hand. Janeway finally wins him over by suggesting a better design for his flying machine, but her moment of triumph is cut off when Chakotay calls her.

In engineering, Chakotay and Torres show Janeway the latest telemetry they've received from the probe they sent out two months ago. There's the cube, there's steeple, open it up, and there's all the Borg-people!

At a staff conference (while Paris stares at Torres), Janeway explains that there may be a way through Borg space: a small channel with no Borg activity, perhaps due to the unstable space generated by a string of quantum singularities, that they've dubbed the "Northwest Passage." The space may be rough, but it beats the heck out of partying with everyone's favorite automatons.

Chakotay gets everyone to report on their sections and Janeway says she has faith in them all, then we get a nice montage of everyone getting ready for the trip. Janeway's in heaven checking out the phaser rifles and Chakotay and Kim discuss quicker methods of sealing off decks and Paris dresses up in spandex and enjoys a sweaty work-out in the gym to make sure he can beat the crap out of the Borg in hand-to-hand combat.

Well, that last part doesn't actually happen, but Paris spotting is light in this one, so I'm just augmenting a bit. I'm sure they all work out in the gym from time to time, if only to keep Baxter company.

The real action is happening down in Sickbay, however, as the Doctor explains the Borg's assimilation procedures to Kes. Holding up a piece of that Borg corpse they scored in "Unity," he tells her the tubes coming out of the hand can cut through a tin can and still slice a tomato. More importantly, they insert nanoprobes into the assimilation target. The first part of the victim to be attacked is the blood, as the nanoprobes transform the cells like a high-tech virus. What Doc and Kes need to make is some sort of antibody to these nanoprobes.

Kes isn't listening anymore, however, as she's having a vision of dozens of dead Borg piled contemptuously in a heap, their dead, even paler faces gazing out at us.

Tuvok reports to Janeway that Kes has been having these visions now for two hours, seeing dead Borg and the destruction of Voyager. As though Kes were Cassandra (again) Janeway listens carefully to this obvious danger warning, but doesn't think they should change course.

Kim pipes up with news of transwarp signatures and Voyager abruptly falls out of warp while no less than fifteen Borg cubes hurtle past. The last one stops and scans Voyager with a polaron beam. As the beam travels through the bridge, Chakotay flinches, but Janeway keeps herself still, muttering, "Think good thoughts." The ships continue on without further molestation, and Janeway takes this as a good sign. She has Kim scan for stuff and Paris continue on to the Northwest Passage.

Time passes, and Janeway is reading captains' logs on the Borg when Chakotay comes into her ready room to report on their progress and try to get her to eat something. She declines and he's getting ready to leave when she tells him about the logs. Dropping her voice even lower (!), she reads a section of Picard's log where he's talking about how relentless the Borg are, and then she changes her tone again while reading from the log of Captain Amisov (a variation on "Asimov?"). Chakotay smiles, then has to explain that she doesn't seem to realize she's imitating the captains' voices. He tells her that's okay; Ensign Hickman does a good Janeway. As he intends, she relaxes a bit and thinks about having a talk with Ensign Hickman.

The break from worries over, Janeway walks to the window and wonders about the day when they meet a danger too great to face. Will they have to retreat and settle down in the Delta Quadrant? She can read all these logs, but she's really alone out here.

Chakotay looks a little hurt and tells her that if that day comes he knows they'll make the right decision and he'll be at her side. She's not alone. She makes all the J/C fans ecstatic by telling him, "Three years ago I didn't even know your name. Today I can't imagine a day without you."

Tuvok signals in that she's needed on the bridge and soon Janeway and Chakotay are listening to Tuvok and Kim explain that something has majorly messed with those fifteen Borg cubes. Janeway has Voyager go check things out, and we get to enjoy the sight of all those Wunderborgens now looking pretty much like Borgkibblesandbits. Everyone stares at the unassimilated wreckage, and Paris puts voice to the communal thought:

"Who could do this to the Borg?"

Tuvok's scan picks up no vessels, but Kim finds some sort of biological formation attached to one of the Borg ex-cubes. They can see a sort of parasite thing, but it won't answer their hails or react to transporter or tractor beam technology. Janeway sends Chakotay over with Tuvok and Kim to get a good look at whatever it is, and the three guys all get to carry those rifles.

