LogFAQs > #884962446

Not to monopolize the topic, but as I've had this one ready...

#56. Icheb

“Let's introduce a group of Borg children!” is another in a long line of instances where I have no idea in hell what the Voyager writers were thinking. If you had asked me to rank the Borg children as a whole, we might have a new contender for last place. Fortunately, the show seems to realize this and shortly after they get introduced, all of them but Icheb are put on a bus in one way or another. Icheb being the oldest, and easily the best actor of the group, he was really the only sensible option to keep around (if they had to keep any of them around at all).

The problem with Icheb, which is the same problem with a lot of the characters I have in the 50s, is that he's really not that interesting. We are solidly in the “meh” tier of my list by this point, and Icheb is pretty damn definitive in that regard. The performance is fine, the backstory is fine, and most of his scenes are good enough not to be a detriment to the series. But he's also a symptom of a show that's running out of ideas, a show that's desperate enough to introduce a ship of Borg children in the first place. He also has this tendency to show up in a lot of the more subpar episodes of late Season 6 and Season 7, which doesn't help anything.

Take “Q2”, for example, an insufferable episode where he makes friends with Q's insufferable son. Icheb, like Harry and Barclay, is generally only as good as the characters surrounding him enable him to be. That's a problem when he spends an entire episode hanging out with Q Junior. This is out of only eleven appearances, four of which occur before his awful Borg Child compatriots are put on their bus at the beginning of Season 7. Even that, though, isn't as bad as his B plot in “Nightingale,” where he spends the entire episode trying to get with B'Elanna (who is married at this point). It's a credit to Manu Intirayami's acting skills that I don't just hate this character, because there are a lot of low points to choose from.

He does get some good moments, though – most of which come from being around one of his mentors (either Janeway or Seven of Nine, depending on the episode). Even if he does have some pretty terrible moments, the fact remains that his arc is kind of interesting. I didn't like the Borg Children Idea, but that's mostly because, well, they're children, and I don't like children in my sci-fi. Call it the J. Michael Straczynski school of thought. I'm not gonna say there have never been good kids in sci-fi, but trusting child actors is a huge risk that I'd generally prefer shows just avoid whenever possible. Icheb, on the other hand, is a childlike character played by someone who's clearly an adult, and that does improve him. He'll never be one of my favorites, but I didn't exactly mind him being around either. He was just kind of there.

Best Episode: Imperfection
Worst Episode: Nightingale