Star Trek: Voyager — 3x22 — Real Life

Aired 1997-04-23

SpaceOpera.com rating:6

Average reader rating:4.91

Synopsis

The Doctor experiences family life.

Remarkable scenes

The doctor's "ridiculously perfect" family and Torres' reaction.
Tom hitting on Torres.
Tom getting sucked into the space anomaly.
The death of the doctor's holographic daughter.

Review

The doctor chooses another name in this episode. This time it's "Kenneth". I guess the events of the episode make it seem pretty obvious why he doesn't stick with this name either. One wonders how Torres could be so cruel to the doctor as to program up something like that. The episode would have been better if Torres' involvement in it hadn't ceased immediately after she reprogrammed the doctor's family. Overall, it's very moving in the end, and I enjoyed the anomaly of the week plot too. But the distinct lack of real consequences leaves one sort of unsatisfied.

4 reader comments

I cannot stand these 'holodeck emotional attachment' stories. None of these characters are real… they aren't sentient, they're just 3-D video game characters. I don't understand why anyone would get so invested in a simulation that they wouldn't just "reset program" when its not going the way they want. I have the same problems when Fair Haven comes into the picture later. None of the emotional struggles people seem to have with these make-believe characters makes any sense to me, so I can never get into the emotions of the story.
by Rob Gnow | 04/26/2008 at 7:52 pm

Yet look at how passionate some people are in discussing their favourite Star Trek characters. They are no more real to viewers than holodeck characters are to the crew - indeed, perhaps less so, as it is possible to directly interact with holodeck characters in a way we cannot with TV characters.
Should we discard any episode dealing with the Doctor as he is not "real" and thus nobody should care about events involving him? Are any scenes suggesting the crew has an emotional attachment to the Doctor inherently meaningless and silly?
Further, in this episode, the focus of this episode is on the family's impact on the Doctor, rather than the family themselves. If holodeck characters are a tool to develop main characters, that seems quite a useful purpose for them.
by Nicholas Donaghy | 05/07/2008 at 4:41 am

I always used to complain that TNG was a soap opera. Well, this tear-jerker is more soap opera than All My Children. It's well-done, but it's still a soap opera. I have some new names for this series: As the Voyager Turns All My Voyagers Voyagers Hope Secret Voyager Days of Our Voyager The Young and the Voyager Guiding Voyager Another Voyager
by thaibites | 04/20/2014 at 2:24 pm

Can anyone claim they don't feel anything at all when reading a depressing story? People get upset when their favourite characters from a book or TV series die, so I find it perfectly logical that The Doctor would be devastated after these events. He was quite emotionally invested in the program.
Kethinov, in your review you're calling Torres cruel, but I'm not sure you understood that she only added some randomized behaviour to the characters. The development of the family could've gone in any direction. I'm quite sure she did not plan the dramatic end of the program.
by Sylvain | 04/14/2015 at 10:43 pm