The doctor creates a holo family for himself, but he makes them perfect – they all worship and adore him, and do exactly what is expected, much worse than even a 1950’s television show. When he invites B’Elanna and Kes to dinner, B’Elanna, sickened by their sweetness, advises the doctor to change their subroutines to make them more realistic, otherwise he will not gain a true experience. Her changes to the program make life much more out of control – his daughter wants attention, his son plays loud Klingon music and is involved with sullen and violent Klingon friends, and his wife lectures in the evenings and expects him to cook. When his risk-taking daughter is fatally injured while playing Parisi Squares, the doctor cannot deal with the grief, and he leaves her on her deathbed.
Meanwhile, Voyager is investigating an anomaly between space and subspace. Paris, while attempting to collect plasma in a shuttle, is sucked in and has to ride the wave back out, and is barely rescued before the shuttle is destroyed.
Paris also convinces the doctor to return to his family – they need him. He does, and the death of his daughter brings the family together.
There’s an interesting scene where Paris finds Torres reading a Klingon romance novel, which he says he intends to study to get some clues.
Nit: I am somewhat perplexed by B’Elanna’s use of clichés from the 20th century in this episode. She uses a number, including ‘Break out your best china’ and ‘speak for yourself’. I find it especially strange that she, of all people, uses such phrases (since she grew up far from earth, and, unlike Tom Paris, has shown no interest in 20th century earth). Will these phrases still be in use 500 years from now? If you study the popular phrases from 500 years ago (the year 1500), I believe you’ll find that very few are still in use. Will the English language become stagnant in the next 500 years?
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