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| The Doctor's head gets a bit swollen... |
Original Air Date: Jan. 26, 2000. Written by: Raf Green, Kenneth Biller. Directed by: Les Landau.
THE PLOT:
After accidentally damaging an alien ship with routine sensor scans, Voyager takes the other crew aboard to treat their injuries. Or, at least, to attempt to treat them. The Qomar are a technologically advanced race, and they sneer at Voyager's primitive technology and rebel at the prospect of being treated by the holographic Doctor.
Then he begins singing, probably to relieve his own stress at the torrent of abuse... and the Qomar are enchanted. They have no music on their world, and they are spellbound by the way it makes artistic, expressive use of mathematical concepts. The Doctor reports this to Janeway, who arranged a concert for their passengers. Various members of the crew perform (including, for some reason, Harry Kim) - but the only one the Qomar want to hear is the Doctor.
When they arrive at the Qomar's planet, they arrange for the Doctor to perform at their largest lecture hall, even making modifications to it for the sake of his performance. He's an instant hit, and he finds himself treated as a celebrity, with Qomar cutting their hair to imitate his baldspot and with a pair of pretty young groupies feigning illness to ask him if he's ever "balanced simultaneous equations?"
Then Tincoo (Kamala Lopez-Dawson), a Qomar the Doctor has grown close to, asks him to stay with them. Leaving him to seriously consider resigning his Starfleet commission...
CHARACTERS:
Capt. Janeway: Her first impulse is to decline the Doctor's request, noting that the ship can't replace its Emergency Medical Hologram. She tries to reason with him, pointing out that "fame is often temporary" and that the Qomar's tastes will inevitably change. But when he digs in and points out that she would certainly grant the same request, in the same circumstances, to any of the organic crew members, she accedes to his wishes and authorizes him to leave.
The Doctor: Just one episode ago, the Doctor spent years integrating himself into the culture of the slow-time planet and, when yanked away from a life and family he formed there, he accepted the situation and returned to his duties. In this episode, he's ready to chuck those same duties for the sake of the adulation of people he's just met. Robert Picardo's performance just about makes it work anyway. The Doctor's initial impatience with Qomar is amusing, his brief case of pre-show jitters is relatable, and Picardo absolutely sells the Doctor's emotional final performance for the Qomar. The problem is, the character is reduced entirely to his ego, when his sense of duty and dedication to medicine has always been at least as strong.
Torres: B'Elanna takes an episode off from despising Seven for little reason in order to be mean to the Doctor instead. While he's arranging for the Qomar to modify their lecture hall for his performance, she takes every opportunity to make digs. Never mind that, at this point in the story, Voyager is benefitting from this arrangement, and that her behavior actually makes the organic crew - whom the Qomar openly view as "inferior" - look worse to the aliens than they did already.
Seven of Nine: At least Seven is in character. When the ship gets a deluge of transmissions from the planet, the high volume of "irrelevant data" makes her suspect an attack. Janeway has to explain that it's just fan mail, a concept that leaves Seven utterly bewildered. She is genuinely hurt about the Doctor's desire to leave the ship, but it's clear that her anger comes from a fear of losing her friend, and she's quick to show her own appreciation of him when he ends up returning to his duties.
THOUGHTS:
OK, what is up with the Voyager crew in this episode? Yes, the Doctor's head swells threefold once the aliens start treating him like a star. But the crew members don't react the way you would to a friend who's suddenly become full of himself; they respond as if they outright hate him.
I've already mentioned B'Elanna. But for all of Janeway's protests about being a "friend," she doesn't give the Doctor a few days to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime treatment. Instead, she upbraids him for neglecting his duties... which would be appropriate if there were any actual patients in sickbay, but the only people there are a pair of groupies whose attentions (amusingly) prompt him to "deactivate Emergency Medical Hologram." The only crew members who treat the Doctor like friends are Tom, who takes the whole situation in stride, and Seven, who is hurt by his desire to stay with his new fans.
To be clear, Virtuoso isn't a bad episode. Most of the comedy is at least amusing, and Les Landau directs with his usual steady hand. I quite enjoyed the visual of the Doctor "signing" miniature holograms of himself for the Qomar, his big head singing alongside the mini hologram (naturally, Janeway accuses him of unauthorized replicator use to create these without even bothering to check where they came from. Because she's a pod person this week).
Robert Picardo is the episode's biggest asset. After the first Act, the Doctor's arrogance becomes genuinely annoying, something he showcases, but he skillfully avoids making the Doctor unlikable. It helps that the script follows his most overbearing moment (in which he calls Janeway, "Katherine") with two relatable scenes showing the character being insecure and anxious.
Picardo is particularly good in the musical scenes, acting and singing simultaneously in ways that display the Doctor's own feeling. His final performance for the Qomar is also the episode's single best scene, and that's mainly due to Picardo's emotional singing and acting of it.
OVERALL:
Virtuoso had the potential to be one of the better episodes of an above-average season. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the out-of-character behavior of several regulars, including the Doctor himself. The problem isn't that I didn't believe he'd stay with the Qomar - He's a regular and this is a mid-season episode, of course he wasn't staying. The problem is that I never for an instant believed that he really wanted to stay.
The good scenes, both comedic and dramatic, just about keep it afloat. But I can't escape feeling that, if only the regulars were scripted to behave like themselves through the whole episode, then this would have been much, much better.
Overall Rating: 5/10.
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