I have to admit, I went into this expecting a very typical Voyager story. It would have a neatly tied up ending, Seven would be proved right and definitive evidence would show Kovin as the bad guy. When his ship exploded I even expected a reveal that he faked his own death to escape.
Instead I was given quite a nuanced story that leaves things very open ended, and the end result is something quite daring. What is essentially a metaphor for rape happens here, and there's some very dangerous ground in exploring whether or not the victim should be believed. This story goes as far as to ask who the victim even is.
It's in many ways a very sad story, not only for Seven and the man she - perhaps falsely - accused, but very much for the Doctor too. Again, the question of whether Voyager's computer system has created a sentient being in the form of the Doctor comes up for me, and the fact that the implications of that still haven't been explored. At any rate, his request to reset himself to "factory default" at the end felt very heavy.
I'm also continually impressed by Jeri Ryan's performance as Seven. She shows a much more vulnerable side here.
The episode deals with very difficult material, and while in many ways it handles things well it also fails to definitely come down on either side. I can understand why not, to a point, there's the potential for this to be inflammatory stuff and even harmful. Victims of violation often have no solid proof of what happened and shouldn't be dismissed, but at the same time someone's life can be completely ruined by a false accusation. There is no easy answer.
I am between a rock and a hard place with this episode.
On the one hand I like the emotional impact it creates for the characters and what it means for their development. On the other hand i have, once again, a problem with Janeway's attitude. How many times was a crew member accused of committing a crime ? And despite the evidence against them, and even the fact they were already tried and convicted, she always stood behind them 100 %. Not even a shred of doubt the accusations could be true. But here she harbours doubt that Seven might be wrong. It's a reversed situation, I get that. And in the end it might have even been true. Might have because, quite honestly, there still is room for interpretation.
But if I were in Seven's place I'd rather have someone believing me who was wrong, than someone doubting me and who is right.
A quieter episode. It's still dramatic and serious though. I like it. Seven and Shmullus shine once again. Seven's vulnerable side is illustrated very well. Her trauma is credible. In reality, this story is of course about (alleged) rape. It's about believing and supporting the (potential) victim vs. possibly false or unsubstantiated accusations, which can also be very damaging to a person's reputation. I like the rather open ending. Makes you think ...
False rape claims ruin a man's life. A timeless lesson.
Sooooo, did we get the Canon or what?
What generally gets my goat is that, had certain protocols been established, these things wouldn't happen - but then we wouldn't have a story and we would never think about these scenarios.
That aside, Janeway, not later than the episode before! chastises Seven and forbids her access to key systems and confines her to the cargo bay. Then this episode follows on and Seven's now being given latitude, I guess we're meant to believe that a not insubstantial amount of time has passed in between?
Regardless, Seven is a VERY traumatized individual, on the outside she looks fine, other than implants, but inside she's a completely different story, she has nanites in her bloodstream, she has trauma from decades of emotional abuse where she effectively "raped" those she assimilated, of course it wasn't her, it was her borg controlled personality, which makes it even worse, to be a witness to horrific acts you are comitting to others against your will - but, knowing some of this, Janeway should not put her in positions, with access to technology, unsupervised, she certainly shouldn't have gone off unsupervised with the guy to his lab, she probably even shouldn't have been testing weapons on the surface where her valuable technology could even be a consideration. Again, you wouldn't have much of a story if you limited Seven to the cargo bay only.
The other issue here is the Janeway has repeatedly chastised the Doctor for fiddling with his own program and now he's a counselor and a therapist, having fiddled with his own program? Just, no. That's not what he was designed for and the profession is far more than just assimilating all the collected works of famous psychologists, just as changing his personality subroutines to those from literature was a good idea, look how that turned out!
I sympathize with Janeway, her job is like herding cats! Of course, if the protocol she put in place before, that only Bellana could alter his program, stood then we wouldn't have the problem, or the story, so I understand.
I'm glad they left it ambiguous in the end vs the usual neatly tied bow story endings, it made me think, which is a good thing. Loved the scene where Seven says to Schmullus, you said his punishment would make me feel better, Janeway gave Schmullus her death stare as if to say, why did you tell her that?? Why did you think it was a good idea for him to play psychotherapist, Janeway this is your fault!
Really, his choice to flee was because of how his own people would treat him regardless of the outcome, not because of what was found in evidence, which could actually cast doubt on the accusation (had he waited for Tuvok to prove that the nanites did regenerate).
Everyone, including the magistrate, with the exception of Tuvok, bears responsibility for the events that transpired.
Moral of the story: Supervise Seven at all times for her own good, don't let the Doc fiddle with his own program and leave investigations to Tuvok. Again, that would result in a pretty boring show so forget all that :joy:
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2023-11-17T04:08:12Z
[3.5/10] Hoo boy. A 1990s network television show is doing a story about sexual assault. Buckle up. The message of “Retrospect” is simple but problematic as hell -- we should be extra vigilant about false accusations of rape, because that's the real harm to be concerned about here.
When meeting with the Doctor in his guise as a psychologist, Seven recalls being attacked, incapacitated, and having her Borg implants tested and collected by a local trader named Kovin. It’s presented as a clear metaphor for sexual assault. Only, Seven’s memory is apparently false, and even the accusation makes Kovin so squirrely, that he basically commits suicide by cop rather than face the charges in his people’s judicial system.
