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Drone Airdate: October 21, 1998 Written by: Bryan Fuller and Brannon Braga & Joe Menosky (Teleplay); Bryan Fuller and Harry Doc Kloor (Story) Directed by: Les Landau File Photo || Mission Log || PollShort Take: Much like "Night" - a solid character based show not quite free of Voyagerisms. Brief Summary: An accident creates an advanced form of Borg life Review: Drone was hyped to be one of Voyager's best. It wasn't. But it was a solid episode that I'll gladly take, anyhow. I'll take it because it managed to develop one of our regular characters by developing a guest actor better than half the crew we viewers are stuck with. To a degree I thought Seven couldn't be further broadened (puns ahoy!) - after all, she seems to be on a bit of a beeline toward humanity, reconciling things with Janeway and all of that. Case in point: learning to smile. I expected Braga to have a lot of comedy with Seven learning to be human by having to do goofy things. She learned to smile, all right, but by the end of the episode she couldn't smile, because she had learned a lesson far more powerful. That's right - sadness, love, motherhood, death, the whole gamut. "Drone" had it all. Trek has done these type of shows before. "The Offspring" and "The Child" spring to mind. "The Abandoned" does as well. Hmm, "I, Borg" does, too. Yet this didn't feel like a rehash. There was a certain subtlety to this episode - well, a subtlety to One. I wish the regulars had that level of depth from the start. Chakotay still doesn't have it. Heck, even the name "One" was appropriate, certainly far better than "Hugh." Who came up with Hugh, anyway? He was a great character. The idea of a Borg completely unattached with the Borg is a new twist that makes bringing them back more than simply justified to boost the ratings. He was alone, curious.. a perfect battleground between individualism and the world of Borgasms. His curiousity about the Borg was completely innocent, based on a desire to learn where he came from. A tabula rasa, to use a big word. That made his decision, demonstrated to us in his death, all the more powerful. As cliched as it seems, his death was great, much better than Lal, Data's kid, for example. This wasn't an overload of humanity getting to him - he understood humanity all too well. And he made an incredibly noble sacrifice to help the crew of Voyager. Very touching, and I don't say that often. Seven was certainly touched (puns ahoy!). Ah, so subtle. There weren't a lot of lines. This is the type of characterization that you just hope the acting carries through with, and with Ryan, it did. It's amazing how much character work they can squeeze out of her when she's merely a side issue. The same happened in "The Omega Directive," too. This isn't entirely about adapting to human society, as it was with Data all too often. This was about being human, learning the depth of emotion and experiencing what causes emotion. Once again, very touching. Okay, okay, I have to bash it some. For example... the beginning. I mean the whole beginning. Let's see... investigating anomaly; taking all the people you need so the accident can happen, the fact they're all senior officers be damned; having a transporter accident; having only one thing happen in all this molecular madness, and it leads to trouble; having the little problem ignored, like it was Chucky or something... you get the point. The episode had a very contrived feel to it. All the other Treks have had setups like this. Yet none feel as clutzy as what Voyager does. I think what defined it for me was when the emitter began sprouting legs. Hello? Why? How? It was a great visual effect but made no sense. In other words, campy skiffy. It tried to be gee-whiz nifty by giving us this 29th century Borg, when the hell if I know how these magical nanoprobes managed to figure out 29th century tech and contstruct a person (with gestation chamber) around it. At least the stunt saved Ensign Mulcahy's life. The shadow over all of this is that the laundry list of problems specific to Voyager. Perhaps we should blame UPN for shows that feel so gimmicky. It's *just so* we could have this cool side story about a 29th century Borg. The finish, however emotional, was also contrived so that the Doc could get his emitter back. We knew Borgy woud make it back or else the Doc would be pissed. We also knew Borgy had to die because of his crazy little brain. Note that I'm trying not to overnit this. I could, for example, point out that Janeway was stupid to allow One to beam over to the sphere. If he was assimilated, they'd all be screwed. Now that I've pointed it out, it does look pretty bad. Drone isn't a perfect episode, but, as with Night, it built its story around characters (and, incidentally, had a five letter title.) Most importantly, though, Drone showed a willingness to explore how the characters react to the gee whiz... Voyager in the past typically had a Bad Thing Happen and the point of the episode was to get out in the last five minutes. We got out two minutes ahead of schedule in Drone, to give us the chance to see how Seven responded. It's how you do a TV show. I don't have to end this review with a reflection about what happened. It's a review, not a drama. Voyager all too often thinks ending the episode with a little trite saying is good TV. All I need is a little trite summation to end my review; Voyager shouldn't be doing that, and it is finally showing signs of not doing that on a consistent basis. With that said, I won't end this review with a trite saying, simply to irritate the readers. :-) Some short takes: - Yes, One was played by the same guy who was the Nazi in The Killing Game - Not so subtle reference to the shuttle we're getting next week... wait, it was designed in one week??? - One nit covered: One said that he couldn't adapt Voyager to his tech, explaining why he had to go to the sphere. - Torres, showing some skin. Braga is in charge. (Actually, that scene is full of problems. The towel wouldn't stay up on a flat wall, for example. It felt like another gimmick.) Rating: B+ Next week: Adrenaline! | |
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