Retrospect

Janeway should have thrown in a crate of self sealing stem bolts or perhaps Neelix' supply of Yamok sauce. Lol

In Seven's memory she remembers a lab assistant.. but there was no attempt to find the witness. A huge misstep in the handling of a sensitive subject. This episode was poorly written, focused to much on he said/she said and less in actual investigation.

I have read the other reviews and agree that it is unclear, for better or worse, what actually happened to Seven of Nine. The writers tried to trick the viewer at the end, in a way, by introducing doubt about the evidence collected. But it was only doubt and not a conclusion one way or the other.

What I would have liked to know is: did they get that super weapon from the arms dealer? There have been many episodes where the Voyager crew seem to acquire advanced tech from their contacts along the way but rarely do they seem to keep any of it. It's frustrating, like when you see people running under fire who leave behind perfectly useful weapons and ammo dropped by the enemy.

This was one of the details I appreciated about the Enterprise series; they upgraded as they went on their journey and used it.

The exception to this up to now in Voyager is the integration of Borg technology provided by Seven of Nine.

This is one of my least favourite episodes of Voyager, almost as bad as The Thaw. The fundamental problem with the episode is that at no point does it make it clear to the viewer that Seven's memories are false. In the episode the case against Seven's story grows increasingly stronger but all of a sudden everyone changes their minds with no explanations at all for where Seven's memories came from or why she had them.

As much as I may agree with the fundamental premise, that the testimony of abused people should not always be taken at face value, the episode would have done much more to serve this view if it had offered up an alternative explanation to Seven's memories, something they instead gloss over.

This episode explores the unintended consequences of overactivism and over enthusiasm in any cause, even a seemingly just one, where a person's actions in defense of a phantom "cause" have real social consequences for bystanders. As much as we want to sympathize with 7 of 9 in the beginning, we are given clues early on that something is amiss. I picked this up with Tuvok's comments in the briefing room. The doctor early on identified with a victim mentality in the patient and let that cloud his judgment until the end. The result was disastrous, with the loss of life and the stain of remorse upon both the doctor and 7 of 9.

In real life, the consequences may not be as dramatic. Someone could lose their reputation, their standing in the community, or their liberty, all over someone's vague memory recollection. This could be true of any case that comes before a court today.

We know that human memory is flawed, even eye-witness testimony can prove to be inaccurate, and this episode reminds us that no matter how much we want justice, or retribution, for a victim, we had better make plain sure that person is actually a victim before we destroy other lives in pursuit of that cause.