ENT – Regeneration

 

Plot – Should the Borg have been handled on Enterprise given that they were first (as in Starfleet’s first discovery of them) discovered on TNG in season two? Doesn’t that muddy up the timelines somewhat? I suppose that opens up of the question of whether Enterprise should dealing with any of the races as we know they from the Berman universe. Wanting to tell the stories of the founding days of the Federation and set the series before even TOS and wanting to bring back all the post TOS fan favourites does rather feel like having your cake and eating it. I can see the appeal, especially with a race as popular as the Borg. However, they were used to death on Voyager by the end and it has only technically been one season (ENT S1) since they haven’t been featured. It’s not like this was a huge comeback for the race who were seeing Voyager’s finale recently.

Saying that, the writers have come up with an ingenious way of bringing them back that ties into First Contact extremely well. There’s a good excuse for the Borg to be here but the story has to jump through hoops to explain why Archer and crew don’t remember these terrifying cyborgs and why they never wrote a log about them for Picard to find in the second season of TNG. Essentially it boils down to ‘we aren’t sure what those scary robots were and so we’ll forget that it ever happened.’

I’m a sucker for any story that takes its inspiration from The Thing From Another World and Regeneration offers up a ten-minute introduction at the Snowcap as the expedition discover the base previously attacked and are menaced by the Borg. Once again, the best material barely features the Enterprise crew and there is something extremely filmic and stylish about these early scenes. The snowy wilderness that the base is built in looks very impressive. Note to any future archaeological teams. Should you encounter the disembodied parts of several cyborg bodies and one of the arms starts coming to life…run.

Character – There’s a wonderful moment where Phlox and Reed discuss the Borg before they have met them and Phlox attempts to suggest that Starfleet officers should be more open about cybernetic technology. I love how he is always trying to make people see things from a unique perspective, from the other point of view. John Billingsley, as usual, brings the depth to the show and his reaction to being infected with Borg nanoprobes is to feel violated. He would rather commit suicide than become on of the Borg. What he goes through to rid himself of the nanoprobes looks like absolute torture, and it really stresses the invasion of your bodies when these nasties infect you.

Great Dialogue – ‘There’s no reason to assume they’re hostile’ ‘They don’t exactly look friendly.’

Production – There’s a great score to this episode which increases in intensity throughout. Remember when the Borg were first introduced in Q Who? Ron Jones’ was able to go completely mad and truly give them a memorable score. This is much more subtle and skilful, but slightly less memorable for it.

Best moment – For once I can really see the effort that has gone into the design of the Enterprise sets. David Livingston has so much fun dashing around the ship with cameras, effortlessly suggesting that this is a huge space that is under attack. The curved corridors mean that the movement feels very fluid and satisfying as we dash around the corridors.

Worst moment – I can’t take Reed seriously. He spoils a perfectly good sequence with the Borg attacking Enterprise with an overly melodramatic ‘stop what you’re doing!’

I wish they hadn’t done that – I’m not sure that Sussman and Strong can resist taking a visit to a Borg ship but I would have suggested that that was avoided. An encounter with the Borg on Enterprise could be pushed aside as just another encounter with a hostile alien species but to visit one of their vessels would surely mean that Archer would debrief Starfleet afterwards, perhaps even collect some visual evidence. Full marks for the atmosphere in these scenes but no marks for the logic of what comes afterwards (no evidence of the Borg in the Starfleet database).

A reason to watch this episode again – It seems improper to say but the best scenes in Regeneration are the ones that don’t feature the Enterprise crew at all. The opening ten minutes featuring the team discovering the Borg corpses in Antarctica are easily the most suspenseful and atmospheric of the episode, and the characters are very likable too. It feels like the opening of a really spooky movie. There’s a perfectly cogent explanation for the Borg’s presence in this story and so I’m not sure why so many Trek fans got their knickers in the twist. I’ve heard complaints that this was the episode where Enterprise jumped shark but in reality, this is one of the first Enterprise episodes to have a genuine sense of excitement and suspense about it. If only they could marry those words to this shows unique continuity and we would be in fine shape (actually that would come in season three). So much of the insecurity of this episode comes from the fact that we know precisely what the Borg are about but Archer and his chums don’t. We’re constantly waiting for the inevitable conflict and there is something to be said for making the audience wait in anticipation. I think a lot of people had made up their mind about Regeneration before watching it but this deserves re-evaluation because it is genuinely one of the strongest episodes of this shows run. It might not be subtle or especially deep, but it does have plenty of blood pumping through its veins and is dynamic throughout. This is really strong and even more impressive for giving the Borg a real sense of mystery and horror again, after so much use. They feel relentless, unstoppable and utterly unlike anything Enterprise has encountered before.

****1/2 out of *****