star trek voyager episode nothing human cast

Nothing Human (episode)

• View history
• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 1.6 Act Five
• 2 Log entries
• 3 Memorable quotes
• 4.1 Story development
• 4.2 Cast and characters
• 4.3 Production
• 4.4 Continuity
• 4.5 Apocrypha
• 4.6 Reception
• 4.7 Video and DVD releases
• 5.1 Starring
• 5.2 Also starring
• 5.3 Guest stars
• 5.4 Co-stars
• 5.5 Uncredited co-stars
• 5.6 Stand-ins
• 5.7 References
• 5.8 External links

Summary [ ]

The Doctor's slide show

The Doctor is presenting a holographic slide show of his achievements since being activated. Present are several crewmembers as well as the following senior officers : Captain Kathryn Janeway , Lieutenant Commander Tuvok , Lt. (jg) Tom Paris , and Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres . The audience members struggle to keep their attention on the tedious presentation. On the bridge , Commander Chakotay is reminded by Ensign Harry Kim that the Captain had requested that he call a false yellow alert to "rescue" the audience after thirty minutes. But the First Officer has no intention of doing so. He, Kim and others had to endure it for two hours, and he sees no reason why the rest of the senior staff should be spared the same experience. He tells this to Kim, who agrees with a mischievous grin.

An energy wave hits Voyager

The presentation ends. The senior officers are very chagrined by Chakotay's set-up. In the mess hall , Paris and Torres discuss the experience with Neelix , among other things. Neelix is sympathetic, having had to previously endure the ordeal himself. Then the ship begins to rattle. Officers and crew present immediately leave for their stations. On the bridge, Kim reports a huge energy wave is heading toward them. Janeway orders deflector shields raised and evasive maneuvers attempted, but the wave actually changes direction to suit, as if it is tracking them. They are unable to escape and it hits.

But it merely buffets them hard, causing only minor damage. They know not what to make of it.

Act One [ ]

The alien ship

When the wave has passed, Janeway orders all stop and damage assessment. As was said, the damage is only minor. But then Ensign Kim reports that a signal was downloaded into the ship's database when the wave hit. He cannot decipher it, but there is an audio component. Janeway orders it played. A strange sound is heard. Janeway surmises that the wave and downloaded signal are actually an attempt at communication from somewhere. Their best bet to find the source is to follow the ion trail the wave left. She orders it done.

The ship slows from warp speed at the end of the trail and the source is indeed found: an alien ship. It appears heavily damaged. Ensign Kim detects a single non-humanoid life sign aboard. Chakotay orders it beamed to the sickbay .

In sickbay, the alien lies on a bio-bed. As a safety measure, the bed's alcove is sealed by a force field . It is pinkish in general color, but green on the head and back. It has 4 multi-segmented limbs with three-digit appendages on each one, presumably appendages of manipulation. Two large eyes are on the front of the head. It has a long proboscis-like appendage, with two feeler-like projections protruding from it, and a long tail. Captain Janeway is present. The Doctor frustratedly reports to her about the alien's condition: it is definitely injured, but he has absolutely no idea as to how to treat, or even diagnose it, as the tricorder cannot make any sense of what it is scanning from it.

Torres enters sickbay and reports to Janeway that the interface controls on the alien's ship are chemical in nature. She surmises that the alien flies it by interfacing with the systems and using biochemical secretions to command and control it. She approaches the force field.

" We have to do something! " " No one is disputing that, Mr. Paris. The question is… what? "

Suddenly, with a screech, the alien leaps off the bio-bed, passes straight through the force field and attaches itself to Torres. She falls beneath it, struggling to get it off her, but fails. The security officer present pulls his phaser and gives it to Janeway but The Doctor stops her, as a shot would harm Torres. Janeway urgently hails the bridge and orders Ensign Kim to beam it back to its ship, but he is unable to get a transporter lock on it. The alien pierces Torres' neck with its proboscis.

Torres now lies unconscious on the bio-bed the alien was occupying. The alien has its limbs wrapped tightly around her upper torso; its tail coiled equally tightly around her leg. The Doctor reports to Janeway and Paris that her lungs and heart are being severely compromised by the alien interfacing with them, and her kidneys are failing.

Paris frantically urges The Doctor to do something. He responds that if he tried to remove it, Torres' affected organs would be irreparably damaged. Neither can it be beamed off her, as Janeway suggests, as that would remove those organs with the alien. To come up with any kind of treatment, he tells them, he needs to consult an extensive database on exobiology . Janeway suggests that he consult more than a mere database; the said database could actually be merged into a created interactive hologram of a leading exobiologist, to work with him as a consultant. He agrees, and Paris cites Ensign Kim as the best crewmember to do this. Janeway agrees.

The alien, latched on to Torres

Crell Moset

Kim works at the holographic "consultant" on one of the ship's two holodecks , as The Doctor watches with interest. The Doctor has found a suitable leading figure in exobiology in the database to use: one Dr. Crell Moset . Kim activates the holographic matrix, and a hologram of Dr. Moset appears.

But on seeing him, Kim immediately notes that his species is Cardassian , a notoriously unfriendly people. The Doctor is unconcerned, however; Moset was listed as the most highly qualified and respected exobiologist in the database. Kim activates the hologram's interactive subroutines.

The Moset hologram greets them in a cordial, friendly manner, especially The Doctor, citing him as a fellow medical professional.

Act Two [ ]

The Doctor quickly takes to Moset and they begin discussing Torres' situation. Kim transfers Moset to the sickbay so that The Doctor can show him the problem. There they confer further, and begin brainstorming possible treatments.

On the bridge, Janeway and Chakotay oversee continuing efforts to decrypt the alien signal. Seven of Nine is in engineering , having been made the temporary chief engineer. Working with her is a young Bajoran ensign named Tabor . They attempt to download the alien ship's database. But the attempt fails, and, moreover, a sudden surge in the badly damaged ship's power system causes it to explode, taking the database with it, destroying all hope of decrypting the signal.

In the sickbay, The Doctor and Moset continue to discuss treatments. Paris remains at Torres' side; a trained medical assistant, the captain has allowed him to remain in the sickbay to assist, for which he is extremely grateful. Moset tells The Doctor that he would be much better able to come up with possible treatments if he had his laboratory. The Doctor suggests having Ensign Kim create a holographic simulation of it. Moset, pleased, agrees. However, as the two holograms confer, Torres regains consciousness and sees Moset. She is instantly angry, as Kim suspected she would be, but Paris assures her that he may be the only way to save her life.

Act Three [ ]

The simulation of Crell Moset's laboratory

The simulated lab is created, along with a simulation of the alien on an examination table. The Doctor and Moset get to work examining it. As they work, they find themselves humming a tune together  file info , to each other's pleasant surprise.

Then The Doctor conversationally asks Moset about his accomplishments, particularly his work in devising a cure for the fostossa virus , a pathogen that killed thousands on Bajor during the Cardassian occupation of that planet. Moset replies in a friendly manner, but sidesteps the question, only replying that he did the work on Bajor itself during the occupation, and not mentioning anything about the details of his research, such as the methods he used.

On the bridge, Janeway and Chakotay surmise that the alien's signal may have in fact been a distress call . Therefore, if it is broadcast, others of its kind may receive it and come, and they may be able to learn to communicate with them. Janeway orders Tuvok to broadcast the signal using Voyager 's navigational deflector array, which he does.

Tabor beholds the Moset hologram

The Doctor and Moset begin the examination. The Doctor, however, becomes uncomfortable when he sees the procedure that Moset intends to use: cutting the "living" thing open with scalpel . The Doctor assists despite his discomfort, but winces when the creature screams as the first incision is made. Moset examines the creature's internal organs and decides that a neurostatic shock would cause the alien to lose motor function, allowing its removal. The Doctor concernedly surmises that such a procedure would kill it. Moset, however, responds that the choice may be between it and Torres. Then he begins to fritz. The Doctor has the computer deactivate him and hails Ensign Kim. Kim agrees to meet The Doctor in the sickbay.

Kim arrives at the sickbay, bringing Ensign Tabor with him to assist. Torres, still awake, angrily tells The Doctor that Moset should not be reactivated. He tries to tell her that he is, in fact, very kind and compassionate, and if she would just get to know him, she would see that. He adds he is planning to ask the captain to keep him as a permanent consultant for him. She coldly responds that there are many aboard besides her who would have great objection to that. The Doctor turns his attention to Kim and asks him how he is progressing. Kim responds that they are almost finished. He reactivates Moset.

The moment Tabor sees him, he stands rooted with shock, before becoming apoplectic. Screaming that he is a mass murderer , he shouts that Crell Moset killed his grandfather , brother and hundreds of other Bajorans.

Act Four [ ]

Tabor lunges at Moset and has to be held back by Paris and Kim. The Doctor tells him he is mistaken but Tabor furiously retorts that he is not; Crell Moset performed horrific experiments on living people. Thousands of Bajorans, he claims, were killed by him at his " so-called hospital " on Bajor. Moset denies his accusations. He tells The Doctor he should probably leave, and The Doctor transfers him back to the holodeck.

In Chakotay's office, Tabor, in control of himself but still extremely angry, repeats his accusations against Crell Moset to Chakotay. The Doctor is present. Tabor lists some of Moset's alleged atrocities: exposing Tabor's grandfather's organs to nadion radiation , condemning him to a painful, six-day-long demise; blinding others to study how they adapted to being deprived of their sight; exposing others to polytrinic acid to see how long it took their skin to heal. The Doctor reminds him of the fostossa virus which killed thousands of Bajorans. Moset, he tells him, found the cure. Tabor retorts that he did so by infecting hundreds of other Bajorans with the virus, so he could experiment with treatments on them. Chakotay interjects that he recalls, in his time as a Maquis commander, that some of the Bajoran Maquis under his command spoke of an infamous Cardassian doctor. Tabor begs him to have the hologram, and all traces of Moset's research, destroyed.

In sickbay, Torres, though very weak, vehemently tells Paris that she will not let Moset treat her. She asserts that if she lets " that pig " operate on her, she will be benefiting from his wickedness and his victims' suffering. She would rather die than to do that. Paris is horrified. He tries to get her to reconsider, but she is adamant. The Doctor also tries, telling her that they are very close to a treatment. But she insists that another way be found, before again slipping into unconsciousness. An alarm indicates she is going into cytotoxic shock. The Doctor quickly administers counteracting medication.

Seven of Nine and Ensign Kim are in engineering, studying the ship's databases for information that may prove or disprove Tabor's accusations. Kim hails The Doctor, who soon arrives. They show him what they found: during his time on Bajor during the occupation, Moset had purchased several biological agents, including every known strain of fostossa. The Doctor points out that he would have needed such samples to conduct experiments on vaccine creation. However, they show him the requisition orders; none of them contained any of the enzymes needed to synthesize vaccines. Then, four days later, in the vicinity of his hospital, a major outbreak of fostossa occurred. Before that there had never been a single recorded case in the entire province. The Doctor is stunned. Kim takes the data to Chakotay.

The Doctor confronts Moset

The Doctor returns to the holodeck and finds Moset preparing for the procedure he had earlier decided on to remove the alien from Lt. Torres. The Doctor informs Moset that Torres refuses to accept any treatment from him, and that corroborating evidence supporting Tabor's accusations against him has been found. Moset dismisses the barbaric nature of his actions with claims that one must use whatever resources one has available for research. Matters such as ethics, he asserts, are purely arbitrary; what is important is the final result and the benefit it brings. The Doctor angrily disputes this. He informs Moset that he may have to be deleted. Moset matter-of-factly responds that he is the only way a solution can be found in time to save Torres. The Doctor has no answer for this.

Captain Janeway calls a senior staff meeting to discuss the situation. Word of Moset has gotten round the ship. Ensign Tabor has tendered the resignation of his commission to Chakotay.

Janeway hears the arguments. The Doctor informs them that he cannot come up with any alternative treatment in time to save Torres, and Moset's idea will indeed work. Paris insists that it be used then, regardless of issues about who and where the research came from. Tuvok and Chakotay voice the opposing view, which, ironically, Torres shares: to use Moset's idea would be to validate methods which are ethically unacceptable.

Paris' response is very heated, and his refuting comments to Chakotay begin to border on insubordination. Janeway silences him sternly. The final decision is hers. She announces it: all issues regarding Moset aside, her primary concern is Torres' well-being. She therefore authorizes The Doctor to proceed with Moset's assistance. Any consequences of this decision, she tells them, will be her responsibility. She dismisses the meeting. The Doctor immediately makes ready, and he and Moset begin the procedure.

Act Five [ ]

On the bridge, Tuvok, whose Vulcan hearing is more acute than a Human 's, begins to hear a noise. The noise quickly becomes loud enough for all officers present to hear, and increases in volume until they have to shout loudly to be heard. Tuvok reports that it appears to be an alien com signal. Ensign Kim reports that a ship has slowed from warp speed and is quickly approaching. Janeway orders it put on-screen . It is the same type of ship the alien attached to Lt. Torres was on.

The deafening noise suddenly stops. Janeway asks Kim what the message says. But the universal translator cannot make any sense of it. Janeway decides to give them a standard response. Ordering a channel opened, she greets them, identifying herself and Voyager , and explains that one of their kind is in Voyager 's sickbay being treated for injuries it has sustained. The response she gets is another loud shriek.

Torres has been moved to the holographic lab. Moset and The Doctor perform the operation. Moset leads. As per what he decided, he has opened the alien's body and is applying neurostatic shocks with a cortical probe to stimulate its primary neural cortex and make it release. The alien screams with pain from the procedure, to The Doctor's great discomfort. The procedure begins to work, but Moset raises the probe's pulse frequency for quicker results. The alien screams louder. The Doctor notes with consternation that its synapses are degenerating; it is dying. Moset tells him not to " lose nerve " and continues. The Doctor watches and listens until he can do so no longer. He pushes Moset aside, takes the instrument from him, and angrily tells him that if they apply the shocks to the secondary neural cortex, the same result can be achieved, without killing the alien or causing it so much pain. He does so, with the alien's response dropping to plaintive whines instead of agonized shrieking.

