It’s a Mary Sue story, and that’s okay. Again.
Remember last season’s episode “Latent Image“? Beloved ensign’s death causes the Doctor to have a breakdown?
I don’t know about you, but I always confuse “Ashes to Ashes” and “Latent Image”. To the point where I started typing a spiel about the history of the Mary Sue, was overcome by deja vu, and realised that I’ve been here before.
Here’s what I said then:
First of all, this is a Mary Sue story, and that’s okay1
There are several Mary Sue ur-texts, but one of them goes like this: a young, beautiful ensign transfers to the Enterprise (or maybe she’s been there all along and you just never noticed!), endears herself to the regular characters, becomes incredibly popular, sacrifices her life to save the ship, and Kirk/Spock/McCoy/all three are devastated.
It’s hard to remember, but there was a time when “Mary Sue” wasn’t simply a term of abuse used by male nerds against every single female character who dares to have a story arc.
No, back in the day, we used the concept of “Mary Sue” as a tool for policing the creativity of fellow women, and ensuring that their fantasies were smaller in scale and “realistic”. That’s feminism.
Anyway, Ensign Jetal kind of is a Mary Sue, in that her story roughly follows the classic pattern, and I thought that was a problem. Such a big problem that it tainted the whole episode.
There’s a remote possibility that I was kind of a jerk back then.
Ensign Lyndsay Ballard is absolutely a Mary Sue. I would go so far as to identify her as a particular subtype: Adorably clumsy. This model of Mary Sue may not be literally clumsy (though it’s possible — see Twilight‘s Bella Swann and let’s not bother with tedious arguments about whether or not a protagonist in an original work can be a Mary Sue2 but she has some sort of minor flaw. You cannot truthfully call her “perfect”, but her problem is mainly external, or at least harmless. If she’s not clumsy, then she’s chronically late, or she talks too much when she’s nervous, or overshares, or is a Republican.3
And please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying all this because I have very strong anti Mary Sue feelings. I think that creating this sort of idealised character is an essential part of learning to be a writer, and it’s fascinating to see how the idea of The Perfect Female Character evolves over time. I also think that she’s a sort of template for a more complex character — if you take this idealised figure and develop her until she’s a real person, you can end up with something really remarkable. See, for example, Star Trek: Discovery, where Michael and Tilly both start out as very specific Sue-types (Spock’s secret adopted sister and the adorably clumsy cadet) but quickly evolve to be more complex. (The flip side is Star Trek: Picard‘s Soji and Agnes, Data’s secret daughter and the adorably clumsy artificial intelligence expert, who start out strong in season 1, only to be essentially abandoned in season 2.)
Star Trek has always been cautious about these stories, and rightfully so. Back in the day, members of the general public were invited to pitch stories for Star Trek, and one of the rules they were expected to adhere to was “no original characters, the audience is tuning in for the people they know and care about, not Ensign Guy We’ve Just Met”.
But sometimes you’re telling a story that simply doesn’t work without a Mary Sue. Because it needs a one-off character around whom the plot can revolve, and you need to get the audience to fall in love with her really fast because you only have 45 minutes to introduce her, tell her story and get her off-screen before the end credits roll.
That was “Latent Image”, but it’s also “Ashes to Ashes”, and purely on a metric of “do I instantly care about this character I’ve never met, even though she has allegedly been around for ages and been really important to the regular cast”, “Ashes to Ashes” is the better episode.
I especially enjoy how it subverts the Mary Sue tropes: Lyndsay is already dead when the story begins, and when she returns to Voyager — fleeing the aliens who restored her to life and adopted her as their child, for that is how they procreate4 — no one except Harry, her old Academy buddy, really remembers her. You can almost see Janeway’s brain ticking through her mental list of Dead Officers when Lyndsay turns up.
And yes, the story ends with Lyndsay heroically sacrificing herself for the crew, but instead of dying, she embraces her new life and new culture, understanding that Voyager is no longer her home. It’s essentially an anti-fridging, and I’m in favour of that sort of thing.
How to make the audience fall in love with your OFC: Star Trek ensign edition
Not to pit two Mary Sue stories against each other, but whereas “Latent Image” is ultimately a story about the Doctor, “Ashes to Ashes” is a dual character study for Lyndsay Ballard and Harry Kim. It’s kind of awkward that Lyndsay gets as much development in 45 minutes as Harry has received in six years, but that’s Berman-era Trek writing young men of colour for you.
It’s worth looking back at some of the previous female ensigns we were asked to fall instantly in love with, and to see what they have in common with Lyndsay.
