OVEG: Projections

Description: If you are experienced with modern Trek, then the name Brannon Braga will be known to you. It's a name that -justified or not- has become associated with all that is wrong with the franchise, along with producer Rick Berman. Bashing Braga is the national pastime among many Trek fans, and considering his intimate involvement with both Voyager and Enterprise, he's made several appearances on this website and will continue to for years to come. It would be unfair to single him out as the reason for those series' failures; one need only look to Kenneth Biller, who's also turned in several horrible episodes of both series to see that.

Given all this, it's clear that I can either allow this to just kind of linger, lobbing shots at Braga whenever convenient, or I can address them all in one go. While I think it's quite obvious that I have no real personal standards when it comes to the depths I will sink to -as Mike Nelson wrote, it "takes on a weak opponent and pummels him mercilessly"- rather than becoming just another voice echoing the same lines, I've decided that I'd do the latter. This is a particularly apt time, because this falls within Season 2 of Voyager, which showcases the point rather well. It gave us Projections -this episode- and it gave us Threshold, generally considered the worst Trek episode of all time, and both penned by the same man. In looking at these, I will attempt to be fair, but I will also be completely honest and blunt.

Braga's been called "a talentless hack," to which I say, "you're half right." He wrote over a hundred episodes, many of which were filled with cliches, poor jokes, pathetic characterization, and are just mediocre to bad. "Hack" is, I'm sorry to say, a wholly justified term. However, "talentless" would be unfair. Braga is good at stream of consciousness and just generally messed up-psychologically stories; these kinds of stories on TNG is what I think really got him noticed. His first solo story was Cause And Effect, the story in which the Enterprise was stuck in a repetitive loop. He also did Realm Of Fear (Barclay thinks he's going nuts with the transporters), Birthright Part 1 (Data discovers the ability to dream), Frame Of Mind (Riker's serious headgame), Phantasms (Data's dreams point to a threat to the crew) and others along the same vein. Not all of them made much sense, but overall they weren't down to the low standards of Voyager; overall it was good stuff. The problem is that this pretty much was his only demonstrative strength; actual science fiction always seemed to fall apart because of scientific ignorance. Genesis, for example, where the crew of Enterprise began turning into animals, shows a clear example of knowing enough to be dangerous.

But that's really incidental; if the stories were better, people would be more willing to overlook the absurdities (Timescape, for example). The problem with so many of his scripts -and so much of Trek's failures, really- is the fact that the stories require you to not think, because thinking reveals the flaws. For example, if Chakotay could really take over the minds of people and make them enter codes and such to change direction and eject the warp core, why not simply type out a message to the crew explaining what's happening? If they can get alien technology, even future technology, to work with Voyager, why can't they get the holodeck power source to work with another piece of the same ship? I think that might be why we see his psychological stories doing better, because in the mind things don't have to actually be rational, so you can get away with things that don't make sense, whereas saying that you can reach infinite speed and thus begin evolving is idiotic.

So what we have here in Projections is Braga in his element. We begin with the Doctor coming online alone in Sickbay. The lights are low because we're in the standard "danger" mode, because the reasoning in Voyager is that if things are bad we'll be at our best when we're bumping into shit because we can't see. Or maybe it's to make other ships think no one's home so that they'll go away. The Doctor asks who turned him on, and the computer says it was an automatic response to a ship-wide red alert. Remember that point, it'll be important soon. The Doctor is in his default state when he's awakened with no one to treat, which is annoyed, so he starts asking for information. It turns out that Janeway's not on board... in fact, no one is on board! He's all alone now, and confined to Sickbay, and he's left turned on. What a bummer.

Incidentally, this is forty-five seconds total for the teaser. Hopefully this is a sign Braga learned something about not starting us with Janeway and Muttonchop Man.

