Recap / Star Trek Voyager S 2 E 3 "Projections"

Barclay might be an escapist, but showing up in the Delta Quadrant is a bit much.

The Doctor is activated in an empty sickbay and quickly discovers that, due to a Kazon attack, he's the only one left on an abandoned ship. As he prepares to shut himself off for possibly the last time, Torres breaks into the Sickbay and reveals that she and Janeway stayed behind to prevent the ship from exploding. He tries to treat her, but his tricorder isn't working on her. She tells the Doctor that he'll need to go to the bridge to revive Janeway, who was injured. He'll get there by using some holographic emitters that have just been installed in various key locations throughout the ship.

Transferred to the bridge, the Doctor revives Janeway but finds his tricorder isn't working on her either. They start to make repairs, but they receive a call for help from Neelix, so the Doctor is transferred there to help. He finds Neelix holding off a lone Kazon raider with thrown food. The Doctor gets into a brawl with the Kazon and subdues him, but in the process he's injured. The Doctor is shocked, since holograms shouldn't get injured. Transferred back to sickbay, he finds that all evidence points to him actually being Lewis Zimmerman, the creator of the Emergency Medical Hologram program. When he informs Janeway, she orders all holographic programs terminated, causing everyone except the Doctor to vanish. According to the computer, all other members of the crew are actually holographic programs.

Things get even weirder when our old friend Lt. Reginald Barclay shows up out of nowhere. He tells the Doctor that he really is Zimmerman, and that all of his adventures in space have been a holoprogram testing the effects of long-term space exploration. A build-up of kinoplasmic radiation has addled his memory. He needs to escape the holodeck before it kills him. Barclay himself is projecting his image from just outside the holodeck. The Doctor gets a sudden stab of pain, and Barclay says that the radiation will kill him within an hour.

The Doctor isn't quite convinced. Barclay shows him the truth of his claims by taking the Doctor back to the moment he was first activated on Voyager, just before getting sent to the Delta Quadrant. After deleting the programs of several annoying crewmembers, the Doctor is convinced and realizes that he needs to destroy the holographic projector to end the program. He does so, but nothing changes. Barclay explains that destroying the holomatrix on a holographic ship won't do anything. He needs to end the program itself, and only destroying the ship will do that. He needs to destroy the warp core. Before he can, however, Chakotay appears and says that Barclay is lying.

Chakotay explains that the Doctor is actually on the holodeck of Voyager taking a day off, but his program has glitched due to a radiation surge. If he shuts off the program, he'll be destroyed along with it. All he needs to do is wait until the crew fixes the glitch. Barclay implores the Doctor to continue with the plan, arguing that he is more than just a program, but a man with a loving wife. A human version of Kes appears as his wife and kisses him. The Doctor tells her that he always found her beautiful but suddenly realizes that he's lying in sickbay, surrounded by the crew and an Ocampan Kes, who thanks him for the compliment. Although a little embarrassed, the Doctor finds things to be back to normal. But in private, Kes starts treating him as her husband and calls him "Lewis." Barclay suddenly appears and tells him that he can still destroy the ship and end the program. He's suddenly brought back to his first day on Voyager again, only this time his patient is Zimmerman speaking in Janeway's voice.

Everything changes again, and the Doctor now finds himself in a deactivated holodeck, with Janeway and the other crew surrounding him. She asks if he knows who he is, and the Doctor states confidently that he is the Emergency Medical Hologram. Later, he tells Kes about his experience, and she cautions him against letting Neelix know about her being his wife. He wonders why the glitch caused him to question his nature, since unlike other life forms, he knows exactly what his purpose and role in the universe are. After she leaves, however, he extends his hand outside of the sickbay and watches it disappear just to confirm one more time that he's a hologram.

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This episode contains the following tropes:

