Voyager Reviewed! (by a pedant) S6E13: VIRTUOSO
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- Virtualoso, surely?
Character art by @anebulouspurpose on instagram.
/ anebulouspurpose
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Today's Thought Experiment: You're introducing an alien species to artistic expression. Whatever you choose may shape their entire culture. What piece of art, from any medium¹, will you be sharing with them?
¹No Rickrolling. We already did that on one planet and were forced to order an Exterminatus.
Japanese Minyo (Folk Music)
Mr blooby.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
Mr Tumble and him life's works. If only to get him off this planet and on to another one!
(Non joke answer is the collective works of earth's music. There is no finer expression of our species than what we pour into music)
Hasidic dancing. the choreography alone would entertain them for years
Being four-foot-eight myself, I immediately noticed and appreciated the species of aliens who were all a much more reasonable size than the average human.
The Pedant understands the underappreciated right of being left the fuck alone.
Very. Much. This.
For a few years it's been pretty damn hard to make me laugh, but you manage to do it at least once in every video. Thank you.
I appreciate how you said Jimmy Savile without saying Jimmy Savile.
Gary Glitter, John Peel, the one who did 'It's a Knockout'... At times it feels like there were more nonces in entertainment and politics than without. As a child of the *mumble* 's I remember there had even been a movement to legalise what they were doing, supported by quite respected and soon to be respected politicians.
5:30 Doc turns himself off with mobile emitter still attached.
Good catch! That implies either the computer voice controls work for (or can access) the mobile emitter, or his program is transferred to the sick bay holography systems when he enters. At least we see it fall from him. They've completely ignored it in a few episodes.
I feel like the matte painting is the Krenim colony that got time fucked by the first use of the sonic screwdriver ship
Not a Krenim colony, but a Zahl colony, it's the opening shot of Year of Hell.
lol I liked the cheeky reference to that, too. "this feels familiar!" I chuckled aloud at that one XD
It looks a lot like Cardassia to me
@@fatalshore5068 could be used for both. But I take it that The Pedant would have double checked that it was used in Voyager before referencing it.
I truth it was a CUNNING PLAN to drive engagement from all the people telling me where it was from¹.
¹I couldn't be arsed.
this episode is in my top 10 EMH episodes and although its not the final confrontation left with the doc's individuality its still a favorite of mine.
also, when the doctor said that any other crew member can leave at any time I feel like it was a nod to 37' when Janeway given the option for the crew to remain with those human colonies.
of course that's alongside the Warhead nod.
I also really liked the aliens, pretty much Vulcans with emotions and more logic
As a fan of the EMH, one of my favorite episodes ❤
As a musician, one of my favorite episodes 🎉
The gall to sing harmony with one's self in real time !
I do love this episode too, given its a Doc episode and feeds on his personally flaw of a having a big vanity streak. It was nice of Seven at the end to make him feel abit better.
What always struck me with this episode is how surprised/taken aback everyone was to the idea of the Doctor wanting to pursue other interests. The appeal of fame aside it's no different than a teenager telling their family "Maybe I don't want to be a _________. Maybe I want to be a __________". All it is, is another example of how the Doctor is an individual.
The Doctor's argument that any other crew member would be allowed to leave doesn't quite work. We all know Harry's only escape from Janeway is the sweet kiss of death. And even then she'd find some humiliating way of bringing him back.
Agreed. I don't think Janeway would actually let anyone leave the ship alive.
I think Harry is classified in the personnel records as a pet rather than a crewman.
Doesn't anyone find it... odd that the Trek audience discusses an Asian human being in this manner? I've noticed this increasingly on this channel and it's beginning to make my skin crawl.
@@eme.261 something tells me you’re a recent viewer. It’s been an ongoing gag that Janeway will kill crew members at the smallest provocation, and bad things always happen to Harry in the show.
@@Scerttle -- Am I new to this? I've been watching Star Trek since 1981. Over 40 years seems long to me, but maybe you disagree.