We get back and the Doctor asks for some information, and generally it seems Voyager's up shit creek without a paddle. Too good for 'em, I say! Anyway, the Doctor asks for all the bridge logs to be sent to his terminal, and starts watching it. Huh, I guess no authorization is required to view the captain's log, because there's Janeway, who in the midst of the disaster decided the best thing to do was to record a message saying that they were in the midst of a disaster. I'd laugh, but that's so Janeway it's not even funny. The Doctor takes a moment to record a log of his own, but then someone starts trying to break into Sickbay. He grabs a hypospray and gets ready to do the off zap to them, when it turns out to be Torres. It seems that not everyone got off the ship, and that the internal sensors aren't working right. She describes how the Kazon came out of nowhere and ambushed Voyager, blasting them so bad there was a core breach in progress. Janeway ordered an abandon ship, but she and Torres stopped the breach in time.

This is such a good example of the carelessness of this series. When I listened the teaser, my interest was piqued. It called to mind the old shortest horror stories which are:

The last man on Earth sat in a room. There was a knock at the door.

The last man on Earth sat in a room. There was a lock on the door.

The Doctor's clearly the "last man on Earth" here, but he's not alone, because (remember how I said this fact was important) he was automatically turned on by the declaring of a ship-wide red alert. Now, somebody had to do that, so that means that even though nobody is on the ship, something nevertheless was there to do it! Wow, what's it mean?! What's going to happen?!

And then you found out what had seemed like intrigue was, in fact, just a f*ck up. Typical. This too is so Voyager it isn't even funny. Don't misunderstand, it's not that the captain's still there and the sensors are offline; that's fine with me. No, it's that what Torres just said doesn't make a lick of sense! Voyager is getting blasted seven ways from Sunday, has a warp core breach in progress, has to abandon the ship, and only then, after all that shit is over, only then does the captain declare a red alert? You see what I mean when I say that Braga's best stories are the head games ones? It's because with that you can just write this off as delusions later on; a head game doesn't have to be internally consistent. Now if this was by design, then that's fine, but given that it's a fact that's never picked up on again, and given those hundred episodes that I have watched, the odds of this being a subtle hint is pretty much nil.

Anyway, the Doctor discovers that none of the tricorders are reading Torres. He starts treating her injuries, but she says he should go to the bridge to treat the captain, as she was hit by a falling support beam. Since there was a warp core in progress, naturally they wouldn't be in Engineering or anything. The Doctor points out that he can't leave Sickbay, but Torres says that they have been setting up holographic projectors in critical areas to give him access to other parts of the ship. One of these critical areas is, I'm not joking, the mess hall. Since Starfleet personnel have to know combat techniques, how to repair various complex systems, fly ships, and recite Shakespeare, I think we can assume that the Heimlich Maneuver is fairly well-known, which leaves the only other "critical" response to a reaction to Neelix's cooking. That this has been singled out over other parts of the ship... good God, I would laugh if I didn't know that it wasn't a joke.

Anyway, the Doctor eventually winds up on the bridge and grabs a medical kit to treat Janeway. Ah, savor the moment as we see her pinned under a huge girder... the faces of fallen crewmen laughing in merriment. It seems the tricorder isn't working on her either, but when he wakes her up he assures her she'll be fine. I guess he figures that if she won't be, it's not like she'll be able to complain about it. Anyway, stuff keeps happening, this and that are now online, we need to fix this thing...

And then we hear Neelix contact the bridge, and please allow me a moment to savor this. We hear his desperation: "Help, I need help! I'm in the mess hall. There's a-" and then it's cut off by the sound of weapons fire. Ohhhhh sweet mystery of life at last I've found youuuuuu! With the turbolifts not working Janeway can't get there in time, but she can send the Doctor there since the mess hall is a critical area of the ship, and definitely not because it was a script convenience.

