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. However, when the USS Voyager is stranded on the far side of the galaxy without medical personnel, he is forced to act as the starship's permanent chief medical officer. In an example of the Star Trek franchise's exploration of artificial intelligence, a simple software program becomes a major character in the show.
In a 2020 interview, Picardo said his agent told him that he was selected from 900 actors who auditioned for the role.
"I got the part without understanding that the character would be the outsider, the Spock-like character. The character who initially inherited that was Data, who had no emotion and longed to be a real boy in the same way as Pinocchio. I thought that, because Tuvok was a Vulcan character, he would deal with those issues. Once I realized that I had gotten the plum role, it was a delightful surprise. I went from thinking I had the dullest role in the show to believing I may have the best role in the show. That was a little daunting."[1]
He added that he first learned what a hologram was from being selected for the role. "I was confused, I didn't know what it meant for him to be a hologram or a computer program. I didn't understand enough about Star Trek 'science,' which is based on real science, although we still don't know how to make a hologram with density. So I got the part without knowing at all what I was in for."[1]
Picardo initially auditioned for Neelix. Despite Ethan Phillips' getting the part, Picardo was asked by the producers to come back and audition for The Doctor—something that shocked him, because usually actors would be passed over completely.[2] During his audition for the role of The Doctor, Picardo was asked only to say, "Somebody forgot to terminate my program." However, he then ad libbed, "I'm a doctor, not a nightlight!" (Picardo was initially afraid that he might have ruined his chances—ad libbing, he explained, was something that one just "did not do" in an audition.)
Depiction
The Doctor begins his service on the USS Voyager as the standard Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) built into almost every newer Starfleet ship's sickbay. The EMH is to be used should the ship's doctor be incapacitated or require emergency assistance.[3] In the series' first episode, Voyager's chief medical officer, along with his nurse, are killed, necessitating extended use of the EMH. The EMH eventually develops his own personality, although he generally maintains his acerbic wit and irritating "version one" bedside manner. As he was originally intended as a temporary medical backup system, not as a digital life form, Voyager's journey strains his programming to some limits. He gives himself a name during episode S1E12 Heroes and Demons, "Schweitzer". (This name did not carry throughout the entire series.) The Doctor becomes the chief medical officer, with Kes and Tom Paris at various times acting as nurses.
Attempting to develop a realistic personality, the Doctor not only manufactures a holographic family ("Real Life"), he also has an increasing number of other "human" experiences. This results in the Doctor's program evolving to become more lifelike, with emotions and ambitions. He develops meaningful and complex relationships with many members of the ship's crew. The Doctor also develops talents as a playwright, artist, and photographer, and even becomes a connoisseur of opera. He has multiple other experiences with "family", including having a son with a "roommate" while trapped on a planet for three years. During the episode "Blink of an Eye", he asks an associate to inquire further about his progeny.
A recurring theme are the ethical aspects of an artificial, yet apparently sentient, being. In the episode "Latent Image", treating two patients with an equal chance of survival, with only enough time to treat one, The Doctor chooses Harry Kim, a friend. The other patient, Ensign Jetal, dies. The Doctor is overwhelmed with guilt, believing that his friendship influenced his choice. When the stress nearly leads to his program breaking down, Captain Janeway has his memories of these events deleted. When The Doctor later discovers clues as to what had happened, Captain Janeway is convinced by him and others that he has a right to learn to come to grips with the guilt in the manner of any other sentient being rather than be treated merely as a defective piece of equipment.
The Doctor submits a holonovel titled Photons Be Free to a publisher on Earth, detailing the manner in which holograms are sometimes treated by Starfleet. His characters are closely based on Voyager's crew, but exaggerated to appear more intense and vicious, creating fears among the crew their reputations would be ruined. Tom Paris convinces The Doctor to make adjustments without sacrificing his theme. The Doctor lacks legal rights as Federation law does not classify him as a "sentient being". Thus he is forbidden to make any subsequent changes to the holonovel. Captain Janeway's efforts result in The Doctor being accorded the status of "artist", although not a "person". This permits him to rewrite the novel. Four months later, it is known throughout the Alpha Quadrant as a very thought-provoking piece of work. Several other EMHs, now relegated to mining duty, experience[further explanation needed] the novel.
The Doctor's standard greeting is "Please state the nature of the medical emergency" when activated, though later modified to say whatever he chooses. In "Jetrel", it is revealed that he was given the ability to activate and deactivate himself.
