LIVING WITNESS / TINKER TENOR DOCTOR SPY / LATENT IMAGE / SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME / AUTHOR, AUTHOR
I’m cheating because I can’t decide which of these Doctor episodes is my favorite. All of them are great so let’s just call it a five-way tie.
In the first, Living Witness, the Doctor is awakened in what is apparently seven hundred years in his future. An alien race has called him to be a witness in a trial against Voyager (whose crimes had become renowned in that region of space). The hook of the episode is clever, as is the twisted and distorted history that the episode plays around with (depicting Janeway as a commander as ruthless as a Klingon, for example). The Doctor gets more than the spotlight, as he has to carry almost the whole episode, since the rest of the crew were depicted in harsh lights by the aliens. Doctor’s quest to clear his ship’s name and then later his conflict with whether or not to share the evidence he’s discovered (evidence which might open old wounds) is well-represented.
Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy is another great Doctor episode. In this one the Doctor wishes to be reprogrammed slightly so that, in the event of an emergency, he can swap his green (blue? turquoise? The colors changed between 1987-2000) medical colors for red command colors. Janeway says not but the Doctor tweaks his program just enough to allow himself to at least daydream about it. Unfortunately an alien race intercepts the Doctor’s dreams and interprets them as real. In the middle of a real conflict, the Doctor must pretend to actually be the Emergency “command” Hologram and bluff his way out of the fight. There’s a little Corbomite Maneuver in the way the conflict is resolved, and the show gives Picardo plenty of opportunity to do what he does so well: Act like the most important guy in the universe.
Latent Image is exactly what Star Trek is supposed to be about: It explores the human condition, even if the “human” in question is actually a hologram. In that sense it reminds me of TNG’s stellar episode “The Measure of a Man” (not in plot, but in sci-fi depth). It’s not quite as astounding as that one was the first time I saw it, but it’s still a great episode. The gist of it is, the Doctor comes to discover that the crew had wiped a portion of his memory. Feeling violated, the Doctor demands to know why, but is denied a straight answer. At the end it is revealed that an accident had taken place, where two crew members were in critical condition. With only the time and manpower to save one the Doctor chose to save Ensign Kim at the expense of the other. Later, racked with guilt, the Doctor comes to believe his friendship with Kim biased him against the other crew member. His work as chief medical officer suffered and, being without an extra chief medical officer for another 65 years, Janeway made the tough choice to rape his mind and pretend like it never happened. Janeway’s actions seem wholly improper, but they can still be debated on “situational ethics” grounds. Meanwhile the Doctor, upon learning the truth, again lapses into guilt. Faced again with the option to wipe the Doctor’s mind, Janeway instead decides to help him cope. He may not be a human, but what difference does it make if he feels human emotions? The difference is only academic, and his soverignty as a “living” “person” should be taken into account. By the end of the episode, they are. Brilliant show.
Speaking of feelings, who says a hologram can’t fall in love. Someone to Watch over Me explores that issue, as the Doctor attempts to help Seven reintegrate into human society by exploring “dating.” While he preps her, pep-talks her, and teaches all the finer points of romanticism, his own feelings start to bubble up. There are some contrived moments, such as a bet between Doctor and Paris over whether or not the Doctor can secure Seven of Nine as his date to an upcoming shindig. That’s romcom plotting 101, but it doesn’t detract from the great chemistry between Picardo and Jeri Ryan. In the end, the Doctor doesn’t get the girl; Seven finds out about the bet and that pretty much ends any chances of his winning her heart. The show fades out with the Doctor singing the title song with much poignancy. The plot is all about exploring Seven of Nine’s humanity but really it’s the Doctor’s that commands your attention.
The last great episode of Voyager was Author, Author. The basic premise is that the Doctor has written a book (because of course he has) and it basically parodies the Voyager crew in an unflattering way. Because the crew had gotten so much closer to earth, they are able to have intermittent communication with Starfleet. The Doctor’s book gets published (before he could edit out the bad portrayals of the crew) and all of the Alpha Quadrent comes to think that the Voyager crew are a bunch of Jerky McJerkfaces. High comedy ensues. There’s not much “to” the plot, but it’s a light and fun 40 minutes. Considering how much of Voyager season seven is not those things, it deserves mention here.
