When aliens capture Captain Janeway and threaten Voyager, The Doctor must impersonate the captain (and other members of the crew) in his efforts to save the day.
In many of my write-ups of seventh season Voyager episodes, I've noted stories that felt to me like they would have been better had they appeared earlier in the run of the show. This episode runs afoul of similar issues. The Doctor has had seven years of experiences, has learned more of his own humanity and the essential humanity of his crewmates, has commanded Voyager... and generally should know better than to just hand the ship over to an alien threat as he decides to do here. He explains his thinking at one point, saying that "Voyager can get by without a warp core, but not without a captain." This is simply preposterous, devoid of logic, and not even defensible if you assume the Doctor always chooses foremost to save lives (because he's choosing to risk dozens to save one). The Doctor simply isn't this naive anymore.
However, there's a huge trade-off in telling this story so close to the end of the series: all the actors have worked together for years, and have come to know each others' performances very well. This story makes fantastic use of this by having half the cast play the Doctor (as he impersonates their characters). Kate Mulgrew, Roxann Dawson, and Robert Beltran all get a run at playing a version of the Doctor. This story doesn't call for them to give a full-on Robert Picardo impersonation (as Jeri Ryan did earlier in the season), but they all have to play their characters "just a little bit off." Mulgrew's performance in particular is important, as it occurs early in the episode before the audience knows what's going on; she leaves bread crumbs that in retrospect read as "the Doctor," without tipping off the twist too early.
The results are quite fun. The Doctor collects communicators under every sleeve and pant cuff as weird trophies of the people he's incapacitated to cover his secret. We get fun sight gags about B'Elanna's pregnancy, cool visual effects (including a warp core ejection sequence and a shot of a hundred Doctor clones), and wild hologram parkour. Plus, it's not just a Doctor episode: as a captive, Janeway tries her own ploys to escape the Overlookers; on Voyager, Chakotay's clash with and growing suspicion of "Janeway" gets a decent amount of screen time.
There are elements to this episode included only because the end of the series is nigh. Some of these work, like the Doctor's embarrassing confessions when he thinks he's about to die. Some are ineffective, like the pointless inclusion of Vorik in this episode just to get the character on screen one more time.
Other observations:
- Part of the bluff to secure Voyager's warp core is the claim that the technology is an ecohazard in local space. Warp travel as ecohazard was revealed to be true in a late episode of The Next Generation that was quickly papered over.
- What's with Tom Paris and fried chicken in this episode? And like, rather unappealing, clearly "fresh" from the refrigerator fried chicken too.
While this isn't really a "great" episode of Star Trek: Voyager, it is one that works well in a re-watch like I've been doing. When you know the twist, several early moments in the episode are extra fun. But overall, I don't love the Doctor's general stupidity, or the "slap on the wrist" he gets for defying the captain's orders. I give "Renaissance Man" a B-.
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