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The Doctor, an Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH), is a fictional character portrayed by actor Robert Picardo in the television series Star Trek: Voyager, first aired on UPN between 1995 and 2001. He is an artificial intelligence manifest as a holographic projection, and designed to be a short-term adjunct to medical staff in emergency situations ...
- Overview
- Origins
- Aboard USS Voyager
- Personal interests
- The mobile emitter
- Personal relationships
- Alternate Doctors
- Memorable quotes
- Appendices
"You seem to know a little about everything. Medicine, exobiology, shield harmonics."
"I'm something of a Renaissance EMH."
– Qatai and The Doctor, 2375 ("Bliss")
"Photons and force fields, flesh and blood, why quibble over details? I'm just as real as any of you."
– The Doctor, 2375 ("Someone to Watch Over Me")
"The Doctor" (also known as just "Doctor" or "Doc") was USS Voyager's Emergency Medical Holographic program (or "EMH") and chief medical officer during the ship's seven-year journey through the Delta Quadrant. The EMH Mark I, of which The Doctor's life began as an iteration, was a computer program with a holographic interface in the form of a Human male Doctor.
The EMH Mark I was created on Jupiter Station by Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, who based the hologram's physical appearance on his own. Lieutenant Reginald Barclay also worked on the project, testing the EMH's interpersonal skills. (VOY: "Projections")
The EMH Mark I, upon which The Doctor's program was based, was listed as "Emergency Medical Holographic Program AK-1 Diagnostic and Surgical Subroutine Omega 323" in Voyager's memory. It was developed by a team of engineers to be an emergency supplement to the medical team on starships. Only meant to run for a maximum of 1,500 hours, the program included little personality and interpersonal skills. However, it was capable of treating any known injury or disease, as it was programmed with the medical knowledge of every member world in the Federation and that of over five million surgical procedures. His program even became capable of learning and adapting, in order to create new medical treatments. (VOY: "Projections", "The Swarm", "Caretaker", "Parallax", "Cathexis")
According to The Doctor, his original program was not configured to cry, bleed, feel pain or hunger, or to sing or dance. Neither was he programmed with reproductive organs, as he had no need for them. (VOY: "Threshold", "Projections", "Body and Soul", "Phage", "Message in a Bottle")
Voyager indicate otherwise. (VOY: "Life Line")
The first year (2371)
The Doctor was first, albeit very briefly, activated during a ship tour with Vice Admiral Patterson by Cpt. Janeway shortly before Voyager's launch on stardate 48038.5 in early 2371. (VOY: "Relativity") On stardate 48308.2, The Doctor was activated by Ensign Harry Kim to help treat crew members injured in the ship's violent transit to the Delta Quadrant, during which the chief medical officer and other assigned medical staff had been killed. The Doctor quickly established that the Voyager crew would be stuck with him for a while and that he would be the sole provider of medical care aboard the ship. (VOY: "Caretaker") The Doctor's first few weeks as a full-time medic on Voyager were not easy for him. He had no control over his activation subroutines, so anyone could activate or deactivate his program solely at their choice. Most of the crew considered him merely a computer program or a tool, and treated him accordingly. He, in turn, was curt and rude to them, lacking empathy and bedside manner, and he was unhappy that he was being used to perform menial medical tasks. He felt that his perfection and comparative medical genius were not appreciated. When developing or performing exceptional medical procedures, he often cynically remarked that anywhere else performing such kind of a procedure would have won him a prestigious award. He was also upset at being the last one to be made aware of events that were not directly within his purview, such as the Maquis crew joining Voyager and both Neelix and Kes joining the crew. (VOY: "Time and Again", "Parallax", "Shattered", "Someone to Watch Over Me") When Voyager was caught in a quantum singularity, The Doctor's imaging processor began to malfunction, causing him to shrink. This malfunction was eventually repaired. (VOY: "Parallax", "Time and Again") One of The Doctor's first major clinical achievements on board Voyager was creating holographic lungs for Neelix. Neelix had lost his lungs to Vidiians during an organ-harvesting raid. The Doctor devised a plan to use holographic lungs to keep Neelix alive. The Doctor's idea succeeded; however, Neelix was confined to an isotropic restraint and not allowed to move, as the holographic lungs could not move. The Doctor was later able to transplant one of Kes' lungs into Neelix, with help from the Vidiians. (VOY: "Phage") It was not until Kes volunteered to work with The Doctor as an assistant – and later medical student – that relations between The Doctor and most of the other crew members began to improve. It was Kes who first discovered the crew's disrespectful behavior toward The Doctor; she noticed that, just as with an item of equipment, they never addressed him directly, they barely listened to him, and often exited his presence without deactivating his program. Kes brought the matter to Captain Janeway's attention, asking that The Doctor be treated with greater respect and granted some interpersonal autonomy. Janeway took Kes' advice to heart – somewhat reluctantly, as she herself was aware of The Doctor's questionable bedside manner – but nonetheless granted him partial control over his activation and program. He was subsequently left hurt when it was revealed that the crew were exploring a means of transporting back to the Alpha Quadrant through a small