The Doctor appears in the mess hall, and just in case anyone was still left after last week's episode that didn't think the Kazon were a bunch of trailer trash idiots in space, we see Neelix is holding one at bay by throwing food and utensils at him. The Kazon's even constructed a small barrier to protect himself from the hail of fruits and vegetables, even though he's clutching a gun in his hand. These are the threats of the delta quadrant? These guys could get their ass kicked by a moped gang. The Kazon finally fires off a shot; Neelix ducks under it, pops up, and in a childish voice goes "Missed me!" I can't imagine why someone would want to drop a weapon of mass destruction on the Talaxians. While this is going on, the Doctor sneaks up around the Kazon and tries to choke him with an egg whisk, but quickly gets overpowered. Neelix takes the moment to rush up and cream him with a frying pan. Since this is a television show, the Kazon is knocked out instead of just annoyed. Compare this to the classic moment in the Battlestar Galactica miniseries where Adama is armed only with a flashlight, and a konk to the head isn't enough, you've got to just beat them to death with it. Between this and the "missed me" thing, this has less in common with sci-fi drama than it does with a Bugs Bunny cartoon; all we needed was Neelix to stick his finger in the barrel of the Kazon's weapon and cause it to explode.

Because there are some cliches we haven't done yet, we have the moment of confusing tomato paste for a serious injury, then Neelix explains how he wound up here. I'd go into it, but I'm sure no one reading a page on my site can give two shits about Neelix, so I won't. Instead something far more interesting happens: the Doctor is bleeding, for real. As he touches the spot, he feels pain. After being returned to Sickbay he examines himself with a tricorder and starts reading life signs. He's obviously confused and starts asking the computer about changes that might have been made to his program, but it can't help him because that program doesn't exist. He starts getting more and more annoyed as he tries to get answers, so in exasperation he asks who the CMO is; it turns out it's Louis Zimmerman, as in the same man who designed the EMH programs and has the same face as the Doctor. What's more, the computer tells him that that is him.

Janeway, Torres, Neelix, and the Kazon come in at this point; Janeway plans to interrogate the Kazon and needs to know if he's telling the truth. But the Doctor's far more concerned with the situation with him, that the tricorders only read him and no one else, and now this glitch. Janeway tries to turn him off to fix it, but it won't turn off. Finally she turns all the holograms on board the ship off, and everyone but the Doctor disappears. Picardo delivers some wonderful stuff here, nice and understated at first of a man who's clearly found himself in an insane world. When it comes back from commercial, you can hear in his tone that bit of "I'm now standing on the ledge" bit as he asks where everyone went. As things go on he discovers that the entire Voyager crew is listed as programs in a computer memory block. Please find Neelix and erase him, please!

And then as if things can't get any stranger, Reg Barclay shows up. Before we can continue, I have to stop to say that I really like Barclay; he hasn't shown up much, but we have seen him grow over the Trek series, which is more than we can say for most main characters. So his appearance here is most welcome, even if it is in this capacity, especially considering that the last time we saw him Braga had turned him into a spider. He is, however, slightly over the top here. Still, I'll take a little bit of overzealousness from Dwight Shultz compared to some of the crap that's appeared on this show. Anyway, he explains that none of this is real, that it's a holographic simulation. The Doctor is actually Louis Zimmerman, and he's on the Jupiter station running a program, but something's gone wrong and they can't turn it off. There's been a radiation surge (isn't there always) that affected the computers, and apparently it must be affecting the Doctor's memory as well since he can't remember Reg or his own wife (who's not Reg, just to avoid confusion; I mean, I like Reg and all, but there are limits and all).

The Doctor listens to all of it, but doesn't buy a word of it. "How do I know you're not some alien impersonating a Starfleet officer?" he asks, which is a very valid question, given the number of times it's happened. Reg finally slaps the Doctor across the face, pointing out that since it hurt, it means he's real. The Doctor slaps him back, and Reg is quite shocked, then leaves, saying they've got to discuss this to figure out how to help him. He comes back quickly and says things are worse, because they can't access the commands of the holodeck, and the radiation prevents a beam out. What versatile radiation: it screws up all the computers, the transporters, and human brains. It slices, it dices, it cuts through a tin can and still slices through a tomato!

