Star Trek: Voyager — 3x18 — Darkling

Aired 1997-02-19

SpaceOpera.com rating:3

Average reader rating:4.15

Synopsis

The Doctor turns violent.

Remarkable scenes

The doctor consorting with holographic historical figures.
The doctor displaying odd behavior to Torres.
The doctor's fire assault. Clever, seeing as how he can't be burned. :)
Torres explaining to the doctor that by integrating personalities of historical figures, he also acquired the "dark" traits of their personality as well, explaining his odd behavior.
The evil doctor torturing Torres.
Evil doctor regarding the doctor: "What a hollow excuse for a life."
The holograms of historical figures after being tortured by the evil doctor.
Kes: "What you're doing is wrong." The evil doctor: "Not at all! It's working perfectly!"
The mid air beam up.

Review

A largely unremarkable episode. The doctor is once again yelled at for tweaking his program and causing it to glitch; one wonders why he keeps attempting this if he keeps screwing it up. Kes broke up with Neelix in Voy: Warlord and finds a way to fall in love at first sight with alien of the week. She eventually realizes such a relationship is a bad idea and opts not to leave the ship; all very predictable. The evil doctor was overly cliched and the focus of the episode was too much on interpersonal relationships and too less about the doctor's struggle to improve himself at all costs. Having said all that, there were many scenes to redeem this episode, even if it was flawed somewhat in premise and execution.

11 reader comments

Kes could easily remove Doctors mobile emitter in transporter room..
by Dejan | 12/17/2007 at 11:54 am

Perhaps I missed something, but as far as I can tell it was not Kes that broke it off with Neelix in 3x10 Warlord - it was that controlling entity Teiran. I assumed after Teiran was defeated/exorcised, that Kes and Neelix were back together. I was taken aback seeing her rub up on an alien of the week.
by JR | 06/04/2012 at 12:58 am

^ I thought that as well, I kept expecting to see them back together
by Psycroptic | 08/28/2012 at 8:03 pm

The 'Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde' episode.
I like this episode, for several reasons. And Picardo really do carry the part well. For example when his evil self tell Kes how much he 'hate him' - the nice version of the doctor. The trek up on the mountain side really hints of the kind of scenario we were shown in the old kind of horror movies as Dr Jekkyl and Hyde belong to.
Even so one have to admit that this is one of the more average episodes, and admittedly a filler.
by TheAnt | 10/09/2013 at 10:33 pm

Something that is quite bothersome, and it's present all over SF shows: almost all alien species, in all the corners of the galaxy, have the same basic ways of expressing affection/attraction: kissing, touching faces, etc. Why? The only exception that comes to mind is the Vulcan hand touch, but even that was neglected with the new (Abrams) Star Trek. It shows a disappointing lack of imagination, and a missed opportunity to challenge our assumptions in interesting ways.
by zooky | 12/23/2013 at 10:30 pm

Zook, it's all part of Trek's remarkable take on convergent evolution. Most intelligent life is humanoid. Humanoid life all share a great deal of anatomical features due to convergent evolution. As such, all humanoid life expresses love (and other emotions) in similar ways, also due to convergent evolution.
by Eric Newport | 12/24/2013 at 7:59 pm

Kethinov, I think this explanation would make sense if behavior were determined on a strictly biological basis; as we all know, that is not the case. Also, it would not explain the Vulcan hand touch. Unless it's different for touch-telepathic species, like the Vulcans. But then again, Kes is also a telepath…
by zooky | 12/24/2013 at 10:54 pm

Of course it's all biology. Emotional states, psychological conditions, even Vulcan telepathy, it's all from the brain, which is biology. And since Star Trek is asserting that most aliens are very much like us (by being humanoid) then it's reasonable to assume that they experience all these things in a sufficiently analogous way.
by Eric Newport | 12/25/2013 at 3:15 am

Not to drag the conversation on too long, but I should point out that the view you just expressed is not immediately obvious, and needs justification. It's an interesting question to ask whether all human behavior can be reduced to biology, or if there is also a cultural component. There is evidence for the latter, since groups of the same species (so with identical biology) develop quite different customs, behaviors and sets of values. It's not only plausible, but much more probable, that different species will be even more different in their inter-personal conventions, even if they are part of some convergent evolution narrative.
by zooky | 12/25/2013 at 3:50 am

I totally agree that it's not immediately obvious and should have been explained by the show at some point. Unfortunately, it's one of the Star Trek franchise's many unstated premises as I like to call it.
Fans have had to come up with their own off screen rationalizations to explain many things that are peculiar or counterintuitive for years. Probably the biggest one, which I think is a more generalized version of your question, is "why are all aliens mostly like humans?"
The official explanation is it's a TV show and bumpy foreheads are easier on the budget. The best in-universe explanation is convergent evolution. It's a shame the show never mentioned it (although there are hints of panspermia on occasion, which is helpful), but unfortunately that's all we've got! :)
by Eric Newport | 12/25/2013 at 6:22 am

TNG - The Chase is all about the discovery of the progenitor species who infected the alpha, beta, gamma and delta quadrants with their mitochondrial DNA, adding it in the primordial soup of thousands and thousands of planet.
This is explained by a hologram at the end (the actress who plays the female shapeshifter in DS9 plays the role) as a smoothed off less featured humanoid of the long distant past appears as the puzzle is solved, one of my favourite ST episode just for having the audacity to try and explain away the wrinkly forehead cheaper on the budget choice way back when it happened in a plausible enjoyable episode, very entertaining Klingons too like the meeting with Data in the mess hall.
Slight sidetrack there lol not like me hahahaha so we all look alike because we are all alike deep down where it matters.
With a little bit of nature vs nurture thrown in the mix.
Just incase anyone missed the anti racism message that Star Trek has carried in style since day one.
by Rob UK | 12/25/2013 at 5:51 pm