Projections
- FIRST SHOWN (US)
- 11 September 1995
- ON
- UPN
- STARDATE
- 48892.1
- DIRECTED BY
- Jonathan Frakes
- PRODUCTION NO.
- 117
WRITTEN BYWritten by Brannon Braga
The Doctor is activated to find Voyager damaged and almost deserted, but when he starts to bleed and feel pain, he is forced to question whether he is a hologram at all.
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSIS
The Doctor is activated during a red alert and told by Torres that Kazon attacks have forced the crew to abandon ship, leaving only her and Janeway aboard. After treating them, he notices something impossible: he is bleeding and in pain, and the computer insists he is his creator, Lewis Zimmerman. A hologram of Reginald Barclay, claiming to be Zimmerman's assistant, explains that the Doctor is really Zimmerman, trapped in a malfunctioning holodeck simulation of Voyager and suffering from radiation poisoning. The only way out, Barclay says, is to destroy the ship, and the program even replays events from the crew's first days in the Delta Quadrant. Then Chakotay appears with the opposite story: the Doctor is Voyager's EMH, caught in a holodeck malfunction while the crew tries to extract him. Even when Barclay presents Kes as Zimmerman's wife, the Doctor refuses to destroy the ship, and he wakes safely in sickbay, a hologram after all.
- 01Made as part of the first production season, but held back by UPN to air in season two.
- 02Brannon Braga's first idea had Geordi La Forge as the figure trying to convince the Doctor. He chose Barclay instead, feeling the character offered more dramatic potential.
- 03Dwight Schultz's first Voyager appearance, though only as a hologram of Barclay. Braga later called it his favourite Voyager episode.