The premise of this story is nonsense. Obviously. Well, maybe there's a strong philosophical core to that special variant of procreation but the episode fails to explore this thoroughly. The main story is just boring - Kim Rhodes isn't to blame. But how could I be attached to Lyndsay? It is said she was a dear crew member tragically lost. Yet she's new to us. Couldn't they have brought someone back we actually lost in a previous season? Plus, for production reasons, it's clear from the beginning that she won't stay aboard. Plus: Harry Kim and his love interests ... Not one of these sexy/horny/romantic Harry stories has ever worked. And the quality of this love story ain't different. As a comedy it works though: commencing fun, punishment protocols, scheduled recreational activities, an awkward captain's dinner, unruly Borg, clay busts.
Another fifty-fifty episode.
The concept of a race procreating through other races dead bodies sounds intriguing. Sadly that is not really discovered in detail. This episodes has two flaws. I am not emotionally attached to an Ensign I've never seen before on the show. And of course we need to turn this into a romance. And who else but Harry Kim is the one to be involved. So I'm not invested.
I don't know where I stand on the kids. Not sure that is something the show needs. Why come up with more Borg becoming individuals ? Is it necessary for Seven's developement, who by the way is acting like a governess.
I don't know. Both of the episodes parts left my rather indifferent.
I have a bit of a different take than LeftHand, and subjectively found the A plot with Ensign Ballard more enjoyable, but I found the B plot with Seven to be badly developed, and just seems to be more of the same of them (sometimes) bringing up character development for Seven too late in the show after she's already demonstrated she has moved past the level of naivete and inhumanity that she displays here. It would have been funny and/or a little tense, but here it's just tiresome and mildly frustrating. It's like someone had an idea for an episode based around this near the beginning of season five but it just got wrapped in to fill the space later in the show's run.
Regarding Ballard's return, yeah, it was definitely trumped up since she never actually existed before, which is pretty typically clumsy for VOY, but hot damn if Kim Rhodes doesn't sell it about as well as possible. She makes a damn cute alien, too. I was taken in comfortably enough with the little romance between her and Kim. It went predictably along with the charter of the episodic series reset button format, but it worked well enough that I enjoyed all of it except for the Borg kids part, which demonstrates its disfunction pretty clearly by having the best cuteness duo in the show, Seven and Naomi Wildman, barely exchange two lines, and act like they've just met and Seven had never had any lessons in humanity from The Doctor.
An episode with a really interesting premise that sort of falls flat on its face. It also helps that Kim Rhodes is pretty charismatic in the role of Lyndsay.
But the episode is all over the place. First of all we get a bizarre situation in which Lyndsay attempts to communicate with Voyager and for some reason her transmission goes to an unmanned screen in an empty room where a little girl just happens to stumble upon it by chance. Since when does communication happen like that on a ship? If Voyager is contacted then the bridge is alerted and someone (usually Harry) says, "Captain, we're receiving a transmission." This episode just decides to do whatever.
Then there's the massive issue that Lyndsay was a beloved and trusted crew member that everyone remembers fondly. Harry was even in love with her. Except... we've never met her before. She's never even been mentioned before. The episode would have had some actual impact if this had been somebody from the show's past who died. Granted, Voyager has never actively tried to introduce us to many crew members outside of the main characters, but I'm sure there was scope for this to work somehow. As it is, we get a disjointed story that it's difficult to care about.
There's also very little drama in her return or subsequent leaving. She's desperate to return to Voyager but then she just decides "nah, not for me" and leaves. Not all that compelling.
Still, the stuff with Seven and the Borg kids (they're still around!) is a little diversion.
Shout by NyxBlockedParent2022-09-03T03:37:17Z— updated 2022-09-05T02:07:28Z
Throughout this entire episode I was convinced that Ensign Lyndsay Ballard was actually Ensign Ahni Jetal from S5E11 - Latent Image (I remembered the story but not the officer's name). See, it totally made sense that way, but now that I'm aware the two are not the same... yes, I see the point (closure and transition) but I do not understand why it wasn't Jetal... because shuttle craft incident with Harry - sure, check, but Lyndsay who? when? where?
Anyway, the scenes with the Borg children were nice, especially Harry bonding with Mezoti, that was precious.