wormhole, as he was the last one to know about this development and would be left on the ship as it was impossible to download his program at this time (although the matter became academic when it was revealed that the wormhole extended into the past). (VOY: "Eye of the Needle") The Doctor becomes the chief medical officer and his nurses became Kes and Tom Paris. Though it's not entirely clear when he becomes chief medical officer— there's no on-screen scene where he is promoted. In the pilot episode (VOY: "Caretaker") it is established that most of the medical crew is dead thus needing replacement. In the following episode (VOY: "Parallax") there is a scene where Captain Janeway is discussing the issue of replacing the senior officers who died including the chief medical officer. When Neelix suggests the EMH to replace the chief medical officer, Tuvok and Tom Paris give reasons why the EMH would not be sufficient for the job. Then they go right into discussing training people as field medics. The topic is not discussed again until the sixth episode of the first season (VOY: "Eye of the Needle"), when a crew member is being rude towards the Doctor and he rebuffs by saying he is the chief medical officer and should be treated with respect. Thus it would seem that the Doctor is promoted to chief medical officer off-screen sometime between episode two and episode six of the first season. The Doctor was sent on his first away mission by Janeway, tasked with rescuing Kim, Tuvok, and Chakotay from a Beowulf holoprogram that had been invaded by a mysterious alien. Janeway's reason for deploying The Doctor on this mission was that, as a hologram, he was the only one who could not be snatched from the holodeck. The Doctor did, however, lose an arm on his first encounter with the being, which had manifested itself as the monster Grendel. Samples of photonic energy had been accidentally beamed aboard Voyager and this energy was part of the alien inhabiting the holodeck. Once returned to the alien, the crew was released. (VOY: "Heroes and Demons") When the mental energy of Chakotay and the Komar was possessing members of Voyager's crew, The Doctor was the only crew member who could not be controlled. As no one but he could be trusted, given that the Komar could inhabit anyone at any time, Janeway transferred her command codes to The Doctor so that he could countermand orders he believed were initiated due to the alien's influence. However, his program's initialization routine was later deactivated until the incident with the Komar ended. Once reactivated, the Doctor was able to reintegrate Chakotay's displaced neural energy with his body, in a procedure that required three neural transceivers, two cortical stimulators, and fifty gigaquads of computer memory, and would take about ten hours to explain to others. (VOY: "Cathexis") An accident aboard Voyager once caused The Doctor to confuse illusion with reality. A hallucination of Lieutenant Reginald Barclay told The Doctor that he was real, that he was actually Lewis Zimmerman and married to a very Human Kes. The illusory Barclay persuaded The Doctor that he was held within a hologram of Voyager, with radiation after an accident having killed him. The Doctor became convinced that the only way to escape was to fire a phaser into Voyager's warp core, an act that seemingly would result in the simulation's destruction. At the last possible second, Chakotay convinced The Doctor that he was about to destroy his own matrix. The problem was solved, although The Doctor was left intrigued as to why he had hallucinated about the nature of his existence rather than simply having had his program's defenses activated. (VOY: "Projections") The same year, The Doctor diagnosed that Kes' sexual maturation, the elogium, had been prematurely activated by a swarm of space-dwelling aliens. During this period he acted in the role of Kes' father by performing the necessary rituals with her, such as the rolissisin, a ritual in which the feet are massaged until the tongue swells. Kes' elogium ended when Voyager cleared the aliens' territory. The Doctor hypothesized that the elogium had been prematurely triggered by the aliens and that Kes would still be able to conceive at her natural age of elogium. (VOY: "Elogium")
The second year (2372)
In 2372, The Doctor still didn't consider himself a true member of the Voyager crew. He felt he was not being kept sufficiently informed about ship business and missions. As a result, he was forced to repeatedly open communications channels all over the ship in order to find out what was going on, an activity Captain Janeway asked him to discontinue. (VOY: "Parturition") In response to criticism that he was unsympathetic to his patients, he programmed himself with the Levodian flu for twenty-nine hours to simulate the effects and to prove that a little illness should not be grounds for a constantly whiny and cranky attitude, which he accused the Voyager crew of every time they entered sickbay. Thirty hours later the simulated flu still had not cleared him, and The Doctor became fearful, feeling helpless and not in control. Kes later admitted that she had extended the simulation unbeknownst to him to teach him a real-life lesson, as it would hardly have been a real illness if he had known the outcome. (VOY: "Tattoo") Despite initial irritations and frictions, The Doctor also experienced new things in the personal growth and romance department. When a Vidiian scientist named Danara Pel was beamed aboard Voyager to be treated, The Doctor transmitted her synaptic pathways into a hologram of her body without the disease and put her real body in stasis until he could find a cure for her breakdown. He grafted a piece of B'Elanna Torres' brain tissue onto Pel's brain, as Klingon DNA had been found to be resistant to the phage. Over time he became attracted to her, but as he was inexperienced in the matters of the heart, he did not know