In this episode of Star Trek: Enterprise the series shows off its versatility by
not only being a prequel, but also being a sequel.
This is a review of the classic Star Trek:
Enterprise episode “Regeneration.” If you have not seen this episode,
and you don’t want to know what happens in it, be warned: spoilers beyond this point!
It’s usually not a good sign when you start your new Star Trek show, and then two seasons in the
studio is like “Hey! Heeey! Do some stuff from the old show!” Now, I don’t know for certain that the
producers of Enterprise found themselves in that situation late in their second season,
but I’d call it a safe bet. Let’s see if their bet of doing a Borg episode paid off:
We begin on Earth, in the Arctic, as a team of scientists are studying some mysterious wreckage
that’s been buried in the snow for nearly a century. Amongst the wreckage they find
a pair of corpses, and the corpses look like this! Uh oh! Hello, dramatic irony!
These scientists, being humans from the twenty-second century, have never seen a
Borg before, but we know they’re in a lot of trouble because we’ve seen Borg before! We
watched all those Borg episodes of TNG, and . . . [sigh] . . . Voyager. And Star Trek:
First Contact, which is where these particular Borg are supposed to have come from.
Plus, we know any time scientists find something strange under the ice and snow of either the
Arctic or the Antarctic it’s never gonna go well for them, because we’ve also seen The Thing!
And that episode of The X-Files! Remember that one? The one that’s just like The Thing?
Anyway, these poor, hapless scientists, propelled forward by their insatiable
curiosity and pure-hearted insistence on giving the scary cyborg corpses they’ve discovered the
benefit of the doubt, plunge headlong into danger by thawing out these two Borg drones.
At one point one of the scientists notices that the corpses have nanoprobes in their
cells that seem to be rapidly repairing both their biological and technological components,
and says “Hey, maybe we should just park them in cold storage for now,
huh?” But the boss scientist says “Nah, we have no reason to think they’re a threat!”
[sharp intake of breath]
So, the scientists just kinda hang out nearby until the Borg have repaired themselves enough to
wake up, assimilate everyone on the science team, steal their transport ship, and make their escape.
Cut to Enterprise, where Captain Archer has been informed of everything we just saw in Act One,
and also this: the stolen transport has been modified to fly at almost warp four and its
projected course puts it within a few light-years of Enterprise’s current position. So, their job is
to find it and rescue the members of the research team, who are still being thought of as hostages.
Before too long, they receive a distress call from a Tarkalean freighter that has been attacked by
the transport. Enterprise arrives on the scene and finds the transport, now significantly modified,
firing on the other ship. Archer orders an attack, which disables the transport’s weapons.
The transport warps away, while Enterprise stays behind and rescues two survivors from the
Tarkalean ship. In sickbay, Phlox discovers that the Tarkaleans have been infected with some sort
of nanoprobes that are busily constructing cybernetic devices inside their bodies.
T’Pol says “Hey, maybe we should move them to a more secure location for now,
huh?” And Phlox is like, “Nah, I don’t think they’re a danger to the crew.”
[anxious squeal]
A bit later, T’Pol drops by Archer’s quarters to give him an update, and Archer tells her about
this speech by Zefram Cochrane he’s reading. It was delivered about ninety years ago,
and in the speech Cochrane spills the beans about everything that happened during Star Trek:
First Contact — how time-traveling cyborgs from the future showed up to stop his warp test flight
and prevent first contact with the Vulcans so they could launch an invasion of Earth, and how
those cyborgs were stopped by a team of heroic astronauts who had also come from the future.
T’Pol kinda shrugs it off, citing Cochrane’s well known overactive imagination and drinking problem.
So, this was before they built the statue,
I’m guessing. Cochrane’s legacy had not yet entered the hagiography phase. People
were still like “Zefram Cochrane? That drunk bullshitter? He said robo-aliens
came from the future to stop his warp flight? I wonder where he got that idea — glug-glug.”
Then again, it was T’Pol who said it.
The Vulcans probably never stopped talking about Cochrane like that.
Anyway, back to the Tarkaleans in sickbay and — surprise! They’re a danger to the crew! They
wake up, overpower the security guards, one of them injects Phlox with his little wrist tubies,
and they escape into the ship. Archer and Reed show up with some more security,
and Phlox gives himself a quick scan to confirm that he’s been infected with the
nanoprobes. As Reed and his security detail take off after the Tarkaleans,
Phlox warns him that they’re strong and they can zap you with wrist tubies, so don’t get too close.
One of the Tarkaleans opens an access panel and injects the ship’s circuitry with her
wrist tubies, causing Borg technology to instantly sprout. Reed and his team arrive
and fire their phase pistols, but have no effect. So, they pull back and Archer,
realizing he has no other choice, seals off that section of the ship and orders T’Pol
to open an exterior hatch, blowing the two Borgified Tarkaleans out into space.
