Infinite Regress

A Borg vinculum (never heard that term before - basically it is some sort of central computer core of a Borg cube) causes Seven to split into several different personalities. Instead of being humorless and distanced, Jeri Ryan can show her acting talent by impersonating a small child, a Klingon, a Ferengi, a Vulcan... but because those splits come quicker each time, there is a risk, that Seven may lose her own personality soon. The Voyager crew salvages the Vinculum and discover, that it has been infected by a virus. Since they are unable to destroy it and prevent Seven from splitting into other personalities, they search for the last species, that has been assimilated by this Borg vessel.

When they encounter this species, they admit that they have created this virus and intentiously infected the Borg to destroy them. They argue with Janeway to return them the Vinculum so the virus can spread to the next Borg cube but Janeway wants to first cure Seven before she hands over the thingy and even risks to be destroyed by the aliens.

The story and Jeri Ryan's performance are quite good in this episode, but still some twists don't make sense. For example when Tuvok tries to mind meld with Seven to prevent her from losing her own self. What we see then is a distorted metaphor of her mind where dozens of different species seem to be eager to throw Seven into a deep pit. Tuvok though doesn't really stop those guys, his mind meld is quite pointless. Seven survives not because of Tuvok but because the crew was able to sever the connection to the Vinculum before the other personalities overpowered her.

Also, Seven says, that it doesn't matter if they get distance to this computer core because it sends its messages in subspace and will reach her no matter what. But at the end, they hand this vinculum over to the alien species. Most likely they will activate it again. Their whole purpose has been, to lure other Borg cubes to it so it can spread its virus to them. Once they would activate it though, Seven should be affected right away again. But obviously the writers haven't thought about this loophole.

When Voyager nears some debris from a Borg vessel, Seven of Nine begins acting very strangely. Suddenly, she begins switching from one personality to another. In between she's normal (or as normal as Seven can be) but it sure is becoming annoying! What's causing this mental breakdown and what can fix it? The Doctor thinks it's caused by a bad case of the Ankaran Flu. However, the know-it-all Doctor soon seems incapable of curing Seven so he calls in a specialist, 'Dr.' Tuvok.

Whether this is a good or bad episode, it must have been a challenge and rather fun for Jeri Ryan to act in this show. Her Seven of Nine is a wild emotional roller-coaster and she sure gets a chance to emote and show her stuff!

This show is okay and worth seeing. The Captain's behavior through the show, however, is odd (as often is the case) and seems to make little sense in light of the power and evil of the Borg. I cannot imagine any real person doing anything to disrupt the aliens from their plan. Yet another case where she acts more like a person reading a script than someone you can believe will exist in the 24th century. Her character is the weak link in this particular show-- everyone else is just fine and Ryan did a fine job in acting nutty!

This is one of those good ole fashioned somewhat cheesy episodes. But oh if cheese isn't one of my favourite foods! This is classic Trek. I have to say that Ryan did a great job in her performance. It's a bit of a ridiculous role to play, someone constantly experiencing different personalities, but I love it. Put a big smile on my face. I wish modern Trek were this good!

Until this episode I was always a little doubtful about Jeri Ryan's acting ability, wondering if she could only do one note: Imperial bitchiness. Not that I don't like her Borgian disdain for non-scientific and imperfect humans. Or that high-minded carriage of her cat-suited Barbie-doll body. But in this episode, as her Borg implant fractures her into multiple personalities, she gets a huge range of characterizations to perform, and she handles them well. And this script has a handful of clever complications en route to her healing that make it an enjoyable installment. It ends kind of quickly, but it is one of the better episodes, IMHO.

The fun of these sorts of episodes, where one character is the primary focus of the plot and is given a chance to flex his/her acting muscles, is seeing how well the writers create opportunities with good writing, and how well the actor is up to the challenge of either doing justice to a good script or lifting a mediocre (or bad) script up. In this episode, the script was pretty decent, but not earth-shattering (see episode immediately preceding this one for an example of a great script that gave an actor a chance to match, and the actor pulled it off.) However, Jeri Ryan gave an almost-great performance. I say "almost" because her acting chops were never in question in this episode but, sadly, she doesn't really do voices. Which isn't a slam on her -- some people can do voices with amazing facility, others just aren't gifted at that particular skill, and there's only so much teaching can do to compensate for not being naturally adept at it.

In any event, Jeri Ryan absolutely does a fine job with the mannerisms and tics and behaviors of each individual personality/race. She may be eye candy, but she has the acting chops to rise above that, and the script was perfectly designed to let her show range and adaptability.

I do have a couple reservations about the script. First, once the Doctor identified the cause of the cube's destruction as a synthetic virus, every half-way awake viewer probably immediately knew that it was almost-certainly a deliberate infection designed as a weapon against the Borg, especially after hearing the history of the race involved and the nature of how the virus got aboard the ship. Yet it literally doesn't seem to even occur to any of Voyager's staff that this might be the case despite the fact that they literally helped take out Species 8472 with a similar plan, something that was referenced not 3 episodes back (presumably only weeks or possibly months ago in Voyager time) My other issues were: 1) Why did "blow that sucker up with photon torpedoes rather than beam it aboard" never seem to occur to them. It was obviously not well-shielded because they could beam it aboard, and this was prior to the Doctor declaring that it was too late to destroy it without harming 7; 2) That "can't escape because subspace" was ludicrous. If it could disseminate the virus so easily and unavoidably, it wouldn't even be necessary as a trap -- it could just go after all Borg vessels in subspace range, which meant that it wasn't so much a Trojan Horse as a continuous bomb.

Overall, it was a fun episode to watch, mainly for the chance to see an actor really put on a performance.