S5 S08: Nothing Human

Voyager responds to an indecipherable distress call, and rescues a lone slithering bug thing. The bug assaults Torres, wrapping around her and integrating itself into her systems. The Doctor's exobiology skills are not up to the task of removing it, so with Kim's help he conjures up a hologram based on a famour exobiologist to help him: a Cardassian named Crell Moset. Torres is uncomfortable with a Cardassian helping, but the Doctor takes an immediate liking to him. When the program malfunctions, a Bajoran engineering staffer, Tabor, helps reactivate him, but immediately recognizes him as the man who performed brutal experiments on Bajorans to further his groundbreaking research. Torres is now certain that she doesn't want him helping the Doctor, and refuses any assistance whatsoever. Paris and Chakotay debate the issue in the briefing room, but Janeway makes the executive decision that, as the captain, Torres' life is her responsibility, and she wants whatever means are necessary to be used. The operation is a success, but the Doctor chooses to delete Moset's program and research afterwards. Torres is furious that Janeway did not respect her wishes, but rather than cite executive privilege, Janeway decides that it is best to taunt and insult her.

I'm frustrated by the set-up for the moral dilemma here. Rather than use a delta quadrant person, so they could actually have the real criminal aboard the ship, we have an imperfect facsimile. It isn't really Moset helping them: he could easily have been put in a different skin and fitted with a different personality profile. The obvious parallel is Jetrel, which was anchored in "reality" by having the actual guy there, and his presence having an effect on a major member of the cast. The element of the Doctor's initial aloofness to the possibility of a problem with a Cardassian helps make the dilemma seem less contrived, but it still feels like a stretch to me.

The fact that it is this easy to create a competent holographic crew member has weird implications too; the Doctor is different because he is the culmination of years of effort, and he is still imperfect. But if you can just go around creating brilliant holograms as the result of thirty seconds of messing with the computer, why have people? And then there's the fact that Kim's prowess here is explicitly contrary to his attempts to recreate the Doctor in Message in a Bottle. In terms of continuity, though, there is at least the precedent from The Swarm that it wouldn't be easy to just dump the exobiology knowledge into the Doctor instead.

All of that said, I love Crell Moset. Well, I'm stricken with love for the Cardassians in general, and my affection for Moset could probably be seen as a symptom of that malady. His characterization is perfect: his slyly genial demeanor, his endearing arrogance (which makes him quite the match for the Doctor), he is not a carbon copy of any specific Cardassian personalities that we're familiar with while still fitting the mold comfortably.

Now, while Moset's hologrammatical nature here separates him from the story somewhat, the show does benefit by not making the moral dilemma be "was Crell Moset a good guy?" The episode assumes we're all on the same page that klling some people so that others can be treated is not okay, and I think that's a fair assumption. Moset still gets a little time on the soapbox to remind us that not everyone is okay with animal testing, but these are essentially two moral dilemmas in play here: (A) can we, in good conscience, benefit from research that was performed unethically and (B) should we give life-sustaining treatment to someone who refuses it?

In terms of (A), I'm not sure I agree with the Doctor. I certainly don't agree with Moset's methods, and think that individuals engaging in them should be stopped and punished, but the pragmatist in me considers it to be an injustice to the people who died under his scalpel to throw away what he learned from them. Tabor may think differently, and he's welcome to do so, but to block out life-saving knowledge just because it had been unethically obtained is also an injustice to anyone who could be saved using it. But what is good about this episode is that the characters engage in open, honest debate about it, and it is accepted that neither course of action is 100% right and just. That's a win right there.

Moral dilemma (B) is perhaps even more charged, especially since Janeway goes against the laws we have in place in our society today. If you want to, you can refuse treatment. If you're a Jehovah's Witness and you present into an emergency room after sustaining a serious traumatic injury, losing copious amounts of blood, and the only way I can save your life is to give you blood, but you refuse it because it is against your religion, there's nothing I can do. I just have to let you go, knowing I've sent you home to die when I could have saved your life. I have come to terms with that, since a person's autonomy is very important to me.

That said, I completely accept Janeway's actions here. She is not the captain of a ship of civilians. She needs Torres alive so she can keep her ship running. If this were a non-military situation, I'd probably think differently, but since Torres is subservient to her, a member of her crew, I feel that she is justified in going against her wishes. She gave both sides of the argument a chance to express themselves, shut down the debate when it was clear it was going nowhere, and made an executive decision. I like that too. Janeway, at her best, is at least very decisive. Her good leadership quality is that she does know the value of taking action. And that is not to say that she doesn't weigh her options, or reflect upon them afterwards, just that she doesn't hem and haw over a tough choice.

There, I've said something nice about Janeway. I was feeling really quite non-negatively about her during this episode, right up until the last scene, where she elicits Torres' feelings on the matter. She asks Torres how she is feeling; Torres, who is in her room meditating rather than turning into a rabid Klingon and ripping out Janeway's throat with her bare teeth. And when Torres tells her she's angry, she has the gall to insult her and tell her she's wrong to feel that way. This is Janeway at her worst. She is not big enough to accept that people are not going to agree with her on everything. Her arrogance is so overpowering that it is only rivaled by the insecurity that drives her to try to bend everyone to thinking her way on everything. This is why she cannot resist an "I told you so," this is why she has to feel better than everyone by acting condescendingly to them. Enjoy your #9 spot on the season review character lists, Janeway; since Neelix's ascension, there's no one who could even hope to challenge you for it.

Watchability: 5/5

Bottom Line: Despite my misgivings about the set-up and Janeway's meltdown at the end, this is a good, well-rounded, limitedly preachy episode.