The newly-arrived cytoplasmic alien ship "attacks" Voyager

The alien ship begins firing on Voyager . Janeway orders shields raised. On the holodeck, the lab and Moset begin to waver. The Doctor urgently hails the bridge. Tuvok reports to Janeway that the alien ship has locked onto them with what is presumably a tractor beam ; it is draining their power. On Janeway's order, he sends an antimatter surge through the shields' matrix in an attempt to disable it, but this fails to do so. He recommends using Voyager 's weapons, but Janeway refuses; her instinct tells her this is not an attack, but merely an attempt by the aliens to rescue their fellow. She hails the holodeck for a status report.

The Doctor's idea works; the alien withdraws its tendril interface with Torres' organs. Torres passes from danger. But the alien's condition deteriorates. The holograms quickly decide on a drug to use to stabilize its condition, and Moset administers it. With its life no longer in danger, The Doctor hails the bridge and tells Janeway to have it beamed to the alien ship. Janeway immediately has it done.

On the bridge, Kim reports that the alien ship is withdrawing. One final screech comes through the com system, which Janeway takes as a " Thank you ", and the ship leaves.

The Doctor reports on Torres' condition to Janeway in her ready room . He has released her to her quarters for convalescence. He also reports that she was "extremely unhappy" (which, given her Klingon temper, translates as "violently angry") that Moset was used to treat her; she nearly had to be sedated. Janeway responds that she will speak to her. The Doctor then brings up the issue of what to do with Moset. Janeway tells him that she is leaving that decision to him. But she urges him to make it quickly, whatever it is, so the whole thing can be laid to rest.

" I'm the captain… I did what was best. "

Torres in is her quarters. Janeway goes to see her. She tries to soothe Torres' very evident anger with concerned questions about how she is feeling. Torres coldly responds that she is " alive ". Seeing that Torres will not be soothed, Janeway softly, but with authority, tells her that losing her was unacceptable, therefore, despite her objection, she authorized the use of Moset to treat her. With the steel of command beneath her calmly spoken words, she tells Torres she needs to put this behind her. Torres asks if this is an order. Janeway affirms. Torres angrily tells her that she had no right to make the decision for her. Janeway stops covering the steel and sternly responds that she is the captain and did what she thought best. She leaves. Torres angrily watches her go.

Moset has been deleted

The Doctor goes to the holographic lab. Moset greets him amiably, with an air of celebration, but The Doctor does not reciprocate. He tells Moset that the captain left the decision of what to do with him up to him, and this is what it is: he will be deleted, along with all of Crell Moset's research, as he cannot in good conscience continue to make use of either. Moset becomes angry. He reminds The Doctor that those same techniques which so appall him were instrumental in saving Lt. Torres. He asserts that The Doctor will need him again; Voyager faces new, unknown and often dangerous lifeforms every day. To delete him would be to deny the crew a vital medical resource. The Doctor would be violating his physician's oath: "Do no harm".

The Doctor is greatly offended to hear these words. Moset tells The Doctor that whether he deletes him or not, the damage is done: the crew has already benefited from Moset's research. The Doctor orders the computer to execute the deletion. Moset's eyes go wide and he opens his mouth to protest, he is deleted before any word can come out. The Doctor turns and leaves the holodeck.

Log entries [ ]

• " Captain's log , supplemental. While The Doctor seems to be making progress, Commander Chakotay and I have hit a wall in our attempt to decipher the alien message. "
• " Chief Medical Officer's Log , supplemental. I've managed to stabilize Lieutenant Torres for the time being, but the matter of how to proceed with her treatment remains unresolved. "

Memorable quotes [ ]

" I can still remember the sounds his instruments made; the screams of his patients; the smell… of chemicals and dead flesh. He operated on my grandfather, exposed his internal organs to nadion radiation. It took six days for him to die. "

" He blinded people so he could study how they adapted; exposed them to polytrinic acid just to see how long it would take for their skin to heal! " " Ensign, the man you're accusing cured the fostossa virus. He stopped an epidemic that killed thousands of Bajorans! " " By infecting hundreds of people! So that he could experiment with different treatments; old, helpless people… like my grandfather… because he considered their lives worthless! " " How do you know this? " "Everybody knew! "

" I remember some of the Maquis under my command talking about an infamous Cardassian doctor. " " Could these simply have been rumors spread by Bajorans who hated the Cardassians? " (Furious) " I was there!"

" I may be a walking encyclopedia but even I don't know everything. "

" It is curious. The Borg are accused of assimilating information with no regard for life. This Cardassian did the same, and yet, his behavior is tolerated. "

"If the Doctor uses knowledge that Moset gained through his experiments, we would be validating his methods, inviting further unethical research. " "We'd be setting a terrible precedent. " "We're in the middle of the Delta Quadrant. Who would know? " " We would know. "

" Fine. Let's just deactivate the evil hologram and let B'Elanna die. At least, we'd have our morals intact. "

" The arguments have been made and we're running out of time. The fact is, you're both right, but when it comes down to it, the only issue I'm concerned about is the well-being of that crew member lying in Sickbay. We'll wrestle with the morality of this situation later, after B'Elanna is back on her feet. Doctor, you have my authorization to proceed, with Moset's assistance. " " Yes, Captain. " " Any consequences of this decision will be my responsibility. Dismissed. "

" I hope you can understand why I went against your wishes, B'Elanna. Losing you was unacceptable. I know you're angry, but we need to put this behind us. Understood? " " Is that an order? " " Yes. " " You can't order someone to get rid of an emotion, Captain. " " And what emotion is that? " " You had no right to make that decision for me! " " I'm the Captain. You're my crewman. I did what I thought best. I get the feeling there are still a few demons in the air. Let's hope this does the trick, huh? "

" Think about what we accomplished in the last twenty-four hours. Our first case was a triumph. Both patients are thriving, and we advanced the frontiers of medical science. I've already outlined a paper that you and I will one day present to the Federation Medical Academy: "Total Systemic Invasion of a Klingon-Human Hybrid by a Cytoplasmic Pseudoparasite". Has a nice ring to it, don't you think? " " Are we also going to tell them where you honed your surgical techniques? A footnote, perhaps. 'For further details, see Cardassian death camps.' " " Those techniques were crucial this morning. Where was your sarcasm then? " " I didn't come here to debate the issue with you, Crell. I came here to inform you of my decision. It is my judgment that the Medical Consultant Program and all the algorithms contained therein shall be deleted from the database. In light of recent evidence, I cannot in good conscience utilize research that was derived from such inhuman practices. " " In good conscience? What about the well-being of your crew? You're confronted by new forms of life every day, many of them dangerous. You need me. Delete my program and you violate the first oath you took as a physician. Do no harm. " "Do no harm?! You have no right to say those words. Computer– " " You can erase my program, Doctor, but you can never change the fact that you've already used some of my research. Where was your conscience when B'Elanna was dying on that table? Ethics, morality, conscience; funny how they all go out the airlock when we need something. Are you and I really so different? " " Computer, delete medical consultant program and all related files. "

Background information [ ]

Story development [ ].

• Although Jeri Taylor and other members of Star Trek: Voyager 's writing staff (including Rick Berman ) initially intended for Taylor to write numerous scripts for Voyager after she retired from the industry and ended her position as an executive producer of the show – between its fourth and fifth seasons – this was ultimately the only episode whose writing she was credited for, following her four-year stint as an executive producer. By extension, this was also her last writing credit for the Star Trek franchise in general, though she would remain credited as co-creator and as an executive consultant for the rest of the show's run. ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 39 , p. 4; Star Trek Monthly  issue 42 , p. 13, et al.)
• This episode was an effort to bring the Cardassian species onto Star Trek: Voyager , as they had been featured more prominently in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine , as Jeri Taylor explained. " We could not simply import them into the Delta Quadrant. So, this was an opportunity to use a very interesting alien species and, because they were so universally reviled, we kind of put that holodeck creature into the guise of someone whose expertise was needed to save a life. " ( VOY Season 5 DVD , "Braving the Unknown: Season Five")
• The working title of this episode was "Not Human". ( Delta Quadrant , p. 270; Beyond the Final Frontier , p. 324)
• The character of Crell Moset is reminiscent of the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele , who was notorious for performing bizarre and barbaric experiments on concentration camp inmates during World War II . In fact, Moset was actually somewhat modeled on this historical figure. " We talked about Mengele […] and that was sort of a model, there, " reflected Jeri Taylor. " Now, he had no compunctions […] [but] we wanted to provide a grayer area of someone who, in his mind, was very justified in doing this, because the greater good would outweigh the cost to the people that he was experimenting on. " ( VOY Season 5 DVD , "Braving the Unknown: Season Five")

Cast and characters [ ]

• Like her on-screen persona, B'Elanna Torres actress Roxann Dawson did not find this episode a comfortable experience. In an interview on StarTrek.com , she cited this as the worst episode she ever took part in, due to the fact that her pet dog died during filming, and all she had to do for that week, while grieving, was lie on a bio-bed. [1] (X) Dawson, with a laugh, also said, " I hated every minute of that episode. It's no secret, so I can just blurt it out. That bug was just horrible. It was no fun. It's not like I was challenged in any kind of actor way. I was just laying there with a bug on me. It was a real pain. " However, Dawson tried to look on the bright side of the episode. " You had to have a sense of humor [about it] […] I spent most of that episode trying not to laugh at the whole thing. Granted, maybe the story had something to say, and I think that was the saving grace. I wasn't a part of a lot of those points [though]. I think of myself as more of a prop in that episode. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 36)
• Working on this episode was a remarkably different experience for actor Robert Picardo . He commented, " Now, some people remember that show as the episode where mm B'Elanna Torres had to go through forty-three minutes with a giant rubber trilobyte glued to her body. But I remember it as a very interesting discussion about medical ethics between The Doctor and the Cardassian doctor [Crell Moset] […] I found that it was one of the classic Star Trek episodes where, because it's in science fiction, you can really deal with the essential ethical issue, you can pare away all the externals and just look at a core question […] That is a really terrific example of what Star Trek can do better than any other show. " ( VOY Season 5 DVD , "Braving the Unknown: Season Five") On one occasion, Robert Picardo admitted that he was unsure whether, in this episode, his character of The Doctor errs by deleting the Crell Moset holoprogram but also asked several rhetorical questions that implied that he tended to believe The Doctor had. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 30)
• Robert Picardo enjoyed working with David Clennon , the actor of Crell Moset, the two performers having been friends for many years. " I was delighted when he was cast in the show and I got to have those great scenes with him, " Picardo said. ( VOY Season 5 DVD , "Braving the Unknown: Season Five")

Production [ ]

• Director David Livingston was tasked with keeping a sense of momentum to this exposition-loaded installment. " The challenge for me on that episode was to, in some way, keep it visually interesting and not just talking back and forth, " he explained. " Sometimes talking back and forth was fine, but on a TV show, you've gotta keep things moving. " ( VOY Season 5 DVD , "Braving the Unknown: Season Five") Also, Livingston recalled, " It was about something, yet it was all talk. I said, 'We are just going to move the camera all the time.' I said to the actors, 'Don't ever stop moving.' I told them to make it a dance. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 37) Livingston remembered the results of these directions: " I think we [kept things moving] by having them walk around tables and stuff, and keeping the movement going. So, physicalising what they were saying, not just [them] saying the words. " ( VOY Season 5 DVD , "Braving the Unknown: Season Five")
• David Livingston was not entirely satisfied, however, with the rubber alien of this episode. " We had bladders put into it so it would look like it was moving, but you never wanted to stay on it long enough to see the bladder moving, " remarked Livingston. " It was this big, silly piece of rubber – one of those things you have on Star Trek once in awhile. It's part of the genre. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 37)
• The last day that filming for this episode took place on the set for Voyager 's bridge was 29 July 1998 . ( Star Trek Magazine  issue 139 , p. 44)

Continuity [ ]

• The idea of an infamous Cardassian doctor experimenting on Bajorans was reused in this episode. It began as an idea for the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine sixth season episode " Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night ". The original concept was to do a Deep Space Nine episode inspired by the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele , who was notorious for performing bizarre and barbaric experiments on concentration camp inmates during World War II. In the episode, the ghosts of Bajoran children were to begin appearing on the station, and the crew would come to believe that they are the ghosts of children killed by a Cardassian scientist during the Occupation who carried out research on them. However, it turns out that they aren't ghosts at all – the doctor was in fact sending the children into the future to gather information for the Obsidian Order . However, the writers couldn't make the story work, and it was abandoned at the last minute. ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. 548))
• Tabor later reappears in " Repression ".
• This is the final Star Trek episode to be written by Jeri Taylor . Coincidentally, the first episode she wrote was the Star Trek: The Next Generation fourth season episode " Suddenly Human " and the last was "Nothing Human".
• This episode bears a strong resemblance to " Jetrel ". In both episodes, a crew member of Voyager relies on (but refuses) the expertise of a scientist accused of war crimes .
• Although there were numerous episodes of Deep Space Nine in which the events of the Occupation of Bajor were discussed, examined in detail or even experienced by the crew of Deep Space 9 and others such as " Duet ", " Necessary Evil ", and the aforementioned " Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night ", this is the only such episode of Voyager . The only other episode outside of Deep Space Nine in which events surrounding the Occupation played a major role was TNG : " Ensign Ro ", in which the Bajorans were introduced.
• The "scalpel" used by Crell Moset in this episode is a re-use of the scissor-like prop used by the Solanogen-based lifeforms in the TNG sixth season episode " Schisms "
• When Moset and The Doctor first transfer from the holodeck to sickbay, the Doctor was wearing the mobile emitter , in spite of having no need for it in either location.
• Although the tricorder is not able to scan the alien, a holographic copy of that alien as well as its correct anatomy could be created on the holodeck.
• The hologram of Crell Moset and the related database of exobiology can be recreated as an interactive, interpersonable hologram by Harry Kim. He failed on the same task in " Message in a Bottle " in the attempt to recreate the Doctor who was on a longer away mission.
• The Doctor's quest to find a name, which started with his request for one in the first season episode " Eye of the Needle ", is referenced in this episode when he tells the Crell Moset that he is "in between names".

Apocrypha [ ]

• In the Star Trek: Terok Nor novel Night of the Wolves , Moset infected Kira Nerys ' mother Kira Meru with the Fostossa virus in 2353 on the orders of Gul Dukat , who believed that she was becoming a liability. Meru died shortly thereafter.