how to handle his new-found emotions and confess his feelings to Denara. After receiving some advice from crew members such as Kes and Tom Paris, he overcame his initial awkwardness and took Denara on a date on the holodeck. When a cure for her condition was found and The Doctor was finally able to take Denara out of stasis, she refused, stating that she did not want to go back to that deformed body. The Doctor assured her that he loved her no matter what she looked like and that he would not want her to give up her life. The Doctor and Denara spent two weeks with one another before she met with her people and had to leave Voyager. (VOY: "Resolutions") entered a plasma cloud which caused the ship and its crew to be duplicated. The Doctor was on one of the ships and delivered Ensign Samantha Wildman's baby, who died shortly after birth. After the other ship was invaded by Vidiians, The Doctor on that ship saved that Ensign Wildman's baby, keeping it hidden from the Vidiians until that Kim and the baby could board the "first" Voyager, which they did just before their ship self-destructed, killing the Vidiians and saving the "first" Voyager. (VOY: "Deadlock") When a transporter accident combined Tuvok and Neelix into a single entity named Tuvix, The Doctor found a way to separate and restore them. However, he refused to perform the procedure as he would have to kill Tuvix, a sentient being in his own right who had refused to consent to the separation. Captain Janeway eventually performed the procedure in his stead. (VOY: "Tuvix") When Voyager discovered a group of alien survivors trapped in a neural network by a deranged clown-like manifestation of their own fears, The Doctor was selected as the crew's 'negotiator' as he was the only person who could access the network without being trapped in it. Although he initially failed to reason with the Clown, he was eventually able to trick the Clown into releasing his current "hostages" by claiming that Janeway would take their place, the crew in reality providing a fake Janeway. (VOY: "The Thaw") The Doctor played an essential part in the defeat of the Kazon sect led by Seska and Culluh. After the crew was captured and marooned on a desolate planet, The Doctor – who escaped deletion by claiming that as a hologram he was neutral and thus did not care whether Kazon or Starfleet were in charge of Voyager – with the help of Lon Suder sabotaged the backup phaser couplings. This allowed Tom Paris and his Talaxian allies to retake the ship and save the crew. (VOY: "Basics, Part I", "Basics, Part II")
The third year (2373)
In 2373, The Doctor reached the limit of his memory capacity and started suffering massive memory loss. When an alien attack injured Paris, The Doctor was unable to treat him because his program was degrading and he was beginning to lose all of his medical knowledge. When it became evident that his program would disintegrate completely, another hologram, the Diagnostic Program Alpha-11, was used to find the source of the problem. It was discovered that the problem was in The Doctor's core programing, which had become severely fragmented because of constant use of the EMH over the course of the past two years. The maximum operation for the EMH was intended for around 1,500 hours (roughly two months). To further complicate matters, The Doctor's expansion of his original programming to include personality subroutines and interests in things such as opera, interpersonal relationships with the crew and engineering skills had filled all of his available memory buffers, leaving little room for his program to operate in its intended function. The captain was playing with the idea of reinitializing The Doctor's program, but that would have meant loss of all his memories and everything he had experienced over the past two years. Kes objected to just resetting him and asked the captain to try and find another solution. When no other options were found, Kes suggested overlaying the diagnostic program's programming matrix onto The Doctor's. This effectively deleted the Diagnostic program and integrated its core portions as a graft onto The Doctor's program. This procedure restored The Doctor but led to massive memory loss, including his recollection of the crews' identities and most events of the previous two years. Although some memories seemed to have survived, it was unclear if The Doctor would struggle to regain his hard-won personal skills. But some hope remained when Kes, after the reinitialization, observed The Doctor singing a song to himself; a song that was learned prior to the transfer of the Diagnostic program matrix onto his own. (VOY: "The Swarm") Later that year, he assisted in stopping Henry Starling's plan to steal a timeship which had accidentally traveled into the past, simultaneously acquiring a mobile emitter that permitted him movement beyond the limits of Voyager's sickbay and holodeck after Starling "stole" him from Voyager to question him about their presence in this timeline, transferring him into the mobile emitter to make it easier to threaten his existence. Having escaped Starling, the Doctor rescued Chakotay and Torres from some survivalists, returned to Voyager and enjoyed his new-found freedom from sickbay, the emitter proving simple for the Doctor to use while also allowing him to be returned to sickbay. (VOY: "Future's End", "Future's End, Part II") The Doctor was able to create a device to remove Ilari warlord Tieran's consciousness from Kes. (VOY: "Warlord") He also helped Janeway rid Voyager of an attacking macrovirus when she returned from an away mission and the rest of the crew had been infected. (VOY: "Macrocosm") In an attempt to improve himself further, The Doctor created EMH program 4C, adding personality subroutines to his holomatrix copied from many historical figures, including Lord Byron, Mahatma Gandhi, Socrates, Marie Curie, and T'Pau. Unfortunately, The Doctor didn't realize that even