Star Trek: Voyager — 5x11 — Latent Image

Aired 1999-01-20

SpaceOpera.com rating:7

Average reader rating:6.66

Synopsis

The Doctor has memory problems.

Remarkable scenes

I love the way the doctor set up his holocamera to record whoever was tampering with his program.
The doctor confronting the bridge crew regarding the "conspiracy."
Seven of Nine's philosophical discussion with Janeway.
Harry regarding the doctor's decision to beam the alien back to his ship: "You should have beamed him into space."
The doctor beginning to freak out in his flashback.
The doctor beginning to freak out after the flashback.
The doctor: "The more I think about it, the more I realize there's nothing I could have done differently." Janeway: "What do you mean?" The doctor: "The primordial atom burst. Sending out its radiation, setting everything in motion. One particle collides with another, gasses expand, planets contract, and before you know it, we've got starships, and holodecks, and chicken soup. In fact, you can't help but have starships, holodecks, and chicken soup because it was all determined 20 billion years ago!"
The doctor reading from La Vita Nuova: "In that book which is my memory, on the first page of the chapter, that is the day when I first met you, appear the words, 'here begins a new life.'"

Review

Another strong episode, the doctor discovers that his program has been tampered with. When he finds out, he realizes it was to erase memories of his that were causing him to act irrationally. The episode touches on two moral conflicts, one on when two people's lives are equally in danger but you can only save one of them, which do you pick? The second regarding when you know a person who is participating in self destructive behavior, do you intervene? The episode is very successful in exploring these concepts, but it is somewhat weak in the overall premise of the plot. Consider that Ensign Ahni Jetal had been on the ship for at least three years. Wouldn't somebody have slipped up and mentioned her to the doctor? Well, fortunately another cover up is avoided, and Janeway decides to treat the doctor less like a malfunctioning replicator and more like a person.

4 reader comments

You missed some huge technical problems. The premise is that there is a ship-wide conspiracy to hide facts from the Doctor. If so, why does Harry Kim make things worse by denying knowledge of his surgery? Wouldn't he instead come up with a plausible alternative explanation? His response did nothing but increase the Doctor's curiosity. Likewise, why did Seven restore the Doctor's missing holoprojector files? She also simply makes things worse. Either they were not in on the cover-up (and how could Harry not be?) or they were incredibly inept. And the most inept is Capt. Janeway. Not a likely scenario. Altogether a very flawed and illogical episode.
by Jeff Browning | 09/07/2011 at 12:52 am

What was the point of this episode? The ending was flat and kind of a let down. It seems like they're saying it's a new beginning for the doctor, but if watch the next episode, he's still the same condescending, egotistical, smarmy, know-it-all jerk that he usually is. So…………I repeat, "What's the point of this episode?" The doctor hasn't changed or grown for his experiences here, so why should we care? This whole episode is just pointless.
by thaibites | 11/30/2014 at 9:43 am

I love the scene where the Doctor tells Janeway about his discovery that he performed surgery on Harry. They're both so casual about it!
This episode unfolded in a really spectacular fashion. Very well written!
by Dstyle | 07/07/2015 at 2:42 pm

IMO one has to view these type of series with an opened eye. There's a part of this episode which is simply art. And what art is all about is making you feel something. Despite all the technicalities and flaws in this episode, the important part to consider is that, for the first time, the doctor made and irracional decision, and has to confront all the feelings that decision holds for him. In this episode we see the doctor, a hologram, dealing with really hard feelings, attempting to make sense of some new part of his existance which just doesn't make sense. The irracionality of the human emotions. Reminds me a little of data feeling like sh*t for not being able to save geordi in First Contact. This one has art written all over it. I give this episode a 9, wonderful.
by Martin | 04/16/2016 at 8:29 pm