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Synopsis

The Doctor materializes in Sick Bay, however, no one activated him. The Computer says he was auto-initiated when Voyager went into Red Alert, and that there’s no one on board. There’s multiple breaches on each deck and many systems are offline. There’s no information about what caused the damage, and Janeway’s bridge log describes that she ordered the crew into escape pods while Torres and she tried to stop a warp core breach.

He leaves instructions for whomever might rescue the ship before he terminates himself, but then someone bangs on Sick Bay’s door. He arms himself with a hypospray and awaits the intruder; it’s Torres, with a phaser. She says the internal sensors must be offline since there are still people on board the ship. Janeway and she remained behind to stop a core breach after the Kazon attacked and the crew abandoned ship. Unfortunately, all the escape pods were tractored by the Kazon vessels.

There’s a minor issue with the tricorders since they aren’t detecting Torres’ lifesigns. She wants to send the Doctor to the Bridge to help Janeway and he wonders how he can do that. Apparently, they’ve been adding holo-emitters to key areas of the ship for the past few weeks. They’ve not had the opportunity to test it, though, and it will take a lot of power, so they cut life support to some decks since most of the crew is gone. It takes 20 minutes to take the projectors online and Torres gives him a pep talk and warns that his holo-matrix is going to be very sensitive to energy disruptions. He needs to avoid forcefields and phaser fire, among other things.

The Doctor finds himself on a chaotic bridge with Janeway collapsed on the floor. Like Torres, he still can’t scan her with a tricorder. He gives her a hypospray, anyway, and she awakes. He can tell she has a concussion and she can’t remember what happened after they tried to stop the core breach, so the Doctor fills her in. Torres reports that she can reactivate the warp core but it will involve recrystalizing the dilithium matrix. Janeway is about to guide him through how to bypass a power relay, but then Neelix hails from the Mess Hall and she sends the Doctor to help, since it would take her 30 minutes to get there.

An ornery Neelix throws stuff at a Kazon on the other end of the Mess Hall. The Doctor sneaks around and grapples the Kazon, allowing Neelix to knock him on the head with a pan. Neelix has a sauce stain which they both mistake for blood, but the Doctor is actually bleeding.

He feels pain treating his wound in Sick Bay, and the tricorder detects his lifesigns! The computer says there’s no EMH program on file and that he’s Dr Lewis Zimmerman, who the Doctor knows to be his creator on Jupiter Station.

Janeway, Neelix, Torres, and the Kazon enter Sick Bay and the Captain orders him to do an ARA scan while they question the Kazon to find where their crew went. The Doctor, panicking, explains to Janeway what’s happening with his program. She checks it out and tries shutting down the holographic systems, and everyone but the Doctor disappears.

The Doctor finds all of Voyager’s crew in a memory file – apparently, they are part of a holographic simulation. Lieutenant Barclay appears and introduces himself as Zimmerman’s assistant, and that the Doctor is actually Lewis Zimmerman. They’re on Jupiter Station’s holodeck where a kinoplasmic radiation surge occurred while Zimmerman ran this holoprogram about a mixed crew of Starfleet and Macquis members isolated from Federation space. The Doctor’s been there for 6 hours, not 6 months, and Barclay explains the radiation is messing with his memory. After a slapping fight to illustrate that he feels pain, Barclay leaves, and the Doctor feels hungry. When Barclay returns, he says he has an hour before his neuro-cellular structure is oxidized. The program must end, and since the radiation isn’t allowing them to shut it down themselves, the Doctor must conclude it himself; either by getting the ship home, or destroying it. Otherwise, he’ll die.

The Doctor doesn’t know how to destroy the ship, doesn’t want to, and doesn’t know whether or not Barclay is an alien intruder. Barclay invites him to scan outside Sick Bay to a 15 metre radius and it is very much a holodeck configuration, and he also finds Barclay’s holo-projection booth. They can’t end the program, but they can restart it, and Barclay does that to illustrate his point. It’s the first episode of Voyager again, and the Doctor deletes Paris, then Kim. The Doctor still needs to confirm his true nature and conjectures destroying the holographic memory core in engineering will do the trick.

