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 DVD, Voyager S5 (Latent Image)

Another ethics-based story after 'Nothing Human' and 'Thirty Days,' and another one where we're kept out of the 'behind the scenes' interactions so as to preserve mystery for the character around which the plot is woven, after 'Counterpoint.' Unlike the latter we're not kept in the dark right to the end - I was expecting it to be more of a secret investigation on the Doctor's part, uncovering clues, and reacting to Seven's sudden compliance like O'Brien to Odo in 'Whispers' - 'no, they got to you, didn't they!' But that never happened and it's a very different story to that 'DS9' great, sharing more DNA with the 'TNG' story about Data protecting the crew by keeping up a mystery that only he knows, though from their perspective he's conspiring against them - I can never remember if it's 'Conundrum' or 'Clues,' both 'C' titles that deal with some kind of plot to pull the wool over their eyes. As you can see, there were quite a lot of influences this episode may have drawn on, but that comes from the 'late' position 'Voyager' occupied, coming in when so many great Trek stories had already been done, and often repurposing them to these characters, which is no bad thing - it's certainly not a problem the current crop of modern Trek series' have since none of their stories come close to the kind of intrigue and adventure since they prefer much more basic action fare. While this episode may not be a masterpiece, it's a good one and I'd take it over any new Trek you'd care to name!

The Doctor discovers part of his memory is missing from an operation he'd performed on Harry Kim way back in Season 3 - you'd think the crew, including Harry, would have had a story ready just in case it did come to light again, though I suppose it was only this specific piece of work done in micro that could set off the Doc's guesswork, and only because his holo-imager showed it. Though you'd think if he could see it on the back of Kim's neck on the hologram he could also have seen it on the live version! I also didn't quite buy that he's been taking snaps as far back as Season 3, because we never once saw him with the holo-imager - while the concept existed way back in 'DS9' Season 3 ('Meridian'), Quark making an illicit recreation of Kira for Jeffrey Combs' first ever Trek role, it wasn't seen on this series until this season. But we don't see every second of every day so it's possible all the times he was taking photos (or should that be photonos!), was off screen. Also, you'd think this technology, if as we see, it can create a three-dimensional hologram of a subject, why it comes as 2D frames rather than a three-dimensional holoprogram of that moment. Either the Doc doesn't really know how to use it properly, or he prefers the 'old-fashioned' snapshot to a full-bodied 3D experience. But if you could record not just an image, but an actual event from every angle that you could then insert yourself into, I think most people would choose to do so, literally reliving fond memories, or perhaps seeing them from a different perspective in the room.

I'm not sure quite how successful the story was in its exploration of the issues - those being whether the Doctor can be treated as a sentient being, or whether he's a tool that they need to rely on and so fixing him is a high priority, even if it means wiping his memory. I must say, you'd think after all these years Janeway would have made it a priority to train up at least some nurses, like Tom Paris, and even some doctors, for the very reason that you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to the health of the crew. So why haven't we seen a program of fast-tracked doctors who can take over for when the Doc is inevitably out of action. It's not like this kind of thing hasn't happened before, either. In 'The Swarm' his program was in danger of going kaput because he'd taken in too much data or experiences, and was simply degrading through overuse, exceeding his original programming. A shame they didn't bring in the Dr. Zimmerman diagnostic program (but I think they used it to ensure the EMH's survival, now that I come to think of it), as any time Picardo plays the irascible fellow was great fun (he'd show up again in the following season). We do see some blueshirt crewmen in the memory sequences when the Doc beams to Sickbay with Harry and Jetal, but we also see Tom in red and others in gold, so it didn't appear to be a medical team and could just as easily have been science blueshirts as medical. I imagine it was really down to practical issues such as budget that they didn't want recurring faces in Sickbay (a mistake), and after Kes left there was a move away from showing such training for a position she'd held.

Seven of Nine became the Doctor's pupil, so it was nice to see her standing up for him, though again I didn't find her argument very strong: she's part Borg which she compares to being like a Replicator and like the Doctor, and therefore will Janeway abandon her one day for that reason? It wasn't really an argument, more of an accusatory question, but at least she's learned not to keep pushing as she says her piece, then leaves, instead of getting in the Captain's face and thinking that if she's angry and bolshy enough her point of view will crack Janeway's stubbornness. It's also not the same, since she wasn't Borg from birth (if that's even possible), she was assimilated, so the machinery within her isn't part of her nature. She also wasn't manufactured like a Replicator or an EMH and her wish is to lose as much of her mechanical Borgness as she can (something we saw happen over the course of the series, and which was sadly regressed in 'Picard,' doing so much harm to the character and the reality of her story), whereas the Doctor is a program that has become self-aware, it's not that he's going to change his nature to become organic (though when they eventually bring him back in modern Trek, who knows what they'll do to/with him if they can kill off Data and turn Picard into an android...).