There is...a lot there. Let’s start with this. Star Trek doesn’t have a great history when it comes to sexual assault. Uhura faced, at a minimum, attempted rape in “The Gamesters of Triskellion” and it’s never addressed. Kirk himself has a shaky at best concept of consent. The Next Generation’s “A Matter of Perspective” has a woman accuse Riker of rape while being, charitably, somewhat mixed up about what really happened. Poor Counselor Troi has been psychically violated more times than she’s “sensed anger” in a snarling villain on the other side of the viewscreen. Star Trek: Enterprise would end up doing its own rape metaphor while characterisitcally making a complete hash of. And Grace Lee Whitney, who played Yeoman Rand on TOS, heavily implied that none other than Gene Roddenberry sexually assaulted her.
Which is all to say that if you’re turning to Star Trek for a sensitive and progressive approach to the treatment of rape victims and accusations of sexual assault, you’re probably barking up the wrong tree to begin with.
That doesn’t excuse an episode like “Retrospect”, which less charitably, could be described as coming with a moral of “Don’t believe women -- falsely accused men are the real victims here.” I don’t want to slate a show from decades ago for not anticipating the change in norms that took hold in a post-#MeToo world. But if any franchise should be ahead of the curve, it’s Star Trek.
In a world where experts estimate that more than half of rapes that go unreported due to both challenges posed by the legal system and a society that still unduly shames rape victims, and where the number of unreported rapes dwarfs the number of false accusations, it’s almost malpractice for a theoretically forward-thinking show to treat people who’ve experienced some form of sexual assault and their friends and advocates as the bad guys, or at best, dangerously overzealous in their desire for justice, rather than people who too often go unheard and unheeded despite suffering gross violations.
As always, I want to be charitable when it comes to Star Trek. You can, generously, read “Retrospect” as an episode about the need to “trust but verify”, where Janeway and Tuvok take Seven’s allegations seriously, but also work to substantiate them before condemning anyone. There’s nothing wrong with that in principle.
That said, this is the rare episode where it feels like Voyager’s heart is in the wrong place, with more sympathy offered to Kovin, with narrative choices that make him the wronged party and create the sense of a system stacked against him, rather than ones that vindicate Seven and The Doctor’s courage to raise the issue. No one forced the writers to make this a false accusation story, and using the show’s platform to suggest that even purported rape victims with no ill intent can’t be trusted, and that men who act like condescending jerks even before they’re charged with grievous crimes are the real victims here, is morally questionable at best.
Still, trying to be charitable, I think you can take “Retrospect” as a reflection of the then-extant “Satanic Panic”, where some psychotherapists used techniques to surface dubious “recovered memories” of ritual abuse from their patients, which led to ill-founded accusation and unjust prosecutions. Read in its best light, this episode is a metonym for such moral panics, underscoring the need for impartial investigations into serious crimes, rather than rushes to judgment based on the severity or sensationalism of the accusation.
But decades later, I’m reminded of the Pulitzer Prize-winning news story, “An Unbelievable Story of Rape”, where a young woman with a checkered history reported her rape, was disbelieved by her caretakers and law enforcement, and was even “made an example of” and charged with false reporting, only for other authorities to eventually catch a serial rapist and discover evidence that substantiated the young woman’s allegations.
The story of “Retrospect” unfolds in similar ways. Janeway doesn't fully trust Seven after the ways she’s acted out recently. She’s had “visions” before that reflected true memories which had nevertheless become twisted through time and other damage. They know that she’s suffered trauma from her time in the Collective and worry that it’s clouded her judgment and jumbled her recollections. In short, she is not an easy person for the authorities on Voyager to believe.
So while the point of “Retrospect” seems to be, “See how easy it is for a false accusation to destroy someone’s life?” all I can see is an example of “See how easy it is to disregard and overlook violations visited upon people who are less than perfect victims?” The fact that Seven is treated as honest in her recollections, sincere in her accusations, but nevertheless unreliable in what she alleges is damning on the writers, and uses the platform of Star Trek to furnish a culture that implicitly discourages the reporting of sexual assault and runs the charaacter and credibility of women who dare to speak out about it through the wringer.
On its own merit, apart from its misguided values, “Retrospect” is still a feeble episode. Much of the story progression and dialogue here is tedious and dull. Its points are ham-handed and overly didactic. Kovin is a flat character, with no sense of inner life or deeper characteristics. Generously, if you squint you can potentially see the show trying to say, “Just because someone is a one-dimensional, patronizing prick doesn’t make them a rapist and doesn’t mean they should be railroaded”, but it’s pretty thin gruel. And the fact that Janeway won’t even fire on his ship simply to disable it, even though it’s putting Voyager at risk, because he’s “been under enough fire” already is baffling.
Here’s the thing about Star Trek -- not all of it ages well. If you revisit a franchise that’s been telling stories for more than half a century, you have to accept that sometimes, even a high-minded series like this one is going to screw up, sometimes royally so. It comes with the territory, and serves as a reminder that progress doesn’t come in a straight line, and we should extend our forebears the same charity and understanding we hope that future generations will extend to us for our missteps and blindspots.
But here’s the other thing about Star Trek -- usually its heart is in the right place. Even if our understanding on a topic changes, or our societal norms evolve, this franchise is generally founded on understanding and empathy, which makes it easy to extend grace to places and times where our appreciation for certain mores and principles hadn't quite solidified yet.
“Retrospect” is the opposite. It teaches mistrust and disregard for those who speak out about sexual assault. It offers criticism about the treatment those accused received in the justice system at a time when even those convicted of rape are given light sentences in the name of “not ruining their futures.” It’s more worried about the fraction of false accusations than the avalanche of sexual assaults that go unreported and unpunished. This is one of the thankfully rare times when Star Trek is wrong-headed and wrong-hearted, albeit in an area where the franchise has an embarrassingly large number of missteps.
Maybe the real lesson here is just as simple -- that for all its merits and glories, Star Trek isn’t equipped to handle a story like this one, and never has been. aaa