Anyway, as a Trekkie, I'm well used to the blithe attitude towards the lives and deaths of red shirts, the colorful or boring characters added in for single episodes, the emotional bullying ladled liberally on Wil Wheaton by immature members of the fandom, the sexpot wardrobes for Seven and T'Pol, and myriad of other questionable behaviors, such as producers treating actors badly, fandom proclivities, etc. These can be tiresome, but they've come with Trek from the beginning. Yet, referring to a human character as a pet, when coupled with the cultural background of the actor portraying him, and the incessant harping on and on about him not having a sufficient backstory (we get it) and him being referred to as being treated in a humiliating manner (boring and unoriginal aren't equal to humiliating), feels more than a simple gag. The character and Garret Wang have already been treated badly by Rick Berman. I lost my ability to chuckle about this years ago. Piling on seems like ritual humiliation.
I can accept if this is just a me thing. I need to choose the channels I frequent with more care, as the nature of the channel is a determining factor in the disposition of the fandom encouraged to congregate in that channel's comment section. To paraphrase Maya Angelou: When someone tells you who they are, believe them. This channel's creator referred to themself initially as an "ar*ehole" and then a "pedant". I'm the one at fault for expecting to encounter something other than pedantic ars*holes in the comment section.
I look forward to these episodes so damn much. Thank you for uploading so consistently
They had a backup version of the doctor - the one that ended up in the future - so he can be duplicated. Just copy him onto a USB and send it to them
I’m a fan of any episode where there’s a pinch of character development which probably explains why my favourite characters are the Doctor, and Seven. This episode did not disappoint I not sure it would be in my top 5 but thoroughly appreciated none the less.
Good point. They seem to get hit by the weekly-reset button less harshly than most of the other cast, possibly because they have less baggage by virtue of not being "regular" people?
@@Scerttle yes the Doctor and Seven were near blank slates which gave them a much clearer character arc they got the most growth because they had the most to grow, say compared to Harry was introduced as a stable well adjusted human who loved his parents got along well with others and didn’t really have any issues. Poor Harry did get completely overlooked but I guess it much harder to show character growth for someone who was well adjusted and had no past traumas.
@@clairewilliams9416 YEP. I think also the authors were just more excited about the prospect of doing something with characters that had an interesting concept to begin with.
I believe the matte painting was used for one of the civilisations destroyed in Year of Hell.
Or you average tng civilization
Yup! Same image, which opens some questions on the range of Clarence Boddicker's time ship. Can't blame him for wiping their species though. Dickheads.
I wondered if it was a deliberate choice to cast rather...short actors as the aliens. The Doctor towers over them, visually showing he's so unique amongst them.
I like this one for lots of the reasons you pointed out 😁👍thanks for another great review 💚🌹💚 you are appreciated, woof!
This review was stellar as usual but the pups' super meta banter at the end of this episode was easily your best yet. LOL! Still hoping for some merch - the puppies losing it on the leprechaun would be great and i'm personally still waiting on that Tom Paris is a dick T-Shirt.
When I get a chance, I'll look into merch. I want to have a store of some sort, but it requires organising and talking to my Art Person. Life is getting in the way currently.
I love the ol' trek premise that requires us to forget about all the other races in the crowded galaxy so the weirdos of the week can be confounded by a human trait that has long been established as common. Vulcans are uniquely amused by human emotions despite practically every race they interact with being as emotional for example.
I came into this series during a season 4 episode and loved it. I went back and went from the start, being disappointed how long it took to add the review tags at the end. The Space Dog stuff leaves me lukewarm, but I very much admire your wit and natural delivery.
Sorry mate, I'll be part of the human shield should you ever need one. Your brand of pisstaking is far too valuable to lose.
