"Ashes to Ashes"
comments? pforooghi@compusmart.ab.ca
After last week’s debacle, I figured that anything they threw our way this week would be a vast improvement. And, thankfully, I was right. I really enjoyed this episode, mainly because of the Lindsay Ballard character as well as Seven’s interactions with the Borg children. It was an enjoyable hour; nothing like the torment of last week.
To start off, I knew who the actress was who played Lindsay, and I’ve always been a fan of her work. She used to be on the now defunct soap opera "Another World". Her character there was very similar to Lindsay, in that she too was quite sarcastic and insolent in her manner, not to mention rather feisty. I believe the actress herself possesses these characteristics and consciously chooses to imbue her various characters with them. After all, actors do bring a little bit (or sometimes, quite a lot) of who they are to their roles. At any rate, I’ve always liked her, and I really enjoyed her performance on this show. She had terrific chemistry with both Harry and Janeway, and was herself an interesting character to watch. Too bad she couldn’t stick around longer; I’m sure she would have brought an intriguing dynamic to the ship, not to mention made a good addition to the crew.
Now for the episode itself. I think the writers missed a great opportunity (we are talking about Voyager, after all! What else is new?) to connect the events in this episode to last year’s Latent Image. Even a mere mention of how Janeway’s decision to send Lindsay on that fateful away mission (instead of her friends, B'Elanna and Tuvok) was similar to how The Doctor decided to save his friend would have been good enough for me. It would have demonstrated to the audience that the writers are mindful of continuity (which we know they are not!) and are at least making an attempt to tie in relevant storylines. Like I said, Voyager has become all about lack of continuity and missed opportunities. Failure to tie in the aforementioned episodes was an oversight that could have easily been avoided, if only the writers had bothered to pay closer attention to past storylines.
I should say that I was intrigued, as well as confused, by Lindsay’s final decision to go back to the aliens and her new life. If she had spent most of her life as a Human, and several years on Voyager, then why was she so eager to return to a life that she had only known for three years? She did, after all, retain a lot of her memories of her relationship with Harry and her past life, so its not like she had completely lost touch with who she was. Lindsay’s wanting to return to the aliens didn’t make sense to me. Especially since she appeared to be adjusting, albeit slowly, to life on Voyager once more. As well, she was starting to reconnect with the people she once cared about, like Harry. The only possible explanation to me is that perhaps Lindsay felt she was dispensable on Voyager, like she believed herself to be in the past. This resentment did come up in her conversation with Janeway - the issue of why she was sent on that mission instead of more experienced crewmembers. So, if Lindsay thought that Janeway had favored her friends in the past, maybe she felt that the same thing could happen again in the future. Therefore, Lindsay wanted to return to people who truly cared about her and valued her. With the aliens, she would not feel as dispensable as she did on Voyager. This to me is the only reason why she would want to return to them. I did not buy her argument that both she and Voyager had changed so dramatically in three years that she no longer felt like she belonged there. There was more to it than that. I think her feelings of being taken for granted - she did tell Janeway that she thought the Captain never noticed her - had more to do with her final decision to go back than anything else.
Speaking of Janeway, what was up with that dinner scene? And how often do we see Janeway out of her uniform when she is entertaining a dinner guest? I can’t recall the last time she invited anyone to her quarters for dinner where she was not in uniform. On a more frivolous note, Janeway did look absolutely breathtaking in that navy dress, so I certainly wasn’t complaining! However, I did not understand why she was all of the sudden so casual and informal with a mere Ensign, and why she would invite her to dinner no less. Perhaps she was feeling guilty because on some level she was aware that she had played favorites three years ago when she had decided to send Lindsey on the away mission instead of Tuvok or B'Elanna. And guilt has always been a predominant emotion for the Captain, so these feelings may have prompted her to invite Lindsey to dinner. I’m just speculating. Finally, although Janeway and Lindsey did have a nice chemistry in that scene, I wouldn’t go so far as to say there was any subtext in their interaction. Janeway simply wasn’t behaving in a way that could be construed as sensual - the looks, the voice, the mannerisms, etc.... were not suggestive in any way. At least not to me.
Finally, Seven and her Borg charges. Well, let’s just say that Seven was as maternal as a drill sergeant! I’m glad to see that Seven is still Borg enough to make these interactions possible. I hope this will never change, that she will never become fully human, because the day that happens is the day I lose interest in her character. The fascination with Seven is how she can be so cold, calculating, and efficient in one situation (like she was with the children), and how warm, sensitive, and caring in another (like when she made Neelix’s favorite meal in "Memorial") The dichotomy of being Borg/Human is the essence of the Seven character, and what makes her so endlessly fascinating. To change it would be the downfall of the character. Let’s hope that the writers have enough sense not to assassinate Seven’s character the way they have Janeway’s. Anyhow, because Seven’s idea of child rearing was excessively rigid and structured, the point was made that she still has quite a lot to learn about humanity, or in this case, taking care of children. I was laughing out loud during that entire scene in the mess hall, especially when she chastised the little girl for engaging in irrelevant conversation with Naomi. After all, Seven had allotted a certain amount of time for play, so it couldn’t be disrupted by anything as unnecessary as simple conversation! Hilarious. And, the best line of the episode was when Seven said: "Fun will now commence" A classic! In the end, I was glad to see that Seven learned (thanks to Chakotay’s pointers. I guess he can be useful sometimes!) to be more flexible and lenient in her dealings with the children. Once again, Seven was given an opportunity to learn and grow in this episode, which is always a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
In the final analysis, while I did enjoy the show, the few holes in the storyline, several unanswered questions, failure to maintain continuity with "Latent Image", not to mention the deplorable lack of J/7 interaction in an episode where it was warranted, prevents me from giving "Ashes to Ashes" any more than two comm badges out of four.
Cheers! Pooneh