Reception [ ]

• Jeri Taylor commented that she thought the ethical dilemma around which this episode is centered is "an interesting" one that "persists today, in all kinds of science." She also spoke about the effectiveness of the Crell Moset character; " 'Could you not trust [him]' – because the Cardassians usually could not be trusted – I think was good storytelling because it does keep you on pins and needles, as to what's going to happen. " ( VOY Season 5 DVD , "Braving the Unknown: Season Five")

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 5.4, 24 May 1999
• As part of the VOY Season 5 DVD collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway

Also starring [ ]

• Robert Beltran as Chakotay
• Roxann Dawson as B'Elanna Torres
• Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris
• Ethan Phillips as Neelix
• Robert Picardo as The Doctor
• Tim Russ as Tuvok
• Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine
• Garrett Wang as Harry Kim

Guest stars [ ]

• David Clennon as Crell Moset
• Jad Mager as Tabor

Co-stars [ ]

• Frank Welker as Alien Voice
• Majel Barrett as Computer Voice

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• Mabuo Akwei as operations officer
• David Keith Anderson as Ashmore
• David Brett as operations officer
• Lin Chong as sciences ensign
• Tarik Ergin as Ayala
• Unknown performer as command officer

Stand-ins [ ]

• Brita Nowak – stand-in for Jeri Ryan
• Stuart Wong – stand-in for Garrett Wang

References [ ]

accusation ; anaphylaxis / anaphylactic shock ; assimilation ; auxiliary power ; Bajor ; Bajoran ; behavior ; biochemical agent ; blindness ; body ; Borg ; Cardassia Prime ; Cardassian ; cardiopulmonary system ; centimeter ; Chief exobiology specialist ; chronic condition ; coffee ; consultant ; cortical probe ; cortical stimulator ; crash course ; cytoplasmic lifeform ; cytoplasmic lifeform's language ; Cytoplasmic lifeform vessel ; cytotoxic shock ; death camp ; decryption algorithm ; deflector dish ; Delta Quadrant ; demon ; Earth ; Einstein, Albert ; emergency power ; energy wave ; enzyme ; epidemic ; ethical subroutine ; ethics ; evasive maneuvers ; evidence ; exobiology ; experiment ; Federation ; Federation Medical Academy ; footnote ; Fostossa virus ; heart ; higher species ; Hippocratic Oath ; holodeck ; hull plating ; inaprovaline ; information ; internal organ ; isomolecular scanner ; kidney ; kilometer ; Klingon ; laser scalpel ; Lav'oti V ; Legate's Crest of Valor ; life preserver ; liver ; logic ; lower species (aka lower animals ); lung ; Maquis ; mass murderer ; Medical Consultant Program Beta one ; medical ethics ; medical tricorder ; memory ; Milky Way Galaxy ; milligram ; morality ; mutilate ; nadion ; neocortex ; neural pathway ; neurostatic shock ; non-humanoid (aka non-humanoid lifeform ); non-humanoid exobiology ; Occupation of Bajor ; Palomar ; Picasso, Pablo ; paralyzing agent ; patient ; personal database ; personality subroutine ; physical appearance ; pig ; plasma injector ; polytrinic acid ; recursive algorithm ; red alert ; sarcasm ; scalpel ; sentient lifeform ; skin ; slide show ; stenophyl ; subspace band ; surgical table ; Tabor's brother ; Tabor's grandfather ; temper ; tendril ; tone deafness ; tractor beam ; transceiver ; triaxilating wavelength ; Under the Skin: Humanoid Anatomy as Art ; universal translator ; University of Culat ; vaccine ; Vulcan ; yellow alert

External links [ ]

• "Nothing Human" at StarTrek.com
• " Nothing Human " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " Nothing Human " at Wikipedia
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Nothing Human

8th episode of the 5th season of star trek: voyager / from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, dear wikiwand ai, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:.

Can you list the top facts and stats about Nothing Human?

Summarize this article for a 10 year old

" Nothing Human " is the 102nd episode of Star Trek: Voyager , the eighth episode of the fifth season . It was the final episode written by series co-creator Jeri Taylor .

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Nothing Human

A dying alien organism attaches itself to B'Elanna's nervous system, and the Doctor doesn't know how to treat her. He enlists the help of a holographic recreation of the Cardassian Dr. Crell Mossett, an exobiology specialist and war criminal, to save her life. B'Elanna refuses all treatment when the Bajoran crew informs her that Crell was responsible for sadistic war crimes during the occupation. The Doctor experiences a moral quandary about using and retaining Crell's program.

Frank Welker

David Clennon

Majel Barrett Roddenberry

Cast appearances.

Kate Mulgrew

Robert Beltran

Roxann Dawson

Robert Duncan McNeill

Ethan Phillips

Robert Picardo

Garrett Wang

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Star Trek: Voyager

Nothing Human

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David Clennon

Dr. Crell Moset

Ensign Tabor

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• Dec 2, 1998

Summary Star Trek: Voyager follows the adventures of the Federation starship Voyager, which is under the command of Captain Kathryn Janeway.Voyager is in pursuit of a rebel Maquis ship in a dangerous part of the Alpha Quadrant when it is suddenly thrown 70,000 light years away to the Delta Quadrant. With much of her crew dead, Captain Janeway is ... Read More

Directed By : David Livingston

Written By : Gene Roddenberry, Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor, Bryan Fuller, Nick Sagan, Michael Taylor

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Created By : Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor

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Capt. kathryn janeway, captain jenkins, shannon o'donnell, robert beltran, cmdr. chakotay, cmdr. katanay, roxann dawson, lt. b'elanna torres, b'elanna torres, dreadnought, robert duncan mcneill, lt. tom paris, ensign tom paris, lt. (j.g.) tom paris, ethan phillips, robert picardo, the doctor, dr. lewis zimmerman, equinox emh, lt. tuvok, tulak, tuvok, garrett wang, ensign harry kim, ensign kymble, tarik ergin, lt. ayala, satan's robot, security guard, majel barrett, voyager computer, computer voice, computer, seven of nine, three of eight, two of three, jennifer lien, kes, palaxia, richard sarstedt, william mckenzie, ankari trader, crewman henard, starfleet admiral, scarlett pomers, naomi wildman, martha hackett, susan henley, ensign brooks, manu intiraymi, jennifer gundy, science division officer, ensign, alexander enberg, ensign vorik, third malon engineer, susan lewis, operations division officer, transporter technician, mikhal traveler, user reviews.

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Recap / Star Trek Voyager S 5 E 8 Nothing Human

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When a bug-like alien latches onto B'Elanna, the Doctor consults a hologram of a Cardassian doctor allegedly involved in medical atrocities.

This episode provides examples of

• Affably Evil : Crell Moset. He's friendly and charming to the Doctor (seeing him as a colleague), and hiding a very dirty past.
• Always Save the Girl : Tom ust wants to save B'Elanna, full stop. When Janeway rules in favour of this, he whispers a quiet "thanks" to her as he passes.
• Birds of a Feather : Moset appears to be a kindred spirit to the Doctor at first, flattering his ego and showing an interest in opera, and empathizing with his need to improvise with what limited medical resources are available. His medical ethics, on the other hand (or lack thereof), reveal him to be the Doctor's Shadow Archetype .
• Bizarre Alien Biology : The Universal Translator can't understand the cytoplasmic lifeform's language, the tricorder can't comprehend its biology, it controls a spaceship via biochemical secretions, it can leap through a forcefield in a single bound, and it uses B'Elanna as an emergency life-support system.
• Black-and-Grey Morality : Moset turns out to be pretty dark, no doubt about that. The Doctor, however, willingly works alongside him to save B'Elanna, although doing his best not to follow Moset's actions to the letter.
• Book Ends : The episode opens on the holodeck with the Doctor bragging before a larger-than-life photo of himself, and ends on the holodeck as the Doctor deletes Moset's programme and walks out the door.
• The Bore : The Doctor. For two hours. And with snapshots. The horror...
• Both Sides Have a Point : Janeway declares this during the argument in the conference room, but says her priority is to save B'Elanna's life .
• Continuity Nod : To the Doctor's boring subjects of discussion for A Briefing with Neelix , notably the wonders of internal organs ("Investigations").
• Contrived Coincidence : There are three Bajorans on Voyager , and it just so happens that one of them personally suffered at the hands of the real Crell Moset.
• Covered in Mud : The EMH shows everyone a holo-photograph of Tom after he fell into a mud pit during an away mission. Tom insists he was pushed, but his fellow crew members don't believe him.
• Distress Call : The alien ship creates a non-lethal Planar Shockwave that causes any other ship in the vicinity to come and investigate. After the crew's effort to translate the message into something legible fail, Voyager repeats the message in the same manner.
• Escape Call : Chakotay was supposed to go to Yellow Alert to rescue Janeway (and others) from the Doctor's self-aggrandizing photo montage after a half hour. Unfortunately for them, he decides that since he (and Harry) had to suffer through the whole thing, they should too . Afterwards, Tuvok and Janeway trade barbs about how Chakotay defied a direct order, and that this is grounds for court martial.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" : Moset: And you, good man. What's your name? EMH: Actually, I'm in-between names at the moment. I'm an Emergency Medical Hologram. Kim: But his friends call him Doc.
• Fantastic Racism : B'Elanna isn't happy to find out that Moset is Cardassian. "As far as I'm concerned, they're all cold-blooded killers."
• First-Name Basis : Moset insists the Doctor call him Crell.
• Forgotten Phlebotinum : The whole debate over the morality of Moset's hologram kinda falls flat in light of TNG's " Booby Trap " where Geordi had to specifically request the computer to reconstruct Dr. Leah Brahms's personality rather than just her research or looks. Perhaps they could have avoided all the unpleasantness of actually interacting with Moset by just downloading his research into the Doctor, a hologram himself, but due to the Doctor's experiments with downloading information associated with distinct personages ( Darkling ), maybe they wanted to avoid any possible personality cross-contamination; that being said, they could have made Moset's hologram look like anyone they wanted once the racism aspect was discovered, removing B'Elanna's initial objections (but possibly delaying the morality discovery).
• Guest Star : Frank Welker as the voice for the cytoplasmic lifeform.
• B'Elanna has a bad feeling about Moset as soon as she sees him. Granted, it's mostly fueled by Fantastic Racism , but she turns out to be right.
• As the Universal Translator doesn't work, Captain Janeway has to go on guesswork as to what the aliens are saying. She ends up being right.
• Hair-Trigger Temper : The Doctor wisely leaves out the photo of B'Elanna in an embarrassing position from the essay where she's present. Not played for laughs at the end, when he tells the Captain that he almost had to sedate her, due to B'Elanna's violent reaction to finding out what happened.
• Hypocritical Humor : B'Elanna giggles at a picture of Tom Covered in Mud , but nearly erupts with rage when he suggests showing everyone an equally embarrassing picture of her.
• I Did What I Had to Do : Moset's justification for pretty much everything he's done. The Doctor starts using it as well.
• Idiot Ball : So Harry goes to repair the Cardassian hologram, and he brings a Bajoran engineer to help him? What did he think was gonna happen?
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water! : Harry finds it a lot easier to create a holographic medical consultant with a full personality and the ability to conduct surgical operations, than he did recreating the EMH in "Message in a Bottle".
• Mad Scientist : If Tabor is to be believed, the real Crell Moset. Tabor: He blinded people so he could study how they adapted. Exposed them to polytrinic acid just to see how long it would take for their skin to heal. EMH: Ensign, the man you're accusing cured the Fostossa virus. He stopped an epidemic that killed thousands of Bajorans. Tabor: By infecting hundreds of people so that he could experiment with different treatments. Old, helpless people like my grandfather, because he considered their lives worthless.
• Monster of the Aesop : The Driving Question is whether it's ethical to use medical knowledge gained via unethical means. So we have not Moset, but a hologram that holds his combined knowledge.
• Morally Superior Copy : the Doctor needed to create a consultant to work with to solve a medical crisis that was going to kill B'lannna. He conjured up a holographic version of the best exobiologist known to the Federation, a Cardassian named Crell Moset. The hologram is kind, courteous, funny and extremely gifted in the field of medicine. His inspiration was also an immoral monster who mimicked Josef Mengele's crimes. The Doctor calls out the new Moset for this (even though he's only 3 days old at this point) and discovers that the holographic creation was based on what the Cardassians released to the Federation which left out most of the really negative stuff. As such, this part of Moset was never integrated into new Moset's program and he's genuinely shocked and disgusted by his inspiration's actions. Even though he was an innocent, the Doctor deletes his program anyway; there were still plenty of morally gray moments that appeared in Moset's program when he was working with the Doctor, enough to give everyone second thoughts about integrating the knowledge shared, and the Doctor did not want his ethical subroutines to get that murky.
• The Doctor raves about the beauty of the Vulcan reproductive organ in a crowd that includes Tuvok. That whole sex thing is rather embarrassing for Vulcans.
• Crell is annoyed that some Starfleet medical officers thought he might be a spy, bringing to mind Garak from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .
• A Nazi by Any Other Name : Some of Crell Moset's "experiments" sound horrifyingly similar to those conducted on Nazi concentration camp prisoners during WWII, particularly those performed by "Dr." Josef Mengele.
• Noodle Incident : The Doctor's photo-essay has Tom falling in a mudpool during an Away Mission, Doc retrieving a data module from a Death World , and B'Elanna getting her foot stuck in a plasma injector.
• "Not So Different" Remark : Crell tries to defend his work by pointing out that the Doctor was willing to use it when desperate enough. Unfortunately for him, the Doctor wasn't convinced. Moset: You can erase my program Doctor, but you can never change the fact that you've already used some of my research. Where was your conscience when B'Elanna was dying on that table? Ethics, Morality, conscience — funny how they all go out the airlock when we need something. Are you and I really so different? EMH: Computer, delete medical consultant program and all related files .
• Omniscient Database : Averted at first; the Doctor has to create the Moset hologram because he doesn't have the information on his own database. Played straight later on when the crew discover a requisition order Moset placed during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor for biochemical agents, including the strain of virus he was famous for curing.
• The first is roughly 90 seconds in length, and follows the EMH, Janeway, and Paris from B'Elanna's bed into the EMH's office as Janeway suggests creating the holographic assistant, before finally settling back on B'Elanna's bed as seen through the office window.
• The second, also about 90 seconds in length, moves from the EMH's office, to B'Elanna's bed, to the sickbay console, back to inside the EMH's office again as Crell and the EMH discuss B'Elanna's condition and the possibility of using the Holodeck to recreate Crell's office.
• Personal Space Invader : The moment B'Elanna comes near instead of the EMH , the alien leaps clear through a forcefield and latches onto her.
• Playing with Syringes : Moset's charity work with Bajoran civilians was just a cover for his medical experiments.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis! : B'Elanna to Janeway after it's all over. "You had-no RIGHT-to make that decision for me!"
• Janeway tells B'Elanna to just get over it. She does .
• Rubber-Forehead Alien : Lampshaded when Crell notices that B'Elanna's isn't as prominent as he'd expect. "She's Klingon... no, the cranial ridges are less pronounced. Klingon-human hybrid. "
• Sarcasm Mode : Moset: I've already outlined a paper that you and I will one day present to the Federation Medical Academy. Total Systemic Invasion of a Klingon-Human Hybrid by a Cytoplasmic Pseudoparasite. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think? EMH: Are we also going to tell them where you honed your surgical techniques? A footnote, perhaps. "For further details, see Cardassian death camps." Moset: Those techniques were crucial this morning. Where was your sarcasm then?
• Screen Shake : The first indication of the approaching energy wave. Paris: What did you put in the coffee, Neelix?
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! : Paris: Fine. Let's just deactivate the evil hologram and let B'Elanna die. At least we'd have our morals intact. And you, Chakotay. Since when do you care what Starfleet thinks? Chakotay: This isn't about rules and regulations. This is about doing what's right!
• Shut Up, Hannibal! : The Doctor allowed the Crell Moset hologram to have his final say before just deleting him.
• Spikes of Doom : Moset's surgical instruments have sinister spikes on them, as opposed to the non-invasive Cow Tools used in Federation medical technology.
• Tempting Fate : The Doctor gets annoyed when it's pointed out that activating a Cardassian hologram might not be a good idea, saying: "I don't care if he's the nastiest man who ever lived!"
• Tested on Humans : Moset's discovery of the cure for the Fostossa virus involved infecting hundreds of unknowing Bajorans.
• That's an Order! : Janeway: I know you're angry, but we need to put this behind us. Understood? Torres: Is that an order? Janeway: Yes. Torres: You can't order someone to get rid of an emotion, Captain.
• Universal Translator : For once this is ineffective, making it difficult to establish the aliens' intentions.
• Unwanted Healing : B'Elanna refuses to be saved with a medical procedure that was devised by a Cardassian equivalent of Doctor Mengele. She's furious when the Doctor does so anyway.
• Moset points out that human medicine was based on animal experimentation. The Doctor argues that animals aren't sentient so it doesn't count.
• When the Doctor deletes Moset's program, he treats it with the gravitas of an execution, reading out the 'charge' first.
• What You Are in the Dark : Tuvok: If the Doctor uses knowledge that Moset gained through his experiments, we would be validating his methods, inviting further unethical research. Chakotay: We'd be setting a terrible precedent. Paris: We're in the middle of the Delta Quadrant! Who would know? Tuvok: We would know.
• You Killed My Father : When Moset is activated in front of him, Tabor is aghast and has to be restrained from attacking the hologram. Tabor: He killed my brother, my grandfather, hundreds of people. He's a mass murderer!
• Star Trek Voyager S 5 E 7 Infinite Regress
• Recap/Star Trek: Voyager
• Star Trek: Voyager: S5E9: "Thirty Days"