I'll leave you to your peace now
This was funny. Especially when he sang in a clowns outfit and the miniature doc. 😅
"Singing is more than making the right noise." Hold my beer says the synthesizer
Matte painting is very similar to the matte painting shown in the opening of Year of Hell. If you want to put your finger somewhere, there's a start.
Yup! I went back and checked after others pointed it out. A point to you!
5:39 If you want to hear a performance with a vocal-range beyond that of any human, there's one in the film The Fifth Element.
Feel like the painting looks like cardigans home world but without the horns and orange huge
The end of this episode really resonates with me. It's hard to put your everything into something creative, especially something as physically demanding as singing, and have your audience completely misunderstand you.
He was replaced in the end by a Vocaloid, when you think about it.
The reason that matte painting of the city looks familiar is because it's erased by Clarence Boddicker in The Year of Hell fiasco. Which makes my wonder if this was the actual civilization old Clarence snuffed or if the graphics budget required its reuse. I'm hoping it's the former.
Boddicker would have had to travel a bit, but it's not like they didn't have the time. So to speak. Good catch!
It also looks like it was adapted from the Bajor matte paintings from DS9.
I like the 'crowd sourcing' vibe the aliens give off. Like they all work together to solve problems and push quickly forward on specific issues - with little diversity of thought.
It would explain why they don't like strangers or new idea. They are borg without the assimilation. They are centered on their society and admire those who further their 'society' as one
The Doctor is my favorite character and I liked your review of this episode.
Adapt and improvise Space Dog! For better or worse, the Doc's programming is a huge part of him, I can understand the desire, the need, to do something different to what others expect of your life path. I do get the feeling he would have been just a fad on that world, put in a box (perhaps archived on a memory stick if anyone could be bothered) when the next craze hit.
Another excellent analysis. Thank you.
0:45 Secular means not affiliated with any religion. I think the word you were going for is "insular".
Balls! Yes it is. A point to you.
The condescending lady is the ... well she's like a lot of girls I met in my youth. "You thought what? Gee, sorry for kissing you if that gave you any ideas..."
For the longest time i read "reviewed by a PEASANT" .... *snark smile* ... how fitting for this magnus opus- I hope you can follow the plot *hrhr*
The matte painting looks suspiciously like Cardassia Prime to me.
I totally forgot that the skits at the end used to be for the patreon 😂
Yet another project that get massively out of hand. Now it's got lore ffs.
my daughter likes this episode, she feels it vindicates her lack of height
Something of a tidbit, condescending girl, played by Kamala Lopez-Dawson, is someone that is well connected in politics. To the point that it was rumored that she was run as a running mate with Hilary years ago. Anyways, Kamala Lopez-Dawson has something else to her also, she is age defiant and looks just as young today as she did 20 years ago.
I thought the deliberate choice of shorter-than average aliens was to show them always looking UP at the doc as if in adulation... like fans or sycophants.
Interesting thought, and one I hadn't considered.
All the matte painting cities look the same. Big ass walkways without any vehicles or people. Strangely squarish... Random towers here and there. Background mountain suspiciously like those around Los Angeles. It's not easy inventing a whole realistic future alien city. I'm sure they do CGI now and show a camera spin around the city and all that, but I don't watch new trek.
Why they couldn't just copy/paste the doctor anytime they needed to I have no idea. Probably because television writers really don't understand anything about computers
In-universe answer: his program is partly hardware-based (shown in the season 1 episode 'Eye of the Needle' to explain why he can't use the wormhole with the others). Yes, they ignore this with the mobile emitter and the backup in 'Living Witness'. Trek is nothing if not inconsistent.
Real world answer: probably because filming two roles with one person is harder than not doing. Being able to ctrl-v the Doc would be a logistical nightmare to shoot.
