Voyager Flashback: Life Line

Over its many incarnations, Star Trek has been a vehicle for a notable number of its main actors to break into directing. But in more than 55 years, only two main Star Trek cast members have ever received a writing credit on an episode. One was Walter Koenig, for an episode of the animated series. The other was Robert Picardo, who received a "story by" credit for the Voyager episode "Life Line."

When the Doctor receives word that his creator, Lewis Zimmerman, is dying of a terminal illness, he persuades Captain Janeway to send him back to the Alpha Quadrant via the monthly data stream. He has grand visions of using his Delta Quadrant knowledge to cure a grateful Zimmerman, giving life to the very man who gave it to him. Instead, he finds a curmudgeon unwilling to be treated by an "inferior" program that's been outdated many times over by advancing technology. And it may be only Counselor Deanna Troi who can bridge the gap between them.

This episode is nominally another installment in the ongoing "Pathfinder" story line, though Barclay's role in the story seems both mandated and inessential. (It boils down to "he forged the connection to Voyager in the first place," and "he's always had a thing with holograms.") Really, this is exactly the sort of episode you'd imagine an actor would craft for themselves: a vanity project in which they'll play both of the two major roles in a grand "one-person show."

Thankfully though, the episode is also better than you'd probably imagine a pure "vanity project" to be. The emotional underpinnings are well-drawn and rather universal: one character starved for approval from a withholding "parent," the other wallowing in a great personal failure and unable to cope with a walking reminder of that failure. And while it may not be a good episode for Barclay, it's an unusually good one for Troi, who gets to do some actual counseling. (And be quite devious in her ultimate solution.)

Marina Sirtis had met Robert Picardo on the Star Trek convention circuit, and said she'd looked forward to working with him on this episode. But also, she'd later say that the technical demands of this story were extreme, due to her involvement in many effects shots combining two Robert Picardos. (Overall, the shots turned out great. Only a few have that "bad lighting" effect that often gives away a poor split-screening job.)

Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of the episode is that it feels like we're missing out on interesting stories back on Voyager. The events of "Life Line" unfold literally over a month, but in that span we get just one scene back on the ship, between Janeway and Chakotay, talking about how far they've come together since they were separate Starfleet and Maquis crews. That's good... but what is it like having Tom Paris as the ship's only Doctor for a month? Surely some kind of medical crisis takes place in that time; does Tom rise to the occasion, or have to live with losing someone "on his watch?" This episode was too full for a B-plot because it needed to make room for Barclay and Troi -- yet what a missed opportunity for one of the series' regular characters!

Other observations:

• Jupiter Station had been talked about on Star Trek for years, but here we see it for the first time. And it really looks spectacular. (We're getting into an era of Star Trek were some of the visual effects still hold up reasonably well even today.)
  

• I presume the shuttlecraft Dawkins is named for Richard Dawkins. Star Trek rarely does contemporary "shout-outs" to people like this. (See what happened on Star Trek: Discovery that one time they mentioned Elon Musk.)

• It's not been a couple of good years for Lewis Zimmerman since the last time we saw him. His disease has clearly aged him.

"Life Line" is a better episode than you'd expect from an actor writing something for themselves to play. Still, I wonder if it could have been better still had it found a bit more room for other characters to shine too. I give it a B+.