When it first started I was hella worried that this was going to take place on earth AND be about the Borg and thus ruin the timeline. Luckily both those concerns were relatively invalid. Having a few Borg get frozen somehow from the events of First Contact was a clever way to get just a few Borg in for a story without totally ruining the rest of Trek. Seemed kinda unreasonable the Zefram Cochrane talked about it, but maybe Picard did a poor job explaining to him how it was important to not totally destroy the timeline. Presumably this only happened to allow the writers to point out that these are the Borg from the movie though which actually makes me more ok with it. Finally, ending with a 200 year signal being sent to the Delta Quadrant was a nice way to make the episode feel like it had consequences again without ruining things.
We open in "the arctic" but I guess maybe there aren't countries any more so whatever. A research crew (a hella heavily armed research crew which is never explained since there are no countries) finds two frozen Borg along with some debris. They take them inside and thaw them out. After performing some scans and leaving one of the scientists alone with them one of the Borg wakes up and jams him with nano prods. The rest of the researchers show up but their weapons are ineffective. Cut to Enterprise where they get news that the Borg (a name which is never spoken, yay for that) have stolen a ship and modified the engines so it can travel at warp. Of course they for some reason head straight for Enterprise so they are ordered to intercept. They find the Borg ship attacking a transport ship and only manage to save two people from it. But they are infected with nanoprobes. Phlox tries to treat them but when they awaken he is injected with the probes. Luckily for everybody on Enterprise the assimilation doesn't work quickly on him. The Borg get to work on Enterprise and manage to infect many systems and make Borg stuff appear out of nowhere. Malcolm and his team try shooting the drones but their weapons are useless so Archer has them evacuate and he blows the hatches flushing is recent crew into space.
Archer is clearly upset by this and is determined to try and get back the researchers from earth. He has Malcolm modify phase pistols to pack more punch and comes up with a plan to get onto the Borg ship and disable it from the inside. Their weapons work at first but of course the Borg adapt. While they are fighting Phlox has come up with a plan to kill the probes with a lot of radiation. Of course this isn't going to be easy on his body, but he is starting to hear the hive mind and acts quickly. Archer and Malcolm find one of the researchers and Archer realizes she is no longer human and decides they have to just destroy the ship. They plant a bomb before beaming back just as Trip gets weapons working on Enterprise. Luckily for them (and for no clear reason) the drones who had recently beamed to Enterprise beam back to the Borg ship just in time for Archer to destroy it. In the epilogue Phlox tells Archer that he heard the Borg sending a signal home, but Archer reckons it will take about 200 years to arrive.
Review: Lots of action, but it mostly felt like it made sense and served the story. Honestly better Borg stuff than a lot of it on VOY. Decent Trek, not great, but at least good.
6 out of 10
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