OEEG: Regeneration

Foreward: In my previous Enterprise review, I spoke about my view on continuity and it's place in Enterprise. That's why this episode seems a good follow-up, as it's a continuity issue waiting to happen, because it's Enterprise's only encounter with the Borg. If you don't know, the Borg were a rumor until their encounter with the Enterprise-D, which brought back a wealth of experience about them. Until that time, they had unexplained disappearances along the Neutral Zone, the experiences of the refugees recovered by the Enterprise-B, and other rumors which inspired the Hansens to haul their kid into the middle of nowhere. So, if the Enterprise is to have a run-in with them, we can't know who they are. There are a number of ways to do that. However, this episode will opt for the silliest, which is they won't know because the Borg decide that this time they won't say their names, even though it's usually a standard part of their opening hail. Hell, they use it almost as often as little blue guys use "Smurf." But this time, no dice, because we need to maintain continuity without any actual effort.

With that being said, I'm going to confess that, despite the review, I do genuinely like this episode. Yes, it's got problems, big problems, but I can't lie and say that I didn't enjoy watching it. Much like one of the cobbled-together concoctions Adam and Jamie might make on Mythbusters, it may look slapped together with glaring flaws, but it did work for me, and I suppose that's important. But that's always the time when I turn to my What Would James Rolfe Do? bracelet and proceed to tear it limb from bloody limb, dammit!

The episode is a sequel to First Contact, by using the idea that some of the debris from the Borg Sphere may have survived re-entry and crashed in the frozen arctic. On the whole, if you're going to bring the Borg into Enterprise, this was the only way to do it, as the arrival of the Borg in any other fashion would have been impossible for any kind of continuity to be maintained. However, this means that Enterprise has one -and only one- shot to bring in the Borg, and this was it. Just to play monday morning quarterback, for me, I would have probably been more ambitious about it. First, I would have made this an Enterprise two-hour special ala Dark Frontier. This was, after all, in a month demanding high ratings, and the following week, they did two episodes, the meh First Flight, and the godawful Bounty (aka, where T'Pol goes through the Pon Farr). Second, the old philsophy of turning problems into opportunities would apply. Worried about continuity-obsessed fans? Cater to them by having the issues resolved by a fan favorite character. A special guest appearance in your Borg episode of Picard, Data, or Seven is going to have the best chance of drawing viewers in who may have left (also known as "most of them"), perfect for you to have your dramatic preview at the end for the season finale of The Expanse to try to keep them (seeing as how the Xindi story was meant to get people interested in Enterprise again). There are numerous ways this could be done, like the debriefing in Trials And Tribble-ations where Picard/Data has to sort out the consequences of their involvement in the twenty-first century, or of Seven of Nine being debriefed by Starfleet over puzzling issues that may be Borg related, and that's just off the top of my head. If the Borg are fan favorites -which I'd say is at least Paramount's opinion, since they released a Borg DVD Collection (no Survival Instinct, they had to make room for all the shittiness of Unimatrix, which needed two parts to fit all that shit)- and you have only one shot with them, it really should have been an event.

Description: The episode begins with a ship landing at or above or on the Arctic Circle, and three people head out into the frozen north as the wind whistles at at least fifteen miles per hour. If you think a hooded coat and gloves are all you need, congratulations: you are likely a member of Starfleet or a costume designer who lives in southern California, or possibly both if Starfleet has an even more diverse collection of officers than we thought. Man, I don't care how good your coat is, I wouldn't walk in a Wisconsin winter with weather like this unless I looked like the guys on Hoth. Anyway, having spent a hundred years in the arctic, they find the wreckage of the sphere and a Borg drone just inches under ice. That unlikely enough, another scientist nearly trips over another one. I'm expecting the next one to be sitting just out of sight at a picnic table eat a Phily cheesesteak. But ask yourself one simple question: in a place where food is scarce, how long do you think a large slab of meat is going to stay unpicked by various creatures if it isn't stored away in ice?

Anyway, given that people in the future have apparently never seen any version of The Thing, the one in the ice is cut out and allowed to thaw along with his buried comrade. In a field lab, the three start looking their new friends over and some of the debris. Because this takes place before bullshit quantum dating* was invented for the series (which, among other magic, will tell you when something comes from the future), they consider regular old boring carbon dating, on the grounds that it's real science and actually works. On the other end of the spectrum, we see those old favorites for a writer in a hurry: nanoprobes! Yes, they're repairing the damaged implants and the dead cells, and if you're wondering why, then I guess you didn't know that the Borg can return to life after being killed, which is exactly why dead drones self-destruct, or rather... f*ck. So much for that continuity thing.

