Scorpion

This is the inevitable encounter with our old friends, the Borg. Janeway is faced with the hardest decision of her career. In order to get through Borg space, she feels she must ally herself with the collective. To her advantage is the fact that the Borg themselves are facing an enemy that could annihilate them. After all the Next Generation encounters, can our Captain make this work. This is the final episode of Season 3 and is left be determined in Season 4. Most of the crew thinks Janeway is off her rocker for proposing this, but the Borg space is huge and would add years to the journey home.

Voyager reaches Borg-controlled space and encounters a double threat.

This is an intriguing end to the season that makes you want to find out what happens next.

The reintroduction of the Borg was a good idea at this point in Voyager's overarching narrative and the concept of another more deadly enemy heightens the threat. For me though, certain aspects of the story are resolved too easily.

There are some good character moments like the dynamic between Janeway and Chakotay, and the anxiety over commencing such a perilous part of the journey.

Katie Mulgrew and Robert Beltran are on good form.

There are some excellent visuals in this episode, particularly the moments involving the Borg cubes.

For me it's a a 7.5/10, but I round upwards.

Nickelodeon has nothing on UPN when it comes to being gross in an escapist and amusing way and even sometimes funny way. The only thing that competes is "Ren and Stimpy" which was hard R partially because of a lot of defacated setting (plus the vomiting was gross). Anyways, my subjective opinion that this show did ruin the Borg doesn't change the fact that this was a memorable episode on par with "BOBW", "Chain of Command," "Emmisary," "Caretaker," "Basics," "Future's End," "Unity," "Blood Fever." This episode compounds on what "First Contact" did start, but takes it to R-rated levels by outright changing the Borg into a defacationfest, ship-wise, with gross green glow (to sort of compound on the retcon that they steal from others and are stupid; when everything on "TNG" showed them as clean and organized and mechecanic and industrial, and as a threatening and industrious and technical superpower) that makes slime on Nickelodeon look tame in comparison. UPN/Warner Bros./WB flagship for the works.

Basically, Janeway and the crew are en route. They've entered the heart of what is now Borg space, as is established in this episode. When they cross the Borg's space, they realize the Borg aren't going after them. It's a very tense scene (but being subjective, nothing truly scary like when the Borg were on "TNG" and the brief apperance they had in "Descent," when the Borg were still the "TNG" Borg): a group of Borg ships clash with Voyager, and a Borg ship scans the ship to see if they can assimilate (another hilarious thing which I'll compound on). The grass is not always greener on the other side, as the saying goes, because there is a catch to the Borg leaving the space and apparently giving Voyager a chance to a faster way home. It's revealed, that a force more threatening than the Borg (as was ominiously hinted in "Unity") has been destroying their ships (we see it in the very beginning obviously during the teaser).

What follows is a violent scene, rife with a lot of defacation, as the Borg ship remaints literally look like poop and b**gers all over space. This is perhaps the grossest of all the Borg episodes on "Voyager," as usually the defactionfest is limited to the inside of the Borg ships. And this isn't me being negative. I do love this episode. Tom famously says the line upon seeing this, "Who can do this to the Borg?" At this point Chakotay and the crew are starting to think there's a catch to this. And to all the morons who think "Voyager" wasn't dark, Janeway contemplates the unthinkable in this episode - and I will reveal it only because it's somewhat common knowledge (and doesn't spoil the plot) - realizing that not taking an opportunity is sentencing themselves to likely permenent exile, and that going unprotected is suicide, during the Holodeck, she appeals in a very dark scene, to the Devil, and the unthinkable is proposed: cooperation with the Borg. It is very uneasy. How do we know it'll work? How do we know the Borg will be able to keep their end of the bargain should they agree to Janeway's terms? The doubtful and pessimistic Chakotay correctly says it: you can't change the nature of the beast. What follows is a cat and mouse chase and eventually Janeway reaches the Borg. The rest is for you to see.