As Enterprise resumes its pursuit of the assimilated transport, Trip works on undoing
the modifications the Tarkaleans made before being jettisoned, Reed modifies their weapons to be more
effective, and Phlox searches for a cure, hoping he can find one before the nanoprobes take over.
He tells Archer he thinks he’s found a possible treatment: a megadose of omicron radiation. It’ll
hurt, but it should kill all the nanoprobes in his body. But just in case, he hands Archer a syringe
and says “If it doesn’t work, just hit me with some of this and it’ll kill me instantly, okay?”
Enterprise catches up to the transport. They fire on a vulnerable section to force
the transport to drop out of warp, but before Archer can capitalize,
the transport sends a signal that activates the technology the Tarkaleans installed on Enterprise,
triggering a power failure. Then, the transport hails, and Archer hears a
chorus of cold voices flatly declare, “You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”
Archer has no idea what that means, but he knows it ain’t good. So, while Trip disables the Borg
technology so Enterprise can defend itself against the transport, and Phlox initiates
his radiation treatment, Archer and Reed beam over to the transport with some bombs
intending to disable it by blowing up a crucial system from the inside. When they get there,
they find the interior of the ship has been just as Borged-up as the exterior, and they
are met with some resistance — heh, get it? — from the former members of the research team,
who are now fully assimilated Borg drones. Archer, who up until now had been hoping to rescue the
abducted scientists and take them home, realizes they are beyond saving. He and Reed manage to
plant their charges and beam back to Enterprise just as they are being surrounded by drones.
The explosives planted by Archer and Reed go off,
and the transport is disabled. But, almost immediately upon returning to the bridge,
Reed reports that the transport is rapidly repairing itself. Archer orders all weapons
to be fired at the transport’s warp core, and the transport is destroyed.
Later, Archer and T’Pol drop in on Phlox, who is recovering from his near assimilation. He tells
them that while he was infected by the nanoprobes, he could hear other voices in his head. He thinks
he was linked to a group consciousness. And he heard a particular numerical sequence over and
over again, a sequence the others were trying to send in the form of a subspace message.
Archer has the numerical sequence analyzed, and it turns out to be driving directions to Earth.
The message was sent to a location somewhere in the Delta Quadrant. So,
T’Pol says, at least there’s nothing to worry about for the time being. “No,” Archer says,
“but we’ve only postponed the invasion . . . until the 24th century!” I wonder how that turns out!
So, here’s the thing. I remember when this episode premiered. I remember all
the very good reasons I had for expecting this episode to suck. The signs were not encouraging:
Enterprise doing a Borg episode? In May? For sweeps? It felt like a ratings stunt
from a show desperate to attract an audience. Plus, Voyager had thoroughly
driven the Borg into the ground, stripped them of all their novelty, and mystery,
and menace. There was not a single reason to look forward to this episode of Enterprise. I
sat down on my couch and watched what I assumed was going to be a lousy hour of television.
Instead, I got one of the best episodes Enterprise ever produced. Despite all the
factors working against it, “Regeneration” pulls it off. It tells a disciplined,
well structured story that takes full advantage of the fact that we know more
about this threat than the characters do to ramp up the tension from beginning to end.
The opening scenes with the scientists on Earth play like the first act of a horror movie,
with clueless characters stumbling into lethal danger while we all watch going “No,
you dumbass! Look! You can see the nanoprobes in the microscope! You know they’re repairing
themselves! Doesn’t that alarm you?! What are you doing?!” Then, we see the same scenario repeat
itself on Enterprise with Dr. Phlox, and again we’re like “What are you doing?! Do what T’Pol
says! Move them to a secure location!” And then, we see Archer set up to repeat that same mistake
yet again with his “I want to save them and take them home” declaration. But fortunately,
Archer realizes the nature of the threat in time, and makes the decision to destroy
the assimilated transport ship before it can repair itself and attack again.
It’s like the old saying: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice,
shame on me; fool me three times . . . won’t get fooled again.
The episode very smartly divides the threat of the Borg so our heroes have to face it on
three separate fronts at the same time: there’s the external threat of the assimilated transport
that Enterprise is chasing down; there’s the internal threat of the assimilated
Tarkaleans and the technology they leave behind embedded in Enterprise’s circuits;
and there’s the internal threat of Phlox’s nanoprobe infection.
All three are effective in their own way, but it’s really Phlox’s story that grips
the tightest for me. By the time he is injected with the nanoprobes, we’ve seen the effect they
have on people who are being assimilated — we see how they suddenly take control of the Tarkalean
after he wakes up in sickbay. Once Phlox is infected, we know there is a ticking clock
counting down to when he clicks over from himself to a drone, but we don’t know how
much time there is on that clock, so every scene with Phlox after that is fraught with tension.
