Survival Instinct

Once again a background story about Seven's life as a Borg drone. We meet other drones who once served in the same unimatrix as Seven and were connected to each other in this collective, also with Seven. They too were able to free themselves from assimilation, but are prevented from living their own lives as individuals by the still existing connection between their minds. The three share every thought, every feeling, every memory with each other.

With Seven's help, they try to separate from each other, but it doesn't quite go according to plan. In flashbacks, the viewer learns that after a space capsule crashed, Seven prevented these drones from isolating themselves from the collective. This is a strong character moment for Seven, because from her current perspective - as a drone whose connection to the collective has been severed and who is now an individual - she knows that what she did was wrong back then. She took away their freedom, a freedom that she can now live out herself.

When she is faced with the same choice again at the end - individuality or collective - she is torn between which standards she should use to make her decision. Is it more moral to preserve life at all costs as the doctor says, even if that means merely surviving as a mindless drone in a Borg collective? Or is living a responsible life as a self-determined individual the only way out as Chakotay says, even though this life would only be very short in the end? I think Seven makes the right decision and at least makes up for some of the guilt she took on back then.

Survival Instinct is a thought-provoking Seven of Nine episode featuring her previous life as a drone. It emphasises actions taken, reasons and consequences. The writers also use the character of The Doctor very well, particularly in a key scene towards the end.

The plot is slightly predictable but pretty good, along with the performances, but what elevates it for me is the focus on her character, whilst being part of the collective and watching her react to and reflect on what happened.

It treats all characters respectfully with its conclusion by not making outcomes too positive or negative. You wonder how many instinctive decisions you make in life are based on self-preservation and the consequences of actions on others.

Jeri Ryan is in great form, and so is Robert Picardo.

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

Terrible writing strikes again. But who cares about a well-written story when you can stare at a tight bodysuit?

I'm struggling to finish this series, my first re-watch since the first airing. These Seven-Naomi episodes bored the bleep out of me back then, and I'm trying to give them another chance. But no, they're as bad as I remembered. The only good parts of this episode are the very short Tom-Harry scene (I wish we could've seen more of that story), and the scene with Janeway overwhelmed by diplomacy gifts in her ready room. Other than those two good scenes, the rest of the episode is another yawnfest no one wanted back then and no one wants now: more Sharkjump-of-Nine and Naomi. Normally kid characters make my favorite episodes in Trek, but Naomi was a badly-written character, as the writers tried to make her another genius Wesley Crusher type, what a Mary-Sue-in-training bore. And it never helps getting more Sharkjump-of-Nine shoved in our faces. The only people who like her are people who never saw an episode of Trek before Voy season 4. The scheme worked; they abandoned the decades-loyal niche viewers, trading us for the masses of hormoney old men and teen boys who could ignore the badly-written stories because all they wanted was to stare at those two borg implants in front of a too-tight bodysuit and the bulging one in back of it. Unless you're trying to struggle through every episode, save your own sanity and skip this one. There's nothing in it worth watching. Just more of the same ol' same ol'.

This episode did a lot of things well. First it gave us a glimpse of Seven of Nine's life as a drone, second it allowed us to meet some of the other "of Nines" and third it continued the theme of exploring individuality versus the collective, and what that individuality is ultimately worth.

The key to this episode is Seven's drive to always strive for perfection, and yet she is confronted with a past decision that was anything but, and that influenced lives beyond her own. Jeri Ryan does a great job of communicating that realization just through facial expressions. Her reactions say much more than words could, and say it more powerfully. That is the essence of great acting.

Side not to these reviews: I'll never understand why some reviewers spend so much time recapping what happened in the episode. I just watched the episode, that's why I'm here. Why do I need a blow by blow plot summary? Or if I didn't watch the episode yet, why would I want to read the specifics of it before watching it and ruin all the surprises?

Live Long and Prosper

As a character study as well as an exploration of the nature of the Borg versus individuality, this episode actually managed to revisit an oft-visited topic since Seven came onto the show (as well as during later TNG) without seeming like a rehash. Waiting for the twist actually kept me interested, and while the twist wasn't extraordinarily shocking or anything, it was very well-done and appropriate to the episode's themes, including the question of guilt.

My only tiny little objection: since Borg can clearly be out of range of the Collective's, well, collective thought -- that was a central premise of the episode, after all -- it seems to me that the logical course of action the trio should have taken was to get as far away from each other as possible. Somehow, I seriously doubt Seven's ad hoc quickfix would be stronger and range farther than the transmissions of the entire Borg collective. Why not pick three different vectors with large angles between them and start going as far as they could as fast as they could until the interlink was interrupted? It seems too obvious a solution for the script not to have at least technobabbled why it wouldn't work.