The Doctor later acquires a mobile holographic emitter from the 29th century ("Future's End"). Although he has previously been confined to Sickbay or the Holodeck, the mobile emitter allows The Doctor to move about freely, making him ideal for missions where the environment would be harmful or otherwise fatal to the crew. In one notable incident, when an away team is trapped on a radioactive planet, The Doctor is able to infiltrate the people and almost single-handedly rescue the team because, as he points out, being a hologram renders him immune to the radiation, stating that "being a hologram does have its advantages."
In a 2020 interview, Picardo recalled his initial reticence to the concept of a mobile emitter:
I remember I was in [Voyager producer] Brannon Braga's office when he told me. He said, "Your character is so popular, we need to be able to put you in more scripts, in more situations and settings. What do you think?" I said, "I think it's a bad idea." This was one time when I was clearly wrong and the producers were absolutely, a hundred percent right. I conveyed to him exactly what I described to you earlier, that the character's differences define him and make him interesting to the audience. If I'm not limited to the sickbay or the holodeck, then I'll just be like anybody else. I'm glad they did it, as it gave me many more stories. But because the character had been kind of a break-out character... whenever somebody plans to mess with a winning formula, I think anyone's reaction would be, "Are we sure we want to do that?"[1]
The Doctor's programming evolves from his first romance, Dr. Denara Pel, to the point where he falls in love with Seven of Nine, though she is unable to reciprocate. In an alternate future episode, "Endgame", The Doctor finally adopts a name (see below) and marries a human female named Lana.
In the final episode of Star Trek: Voyager, a future version of Janeway also informs him of his later invention of a device known as a "synaptic transceiver", something that fascinates The Doctor; he is cut off by the "present" Janeway, who is abiding by the Temporal Prime Directive, before he can learn more.
Emergency Command Hologram
The "Emergency Command Hologram", aka "ECH", is first coined by The Doctor in the episode "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy", in which he creates a program which allows him to daydream, such as adding routines which allow him to take command of Voyager – including a command uniform – in the event of the command crew being incapacitated. At the end of the episode, Captain Janeway promises to consider the idea. In the following season episode "Workforce", the idea is realized when the crew is forced to abandon ship, and The Doctor takes over command functions.
Backup copies
The Doctor's program requires a custom-built photonic processor, and Starfleet outfitted Voyager with only two. This hardware itself also cannot be replicated, hence the Doctor cannot be easily backed up, restored, or copied.
Voyager's computers cannot help run his photonic program, and cannot contain a usable backup of its image. The Doctor's entire program uses 50 million gigaquads ("Lifesigns" and "The Swarm" mention these limitations). The episode "Living Witness" depicts a future Delta Quadrant civilization building a museum around Voyager artifacts, including its redundant EMH photonic processor.
Name
A recurring theme in the Doctor's life is his lack of a proper name. Starfleet did not assign a name to him, and initially, the Doctor claims that he does not want one, until the episode "Eye of the Needle", when he asks Kes to give him a name. He later adopts such names as "Schweitzer" (after Albert Schweitzer); "Shmullus" (in "Lifesigns" by Vidiian patient Dr. Denara Pel); "Van Gogh"; "Kenneth"; "Jones"; and several others. His friends suggest the famous historical Earth doctors "Galen" and "Spock". The captioned dialog of early episodes, and early promotional material for the series premiere, refer to him as "Dr. Zimmerman", after his creator, Lewis Zimmerman. The Doctor is ultimately referred to as simply "The Doctor" and addressed as "Doctor" or "Doc", which he answers to without concern, and the issue of the Doctor's name virtually disappears over the course of the series. However, in the series finale, in an alternate future timeline the Doctor has finally chosen the name "Joe" after his new wife's grandfather (and Picardo's own father). Tom Paris remarks about this choice: "it took you 33 years to come up with 'Joe'?".
Characteristics
Before the arrival of the mobile emitter, The Doctor's holo-program was confined to sickbay, holodecks, and other areas equipped with holographic systems.
Depending on the availability of suitable holographic patterns and the capacity of his pattern buffers, The Doctor can alter his appearance. This was illustrated especially in the episode "Renaissance Man."
The Doctor is also able to download his program and personality subroutines into a humanoid with Borg implants, indirectly "possessing" that individual and gaining control over its "host" body. Such was the case when he was forced to hide within the body of Seven of Nine in "Body and Soul".