great historical figures had less desirable attributes and that all those, combined within his personality, would cause his program to destabilize. As a result, The Doctor began to develop a second, darker personality which exhibited callousness, anger and deceit. He attacked B'Elanna Torres, who was trying to fix his program, and rendered her immobile so she could not tell on him. He also attacked Zahir, an alien whom Kes had befriended, and kidnapped her, trying to arrange passage to another planet. Protective of and attracted to Kes, The Doctor attempted to kill Zahir, claiming that Kes' innocence required that he be there to protect her. After the failed escape attempt with Kes in tow, The Doctor was beamed back aboard Voyager, having finally lost the added subroutines and unable to remember his actions ever since the darkening in his personality had taken over. (VOY: "Darkling") Despite such incidents, The Doctor nonetheless continued to expand his programming. In order to experience human family values, he once created a holodeck family, assuming the name of "Kenneth." Initially the program was idyllic, with a devoted, loyal wife who loved chores and serving her husband and obedient children who insisted doing their homework and fought over who would say goodbye to "Daddy" first when he left for work. The Doctor was pleased, but when he invited Kes and Torres over for dinner, Torres was more than annoyed with the "lollipops" – as she called them – The Doctor had created, stating that what he had created was in no way what a family life dynamic was like. With The Doctor's permission, Torres reprogrammed it to be more realistic. In the new simulation, his wife wasn't a devoted housewife looking forward to his bringing colleagues home for dinner and his children were rebellious, undisciplined and disobedient. The Doctor was mortified at the changes, as they were not at all what he had in mind when imagining his family. He even contemplated deactivating it permanently after his 'daughter' was fatally wounded in an accident and he could not take the pain that came with losing her. However, Tom Paris helped The Doctor learn to cope with the negatives as well as the positives in having a family, and The Doctor returned to the program to mourn the loss of his daughter with his wife and son. (VOY: "Real Life") The Doctor proved instrumental in assisting the crew's escape after an alien race knows as the Nyrians commandeered Voyager and relocated the ship's entire crew into an artificial environment suitable for them. Chakotay, as the last crew member on board, transferred The Doctor's program into the mobile emitter before he could be deleted. Torres subsequently modified The Doctor's optical sensors, allowing him to "see" portals between artificial environments, and with the aid of another prisoner, named Jarlath, the crew reached the Nyrians' spaceship and retook Voyager. (VOY: "Displaced")
Identity
"What's your name?" "What purpose would a name serve a hologram?" "I'd just like to know what to call you besides Doctor." "I guess they never thought I'd be around long enough to need one." – Kes and The Doctor, 2371 ("Parallax" Motivated by Kes' kindness, The Doctor entertained the idea of taking a name, due in part to the required prolonged existence. (VOY: "Parallax") Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual, as well as throughout all first season scripts, The Doctor's name was listed as "Doc Zimmerman", named after Herman Zimmerman. By the end of the season, however, the producers decided the conceit of the non-name Doctor was more engaging and occasionally fodder for humor, and abandoned that original intention. (VOY Season 2 DVD trivia text version of "The 37's") Ultimately, The Doctor has used several names on a temporary basis. Below is a list of names he used: •Lord Schweitzer (VOY: "Heroes and Demons") •Shmullus (VOY: "Lifesigns", "Resolutions") •Mozart & van Gogh (VOY: "Before and After") •Kenneth (VOY: "Real Life") "It took you 33 years to come up with Joe?!" – Tom Paris, 2404 ("Endgame") •Joe, after Joe (VOY: "Endgame")
Holo-family
The Doctor decided to create a holographic family, Doctor's Family Program Beta-Rho, in Voyager's holodeck in 2373, using the name Kenneth for himself. They consisted of a wife, Charlene, and two children, a son, Jeffrey, and a daughter, Belle. At first, family life was blissfully perfect until B'Elanna Torres "visited" the family at home and found them to be unrealistic. She altered the program, adding randomness and "realism". As a result, his teenage son Jeffrey became rebellious and began to hang out with some unsavory Klingon youths. In addition, he argued with Charlene and lost the formerly close bond he had possessed with Belle. Upon Belle's Parrises squares accident, the family came together. Initially apprehensive about losing her, The Doctor was persuaded by Tom Paris not to delete the program after this incident, but to work through her death with his remaining family. (VOY: "Real Life")
Inventions
The Doctor was responsible for fashioning a fully functional prosthetic eye for Seven of Nine's left eye socket capable of rendering images nearly as clearly as her right eye. (VOY: "The Gift")
In 2373, Voyager encountered the Aeon under command of Captain Braxton. Due to a temporal paradox, Voyager was transported to Earth in 1996. During this mission The Doctor obtained a piece of 29th century technology from Henry Starling, originating from the Aeon, called a mobile emitter. This device, though only a few centimeters long, was able to contain the entire EMH program and project The Doctor autonomously. After the timeline was restored and Voyager returned to the Delta Quadrant, The Doctor kept the emitter. It was quickly established that the transfer of The Doctor's program to and from the emitter would be quite easy; practically all he had to do was issue a voice command and attach the emitter to his left shoulder.
