In the fourth episode of the sixth season of Voyager, the Doctor upgrades himself in order to allow for daydreams, and it is a DISASTER. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.
Trigger Warning: For discussion of misogyny.
As a whole, this episode is a lot of fun, and I appreciate it when shows are willing to experiment with different tones and styles. The parody element of “Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy” isn’t something we’ve seen much on Voyager, and good god, it helps push this episode into the realm of the ridiculous. Which is a perfectly fine thing, for the record! The idea that the Doctor’s daydreams bring the crew to the brink of war with a mysterious species is certainly absurd, but there’s a strange sense to this all.
Let me first start by saying that this is one huge experiment in perception, and I’m fascinated by it. The writers for this episode ground the weirdness in this idea and the Doctor’s emotional development. (I’ll get to the latter thing in a bit.) Two stories develop because of how the show shifts perception. First, we see how the Doctor views his place within Voyager through his fantasies. Thus, his formal complaint to Janeway has a basis in his perception of reality: he believes that he is not respected or appreciated by the crew.
Therefore, it’s not a huge step to go from that to what we see in his fantasies. He’s worshipped in all of them. It’s more than just acceptance! It’s validation. It’s veneration. Given how he believes that his crewmates think he should stick to what he was programmed to do, I understood why his fantasies escalated so far. That being said, the whole sexual worship thing was not just deeply uncomfortable, but unnecessary. The show takes it so far! I don’t think I would have minded as much if the writers had kept it to Seven, since we know he has a long-standing attraction to her. However, to make all the women on the ship desire the Doctor and literally fight one another over him was so creepy. I get that they’re fantasies and we ALL imagine possibilities that are inappropriate. I also appreciated that the Doctor got to complain about feeling violated once other people saw his fantasies! That’s totally fair!
My issue isn’t even that the women got to see the fantasies, but that the show barely criticizes the Doctor for having them. Like, you’re a medical professional! You shouldn’t be fantasizing about people who you have treated or inevitably will have to treat! The show plays it off as some uncomfortable but ultimately harmless act, and NOOOOOO, THIS IS BAD, DON’T DO THIS. (Also… I know this isn’t a new thought for me, but the overwhelming straightness of the Doctor continues to perplex me. Was he programmed to be heterosexual? How is it possible that he just ended up that way? BOOOOOO, GIVE ME PANSEXUAL VERSION OF THE DOCTOR.)
Anyway, these fantasies, however you interpret them, form a completely different story for the Hierarchy aliens, who view life on Voyager through the lens of the Doctor’s mind. Using this surveillance, they unknowingly craft an entire narrative around the ship, one that centers the Doctor as a do-it-all, swashbuckling hero. It’s a hilarious comedy of misconceptions and miscommunications, one that results in one of the aliens secretly contacting the Doctor to try to thwart the very attack that they created. It’s here, however, that the writers ground their story in another stroke of brilliance. While there’s much humor to be had in the absurd ways in which the Doctor imagines himself as the Emergency Command Hologram, one of the Hierarchy aliens sabotages his own species’s plan because he came to care about the Doctor. As that final showdown unfolded, I also came to see how all of this validated the Doctor as an important member of the crew. I felt crushed when Janeway rejected his request to pursue command programming, which meant that I was also elated when she reversed this decision. For all the laughs and gags in “Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy,” this is still an important character moment for the Doctor. Janeway allows him to pursue growth, to expand what he is capable of, even if the thought makes her uncomfortable. That sort of agency is important, though, and I adore that it’s a central part of this episode.
The video for “Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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