Renaissance Man (2)

 DVD, Voyager S7 (Renaissance Man) (2)

What better way to close out the standard run of episodes before we get the feature-length series finale than with a Doctor story that cleverly integrates most of the characters in a 'Mission: Impossible' type of spy drama where he's wearing the 'face masks' of his friends and colleagues to save the Captain's life? I do think it's a classic of the series, completely standalone, which may or may not irk, depending on your stance on how they chose to close out the series without preamble or setup. I just think of it as a strong episode rather than a stepping stone towards the conclusion of the series and its characters, one you could watch without consideration for what went before or after - for example, Neelix' absence has no effect, it simply feels like he's on the ship, but not involved as was too often the case (he even gets a mention by the Doctor at the end which had nothing to do with his leaving, so again, if you didn't know he was gone it wouldn't be out of place at all). At the same time there are noticeable little bits of ephemera that allow a keen observer of the series to realise they're deliberately throwing in a few 'last' things - Vorik has no bearing on the story, he's just there, but it's nice that he got one more appearance. Mr. Ayala, the Maquis guy who was quite visible in the pilot as one of Chakotay's men, simply because he was quite lanky, and was seen as an extra throughout the series, generally without lines, gets a prominent position on the Bridge at Helm, and even some lines. We see a holographic emitter on the ceiling of Sickbay, which hadn't been there before, and nooks and crannies of the ship, like the upper level in Engineering or a little side cupboard behind the Doc's office. They know this is the only time they have to do such things and despite the lack of connection to the series winding down, it still gives out a slight atmosphere of that.

It's really a bottle episode, but while it's mostly the Doctor running round the ship, they also have some fun with various special effects, from his leap through the office window in Sickbay, to running up the wall and flipping over Tuvok, to a Holodeck full of Doctors, they didn't hold back and had some fun (to the extent I kept thinking of 'The Matrix' and sequels, which was only two years old at the date of this production, while the sequels had yet to arrive - in both cases the effects were less realistic seeing them nowadays, but it was the intent and use that worked). I'm not entirely sure on the tone of the episode, whether it veers too much into comedy when there's a strong undercurrent of horror and creepiness, or if it should have been even more broad (the Doctor's deathbed confession would fit plum into that category!). Right from the first scene in which the Doc sings opera while piloting the Flyer (and we also learn he's writing a paper and taking holo-photos at the same time), a sprightly, energetic pace flows throughout, while also setting the humorous style, in keeping with the Doc's personality. It could just as easily have been played more sinister from the moment 'Janeway' turns on Chakotay to hypospray him and the First Officer isn't strong enough to push 'her' arm away since it's really the Doctor in disguise and holograms have seemingly no limit to their strength as it's merely programming (although later that's called into question as the Doc grapples with the Hierarchy alien and holds him at an impasse without being able to overpower him - they must have dense muscular structure in their large potato-head bodies that test a hologram's limits).

The sets are quite murky throughout which only adds to the sense of foreboding and uncertainty, with Janeway highly suspicious right away, returning from a mission and summarily deciding the only option is to settle on an M-class world, though that creepiness is stripped away quite early when we learn the Doctor is in control of his actions, he's only trying to save his Captain's life by obeying the instructions of their captors. Again, the tone isn't sure of itself as the Hierarchy were very much comedic villains in the Ferengi vein, and while it's nice to have an established 'Voyager' species be behind the villainy (we learn they like mud baths, which was fitting!), there is some question over whether they have the cachet to cause real harm to trained Starfleet officers, especially when there's only two of them. The lead is the only true villain, the other guy was more of a tinkerer whose skills were being exploited and along with the simple desire to get some cash together in order to open a used parts shop since he loves fixing things - incidentally, although Janeway was trying to get on his side by suggesting they could purchase his entire inventory, I don't think she quite understood he wouldn't want to sell everything, he'd want to potter around in an acquired location, make a name for himself as a fixer of old parts and so on, it wasn't just the selling that interested him, but he never has a chance to respond to her offer before his boss or partner intervenes. Still, the Hierarchy would provide a suitable opponent to the Doctor, whom, for all his abilities, can still be quite naive.