@@Unlimited_Lives a full-blown copy paste where the duplicate is a full standalone autonomous copy might be a No-No, I could see that. But imagine having multiple concurrent instances of him? Like five of him treating multiple injured people at the same time in sickbay each one just being a greater allocation of memory of the original program, each one sharing the same mind as it were. I suppose we could say that the holographic emitters in sickbay aren't up to that kind of load and I know filming it would be murder. I guess you could be smart and have body doubles who don't turn around and show their face and other cheaper tricks like that but it would still be really hard to do.
I guess this is one case where the Star Wars approach of medical droids would make more sense. Each one is fully autonomous and could keep working even when there's a power failure or the ship's main computer is down. And if you want more than one just buy another one. Of course that blurs the line where one is trying to explore whether or not these things are people or products, Star Wars kind of has it both ways. If a Droid is not memory wiped regularly it starts to get an emergent personality which is not all that dissimilar to our holographic dr. Our doctor even wanted to be shut off when he wasn't in use originally
In literally the episode before this the Doc spends 3 years on an Alien world, has a kid apparently (hmmmmm... ok sure) and really doesn't seem all that fussed about it. Dangle some TIkTok level clout at him for like 3 days though......
The biggest thing that rubbed me the wrong way about this episode was that the aliens created a facsimile of the Doctor without permission in the end. It feels downright creepy and horrifically violating and shows the blatent disrespect that the aliens have for him. Voyager's solution to losing the Doc is to train Paris, not try to replicate/copy him.
I think this is a good indicator for how the Voyager crew respect that the Doctor is now a person.
There was one episode where Harry and Tom were trying to create a replica Doc, but I don't remember which one or how far back in the show it was to account for that attitude. But perhaps the Doc just doesn't view duplicates of himself the same way we would, given there's already hundreds of other versions of his program out there?
This episode continues to annoy me as to the premise that the only medical personel they have is the Doctor, and his backup is the main pilot... This is completely unacceptable and should have been rectified already, but I suspect it's because Paris is in the credits and having another blue shirt nurse who actually might have some sciences training, as opposed to a single semster of first aid (or whatever he has). It was obviously different when they had Kes on staff, who the Doctor had tutored specifically for the role of nursing/doctor herself, but they still should have been considering training additional members to serve as medical staff. As it stands, Kes has a 10 year lifespan anyway, so if this trip is scheduled to take decades they should have been requiring a few backups considering the very specific situation of "YOU HAVE NO WAY TO REPLACE THE CREW!"
Secondly; while I appreciate that giving the Doctor the choice to leave is a progression in his character and a firm signal of his right to choice; is he right about the idea that Janeway can't make him stay?
A ship captain has to think about the welfare of her entire crew, and to lose a person with unique skills that can't be replaced easily (as I've pointed out) is something that she would likely have the power to block if she considers it too costly. There is similar precedent with Worf and Sisko - Sisko denies Worf's resignation in Way of the Warrior because there is a crisis situation, and Sisko needs all hands on deck. And Worf especially has skills and talents that are necessary (in Sisko's opinion) to the current crisis.
Likewise, the situation that Voyager is in is pretty much a constant state of emergency, even if the relaxed atmosphere is still present. As I've already pointed out, they can't replace crew, and they certainly can't replace crew with extremely specific skills like his. She could easily countermand his request to leave on those grounds alone, and it would be no different if he was a flesh and blood person, because he is literally the only qualified doctor they have.
And saying, "Nah, we'll be fine, Paris can take your job..."
No... No he fucking can't. He's a field medic at best when he becomes the 'nurse' in the first episode, and asking him to split his role between flying the ship and treating patients is putting him in the same damn situation as the Doctor - forcing a role on him that he doesn't actually want. And that's before you consider the idea of him having to perform complex surgery and groundbreaking medical research. He simply doesn't have those skills, and just because he's the only one that comes close, doesn't make him even slightly capable to do the job.
