7.20 author, author

Using just 11 minutes of available data stream per day, the doctor has managed to transmit his holonovel and negotiate a publishing contract, although he still needs to make a few alterations. When the crew takes a look at it, they are offended – the characters look almost identical to them, and they behave deplorably – many people will believe the novel is based on truth. Uncharacteristically, the doctor doesn’t see or care about the problem and only cares about fighting the good fight for his fellow Mach 1 EMH units – who have been condemned to a life of menial labor because of supposed deficiencies. With the help of Paris, who creates a similar holo-novel which shows a doc-like character in a bad light, the doctor agrees he should change the character’s appearance. But the publisher has gone ahead and published the novel without permission, stating that because doc is a hologram he has no rights. This leads to a court case, continued each day in the 11 minute periods available, and eventually won by the doc. The final scene is of a number of Mach 1 EMH units, working at a mining base, trading information on a new holonovel which makes for interesting reading.

This feels like a remake of Voyager’s ‘living witness’ and the Next Generation episode ‘The Measure of a Man’, but it’s inferior and way overplotted, with too many of the crew out of character, and much implausibility.