“Borderland”
Page 7 of 8perhaps die or at least, we know they won’t succeed since we know that in the future, Earth isn’t ruled by Augments. Other than the TOS episode “Space Seed” with Khan Noonian Singh (Ricardo Montalban) and the TOS movie Star Trek II: “The Wrath of Khan”, we never really see true Augments again. I say true because we do see a genetically enhanced Doctor Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) in DS9 but he’s nothing like these Augments.
Nonetheless, we get treated to some first-rate acting here from the regular cast as well as from two beloved Trek guest stars. J.G. Hertzler (DS9’s “Martok”) is somewhat wasted here but what the heck, it’s always a hoot to see him in action. I was hoping we’d see his season two character, Kolos again (see “Judgment”) but I suppose that won’t happen and that’s a pity. Brent Spiner (TNG’s “Data”) shows a nice range here what with Soong’s ruthlessness and compassion all rolled into one. It’s great to see him again too. I like that this is linked to TNG in the sense that the future Soong will create “Data” and we get Spiner to play the scientist’s ancestor.
The topic of the episode is certainly relevant however we’ve seen it before as mentioned above. “Space Seed” was certainly ahead of its time but not having seen the rest of the arc, I’ll reserve judgment on whether or not this is just a rehash of the same idea or whether this adds to Trek lore.
Having seen some of the non-Orion members of the syndicate in DS9’s “Honor Among Thieves”, and having forgotten completely about the Orion slave girl, “Marta” (Yvonne Craig) in TOS’s “Whom Gods Destroy”, the Orion Syndicate certainly wasn’t what I expected. WWE’s 7 feet tall “Big Show” as the Orion Slaver holding up T’Pol like a rag doll did a good job as the nasty alien and Bobbi Sue Luther looked great in the part of the Orion Slave girl although I found the green color not as striking on them as I recall it being on TOS’s Marta.
The two plots in the story seem to be equally represented. We have the Augments and their fight for leadership and Archer along with Soong trying to find them. The next episode will entail Archer looking for the Augments again, finding them and since there is another episode to follow, they get away and the search starts over again or so I assume. I don’t know why, but I’m finding it not too interesting so far. This episode was good but nothing outstanding although the pace, the action and the acting were notable.
Most likely, the reason I didn’t find it all that intriguing was because the Augments are so one-dimensional. It’s interesting that the author chose to give them the age of 10 when Soong left them. At that age, they hadn’t developed enough to have true morals, which might explain their ruthlessness and disregard for life. In addition, a group of 10 year olds left alone to fend for themselves reminded me of the novel “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding. In that story, the children go from being civilized to cruel savages. It makes me wonder if the Augments had been around civilized people during their teenage years, if even with their superior strength and mental abilities, whether they would have become cold-blooded and heartless as they are. Still, we do have Soong who seems to believe in them. He sees their
