| An alien hails Voyager and greets the crew warmly; she identifies herself as Lyndsay Ballard, an ensign who died on an away mission three years ago. She now looks like an alien, but she claims to have been resurrected by a species who use the dead of other species to reproduce. She and Kim revive their friendship as well, but she slowly realizes that she simply is no longer the person that she used to be. Her new "father" arrives, and since she has left against their wishes, is ready to take her back by force. During the ensuing battle, Lyndsay decides that she no longer belongs on Voyager anyways, and opts to rejoin her new people. |
The aliens from this episode (the Kobali) are an interesting idea. It seems odd that a species that harvest the dead in order to reproduce could evolve, but then not every creature in the universe has to have an evolutionary origin. They could have been created by another species as a means of cheating death, only to spiral out of control. What seems most strange to me is that they also have a family structure - which I guess isn't out of the question, but feels weird when you consider that their kids come to them fully matured and with a lifetime of experience that in no way endears the parent to the child. Now, discussion of the details of this species is by no means the point of the episode, but I'm always happy to have a cool idea to think about. Leaving stuff to the imagination is okay.
What this episode is really about is Kim not coping with loss, and only finding out that he hasn't been coping when the woman he thought he lost reappears - only to lose her again. Garrett Wang plays his part well, and surprisingly our guest actress of the week isn't bad at it either. Kim remains amusingly puritanical (despite his antics in The Disease, which, honestly, I'm perfectly happy to forget), and the story oddly omits Kim's old girlfriend from home (Libby) by extending the retcon of their relationship back to the academy, but those are mostly just nitpicks.
This episode does have a B-plot, about Seven and the Borg kids, but it is best forgotten. It is eye-rollingly heavy-handed, with Seven ending up learning a lesson from the kids about the need for spontaneity in fun. I'm just thrilled that it wasn't made into a whole stand-alone episode though. Sure, throw it into a B-plot, see if it works. Maybe some people even liked this part of the episode. I didn't, but then I was happy with the whole A-plot, so I had that to hold on to.
Watchability: 4/5
Bottom Line: An emotionally-driven story with a cool idea for an alien. Works for me.
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