So yes, the drones eventually come back to life, while a guy watches, and we get, well, what you'd expect: lots of weapons fire and screaming. And that pretty much rounds up the plot on Earth, as once you've got a Borg drone loose, that's all she wrote. So, being a project run by the Science Council, it's no surprise that when contact is lost it's Starfleet that's called in; who else would you expect to handle things happening on Earth than an organization dedicated to exploring space? Next you'll tell me they'll have to shut down their costume wing. So Admiral Forrest decides to personally check it out along with his crack security team (three people) and finds the debris gone and no bodies.

So with that we finally get around to the Enterprise that, you know, gives this show its name. One thing that has to be mentioned is that finally, after more than ten years of this crap, they have finally allowed the composers to actually do something interesting. Part of what made Best Of Both Worlds work was the combination of Piller's great scripts, Chris Bole's good direction, and Jones' incredible score, and in this case, while we are nowhere near that level, the music is not the typical generic crap we'd been getting from Trek for so long. It's got that quiet before the inevitable storm feel to it that helps prop the episode up, because atmosphere is one of this episode's greatest strengths. Anyway, it's revealed that the Borg used the remains of their sphere to enhance a transport and fly off at warp 3.9, and is heading in the general direction of Enterprise, so they're charged with stopping it. Reed, being no-nonsense, takes the data on the Borg down to Phlox to see if he can find signs of a weapon in the components. During it, we get this exchange:

REED: What sort of people would replace perfectly good body parts with cybernetic implants?
PHLOX: You, of all people, should be open-minded about technology... If your heart was damaged, would you want me to replace it with a synthetic organ, or would you rather die?

Uh, doc, what part of "perfectly good" made you think he meant "damaged to the point of death?" Anyway, there's no evidence of a weapon, confusing Reed since the science team was heavily armed, as all science teams should be! "I'm here to measure soil toxicity and kick ass, and I'm all out of samples! *BAM*"

Incidentally, Phlox talks about the Bynars (featured in the awfully-named TNG episode: 11001001) who at birth have their parietal lobe removed and replaced with a computer component. If that's not clear, let me clarify: when a baby is born, they open up its skull, cut out a perfectly functional and fairly large part of their brain, and stick something else in there instead. You can plead cultural relativism if you want, but to me, that is one of the most messed up things we've ever seen performed by a good guy alien race. Compared to them, the Borg look like a guy with a bluetooth on his ear. "We are absolutely nothing like the Borg. Sure, we remove functional parts, replace them with machinery, and alter the brains so that they can't function as individuals, but there's an important difference: we only do it to babies. Anyway, that's why we'd make such excellent nannies."

With that, we get a distress signal from a Tarkalian freighter, and when Enterprise shows up they see the transport slicing into the hull. We know it's the Borg, because the ray is green. Enterprise manages to disable the ship's weapons and flies off, but with the crew of the freighter in danger Enterprise can't pursue. When they're brought over, we see they're already in the midst of their change into Borg, but Phlox insists that the decon chamber isn't necessary, that they're no danger. In a former life, Phlox was likely Neville Chamberlain.

After this, Archer calls T'Pol in to show her a speech Cochrane gave at Princeton, where he decided to talk about the events of First Contact because, hey, why the hell not, right? What better way to boost your credibility to say that not only did you invent warp drive and make first contact with the Vulcans, but you also did it all while evading time traveling space cyborgs? I put that on my last performance review, worked out great for me. Archer wonders aloud if the Borg are those aliens, and T'Pol counters with the rather more plausible facts that Cochrane was also a drunk and a liar.

Meanwhile, Phlox's little friends wake up and one starts bitching about his condition. At this point I should probably comment on the nanoprobes, as for some reason, they're not moving anywhere near as fast as they used to - the people here are still somewhat in control of themselves, and are still only partway borgified. That's going to be important to explain what, at first, would seem patently absurd given our experience with the Borg, that those assimilated usually transform very quickly. However, my interpretation of this makes me inclined to give it a pass, because for once it's actually not making the Borg comic book-like in their approach. Often fans take the Borg stuff to the extreme by saying that there are no limits to what they can adapt to or how far they could adapt to it, no way they could be overwhelmed, etc. However, when you consider that two drones have assimilated at least 11 people, and you decide they may not have superpowers, than it would make sense that in the same way that a snake can't keep biting and giving the same amount of venom, that the number of nanoprobes may take quite a while to get back up to normal concentration (so that an injection that normally would be done in minutes might take hours or even a day). Star Trek isn't supposed to be horror, after all, it's not like zombies where one becomes two, two becomes four, and so on until you have a plague of the undead, it's drones capturing and changing people using materials which are finite and must be replenished. For that reason, I'm giving a pass to the speed of assimilation (for the moment). And that's relevant, because as Phlox prepares to sedate one of them, the guy goes apeshit, causing the redshirt to quickly leap into non-action by standing there and looking concerned until he gets his ass kicked, and Phlox gets stuck in the neck with the dreaded assimilation tubules, which for some reason knock him out. I guess whatever part of that bat of his he was smoking just put him over the edge.

