Well... first off, let's look into the TNG era relative to VOY's timeline as a baseline:
- Q Who -- definitely a strong "first story" for a major foe. Some dialogue is a little cheesy, there's also a Borg nursery for some reason (one way or another, think into it too much and the bunny hole becomes bigger than a TARDIS interior), and also confined to what amounts to "Pakleds but more steamroller in approach", but their pros outweigh the cons. Plus, a proverbial door is opened to explore and/or tie in Guinan with the Q. Glad it was never resolved, some mysteries just don't need to be answered. And after season 5 of TNG, the attempt may not have been good. The Q stories told in seasons 6 and 7 had better things to do anyway.
- TBOBW -- Emphasis is reiterated and expanded on how distributed their systems are. No single chambers. Redundancy everywhere to prevent total shutdown. The first canonical change is arguably here as even Riker points out "What the hell do they want with you?" as the Borg were only interested in technology, but not anymore. One can argue they were into assimilating other beings, which just didn't get pointed out in QW as the Borg didn't really need to say anything at the time... but once they analyzed enough of the collected ship innards they carved out (plus Q whisking them away), for the Collective to now come after them...
- I, Borg -- trying to do a sequel via another big action piece, especially in the middle of season 5's soap opera elevator muzak mire, wouldn't have flown. The idea of TNG taking a TOS trope (nag the computer into self-destruction) via the Escheresque graphic is cute, but what made them think that the Collective would just damper Hugh's newfound experiences as quickly as they damper everyone being assimilated of their emotions?! The character dynamics grew on me over time, though of all the people that Hugh manages to change minds for, Guinan surprised me the most. People gripe at "The Way to Eden" for changing characters to fit the plot. "I, Borg" is arguably doing the same thing. I've still struggled with attempted rewatches; there's not much that's all that compelling. But nobody knew it was a possible setup for:
- Descent - A story with much potential, let down by the descent* into fanwank soon enough. With horridly flat muzak with horridly flat acting to match. Especially in pt 2. The main plot idea of (some of the Collective) having been splintered or broken off due to the unintended reactions by Hugh (and the new faction is as single-mindedly vicious as the main one is expansionary) is actually robust. Violent Borg with personal names actually intrigued. These new Borg are still powerful, and right out of a horror movie - to the point that Freddie and Jason would cry "uncle" soon enough. Picard created this mess as well and it's a damn big one. Sadly, let's also chuck in Lore because the galaxy is so small a place that he's bound to turn up every fortieth week or so** and - voila: The Borg are neutered not by their new sadistic slant (and cooler ship design), but because they now need Lore - or any twit passing by, apparently - to do anything. Which otherwise raises a neat idea regarding this new Borg faction, think "TOS's 'The Enemy Within' on steroids and crack", but is pretty much ignored. But if they thought it through, then the story would need another part or two and what's currently there is too focused on superficial fluffybunny stuff regarding Data. And did the Borg really need Lore (or any passing twit) to really get together again? (Perhaps, but would any passing twit be as compelling as Lore?) Now ask how Troi can sense genuine emotions out of Data. What next, they do a crossover with Red Dwarf and Troi becomes best buddies with Talkie Toaster?!! Lore's control of Data did not need the Borg, either, and could have made a compelling story on its own with controlling and manipulating Data against the crew. I've rewatched this one more than "I Borg" because the notion of vicious cutthroat Borg is a very creepy idea that's partially well-realized in pt 1, but I've not rewatched it nowhere near as often as QWho and TBOBW - the two genuinely robust TNG tales by far.
* Snarf, hehe
** The galaxy sure is small, or somehow Lore got hitchhiking in all the right places... or has a warp engine with a big gas vent coming out of his behind...
So, yeah, at the time, TNG started good, got great, then started to lose direction, despite some solid core ideas that were thought of.