Emergency Medical Hologram
The EMH is a holographic computer program designed to treat patients during emergency situations, or when the regular medical staff is unavailable or incapacitated. EMHs are a standard feature onboard all Starfleet ships, but they are there only to supplement the living medical crew during emergencies, not replace it. Programmed with all current Starfleet medical knowledge, The Doctor and all Mark I programs are equipped with the knowledge and mannerisms of historic Federation doctors, as well as the physical appearance of their programmer Dr. Lewis Zimmerman. However, the EMH can form a personality over time if used a lot.[3]
Mariella Scerri and Victor Grech have proposed that the EMH is "an examplar of strong AI" (a philosophical position on artificial intelligence according to which "computational states are functionally equivalent to mental states"[4]).[5] Another author observed that consequent to the EMH's portrayal in Voyager, "sentient computer programs embodied in a computer-generated hologram became a commonplace idea – even a convention – in subsequent fiction".[6]
Other appearances
In a minor role in the movie Star Trek: First Contact, Picardo plays the emergency medical hologram of the USS Enterprise-E. Doctor Beverly Crusher activates it/him, albeit reluctantly, as a means of distracting the Borg while she and other crew members escape from the besieged sickbay. He replies, "I'm a doctor, not a doorstop", an homage to Doctor McCoy's catchphrase line "I'm a doctor, not a ..."
In 2019, Picardo said CBS producers had expressed interest in also having him in Star Trek: Picard as either The Doctor or his creator, Lewis Zimmerman.[7]
Several other versions of the EMH have appeared onscreen. The EMH Mark II, a new and upgraded EMH, is played by Andy Dick in the Voyager episode "Message in a Bottle". Star Trek: Picard features an EMH called "Emil", part of a holographic suite aboard the ship La Sirena, modeled after Captain Cristobal Rios and played by Santiago Cabrera. Star Trek: Discovery features a 32nd-century EMH known as "Eli", played by Brendan Beiser.
Reception
In 2018, The Wrap ranked Voyager's EMH as the 22nd best character of Star Trek overall, noting the character as a "sarcastic, overworked hologram", one that also had time for jokes and helping fellow crewmates.[8]
In 2016, Wired magazine ranked the character as the 16th most important character in service to Starfleet within the Star Trek science fiction universe.[9]
In 2016, SyFy ranked "The Doctor/Voyager EMH" as the second best of the six main-cast space doctors of the Star Trek franchise.[10]
In 2013, Slate magazine ranked The Doctor one of the ten best crew characters in the Star Trek franchise.[11]
↑ "Robert Picardo ("The Doctor" - VOY)". Star Trek Official Site. StarTrek.com. May 6, 2002. Archived from the original on July 9, 2010. When I didn't get the part, the producers shocked me by asking me to reconsider The Doctor. Usually in TV, when you have tested for one role, they simply throw you into the ash can and move on to another actor.
Kathryn Janeway is a fictional character in the Star Trek franchise. She was the main character of the television series Star Trek: Voyager, which aired between 1995 and 2001. She served as the captain of the Starfleet starship USS Voyager while it was lost in the Delta Quadrant on the other side of the galaxy. After returning home to the Alpha Quadrant, she is promoted to vice admiral and briefly appears in the 2002 film Star Trek: Nemesis. She is seen again commanding the USS Dauntless in Star Trek: Prodigy, searching for the missing USS Protostar which was being commanded by Captain Chakotay, her former first officer on Voyager, at the time of its disappearance.
Star Trek: Voyager is an American science fiction series created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor. It aired from January 16, 1995, to May 23, 2001, on UPN, with 172 episodes over seven seasons. The fifth series in the Star Trek franchise, it served as the fourth after Star Trek: The Original Series. Set in the 24th century, when Earth is part of a United Federation of Planets, it follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager as it attempts to return home to the Alpha Quadrant after being stranded in the Delta Quadrant on the far side of the galaxy.
Reginald Endicott Barclay III is a fictional engineer from the Star Trek media franchise. On television and in film, he has been portrayed by Dwight Schultz since the character's introduction in the Star Trek: The Next Generation third season episode "Hollow Pursuits." Schultz played the character for five episodes and one feature film of The Next Generation, as well as six episodes of the series Star Trek: Voyager. Barclay also appears in non-canon Star Trek novels and video games.
Robert Alphonse Picardo is an American actor. He is best known for playing the Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager. He also appeared as Richard Woolsey in the Stargate franchise, the Cowboy in Innerspace, Coach Cutlip on The Wonder Years, and Captain Dick Richard on the ABC series China Beach. He is a frequent collaborator of Joe Dante and is a member of The Planetary Society's Board of Directors.
"Message in a Bottle" is the 14th episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager, the 82nd episode overall. It aired on January 21, 1998 on the UPN network.
