Part 1 was directed by Star Trek veteran Cliff Bole, with relative newcomer Terry Windell directing Part 2. In the USA [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier] was planned as a two hour-long episodes but was eventually shown as a single two-hour special, and this is the way it is shown in the Paramount video. [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier] was aired for the first time no earlier than October 2000 in the UK.

Casting was a problem because the filming occurred in November and December, a period when Hollywood is notoriously busy. The actresses who had played Seven's mother in [Scorpion, Part 2] and the Borg Queen in [First Contact] (Alice Krige) were unavailable. Laura Stepp and Kirk Bailey, acting Erin and Magnus Hansen respectively (Seven of Nine's parents), were cast late in the day as the producers did not know until late how many scenes there would be aboard SS Raven.

Erin and Magnus Hansen

The Borg Queen was created for the film 'Star Trek: First Contact'. The reasons:

Ron Moore: "One of the things with the Borg has always been the difficulty of dealing with a race that is decentralised dramatically, because there's no one thing to focus on, there's no character to go up against. It's hard to write scenes about us versus the Collective. We did try initially to go with the Collective as a collective and not establish a single villain, sort of like in 'Aliens'. Even in that movie, they had to find the Big Mama eventually. We got to the point where we needed somebody to personify the Borg for us, somebody to hate, somebody to talk to, somebody to get an idea of where they're coming from and who, one they've destroyed you, would destroy everybody else. Also, we wanted something for Data. Data's arc, in which he discovered a part of humanity he hadn't anticipated through the acquisition of flesh, was something that was tailor-made for the Queen. So we just started thinking about a leader of the Borg, and calling her the Borg Queen among ourselves." Source: Anders

The Borg leader was made a woman because previous Star Trek films had featured male villains and, importantly, a female could be a seductress who could tempt Data with sex.

Brannon Braga: "All sorts of themes came out of 'First Contact' with the Queen that we would end up using quite a bit on . We started coming up with ideas of what is the Borg's world view - the quest for perfection, the weakness of the flesh was a theme, the idea that most things are viewed as weaknesses; the idea that the Borg, in fact, believe that they are helping others by bringing them to perfection, that it's a strangely philanthropic goal that the Borg have. On we continue to stand upon individuality versus the hive mind. The struggle of Seven of Nine to some degree was embodied in the struggle of Data and the Borg Queen. That kind of moral banter between the Queen and Data would be visited again and again on , whether it was between Janeway and Seven, or Seven and the Queen, or Janeway and the Queen." Source ST:M

The Borg Queen (re-)appeared in 'Star Trek Voyager', the first time in the story [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier], despite being killed by Captain Picard in 'Star Trek: First Contact'. We do not know for certain if she is meant to be a reproduction of that Queen, or another Queen altogether.

The impressive shot of the Borg Queen's head and spinal column descending, being put into her body and latches catching hold of her skin is a combination of on-set mechanics and computer-generated images.

The Borg Queen's body is assembled. (pop-up window) [#146 Unimatrix Zero, Part One]

It could all have been done by a computer effect by ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) but Todd Masters, Borg design supervisor says: "...but my problem with digital effects, sometimes, is it's easy to see how it's been done. This was the opening, the introduction of the Borg Queen, and we really thought it needed to be kind of magical. The way she came down shouldn't look like an effect." .... Our version was essentially putting Alice on a slant board with her head craned back, and a lower spine portion. We would digitally remove the rest of her body." The rest of Alice Krige's body was wrapped in blue cloth to make the digital removal process possible, a standard technique. Source ST:M Pictured right: Alice Krige with director Jonathan Frakes: his hand rests on her real shoulder; her body is draped in a blue cloth. Picture source: 'The Making of Star Trek: First Contact' by Lou Anders

Source ST:M. Picture size 32Kb

Costume designer Deborah Everton's suggestion that the Borg Queen's costume hook into her skin was accepted, and she designed the hooks while ILM had to work out how they would move.   Alex Jaeger, of ILM, explains: "We animated them so that they come up and grab the skin, and pull her down so she's locked into the body. The skin was done with a little 3D; they had a computer-generated patch with the skin texture applied to it. They animated a little buckle and pull into it so that when we brought the hooks down you could see the skin stretch." Source ST:M

Computer-generated imaging was used far more for [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier].

the Borg Queen, played by Susanna Thompson

Director of Part One (i.e. Episode 109) Cliff Bole: "Even before I had an ending I begged to get the Queen at the end of my piece. Originally they hadn't planned on it. You've got to tease, and you've got to bring these folks [the audiene] back, and you've got to have the Queen in this episode. You've just got to have what I call the end-teaser and introduce the Queen. I don't care if it's one page or two shots, just do it."