Is it guilt that drives Janeway, because as she says, she'd already gone over the rights and wrongs of the whole situation back when it happened a year and a half ago. The only new input is Seven, since she wasn't there then, although I'd like to think Kes (who was sadly notable by missing from the flashbacks when they could easily have brought back Jennifer Lien for a one-off, just as they'd do in Season 6), would have had the same attitude of protection towards her friend and mentor. In fact, in many ways this felt like a return to the early days of the series when the Doctor was discovering for himself that he could even be more than a mere useful tool, switched on and off like a light switch, while Kes helped him think differently. Janeway's attitude tended toward indifference to what he wanted (as then, he's treated like a robot: you're malfunctioning and need to be repaired), changing slowly to indulgent allowance in gratefulness for all he'd done for the crew, but by Season 3, and certainly by this season, she seemed to have fully accepted him as a member of the crew, so it's strange she didn't think of just pushing him through the experience before. And that is the eventual solution to his issues, simply sit with him as he goes round in mental circles, hoping it'll eventually resolve itself. I'm not really sure there was a resolution in the episode, it just ends and you have to assume his mind came to peace, with a sense of hope from the poetry he reads. I remembered the ending differently with the Doctor just going round and round with his arguments and self-doubt while Janeway sits back and patiently leaves him to run himself down until he has nothing left to say.

I'm glad it was mentioned his program is designed for triage, because that would have to be a key component of an Emergency Medical Hologram, without it he wouldn't be a very effective doctor! But it's explained that it's a conflict between different parts of his program, ethical subroutines, that kind of thing. Has he basically become 'corrupted' by too many human thoughts and emotions, to the point where he may have been more effective if he hadn't developed? It's almost the opposite of what Trek usually likes to say about humanity, but it is truer to human nature - fallen nature. This could be evidence of the Christian worldview, without them even realising what they were saying! The idea of his original programming coming into conflict with what he's become, could, and perhaps should, have been a big overarching story for the character (a little like the Jekyll and Hyde stuff from 'Darkling,' but more subtle). Because it was a momentous event that a hologram could become sentient in this particular situation - yes, we'd seen it as far back as Moriarty (soon to make a reappearance on 'Picard'), and my favourite, Vic Fontaine, but never with someone so integral to a series. It is a detriment to the series that they didn't go deeper into the characters in these later seasons. Not all suffered, I'm generalising, but you can see how well it was done on 'DS9' and can't help realise what potential 'Voyager' had that it didn't reach. Janeway also comes across as a bit pompous when she says they gave him a soul and do they have the right to take it away now, but again, at least we had B'Elanna there to counter, saying it's not really a soul, but personality subroutines, to which Janeway doesn't reply.

If the crux of the whole scenario is a little simple, in that Seven's argument not to play with the Doctor's memory, or Janeway's wondering if perhaps it would be better for him to go through the problem rather than excise it, and it really is as simple as a piece of knowledge the Doctor doesn't know, so he needs to deal with it, then I will say the message was good: work through problems, don't blank them out. We'd later see a version of the EMH that has ethical parts of his program removed (in 'Equinox'), and while it's easier for that version to do things he's also quite immoral and even evil. The Doctor needs to confront his own actions and accept what he did, even though in this case it wasn't wrong, it was something that needed to be done. That's really what it all boils down to: getting through a mental issue rather than cutting it out of you. Pretty basic stuff. It could also be taken as a balance between the ideas that knowledge is power, but curiosity killed the cat. It's generally better to know something (even though ignorance can be bliss), but not always. Takes us back to the very beginning: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis. The desire to know what you don't know, even when it's been warned you shouldn't know it. If the Doctor hadn't been determined he'd have carried on as he had for the last eighteen months. I suppose the risk would always have been there that he could have had some kind of delayed relapse or found a clue as he did here.

At least the episode does give plenty of room for thought, which isn't the case with every story. The directing was good, the flashback scenes well done, the alien craft well-designed, as was the alien himself - makes me wish we could have met them again, but sometimes a race is only there to provide the basis for the story. I liked the reminder the Doctor doesn't kill people - my immediate assumption when he beams the invader away was he'd beamed him into space, and someone even says he should have (Kim?), in the heat of the moment, but he actually beamed him back to his ship. I don't see them doing that nowadays... It was relatively bloody for Trek as you do see actual blood in pools on the deck of the Shuttlecraft, so the gravity of what had happened was clear. Kim hadn't looked so messed up since he'd been attacked by Species 8472 back in 'Scorpion'! I wondered if there was an issue of invasion of privacy with the Doctor making holo-records of every member of the crew. Does Starfleet usually do that? Did anyone object? Did they have the right to? Nice to see Naomi again, though it was only a brief scene. And Janeway drinking coffee at 2am? Maybe she'd decided she wasn't going to get any sleep that night so might as well load up with caffeine for the day ahead. Actually, that makes me wonder: they have synthehol, so do they also have synthoffee where if you need to sleep you can just shake off the 'caffeine' boost at will in the same way you can shake off the 'intoxication'? Also, why did B'Elanna's combadge not activate when Jetal contacts her and she replies from within the same room - it was a good gag, but didn't make sense with the way combadges work! Finally, I think there was more of a conspiracy theory going on than anyone realised: the crew must have altered the photos because Janeway has a hairstyle she didn't wear till Season 4, and both Chakotay (no grey), and Kim, have the same hair as they have now. Maybe it wasn't just the Doctor's memories that were, erm... doctored.

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