- Sonya Gomez: appearing in three episodes of TNG’s second season, Sonya was meant to be a love interest for Geordi La Forge. She was smart, sweet and adorably clumsy: her very first scene sees her thank a replicator for its service, and then spill her fresh hot chocolate down Picard’s front. She’d probably be forgotten except that the episode which introduced her also introduced the Borg.
- Robin Lefler: appears in TNG as a brief love interest for Wesley. Mostly notable for having been played by Ashley Judd. Robin was not adorably clumsy. She was smart and competent, but she was also a rare subtype of Mary Sue that I’m going to call the Manic Pixie Dream List Maker. You can find her real life equivalent in stationery and planner subreddits, and also it’s possible that I am one. (Be The Mary Sue You Want To See In the World.)5 Please note that, just as Robin keeps a list of rules for life (“Lefler’s Laws”), Lyndsay has a numbered list of things she wants to do when she returns to Voyager. (More recently, Brad Boimler of Lower Decks, who is absolutely a self-insert for a lot of the audience, has shared his “Bointers”.)
- Amanda Rogers: okay, she’s a teenage intern, not an ensign, but she’s an interesting example — “True Q” was pitched by a young man as a story about a young man who discovers that he is a Q, and according to some sources, the writer wanted to play that character himself. Peak Gary Stu territory. I cringe because I can identify all too well. In this case, the character’s gender was flipped to avoid that self-insertion, and the result is a story that would have been far less interesting if it had been about yet another Special Boy. Amanda, as played by Olivia D’Abo, is a girl who thinks she’s a regular human, and that may once have been true, but now she has a new identity and she needs to grapple with that, while her abilities and her new “family” cause conflict with the crew.
It’s worth noting that two of these characters were played by actresses who went on to have successful careers. (Naff has mostly moved on from acting, although she returned to the Sonya Gomez role in Star Trek: Lower Decks.) And Kim Rhodes, who played Lyndsay, came close to achieving nerd fame, if not long-term success — she was a strong contender for T’Pol, the female lead in Enterprise, but missed out because she was too “fat” for the extreme beauty standards of 2001. She has enjoyed recurring roles in a bunch of series, and feels like one of those performers who could have carried a show if she had ever had a chance.
All this is to say, Lyndsay would have been familiar to any Trekkie watching Voyager, and she is charming. I sat down expecting to be mildly irritated by this episode, as I have been by so much of season 6, and instead I was charmed. And I don’t think it’s just because I had low expectations.
another doomed romance for harry kim
I am once again pointing out that Harry’s romances don’t fail because he falls for the “wrong” girl, or because of any fault or failing on his part. Sometimes he falls for women who aren’t interested; equally often, his feelings are reciprocated, and his relationships end for external plot reasons. You know, just like every other character having a one-episode romance in a pre-serialisation television landscape.
With that out of the way, I think Lyndsay is my favourite of Harry’s love interests. Rhodes and Wang have great chemistry, and it’s very easy to believe in them as people who have been close friends for many years, and who chose not to pursue anything more.
Is it plausible that Lyndsay was always there (until she died) and we just happened to not see her? I think it is, but Voyager does make you work for it.
But here’s what we know:
- Harry’s first new friend aboard Voyager is Tom Paris
- His second new friend is B’Elanna Torres
- B’Elanna quickly becomes chief of engineering and Lyndsay’s boss, and Lyndsay is not bad at her job, but B’Elanna clearly didn’t consider her a high flyer
- After Lyndsay’s resurrection, Tom has nothing good to say about her, and Lyndsay doesn’t ask about him
It’s not much of a leap to assume that Tom and Lyndsay weren’t terribly fond of one another, and that Lyndsay wasn’t keen to socialise in a group which included her new boss. And Harry, as a bridge officer and department head, has never been seen socialising with other ensigns except occasionally with Seska in season 1 — and that’s more because she was B’Elanna’s friend.
So yeah, I can buy that Harry has a separate social life that we haven’t seen. In fact, I like the idea that he has friends beyond the bridge — especially in the wake of “Spirit Folk”, an episode where Tom kind of treats him like shit.
The greater Starfleet Academy late 2360s community
Season 4 of Star Trek: Lower Decks ends its fourth season with the reveal that Beckett Mariner, Queen of My Heart, was at the Academy around the same as Wesley Crusher and the members of Nova Squadron, who were first introduced in TNG’s “The First Duty”. Mariner was a couple of years behind the Nova Squadron crew, but idolised pilot Sito Jaxa (who, following “The First Duty”, made a second and final appearance in the seventh season TNG episode “Lower Decks”.)