Regarding the Borg Queen's lair, set designer Richard James: "I wanted something different from what we've seen before, so I made the Queen's lair look as if it was a sphere. The whole set was about two stories tall and was made with all new drawings. The inside of her lair is curved to give it a spherical feel. I wasn't necessarily trying to follow the shapes used in 'First Contact'; it just kind of came out that way, and I really like the look. The normal Borg walls are so square and flat that I wanted to add some depth and something real interesting. I also cut out the cylinders and made wafers instead, kind of like a large watch battery."

doors into the Borg Queen's lair

Seven enters the Borg Queen's lair. Note the set's curved sides.

Note the cylindrical centrepiece, the "central alcove" as the Borg Queen calls it

Director Terry Windell: "In terms of the Queen's lair - it's something we hadn't seen before, that was a new set, so that gave us some freedom. The Borg corridors, you've seen something close to that. I tried to lens it a bit differently than I've seen before: I tried to use longer lenses and compress a lot of the space, just to get a sense of claustrophobia. "What I've seen a lot in the Borg corridors is wide lenses to give that kind of distorted perspective and, you know, get a little disjointed, and it tends to make the set look really open and big. Once the Borg Queen orders Seven to go back in and actually participate in assimilating another race, we felt that it should be in Seven's mind's eye, what the corridor was all about. I felt it should be very claustrophobic. I think that what we did in the Borg corridors and the Queen's lair were more featuresque, the drama and lighting, so that it's not always about seeing everything in total clarity; it's about using light and smoke." Source ST:M

Room in the primary assimilation area, from which Seven beams out four members of Species 10026

the Borg city wooden model used in filming Source: ST:M

Dan Curry about the physical model (which is in his house as does a lot of work at home): "This was the rough mock-up for the Borg city in [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier], and this way a lot of times if we give sketches for something so complicated to the computer modellers it's hard for them to follow, so by making something physical they could see the design sense that I was looking for, and so I'd say: 'OK, this Borg cube, this is a kilometre and a half on a side, and imagine it 600 kilometres in diameter, with a certain amount of negative spaces and certain denser areas', that it kinda grew organically and it just makes it real easy for everybody to know where we're going with it, and it also makes it easy for the producers to see what we have in mind and make sure they're comfortable with the concept before we go ahead with it." Text audio-typed from [TNG] Season 6 DVD set: Dan Curry Profile

the Borg city wooden model used in filming
Source: ST:M

Bryan Fuller, executive story editor, co-producer: "Brannon [Braga], Joe [Menosky] and I broke that story over a long weekend. [Star Trek VIII: First Contact] was such a success that it made the idea so interesting. We see the Borg through Seven's human eyes for the first time. Until that happens, she couldn't understand why species didn't want to be Borg - the Borg were perfection. Then when Seven realised that she was responsible for helping to assimilate a lot of people, she was shocked. She didn't think she deserved her humanity back. Janeway fought to convince her it was right to get it back."

Kenneth Biller, variously executive story writer, co-producer, producer, supervising producer, and executive producer for Season 7: "We also knew that the crew should probaby come up against the Borg, because the Borg had been their nemesis all along, that it would probably involve the Borg Queen in some way. Referring to the series finale [#171 and #172 Endgame],This would be the ultimate irony if they were able to figure out a way use the Borg to get themselves home."

Brannon Braga: "I had seen a documentary called Wolves At Our Door about a married couple who spent a large portion of their adult life studying wolves up close in the wild, and really breaking a lot of misconceptions about wolves. I thought, 'Maybe that's who her parents were. They were true explorers, true scientists, and maybe they were the first people to get to the Delta Quadrant by following in the wake of a Borg cube; to study them up close. But things went terribly wrong and they got assimilated.' How interesting it would be to follow their adventures – the first encounter with the Borg and the perspective they would have on them. We tend to think of the Borg as faceless, mindless automatons, but they might have had a little bit of a different perspective which we explore by following their back story – which Seven is investigating because she has the logs that she retrieved from her parents' vessel last year. Not only is it a fascinating little back story in which you get to see Seven as a little girl and how everything went wrong, but she begins to discover they developed very clever defensive capabilities against the Borg that we begin to use ourselves. Ultimately, even though Seven is reassimilated again, and is very bitter about her parents – after all, if it wasn't for them, she would have lived a normal life – there's redemption for the long-dead parents in a way because it is, in part, their achievements that allow us to save Seven.

Alice Krige was unavailable to reprise her role as the Borg Queen as seen in the film [Star Trek VIII: First Contact], although she reprised the role in the [Star Trek: Voyager] finale [#171 and #172 Endgame]. She was replaced for [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier] and [#146 and #147 Unimatrix Zero] by actress Susanna Thompson (who had appeared in Star Trek before e.g. in [Rejoined]. The original Queen costume was altered slightly but otherwise it is the same, and there were only a few changes to the makeup - Susanna Thompson wore a slightly different mechanical structure on the back of her head, with some new lights. This was her first encounter with large scale prosthetics. It took five and a half hours to get the makeup and costume on. She wore metallic contact lenses too.

the Borg Queen, played by Susanna Thompson

Susanna Thompson: "It's so bizarre to have makeup spray-painted on you. There were adjustments to the makeup in the center of the face and the eyes, the lips of course, and the forehead. They didn't want me to look as wet as Alice, so they had to make sure that looked ok. There was always a costume maker with me to help me get out of the costume right away if I needed to go to the bathroom and, being someone who doesn't really like to have a person constantly around me, that was a hardship."

