Message in a Bottle
- Episode aired Jan 21, 1998
- TV-PG
- 46m
IMDb RATING
8.7/10
2.6K
YOUR RATING
Using an alien communications net, Voyager sends their Doctor to the Federation ship USS Prometheus only to find that it has been taken over by Romulans.Using an alien communications net, Voyager sends their Doctor to the Federation ship USS Prometheus only to find that it has been taken over by Romulans.Using an alien communications net, Voyager sends their Doctor to the Federation ship USS Prometheus only to find that it has been taken over by Romulans.
John Austin
- Voyager Ops Officer
- (uncredited)
Lynne Burnett
- Romulan Officer
- (uncredited)
Dianne Harper
- Dead Prometheus officer
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaTom Paris' line "I'm a pilot, not a doctor!" at the 26 minute mark is a parody of the running gag which all doctors in the various Star Trek series have said. It originated with Leonard McCoy on the original Star Trek (1966), and has moved on through every series since.
- GoofsJust before Voyager transmits The Doctor to the Alpha Quadrant, he steps upon a platform in Astrometrics, still wearing his mobile emitter. It can still be seen on his left arm as he disappears as he is transmitted. Since the mobile emitter is made of real matter, it should've stayed behind and clattered onto the Astrometrics' platform when the Doctor vanished.
- ConnectionsEdited from TrekCulture: 10 Greatest Final Lines In Star Trek Episodes (2022)
Featured review
EMH duo saves the day
This is a very funny episode with focus on the doctor and another EMH program, an upgraded version.
At start I didn't like the character of the doctor at all. Over time he really developed an interesting personality and some humorous traits. Now, he and Tuvok are my favorite Voyager characters. And in this episode the doctor plays yet again a key role in helping the Voyager crew on their journey home.
In short: Voyager is able to contact a Federation ship in the alpha quadrant and transfers the doctor on board to deliver a message. There the doctor finds himself in the middle of a Romulan takeover. Together with the ship's own EMH he can stop the Romulans, deliver the message to Starfleet and transfer back to the Voyager with positive news.
The fun part of this episode is the interaction between the two EMH programs. While the other one is a MK II version and upgraded in several ways, it is rather anxious and whiny. The doctor on the other hand is overly confident in his abilities, brags about his experience but yet fails in fooling the Romulans and operating the ship.
The only thing that bugs me: The crew sends the doctor as a message because standard voice messages degraded too fast and a bigger stream of data is supposed to go through more easily. Because they only had a few seconds to send this message, they were not able to program another hologram and had to quickly send the doctor instead. There are a couple of problems here:
If the voice message degraded, the data stream of the doctor would have degraded as well, so he would not have been transferred with every bit and byte. Also, I lost count how often the doctor saved the lives of his crew mates. Risking to lose him and have no doctor for the next 60 years would put the whole crew in danger - not worth in comparison to sending a message that might get lost or will have no effect because Starfleet still might not be able to get them home faster even by knowing that they are in the delta quadrant.
And after 4 years and the loss of Kes they should have put priority into teaching several crew members to become savvy in medical treatment and operations. It is just too risky to lose the doctor and then be left without someone with the slightest knowledge on treating even a simple headache. Instead the crew wastes time helping aliens with their own problems.
Also, I still don't get how Star Trek computers work. A program is transferred and not just copied? Why isn't it possible in the 24th century to have a dozen backup copies of the EMH and start them whenever needed. It is all digital. If the doctor is transferred to the mobile emitter, there should always be a copy of him in the main computer. But obviously digital data in the 24th century is like haptic things that can only exist once at a given time.
At start I didn't like the character of the doctor at all. Over time he really developed an interesting personality and some humorous traits. Now, he and Tuvok are my favorite Voyager characters. And in this episode the doctor plays yet again a key role in helping the Voyager crew on their journey home.
In short: Voyager is able to contact a Federation ship in the alpha quadrant and transfers the doctor on board to deliver a message. There the doctor finds himself in the middle of a Romulan takeover. Together with the ship's own EMH he can stop the Romulans, deliver the message to Starfleet and transfer back to the Voyager with positive news.
The fun part of this episode is the interaction between the two EMH programs. While the other one is a MK II version and upgraded in several ways, it is rather anxious and whiny. The doctor on the other hand is overly confident in his abilities, brags about his experience but yet fails in fooling the Romulans and operating the ship.
The only thing that bugs me: The crew sends the doctor as a message because standard voice messages degraded too fast and a bigger stream of data is supposed to go through more easily. Because they only had a few seconds to send this message, they were not able to program another hologram and had to quickly send the doctor instead. There are a couple of problems here:
If the voice message degraded, the data stream of the doctor would have degraded as well, so he would not have been transferred with every bit and byte. Also, I lost count how often the doctor saved the lives of his crew mates. Risking to lose him and have no doctor for the next 60 years would put the whole crew in danger - not worth in comparison to sending a message that might get lost or will have no effect because Starfleet still might not be able to get them home faster even by knowing that they are in the delta quadrant.
And after 4 years and the loss of Kes they should have put priority into teaching several crew members to become savvy in medical treatment and operations. It is just too risky to lose the doctor and then be left without someone with the slightest knowledge on treating even a simple headache. Instead the crew wastes time helping aliens with their own problems.
Also, I still don't get how Star Trek computers work. A program is transferred and not just copied? Why isn't it possible in the 24th century to have a dozen backup copies of the EMH and start them whenever needed. It is all digital. If the doctor is transferred to the mobile emitter, there should always be a copy of him in the main computer. But obviously digital data in the 24th century is like haptic things that can only exist once at a given time.
helpful•00
- tomsly-40015
- Dec 29, 2023
Details
- Runtime46 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
- 4:3
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