Anyway, Reg says that the radiation is going to completely oxidize the Doctor's brain unless they get him out of there in the next hour. Why he's the only one at risk isn't explained, of course; probably some quantum effect of the holodeck or a subspace anus or something. There's only one way out, and that's for the program to end itself by completing it. The only ways to do that is to get Voyager home, or destroy Voyager, and since the former isn't possible, the latter is the only way. The Doctor points out again that Reg could just be an alien trying to trick him into destroying Voyager, so Reg has him scan with a tricorder. The Doctor does detect a wall that would support the idea of him being on a holodeck, but he also points out that the tricorder could be manipulated. Between all this I'm convinced the Doctor is the least gullible person on Voyager; if this were Janeway she'd probably already be down there with a phaser pointed at the warp core.

Next thing we see is Sickbay as it was in Caretaker when the Doctor was first brought online. Barclay says that he can't shut the program down but he can restart it. The Doctor has some fun deleting Paris and Kim, but he's still not convinced enough to risk Voyager, so he heads down to Engineering to blow up the holographic whatjamajiggy and runs into Janeway. Naturally this results in a confrontation, and when the Doctor tries to delete her, it doesn't work. Oopsie. Now she's very unhappy and has phasers pointed at him, so the Doctor tells the whole story of their situation, referring to the Caretaker as "Banjo Man" which is the best superhero idea I've heard in a long time. By night he fights crime, and by day he follows Tucker around. Anyway, all the crew members get taken over to the array as in Caretaker, so the Doctor gets a phaser and blasts the doodad, and yet the Doctor's still there. He believes him now, but he still is having trouble bringing himself to do it. When another massive headache hits he decides Reg must be telling the truth, that being on Voyager is slowly destroying his brain. Welcome to my world, Doctor.

Barclay tells the Doctor how best to shoot the warp core with a phaser, and then, when the Doctor's ready to fire, Chakotay appears and says he's lying. Dun dun dun! Chakotay says that the Doctor really is a hologram and is on Voyager. The Kenoplasmic radiation surge happened, but it was in the projector of the holodeck where the Doctor was, and now his mind and the computer are feeding off of each other to create this massive delusion. Because his mind is feeding in on itself creating this simulation, if the Doctor destroys it he'll be destroying himself. And Barclay gives the line with just the right tone that explains why all of this is happening: "You don't have memory circuits, you have a mind." What we're seeing is, really, what the Doctor wishes he could be, a flesh and blood person instead of someone's creation confined to one room.

Things get even more telling when we see the Doctor collapse in pain, one stating its the oxidation while the other says it's the feedback loop. The next to arrive is Kes, a human Kes, who is the Doctor's wife. She keeps telling him that he's human, and Reg asks which he'd rather be, a hologram, or a real person. It's clear he's a man now being tempted by his own delusions to accept them, because they are what he really wants. Chakotay pleads with him to reject that and asks him to hold on.

Now we have what I think of as a rather lame addition. I know some might think it's brilliant, but I think it seems more like a filling of episode time. The Doctor shows up in Sickbay and everything seems to be fine, and Kim gives him the technobabble explanation for what happened. But then it turns out he's not really out. It's a scene which really serves no purpose except to fake you out; nothing happens except random psychic freakiness... frankly, I think it just undermines the episode. Anyway, the Doctor shows up for real this time on the holodeck. We get the same technobabble explanation again in case it wasn't exciting enough the first time.

Still, despite the frustrating screw-up about the red alert going nowhere and the needless fake out, this is definitely one for the win column for Braga. It seems that if he'd just concentrated more on producing a smaller number of stories that played to his strengths instead of cranking out episodes to meet quota he would be remembered more fondly by the Trek community.

Rating: 8

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