This device proved to be of vital importance and saved the crew of Voyager on numerous occasions. One of the most notable times when the emitter proved useful was shortly after The Doctor had acquired it. He helped Captain Janeway fight off a swarm of macroviruses that had infected the ship; since Janeway had been away at the time, and The Doctor (as a hologram) was naturally immune to the virus, they were forced to stand alone to save the crew. (VOY: "Macrocosm") The emitter also allowed The Doctor to help crew members all over the ship, which was especially useful after Kes left a short time later. (VOY: "The Gift")
The mobile emitter helped The Doctor to watch over the ship while the crew was in stasis during a trip through a radioactive Mutara class nebula. While proving to be helpful in allowing The Doctor to help Seven of Nine during this situation, the nebula affected the emitter, damaging its electro-optic transmitter. The Doctor, later, linked the emitter to the EPS relay network. For some time, this worked, until the EPS relays started to fail, after which the emitter went offline. (VOY: "One")
Due to a transporter accident, the mobile emitter was combined with some of Seven of Nine's nanoprobes. This, combined with Ensign Mulchaey's DNA, created a new Borg drone with 29th century technology and the mobile emitter intact as an integral part of its central nervous system. This drone called himself One and eventually sacrificed himself in order to save the crew of Voyager. Afterward, the mobile emitter was salvaged and returned to The Doctor. (VOY: "Drone")
On some occasions the emitter was stolen from The Doctor and/or used by rogue programs, such as Dejaren, Iden, and the reprogrammed EMH Mark I of the USS Equinox. (VOY: "Flesh and Blood", "Equinox, Part II") On all occasions however, The Doctor was able to recover the emitter with no apparent side effects to his program. The mobile emitter was also used by a version of The Doctor that had corrupted files after he had attempted to improve his personality. (VOY: "Darkling")
Other notable occasions in which the emitter was used by holograms other than The Doctor were when the Leonardo da Vinci hologram was transferred to it after both the emitter and main computer core were stolen in a transporter attack (VOY: "Concerning Flight") and when The Doctor loaned the emitter to the Barclay hologram that had been received in a data stream. (VOY: "Inside Man") Michael Sullivan also used it to be transferred out of the holodeck and onto Voyager's bridge, believing the emitter to be a charm to get into the spirit world. (VOY: "Spirit Folk")
While starting out as nothing more than a piece of equipment intended to provide a short-term supplement for the existing medical team, The Doctor went on to form far greater bonds with the rest of the Voyager crew as time went on. Thanks to Kes's initial efforts to encourage him to assert himself as a person rather than a machine, the Doctor gaine...
Holographic recreations
The Doctor was holographically duplicated on a number of occasions. •The entire crew of Voyager was recreated by Tuvok from his Insurrection Alpha program, including The Doctor. (VOY: "Worst Case Scenario") •Harry Kim attempted to recreate the Doctor when he was transmitted to the USS Prometheus in 2374, but the new program, identified as the Emergency Medical Hologram Replacement Program, was unable to function properly and it collapsed. (VOY: "Message in a Bottle") •Reginald Barclay recreated The Doctor in 2376. (VOY: "Pathfinder") •Various miniature copies of The Doctor were created by the Qomar due to their admiration for The Doctor's singing. (VOY: "Virtuoso") •Harry Kim and Seven of Nine projected The Doctor's daydreams into the holodeck in order to better understand what was malfunctioning. In this daydream, The Doctor wore a painter's smock and beret while he painted a holographic representation of Seven in the nude. (VOY: "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy") •After he stole The Doctor's program, Gar left a copy – created from one of The Doctor's old training files – aboard the starship to cover his tracks. (VOY: "Critical Care") •In 2378, Seven recreated the crew of Voyager to perfect her social skills, including The Doctor. (VOY: "Human Error") •The Doctor served as the narrator of his own holonovel, Photons Be Free, set aboard the USS Vortex, which was based on the crew of the USS Voyager, albeit the names were changed to protect the innocent. (VOY: "Author, Author") •A holodeck recreation of The Doctor by Tom Paris in his rendition of the holonovel Photons Be Free in 2378. (VOY: "Author, Author")
"Please state the nature of the medical emergency."
