Real Life

DVD, Voyager S3 (Real Life)

'Real Life' is the ideal title for this story of the Doctor creating a holographic family for himself, and not just because of B'Elanna's modifications to the variables in order to make it as unpredictable and unsteady as reality can be. It is evocative of the Doctor's own existence, because, before we forget, he's a hologram too. So what constitutes real life for him isn't as simple as biology - he's a relatively new life form himself, so for him to experience time with other holograms should be a natural thing, yet we really haven't seen him take on a holoprogram for social reasons to this length before. He's been on 'Away Missions' such as his quest to track down Kim in the Beowulf saga ('Heroes and Demons'), and he's used the Holodeck to entertain a female companion during the Vidiian Danara Pel's recovery ('Lifesigns'), but this is the first time he's seen fit to create his own world to live in regularly. He's still doing it ostensibly as an experiment, but like most things for the Doc, it's all about stroking his ego, reinforcing his brilliance. Perhaps the Doctor is an insecure character which is why so often this season he's referred to his qualities, reminding everyone how much they depend on him. If you take his thought processes a stage further, his only real life is to serve the crew for an indeterminate period - he doesn't degrade like physical bodies do (and how well he knows about that, being a doctor a constant reminder of the frailty of 'human' life), so he has the same problem Data had: a future to look forward to in which all those he knows will eventually cease to be.

This episode doesn't dig that deeply into the subject matter because the Doctor is still learning and developing - it wouldn't be until the final season that he really questioned his own existence and his position, where he might end up if and when Voyager were to make it back home, a home that has no bearing for him as all he knows is the ship. What the episode does do is teach him about parameters ("Limits; boundaries," as he himself says to daughter, Belle, in the episode), and that living beings don't conform to neat and tidy existences in which everything is positive and all achievement is rewarded in kind, as the Doctor would want. It's funny seeing him trot out this perfect family to share with B'Elanna and Kes, the two opposites of the crew, because each have different reactions, but both recognise that the Doc doesn't understand the object of his goal: to learn about family. The family members all do exactly what they should and there is no conflict, so the Doc has completely misunderstood what a group of people are going to be like, even with the ties of being part of a family unit.

Ultimately you could see the point of the episode as being that the Doctor already has a family that he's an integral part of: Voyager. His new family is there to glorify him and succour his needs, while he just sits back and enjoys the adoration. The Voyager crew as family isn't a strong message running though the episode, it's something you realise if you think about his position, but what does become clear is that family is about meeting the challenges of life together, relying on each other and riding out the storms (literally in Tom Paris' case). When the Doctor has to make the decision whether he's going to take on board the painful results of life when his daughter is injured, or just disassociate himself from the program, that's the moment of power in the story. Like most humans of our time (the reason he's so amusing, like Quark, is that he reflects our own values of selfishness and other negative emotions, while living around 24th Century people that are much more developed - not perfect, but rounded, having learnt to live better), he tries to pretend he was unaffected by his program, but as noted before, holographic life for him is real life, and for his own benefit the program must be completed, which is why this episode isn't ludicrous as it could at first be seen from the premise.

He makes the brave decision to go through the grief of losing a child and continuing the program, supporting son Jeffrey, and his wife at the difficult time. Perhaps where the episode falls down is not the fault of the episode: we don't see the family ever again, and don't get the impression that he's working through a time of grief, that he's battled on with the program as if it were real, unavoidable life that continues until death. No episodes take up the baton and keep the story going, partly because 'Voyager' favoured neat, contained stories rather than allowing them to spread over into other episodes - you can start to see parallels between the Doctor's attitude and that of the writers of the series: they didn't like things to get too complicated or messy, just as the Doc wanted things to be just so in his family. They didn't seem to understand any more than him that the absence of the messiness of life, not easily swept up and sorted out ready for something completely different at the end of an episode, was what meant the series never reached its true potential. Just as the Doctor learns that reality is painful, but more rewarding than the alternative. It's almost like Jeri Taylor, who wrote this episode, is leaving a lesson behind her for those that follow, and one they didn't pay attention to.

I'm not saying the Doctor's family program should have been an integral part of the series as it progressed, and I wouldn't have wanted it to become a space soap opera with the Doc dealing with these computer-generated problems week to week. For us, who live in the biological realm, it's difficult to accept that what the Doctor goes through is really real because we know it's fiction that can be switched on and off at will, reprogrammed or abandoned without conscience. There are issues here about the Doctor's existence that are ripe to be addressed much more deeply, but he was just one of several characters that had to be the centre of an episode, and it would be someone else's turn next week. Maybe this is why the later seasons saw him used far more than certain other characters because there were these rich veins to tap, and I'm not saying he wasn't used well before, but when something has this much impact on a character it would be good to see some of the aftermath. Too often I compare and contrast 'DS9' and point to it as the right way to go as opposed to 'Voyager,' and I would have to do so again, because they did allow characters to experience things over time and not neatly tie it off at the end of an episode. They didn't always immediately address issues (look at Kira and Tekeny Ghemor - there was a space of two seasons between those encounters), but more often than not, they got to it eventually.