Archer, Reed, and some more security awaken Phlox and figure the drones escaped into the maintenance hatches (the Jeffries tubes before there were Jeffries tubes), so Reed goes off to do what he does best. Phlox checks over the redshirt, who wasn't injected and will be fine, so Archer tells him to stay in Sickbay to watch over things, "just in case." Yup, you never know when there might be danger and you'll need someone to stare at it. Phlox, of course, knows he's gotten his ass laminated and gets to work on a cure. Obviously you don't need me to tell you that he'll eventually find one, which makes you wonder why it wouldn't be in the medical databanks in the future when they, oh, look for ways to combat nanotechnology. Then again, anyone who's turned their sickbay into a petting zoo probably doesn't file his reports as properly as he should.

And this is where that "for the moment" from earlier comes back in. Reed and company have tracked the Borg to where they're modifying Enterprise, and we see the drone do this by sticking her assimilation tubules into the panel and causing all kinds of shit to suddenly grow from all over the place in literally seconds. So, yeah, unless she's literally got a replicator up her sleeve, it looks like I'm going to have to undo any credit I tried to give the episode. See, this is why I always let the hate flow through me, it always bites me in the ass when I try to be nice. Speaking of being too nice, Reed decides to go with the whole warning shot thing, which is unfortunately probably the worst thing you could ever do to a Borg drone, because after that, the phase pistols are useless and they have to fall back. Figuring out what the Borg are likely up to (they're messing with the warp controls), Archer decides to cut the losses and just vents the two f*ckers into space. And without a sanctimonious speech first? What the hell? Don't you know this is Enterprise, where your whole purpose is to try to create tension and then mess it up? Next thing you know, we're going to start to see actual competence from people, and then where will we be?

Oh yeah, and that reminds me, here's Hoshi. Poor girl. She learns three dozen languages fluently and invents the handheld universal translator, and Archer keeps assigning her jobs like find out Reed's favorite food, or in this case, deliver food down to Sickbay. He refuses the food for himself, and Hoshi decides to argue with him, since it's not like he's a doctor or anything, so he has to explain that speeding up his metabolism would probably just make shit worse. How do you like them apples, huh Hoshi? I swear, you're the worst waitress in this fleet. For that she's demoted to zookeeper and has to feed the animals... sure is a good thing she left that university job behind, huh? If she's lucky, maybe she'll get to clean up the next time Porthos shits on the rug.

Meanwhile, we get to watch the people Archer has assigned the important tasks to someone besides the linguistics expert, since he needs the cream of the crop to handle it. So he assigns Reed and Tucker, whose work together includes mistaking a garage door for Enterprise and getting mugged on Risa. He rounds this out by telling T'Pol he's going to try to board and rescue the captives, even though they're likely all Borgified now. T'Pol points out the problem with this damn fool plan and says they should just blow it up. Archer, of course, completely goes off on her and all Vulcans over this demonstration of emotionless behavior and- Oh, no wait, he doesn't, because Berman and Braga didn't get their fingers in this script, so for once Archer's written like a human f*cking being and not a cartoon character. So this is what the show would be like if it wasn't helmed by morons. Instead Archer considers it carefully and finally makes the call: he's not ready to just write them off yet.

Anyway, Phlox -as you should no doubt expect- has a cure figured out for his condition, involving a special trick in the MRI Medical Sphincter. Just in case that's not good enough, there's the ultimate cure: put him down like a dog. In case that doesn't work out, Reed's down in the armory messing with phase pistols - that'll take care of that blabbermouth doctor who gives his medical secrets to anyone with a vagina that walks through the door.

Well with his playtime over, Reed gets to the bridge in time for Enterprise to catch up with the Borg ship, but it sends a transmission that switches on all the Borg shit and leaves Tucker standing there with an even more cluless look than usual. The Borg then send the following transmission in its entirety: "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." That's the point where I call foul. Yeah, I've heard the excuses, but I don't buy any of them:
1) The Borg were instructed not to identify themselves in the past. So why say anything then?
2) The Borg never identified themselves in Q who or Best of Both Worlds. Right, but their statements were also given substance in those episodes.