They step outside Sick Bay and the Doctor doesn’t dematerialize, which should be evidence enough. They arrive in Engineering and Janeway questions their presence, so the Doctor tries deleting her, but it doesn’t work. Luckily, the Caretaker removes the crew which allows the Doctor to phaser the holographic memory core unimpeded. He’s surprised that the ship doesn’t disappear, but Barclay explains that it’s the ship’s holographic systems – a hologram within a hologram, if you will. Just as the Doctor is convinced and is about the phaser the warp core to initiate a breach, Chakotay enters Engineering and accuses Barclay of lying.

Chakotay’s explanation is quite similar to Barclay’s, except that he confirms the Doctor is the EMH he thinks he is, and isn’t Lewis Zimmerman. If the Doctor destroys the simulation, then his program will be wiped out. A human Kes enters, his supposed wife, and doesn’t want to lose him and says he needs to destroy the simulation. The Doctor is in so much pain that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. Kes kisses him, and he says that she’s beautiful, and he wakes up in Sick Bay.

Tuvok and Kim report that they fixed the problem with his program caused by the radiation surge, and that otherwise, it’s been an uneventful day. Kim says that Barclay was one of the engineers who worked on his program, in charge of testing his interpersonal skills. When everyone leaves, Kes questions what he said about her being beautiful, which devloves into her saying that their marriage problems can be fixed. Then, Barclay appears, so the Doctor tries to leave Sick Bay, but a Kazon blocks his path. Paris appears and says a man needs help and leads him to a biobed – it’s Zimmerman, covered in injuries. With Janeway’s voice, Zimmerman says not to worry and everything will be fine. She turns him around in the holodeck and questions if he knows who she is, where he is, and who he is, and he answers all the questions correctly. Like a scared child, he asks Janeway if he can be brought back to Sick Bay.

Kes asks about their marriage in Sick Bay, and he says it was just a delusion. Nonetheless, she rather he not tell Neelix for sake of his jealousy. He’s curious about the incident, that instead of detecting the threat, his program caused him to experience an existential crisis. Kes says it’s normal to ask those questions: who am I, what is my purpose in life? The Doctor has never had to do that since he knows the answer to all those questions. Kes asks him if he’s sure and leaves him alone. He continues to work, but when she leaves he sticks his arm out of the Sick Bay. It dematerializes and, satisfied, he returns to work.

Thoughts

The Doctor’s existential crisis is such an interesting episode concept, given that he’s a computer program – I’m still left to think what it all means. The idea of self-identity coming from someone who wasn’t supposed to have such thoughts to begin with is especially appealing to me because its almost as close to divine as the series becomes. Almost like the emergence of a consciousness is imminent, and not knowing the reasons why it happens – gosh, I love that so much.

Moments before Janeway confronts the Doctor in the holodeck, the episode really doubles down on the mystery with that “false” ending. I remember that scene as a “final attempt” by Barclay and wife-Kes to bring back Zimmerman to reality, but there’s more to it than that! With Paris and the Kazon being involved, too, it really makes that scene like a computer’s dream before waking, anxiety piled on top of anxiety. That’s just so cool, probably the top moment of the episode for me.

This is Voyager’s first time bringing in Barclay and he’ll be coming back later, as I’ve already covered most of those episodes. He’s fantastic here! Even without knowing his TNG backstory, his chemistry with the Doctor is lovely to watch.

One of the best bottle episodes I’ve seen, “Projections,” is one of those trippy concepts executed very well. Picardo shines as the Doctor when the spotlight is on him. The episode’s implications of what consciousness is and where it comes from are profound and leave me with a lot to think about. This one gets added to the regular rewatch list, for sure.

This was originally posted on Sept 21, 2021. Transported to neocities on Nov 19, 2025.