If you were wondering how this connects with “Ashes to Ashes”, here’s a quick timeline:
- 2364: Nova Squadron commander Nicholas Locarno, who does not bear a remarkable resemblance to Tom Paris, enters the Academy
- 2365: Sito Jaxa enters the Academy
- 2366: Harry Kim and Lyndsay Ballard enter the Academy, along with future Nova Squadron pilot Josh Albert
- 2367: Wesley Crusher enters the Academy
- 2368: Beckett Mariner enters the Academy; Josh Albert is killed; Nicholas Locarno is expelled; Sito and Wesley are both dropped back a year.
- 2369: Beckett and Wesley are in the same cohort; Sito, Harry and Lyndsay are in the same cohort
- 2370: Harry, Sito and Lyndsay graduate; Sito is killed in action while serving aboard the Enterprise; Wesley drops out of the Academy a few months later
- 2371: Harry and Lyndsay are assigned to the USS Voyager and immediately get stranded in the delta quadrant
- 2371: Beckett graduates and is immediately sent to fight in the Dominion War
We don’t have dates for Raffi Musiker’s time at the Academy, but Michelle Hurd is only two years older than Garrett Wang, so I think we can plausibly put her in Nicholas Locarno’s cohort. (Related: I think Raffi and Mariner should date.)
Basically, this generation went through a LOT. And I don’t think they were all incredibly close friends — Beckett seems to have been regarded as a hanger-on by all of Nova Squadron except Sito, and the Academy is a big school — but I like to think they knew each other in passing. And by the early 2380s, half of them are dead. The rest? Raffi’s career is a series of disasters accompanied by addiction and relationship breakdown; Mariner’s career is hanging on by a thread and she is only just beginning to deal with her trauma; Wesley Crusher has exited this plane of reality all together; and Harry Kim is doing mostly okay.
Or … is he?
Janeway’s dinner has a weird vibe
It’s super cute that Janeway recognises that Lyndsay has main character energy by now and tries to bond with her by inviting her around for a … romantic … candlelit … dinner … KATHRYN, WHAT THE HELL?
Okay, yes, we have another “funny” bit about how Janeway’s such a bad cook, she can’t even use a replicator. And it’s an important scene for Lyndsay, who has some reasonable questions about why she was sent on the away mission that got her killed — there were regular characters who were better suited for the job, and she all but asks if she was assigned because, as a background character, she was expendable. It’s fantastic, and more than any other scene makes me wish we had seen more of Kim Rhodes in Star Trek.
But I do have to ask why Janeway chose to dress up all sexy for that dinner. She’s wearing a very attractive blue velvet dress that makes her eyes pop, and the V-neck draws the eye to her cleavage in a way that is both demure and mindful. I simply have questions, I have concerns, I want to know what every single person was thinking as they put this scene together.
(I will say that I just went back and checked the screencaps, and my brain completely made up the candles. This was not a candlelit dinner, it merely takes place in a romantic semi-darkness. Which is obviously better.)
There is also a B plot about Seven
Seven has been assigned to Motherhood, but without maternity leave or an ounce of parental instincts. She’s left multitasking while Mezoti is Too Cute For Her Own Good, the twins are little shits and Icheb is a snitch. At no point does anyone go, “Oh wow, Seven is not the right person for this, maybe Tuvok, the actual parent, should take over.”
Obviously there’s always a good story to be had in giving a task to the person least suited for it, and I respect that Seven gets to be the Incompetent Sitcom Dad. But in this instance, it also feels like one of those stories where Seven has to learn how to be A Proper Woman. And you know how I feel about those.
Other observations
- It feels like this episode has a massive costume budget — Lyndsay gets three (her cute alien catsuit, her regular Starfleet uniform, her dress uniform), while Janeway has that gorgeous blue dress.
- On the other hand, Lyndsay also gets The Worst Hair To Come Out Of The Early 2000s. Swings and roundabouts.
- This is close to being a bottle episode — the only new set is Lyndsay’s tiny little ship, and the Kobali vessels are pretty basic — so I guess the extra costumes came out of the set design budget?
- Not to make accusations, but it’s weird how women keep dying when they go on away missions with Harry.
In conclusion
I wouldn’t want every episode to be like this, but every now and then, I appreciate a well-executed Mary Sue. Four terrible haircuts out of five.
- I am a hack and a fraud
- Okay, fine, my hot take is that a protagonist who fits that Mary Sue mould is just a badly written character who needs more development, but sometimes it’s a useful shorthand.
- I don’t know why The West Wing is on my mind right now, but Ainsley Hayes, the adorably clumsy recurring Republican who works in the White House because Aaron Sorkin just loves bipartisanship so much is a great example.
- I have questions
- I think you all know by now that I think in bullet points and lists.