- The Doctor's first words (VOY: "Caretaker")
"Doesn't anyone know how to turn off the program when they leave?!?"
- The Doctor, getting annoyed that people forget to turn off his program (VOY: "Caretaker")
"It seems I've found myself on the Voyage of the Damned."
- The Doctor, on learning that the captain is "missing" when attempting to contact her (VOY: "Time and Again")
Appearances
•VOY: •"Caretaker" •"Parallax" •"Time and Again" •"Phage" •"The Cloud" •"Eye of the Needle" •"Ex Post Facto" •"Emanations" •"State of Flux" •"Heroes and Demons" •"Cathexis" •"Faces" •"Jetrel" •"Learning Curve" •"The 37's" •"Initiations" •"Projections" •"Elogium" •"Twisted" •"Parturition" •"Persistence of Vision" •"Tattoo" •"Cold Fire" •"Maneuvers" •"Prototype" •"Alliances" •"Threshold" •"Meld" •"Dreadnought" •"Death Wish" •"Lifesigns" •"Investigations" •"Deadlock" •"Innocence" •"The Thaw" •"Tuvix" •"Resolutions" •"Basics, Part I" •"Basics, Part II" •"Flashback" •"The Chute" •"The Swarm" •"False Profits" •"Remember" •"Sacred Ground" •"Future's End" •"Future's End, Part II" •"Warlord" •"The Q and the Grey" •"Macrocosm" •"Fair Trade" •"Alter Ego" •"Coda" •"Blood Fever" •"Unity" •"Darkling" •"Rise" •"Favorite Son" •"Before and After" •"Real Life" •"Distant Origin" •"Displaced" •"Worst Case Scenario" •"Scorpion" •"Scorpion, Part II" •"The Gift" •"Nemesis" •"Revulsion" •"The Raven" •"Scientific Method" •"Year of Hell" •"Year of Hell, Part II" •"Random Thoughts" •"Concerning Flight" •"Mortal Coil" •"Waking Moments" •"Message in a Bottle" •"Hunters" •"Prey" •"Retrospect" •"The Killing Game" •"The Killing Game, Part II" •"Vis à Vis" •"The Omega Directive" •"Unforgettable" •"Living Witness" •"Demon" •"One" •"Hope and Fear" •"Night" •"Drone" •"Extreme Risk" •"In the Flesh" •"Once Upon a Time" •"Timeless" •"Infinite Regress" •"Nothing Human" •"Thirty Days" •"Counterpoint" •"Latent Image" •"Bride of Chaotica!" •"Gravity" •"Bliss" •"Dark Frontier" •"The Disease" •"Course: Oblivion" •"The Fight" •"Think Tank" •"Juggernaut" •"Someone to Watch Over Me" •"11:59" •"Relativity" •"Warhead" •"Equinox" •"Equinox, Part II" •"Survival Instinct" •"Barge of the Dead" •"Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy" •"Alice" •"Riddles" •"Dragon's Teeth" •"One Small Step" •"The Voyager Conspiracy" •"Pathfinder" •"Fair Haven" •"Blink of an Eye" •"Virtuoso" •"Memorial" •"Tsunkatse" •"Collective" •"Spirit Folk" •"Ashes to Ashes" •"Child's Play" •"Good Shepherd" •"Live Fast and Prosper" •"Muse" •"Fury" •"Life Line" •"The Haunting of Deck Twelve" •"Unimatrix Zero" •"Unimatrix Zero, Part II" •"Imperfection" •"Drive" •"Repression" •"Critical Care" •"Inside Man" •"Body and Soul" •"Flesh and Blood" •"Nightingale" •"Shattered" •"Lineage" •"Repentance" •"Prophecy" •"The Void" •"Workforce" •"Workforce, Part II" •"Human Error" •"Q2" •"Author, Author" •"Friendship One" •"Natural Law" •"Homestead" •"Renaissance Man" •"Endgame"
Background information
The Doctor was played by actor Robert Picardo. The part of The Doctor disguised as a Hierarchy overlooker, in the episode "Renaissance Man", was played by J.R. Quinonez (see also: Roles with multiple performers). The Doctor was created with the intention of essentially being an "outsider" who could comment on humanity from that perspective, much like how Spock, Data and Odo had been established in Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine respectively. (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, pp. 167-168) An early reference to the character concept that eventually became The Doctor was included in a series of notes that Executive Producer and Star Trek: Voyager co-creator Jeri Taylor wrote on 30 July 1993. The reference was listed among other subjects which had been covered during one of many developmental discussions she had with fellow Executive Producers Michael Piller and Rick Berman about the series (which was yet to be named). Specifically, this list included a mention of "Holo-Moriarty", referencing the Moriarty hologram from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes "Elementary, Dear Data" and "Ship In A Bottle". (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, pp. 175 & 179) In another compilation of notes Jeri Taylor wrote a week later (on 3 August 1993), she included an outline of the character in a section titled "The Crew". The outline stated, "Holo-Doctor–A human or alien male or female (possibly Vulcan?) The medical officer of the ship is killed during the mission; remaining is the holographic character of the doctor who, like Moriarty, has 'awareness' of himself as a holodeck fiction. He longs for the time when he can walk free of the Holodeck. (Some discussion about the fact that one of the crew must become a 'student' of this doctor. Maybe one of the misfits [i.e., a Maquis] had been kicked out of medical