The youth of tomorrow, eh?

Sometimes the reveals start coming and they don’t stop coming and so it is with Võx, the penultimate episode of Star Trek Picard and the point where every plot thread is finally gathered together and unified into a story you can sink your nanoprobes into.

When Troi discovers that Jack’s visions are coming from the Borg, it leads in short order to a discovery that Picard’s Irumodic Syndrome was, in actual fact, undetected organic Borg technology left over from his time as Locutus (which means, I guess, he just died of natural causes in Picard Season 1?). This biological Borg enhancement has been passed on to Jack, which explains his visions, the siren calls he’s been hearing and his ability to control his fellow shipmates via Bluetooth.

Meanwhile, Riker’s analysis of the Changeling’s databanks from the Shrike has revealed the scale and scope of the Borg’s plan. The Changelings stole Picard’s original body so they could transpose the Borg DNA sequences into Starfleet’s transporter system architecture, embedding it into everyone who went through a compromised transporter. With the whole of Starfleet thus compromised and improbably gathered en masse in one place, around Earth, for “Frontier Day” the jeopardy becomes chillingly clear.

They try to contain Jack, for his own safety, but he escapes using his Borg control skills and sets off to find the Borg Queen, intent on destroying her only to be quickly subdued and assimilated, taking up his role as Võx, “the voice” of the Borg. Using Jack as a transmitter, the Borg remotely assimilate all Starfleet personnel in the Sol system, although because of the genetic nature of the technology, it’s ineffective against officers whose frontal lobe development had finished before they used the infected transporters so basically, the kids aren’t alright.

In orbit of Earth, Fleet Admiral Elizabeth Shelby (Elizabeth Dennehy), onboard the USS Enterprise-F begins the Frontier Day celebrations and initiates the demo of the new “Fleet Formation” protocol that connects all Starfleet ships. Like social media and LLMs, it’s the worst possible technological development at the worst possible time and the Borg quickly seize control of not only the crews of the Starfleet vessels but the vessels themselves. Shelby realises too late what’s really going on and is killed in classic Star Trek Picard bring back a familiar face only to kill them off. Arriving at Earth, the Titan is almost instantly compromised and Shaw is killed helping Picard and his crew to escape in a shuttlecraft, handing command of the Titan, and the responsibility to retake the ship, to Seven before he dies.

Escaping back to the Starfleet Museum, Geordi reveals that he has restored the Enterprise-D and that it might be the only functioning Starfleet ship not controlled by the Borg.

The early scenes of Võx play out like a crossover between Star Trek and the Insidious franchise as everything centres on what’s behind the red door. To nobody’s surprise, the answer isn’t of course, isn’t Lipstick Face, although that’s not to say the Borg couldn’t do with some cosmetics. A little foundation and blusher could do wonders for that pallid skin. It’s a curiously underplayed reveal that the mutant changeling faction has been working for the Borg all along and it might have been nice for a few of them to have stuck around so we could see what they thought of the revelation. Did they know? Did they care? Do we? Really? Yes, kind of.

So, finally, we reach the endgame of this whole three series spin-off: the final undoing of All Good Things’ Irumodic syndrome throwaway plot point. That being said, the idea of Borg evolving to use biological technology is a great idea, an unnatural evolution of their body horror roots. It’s also darkly amusing that their dicking around with transporters ends up only affecting the young. There’s a subtle metaphor here that the writers are articulating, but I can’t quite put my finger on it… /s. At least they’ve finally found a way to make the crews’ advanced years a narrative and tactical advantage. Boomers vs Millennials: In Space!

It’s a fun note to see that Seven has Pulaski’s way with Data, their only interaction throughout the whole series being her referring to him as “the robot”, but I guess that’s one of the problems when you blend series casts: the character proxies won’t always gel. Shaw’s “sacrifice” is a real shame. I never thought I’d like him this much when I first met him but he’s been one of the series’ MVPs, giving voice to the fans who’ve sat through two turgid seasons and are still sceptical that they’re genuinely enjoying what they’re watching now. Also, like Rios, Shaw is disposed of before he can take too much focus from the more elderly crew.

Of course, Võx also brings us the series’ most iconic and most egregious callback and while it is wholly craven fan service and nostalgia, I just can’t complain when I’ve got this goofy a grin on my face. You can almost see the lack of actual acting as Stewart, Frakes, Spiner, Dorn, Burton, McFadden and Sirtis emerge onto the bridge of the Enterprise-D. The emotional resonance is too authentic, too articulate for any of them to fake, no disrespect to their skills as performers. It must have been a magical moment for them as a group and they share that magic with us in the moment.

Of course there are shades of Star Trek III: The Search For Spock in the moment when Picard asks them to volunteer for the forthcoming mission, but Geordi’s done a far better job than Scotty did in preparing the Enterprise to run with just a bridge crew. In Scotty’s defence, though, La Forge had twenty uninterrupted years and Scotty had about two weeks of off duty time between shifts on the Excelsior, so let’s call it even.

The episode ends with the glorious sight of the Enterprise-D going to warp as the strains of Jerry Goldsmith’s Star Trek The Motion Picture/ Star Trek The Next Generation theme and it’s as good a time as any to belatedly mention how music has played a key role in the redemption of the series this third season. Goldsmith’s work has been everywhere, and the end credits using the theme from Star Trek First Contact is a clever way to connect to the season’s adversaries as well as provide a much more pleasant listening experience than the turgid Star Trek Picard theme of seasons one and two.