The Doctor seeks to improve his personality (and by extension, his effectiveness) by incorporating into his program the aspects of several historical figures he admires. But the darker sides in each of his exemplars pool together into a depraved alter ego who threatens both B'Elanna and Kes in a quest to obliterate his old persona.
This isn't a great episode of Voyager, but it would be a whole lot worse without the performance of Robert Picardo. His take on the Doctor as "Mr. Hyde" is creepy and gross, really going to extremes and almost threatening to do long-term damage to his regular character. Yet as deliciously evil as Picardo's performance is, the episode doesn't have faith in his acting alone. He wears prosthetic teeth that slacken his jaw and strange contact lenses that narrow his irises to drive the transformation home. Weirdly, the episode doesn't even work very hard to dig the Doctor out of the hole it writes him into; he's somehow instantly cured in hand-waving fashion by a transporter beam, and his apology to B'Elanna doesn't actually include an apology (while Kes doesn't even get that much).
If all the skeevy chauvinism in the episode came just from the evil Doctor, that would be one thing. But weirdly, it's kind of a top-to-bottom element of the story. In the major subplot, Kes is going through something of a midlife crisis. And because she's only three years old (thanks to the conceit of the Ocampan species), it leads to several moments ranging from uncomfortable to icky. She's much more sexualized than usual in this episode, costumed very differently. She's basically warned against falling in love with a bad boy by the Doctor. Tuvok calls her out for "gallivanting" as though he's her father (and her love interest later comes to Tuvok as if trying to convince a father of his noble intentions with a daughter).
The Kes storyline also feels like something of a missed opportunity, in retrospect. She spontaneously considers leaving the ship, then just as spontaneously decides not to in the end. But in only about 10 more episodes, Kes really would be written off the show. And I can't help but wonder, what if they'd known about that here in this episode, and actually written Kes out this way? True, Kes just running off with a new space beau might not have felt like the most satisfying end for the character, yet it would have felt more truthful than her unjustified decision not to leave in the final act of this episode. Plus, going through with the departure would have lent credibility to her thinking early in the episode: that there's more to life than Voyager, and she might be missing it.
Other observations:
- The holodeck collection of historical figures is fun, as is later seeing what Hyde-Doctor has done to them. The "hollow holo" of a bisected Socrates is a pun, get it?!
- What's with the cheesy slow motion when Hyde-Doc throws someone off a cliff? I actually snort-laughed.
- Kes is supposed to find Zahir attractive, but his species look a little like Bajorans with an open wound on their nose ridges. Not sexy.
Let Robert Picardo chew the scenery (as Voyager often does), and the results won't be all bad. But "Darkling" is far from great. I give it a C+.
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