It's like expecting my brother to be able to perform the task of programming an AI system, just because he can set the clock on the VCR. My brother is no slouch - this is not a slight on him, like "huh he's dumb". He qualified from university doing 3D animation and design. Sure, if he's your only option, then he can use a computer well enough and probably could get some simple coding done as he's used something similar in 3D packages for making certain things move. But programming an AI would 100% be beyond his skills, and he wouldn't thank you for dumping the job on him cause the last guy (a fantastic programmer) decided that he wanted to go start a bakery...
That was a long post, but worth reading. :)
@@littleblackcat2273 😅 When I get a bee in my bonnet, it tends to make me very verbose
Excellent video. I would only add the writers screwed up w/continuity. In Nothing Human last year, Janeway defied B'Elanna's wishes to not receive a surgical procedure from a Cardassian with unethical/questionable practices, because she was critical to ship ops and she couldn't lose the chief engineer (wasn't this job contested in season 1 and Chakotay had to convince Janeway to let a Maquis take charge, so how critical was she). Anyway, for her to let the Doctor go when it appears (vs the massively staffed engineering department) the entire medical staff was decimated to the point that Ken and Tom had to become nurses, is just bad writing. I wish the writers would pick a Janeway and be consistent. I know this show is episodic but you can't lose an arm in ep6 and have it back in ep7, there are SOME limits fans demand!
I think Janeway is extremely non plused by the Doctors behaviour because this is the first time he's doing something that abandons his duly to protect the Voyager crew medically, and Paris is no were near as skilled as Doc medically. Savant he maybe, having master piloting, commando tactics, and engineering, but he needs longer to master medicine too. All docs other interests have been compatible with also being chief medical officer, and even when he made mistakes, he never intended to harm or neglect the crews medical needs.
Here, however, he is objectively reducing their chances of surviving to the end. I think Janeway has every right to be not happy with the Doc here, though I am glad she agreed to accept his resignation.
The collected works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
When Voyager is over can you Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters Frim Beverly Hills?
@12:00 -- aka why "Rock and Rule" by Canadian Nelvana Studios circa 1983 had this song as part of the narrative; ua-cam.com/video/BJa0Zv5gHSU/v-deo.htmlsi=1_3MBnhn-xsA9JWR
as one of my best mates, glad we agree on parasocial relationships
14:40 that's clever
Seven isn't the only one who can't understand Celebrity Culture, to be quite honest.
3:30 Is that... Cardassian architecture?
No, it's a Zahl colony the first time we see it, only the curved bases in the foreground bears resemblence to Cardassian architecture, the overall theme bears a larger resemblence to Bajoran architecture actually, but the dominant colour scheme is more green/blue here where Bajorans use more earthen and golden tones.
@@vrenak That's it! Thanks, that would've bugged me
I’m finding your snarky analysis far more entertaining than the actual episode. TOO many episodes about the bloated ego of The Doctor. Robert Picardo is very talented, but the premise here is weak
I actually dislike this episode immensely (and so was very interested in other interpretations). Over time I feel like Robert wanted more attention to stretch his creative wings, nothing wrong with that, but his episodes tended to be insufferable. This was peak EMH vanity, and while I understand that's a character trait, there's the question whether or not that's good for the show and I find it indicative of the deep long-running flaws in Voyager.
I think it's a sign of Voyager growing as a show, personally. The doctor is basically a 5 year old with a vast repository of knowledge. Having a vanity streak makes sense in the context of someone who is finding their place in the world and by the end of the episode he learns from it and grows further still. Early Voyager (and possibly even TNG) would have hit the reset button on the Doctor constantly and he'd never go past being a cardboard cutout of the character he becomes.
Photons... lol
This is my least favourite episode of Voyager, mostly because of Condescending Lady, but you've made it look palatable.
this is worse than Threshold? cmon nooooow
Not worse, but least favorite. I'm betting it may be related to an experience with an actual, human condescending lady 😢 💔
The planet of the Space Karens
ye sorry i didn't phrase that quite right - and i get it i too have had great media ruined from a weird interaction with IRL people@@goodwill559