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Star Trek: Voyager – Nothing Human (Review)

Nothing Human is very much an example of Star Trek: Voyager doing archetypal Star Trek , those abstract morality plays with elaborate prosthetics that offer commentary on contemporary conundrums.

Nothing Human is essentially a story about scientific ethics, about the question of what to do with information that was gathered through amoral means. Is knowledge tainted by the mechanisms through which it was acquired? Is the use of that research an endorsement of the means through which it was conducted? At the very least, does employing such information erode the user’s moral high ground? Does the use of such data make them a hypocrite, demonstrating a willingness to reap the benefits of such monstrous work, but without getting their hands dirty?

Something inhuman.

These are tough questions, with obvious applications in the modern world. These are the sorts of abstract ethical queries that are well-suited to a Star Trek episode, and there is something very endearing in the way that Nothing Human often comes down to two characters debating scientific ethics in a room together. To be fair, Nothing Human is a little too cluttered and clumsy to be as effective as it might otherwise be, its conclusions a little too neat, its developments just a little bit too tidy.

However, Nothing Human is a great example of the way in which Voyager tried to offer a version of  Star Trek reflecting the popular perception of it. Nothing Human is a little clumsy in places, but it is an episode that is very much in line with what casual viewers expect from Star Trek in the abstract.

A Cardie-carrying monster.

Star Trek is many things, including a show about ethics. It is a television series that frequently engages with the question of how to be a good person and how to build a just society. Sometimes that idea is there in the background, bubbling through the idea that mankind will survive long enough to build a truly equal society in which human beings have moved past greed or hatred or prejudice. Sometimes that idea is reflected in the specific plot beats of a given episode, whether through the primary characters making tough decisions or interacting with a society facing those choices.

There are any number of examples from within the canon.  The Devil in the Dark is a story about the dangers of instinctively hating what is different.  A Taste of Armageddon , Errand of Mercy , Friday’s Child , A Private Little War and The Omega Glory offer varying perspectives on Vietnam. The Measure of a Man is a story about what happens to a society when it allows itself to devalue an individual’s life. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is about the necessity of forgiving the enemy and seeking a peaceful resolution.

Picture perfect.

Even audience members with only a passing familiarity with the canon understand this to be an essential attribute of the franchise. The third season of Star Trek: Enterprise was an extended War on Terror metaphor. Although they never quite engage as heavily, and as thoroughly, as they might, even the JJ Abrams movies nod towards these ideas. Star Trek Into Darkness is a story about what it means to be a Star Trek movie during the War on Terror while Star Trek Beyond insists that its characters must be explorers rather than soldiers.

Even in terms of iconography, casual fans can point to metaphors like the half-black and half-white aliens in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield as a very crude metaphor to the pointlessness of racism, or to the overall arc of the Klingon-Federation Alliance as a metaphor for détente between the United States and Russia. By its nature, the Star Trek franchise was a series very much engaged with ethical debates and moral dilemmas, constantly asking its characters (and, implicitly, its audience) to figure out the right thing to do when confronted with an ethical challenge.

Doesn’t scan.

In some cases, Star Trek is even used as an education tool to spark debate and discussion, perhaps playing into the recurring notion of Star Trek as “children’s television for grown-ups.” Indeed, Doctor Fenneke Blom even uses Nothing Human as an example on his college course :

In the 1998 episode Nothing Human, the chief physician of a spaceship creates a hologram of an exobiology expert who he wants to consult in order to save the life a crew member. The consultation goes well, until the crew member sees the expert and refuses further treatment because of his involvement in a series of experiments that killed thousands of subjects. What is the doctor to do? There’s a similar discussion about science conducted under the Nazi regime. What do you do with data collected in an unethical way? The example is science fiction, but the dilemma is real and easy to imagine.

It is an interesting question to ask in an abstract debate, and one with a whole host of real-world implications. It speaks to the idea of Star Trek as an ethical sounding board, as a framework for asking tough moral questions that might engage the audience.

Chakotay let’s it slide(show).

Of course, the ethical challenges facing Voyager are quite distinct from those facing the original Star Trek . Janeway is operating within a different moral structure than Kirk or Picard, at least in theory. Janeway is stranded on the other side of the galaxy, without any support or infrastructure. She is commanding a crew that is composed of terrorists and officers who expected that they were only on a short assignment. Without the hierarchy afforded by Starfleet, how does Janeway deal with issues like a resignation, or a death, or an objection?

In theory, Janeway should have to make some very tough moral decisions. What happens when her crew disagree with her commands, which seems increasingly likely given how far the ship is (literally and figuratively) from standard operating procedures? Is Janeway’s primary moral obligation to the crew under her command or to the rules that govern an organisation half the galaxy away? In a situation where Janeway is confronted with several bad options, how does she identify the right decision.

“And thus concludes my lecture on the ethics of transporter duplicates. Next: consent and Vulcan mating rituals.”

This was a question that was very much of interest to Brannon Braga when he took over Voyager in its fifth season. Discussing Braga’s vision for the show with The Fifty-Year Mission , Bryan Fuller insisted that Braga conceived as Janeway as “this situational, ethical leader” , although Braga never got to follow through:

This was Brannon’s first time as showrunner. It’s a terrifying thing to be showrunner, because you’re responsible for a huge production. There are huge demands – ridiculous demands – on you brain and your abilities, and it is one of the stupidist jobs in the world. I think it was challenging for Brannon to stand up for his better ideas when Rick Berman was saying no. One of the things that Brannon really wanted to do is to say we don’t have a Federation starbase nearby that we’re going to get backup supplies from, so he wanted to start cobbling together an aesthetic for this ship that was a mixture of new technologies that we found in the Delta Quadrant. It was that desire to really change the aesthetic of the show and do something different with Star Trek. And what he was told was that the Voyager had to look like a starship.

In many ways, this was a microcosm of Braga’ difficulties stewarding Voyager . The show had to look and feel like a traditional Star Trek series, despite the fact that its premise demanded a whole new style of storytelling and a new approach to the morality of Star Trek .

Engineering some conflict.

To be fair to Braga, there are moments when his approach to a more “situational” ethical framework shine through. Night finds Janeway trapped in a depression, unsure if she made the right decision for her crew in Caretaker . In Scorpion, Part I and Scorpion, Part II , Janeway aligned herself with the Borg in order to get her crew safely through their territory, with Hope and Fear acknowledging that Janeway had in effect been made an accomplice to every atrocity committed by the Borg Collective in that time.

Even in episodes less explicitly focused on Janeway’s ethical struggles, Voyager suggested Janeway was less concerned with broad moral principles than the immediate crisis. At the end of The Killing Game, Part I and The Killing Game, Part II , Janeway decides to protect her crew by giving the Hirogen access to holodeck technology in flagrant violation of the Prime Directive. In  Counterpoint , she helps a group of refugees in spite of the Prime Directive. Even in Infinite Regress , Janeway does not hesitate to return a potentially genocidal weapon to an alien species.

It’s Crell or be Crelled out there.

In a more cohesive season of television, all of this moral ambiguity and nuance would build towards Janeway’s confrontation with Ransom in Equinox, Part I and Equinox, Part II . Janeway would find herself compromising, and then see those compromises reflected in the horrors committed by her fellow commanding officer. Were Braga more committed to this question of ethics in the Delta Quadrant, Equinox, Part I and Equinox, Part II would play out like something similar to Pegasus on Battlestar Galactica . However, Voyager was never that daring.

To be fair, Nothing Human teases out these questions in an interesting manner. Most obviously, there are a few small references to the fact that Janeway is making decisions in a very unique set of circumstances, one very different to those situations facing Kirk or Picard. This is most obvious in the episode’s penultimate scene, in which Janeway discusses her decision to override Torres’ refusal to grant consent to the medical procedure conducted by the EMH and Crell Moset.

Clouded judgement.

“I hope you can understand why I went against your wishes, B’Elanna,” Janeway states. “Losing you was unacceptable. I know you’re angry, but we need to put this behind us. Understood?” Implicit in this is the idea that Torres is simply too valuable to be allow to withhold consent, that her refusal to undergo surgery would deprive Janeway of a valuable resource and diminish the crew’s opportunity to get home. “Is that an order?” Torres responds. Janeway is decidedly firm and unequivocal in her response. “Yes.”

It is a very powerful and very effective character beat, one that suggests a more daring and divisive take on Janeway than most of Voyager allows. Janeway has been consistently and repeatedly characterised as reckless and stubborn, but Nothing Human is the first time that the show has confirmed Janeway’s willingness to coldly put the importance of the mission ( getting the crew home ) ahead of the rights of individual crew members. It is the sort of moral calculus more common on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in episodes like In the Pale Moonlight .

Smoke and mirrors.

Of course, the problem with Nothing Human is that it never quite commits to this idea. There is an interesting moment in the subplot focusing on Ensign Tabor, who is understandably uneasy about serving on a ship that would make use of the knowledge gathered by Crell Moset. At one point, he offers his resignation to Chakotay. “I have the right to resign my commission,” he insists, and he is certainly justified in making a moral objection. However, this just raises questions of how Voyager would handle these issues.

On any other Starfleet ship, this would be straightforward. Tabor could resign, or be transferred, or submit an official complaint up the chain of command. He could go home, or get another job, or hitch a ride to the next friendly outpost. However, Voyager is set against a very unique backdrop. What happens if the majority (or even a significant minority) have an objection to the direction in which Janeway is taking the ship? How would Janeway deal with such issues, in terms both practical and philosophical?

Seeing what makes it work.

Voyager has touched on questions like this before, but the plot has always conspired to make the answers very straightforward. In Phage , Janeway acknowledged that Voyager was not equipped to hold prisoners for long periods of time, and so released two organ harvesters into the wild. In Meld , the crew was confronted with a dangerous criminal on the crew, but the writers made a point to kill the character off only a few episodes later in Basics, Part II . Most of the storytelling on Voyager is consciously designed to avoid the more thorny implications of the premise.

This is the big issue with Nothing Human . The episode sets up interesting dilemmas, but then decides to resolve them in a manner that is not necessarily consistent with a single ethical principle, but which is designed to ensure that nothing is carried forward into later episodes. The crew decide to use Crell Moset’s knowledge, which keeps Torres alive so she can continue to be a series regular. Then the EMH decides to delete Crell Moset, so the issue goes away and Tabor does not have to resign.

[Insert your own caption here.]

Once the knowledge exists, is it not foolish not to use the knowledge to save lives? Did the Doctor make a mistake by deleting his program and all of its related subroutines and all of the knowledge that we could have gleaned from him to help us in future medical situations from Voyager’s medical database? I don’t know. [What] if the situation ever arose where we could have used some of Moset’s discoveries to save someone onboard and I have deleted them out of moral principle? Once knowledge exists, does it even have a moral component? Knowledge itself has no morality. It’s just the way people use it.

However, there is a sense that ending is not driven by a unifying moral principle so much as a need to avoid rocking the boat.

Torres can breathe easy.