school.)" (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, pp. 175, 176 & 177) At this point, the three executive producers liked the concept of the doctor character. They therefore considered how they could explain or justify, in a way that would be sufficiently credible to the viewers, the character's existence, if he was to be a holographic yet sentient being, so that it fit with what had previously been established. This was evident in another summary of Jeri Taylor's notes, this time dated 6 August 1993. Reporting more character development for The Doctor, the document stated, "The Holo-Doctor represents a new, state-of-the-art technology which has capitalized on the serendipitous incident which created Moriarty, and has programmed a holographic character which has self-awareness of his situation and limitations." As the notes continued, they clarified that the team of series co-creators had discussed the idea that The Doctor had been made "a bit bland" when his programmer had created him, leading one of the "misfits" (a conn officer, who ultimately developed into the character of Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres) to decide to tweak his personality programming during the mission. The team had also considered that the hologram may have been created by Reginald Barclay, designed in his own image, and that, while taking a leave of absence in an upcoming TNG episode, he could put "the polishing touches" to the program. (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, pp. 182 & 183) In several early first-season Star Trek: Voyager scripts, call sheets, and shooting schedules and during the pre-production phase, the character of The Doctor was referred to by name as "Doc Zimmerman" after Herman Zimmerman, since the show's producers had not yet decided to leave him unnamed. (VOY Season 2 DVD trivia text version of "The 37's") His initial description in the script for VOY: "Caretaker" originated this routine, as The Doctor was therein initially referred to "as a holographic man in a Starfleet medical uniform […] He has no name for now… but we will get to know him in time as Doc Zimmerman. His manner is colorless, dry." The character continued to be referred to as having the name "Zimmerman" in all the scripts which were written for the series' first season, and "Zimmerman" was reported to the public as the character's name in press materials during the series' initial production run. Robert Picardo claimed in October 2022 that it was his decision to rename the character in the credits, with a view to the Doctor choosing the name "Doc Zimmerman" in a later episode. As a continued in-joke and reference to the character's original name, the terms "zimmers in" and "zimmers out" were used behind the scenes and in stage directions to refer to the distinctive effect of the Doctor's materialization into and dematerialization out of a scene. (Star Trek: Voyager Companion (p. 176)) In the special features on the Voyager DVD collection, Robert Picardo mentions that he ad-libbed during his audition for the role of The Doctor, adding the line, "I'm a doctor, not a lightbulb" at the end of his script; he says that he "got a laugh" from the assembled studio executives, even though ad-libbing isn't something that's generally done on a Star Trek production. It was only once the scripts started to be written for VOY Season 2 that this character became officially known as "The Doctor". He is one of two ongoing characters in science fiction who are referred to by this title, as opposed to a proper name; the other is the protagonist of the long-running British television series Doctor Who. Many people, including Robert Picardo himself, were initially opposed to Brannon Braga's idea of the mobile emitter, believing The Doctor's limitations to be one of the appeals of the character. However, Picardo ultimately relished the opportunities for growth of his character due to The Doctor's newfound mobility, without noticing any negative impact to his appeal to the fans; Picardo subsequently apologized to Braga. (Star Trek: Voyager Companion (p. 452)) Many fans have wondered if Robert Picardo actually did all of his singing himself. To answer that question, Picardo said, "I did all of my singing except for the second half of 'Virtuoso'. The Don Carlo duet and Rondine al Nido are voiced by an opera singer, Augostino Castellnano (I hope I spelled that correctly). He's a terrific guy. I simply couldn't sing high enough or well enough to pull them off, but I did my own singing in 'The Swarm', 'Tinker, Tenor...', 'Renaissance Man', 'Someone to Watch Over Me' and all the others." (X) Robert Picardo also appeared as The Doctor in "Borg Invasion 4D" at Star Trek: The Experience and also portrayed other EMHs in Star Trek: First Contact, DS9: "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", and VOY: "Author, Author".
