A Look Back at "STAR TREK VOYAGER" (5.08) "Nothing Human)"

A Look Back at "STAR TREK VOYAGER" (5.08) "Nothing Human"

I came across an old episode of "STAR TREK VOYAGER" that I have not seen in a long time. It is a Season Five episode called (5.08) "Nothing Human". And I must say that without a doubt, it is one of the most ambiguous Trek episodes I have ever seen.

In the episode, Voyager's crew found a stranded vessel with a wounded alien on board. Once the creature is beamed to Sickbay, Torres discovered that it uses biochemical secretions to give commands. Unfortunately, the alien attacked Torres, puncturing her neck and secreting fluids into her bloodstream. Unaware of how to extract the creature without harming Torres, the Doctor and Kim created a hologram of a leading exobiologist named Crell Moset — a Cardassian. And there the trouble began.

Torres eventually gained consciousness long enough to learn from Paris about the Doctor's new consultant and objected against him. Her main objection to Crell Moset was not his status as a war criminal that had killed many Bajorans. Her main objection seemed to have been focused upon the fact that he was a Cardassian. In other words, Torres' objection was centered around her own bigotry and not moral outrage.

And then we have Captain Janeway. Granted, she was not guilty of hypocricy or bad judgment. She really did not care less how the Doctor saved Torres' life. And I believe that she was right to give the Doctor permission to operate on Torres. Voyager needed its Chief Engineer and Torres was not in any condition to make an official objection. However, Janeway handled her confrontation with Torres very badly. She could have shown some sensitivity, despite Torres' hostility. Instead, she lost her temper (underneath the cool facade) and confronted the Chief Engineer in a manner that bordered on insensitivity - during a moment that called for sensitivity. Or she should have left Torres' quarters before tempers flared.

And judging from his behavior, one might suspect that the Crell Moset hologram was more interested in experimenting on the alien than saving Torres' life. He claimed to the Doctor that he had objected to Cardassia's occupation of Bajor. Yet, despite this "objection", Moset obviously had not been above using Bajorans for his medical experiments. Apparently, using his fellow Cardassians had been above him. This attitude seemed to have manifested in his handling of the alien that had latched itself to Torres.

But the biggest hypocrite turned out to be the Doctor - the very person who had originally argued for the use of the Crell Moset hologram. He had seemed willing to accept Moset's assistance . . . until he learned about the latter's past. And yet, he continued to use Moset as a guide for Torres' operation. Once Janeway left him with the decision to either keep the Crell Moset hologram in the ship's computer system or delete it, the Doctor decided upon the latter.

Personally, I have a deep suspicion that his true reason for deleting Moset's program came from resentment over having his hypocricy exposed by the Cardassian hologram. His arguments against Moset's medical procedures seemed to be a moot point. The Doctor seemed willing, in the end, to use Crell Moset's medical knowledge to save B'Elanna. Even worse, he had no qualms about using medical procedures and knowledge that had originally been gained from experiments on lower animals centuries ago. Either one should accept all medical procedures learned over the years or reject them all. I can understand the Doctor's willingness to rid Voyager of the Crell Moset hologram. But he could have retained the knowledge gained from Moset in the ship's program. Especially if he was willing to use it to save Torres' life . . . even after learning about Moset's past.