Similarly, that penultimate scene between Janeway and Torres teases the idea of lingering resentment and antipathy between the two characters, which would be entirely in-character given how much pride Torres invests in her own autonomy. For her part, Janeway is unapologetic. She sarcastically motions to the Klingon candle burning in the quarters. “I get the feeling there are still a few demons in the air. Let’s hope this does the trick, huh?” It’s a beautiful moment, if only because it teases a fascinating dynamic true to both characters. However, nothing ultimately comes of it.

Indeed, there is a recurring sense that Nothing Human is tripping over the very particular story that it wants to tell with the conventional narrative (and moral) logic of that archetypal Star Trek template. As with a lot of talk-heavy and issue-driven episodes like The Swarm or Real Life or Extreme Risk , there is a sense that Nothing Human has a stock science-fiction adventure subplot grafted on to its more quiet and introspective narrative. This is most obvious with the weird recurring focus on the weird alien at the centre of the narrative, whose primary purpose is to attach itself to Torres.

Muddying the waters a bit.

The structure of  Nothing Human ‘s teaser and opening act feels slightly askew. The teaser closes with Voyager being hit by what is effectively deep-space turbulence. It is an underwhelming introduction to the episode, on several levels. Most obviously, Voyager travels through deep-space turbulence with considerable frequency, sometimes several times within a given episode. More specifically, the big story hook in Nothing Human has nothing to do with deep-space turbulence, which really feels like a stock “anomaly of the week.”

The big story hook in Nothing Human is the medical emergency centring around Torres. As such, that would make a much more effective closing beat for the teaser. It is certainly more interesting to the audience, from both a visual and an emotional perspective. The Star Trek franchise is full of shots of the regular cast throwing themselves around standing sets in order to simulate impact, but placing a lead character in danger (particularly such a visceral and evocative danger) is a great way to capture the audience’s attention.

“I’m going to need some coffee if I’m going to be delivering this much exposition.”

Nothing Human is far more interested in the weird pseudo-science of the alien craft than is strictly necessary. It tries to create a compelling mystery around the alien. “It’s strange,” Janeway states. “The wave followed us but it didn’t cause any damage. Instead, we get a download to our database. I’d say it’s a pretty good bet somebody’s trying to tell us something.” Paris responds, “The wave left a residual ion trail. We might be able to locate its point of origin.” Later, Janeway and Chakotay sit around discussing how best to call for aid, summoning more of the creatures.

There is a very interesting, and very worthy, idea underpinning all of this. There is something reassuring in the idea that aliens that look monstrous are not always monstrous and that it is possible to establish friendly relations with creatures that are so fundamentally different. There is an interesting story to be told in explaining how and why Janeway is so sure that inviting a bunch of these aliens to surround Voyager is a good idea, but Nothing Human glosses over that point in favour of discussions about the “ten thousand separate sounds” in the signal or the “alien databanks.”

It’s hard to pin down.

Similarly, Nothing Human feels a bit misguided in how it builds up the mystery around Crell Moset. Early on, various members of the crew have a visceral reaction to the fact that Crell Moset is a Cardassian. “Have you mentioned to anyone else that this guy’s a Cardassian?” asks Harry Kim, the very embodiment of Starfleet values. “Maybe you haven’t heard. They’re not the friendliest folks in the galaxy.” Even before she knows who he is, Torres objects to Moset’s presence. “Hologram or not, he’s Cardassian. As far as I’m concerned, they’re all cold-blooded killers.”

In the context of the typical Star Trek episode, this feels very much like the set-up for what might be termed “a teachable moment.” After all, Jeri Taylor’s third script for the franchise introduced the Cardassians by telling a story about this sort of prejudice in The Wounded . The EMH hints at this possibility in conversation with Torres. “I’m surprised by your attitude, Lieutenant,” the EMH states. “I never took you for someone who would make generalisations based on race.”

“What, Doc? If anything Star Trek has taught me it’s entirely reasonable to generalise based on race.”

It initially seems like the episode is leaning in that direction. The EMH manages to strike up an improbable friendship with Moset, who talks a good game about the awkward relationship between Starfleet and the Cardassian Central Command. “I suggested an upgrade to the Starfleet people at a joint medical conference,” he states. “But they assumed I was just an arrogant Cardassian trying to prove his superiority. Or maybe they thought I was a spy.” He elaborates, “It’s an unfortunate reality. Sometimes even enlightened races can’t find common ground.”

Ironically, the big twist in Nothing Human is that Kim and Torres were right with their knee-jerk response to Moset. Neither Kim nor Torres knew who Moset was, but their racism is ultimately vindicated through the revelation that of course he was a war criminal. It is a very surreal twist in the episode, one confounded by the decision to open the episode by gesturing towards a lesson on tolerance and prejudice before pivoting into a very different type of story. The plot development is jarring and disorienting.

Making the Moset of it.

As with the idea of treating the creature as an alien rather than just a monster, there is nothing wrong with the fundamental concept of making Moset a monster. After all, there are any number of real-life analogues to the Cardassian scientist. The issue is positioning that twist in an episode that is initially structured as an episode about racism. It has the net result of seeming to suggest that sometimes racism is justified and that sometimes Kim and Torres don’t need to know anything about this scientist apart from his planet of origin.

Still, these issues aside, Nothing Human is a fascinating morality play. It is an episode that consciously builds on ideas already established by the franchise in order to tell an interesting and novel story. The Cardassians have long been associated with Nazi Germany, something made very explicit through episodes like The Chain of Command, Part I , The Chain of Command, Part II , Emissary and Duet . The Bajoran Occupation was an atrocity that consciously evoked the Holocaust, an idea reinforced as recently as Waltz .

“Inhuman? The very term is racist!”

Indeed, the idea at the heart of Nothing Human echoes the original pitch for Wrongs Darker than Death or Night , an episode about a Cardassian scientist who experimented upon Bajoran children during the Occupation of Bajor, which was clearly modeled on the Nazi scientist Josef Mengele. To be fair, although Nothing Human borrows heavily from the back story to Deep Space Nine , its thematic elements are very much in keeping with Voyager ‘s interests.

The Star Trek franchise has long been rooted in the Second World War, with The City on the Edge of Forever establishing the event as the foundation stone of the entire fictional universe. However, Voyager has been particularly invested in the legacy of that conflict. Part of this is likely down to the fact that Voyager was always more firmly rooted in the nineties than Deep Space Nine , and that nineties pop culture was fascinated with the shadow cast by the Second World War, half a century after the conflict came to an end.

“Hey now. I might be a monster, but at least I never started a cult dedicated to sparking a war between the forces of light and darkness for the express purposes of bringing about the apocalypse. Unlike some other key figures in the Bajoran Occupation that I could name.”

Part of Voyager ‘s interest is purely aesthetic, an interest in the look and feel of the mid-twentieth century. This is reflected through the guest appearance of Amelia Earhart in The 37’s , the appearance of the Cadillac on Venus in  Lifesigns , the black-and-white adventure serial  Captain Proton! It is also reflected in little touches like the design of the alien in  Nothing Human , which looks like it came from a fifties b-movie; much like the pulpy thrills of  Macrocosm or  Prototype , or the early Cold War paranoia of  Cathexis or  In the Flesh .

However, Voyager ‘s interest in the Second World War played out in other ways as well. The show returned time and again to the idea of the bomb, whether through the metaphor of the metreon cascade in Jetrel or the omega molecule in The Omega Directive . ( Voyager also had a fixation with “smart” warheads that rendered people largely irrelevant in the field of combat; Dreadnought or Warhead .) Naturally, the holodeck technology allowed the crew to visit the Second World War in The Killing Game, Part I and The Killing Game, Part II .

Here comes the mad science.

More specifically, Voyager was very engaged with the lingering memory of the Holocaust. For example, the early portrayal of the Vidiians in episodes like Phage were clearly intended to evoke the imagery and memory of Nazi Germany. As introduced in Phage , the Vidiians was monsters dressed in shades of grey who existed as the survivors of a nation of artists and philosophers, a detail evoking the collapse of the Weimer Republic.

More than that, the Vidiian imagery was quite consciously drawn from the concentration camps. In Phage , the crew stumble across a secret page where inhuman experiments have been conducted. In Faces , an away team find themselves trapped in a forced labour camp where they are subjected to experimentation by the overseer. It is no wonder that Torres is reluctant to go under Moset’s knife; this is not her first encounter with a pseudo-Mengele.

To be fair, there were subtle warning signs that Moset was not the nicest dude.

Voyager was a show concerned about the boundaries between history and memory, worried about what might happen if the past were not preserved. Remember is a pretty explicit Holocaust analogy, but there are also shades of it to Living Witness . It is no coincidence that Voyager was fascinated with the distortion of memory and history in episodes like Distant Origin or Latent Image at a time when the Holocaust threatened to slip from living memory.

Nothing Human engages with that idea of memory and history. As Moset points out repeatedly, he is only a construct of the real scientist, cobbled together from various sources and records. When confronted with accusations of war crimes, Moset responds, “Even if it were true, I’m only a hologram, and I have no memory of those events. They’re not part of my programming.” He is in many ways a sanitised version of a real-life monster, the version the exists in the official narrative.

“Would we really miss Tabor if he resigned? Surely ensigns are like shuttlecraft on this ship?”

“I don’t understand why this isn’t in our database,” the EMH protests when the charges come to light. As Chakotay points out, quite reasonably, “The Cardassians didn’t exactly publicise their wartime medical practices. I wouldn’t be surprised if the real Moset went on to live a normal life.” It is worth noting that these atrocities are only explosed because of Ensign Tabor, because of a person with a real and tangible connection to what happened. Memory trumps the official record, experience is more powerful than the state-sanctioned narrative.

Although not an episode explicitly engaging with the idea of memory, Nothing Human is still a story about the official narrative. After all, the big debate at the heart of the episode is not only over the morality of using this information to help Torres, but also whether the information belongs in the official record at all. “Every trace of that man’s research should be deleted from the database,” Tabor argues. The EMH eventually agrees. It is a rare example of Voyager making a case for deleting (rather than preserving) history.

A bug bear.

However, the bulk of the episode has a more contemporary resonance. It is an episode about the ethics of using information that has been acquired through amoral means. As Robert Picardo has argued, this is quintessential Star Trek :

Nothing Human in my estimation is Star Trek at its best. It enables the viewer to examine an important moral question without the contemporary trappings of the question. You can really examine the core issue that was in this case: Is an advancement in medicine tainted by the manner in which it was accomplished? Do you have a responsibility not to use those discoveries in respect to those who might have suffered or died as a result? I think it is a very dramatic piece and I have shown clips from it at a medical ethics panel at the Yale School of Medicine a little over a year ago. I believe it was the 40 th anniversary of NASA in a panel discussion that I showed two clips from Star Trek Voyager. I showed clips from “Message in a Bottle” – the Andy Dick episode and clips from the episode in question, “Nothing Human” for drama. There are some wonderful questions that are raised in my arguments with the Krel Moset (Clennon) such as the hypocrisy of medical experiments on lower animals yet we are shocked by someone experimenting on people (in this case Bajorans.)

Given the obvious comparisons to Nazi Germany, the allegory is quite pointed. Would it ever be justified for the United States to profit from knowledge that was acquired by Nazi Germany ( or even Imperial Japan ) through immoral means?

What a sucker.

With this in mind, the comparisons between Crell Moset and Josef Mengele are something of a red herring. Mengele is one of the most famous (or infamous) of Nazi figures, if only because of the sheer brutality of the research that he conducted upon the Jewish prisoners held in the concentration camps . His notoriety is probably fueled by the fact that he was one of the few high-profile Nazis to escape into obscurity at the end of the Second World War . However, Mengele’s research was completely and utterly worthless . It is an important point to note in the context of this debate.

However, the debate is not purely theoretical. It is just focused on the wrong field. In the wake of the Second World War, the United States enacted Operation: Paperclip to smuggle key Nazi scientists back to the United States . However, their primary interest was not medicine. The hope was that the scientists who had worked on Germany’s missile programme could help the United States to reach the moon, and provide them with a key tactical advantage in the nascent Cold War .

Being Crell to be kind.

This is not an abstract moral question. This is something that actually happened. Wernher von Braun became a naturalised American citizen in April 1955 , and died in Virginia in 1977 . Even more controversial is Hubertus Strughold. During the Second World War, he oversaw horrific experiments conducted upon concentration camp inmates and went on to become “the Father of American Space Medicine.” As of December 2012, there was still a very prestigious prize awarded in his honour .

By the middle of the nineties, people were increasingly aware of this problematic legacy. The X-Files would incorporate Operation: Paperclip into its third season (even naming the second episode of the season for the operation) and identify one of its primary antagonists as Conrad Strughold in The X-Files: Fight the Future . In October 1993, Ohio State University took down a portrait of Hubertus Strughold in response to public protest . In September 1995, the United States Air Force was forced to rename the Hubertus Strughold Library .

“By the way, if we ever encounter another Starfleet ship that has compromised its ethics and morality, make sure you don’t mention this to them. It would just be embarrassing.”

A lot of this shines through to Nothing Human , particularly the recurring suggestion that Crell Moset is a pretty decent guy. Certainly, the EMH is taken in by his charm. When Moset downplays his accomplishments, the EMH objects. “You’re being modest, Crell,” he insists. “You made medical history. You won the Legate’s Crest of Valour.” The EMH even argues that he could use a new holographic buddy. “If you enjoy music we can run some opera programmes after we’re finished,” he suggests at one point.

Moset is consciously written as a sympathetic figure. He seems almost tragic. Discussing his lab, he confesses, “It’s more of a home to me than… my home.” When he catches himself humming, he apologises, “I’m sorry. My wife tells me I’m tone deaf.” A lot of this charm is down to how David Clennon plays the role. He avoids a lot of the larger-than-life theatricality that defines other Cardassian actors like Marc Aliamo, Casey Biggs, David Warner or Harris Yulin, instead offering a more naturalistic performance under the make-up. Moset seems like a swell guy.

He was also probably a vegetarian.

Then again, that seems to be the consensus for many of the former Nazis who made their life in America after the Second World War. A former student of Hubertus Strughold, White McKenzie Wallenborn objected to the way in which the media portrayed his teacher :

Almost none of those attacking these leaders lived or could place themselves in the arena of Washington, Jefferson or Dr. Strughold, who taught me at the U.S. Air Force School of Aviation Medicine in 1957. He took our class through his amazing research lab, which was essential to our early space endeavors. On two occasions I had the pleasure of one-on-one conversations with him. We talked about life in Germany during World War II, the history of the German people and the derivation of German family names. He was friendly, relaxed and ended both encounters by telling me that he was very happy to be invited to live and work in America.

