16 surveillance images are loading at the bottom of the page

Star trek: Voyager 5.08 - Dark frontier

Stardate 52619.2 and 32611.4
Threat advisory: High - High risk of entertaining activities

Episode propaganda

To gain crucial knowledge to enable the theft of transwarp technology from a crippled Borg ship, Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) must endure the painful task of analysing the journals of her own parents who were Borg experts. Meanwhile, training for the dangerous mission is underway in the holosuite [sic] to perfect the theft so that the away team will stay undetected by the drones. On the eve of the theft, Seven of Nine is contacted by the Borg and their Queen (Susanna Thompson), who offer her an ultimatum: rejoin the collective or watch as Voyager is assimilated...

Persons of interest

Kate Mulgrew .... Captain Kathryn Janeway
Robert Beltran .... Commander Chakotay
Roxann Dawson .... Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres
Robert Duncan McNeill .... Lieutenant Tom Paris
Robert Picardo .... the Emergency Medical Hologram
Ethan Phillips .... Neelix
Tim Russ .... Lieutenant Tuvok
Jeri Ryan .... Seven of nine, tertiary adjunct to Unimatrix 01
Garrett Wang .... Ensign Harry Kim
Majel Barrett .... USS Voyager computer voice
Susanna Thompson .... Borg Queen
Kirk Bailey .... Magnus Hansen
Laura Stepp .... Erin Hansen
Scarlett Pomers .... Naomi Wildman
Katelin Petersen .... Annika Hansen
Eric Cadora .... the being
Brannon Braga .... Screenwriter
Joe Menosky .... Screenwriter
Cliff Bole .... Director
Terry Windell .... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

See also The Raven
Studios and distributors:

Star trek official site

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Intelligence report

You will be assimilated!

Oh, Trekkie heaven: butch women, Borg implants, technobabble, personal pain, tragedy, resurrection, sarcasm... what more could you ask for?

Dark frontier is a full-on, hard-core dynamic action excitement episode for the more excitable viewer. The pacing is terrific, building slowly, slowly, quickly, quickly until ka-blam! ka-blam! Multiple orgasm. Er... climax.

Now there are a few nit picks for those who delight in such things (eg Magnus' stardates are all up the boohai), but they're like puns: gotta love 'em, gotta hate 'em. Besides which, the action, adventure, drama and effects are far too much fun to be worrying about the time of day on the other side of the galaxy.

Seven gets put through the mill: Janeway pushes her to become more Human, the Borg Queen pushes her to become more Borg, her parents don't much care what happens to her. There's never a ship's counsellor when you need one. Jeri plays the highlights, low lights, and plain no lights brilliantly. Likewise Kate and Susanna, even though they are only in the same scene for a few seconds, they play off each other for the whole episode: hard and soft, soft and hard. It's like watching two lionesses stalking the same prey. There's gonna be blood on the savannah tonight!

No-one else does much more than help the story along, but Paris is growing up nicely.

This is a bonza episode that you will enjoy. So do!

Note from the future: Magnus' stardates are ok. It has been pointed out to me that after the events in First contact, we are now living in the Sloane Timeline, in which knowledge of the Borg has been around since the 21st century rather than the 23rd (See Q-who).