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This story
idea was coupled with the concept of the Borg vinculum, which
originated in a completely unrelated story idea that was thought up
and pitched by Jimmy Diggs; the suggested plot involved the
discovery of a destroyed Borg vessel. Executive producer Brannon
Braga was interested in using the concept of the vinculum but
initially insisted that the story featuring it would be, in the
words of supervising producer Joe Menosky, "a maddening tech story." |
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With the two
story ideas combined, Robert Doherty scripted the installment, with
guidance from Ken Biller. The latter writer commented,
"My
contribution to that episode, other than guiding Rob Doherty through
the writing of the script, was to say that this would be a lot more
interesting if something weird happens to Seven." |
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Challenged
with incorporating the technicalities of the vinculum into the
script, Brannon Braga did much uncredited rewriting of the teleplay.
"That vinculum ended up an albatross around [Brannon Braga's] neck,"
Joe Menosky recalled. "Brannon paid the price for it, because he had
to do a massive amount of rewriting. It was a very difficult script
to get in shape." |
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The scenes
in which the Ferengi persona emerges from Seven of Nine represented
four script pages and were written by Brannon Braga. |
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Largely
because she was not entirely familiar with Star Trek, Seven of Nine
actress Jeri Ryan struggled with this episode. "'Infinite Regress'
was a challenge on a lot of different levels," admitted the actress.
"It would have been a challenge anyway if you had two or three weeks
to prepare for it. But I didn't. I had no research time [....] It
was tough. I was really doing it by the seat of my pants, I felt."
Ryan, who had never seen a Ferengi or full-blooded Klingon before,
was given tapes to watch. "They were throwing tapes at me from
episodes of DS9 that had Ferengis in them, so that I could at least
watch how they move and how they talk," she said. "They were
throwing Klingon tapes at me, because really the only Klingon I had
encountered was B'Elanna, and that doesn't count because she is only
half-Klingon." Ryan joked, "I was about ready to murder [...]
Brannon Braga for writing [so many] pages of Ferengi." |
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The
difficulties inherent in Jeri Ryan's multi-faceted role here did not
inhibit her enjoyment of performing in the episode. She especially
found that transitioning her performance from the usually-reserved
character of Seven of Nine to "the complete opposite extreme" was
"so much fun" and thought the episode ultimately "turned out pretty
well." |
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The mind
meld sequence in which Tuvok tries to rescue Seven of Nine from the
assimilated personalities was almost entirely crafted using a
variety of unusual camera lenses. The only element that involved
visual effects was the large pit in the sequence. Director David
Livingston said of the specific lenses used, "We brought in a
'squishy lens.' We used a 'mesmerizer,' which is an anamorphic lens
in the front of a regular lens. When you rotate it you get weird
spherical effects. We also used this 'pebble lens,' that director of
photography Marvin Rush had. We incorporated them all and came up
with weird and dramatic effects." |
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Tim Russ
found the production of the episode's mind meld sequence to be
memorable. "That dream sequence was pretty amazing, some pretty
remarkable stuff with the camera, so you get the images and the
feeling for being in that situation," Russ commented.
"That was a
lot of work. That was a hard week actually. We were shooting on that
stage some pretty long days." |
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David
Livingston was proud of the crazed mind meld sequence, which he
referred to as "my favorite sequence that I have done for Voyager."
He also enthused, "I thought that was a really cool sequence." |
