Star Trek 562: Nothing Human

562. Nothing Human

FORMULA: Ethics + Duet

WHY WE LIKE IT: An actual ethical dilemma.

WHY WE DON'T: Incredibly contrived.

REVIEW: While I can't fault Voyager for attempting a good, old-fashioned Star Trek ethical allegory, the plot manipulations required to make it work overwhelm its production. While Message in a Bottle showed us that you couldn't just create a holographic matrix of the Doctor's complexity easily (or at all, in that episode), Harry can now suddenly do it in a matter of minutes. That he represents a Cardassian is fine, but that they can't change his appearance or anything about him to make B'Elanna comfortable is dubious. Then, a new Bajoran character is introduced who just happens to know the Cardassian in question just so he can make a fuss... It's too convenient.

Crell Moset is meant to be an analog of those Nazi scientists who experimented on concentration camp inmates, but part of the problem is that those events are not part of his program (though a certain ruthlessness is). In any case, he's not the real Moset. The question isn't whether the hologram can be held accountable for the real Moset, but whether knowledge gained through unethical means should ever be used to help people in the here and now. Personally, I'm with Janeway on this (I'm as surprised as you are). What's done is done. We can condemn the means, but if the knowledge now exists, we should use it. I don't see it as disrespectful to the victims, I see it as making up for the evil done. I would rather those victims' deaths weren't in vain. Of course, the ship is divided on the issue, but Moset makes a lot of good, pragmatic (if self-serving) points throughout.

The good news is that he's an entertaining character (I've missed the Cardassians), and that the medical investigation is played smartly. Low on technobabble and high on logical guess work on the nature of the alien creature using B'Elanna as a life-support system. The holographic vivisection is rather icky, but I give props to the show for creating a truly alien being.

In the final analysis, the episode deals in too many abstractions to really be such a polarizing issue aboard ship. I mean, they're angry that information in the database might have been gleaned from unethical experiments as represented by a hologram that doesn't even contain the unethical memories of the man it's modelled on (if Tabor is even correct about Moset as seen through his traumatized childhood memories). Would B'Elanna really have rather died? And while I approved Janeway's decision, I can't approve her reaction to B'Elanna's outrage. Once again, she proves dismissive of others' beliefs in a most unStarfleet way. That hard edge is making the character less and less sympathetic.

LESSON: One creature's "hello" is another's "let's do an alien autopsy!"

REWATCHABILITY - Medium: A lot of interesting elements in this episode (Crell Moset, the ethics, the alien), but they're forced down too narrow a plot tube to really work.