"Latent Image" is the 105th episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager airing on the UPN network, the 11th episode of the fifth season. The show has stories about a spacecraft, the eponymous USS Voyager, traveling back to Earth after being lost on the other side of the Galaxy; the episodes typically focus on problems encountered by its crew. In this case ship's holographic medical program, "The Doctor", finds something amiss in his program's memory. In the typical style of the Star Trek franchise, the story uses science fiction to explore the philosophical issues, in this case, of medical ethics, personhood, decision making, and human rights.
"Virtuoso" is the 13th episode of the sixth season of the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager, 133rd episode overall. It was aired on January 26, 2000, on United Paramount Network (UPN). USS Voyager, the fictional starship and the show's primary setting, is making its way slowly back to Earth from the other side of the Galaxy when they encounter Qomar aliens. These advanced aliens are intrigued by the singing abilities of The Doctor, indeed by music itself which despite their advanced technology they have not yet discovered.
"Life Line" is the 24th episode from the sixth season of Star Trek: Voyager, the 144th episode overall. It is one of the episodes in the Star Trek universe in which characters from elsewhere in the franchise are extended by Voyager. Reginald Barclay and Deanna Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation make appearances, and in addition Jean-Luc Picard is twice mentioned by Troi but not seen. This is also one of the few episodes where a character actually arrives in the Alpha Quadrant, and the only Voyager episode which has a cast member receiving a writing credit.
"Phage" is the fifth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager. The episode was directed by Winrich Kolbe. Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet and Maquis crew of the starship USS Voyager after they are stranded in the Delta Quadrant far from the rest of the Federation.
"Body and Soul" is the 153rd episode of Star Trek: Voyager, the seventh episode of the seventh season. This television episode is one installment of a science fiction series involving a spacecraft trying to get back to Earth from the other side of the Galaxy. The show aired on the United Paramount Network on November 15, 2000. It is focused especially on two characters, Seven of Nine and the holographic medical program called the Doctor. The episode was noted for its humor and acting performances in reception.
"Projections" is the 19th episode of the American science fiction television program Star Trek: Voyager. Originally slated for the first season, the episode originally aired on UPN on September 11, 1995, and tells the story of the ship's holographic doctor suffering an identity crisis on the holodeck regarding whether he or the world around him is the illusion.
"Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy" is the 124th episode of the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager, the fourth episode of the sixth season. The title is a parody of the famous 1974 novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré.
"Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" is the 114th episode of the syndicated American science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the 16th episode of the fifth season. This episode guest stars actor Robert Picardo, who played the role of the Emergency Medical Hologram on Star Trek: Voyager; in this episode, Picardo portrays both its creator, Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, and briefly the EMH itself. The episode also features guest performances by Brian George and anthropologist Fadwa El Guindi as the parents of Dr. Julian Bashir.
"Repentance" is the 159th episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager airing on the UPN network. It is the 13th episode of the seventh season.
"Heroes and Demons" is the twelfth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager. The episode first aired April 24, 1995 on UPN. It was directed by Les Landau and written by former Star Trek: The Next Generation story editor Naren Shankar. Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet and Maquis crew of the starship USS Voyager after they were stranded in the Delta Quadrant far from the rest of the Federation. In this episode, after a sample of a protostar is brought on board, crewmen start to vanish from a holodeck simulation of Beowulf. The Doctor, a hologram, investigates and finds that a lifeform was transported to the ship alongside the sample. It escaped to the holodeck where it was converting those who entered into energy. The Doctor has the samples brought to the holodeck and released, resulting in the lifeform returning the crewmen to their corporeal states.
"Twisted" is the 22nd episode of Star Trek: Voyager, the sixth episode in the second season. Set in the 24th century, the Starfleet ship U.S.S. Voyager is stranded in the Delta Quadrant on the opposite side of the Galaxy from Earth in the Alpha Quadrant. In this episode, a spacial anomaly distorts the ship and the crew must work through their relationships amidst difficult and constantly changing surroundings.
"Real Life" is the 64th episode of Star Trek: Voyager and the 22nd episode of the third season. This episode revolves around the Doctor dealing with his holographic family program. Robert Picardo plays a holographic AI aboard the starship USS Voyager in the 24th century.
"Author, Author" is the 166th episode of the TV series Star Trek: Voyager, the 20th episode of the seventh season. This episode focuses on the character "The Doctor" (EMH) and on impact of a novel and explores the meaning of AI.
"Equinox" is a two-part episode of the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager, the cliffhanger between the fifth and sixth seasons. This television episode features a 24th-century spacecraft, the USS Voyager, lost on the opposite side of the Galaxy as Earth, the Delta Quadrant, and they must make their way home.
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