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.
Review by LNeroBlockedParent2021-01-31T02:48:56Z
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.