It turns out that Icheb’s parents are even worse at this than Seven of Nine.
I really need to spend less time on Reddit. I know because this is what’s in my head right now:
AITA for not wanting my foster son to return to his birth parents?
I (26F) have been caring for my foster children (15M, twins 12M, 9F) for a few months. Other than the twins they’re not blood relatives, but they have been together for a long time and are very close. Recently the possibility arose of the eldest returning to his birth family.
I know this is meant to be a good thing, but I hate the idea. He is a gifted student, particularly in astronomical sciences, and his family live in a relatively deprived agricultural area. His parents don’t understand him as well as I do, and frankly, I don’t think the area is a safe place to raise a child, eg, there’s a sewerage pipe running through the settlement, regular Borg attacks, etc.
I’m biased because his parents remind me of my own (they were also irresponsible parents; we’re NC), but I don’t think this is the best course for my foster son. Everyone is acting like I’m TA. Am I?
EDIT: Turns out my son’s birth parents bred him as a biological weapon against the Borg, so he’s staying with me.
Replies (sorted by new)
YTA. Kids should be with their parents. Your other foster kids should be taken away as well. KYS.
Calm down, this is clearly fake. Twins? Please.
Anyway.
“Maternal Instincts”
I know I complained last week about Seven being dropped into a maternal role that doesn’t suit her, but I mostly like this episode. Because Icheb is only a recurring character, so there’s genuine tension around the question of whether he’ll stay on Voyager or go home, and while his parents are straightforward, simple folk in a way that SCREAMS “sinister secret agenda”, I respect the twist that his meek, gentle mother is the one behind Operation: Breed A Kid To Be A Weapon Against The Borg And Send Him Off To Be Assimilated. I had a whole rant prepared about how she’s the one preparing food while Icheb’s dad teaches him about farming and local constellations, but then there’s the twist that she’s a Bad Mom.
(I have also spent too much time lately reading and listening to podcasts about Rube Franke, the all-American Mormon MomTuber who turned out to be horribly abusing her kids, and one thing that jumps out at me is that people are really reluctant to admit that a mother might be abusive. Especially if she is blonde and sweet and feminine. It’s pretty grim stuff, and I don’t want to compare the horrifying abuse of real children with an episode of Star Trek, but it did jump out at me.)
This is our first look at Icheb as an individual, pun intended, as opposed to being one of a group of children. I don’t really care for him, but that’s in part because the writers have done a little too good a job of building a super intelligent, rather pedantic, humourless teenage boy. Totally realistic, but not someone I enjoy hanging out with.
But likability is overrated as a scale for judging a character. Does he make sense? Yes. Does he grow over the course of the episode? Yes? Through him, do we learn more about Seven of Nine? Yes. And Seven is the one I care about.
Of course, she’s also not that likeable here. In the best possible way! She’s controlling of Icheb, downright snide when he’s preparing to leave Voyager, and self-aware enough to understand that she is emotionally compromised and not behaving well. She’s as immature as Icheb in some scenes, which makes sense given that she’s barely been an individual and an adult for five minutes. (This, of course, makes it even worse that she’s been put into a parental role.)
All this makes Seven a richer character. Season 6 has introduced us to a new trait of hers: both here and in “Virtuoso”, she’s furious when people leave her and passive-aggressively lashes out at them.
(In Star Trek: Picard, a show where none of the writers have ever watched Star Trek, this trait is given to Raffi, while Seven gets the more predictable “emotionally distant and unavailable” trait that Voyager cleverly avoided.)
“Maternal. Instincts.”
Meanwhile, it is PRETTY WILD that Kathryn Janeway is out here telling Seven to trust her so-called “maternal instincts” when it comes to Icheb’s wellbeing. Like, are Seven’s instincts good here, or did she get lucky (“lucky”) in that Icheb’s parents turned out to be sketchy?
And I’m sorry, I know everyone loves to say that Janeway is a motherly figure, but she is even worse with kids than Jean-Luc Picard. I mean, she doesn’t actively dislike them, the way Picard does; she might even say she likes children. But she’s not interested in them. Any time a person under the legal drinking age comes into her life, she offloads them to the nearest responsible adult who isn’t Neelix — Seven in Voyager, the Doctor in Prodigy. You can see it very clearly in the teaser here, where she is polite to the kids, but doesn’t seem interested in them until she reaches Icheb’s science fair project, and then speaks to him like a person. She’s a great mentor to young adults, but only passable with actual children.
Who needs parents anyway?
I really liked Icheb’s conversation with the Doctor about how he doesn’t really have parents, and I’m curious that despite this, he seems very invested in Icheb knowing his biological family. How much of that is his programming, how much is the culture in which he lives, and how much is simply the Doctor’s interest in and preference for heritage, history and structure?
Seven, meanwhile, is very upfront about having no respect for her parents. And I think that’s fair! I like that no one is pushing her to forgive them for getting her assimilated — she was very resistant to the idea in “Dark Frontier”, and I love that she hasn’t come around on the subject. There are many characters for whom that would make sense, but not Seven.
Other observations
- The Greatest Generation’s recap of this episode spotted two details which brought me tremendous joy on this rewatch: that there is an open sewer running right through the middle of the agricultural settlement (maybe the Borg are repelled by bad odours?) and Icheb’s brother1 communicates entirely by shouting across great distances. They combined these facts into a running gag which makes me laugh every time it comes up.
- Janeway’s hair is quite large here. It almost reaches the heights of her season 5 hair.
- Icheb’s dad is played by Mark A. Sheppard, who has appeared in just about every genre series made in the last few decades. This is inspired casting, because he walks into the scene and you instantly know and trust him.
- The final scene, where Voyager narrowly escapes assimilation, is one hundred percent pure competence porn, and incredibly tense even though you know they’re going to escape.
In conclusion
This is a simple episode, but then, I’m a simple soul. Three open sewers out of five.