Of all the episodes Enterprise ever made, this one probably benefits the most from being a prequel,
because it’s written in a way that assumes some knowledge about the Borg on the part of the
audience, and uses that to build a mounting sense of dread. We know that the heroes of Enterprise,
with their 22nd century technology, can’t possibly be a match for the Borg. But,
the Borg aren’t at full power. The episode is well titled, because the Borg spend the entirety of
this story regenerating — assimilating new drones, retrofitting their ship — building up to full
strength. The effect is that of Captain Archer and his crew being held in a slowly closing fist,
and in the end they only just barely manage to escape before being crushed.
That effect is amplified by Enterprise’s excellent set design. Despite finding the
show overall to be fairly mediocre, I’ve always loved the look of Enterprise’s . . . well,
Enterprise — and this episode takes full advantage of its narrow corridors,
heavy looking manually operated doors, and tight maintenance tunnels. The scenes of
Reed and his team crouching and ducking and shoving their way through the ship’s
close quarters in pursuit of the Tarkaleans make Enterprise feel like a maze, or a trap.
The most impressive and unlikely accomplishment of “Regeneration” is making the Borg scary again.
After being wrung out by Voyager, the Borg come roaring back here as a truly credible, lethal
threat. Yes, we know all about them, but Captain Archer and his crew don’t realize how deep the
shit they are in is, and the central question is will they realize it in time? And sure, you always
have the assumption — especially in a series — that the good guys will win, but a good story
can get you to forget about that while you’re watching it. “Regeneration” is such a story.
Which is not to say it’s flawless — there are a few problems here and there, mostly in the form
of inconsistencies with the Borg themselves. The half-assimilated Tarkaleans Reed and his
security detail face aboard Enterprise adapt to their phase pistols after only a couple of shots,
while the drones that menace Archer and Reed later on the assimilated transport take numerous phase
pistol hits but conveniently don’t adapt until Archer and Reed have almost completed their
mission. And, that shot of the Tarkalean zapping Enterprise’s circuitry with her assimilation
tubules and causing Borg technology to magically appear within seconds raises questions — like,
if their nanoprobes are able to make entire systems basically appear out of thin air like
that, why does it take so long for the Borg to take over a ship? Or assimilate a person?
But, those are relatively minor quibbles. The Borg tech works that way for narrative convenience,
and I understand, and it’s not too egregious of a shortcut,
so I’m happy to let it slide given how excellent the episode is overall.
The mere presence of the Borg in the show is a problem for some people, and I am sympathetic
to that. I am not a fan of shows getting hand-me-downs from other shows — see my criticisms
of the presence of changelings in season three of Star Trek: Picard — hell, I don’t think the
Borg should have shown up more than maybe once in Voyager, so if anyone objects to the Borg
appearing in Enterprise, I definitely get it. But, I will overlook all of that for the sake of a good
story, because good stories are ultimately why I’m interested in all of this shit to begin with.
The Borg showing up is justified by the connection to First Contact — these Borg
come from the wreckage of the Queen’s sphere, which is blown up by the Enterprise-E moments
after arriving in the 21st century. And honestly, that’s all the explanation I need. Where did these
Borg come from? Oh, that’s it? Okay, cool, let’s go. Some continuity nerds might have a
problem with Starfleet encountering the Borg two hundred years before the events of their
debut in TNG’s “Q Who,” or with Phlox being able to cure himself of assimilation when no
one in the TNG/Voyager Borg episodes seems to have as good a handle on the problem,
or with the significance of the Enterprise-D’s Q-orchestrated first encounter with the Borg
being diluted by the subspace message sent to the Delta Quadrant at the end of “Regeneration” — but
fortunately, I am not such a continuity nerd, and I don’t give a good goddamn about any of that.
I’m not a Thermian, these aren’t historical documents, I don’t care if something in this
episode from 2003 contradicts something else in another episode from 1989 — my primary interest
is always in the story that I am watching right now, and when I watch “Regeneration” what I see
is a tightly plotted, tense action story about people who defeat a superior enemy by the skin
of their teeth because time and circumstance just so happen to be on their side. When Enterprise
destroys the assimilated transport at the end, there is a palpable sense of relief that washes
over these characters, and me in the audience as well. It’s the simultaneously exhilarating
and terrifying feeling of “That was a close one,” and that’s exactly how it ought to feel.
Those are my thoughts on “Regeneration.” What do you think of this episode? Please share your
thoughts with me in the comments. If you’d like to support this channel — and I sure wish you would,
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That does it for this batch of Borg episode reviews. More to come in the future. But,
starting next week, I’ve got a new batch of retro reviews coming that are all about time travel
episodes! The first of those will be the classic Star Trek: The Original Series episode, “Tomorrow
Is Yesterday.” I’ll see you next week for that. Thanks for watching and take care, everybody!