Then came "the movie":
- The "First Contact" movie. Has to be included because of where VOY goes. The Borg send only one Cube, again, and they almost win, again, and Picard - told to stay away - saunters in and finally tells them the weak spot (a single location on the ship, oddly). Even oddlier, all of Starfleet jumps to Picard's order like puppy training school despite Starfleet saying "No, Picard is exploring space gas on the other side of our space. If he shows up, be sure not to question him despite all of us higher ranking officials telling him to stay away." So the escape sphere leaves the Cube being blown up, they start the time travel trope - and given how the Queen mentions faff like "limited three dimensional thinking" and the rest of it, it's amazing she didn't do three point five dimensional thinking and use the time travel plot device before the battle and save all her dron-- this movie made zero sense at the time, but so many cool one-liners meant solely to get around the plot being cornered. At least it's all played for laughs. I walked out of the theater in the middle of the second viewing at the time... I will say this - like or dislike the character or anything in between, Alice Krige nails it as the Borg Queen.
So, by 1997 when the Borg got into Voyager, there was some trepidation. They were already aimless and scribbled by "Descent" and STFC was just superficial eye candy and dross. How would VOY, whose first season was a miss and whose second season was a mixed bag but showing some potential when not screwing up, cash in? Well...
- Scorpion -- it's genuinely fascinating how, despite being aired in 1997, they smartly and flagrantly avoid anything to do with Queenie. There's enough sense of fear and threat in the build-up and the dilemma of which route the ship takes. The Borg feel like an actual threat again. Somehow, Janeway pulls off an alliance. We're introduced to Seven, a pivotal and Locutus-like character for this episode, and ultimately the show as season 4 has a fresh breath of fresh air in exploring the metaphors that the Borg entail when it comes to assimilating and abusing people and surviving it. Mulgrew and Ryan apparently had off-set issues at the time, but on screen nobody watching would have guessed and they come across as a spectacular double-act. Far better than Picard/Data, IMHO. Played by people with strong caliber to keep whatever issues in check. The sum of their parts was never less than magnificent and, ironically, Janeway was made a stronger captain as a result of Seven and the "reclaiming humanity from the Borg" arc being introduced. Indeed, season 4 is nicknamed "The Borg Season" and VOY has real thought put into their newfound course. Any story involving Borg in this great season is strong.
- Dark Frontier -- a story that is cinematic in feel still forgets that Borg have been decoupled from the Collective before. Ditto for a couple plot points that the preceding Seven-origin story, "The Raven", had provided. Also, singular terms are used for things like the "primary" assimilation chamber and "unicomplex". Given recent events, the Borg didn't create these in a span of 2 years. Yep. Enough core continuity seems to suffer every time a Queen is thrown for another "ooh and aah moment". Also, why doesn't Queenie there, who otherwise engages in plot armor with "you humans think only in three dimensional terms, how sad" remember Locutus and Hugh and who knows who else while telling Seven she's the first drone to-- sigh... (Yes, a previous movie and a later franchise episode dabble in time travel and a change in the timeline won't be noticed. That likely was never a conscious decision from 1988, however, but a happenstance that makes things fit better. Or more conveniently. Plot armor. Or like reading a novel and you're up to chapter 8 and things now come across differently, you re-read chapters 1-7 and find that you've not gone nuts. It's bad scripting and everyone does it.) There's a transwarp coil - only one? Why not have four, so if when one breaks or is stolen they can still transwarp the dance floor and chase after those who stole it? Ugh! The tv movie also flaunts the Borg using two cubes to take over a lesser species with a fleet of 39 ships, with no difficulty. Starfleet had 39 ships lost and only due to Enterprise with Locutus strung on did they barely survived one cube. TWICE, though the exhaust port or whatever Picard had everyone aim at would not be a big enough thing for the Borg to change -- yet Picard/Locutus knew of it all this time and the Borg never thought of how to adapt to a singular point of failure?? But I digress, what a shock... Allegedly, there's a claim on how great humanity is, they put up a holographic image of a mostly-nekkid dude for some delicious reason as they go on and on about how to defeat humanity -- um, so not just use two ships instead of a plot point that won't be used?! There's no reason for this plot cornering gaffe. I will say this - like or dislike the character or anything in between, Suzanna Thompson nails it as the Borg Queen. To the point that even I can't dislike it when the Queen returns because they get the actors to put a spin on dialogue that, on paper, is fairly blase. But they give it real life and in a way that makes the character feel credible -- despite it all. It is about the performance. Nitpicking aside, I more often than not gravitate back to this one because it is stronger than the sum of its parts.
