Retrospect

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.

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.

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.

I agree that this episode has a weak handling of Seven's complaint of treatment by Kovin, it should be noted that she is taken seriously by the Doctor and the Captian. But that the idea of there being no female viewpoint in the story on the part of the writers, one should notice that both Jeri Taylor and Lisa Klink have writing credits on this episode.

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