BLINK OF AN EYE
One of Voyager’s few “the ship arrives at a strange planet” plots that feels worthy of Star Trek. It’s not half-baked, nor does it feel like an idea someone would have passed on in the TNG writer’s room. Here, the ship orbits a planet surrounded by an odd tachyon field that alters the way it experiences time. Things on the planet move in time accordingly, but everything else happens at incredible speed. Those above the planet experience time normally, but from their perspective the planet below is experiencing everything incredibly slowly. As Voyager moves to investigate it, they become trapped in orbit due to {insert technobabble explanation here}. With a starship in orbit for a few hours (Voyager time), the planet below experiences life with the ship above their planet for thousands of years. As life evolves on the planet they come to worship Voyager like a god in the sky. In the end, the alien life on the planet evolve enough to send ships into space, which free Voyager from orbit. The ship flies away, but they leave behind a world that is forever changed by their “brief” presence. I picked this episode because, like Latent Image, it embodies one of the things I love most about Star Trek: The celebration of bizarre premises that “work” because everyone plays it straight. In the wrong hands the premise would collapse under the weight of silliness, but they play it straight and produce one of the best “old school sci-fi” episodes in the Star Trek franchise.
TIMELESS
Every series has that one episode. It’s the one with the budget, the big high-concept premise. It’s the big “event” episode. TOS had The Doomsday Machine. TNG had Yesterday’s Enterprise. DS9 had Trials and Tribble-ations. And though Voyager tried to have several of these (Dark Frontier, Year of Hell, Workforce, etc), the best they ever did was Timeless. Of all people, the hero of the piece gets to be Ensign Kim. It’s the perfect “big event Voyager episode” premise: In the future the crew has made it home, but with much casualties. Desperate to do it over and do it right, Kim, Chakotay (the other overlooked character) and the Doctor embark on an illegal and dangerous quest to send key information back in time (through Seven of Nine’s magic Borg implants, which the writers greatly overused throughout the history of the show, but whatever, it’s cool here). They succeed but the new information doesn’t change the past: Voyager is still essentially destroyed and many are killed as they reach home. The Doctor encourages Kim to try again, only this time to send information that would prevent Voyager from even entering the Alpha Quadrent. Kim sacrifices his life, his “time,” and the chance for at least some of Voyager to return home, all to keep the crew closer home, but not there yet, and still very much alive. Unlike with Year of Hell, the “reset” button that is pushed here doesn’t erase everyone’s memories. Kim from the alternate future manages to sneak a message back to Voyager, and he gives his younger self the needed confidence to keep on keeping on (despite being stuck an ensign far longer than standard Starfleet protocol). As far as “big event” episodes go, this is one of the best, and certainly is one of the best Voyager episodes ever.
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Left unmentioned are three notable episodes: Scorpion (parts 1-2) which introduced Seven-of-Nine to the show. It’s a great episode that would probably be next in line if I were to expand the list. The biggest knock against it is more what it introduced to the show from then on: By the end of Voyager’s run, the Borg had become overused as a recurring villain (they only appeared in five episodes in six TNG seasons, but they appeared in twice that many in four seasons of Voyager). In order to give one lone Starship a fighting chance against all of Borg Space, they were watered down into lightweights, easily outsmarted by Janeway. Also part two of Scorpion really drags down part one, and neither are as good as the two-parter they are always compared to: TNG’s Best of Both Worlds.
The other left-out episode is Year of Hell, and though I am very fond of it and will rightly praise its cinematic production (and a great performance by Kurtwood Smith), it’s a controversial episode for some: It embodies the “reset button” approach that Voyager’s creative team applied too many times. At the end of the ordeal everything is as though it never happened—literally—rendering the drama and devastation pointless. It would be one thing if characters had retained their memories, but instead they are all none-the-wiser.
The other episode I didn’t touch on is Threshold, a Star Trek episode so bad it has been removed from canon (not even Spock’s Brain gets that distinction!).
There’s only one Star Trek show left (so far!). We’ll talk about Enterprise next month. Until then, follow me on twitter and like/share this article!