The uncomfortable makeup and costume made a big contribution to her performance, not least because they made it hard to make 'extravagant' gestures. "I found the costume, probably because it fit Alice better than it fit me, slightly constricting, particularly around the shoulders, so I just sort of went with that. The makeup can't not have an effect on your performance. You can embrace it and be 'at one with it' then it works in your favor. The only time it starts to really disassociate with the character is at the end of a really long day - you just want to get everything off. My days were very long. I had no idea; they were 20, 21 hour days. One day I think I did 22 hours. It was not an easy experience, physically."

On her character: "I think that my main role is to get it to a point where the seduction becomes believable. There is no doubt that she is attractive. I think power is incredibly seductive, and the confidence of that power." For the Borg Queen must convince the audience that she could persuade Seven to rejoin the Collective.

While the Borg Queen in 'First Contact' used sex to seduce Data, in [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier] the Director sees the Borg Queen as more of an evil mother figure. Director Terry Windell: "It's as if Susanna comes back into her [Seven's] life much like a biological mother would come back into some child's life, after years of not being there, and try and win her back, but in a very intelligent and manipulative way. Both these people are obviously incredibly intelligent and hold a lot of information. They're going to know what the other person is thinking, so they really have to work to push the buttons."

Susanna sees this maternal relationship as the key to Seven's dilemma. "There really are two maternal figures. Janeway and the Borg Queen, in whatever twisted maternal way she is, are these two sides that are pulling at Seven and they represent her identity. She used to be here, she went away, and now she's come back to the Borg, and there is a sense of deprogramming and re-brainwashing. That's what the Queen does to her, and that's where the seduction lies."

the Borg Queen, lit by green, [Dark Frontier]

Terry Windell created a signature lighting effect for the Borg Queen. "I requested that we have a very different look than we had seen before, and we had these computerized lights installed in the set that they could program to move. Since the Borg Queen deals with controlling the whole collective by her mind, we thought it would be interesting that, as she moved around, some of the lights actually followed her."

The following is Susanna Thompson's words as given in the interview presented on ST DVD:

They asked me to come in and read for [Star Trek VIII: First Contact] and I read the sides (a relevant part of the script, usually a scene or an excerpt from a scene) and I think that I may have read the script, but I'm not sure. And what do you create when you're reading this all-powerful being that's disembodied? And how do you go in and read a scene that's about disembodiment? It's not about disembodiment, but you're physically disembodied. I think I must just have embarrassed the heck out of myself, because I tried to create a sort of floaty thing with my body and I have no idea if it came across at all. But I think that Jonathan (Frakes, who directed the film, as well as playing Riker) probably, as I left the room, just wondered what the heck that was. So I didn't get the part.

And then I don't know how many years later they bring the character back for [Star Trek Voyager]'s episode of [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier], and they have me come in. And I wonder why Alice (Krige) isn't available, and I have no idea - there were all types of stories as to why she wasn't available. But you know, I guess I was a similar body type, I may have a similar energy about myself, I certainly don't have the accent, and I thought that she created an amazing character in [Star Trek VIII: First Contact]. So I used that sort of as a springboard into what I brought into the audition, and they cast me.

I think Alice set the blueprints. So I used her blueprints and the rationale that I put behind it was that perhaps if that one really was destroyed but maybe sort of genetically there was a strain of her that still exists in the Hive, in the Collective, and so I wanted to infuse my queen with her, but also allow the fact that I was going to interpret her slightly different and allow that to be ok.

Alice was dealing with an episode that was truly about seduction and I felt that there was a quality of that in [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier] also in trying to seduce Seven of Nine back again, but she also took a very maternal, nurturing approach at a certain point as well as her strength, and her dominance also. But the maternal thing I thought was slightly different than what they had written for Alice's Borg Queen.

the Borg Queen in [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier]

Jeri (Jeri Ryan, who plays Seven) definitely gave me some moral support and physical support. It was my first experience in the Borg Queen outfit and the contacts and the shoes and the make-up, and those type of hours. I will say that, and Brannon has heard this all before, the first night after my first day of filming which was I think 20 hours, I cried myself to sleep and said that I didn't care how much they paid me I wouldn't do it again. But I came back and I finished out that episode, and then indeed I did come back again for [#146 and #147 Unimatrix Zero] but I realised that what I had learned from [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier] is that it needs to be paced. It's really not fair for someone to put on contact lenses that have metal in them and expect that their eyes will survive the type of day of shooting that they ask of you. So I told them I just really needed to have it paced. And they were pretty good at limiting the days, the hours, but still they were always very long days. But, you know, it's such a great character that it's great to be able to work on it.

the Borg Queen in [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier] - note the head make-up and the contact lenses