The inside of the damaged Borg ship looks very creepy and smoky and...well, damaged. A few discombobulated Borg walk about in vain attempts to repair things, and our trio keeps a low profile as they scan around for the bioship. First, they find a pile of Borg bones that Tuvok explains are straight out of Kes' vision. Her predictions would seem to be coming true.

"Didn't Kes say we were all going to die?" Kim asks somewhat grimly as they continue on to the bioship, which has eaten its way through the Borg ship. One Borg stands at the bio-opening, repeatedly attempting to assimilate the material. Chakotay and Tuvok go inside the bioship while Kim gets to stay behind and download the Borg's tactical database.

The bioship is extremely biological inside, with a rib/backbone-like structure and neural networks and other cool stuff. Kim fights down an attack of the willies. Tuvok and Chakotay find a Borg inside the bioship that is being ingested by the bioship walls.

Kes drops a tray in Sickbay as she has a vision of Kim screaming in pain. She tells the Doctor they've got to get the away team back, and he signals Janeway.

Kim calls Tuvok and Chakotay out of the bioship and explains that Something is coming at them, currently within twenty meters. Janeway signals in that they're going to beam them out of there, and Chakotay's all for it, but the Something is creating bio-interference, and the trio starts to back away from the unseen menace.

Torres tries to retrieve our heroes with a skeletal lock, targeting the materials of their bones. This takes a while to work, however, and we get to meet the alien pilot of that bioship. Not a pretty computer-generated picture, and it takes a swipe at Kim, who screams in pain just like in Kes' vision. The away team escapes before further swiping.

Janeway likes that skeletal lock, but Paris reports that the bioship seems to be charging up, and Kes, now on the bridge, sees the alien in her mind and faints. Janeway helps her to a chair and orders the ship away at maximum warp. In a really nice sequence, the bioship fires at Voyager, which throws everyone to the floor as the ship careens. But Paris manages to get back to the controls and the ship zips off at warp 9.975. Fortunately, the bioship doesn't follow.

Kes tells Janeway they don't need to be worried about the Borg as much as they need to be about this new race. She's reading their minds now, and the big message from the pilot is, "The weak will perish."

Hmmm, from "Resistance is futile" to "The weak will perish." I want the next incredibly horrible race to say "You're cruisin' for a bruisin'."

Next we get a really funny Miller Lite commercial with this guy in a movie theatre with all these crying women. Did you see it?

Anyway, it's twelve hours later and the ship's about a day away from the Northwest Passage.

Kim is having serious problems. As an extremely concerned Janeway looks on, Kim is lying behind a forcefield on a biobed, his face ravaged by this awful yellow stringy stuff, his expression dazed with pain and horror. His uniform is torn at the chest where the alien swiped him, and more yellow strands show there as well.

The Doctor explains that the alien cells invading and consuming (yuck!) Kim's body have over 100 times the DNA of human cells. This gives them immediate immunity to anything: chemical, technological, viral, whatever. Doc can't even give poor Harry a sedative that isn't instantly counteracted. This explains why the Borg can't assimilate the aliens. Even the nanoprobes can't interfere with that sort of monster DNA sequencing.

However, the sly Doctor has modified some of the Borg nanoprobes to disguise themselves as the alien cells. However however, it will take him days to modify enough of these nanoprobes to cure Kim, and he doesn't know how long the ensign has left.

Janeway looks at Kim and orders him in her best tough-love mother voice to fight it. A close-up of Kim's face reveals a tear sliding down his disfigured face.

Poor Harry! (genuine sob)

Torres and Tuvok tell Chakotay what they've learned from the Borg tactical database. It seems the aliens, known to the Borg as race 8472, are radically kicking the Borg's cyber-behinds in battle. This is particularly bad news for Voyager, since the 8472s are coming into this section of space via the Northwest Passage. On the bridge Tuvok reports that there are more than a hundred bioships coming out of those quantum singularities in the passage, and more appearing every minute. Kes stands besides Janeway and reports on what she's feeling. The 8472s come from a place where they are the only living thing around (it sounds like my apartment...when I've recently cleaned the fridge, anyway). Kes also feels great malevolence and hatred (which sounds nothing like my apartment, unless I haven't cleaned the fridge in a really long time), and once again she hears "The weak will perish."

