S7 E20: Author, Author

The Doctor has written a new holonovel, and is going to get it published on earth. Paris talks him into letting him proofreadplay it, and discovers that it is essentially a manifesto on holographic rights... the only problem is it casts thinly disguised alter-egos of the crew as the maniacal bigots. Paris shows it to the rest of the crew, and Janeway confronts the Doctor about it. He is defensive, saying it wasn't meant to be the Voyager crew, and is further outraged when Paris tries to convince him by pranking him with a holonovel about an ego-crazed doctor. Neelix eventually talks him down, but it is too late; though he asks his publisher not to distribute his program before he can make his edits, the guy cites the fact that the Doctor, as a hologram, does not have any rights and publishes it anyways. Tuvok is tasked with running the Doctor's defense across the quadrants, and a Federation judge, while he won't make the ruling that the Doctor is necessarily sentient, will rule that he has possession over his own creation.

Every time the issue of hologram rights and treatment comes up, I write here a reaction along the lines of "didn't we already do this?" Well, it has been done, but the issue of how the Federation will deal with it was only briefly touched upon in Life Line, and it wasn't a pretty picture. Since I doubt we'll get much in the way of post-return fallout in the series, I suppose it is reasonable to front-load it here.

Still, for someone who has become so obsessed with social protocol, it is really strange that the Doctor would be so self-centered that he would portray his friends the way he does in his program. He's smarter than that. He's more insightful than the counter-arguments he's been given in this episode's dialogue. My wife pointed out that he's doing the thing that he complained about so stirringly in Living Witness by revising his history aboard Voyager. Sure, it's in the service of a noble cause (the one about hologram's rights, not the one about proving to everyone how awesome he is), but it was uncomfortable seeing the Doctor behave the way he did here.

The novel itself, and Paris' parody, are highly entertaining though. The caricatures are a delight - Chakotay is a Bajoran, with a huge, colorful facial tattoo, Paris is a womanizer with a mustache, Kim is a hypochondriac Trill, Tuvok is a goateed thug, Seven is some kind of techno-wiccan and his only ally, and Janeway is a cold-blooded, pistol-collecting captain who executes a patient that the Doctor wanted to treat. Only Neelix escapes parody, because he kind of already is a hamster. The verbal duel between the Doctor and Paris, once Paris has shown him his parody, is effectively emotionally charged and interesting to watch. Neelix once again gets to be the level-headed one too, I'm always happy to see that.

Where this episode really hits its stride though is with the Doctor's unscrupulous publisher. You know, the guy who will spread a call to arms about hologram's rights by citing a hologram's lack of rights? Maybe he thinks he is behaving morally, and this little stunt of his will draw more attention to the Doctor's situation. This part added a very much needed level of complexity to the proceedings, forcing the crew into supporting the rights of a guy who everyone in the alpha quadrant knows has written a piece that defames their character. Taking that stance not only shows their support for him, but mitigates claims that his program is an accurate representation of his life on Voyager. So, in a way, it is both complex and tidy.

The courtroom scenes in the last third of the episode seem somewhat perfunctory; this is presumably where the big issue of the episode will be hashed out, but it turns into something smaller. I can't really blame the Federation judge for not ruling with broad strokes in the Doctor's case. He's still a coward, but the ramifications of holographic rights in a society where holodecks are so prolific are huuuuge. Sure, they could limit the language to only include self-aware holograms, but where does that line get drawn? That issue is going to take a lot of time to hammer out, and I can only imagine that the Federation will take the same tactic that they did with genetic engineering. Since the Federation doesn't like playing God ever (see: the prime directive as well), I'd bet they'll outlaw the creation of new sentient holograms, at least temporarily. Just some interesting stuff we'll probably never get into in this show.

Then there are the calls to home. The crew is now able to have real-time conversations with people in the alpha quadrant, three minutes at a time. Kim's is the most needless: his overbearing parents complain about his lack of promotion and tell him they plan to send a letter to Janeway. Bleh. Seven talks to her aunt; that one's a bit awkward, which I suppose is understandable, but kind of crowded the episode. Torres' conversation is with her estranged dad, and is a nice follow up to Lineage. And, for some reason, Paris never talks to his dad.

Watchability: 5/5

Bottom Line: Overall this episode is thoughtful and interesting, but I ended it still feeling frustrated by the Doctor's behavior. The coda to it is perfect though: the action moves to a Federation mining station, where old EMH mark ones are being used as slave labor - exactly the situation described by Guinan in The Measure of a Man. While this episode may not compete on the same level as that one, it still has its moments.