We'll have to lay it down to that, that he failed to trust his friends enough to find a way to warn them about their Captain's situation. I know he was being watched all the time, everything he saw and heard was relayed back, but surely he could have found a way to alert them somehow (as with the musical clue). I rather think it was more to do with that worrying attitude he displayed at the start when saying how he used to wish he could be flesh and blood, but came to the conclusion holograms are superior. It's a concerning admission, especially because it seems to be a recurring belief among holograms - we'd seen such examples as Dejaren in 'Revulsion' who killed his entire crew because he was disgusted by organic life, and the holograms the Hirogen fought in 'Flesh and Blood' had similar beliefs about themselves. But the scene between the Doctor and Janeway is played humorously, it's just the same old pomposity we've grown to love in him, and yet I also felt there was room for exploration of that theme - to some degree you could say it was explored in the sense that the Doctor needs the help of his 'inferior' organic fellows and is unable to win out alone, as might have been the outcome if showing holographic superiority were the goal. Strangely, it's his humanity that actually betrays him because he does take it all on himself and does a good job of tricking people for some time (a bit like Data in 'Brothers' where he takes over the Enterprise, except that was overt rather than clandestine), but ultimately slips up.

If he'd been coldly logical and computer-like he may have carried it on longer, but either way he's betrayed by his manipulator. Whenever someone tells you to lower your shields you have to have a bad feeling - when the alien villain gives him that order it made me think of Kirk doing the same to Khan in 'Star Trek II' ("Here it comes"). I did wonder when they decide to send a shuttle after the aliens and the Flyer, why not use all the shuttles and pursue with an attack fleet? For that matter we don't actually know how many they have aboard and have always liked to keep it vague (unlike 'DS9' where you could just about keep track of the Runabouts' fortunes over the years, which were all named), and perhaps it wouldn't have been stealthy enough, but it is interesting that we don't see Starfleet use their shuttles like fighters - could be budgetary reasons, but I like to think it's because the shuttles aren't considered offensive weapons, like a Tricorder they're there to perform sensor scans and other non-invasive necessities, and I like that. It's not about fitting heavy weapons on and blasting enemies out of the space-lanes, although in this case they could've done with all the firepower they could muster.

There isn't all that much room for development, but even this late in the day we learn the Doctor wishes he could socialise more with the Captain, citing her dinners with Chakotay and playing Velocity with Seven (which I think we only saw once in Season 4), as signs of her behaviour with others. It makes sense for him to have an individual connection with Janeway since he is the Chief Medical Officer and you could say that even after all these years there is some unconscious bias about him, but it's more that he's very sensitive and Janeway has a lot to deal with, it's not a normal situation being stuck in the Delta Quadrant for years. Still, it ends the episode on a happy note when Janeway takes him up on his suggestion - I also like that rather than the usual dressing down he'd earned by disobeying her orders and thinking he knew best, she punishes him by denying access to his mobile emitter for a week, and as he's been reclusive in Sickbay for that time, he's already served the punishment. I do think there was something to be played with Seven in all this - it's ironic, isn't it, that she's really taken quite a back seat over the season, especially the second half and in recent episodes has been mostly background, but in this one it felt like there should be some response to the Doctor's declaration of love for her. It was done in a theatrical way while he thinks he's dying, but it was so sensitively handled in 'Someone To Watch Over Me' that I can't help feel it was not quite right to throw it out there in front of her and the others, and they were only doing it because there'd be not time for repercussions. But a scene in which she shows up in Sickbay and sets things right again would have been appropriate.