It is very easy to get sucked in by a little charm and a little wit. Working in close quarters with a person, it is very easy to be seduced by an ideal. The shock felt by the EMH on discovering Moset’s crimes – first denial, then anger – perhaps reflects how many Americans felt when they discovered the lives that these scientist had led in Nazi Germany.

Chat to Chakotay.

In some respects, Nothing Human adds an interesting layer of ambiguity to the entire Star Trek canon. At the end of the episode, Moset argues that the EMH is a hypocrite because he uses other information that was acquired through immoral means. Although the space race is never mentioned during Nothing Human , somewhat sidestepped by the focus on “exobiology” , it hangs over the rest of the episode.

Star Trek is a show rooted in the Second World War, but also anchored in the space race. The “final frontier” is arguably just John F. Kennedy’s “new frontier” extrapolated to its logical extreme. However, Nothing Human implicitly suggests that this optimistic future might be somehow tainted. Just like Torres owes her life to a murderous war criminal, is the bright and optimistic future of Star Trek built upon the legacies of men like von Braun and Strughold?

It is a logical question.

There is something very dark and cynical at work here. It is perhaps telling that Nothing Human would be the last Star Trek script to be written by Jeri Taylor, making it something of a farewell piece. Taylor had been part of the franchise since the fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation , and was a guiding light to many of the writers who would come to guide and shape the franchise in the years ahead.

Taylor was also one of the three credited creators of Voyager . She had stepped down from her role as executive producer at the end of the fourth season with Hope and Fear , allowing Brannon Braga to take over. There had been suggestions that Taylor would continue to contribute scripts and stories to Voyager , remaining an active part of its creative team, albeit in a reduced capacity. It was not to be. Nothing Human would be her last script for the franchise.

Inner workings.

Coincidentally, Nothing Human aired just over a week before the theatrical release of Star Trek: Insurrection . That feature film would become Michael Piller’s last contribution as writer to the franchise. Piller as another of those three writers credited with creating  Voyager . He had departed the show two years before Taylor, ending his tenure with  Basics, Part II . However, despite their staggered departures from  Voyager , it felt like the franchise was bidding one final farewell to two of its guiding lights within weeks of one another.

Nothing Human feels like a very twisted ending to Jeri Taylor’s active involvement with the series, something that gnaws a little bit at the roots of the Star Trek franchise. In another coincidence, it is worth noting that Taylor’s first credit on a Star Trek script was for Suddenly Human . There is a grim symmetry that her final script should be Nothing Human .

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: crell moset , ethics , Guilt , janeway , Jeri Taylor , knowledge , nazis , operation paperclip , second world war , situational ethics , space race , star trek , star trek: voyager |

9 Responses

Another season, another evil reflection of the Doctor.

I quite like these episodes, but you have to wonder if the Doctor is the only hologram with a moral compass. The rest are loons.

“It’s an unfortunate reality. Sometimes even enlightened races can’t find common ground.”

Hot damn, do I love Cardassians.

When they’re done poorly, they stomp around and grunt out threats. But when they’re done well, they’re simply the best villains this series has to offer.

The physicality is as important as the attitude. Clemmon is one of the most convincing: tall and soft spoken with a large forehead. No headpiece needed this time.

That’s a very good point about Clemmon’s physicality, actually.

I have seen some Americans try and hold Unit 731 over the heads today’s Japan. Some demand that Prime Minister Abe should apologize on behalf of something that happened before he was even born. Yet when I point out that the US pardoned the men of Unit 731 in exchange for their research data so that Japan couldn’t even hang these people if they wanted to, the first reaction I usually see is them defending America’s actions. A common excuse I hear is “There are atrocities, and then there are atrocities”.

It’s a chilling thought on how atrocities can be so quickly and easily be defended and excused. It’s so easy to point the finger at someone else.

The other side of that is that it’s possible to both accept your own atrocities and to worry about how foreign powers are dealing with their own. It’s possible to think that Ireland did horrific things to an entire generation of young women in its laundries, but also to point out America’s difficulty reconciling with slavery, and to worry about Japan never quite acknowledging the horror of what it did during the Second World War.

This episode is relevant to the puritanical morality that our society is very much obsessed with today. The Right uses any support of socialism or abortion to trash a liberal politician, while the Left looks up every voting record of a politician and use that one impure vote as a punching bag.

The question is – where do we draw the line for the moral purity of an idea, a knowledge, an entity, or a person? Ultimately, many ancient piece of human knowledge had likely come from immoral or unethical means, when judged by today’s standards. We had since unearthed the racist, sexist, and violent histories of many who we regarded as great.

Janeway’s pragmatism draws the line between the present and the recent past. Crell was long dead before the hologram was created, so embargoing Crell’s knowledge would not do any direct or material harm to Crell himself. The act of cancelling Crell thus was more about self preservation than creating immediate social change.

When executed correctly, puritanism is a symbol of discipline and honor; but oftentimes it feels like it’s used as a shorthand to dismiss (or “cancel”) an authority figure quickly as a nihilistic form of comfort.

Besides, what’s at stake in this episode was medical knowledge, not philosophy nor ideology. Facts cannot be defined as moral nor immoral. While the execution of such knowledge can be immoral, as evident with Crell’s intent to sacrifice the alien, the Doctor should be intelligent enough to separate knowledge that would remain neutral regardless of how it was obtained from those that would not. It is entirely possible to keep the neutral knowledge and remove the parts that aren’t. It would make no sense to try to re-obtain a piece of knowledge with moral means when that piece of knowledge had already been proven.

Facts can be defined as “evidence” and regularly in the justice system, evidence is thrown out if obtained immorally. Even if facts cannot be defined as moral or immoral, it is logical to throw out immorally obtained facts so as to not incentivize the practice.

It was a good episode, if a bit clumsy. The addition of the Cardassian/Bajoran dynamic made it seem like Voyager is desperate to get a piece of the DS9’s rich story fabric into their show. They can show a Cardassian for a bit and take a play at a Kira episode, and mooch on the massive world building done by their sister show.

That said, I can’t complain because I do enjoy Cardassians.

It was annoying to see Kim construct essentially a second EMH in seconds, when we saw him struggle to even get a new Doctor to speak in the previous season. Here, he just adds a “recursive algorhythm” and presto, a Cardassian EMH is born.

Janeway is starting to have a catch phrase about “dealing with the morality discussion later”. We’re now seeing her settle into her role of frequently smashing the norms of conscience that should have seen her court marshalled at the end.

I was at first annoyed that everyone’s racist opinions of the Cardassian were confirmed, but then distracted by the Mengele metaphor. Still, there is something very Voyager about the “aliens are evil” subtext.

Good episode for Voyager, but it could have used some tightening up.

Someone somewhere made a good argument about Voyager’s hypocrisy in this episode as they’ve been using Borg technology acquired through much more horrific means for over an year now. Bajorans are but one species, the Borg assimilated thousands of species to obtain their technology and the Voyager crew hasn’t shown any qualms about it.

This is entirely fair.

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Jonathan Frakes Sees Opportunities With Streaming Star Trek Movies, Weighs In On “Filler Episodes”

| April 25, 2024 | By: Laurie Ulster 69 comments so far

Earlier this week, TrekMovie’s All Access Star Trek podcast team spoke to director and Star Trek: The Next Generation (and Picard ) star Jonathan Frakes along with Deep Space Nine star Armin Shimerman, DS9 guest star Kitty Swink, and television writer/producer Juan Carlos Coto, brother of late  Enterprise  writer/producer Manny Coto. They had all gathered together to talk about the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network and their team Trek Against Pancreatic Cancer for the Purple Stride walk this Saturday, April 27th. During the wide-ranging chat, Frakes weighed in some some of the latest Star Trek news.

Frakes talks Lower Decks and 2-hour streaming movie format

Jonathan Frakes had some thoughts regarding the future of Lower Decks , reacting to the recent news that the upcoming fifth season of the animated series will be its last . He directed the Lower Decks / Strange New Worlds “Those Old Scientists” crossover, and when asked if he thought there could be another crossover episode, he saw it as a possibility:

“I think the show did so well. You know, [co-showrunner] Akiva [Goldsman] would would certainly take the swing like that. I think [co-showrunner] Henry Alonso Myers would too. I’m not sure how Paramount Plus or Alex [Kurtzman] would feel about it, but it worked.”

After some talk about whether or not Lower Decks could be revived like Prodigy was on Netflix, Frakes brought up that a new format could offer possibilities:

“I do know that there’s a lot of positive energy around the Michelle Yeoh Section 31 movie. So that 2-hour format is now on the table for Star Trek going forward.”

Frakes agreed that in addition to  Lower Decks , this format could also be a home for Terry Matalas’ Star Trek: Legacy pitch for a spin-off of the third season of Picard. When asked, Frakes said “of course” Matalas has spoken to him about Legacy . If Legacy did transform into a streaming movie, Frakes doesn’t expect he would direct, predicting Terry would “hire himself” to helm it as he did for the season 3 finale.

Jonathan Frakes in season 2 of  Lower Decks

Frakes weighs in on “filler episodes”

One of the recent hot topics around Star Trek centers around comments from executive producer Alex Kurtzman about how the modern streaming era of 10-episode seasons forces them to “really make sure that every story counts,” noting he has talked to writers who worked on earlier incarnations of Trek with 26-episode seasons who lamented having to do “filler episodes.” When the subject of filler episodes was brought up, Frakes said of TNG:

“The only filler I thought was real was when they clearly did a clip show [“Shades of Gray”]. That was a piece of shit.”

Frakes agreed with Juan Carlos Coto (a writer and showrunner on the ABC series 9-1-1 ) who said filler episodes were “never intentional.” They pointed out that budgets get spent at the beginning and end of seasons, so “in the middle, there’s a lot of talking.” As Frakes admitted, some of the best material had to be saved for the right time:

“We made 26 episodes a year, they had a set budget for the year and you split it up 26 ways or however they saw fit… and you got to save stuff for the cliffhanger… Like ‘Best of Both Worlds,’ Picard is Locutus and we’re about to fucking blow up the ship and kill him.”

Shelby (Elizabeth Dennehy) and Riker (Jonathan Frakes) in the final moments of “Best of Both Worlds” season 3 cliffhanger finale

If you can, please join Purple Stride, donate to the cause, or both. If you can’t, please spread the word via social media and word of mouth. For more info visit the Trek Against Pancreatic Cancer participation and donation page

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Imagine Deep Space Nine, with 10 episodes per season and how forced and unrealistic many of the storylines and character developments would look.

Cheers to the “filler” episodes !

“Duet”, probably the best episode of Season 1, was a filler episode.

I don’t really count that as “filler”, since it advanced the evolution of Kira’s character. Now, “Looking for Par’Mach…” is filler. Sure, we get to see more Klingon culture, but I could do without the BDSM implications of said culture.

But it the moment dax and word became a couple so not a ‘filler’ ep

I think “Duet” is a bottle episode, but not a filler episode. But we are having a hard time defining filler episodes here at TrekMovie for that reason! “Duet” was a really important episode for Kira’s character that changed her in some way, and was, I’m guessing, a story they really wanted to do. I love “Explorers,” but that strikes me as more of a DS9 filler than “Duet.”

Bottle shows are money savers. Filler shows go back to the writer’s room.

You have to cram 26 episodes into a season. Episodes are being broken while others are being written while others episodes are in pre-production while others are being filmed while others are in various stages of post production. It’s the I Love Lucy chocolate assembly line. You need ideas. At times, any ideas. Some will work well, some will fail, some will have done better if more time, but we can’t worry about that now because we need to keep moving.

If season 1 of DS9 were ten episodes, instead of eighteen, we probably would have lost Q-Less, Move Along Home, and Dramatis Personae off the bat. Duet would have been kept. There would have been more time for the writers to write and write well. We may have gotten other gems that there was never time to develop.

DS9 did an amazing job later in its run running a tight ship with 26 episodes, far more than the other shows, and shorter seasons would have been sad for us – I’d have preferred 52 episodes a season, but the producers would have died. It’s about balance.

Duet was one of my favourite episodes of DS9, filler or bottle or whateverI don’t care it was a high point of the show.

Absolutely. DS9 for me still the number 1 Star Trek show. And it is because of these long story arcs and filler episodes.

Every episode is so thoughtful. This is why my expectations are higher watching the new shows, specially Discovery and Picard.

Great script. Brilliant character development. Connections. Issues. Actors. Producers. The whole thing is truly a masterpiece.

Yes to both points. TBH I don’t mind a more serialized approach like Discovery and Picard, but the so-called “filler” episodes do add a lot to the characters and world-building they can do. Yes, some of them aren’t great, but I’d gladly take that along with the great episodes that can stem from the “filler.”

And I really do think Lower Decks could thrive with a movie format, or even just hour-long specials similar to South Park.

I like the idea of multi-episode streaming movies, viewed online. What are the current series long shows like Discovery, if not that? Multi-part shows, streamed online over 8-10 weeks, loosely or tightly inter-connected. SNW’s breaks that mold a little bit with more seeming stand-alone episodes, albeit connected by the underlying plot threads – Pikes knowledge of his demise, for example.

It’s frequently commented that many seasons of the current shows feel stretched. Movie format suits the kind of storytelling modern Trek wants to do (which is emulate modern action movies).

I love this man so much and hope to see him back as Riker again someday. I would love a Legacy TV movie.

And I agree with him, I don’t look as most shows making filler episodes. As long as they give us good stories and character development I will watch them all. It doesn’t mean every episode is great of course but every viewer will judge it on their own. What people consider filler to them will be an impactful episode to others.

All I know is while none of these shows are perfect I watch TNG, TOS and Enterprise religiously and those shows have way more solid episodes than bad ones in my book.

Everything he touches, turns out amazing.

Thunderbirds has entered the chat, LOL!

I was going to leave it as a snarky comment, but come on. Everyone loves Frakes.

Best episodes. First Contact. Hope Frakes and Ira Steven Behr could direct Berman era movies.

I would love for Behr to be involved again on some level with Star Trek. Still one of the best writers to ‘this day! He and Frakes teaming up to do a movie would be amazing!