• Abandon Ship: Voyager's crew is evacuated after a Kazon attack causes a warp core breach. The crew were easily captured in their Escape Pods, while only Janeway and B'Elanna remained on board to make repairs.
• A Bloody Mess: Played straight, then subverted — The Doctor is sent to the messhall where Neelix is Produce Pelting a Kazon mook. After the Kazon is immobilized with a Frying Pan of Doom, Neelix is alarmed to see he's bleeding, which of course turns out to be tomato sauce. Neelix then points out that the EMH is bleeding. The Doctor is amused until he realises it actually is blood, which is impossible as he's Just A Hologram. Making this a possible case of Tomato Sauce in the Mirror.
• Action Survivor: The Doctor is uncomfortable going outside the familiar confines of Sickbay but rises to the occasion, even helping Neelix take down a Kazon soldier.
• All Just a Dream: Turns out there was no Kazon attack or evacuation of Voyager, and the Doctor was just stuck in a holodeck feedback loop.
• All Up to You: Spoken by Captain Janeway to the Doctor, because she can't make it to the messhall to help Neelix with the turbolifts down.
• Apocalyptic Log: The Doctor watches the last bridge log to figure out what happened to the crew. He's in the process of leaving his own apocalyptic log entry explaining how to reactivate his program when someone forces open the doors to sickbay.
• Becoming the Mask: Barclay claims that the Doctor is actually Lewis Zimmerman, who has become convinced he's the holodeck character he was beta-testing.
• Call-Back
  • The Doctor finds himself reliving scenes from "Caretaker" when Barclay resets the program to the beginning of the story.
  • The Doctor testing he's not still in the program at the end of the episode is similar to Barclay doing the same in TNG's "Ship in a Bottle".
• Character Overlap: Reginald Barclay from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• Deadpan Snarker: As usual, no-one has informed the Doctor of information he'd like to know, e.g. that holo-emitters are being installed on other decks.
  Torres: We hadn't even tested the system yet. There was no guarantee it was going to work. I guess the Captain didn't want to get your hopes up.
  EMH: Her compassion is heart-warming.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: As the Doctor does this in Kes' arms, he's not too bothered.
• Do Androids Dream?
• Dream Within a Dream
• Edible Ammunition: Followed by the obligatory Frying Pan of Doom.
• Failsafe Failure: As usual, the holodeck safeties are off.
• Foreshadowing: The Doctor will actively explore his fantasies in later seasons, including a holographic family in "Real Life" and wish-fulfillment daydreams in "Tinker Tailor Doctor Spy". In "Life Line" he meets the real Reginald Barclay and Lewis Zimmerman.
• Holodeck Malfunction: The question is, which holodeck is malfunctioning, and who's the hologram?
• Hope Spot: It looks like the Doctor has been saved from the holo-program at the expense of his dignity around Kes, but he's still in the program.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Barclay starts by telling the Doctor not to panic, while he's clearly panicking.
  • Also, the fact that it's Barclay warning someone against becoming lost in a holodeck fantasy.
  • Neelix enjoys the Doctor's panicked reaction to his own bleeding after he snarked at Neelix for mistaking tomato sauce for blood, including quoting his own diagnosis of it being only a "superficial wound" back at him.
• It's a Long Story: And when the Doctor does try to explain, Janeway quickly loses patience and orders him thrown in the brig.
• The Last Man Heard a Knock...: The Doctor is activated and told by the computer that he's the last person on the ship. As this is still early in the show and he's stuck in Sickbay, he prepares to shut down his program, but suddenly there's a knock at the door.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The Doctor says the Caretaker is also known as "Banjo Man," which is how the character is billed in the credits.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: Played with when Barclay asks if he'd rather Become a Real Boy or be Just a Machine. But the Doctor is entirely comfortable in his strictly defined parameters; why would he want to go outside them? As later episodes confirm however, the Doctor is starting to dream of other possibilities (not to mention beautiful fellow crewmembers).
• Mythology Gag: Reginald Barclay was assigned to beta-test the Doctor's interpersonal skills on Jupiter Station. Fans of TNG know that Barclay is a geek with No Social Skills and so is completely unsuitable for the role, explaining the Doctor's Dr. Jerk nature.
• Not-So-Final Confession: After getting a Last Kiss from his wife, the Doctor admits he's always wanted to tell Kes how beautiful she is. However, he's just woken up in the real world and so ends up saying it to the real Kes. Only she turns out to be a Dream Within a Dream, so the Doctor is spared the embarrassment after all.
• Oops! I Forgot I Was Married: The Doctor is dumbfounded to be told that he has a wife - Kes Zimmerman.
• Patrick Stewart Speech
  Barclay: Lewis, how would you rather think of yourself? As a real person with a real life, with a family that loves you? Or as some hologram that exists in a Sickbay on a starship lost in deep space.
  Chakotay: This isn't about what you want. This is about what you are. Just because you're made of projected light and energy doesn't mean you're any less real than someone made of flesh and blood. It doesn't matter what you're made of. What matters is who you are.
• Projected Man:
  • Holo-emitters have been installed in crucial areas of Voyager so the EMH can be projected outside Sickbay.
  • Barclay claims he's a holographic projection of the real Reginald Barclay, who is outside the holodeck on Jupiter Station trying to communicate with "Dr. Zimmerman". Later, at the climax of the episode, Chakotay appears and makes the same claim.
• Ship Tease: The Doctor and Kes.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: The Doctor tells Kes that he does find her attractive "in a platonic sense".
• The Tease: After explaining what's happened to Kes (including the fact that he dreamt Kes was his wife) the Doctor takes comfort that at least now he knows exactly who he is. Kes gives him a coy look and asks, "Are you sure about that?" After she leaves, the Doctor sticks his arm outside Sickbay so it vanishes, just to be sure.
• Tomato in the Mirror: After the Doctor tells Janeway he's scanning as human, Captain Janeway decides to reset the holographic program. She disappears along with everyone else except the Doctor.
• Try to Fit That on a Business Card: The Doctor gives his full program name as "EMH program AK -1 diagnostic and surgical subroutine Omega 323".
• Wish-Fulfillment: "Computer, delete Paris."
• You Have to Believe Me!: Unfortunately Barclay is not the most convincing person for this job.

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