- Unimatrix Zero -- back to eye candy and dross again, complete with grand spectacle of having three characters assimilated and with more plot armor than the mass of a Dyson sphere. Clearly the franchise was burnt out. Instead of 90 minutes of Treknobabble, exploring how Queens are replaced may have been more interesting. Now look up what happens to Queens in ant colonies and beehives and wince.
- Endgame -- They're trying to one-up TNG's finale with grand use of time travel. And almost succeed. Even I have to admit that having a denouement for the main characters after arriving home might have been nice. But it's a step up from Unimatrix Zero. That alone is an impressive feat.
So, yeah, VOY accomplished the amazing feat of getting the Borg to be viable again. Moreso than the latter half of TNG's televised stories, and definitely more than "the movie".
Eschewing the 1996 movie, at least early on, was a palpable step in this revitalization process. Long standing continuity will NOT always be remembered so distinctly and, yeah, I'm not going to blame anyone who forgot about Hugh in the mid-1990s either. Not because of Hugh, but because post-TBOBW TNG stories were too contrived and/or throwaway and forgettable by more than just the audience. That said, there was still Locutus -- but he wasn't accessible to the Borg and effectively written off, since Patrick Stewart wasn't going to reprise the role at the time for this spinoff. Couldn't... But Seven did exist and was the most recent. That said, a throwaway line would have still been appropriate to smooth rough edges. Instead, saying she's "the
only Borg that has returned to a state of individuality" is not merely erroneous. It's that, or just how many more dimensions was Queenie engaging in at the time? Must be hard to keep track of, and this isn't
Doctor Who where they can play that dumb card every third episode to get away with whatever script they want to scribble out that week.
Or the timeline really does keep getting fingerfudgied so often that every new story can be as scribbled out as widely as possible and saying "time travelled up a new timeline" makes it a neat and nimble and nicely patronizing answer. So there's no Locutus anymore. Which is okay, Janeway once berated Q for introducing the Federation to the Borg (despite the telltale signs of Borg activity told in "The Neutral Zone" in the previous season and without Q, Janeway would never have gotten to the Delta quadrant unless the Collective wanted to move a bunch of humans there! Shh, that's just the 8,675,309th alternate timeline...) I vaguely recall some YouTube video pointing out how Janeway was adamant in not making deals with a villain a few weeks before, but now she is being quite the hypocrite regarding the Borg. There's bound to be wiggle room, and other than "prime directive", but that's not the only instance where VOY is given such radical inconsistencies and cultivating a contingent of fans who keep screaming she needs to be in the brig or whatever...
That said, watch VOY like TOS - each episode has the basic same premise but is otherwise its own one-off encapsulated episode that isn't affected by events prior to or after. Then consistency need not apply as well, and arguably to the point where the crew of VOY and 10,000 Borg drones engage in a game of Cribbage while sipping coffee and it's somehow the most engaging episode of all time.
Side note:
ENTERPRISE Prequel also had a Borg episode. I don't recall half of it, especially as I switched the channel at the time. I've never been fond of Prequels to begin with, as nothing really needed to be answered to bridge the gap between eras. And when prequels are attempted, they generally create more problems than they answer. They also rob fans of a chance to think of how they'd put things together, which is more fun than seeing something on screen attempt to do so and as a result make things far messier.
