A lone Vidiian woman (Denara Pel) is rescued by Voyager, but is dying. To buy time, the Doctor downloads her brain (via a neural implant she already had) into the computer and creates a holographic version of her - without the effects of the phage. She is amazed by her new, temporary (the computer can only hold her brain for about a week) life, and she and the Doctor fall in love. At first, Denara doesn't want to go back to her old body, but the Doctor ultimately convinces her that she is being selfish/shortsighted.
For about the first fifteen minutes of this episode, I was very excited. It was shaping up to be the Vidiian episode I was hoping for: the humanizing of a species that, up to this point, had just been used as creepy organ thieves with an interesting back story. In Denara, the writers had an opportunity to show a glimpse into the Vidiian's past, and perhaps give themselves at least a more complex villain. She does offer some insights: from her responses, it seems that not all Vidiians are "sick." I find it unlikely that a civilization whose self-preservation instinct is so violently at the forefront of their motives would allow the sick to mingle with the unaffected, but that they would be quarantined, exiled, or at worst, killed. Instead, I imagine that there are people for whom the infection is dormant for longer, which fits with what Denara tells us here, and allows for some interesting "shun the diseased" stories.
However, my hopes for this episode crumbled quickly as it degenerated from the Vidiian episode I always wanted to the Doctor episode I never wanted. I love Data, but In Theory remains one of my least favorite Trek episodes of all time. I can buy that the Doctor can form personal relationships, even that his "programming" would develop over time to allow him to form affections for others - but he's acting downright hormonal here. A discussion, perhaps as a B plot, of the distinctions between passionate love, companionate love, and what the Doctor is ultimately able to experience, could be interesting. Instead, we first have Kes giving the kind of trite talk you'd give a second grader about love being the ultimate joy and happy ending funtime (though I guess, to be fair, she is only two years old). On the other end, we have Paris giving the most by-the-book speech about lost love... it really feels like it is straight out of the "bitter friend of the male protagonist in a romantic comedy" bible. I don't have any interest in watching those movies; I have even less interest in watching them invade my science fiction TV shows.
Perhaps another thing that is at work here is the Generations effect. Very often in Trek, the unemotional/non-human characters are the butt of the joke, the ones who other characters smile condescendingly at while telling them that their logic/programming/whatever can't give them all the answers. But these characters, the Datas, the Spocks, they are far and away the most popular people from their shows (well, at least with me, but fan polls I've seen tend to agree). They are unflappable, they take the abuse, and end up being the more noble beings for it. And then you have Generations, where Data gets his emotion chip, and is reduced to a blubbering, useless pile of cowardry. He finally got what he wanted, what you wanted for him, and now he is just as bad, no, worse than you. The Doctor gets some of that here. He's emotional in the first place (which is nice, since it gives a different potential direction for his character), but he is a professional. He gets the job done, and is quite delightfully arrogant about it. He pretty clearly thinks that he is better than humans (I'm thinking in particular of the flu plot), and you know what? I think he's right. But here, he is diminished, lessened by the writers, and it bothers me.
Um, so, yeah, B-plots. Jonas grows a backbone, and manages to talk directly with Seska. She wants him to sabotage the engines so that the Kazon can ambush the ship, and he is appropriately skeptical. This installment of this plot line makes a little more sense to me than the previous ones (in terms of motivations). Also, Paris is just outright being a jerk, insulting everyone, including Chakotay, and then gets thrown into the brig for assaulting him. Kind of uncomfortable, but I'll get into that more next time.
Watchability: 2/5
Bottom Line: I want to like a Vidiian episode, I do, but this wasn't it.
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