Chakotay, Tuvok and B'Elanna all benefit in this one, characters too often overlooked - we even get a shot of Torres not pregnant as a little gag since unlike other times (Season 4), or characters (Kira), she was playing pregnant, but actually wasn't so they could do that, the only time we see her that way in the season. I do have to ask why the crew have holo-templates of themselves in the first place, that seems a very strange idea. I could understand if the Doctor had tapped into the leftovers of the Maquis program or something similar, but no mention was made and it appeared they simply have templates of themselves in the ship's database. Creepy! Though necessary for the story, I suppose. Another idea that barely had any airing was how the 'R'Kaal' were anti-warp travel as they believed it damaged subspace, an issue dealt with on 'TNG,' then never mentioned again, but the rationale (non-canon I suppose, since it was never mentioned onscreen), for Voyager's Warp Nacelles angled up for warp travel was a direct answer to the problems discussed in 'Force of Nature' and this would have been the perfect time to make that canon and give insight into a key ship's system in its penultimate appearance, but at the same time the story wasn't relevant because the R'Kaal were an invention of the Doctor. It was fun to see the Warp Core eject (though I think it'd been done before), though it must have been a budgetary constraint that they fail to show a Core-less Engineering when scenes are there post-ejection - we view the angle from the Core's POV.

I considered it should be more difficult for the EMH to become the ECH, Emergency Command Hologram, than the Doctor ordering it without any authorisation from Janeway since he'd be a major security risk if anyone tampered with him, but the point of it is so that if the Captain is somehow incapacitated he can take over (even though there is a hierarchy, which is the whole point...), but then it was generally a little bit of amusement and a touch hard to take the Doctor being in command seriously (as we saw last time with Kim). The horror aspect of the Doctor going around knocking people out, impersonating them and then hiding their bodies in the Morgue (have we see that location before?), then collecting their Combadges together like trophies, could have been played up quite uncomfortably, but since we knew the Doctor was in the right it couldn't be, so that was a small flaw. Maybe it'd have been better to keep the tension and not let on what was happening until later. One thing Janeway got right was suggesting the Doctor would outlive them all, and according to 'Starfleet Academy' (the series that finally broke the back of modern Trek, and which I have yet to see), he survived a thousand years!

I suspected it wasn't Robert Picardo in the Hierarchy makeup when they give him the potato-head skin to infiltrate their own planet and use him for other nefarious criminal activities, since it was unnecessary and would take time for Picardo to get in the makeup - it's confirmed in the end credits with J.R. Quinonez noted as 'Overseer/Doctor' (who also appeared uncredited as Kol in 'The Price' on 'TNG,' apparently). It was another actor, David Sparrow, playing the R'Kaal alien the Doctor impersonated. As well as being Alexander Enberg's final appearance as Vorik the Vulcan (and indeed his last part in all of Trek), and Tarik Ergin getting a rare credit (Tactical N.D. - usually stands for Non-Dialogue, except he definitely spoke, but he usually appeared in blue, though I'm sure he also showed up in gold, so either he fulfils multiple roles in various departments, or it's a case of Mr. Leslie in 'TOS' and there's more than one of him!), we also have another returning face as Andy Milder played Nar, one of the Hierarchy aliens - he couldn't have been more unrecognisable from his previous role as Boq'ta in 'Empok Nor' from 'DS9,' the Bolian quite thin and small, while Nar was as burly as all the other potato-heads we'd seen, though they were both gentle, concerned types.

If you don't mind the uneven tone and just go with the comedy, and you're not concerned about 'wasting' a precious story on what amounts to a 'mere' bottle episode without the dignity of allowing a seven-year series to wind down, this is great fun and continued to demonstrate the quality of action and adventure they could achieve. It was clever in that while the Doctor is the focus, another character to be noted for taking more than his fair share of the limelight over the years, they found a way to make sure other characters were more involved thanks to the impersonations. For that reason I would say it stands the test of time, and even while the CGI isn't quite right at times, provided a good ensemble story to finish a season that can be maligned and in general isn't as strong as the last few (as is usually the case with final seasons). The Doctor is a ham, but he shows he can also act subtly if the stakes are high enough, and they were high for him with the protection of Janeway. Loyal to the end, a hologram is a Captain's best friend.

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