"Latent Image"
comments? pforooghi@compusmart.ab.ca
I must start out by saying that "Latent Image" is one of my all-time favorite episodes, for a variety of reasons. Not only was it a very thought-provoking and intelligent examination of some very crucial issues related to the Doctor, but it was very moving and poignant as well. A show with heart and insight will always make it as one of my favorites. Now, on to the show itself. The main theme of the episode, of course, was whether the Doctor should be recognized as a sentient being, or a mere machine, designed to perform at optimal levels for the benefit of the crew. Seven believed in the former position, while Janeway, at least initially, took the latter stance. There was yet another issue where I thought our dynamic duo diverged in opinion. That is, whether painful and difficult memories, actions, etc.... should be erased from consciousness (Janeway’s perspective), or whether they should be acknowledged and dealt with (Seven’s). I found this dichotomy most interesting. Why would Seven and Janeway take such diametrically opposed positions concerning the Doctor’s status as a sentient being, as well as whether he should retain his memories or have them expunged? I find it easier to answer why Seven felt the way she did, so I’ll analyze her perspective first. Janeway is a tad more difficult to read, as she is apt to be sometimes!
Ostensibly, Seven was on the Doctor’s side in this episode, because as she later points out in the "philosophical discussion" scene in Janeway’s quarter’s, by virtue of being part-Borg, she too is part machine. Therefore, Seven found it disturbing how Janeway can so readily dismiss the Doctor’s existence as a sentient being (despite all his progress and advancement) because he is a mere hologram. Seven points out, and very rightly so, that since she too is not unlike the Doctor in many ways, then perhaps one day the Captain will "abandon" her, as she put it. Point very well made, and it was this point that ultimately led to Janeway’s about-face concerning the Doctor’s status. However, I think there might have been another reason why Seven was so adamantly opposed to Janeway’s proposal to re-write the Doctor’s program in order to fix his "malfunction". If we go back to the season 4 episode "Retrospect", we will recall how the Doctor was attempting to re-surface Seven’s alleged memories of abuse through psychiatric means. Throughout that episode, the Doctor was explaining various psychotherapeutic techniques to Seven, most notably, he mentioned the psychologist Carl Jung. Knowing Seven, I wouldn’t be the least surprised if later on, she decided to access the ship’s data banks in order to learn more about the discipline of psychology. If so, then undoubtedly she would have learned that it is never psychologically healthy to repress painful memories, rather, they must be brought to conscious awareness and somehow dealt with. Could this be why Seven was so opposed to Janeway wanting to eliminate the Doctor’s memories and have his program re-written? I would venture to say that this is a distinct possibility. Seven might have come to believe that it is better, or in her phrasing "more efficient" to deal with traumatic events rather than bury them. This would be a logical conclusion on Seven’s part, based on what she may have discovered about the psyche and emotional health. Of course, if Janeway had decided to re-write the Doctor’s program, the Doctor wouldn’t be repressing his memories because he would no longer have them, but in a sense, eliminating the memories is tantamount to repressing them, which is an odious concept no matter how you look at it.
Now comes the difficult part of this analysis. Why did Janeway feel the way she did? The obvious answer is what she herself later tells the Doctor- that she has biases concerning what he is and isn’t. In other words, as she told Seven, The Doctor is like her replicator - a machine designed to do what they tell him to do. Devoid of emotion and self-awareness, definitely not a sentient being. If she thinks of the Doctor as nothing more than an amalgamation of subroutines, then of course its easy to see why she is so quick to want to rewrite his programming when he begins to "malfunction". My question is, why does Janeway think that The Doctor was malfunctioning, and therefore in need of being fixed? She said that there was a feedback loop between his cognitive and ethical subroutines. Translation: he was deeply disturbed by the difficult decision he was forced to make, which led to the death of a crewmember. He felt great guilt over this death because he believed it was his fault. Isn’t this how Janeway would have explained things to herself had it been anyone else but the Doctor who had experienced this ordeal? Why doesn’t Janeway allow that any other "sentient" being would have reacted exactly like the Doctor, given the circumstances? That is, if they had any compassion or ethics. Therefore, if Janeway had seen the issue from this perspective, I don’t believe that she would have ever entertained the notion that the Doctor needed fixing. Instead, she would have tried to help her crewmember deal with the painful memories, and move on, which is what Seven was suggesting all along. Thankfully, Janeway finally realized the error of her ways, and decided to do just that - help her crewmember deal with the traumatic events of the past in order to achieve some kind of closure and move on. Janeway’s initial attitude in this episode reminds me of how many in the medical community think mental problems should be dealt with. By simply medicating it, without the aid of psychotherapy. Janeway’s "fixing" of the Doctor is similar to how psychiatrists want to fix us by giving out Prozac. In the end, when we see the Doctor struggling to understand what had happened, with the help of Janeway, no less, we also see how the book Janeway was reading was so relevant to him. La Vita Nuova - a new life. Yes, the Doctor begins his journey on this new life in this episode - a life which will have painful and troubling moments, but also happy and pleasant ones as well. Either way, it is his life, and no one, not even the Captain, can or will take it away from him.
An outstanding, poignant, and very thought-provoking episode which deserves no less than four comm badges.