See, the reason the phrase is what it is is because of the Borg's nature: they do not recognize the illogic of resisting them. When they first met the Enterprise, all they stated was that they knew the Enterprise's defenses were incapable of stopping them, so they shouldn't resist. In the second, Picard as Locutus was serving to make clear that Borg victory was inevitable; if the head of the best the Federation could bring could be made into the Borg's voice, then his words have all the more meaning. Look back on his remarks, and there is a genuine puzzlement in their question to Worf: "Why do you resist us?" They cannot comprehend that anyone could engage in such clearly pointless behavior, that they would rather throw their lives away than join in the unity and marvel that the collective is. The Borg introduction from First Contact was: "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile." To break this down, the Borg's first statement is to make it clear that defeat is the only possible outcome in the most clear and direct manner possible, by making it clear who they're dealing with. "We are the Borg, you've already lost." Then instructions on what to do, then an explanation of what awaits them. Finally, the Borg add "See point one: we are Borg, don't waste our time." When it became it's final form (which was used throughout Voyager), it was the same idea condensed: We Borg, that means you're toast, don't bother fighting. What this one does instead is take all that away and goes with the catch phrase - I could almost buy that, if they hadn't chopped out the first part. It's the crux of it all, it's their "I'm Rick James, bitch!" If you don't make it clear you're Rick James, nobodies gonna give a shit what meaningless comments come out of your mouth. "You and your friend are coming back to my place," doesn't go over well as an intro, you'll just get maced, trust me. People forget that the Borg think, and so they say things that are relevant. This is a conversation fragment; the Borg might as well have just said "Neaner-neaner-neaner! Gotcha!" It's a sign of just how bad it is when this announcement, rather than inducing dread or fear, leads to Archer's expression of puzzlement, as if the Borg had just spat netspeak at him.

So Archer and Reed decide -since they can't use weapons against the Borg- they'll beam over and deal with them directly. Unlike in previous episodes, the Borg realize two people running around their ship is a danger and move to assimilate them, but Reed's new Teh Awesome! phase pistols are able to kill several of them before adaptation occurs (which is weird because Borg that beamed over to Enterprise at this time had already adapted, so what the hell?). One lone drone grabs Reed, but in a clear example of what Jabootu calls Hero's Death Battle Exemption, instead of injecting him with the tubules he picks him up by the throat ala Darth Vader and begins strangling him. Archer disables him by yanking out one of the tubes. That's funny; mofo can survive getting blown up, crashing to Earth, and being frozen for a hundred years, but can be brought down by one guy pulling out a tube.

So Reed solves the problem the way Reed works best: bombs. Lots and lots of bombs. This blows up a big doohickey, so the Borg beam themselves back to the ship and start fixing it. Archer, again surprising me with a clear-headed decision, immediately orders all weapons on the warp core to blow them straight to hell. He does so, but it seems the Borg sent out a signal that in two hundred years may alert those in the delta quadrant of the location of Earth. Of course, being such a serious threat, no one bothers archiving this info so that humanity might be ready, instead building a new flagship that's more like a mall than something designed to cope with this threat.

Afterword: Like I said, I would have liked to see the episode be done differently, and I know many fans object to the mere presence of the Borg, or of continuity issues that arise from their presence here at this time. But the gauge that's used to rate each episode is how good is it to watch. It's no excuse for things that insist the audience not think, which is a crime all the series have done at some point (objectively speaking, all criticism about Romulans pre-TOS is based on the rather ridiculous idea you could fight an entire war for years against an enemy and never once see one, not even a dead one, which was from TOS and is therefore gospel to many fans). But despite the flaws, for an episode of Enterprise -which I think most reading this would agree was filled with lots of very crappy episodes- it was entertaining. The story was pretty tight, with great narative drive, the actors all turned in solid performances (Billingsley's voice change was chilling), and it had excellent atmosphere. Unlike Acquisition, Regeneration was engaging from start to finish, so even though it like Acquisition used an enemy from the future and left them unnamed, it's given a better score to reflect the fact that it's much better to actually watch.

Rating: 8

* Since I won't get to quantum dating for a while, a quick explanation of why it's bullshit logic. Current dating techniques measure the amount of a radioactive element present, because the radioactive elements would be added to it at a certain time. For instance, Carbon-14 is added to living things while they are alive because they are breathing or injesting it, but that stops once the organism dies. Quantum dating, on the other hand, is not explained, but it's examples are not consistent, because we see it used to measure when things are created in the past and when they were formed in the future (objects from the future having a negative quantum date). Some have said that it's because it measures the age of the particle, so that a particle from the future would have a greater age and thus have the negative number, but that runs counter to the dating of a past object, because the particles themselves are not changed whether they're in rock or a component in a piece of technology, they'd still be just as old. If you said "Well then, it measures when the particles were changed by a manufacturing process" (which would be rather ridiculous too, but let's assume it for the sake of argument), then you're not going to get a negative number because it will measure the amount of time passed between when an object was formed and the scan taken from the perspective of the item and regardless of whether it has been moved in time (otherwise if you traveled back in time ten years, you'd be ten years younger; a hundred, and you wouldn't be alive, you'd be limited to your own lifetime... shit, I think I just explained Quantum Leap).

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