Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review the only character other than Spock to have been reanimated to reappear a long time after death, that being Lyndsay Ballard of the Voyager episode Ashes to Ashes.
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp327
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp327
We first see the character of Lyndsay Ballard on screen after she has passed away and been reanimated as a Kobali named Jhet'leya. She contacts Voyager and asks for refuge as she is escaping from the Kobali society who reanimated and transformed her from human into their race. The crew is initially suspicious because ensign Ballard had been dead for about 3 years, and show viewers would also be suspicious because we never actually saw Ballard on screen before this season 6 episode.
But it is clear this character was one of the background faces in the crowd in the small crew that was Voyager during the first years of their stranding in the Delta Quadrant. Here's what we learn about her time in Starfleet.
She entered Starfleet Academy at the same time as Harry Kim, and they lived across the hall from one another. They became best friends, and Harry had a crush on Lyndsay but he never had the kahunas to tell her. She basically lived off PB&J sandwiches and lived a messy lifestyle, which of course drove the OCD tendencies of Harry nuts.
She graduated from Academy and was immediately posted to the Voyager in the engineering department, just like Harry. A few years later, these two were assigned to an away mission to investigate readings of dilithium ore on a class M planet, but it was a trap by a Hirogen hunting party. Lindsey was killed on the way back to the shuttle.
But it is clear this character was one of the background faces in the crowd in the small crew that was Voyager during the first years of their stranding in the Delta Quadrant. Here's what we learn about her time in Starfleet.
She entered Starfleet Academy at the same time as Harry Kim, and they lived across the hall from one another. They became best friends, and Harry had a crush on Lyndsay but he never had the kahunas to tell her. She basically lived off PB&J sandwiches and lived a messy lifestyle, which of course drove the OCD tendencies of Harry nuts.
She graduated from Academy and was immediately posted to the Voyager in the engineering department, just like Harry. A few years later, these two were assigned to an away mission to investigate readings of dilithium ore on a class M planet, but it was a trap by a Hirogen hunting party. Lindsey was killed on the way back to the shuttle.
QUOTE
The Kobali reanimate corpses they find and transform the DNA to make mates for their race to go on. This happened to Lyndsay Ballard, which is why she is Kobali when she reappears as Jhet'leya to Voyager 3 years later. Despite the Doctor being able to restore her human appearance and some initial fun and romantic times with Harry, this character soon realizes her mind and body were indeed forever changed and she doesn't really enjoy the things she used to when she was a human. That helps her decide to give up her claim to refuge on Voyager and her past life as a human when the Kobali attack Voyager and demand Jhet'leya's return.
Although we normally only cover main and recurring characters on this segment, the Ballard and Jhet'leya story spans beyond the Ashes to Ashes episode she actually appears in, and it is a surprisingly good story about the human condition of dealing with loss and moving on. Plus we see more awkward past from Harry Kim, which is always a positive.
Although we normally only cover main and recurring characters on this segment, the Ballard and Jhet'leya story spans beyond the Ashes to Ashes episode she actually appears in, and it is a surprisingly good story about the human condition of dealing with loss and moving on. Plus we see more awkward past from Harry Kim, which is always a positive.
Lyndsay Ballard was played by Kim Rhodes, who has been acting for about 20 years and continues to do so, primarily in small television roles mostly today. She can recently be seen as an assistant director on Criminal Minds and as a sheriff on Supernatural.
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