S2 E03: Projections

You know you're off to a good start when the Doctor is the only person left on the ship. Seems like there's been some sort of disastrous Kazon attack, and everyone but the Doctor abandoned ship. That kind of brings to mind the scene last season (in Prime Factors, I believe) where someone like Kes is gushing to the Doctor about how glad she is to be getting back to the Alpha Quadrant (I know, wtf?), and the Doctor quietly realizes that if the ship returns home, he won't be needed anymore. You get the same kind of feeling here, without it actually being mentioned - the Doctor's life would get very lonely under those circumstances.

The ship's sensors were malfunctioning, and there are a couple people left - Torres, Janeway, and Neelix. Behind the scenes Torres had been working on setting up holographic transmitters throughout the ship, and we get to see the Doctor being heroic in non-sickbay locales. At the same time, the crew isn't being picked up on the tricorders, so unfortunately we know pretty early that everything is an illusion. The next fifteen minutes are spent just twiddling our thumbs waiting for the other shoe to drop, and even the Doctor couldn't make it pass any faster. And then Barclay shows up.

Barclay is a character I have mixed feelings about. I like several of the episodes he's in, but the character himself is kind of annoying. I guess this episode is no exception. Barclay shows up and tells the Doctor that he is actually a real person (his creator, with whom Barclay works) trapped in a holodeck program. Not really the twist I was hoping for, but they get some good mileage out of it. Particularly when the Doctor realizes he can just delete "characters" he doesn't like - Paris is the first to go. Unfortunately, when he tries the same thing on Janeway, the holodeck is no longer responding to his commands (curses!).

Chakotay arrives now to tell him "no, you were right the first time, Voyager is real and this Barclay guy is lying to you. Just don't do anything, and things will be fine." The Doctor promptly engages in inaction, and the day is saved, but not without a kind of awkward "the alarm clock is going off waking you up from the dream where the alarm clock is going off" scene. I do really enjoy the reflective scene at the end in which the Doctor basically asks Kes why the episode was so silly. Voyager has had this kind of scene a couple times (well, the only one I can think of is State of Flux) and I think the self-awareness is endearing.

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: Tries to be an existential episode for the Doctor - but I like it better as a failure. We've kind of already done the Data thing, and I like that in this episode it was subtle enough to mostly ignore.