Apocrypha
Robert Picardo has written a book based on and as told by his character, named The Hologram's Handbook. Picardo goes into depth about how he felt about various experiences while aboard Voyager, such as feeling "betrayed" by Kes when she extended the length of his bout with the flu, as well as genuine and helpful advice for any holograms finding it hard to fit in with 'organics'. In Star Trek: Voyager - String Theory: Evolution, The Doctor is sent into Ocampa's distant past by a Nacene, which transfers him into the body of a recently-deceased Ocampan soldier, allowing him to experience the sensations of an organic body for the first time, although the conditions are so harsh that he cannot fully enjoy the experience. He is eventually returned to his time after meeting with Kes to oversee the birth of an Ocampan/Nacene hybrid. In the Voyager relaunch book series, The Doctor became a famous proponent of holographic rights and eventually joined a Federation "think tank" with Seven of Nine. Following the events of the Destiny trilogy, The Doctor became chief surgeon of the Project Full Circle fleet, returning to the Delta Quadrant on a specialized medical ship he assisted in designing. He is subsequently the first member of the original Voyager crew to greet the resurrected Admiral Kathryn Janeway when she is restored to life by Q and Kes in The Eternal Tide. Following the discovery that Seven had formed a relationship with the Full Circle fleet's new counselor, The Doctor was reprogrammed by Zimmerman to move on from his old feelings for her, Zimmerman arguing that he was just accelerating the process of recovery that The Doctor would have gone through on his own, (Protectors) but a later attempt to defeat an alien life form forces The Doctor to trap the entity in a part of his program and erase his memories of Seven, leaving him unable to even recall most of the time they have spent together. (Atonement) In the "Borg Invasion 4D" attraction at Star Trek: The Experience, The Doctor is the lead physician on board Copernicus Station on the edge of the Alpha and Delta Quadrants. While testing a group of people (the audience members) whose DNA apparently resists Borg nanoprobes, the station comes under assault by the Borg themselves. After the group of hopefuls is captured and in the process of assimilation, The Doctor breaks through the hallucination that the Borg Queen is projecting and informs them that help is on the way. Minutes later, Admiral Kathryn Janeway and the USS Voyager rescue the group and bring them back to safety. The story is helped by interactive 3D projections and real live actors. In the video segments, Robert Picardo reprises his role as The Doctor, as do Kate Mulgrew and Alice Krige for Admiral Janeway and the Borg Queen, respectively. The Doctor (voiced by Robert Picardo) is one of several Voyager cast members who reprise their roles in the Delta Rising expansion of Star Trek Online, along with Tim Russ (Tuvok), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Garrett Wang (Harry Kim), Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), and later Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris). Players meet The Doctor several times as they explore the Delta Quadrant thirty years after Voyager first explored the region.
Voyager is soon met by another Hirogen ship also responding to the distress call. The two ships are led into a trap set by the holograms, leaving Voyager helpless to stop the holograms from abducting Voyager ' s holographic Doctor. Aboard the holo-ship, the Doctor finds the holograms to be those of other Alpha Quadrant races.
Star Trek: Voyager. ) " Revulsion " is the 73rd episode of Star Trek: Voyager, the fifth episode of the fourth season. This is focused on an EMH (Emergency Medical Hologram; The Doctor)-like hologram on another ship, which is dealt with mostly by the Doctor and B'Elanna. In addition, sub-plots run their course on Voyager with other characters.
The Emergency Medical Holographic program or Emergency Medical Holographic system, also known as the Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH), Emergency Holographic Doctor, or Emergency Medical program, was an adaptive holoprogram developed during the 2360s by Starfleet and used on a number of Federation starships during the late 24th century. It was designed to provide short-term advanced assistance ...
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Aug 3, 2024 · In the first 2 seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, the holo-communicator uses holographic technology to project a real-time image of someone in a remote location, making it seem like the person is right there in the room. This 2-way holographic communication system is installed on the bridges and crew quarters of several Starfleet vessels ...
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The Emergency Command Hologram (ECH) was a holoprogram developed and implemented by the crew of USS Voyager while it was in the Delta Quadrant in the 2370s.It was an extension of the Voyager's Emergency Medical Hologram to include strategic and tactical data in order to function in a command capacity in the event of the current command crew being incapacitated during an emergency.
