Real Life
- FIRST SHOWN (US)
- 23 April 1997
- ON
- UPN
- STARDATE
- 50836.2
- DIRECTED BY
- Anson Williams
- PRODUCTION NO.
- 164
WRITTEN BYTeleplay by Jeri Taylor; story by Harry “Doc” Kloor
The story writer is credited with his nickname as Harry “Doc” Kloor; Wikipedia's episode list shortens it to Harry Kloor.
The Doctor creates a perfect holographic family to learn about human life, until Torres decides a perfect family is not a real one.
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSIS
Curious about family life, the Doctor writes himself a holodeck family: his wife Charlene and children Jeffrey and Belle, all impossibly well behaved. Torres and Kes find the result sickly sweet, and Torres rewrites the programme to add the unpredictability of real life. Suddenly Charlene is busy with her own work, Jeffrey is sullen and hanging around with Klingon teenagers, and Belle is playing the dangerous sport of parrises squares. Meanwhile Voyager investigates a destroyed Vostigye station and finds astral eddies, anomalies moving between space and subspace. Paris flies a shuttle into one to gather data and is pulled inside, but sends back enough information for the crew to retrieve him. On the holodeck, Belle is badly hurt in a game and the Doctor cannot save her. Unable to face it, he ends the programme. Paris persuades him that loss is part of family life, and the Doctor returns to be with his family for Belle's final moments.
- 01Story writer Harry “Doc” Kloor pitched and sold the idea in person to executive producer Jeri Taylor, who wrote the teleplay.
- 02Directed by Anson Williams, best known as Potsie in Happy Days.
- 03Parrises squares, the dangerous sport Belle plays, was first mentioned in The Next Generation's “11001001”.