Looking at this episode as a whole, regardless of whether its threads were taken up again in future, it remains a good, solid story, with a hard ending, something Season 3 has really done well. Yet I don't like it as much as I used to. There's great amusement to see the Doctor first smug, and then struggling through Torres' alterations to the program (a bit like when he put himself through a terrible cold virus, again to try and understand human behaviour, then when he lost control through B'Elanna's tinkering, he learnt a lot more about the reality of it), and the extremes the narrative takes on, and it's also good to see him rise to the challenge, using all he knows to try and combat the problems strewn around him, in his own pompous way. We connect more with him when he realises he's made the wrong decisions or hasn't managed to make things work, but it's not these things that make him balk at running the program, he still thinks he can make things right. It's when he can do nothing to save his daughter's life that the drama and lessons really kick in and are the most affecting moments of the episode. As long as you can put yourself into the Doctor's world and identify with him, questions of whether he should be called out of this tough fantasy reality to save a member of the crew's life, and showing that it's just a disposable narrative, fall to the back of your mind.

It becomes a bit of a rabbit hole to go down when you start to realise everything we're watching is fiction anyway, we're no different from the Doctor because we're investing time and interest in characters that aren't real, that we can turn on and off at any moment, and yet, just like his made-up family, they have a life, a chronological A-to-B progression that we get the most out of if we take part in it in the correct order and invest ourselves into. Still, it would have upset the balance of the drama if Janeway had ordered the Doc out of his program, say, if Tom Paris had been more severely injured, at a time when he was most emotionally invested, like the touching scene in which he stands with his family and watches his daughter die in front of him - just as if we're in the middle of an important scene and we're called to answer the phone, or something. It's a bit of a wrench, our minds confused by two realities, and this is just what the Doctor experiences in some ways, his thoughts of the fantasy world affecting those in the real, as shown by the way he gives Tom such a talking to for being such a maverick risk-taker.

I'm not completely sure which side of the fence the episode comes down on when it comes to which is the A and the B story. Clearly the Doctor's family life is the main draw, but it felt like an equal amount of coverage was given to the scientific plot of Janeway wanting to chase down these space tornadoes, just for the sake of being an explorer, with Tom taking a shuttle into the storm. It seems a reckless thing to do, just the sort of thing that Neelix used to complain about to Kes, who would reply that if she was Captain she too would peer into every crack in the universe. It came on a little heavy-handedly, though, as if to remind us forcibly that we're still a ship of exploration, even if most weeks we have to battle enemies or strive to reach supplies to continue the journey home: there's still time to do what starships have traditionally done. The CG effects didn't help my impression of this dry story, looking very lightweight and not making me feel the power of this spatial phenomenon as I should. No doubt when the time comes to put out HD versions of this series, these will be solidified and beefed up. Saying that, I was impressed with the beautiful sub-subspace layer Paris is carried into, like a cross between the Badlands and a glowing sunset, it totally sold another plane of existence, or secret inner domain of space.

A minor point I wanted further expanded upon was the line Tom has about Replicator rations. It's nothing new, we've known for a long time that they have to ration the Replicator energy, the reason they have to put up with so many outlandish dishes from Neelix in his role as Ship's Chef. For some reason, this time I wanted more information, I wanted to understand the trials of survival Voyager must go through with no starbases, no safe harbours and this epic path before them. I know that at its launch it was the most technologically superior vessel Starfleet had developed, and that all starships are equipped for years-long voyages, so they'd be readier than most for a generational journey, but I wanted to see more of the difficulty of being completely self-sufficient, something they'd begun to do in earlier seasons with the airponics bay, or gathering food on other planets - it was the logistics of survival that suddenly perked my mind into wanting to know more about something that was unique to this series.

I hope Janeway notified the Vostigye that their station had been destroyed as I can imagine them thinking Voyager might have been to blame, and had scooted off after doing this dastardly thing - we already know the ship has an undeserved reputation flying round the quadrant. Even with warp travel gossip is still the fastest thing in the known universe. At least they didn't lose a shuttle this time, but how could they when it was named for the inventor of warp drive, Zefram Cochrane?! I also realised in this episode that I firmly dislike Kes' long locks. She looks more like a rocker or some music star than the elfin helper we know so well, the hairstyle doesn't fit with her voice and personality. At least it came in at the end of her time on the series, though I still like her character, here used again so aptly as the Doctor's helper in his social need. Unlike Torres, whose Klingon temper is inflamed by the Doctor's stupidity at creating a family of 'lollipops,' in her words, Kes remains supportive, after all she's the one who's always coached him in matters of people psychology, while he taught her medical skills, always a source of good character-building in the early seasons, and good to see it continue.

I enjoyed having Klingons in the series again, even if holographic - we haven't seen many young Klingons before, perhaps never teenage ones, though I think Alexander was roughly this age in 'DS9' Season 6, a few months after this episode. In 'TNG' a kut'luch was an assassin's blade, but perhaps it was also known as this warrior's ritual blade as well? There are plenty of other fun references for the discerning viewer to pick up on, whether that's the Bolian Embassy, a Klingon nickname for Vulcan behaviour ('Vulky'), or the never-seen, occasionally mentioned Parrises Squares, not to mention the return of Beatrice from Janeway's holonovel of the early seasons, only the computer's using her template for another 'B,' Belle (the actress was also apparently one of Picard's children in 'Generations' but I don't remember her being there). So, much to like, and the punch with the ending makes the episode go out with a bang, but if you've seen the episode a few times you notice it takes time to get going and the tornado plot doesn't match up to the family plot, and I do like it when they can tie the narratives together (they did, to be fair, with Paris' risks and the Doctor's reaction to him, as well as his advice on seeing things through), but I didn't feel it was the classic I once did. Perfectly enjoyable without being a lollipop, but of little consequence in the long run, even if seeing the Doctor cross another hurdle in his understanding of humans, and towards seeing himself as being part of another race, works.

***