If he comes back, will be for the Return of the Sisko! :D I am an optimist. Really hope Avery is just having fun just waiting for the right time and the right script.

Yes totally agree!!! That would be fantastic.

Yep fully agree. The way people view an episode is always different. And yeah there have been tons of ‘filler’ episodes that have become pretty iconic in their own right.

The classic shows have all generally aged well because there are so many episodes and you get such a wide range of stories and character driven episodes fans have gotten to appreciate that sadly the new shows rarely have time for and never get to focus on secondary characters.

People have been complaining about the extreme lack of character development of the Discovery bridge crew for five seasons now. With more episodes and not about the galaxy being in jeopardy every season maybe we could’ve gotten at least a few Detmer or Owo focused stories.

And it’s just fun to turn on a random TOS or VOY episode that is really harder to do with the new stuff.

And yes Frakes is amazing! He embodies the Star Trek spirit like no other!

Yes this is it exactly! The ‘filler’ episodes gave us a wide range of character development this new stuff just does a passing glance at because it’s too serialized and plot driven. In the golden era of Trek you got both. DS9 hello?

Those shows can really slow down and give us some great stuff. One of my favorite Enterprise episodes is Shuttlepod One. I adore it because you get real insight into Reed and Trip. It’s no way an episode like that could ever be made today because they don’t have the room and there isn’t enough shooting or explosions.

BTW, a little off topic but have you been watching this season of Discovery at all? Any thoughts? I don’t think I’ve seen a single post from you about any of the season or episodes so far.

I just watched the first episode of the season a week ago. It was OK but just not for me. I really only watched it because it connected to The Chase, one of my favorites.

I said I would try and watch the next episode but no motivation. Discovery just isn’t for me I guess. I still haven’t finished watching seasons 3 and 4 either lol.

But I hear others are really enjoying it though. Good for them. 😊

How about yourself dear? Maybe I might try it again later when it’s over and if I hear good things about the ending.If not, no bother. I haven’t looked in any of the threads on this board discussing the season.

I am enjoying it for the most part: certainly more than I thought I would lol.

But it’s still Discovery and there are still scenes of people discussing their feelings or just a lot of back and forth discussions that feel pretty aimless or just there to pad the episode. I really didn’t like the last episode at all but the one before that one was great and felt like the type of story you would get out of a Berman era show.

So it’s up and down but I do think a lot people are liking it overall including this board which says a lot lol.

I’m still a little nervous it may not stick to landing by the end but we only have 5 more episodes and then the show is done for good. Wow.

Good to know. I do know the show is trying to connect more to classic Star Trek like TNG and DS9. That’s a big positive at least and maybe why more people are excited about it right now. But are a lot of people watching it this season? No one I know online is really talking about it as much like before but maybe just where I lurk on social media.

Hopefully it will end well for its fans.

Yeah that seems to be a topic in a number of places and if a lot of people are watching the season since discussion over it seems to be generally down this season. The only answer real answer I have is I have no clue.

But it was cancelled for a reason, maybe a lot of people were already watching it less in season 4 like yourself. If that’s true not a shock less are watching it now. It’s going to take more than latching your season to a 30 year old TNG episode to get those people back if they already left

Well regardless who is watching I do hope they are enjoying it. I may try and give it another chance at some point.

Oh however I have started watching Prodigy for the first time and you were so right! That show is phenomenal!! I just thought I was too old for it but it’s so much fun and loving Janeway with the new characters!

I’m on episode 9 now but can’t wait to finish it. I’m really excited when the real Janeway shows up but Hologram Janeway is so much fun too. The new characters really feel fleshed out as well and loving the storyline. This feels like Star Trek of old again. I’m so happy you and others convinced me to watch it.

I really can’t wait for season 2 seeing how great season 1 is so far. 😊

Wow that’s amazing news! 😀

I’m so happy to hear that. Yeah Prodigy is great. It doesn’t mean everyone loves it and it obviously didn’t get that many viewers (but I think due to calling it a kids show and why people like you stayed away) but the show just has so much heart and why I love it.

This is the show I’m most excited to see again and can’t wait to see the kids on the Voyager A with Admiral Janeway and the Doctor.

And see there is something you like in NuTrek after all!

Haha indeed!

Prodigy does an amazing job with its characters and manage to tell fun and interesting stories. I thought I wasn’t going to like Dal or Gwynn much and they became very lovable once I realize everything they been through and becoming more of a team. Jangom Pog cracks me up and Rok is adorable.

I also love it has a strong connection to Voyager. I’m very excited to have the real Janeway back too. It’s proof I shouldn’t judge something until I see it but I never thought it was bad just not for me.

That’s great to hear, Legacy. I was similarly surprised upon first viewing of PRO, at the quality of the show’s writing, visuals and overall Trek ‘feel.’ It’s a rare example of modern Trek done Right.

So true Danpaine. There is so much of NuTrek I feel they either get wrong or too focused on action and big stakes instead of just telling a solid story which Prodigy really seems to do.

I don’t need another story about trying to destroy the galaxy. This show is more my speed and makes this old bird really appreciate the Star Trek I fell in love with again.

Get ready for the next 11 episodes. You will be surprised how great is Prodigy. Can’t wait to watch Season 2 on Netflix.

I’m going to watch the next few episodes this weekend. It’s only gotten stronger. And I peeped ahead with some of the surprises and happy Captain Jelico and the Xindi makes an appearance. I know just small cameos but still happy to see them back. I don’t know what happens next in the story so can’t wait!

Will season 2 come out this year? I really hope so now. We need more quality Trek like this show.

It’s been confirmed by Netflix it will debut this year at least but zero word on when.

So great to hear! Without a doubt this show has a new fan and I’ll be watching season 2 the day it drops!

I truly can’t wait now and nearly done with season 1. 🙂

Yes you are so right! I just finished episode 14 this weekend and it’s just so much fun. I was excited to see Admiral Janeway back and shrieked when the Xindi appeared lol. One of my favorite species in Star Trek.

The story just feels so well thought out and loving how they are handling all the characters in it. I’m going to try and finish the rest of it by this weekend.

I can’t believe I didn’t bother to watch this until now.

Great to see more Prodigy love. It’s my favorite of the new shows. I love how it walks the line of being a very unique take on the franchise, while capturing the heart and soul of the older shows. The serialized story works well as a connective tissue and giving their adventure long-term stakes, but having done a rewatch in a random order made me realize just how well a lot of the episodes work on their own (once you get past the initial part connecting to the main story).

Now I just need Netflix to hurry up and release it, lol.

Yes I really appreciate how the episodes still feel very episodic but the main story connects very well. That was the problem I had with Discovery and Picard. I felt the serialized story fell apart halfway through but there are not enough episodic stories to keep me invested.

Right now Prodigy is doing both. I’m very surprised how solid the story telling is here.

I watched the silver age of Star Trek as a kid. Now that I’m older, I appreciate the hard work that the great Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, Michael Piller, and others did. They worked tirelessly around the clock to bring the audiences the best stories and best productions they could with what they had. I don’t use or believe in “filler episodes. ”

If I was going to use that concept, I would use it to describe Disco, Picard, and SNW. These three shows have a beginning and end but nothing substantial in the middle….it’s like they are filling in stuff to get to the end.

I so agree with you dear. I really appreciate all the amazing shows we got in the 90s. It was such a great time to be a fan and I been watching Trek since the 60s. So many great stories and characters.

I think people like Berman, Piller, Moore, Braga etc gets more praise today to see how many quality stories they produced with half the time and money these new shows gets now (and still nowhere as compelling or thoughtful as we got back then).

I did really enjoy Picard season 3 but it’s still not nearly as good as TNG was but it at least tried to be.

Season 3 was more like an extended TNG movie to me and it was a lot better than 3 of the 4 TNG movies with a much better send off for every character than Nemesis.

Yeah I loved the send off they got in season 3. It’s just a much more and satisfying ending than what we got in Nemesis.

I just loved the last episode so much and will always feel special to me. It was a great Trek season overall even if it still wasn’t perfect.

Yes fully agree season 3 felt like a movie and gave us some great drama and twists. I actually like most of the TNG movies minus Generations (hated how it killed Kirk) but they are below the TOS movies but still far above the JJ reboot movies for me. I barely even count those as canon, but my opinion only of course.

Even though I liked it more than others, Nemesis was a real let down as well so it was nice to give them a better ending on this show.

Did Frakes threw some shade towards Kurtzman about crossover episodes? or am I misunderstanding his comments there. In any case I am also of the camp that apart from clip shows, which should never exist, fillers can be the best episodes of any series. I mean I rewatch the “filler” episodes much more, episodes like “Duet” from DS9, “Timeless” from Voyager, “The Inner Light” from TNG. Even in other series for example like Stargate or Farscape I usually prefer the excellent filler episodes rather than the ongoing serial ones. Or in the X-Files. I think that show had some phenomenal “filler” episodes.

I agree with pretty much everything except calling Timeless a filler episode. It was anything but because that was Voyager’s 100th episode and was supposedly one of the most expensive to shoot that year.

And you can’t bring Geordie on and call it that. 😉

Thanks for clearing that up actually, I knew Takei’s episode “Flashback” was an anniversary episode but didn’t realize till now that “Timeless” was actually the 100th episode.

If you go to a Star Trek Jeopardy special event, you will beat everyone. Totally forgot Timeless was the 100th episode, which by the way, it was one of my favorite VOY episodes.

“ If you go to a Star Trek Jeopardy special event, you will beat everyone.”

Unless it involves correctly spelling the given name of the D’s chief engineer.

Lol thanks but there are plenty of things I don’t remember and Timeless was a big deal at the time. And I listen to The Delta Flyers which did an amazing job going through the entire show and Timeless was one they really discussed in-depth.

I think Frakes did indeed throw Kurtzman under a bus there. “Those Old Scientists” is receiving a lot of accolades, so that tracks.

If Duet and (in particular) TIL are “filler” episodes, the term is meaningless.

“Filler” and “bottle episode” are getting used interchangeably lately. The Inner Light I’d say is neither. Duet is definitely a bottle episode.

YASSSS!!! Filler and bottle are getting bandied about nilly-willy.I said this when Battlestar started on SciFi and people griped about the short seasons. Even in the best of 22-26 episode seasons, I’ve always said there’s room to cut 12 hours of filler, whether it’s an entire episode or just meandering subplots.

Standalone EPs on ‘x files’ became more effective than the on the going alien invasion arc

DS9’s “Far Beyond the Stars” was a filler, and it’s still one of the best episodes of television ever. So don’t tell me that filler episodes can’t be great.

I disagree about “Far Beyond the Stars” was a filler. That was not cheap with the new sets and everything. I think a DS9 filler episode is more like “Rivals.” That one was very bad.

Sorry, friend, but “Far Beyond the Stars” was NOT a filler episode. That goddamn thing MEANT something. Filler episodes are just fluff… like the one where Quark gets the sex change.

“Far Beyond the Stars” was absolutely not filler but an AMAZING episode, unexpected, thought provoking, and considered by many to be one of the best episode of DS9.

I always welcome reading about an interview with Frakes, he’s a gem of the franchise. And I say let the films come. More opportunities to bring in variety (and hopefully quality) as to content, writers, directors. If one sucks they can move on to another in a different direction. Good interview.

It really depends on the episode in question. If the “filler” serves to advance the story or the evolution of the characters, then what could be seen as a “filler” isn’t really a “filler”, if that makes any sense. Ultimately, it all depends on the budget.

I’m glad that Frakes is basically the unofficial spokesman for all things ‘Trek, as far as the live aspects of the franchise. BTW, does LeVar Burton and any other ‘Trek alumni do work for the franchise, either in front of the camera or behind the scenes?

Not that I’m aware of. Robert Duncan McNeill was in talks to direct for “Discovery,” but the push for more diverse directors (women and POC) meant he wasn’t what they were looking for. He didn’t seem to have hard feelings about it from the interview I read over at Trekcore. A shame — I always thought he was a great director and it would’ve been interesting to see what he brought to the table. (Then again, I’m biased as I share a birthday with Robbie and saw great potential in the Tom Paris character before TPTB milk-toasted him.)

Roxann Dawson is another Trek actor/director whose name I see pop up on the odd TV drama from time to time, too. No idea why she hasn’t done any modern Trek or if she was even interested in doing so.

As for LeVar Burton I VAGUELY recall he was a bit vocal about where Star Trek was going during his “Enterprise” directing days and has been critical of the franchise’s direction since. Maybe he just wasn’t interested.

If Legacy gets green-lit, it will probably be a series of movies. I LOVED PICS3, but nostalgia can only get you so far. I don’t know if Par+ wants to pay the TNG cast the big bucks. I’d encourage everyone to watch the HECK out of the S31 movie. If Par+ sees good viewership, they’ll make more of them.

YES – back in 1990 I saw George Takei at a convention in Boston; we all agreed Star Trek V (released months earlier) was not very good but George asked us to keep going to see it and buy the VHS when it came out — it was a way to send a message to Paramount we wanted MORE Star Trek.

Respectfully of course, I don’t feel it’s the consumer’s job to ‘watch the heck’ out of something, hoping more product will be made as a result. If the Sec. 31 film is good enough to deserve another watch, then I will. If it’s bad or mediocre I’m not going to revisit it. Simple. It’s their job to properly entertain us, we’re the ones paying the bill every month.

No one does ‘filler’ EPs if they can help it. Mr frakes was right about “shades of grey’, knocked together to get TNG s2 over and done with.

LOVE Jonathan Frakes. Would love to meet him!

Fun discussion topic — not looking for arguments but suppose it’s inevitable here, LOL. There are many definitions of ‘filler episode.’

As a discussion point, regardless if an episode is considered good/great/bad, what are some examples (in any Trek series) that you consider to be a ‘filler’ episode and why?

Discussion topic :)

‘filler’ and ‘bottle episodes’ are two different things. Yes, a bottle episode CAN be filler but often is NOT. Filler is just filler — can be beloved, but still filler.

Screen Rant

Star trek’s 10 most evil mirror universe characters.

Star Trek's Mirror Universe is home to the most evil versions of our favorite Starfleet heroes, but which ones are the best of the worst?

