Alice Krige returns in “Star Trek: Picard” as Borg Queen
We didn’t think it would happen. In season 2, it was someone else. But Alice Krige is finally back as the Borg Queen in the final season of “Star Trek: Picard”.
Her voice, anyway.
In the penultimate episode of the rebooted series’ final season, Krige makes a grand entrance to deliver one of the most fan serviceable lines to Jean Luc’s son, Jack: “Resistance is futile.”
The season follows the adventures of many familiar favorites — Geordi La Forge, Deanna Troi, Beverly Crusher, Data, Worf, and Seven of Nine — all trying to fend off an insidious threat perpetrated by our old foes, the Changelings.
We did not know exactly what these antagonists were up to for most the season, but in episode 9, the pieces finally start coalescing like nanoprobes colonizing a new brain. The Borg duped us all along.
In the episode that premiered on Paramount+ April 13, we once again follow along as Jack — Beverly and Jean Luc’s son who struggles with haunting visions of blood vessels and voices — learns he was actually hearing the Borg Queen.
He learns that a genetic mutation inherited from Jean Luc is actually a seed planted inside Picard when he was Locutus. Upon this revelation, Jack zips off in a stolen shuttle to confront the Borg Queen. And she loves to finally see him.
We don’t actually see Krige, but her voice explains the significance of Jack’s new Borg name, Vōx. “Not Locutus, the one who speaks. You are the voice itself.”
As Jack learns of this haunting origin story, the OG crew piece together that they’ve all been quietly assimilated through transporter systems on Starfleet ships. In an apparent alliance with the Borg, changelings have been coding DNA from Jean Luc that turn crew members under 25 into receivers for Borg commands.
In the most “Battlestar Galactica” move yet, old becomes the new new. A series of networked Starfleet ships can no longer be trusted with new young drones killing off their unassimilated elders. So La Forge hatches a plan for the team to use a ship totally out of reach of the Borg’s coup. And where else? The Enterprise D.
I’m honestly happy to see all this nostalgia. The Borg Queen of season 2 Annie Wersching sadly passed away at age 45. But I also wondered why she appeared when Krige was still actively involved in the “Trek” universe, saying just last year she still attended conventions, and in 2021 appeared in Lower Decks.
For the first two seasons, the series has piecemeal brought back characters, from Hugh to Guinan to Q, but never so many as in season 3. So maybe the budget was aimed mainly at overpaying Patrick Stewart along with some reasonable special effects. Who knows.
But it’s easy to say amid all its fan service, season 3 of this rebooted franchise is easily the best. Krige’s voice was struck such an appropriately nostalgic, villainous tone. I only hope we get to see her descend from the ceiling and into a body in the finale.
Saul Sugarman is editor in chief of The Bold Italic.
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