Review

This episode at first would seem to heavily aggravate the Borg's apparent inconsistent portrayal on Star Trek. But I'm a little more forgiving. Consider Seven of Nine's past. By the time of TNG, there was a group of people who defied Starfleet by searching for the Borg, who were only rumored to exist at that time. This episode could in fact provide the necessary background information for where Seven of Nine's parents got their wild ideas. There are two questions to answer if we're to buy into this rationalization. Why did Picard and more importantly Data know nothing about them? It's at least possible that even after the events of this episode, Starfleet lacked any interest in these aliens. Cochrane's statements about the Borg were largely considered ridiculous both before and after this episode. It's likely that officially this episode was considered an isolated incident, and that a connection was never drawn by Starfleet. It was up to minority groups like Seven of Nine's parents, to draw these connections. The second question to answer is what happened to the Borg wreckage and the detailed medical scans of the bodies? Given that the Borg never showed up again until the 24th century, neither the the data nor the wreckage was of any use. I wouldn't be surprised if it never got any recognition outside the scientific minority that Seven of Nine's parents belonged to. Yes, this episode is annoying, to put it mildly. And it would have been nice if the writers payed better attention to continuity, by supporting these rationalizations in the episode. But like Ent: Acquisition, it's not a devastating blow to continuity. No, Enterprise does not exist in a new timeline. No, these types of episodes are not impossible to rationalize. Yes, this was a reasonably entertaining episode, but I do hope this trend stops before it really does become a problem.