• The Mirror Universe boasts evil versions of beloved Star Trek characters — Mirror Spock, Mirror Sulu, Regent Worf, & more stand out.
• Evil Mirror Universe variants like Mirror Kirk and Intendant Kira showcase the dark side of well-loved Star Trek characters in a compelling way.
• Mirror Universe characters like Emperor Georgiou, Captain Killy, and Dr. Phlox display extreme evil actions, making them the "worst of the worst."

Star Trek 's Mirror Universe is home to the most evil versions of some of the franchise's most beloved heroes, but which ones are the best of the worst? First introduced in Star Trek: The Original Series season 2, episode 10, "Mirror, Mirror", the Mirror Universe is the Federation's darkest timeline, where humanity embraced brutal fascism over peace, love and understanding. Although the Mirror Universe only appeared in one episode of TOS , bearded Mirror Spock (Leonard Nimoy) left a huge impression on popular culture, leading to multiple returns to the dark timeline and its evil alternates in later Star Trek TV shows .

Arguably, the most evil Mirror Universe character was Mirror Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell), who met the visiting Vulcan delegation with a shotgun blast . Cochrane's murderous first contact established how the Terran Empire would go on to subjugate countless species in Star Trek 's Mirror Universe. However, it was just the human Star Trek heroes that had evil Mirror Universe variants , the franchise's best-loved Bajoran, Klingon, and Cardassian characters also had their dark opposites. In a whole universe of evil Star Trek characters, it can be hard to narrow down exactly which ones are the best at being the worst.

Star Trek: Voyager & DS9 Crossed Over In The Mirror Universe

10 mirror hikaru sulu (george takei), "you will also appear to have killed him after a fierce battle. regrettable, but it will leave me in command.".

Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) was thrown into the complicated power dynamics of the Mirror Universe when he and his away team were stranded there in "Mirror, Mirror". After preventing Mirror Chekov (Walter Koenig) from assassinating him, Prime Kirk then had to contend with an attempt on his life from Mirror Hikaru Sulu (George Takei). Sulu versus Kirk was the climax of "Mirror, Mirror", as the ISS Enterprise's lieutenant tried to murder his way to the center seat.

Star Trek: The Original Series

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Star Trek: The Original Series follows the exploits of the crew of the USS Enterprise. On a five-year mission to explore uncharted space, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) must trust his crew - Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Forest DeKelley), Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (James Doohan), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Sulu (George Takei) - with his life. Facing previously undiscovered life forms and civilizations and representing humanity among the stars on behalf of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets, the Enterprise regularly comes up against impossible odds and diplomatic dilemmas.

Mirror Sulu was, predictably, a more cruel and bitter version of his Prime Universe counterpart. Lt. Nyota Uhura (Nichele Nichols) got a sense of Mirror Sulu's harsher side when she had to play on his infatuation with her Terran counterpart. Although he wasn't the worst of the worst of Star Trek 's Mirror Universe characters, Mirror Sulu is a great example of the dark side of some of the franchise's best loved characters . However, despite being cruel, conniving, and a stone-cold killer, Sulu was bested by Prime Kirk in a final showdown.

9 Regent Worf (Michael Dorn)

"this time, i will deal with the rebels myself.".

Regent Worf (Michael Dorn) was the ruler of Star Trek 's Mirror Universe during the 24th century, so he was obviously an evil guy. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine revealed that the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance enslaved all Terrans and Vulcans in various regions of their territory. As the Regent, Worf oversaw the violent oppression of these slaves throughout his reign . The Regent relied on his Intendants to keep the Terrans under his heel, and was enraged by the loss of the Terok Nor space station .

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.

Worf doled out cruel and degrading punishments to those that failed him, including Mirror Elim Garak (Andrew Robinson) who was forced to wear a dog collar for losing Terok Nor to the rebels. However, as evil as Regent Worf may have been, he was presented as a fairly ineffective leader whose empire was crumbling around him . He suffered two embarassing losses in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , at the hands of Prime Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and the ISS Defiant, and then even got duped by Prime Quark (Armin Shimerman) and Rom (Max Grodenchik) who installed a faulty cloaking device aboard his flagship.

Michael Dorn Wanted Armin Shimerman To Play The Ferengi Worf Kills In Star Trek: Picard [UPDATED]

8 mirror dr. phlox (john billingsley), "will you kindly die".

The Mirror Universe version of the avuncular Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley) was a sadist who specialized in torture . Phlox conducted horrific experiments on living beings in pursuit of medical advancement, and served as the chief medical officer aboard the ISS Enterprise NX-01. Phlox specialized in concocting new means of torture to punish the enemies of the Terran Empire, leading to the creation of the Agony booth. This technology conducted a synaptic scan of any humanoid, so that it could stimulate every available pain center, keeping its victims in a state of constant agony.

The Agony booth or "Agonizer" was used across the Terran Empire, having been seen in Star Trek: The Original Series ' "Mirror, Mirror", and the Mirror Universe episodes of Star Trek: Discovery .

Despite being an evil sadist, Dr. Phlox was eventually convinced to join the attempt to stop Mirror Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) from using the USS Defiant to become Terran Emperor. However, as ever in Star Trek 's Mirror Universe, Phlox's actions were driven by self-interest more than moral duty. Phlox only agreed to stop Archer because he believed that, by saving the life of the incumbent Terran Emperor, he would be rewarded with multiple concubines and an impressive new medical facility .

7 Mirror Commander Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula)

"more like a federation of fools".

In Star Trek: Enterprise 's Mirror Universe, Jonathan Archer was still a Commander, serving alongside Captain Maximillian Forrest (one of Vaughn Armstrong's multiple Star Trek roles ). Archer's feelings of inadequacy compared to Forrester led him to commit some reckless and evil acts. After stealing the USS Defiant, Archer wanted to gain the respect of his crew, and so launched an assault on a Gorn foreman that had remained aboard the ship. Archer's attack on the Gorn resulted in many of his MACO troopers being killed, and also left Major Malcolm Reed (Dominic Keating) seriously injured.

Mirror Archer is the earliest Star Trek captain to face a Gorn in any timeline.

Mirror Archer was insane, taunted by an illusion of his superior Prime Counterpart, who drove him to more and more reckless actions. Archer murdered Admiral Black (Gregory Itzin) and assumed command of the USS Defiant, with which he intended to stage a military coup. Archer became increasingly unhinged, and ordered the deaths of the Defiant's alien crew members, except for Dr. Phlox. Archer was eventually stopped from assuming control of the Terran Emperor, putting an end to further evil acts from the Enterprise captain.

Enterprise’s Mirror Universe Episodes Marked The Sad End Of The Star Trek Prequel

6 emperor philippa georgiou (michelle yeoh), "i'm extremely wicked, even for a terran.".

Star Trek: Discovery 's Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) has certainly gone some way to redeeming her actions in the Mirror Universe. However, it might take a lot more than ending the Federation-Klingon War to wash away the sins of Georgiou from her reign as Terran Emperor. Georgiou rendered the Klingon home world Qo'noS uninhabitable, subjugated the Betazoids and destroyed Mintaka III. Emperor Georgiou also launched a bombardment against the Talosians for trying to trick her with their mental projections .

Star Trek: Discovery

Star Trek: Discovery is an entry in the legendary Sci-Fi franchise, set ten years before the original Star Trek series events. The show centers around Commander Michael Burnham, assigned to the USS Discovery, where the crew attempts to prevent a Klingon war while traveling through the vast reaches of space.

Georgiou was less xenophobic than her predecessors, happily accepting the native titles of the Vulcans, Andorians and Klingons that she ruled over. It was perhaps this openness with "lesser" species that made her opponents see Emperor Georgiou as a weak leader. The failed coup against Emperor Georgiou led to her traveling to the Prime Universe, where she now lives as a Section 31 operative. It's said that the upcoming Star Trek: Section 31 movie will see Georgiou confront the sins of her past, continuing the redemptive journey she began in Star Trek: Discovery season 2 .

5 Captain Sylvia "Killy" (Mary Wiseman)

"i'm gonna have nightmares about myself now.".

Captain Sylvia "Killy" (Mary Wiseman) was the captain of the ISS Discovery, and a close colleague of Emperor Philippa Georgiou . Tilly rose to her position by murdering the previous captain while they were recovering from an illness, which is one of the most ruthless in a long list of Mirror Universe murders. As captain of the ISS Discovery, the Mirror Universe version of Tilly was just as responsible for the subjugation of the Betazoids and devastation of Mintaka III. However, unlike Georgiou, Mirror Tilly, who had earned the nickname "Killy" never got a chance to redeem herself later in Star Trek: Discovery , nor would she likely want one .

Mary Wiseman's character, Lt. Sylvia Tilly was named after the niece of Star Trek: Discovery producer Gretchen J. Berg.

The Mirror Universe Tilly was terrifying to her Prime Universe counterpart, who worried that she'd have nightmares about herself. With such nicknames as "The Slayer of Sorna Prime" and "The Witch of Wurna Prime", it's no wonder that Tilly was so unnerved by her Mirror Universe counterpart. "Killy" was the darker, more ambitious version of Star Trek: Discovery 's Tilly, and she had an impressive, if terrifying list of accolades;

• Medal of Valor
• Master of Poisons Medal
• 50 Kills Medal

Star Trek: Discovery Proves Starfleet Academy Show Doesn’t Make Sense Without Tilly

4 empress hoshi sato (linda park), "you're speaking with empress sato. prepare to receive instructions.".

The Mirror Universe version of Hoshi Sato (Linda Park) from Star Trek: Enterprise was an incredibly smart woman who knew which powerful man to throw in her lot with. Effectively playing off Mirror Archer and Mirror Forrest against each other, Hoshi placed herself in a position where she could use the USS Defiant to hold Earth to ransom. Staying close to Archer as his lover during his plot to steal the technologically superior USS Defiant from the Tholians, she waited until the time was right to depose the ambitious leader.

Mirror Archer ordered that any information about the Federation held on the USS Defiant's systems be erased so as not to inspire a rebellion against the Terran Empire, a reference to Mirror Spock being inspired by Prime Kirk's tales of the Federation.

Hoshi seduced Mirror Archer's personal security officer, Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery) to help her with a poisoning plot. Killing Archer with poisoned champagne, Hoshi became commanding officer of the USS Defiant. She then holds the entire planet Earth to ransom with the USS Defiant in a hostile takeover of the entire Terran Empire. Hoshi's military coup was one of the boldest moves achieved by any of Star Trek 's Mirror Universe variants .

3 Intendant Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor)

"i have no taste for violence. i regret using it even when it seems necessary.".

Intendant Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) is the only character to feature in all five of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Mirror Universe episodes . Mirror Kira was a fascinating character who ruled Terok Nor at the behest of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. Although she was very clearly evil, Intendant Kira Nerys was less brutal than some of her Mirror Universe contemporaries, preferring instead to use manipulation and her sexuality to get what she wanted. That being said, the Intendant regularly veered from ordering the execution of Terran Rebels to subjugating others as her personal slaves to her every whim.

Nana Visitor once described Intendant Kira as such: " I t's very much me. I mean, I hope I don't send people to their deaths or anything like that, but yeah, that is more of who I am ."

The Intendant was so vain that she was even attracted to Major Kira from the prime Star Trek timeline . As with many Mirror Universe variants, Intendant Kira Nerys was adept at self-preservation, and she would easily stab her allies in the back if it saved her life. For example, Intendant Kira murders the Mirror Universe's Nog (Aron Eisenberg) even though the young Ferengi had freed her from prison. In her final Star Trek: Deep Space Nine appearance, the Intendant orchestrates the sabotage of Regent Worf's flagship, leaving behind the ruler of the Mirror Universe to face the punishment of the Terran Rebellion .

Major Kira's Best Star Trek DS9 Episodes

2 mirror captain james t. kirk (william shatner), "has the whole galaxy gone crazy".

The majority of Star Trek: The Original Series season 2, episode 20, "Mirror, Mirror" has Prime Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) fill in for his Terran counterpart. This means that it's hard to get a handle on how truly evil Mirror Universe Kirk actually was. However, there is a staggering list of crimes attributed to the Terran Empire's Captain James T. Kirk in "Mirror, Mirror". As well as murdering Captain Christopher Pike to assume command of the ISS Enterprise, he used stolen alien technology, the Tantalus field, to vaporize his enemies.

William Shatner had pitched the return of Mirror Kirk to Rick Berman as a potential episode of Star Trek: Enterprise season 4.

Mirror Kirk is also said to have executed 5000 colonists on Vega IX, and also destroyed the home planet of the Gorlans' . None of these genocidal actions are depicted on-screen in Star Trek: The Original Series , as the real Mirror Kirk is largely confined to a cell aboard the Prime Universe's USS Enterprise. However, there's no question that the Mirror Universe's Captain Kirk was one of the very worst of the worst of Star Trek 's Mirror Universe characters.

1 Mirror Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs)

"i have been to another universe and back. you think i'd come all this way without a plan".

Budding Terran Emperor, Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs) is the greatest Star Trek: Discovery villain and the most evil of Mirror Universe characters. Following his unsuccessful coup against Emperor Philippa Georgiou, Lorca fled to the Prime Universe, where he assumed the identity of his counterpart. This was one of Lorca's most evil moves, as he infiltrated his Prime Counterpart's life and career, including his romantic relationship with Admiral Katrina Cornwall (Jayne Brook). Not only did Mirror Lorca embark on a sexual relationship on false pretenses, he " groomed " Mirror Michael Burnham, proving that he was a sexual deviant as well as a brutal oppressor .

Jason Isaacs originally wanted to turn down the role of Captain Gabriel Lorca in Star Trek: Discovery out of respect for Star Trek: The Original Series .

As well as his sexual crimes, Lorca was responsible for killing his entire crew by destroying the USS Buran on arrival in the Prime Universe. While Lorca claimed he was saving them from the brutal treatment they'd receive as prisoners of the Klingon Empire, his actions elsewhere suggest he was simply removing an obstacle to his goals . By inveigling his way into Starfleet and the USS Discovery, Lorca then goes back to the Mirror Universe to launch another attempt to seize the throne of the Terran Empire. Lorca's wholesale murder of his Mirror Universe crew, his manipulation of the women in his life, and the betrayal of the USS Discovery crew make him the Star Trek character with the blackest of black hearts.

All episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Star Trek: Discovery are available to stream on Paramount+.

FlickSphere

21 Things About Star Trek That Fans Hesitate to Acknowledge

Posted: April 27, 2024 | Last updated: April 27, 2024

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