Janeway orders the ship out five light years to hold position in relative safety, then calls Chakotay into her ready room. This is it: do they face Borg space or turn around? Chakotay says they can look elsewhere for a way to get home, and that they don't have to make up their minds right this minute. They should get some rest.

I swear, it's "Eat this" and "Sleep that" with Chakotay all the time!

A fully dressed Janeway half-lies on her bed, then gets an idea and joins da Vinci in his workshop. It's night, and he is sitting and looking at the play of shadows on the wall from his candles. He asks Janeway what she sees and she says -- big surprise here -- shadows. He says he sees a flock of starlings, the leaves of an oak, a horse's tail, a thief with a noose around his neck...and shadows on the wall.

Well, this is just the sort of thing Janeway was looking for, so she tells him about her situation, leaving out the technical details. Surprising the crud out of me, da Vinci suggests that they consult a higher imagination by going to the bishop and praying. Janeway, not surprising me at all, declines, but then looks again at those wall shadows and has an idea. She wonders aloud, "What if I make an appeal to the Devil?"

In conference with a somewhat shocked but subdued staff (minus poor Harry!), Janeway lays out her plan: they'll trade their knowledge of the 8472's blood and the Doctor's modifications of the nanoprobes to the Borg in return for safe passage. In order to keep from being assimilated before they can deal, Janeway has the Doc transfer all knowledge of his research to himself, so they can threaten to erase the Doc if the Borg try anything funny. Janeway knows from Kes that the Borg are losing their battle, and this is a great way to exploit the Borg's weakness. She orders Paris to find the nearest cube, and his responding "Yes, ma'am" comes out about a thousand times more seriously than usual.

Alone with Chakotay when the meeting is over, Janeway notes that he's been quiet and asks for his opinion. He tells her that her plan is flat-out wrong and too risky. He tells the story of the scorpion [Hence the title!], and, while it bored me and I think probably was old to most everyone else, I'd better put it down just to be thorough:

There's a scorpion that wants to cross the river but can't swim, so it goes to a fox (in The Crying Game it was a frog, and I've heard another version with a horse) and asks for a ride across the river. The fox says the scorpion will sting him, but the scorpion says it wouldn't do that, because while they're in the river it will be depending upon the fox for its life. The fox agrees and takes the scorpion on its back, then about halfway across, the scorpion stings him. "Why did you do that?" the fox cries. "Now we'll both die."

"Because I'm a scorpion," says the scorpion. "It's in my nature."

Janeway doesn't like this old story at all and responds that this is a unique situation where they've got the advantage. Borg nature doesn't have to change for this to work. Chakotay says they should wait and retreat, and she responds that opportunity is knocking. Chakotay says they'll be helping the Borg to defeat an enemy, and she says the enemy deserves it, especially after what they did to Kim, and he says she's just justifying her course of action.

Janeway finally asks Chakotay whether he trusts her, and he says that's not the point. Sometimes she just doesn't know when to quit. She says the issue is closed. Now, is he going to support her?

"You're the captain," he says, "I'm the first officer. I'll follow your orders, but that doesn't change my belief that we're making a fatal mistake."

"Then I guess I am alone after all," Janeway says with the perfect expression of disappointment on her face. "Dismissed."

Voyager finds the nearest Borg cube and gets the usual "Resistance is futile" recording with a side-order of tractor beam. Janeway lays out her deal and has Torres send a free sample of the Doc's research to the cube. She gives the Borg ten seconds to release Voyager from the tractor beam.

Instead, the Borg zap her to the inside of their ship and tell her to state her demands. She talks about the trade for safe passage, and they say they can't wait that long, they need the information now. She counters that they can work together to perfect the weapon.

Which is all pretty good, for negotiations with a race that doesn't negotiate, but then the bioships appear out of a new quantum singularity, and attack. Several ships link up together and destroy the nearby planet, and this sends the Borg ship and the tractor-beamed Voyager out into farther space.

To be continued...