'Survival Instinct'

Stardate: 53049.2
Written By:Ronald D Moore
Directed By: Terry Windell
Rating: ***1/2 (out of 5)

This is a very interesting story, refreshing. The first refreshing thing you'll notice is that Voyager is among friends, people who are interested in peace and cooperation.� Voyager is docked at a massive space station with many cultures and we see a lot of aliens crowding Voyagers decks. Janeway also receives many different gifts from these friendly beings, including a plant that grabs her, a scene not done very well, but still fun!

But also on this station are three ex-drones that want Seven of Nine to help break the Neural link between them becuase she was part of their group and could help. They are of different native species, I don't know how likely it would be having a Bajoran Borg here in the Delta Quadrant and actually finding Seven away from the collective, or even in the collective, so easily!

Anyway, the ex-Borg are trying to discover why they can't break the Neural link and it turns out it was due to Seven, who frightened during a crash of their Borg Sphere, injected them with Nanoprobes to control them and thereby linking them.

While accessing these memories together, the Borg cause damage to themselves and begin to malfunction, leading Seven to make a difficult choice, either break the link between them; meaning they'll die within a month, or returning them to the Borg, where they can live, albiet in collective harmony.

Seven naturally chooses to un-link them, but it is obvious this choice is not easy for her and the end is saddening; the three Borg, knowing they will soon die, are happy they are now fully individual. They say that they can't forgive Seven, but understand why she did it.

The episode format is travelling back and forth betwwen the incident 7 years ago and the present time Voyager.� Seeing these four as Borg drones suffering from individuality, and what they go through makes for some compelling viewing.

One thing that puzzles me however is the way these Borg react to being individual, well almost individual.� Everything shown here goes against what's shown in TNG's "I, Borg" and Voyagers own "The Gift." In those episodes the transition to individuality is different.

Naomi Wildman had some great scene's and the scene with Tom and Harry and their fight was funny, except for the end where Harry says "We kicked their . . . rackets."� I felt like gagging.� I feel sorry for this guy.� He just gets a lot of sad bad lines.

All in all, an episode that had me interested and entertained nothing overly fantastic but certainly not fluff. Not the best effort by Ronald D Moore but a commendable one nonetheless.