Flare Sci-Fi Forums: And they say that Trek recycles plots

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Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

This isn't strictly about VOY, so I'm putting it here. From Trek Galaxy

Picardo is currently pitching an idea for a Voyager episode. His idea is that the doctor needs a assistant to help him with a surgery and that there is no one on board who is qualified to help. So they divert power from other systems and memory to install the doctor's program twice, so that there are two doctors. But, the new doctor acts like the other doctor did when he was first activated and the original doctor can believe how he behaved back then and he is ashamed. The new doctor can't believe that he would waste his time and ship's power learning the social graces and only cares about himself. The only way the crew can tell the doctors apart is by the way they act. It also explores the background of the EMH & Dr. Zimmerman.

Sorry, long quote.

Now, does this plot seem at ALL similar to one used in another sci-fi show? One with a small crimson ship in?

If it happened, then it would be the third rip-off of a Red Dwarf plot. "The Game" was "Better than Life", and "Clues" has a lot in common with "Thanks for the memory".

Now, it's probably just a coincidence, but it could be a way of getting Bob Grant to write for RD again. Just promise Grant & Naylor ownership of Trek. They're certainly not the worst candidates.

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*gasp* "The pictures...they're...coming...alive!"
-Abe Simpson, on the miracle of the moving image

Posted by Alshrim Dax (Member # 258) on :

I can't say I'm much of a fan of the idea personally.

One DOC EMH is enough. Maybe a whole new EMH that looks like a whole new person with a personality that's not so revisted ... sure .. that'd be ok with me.

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Alshrim Dax

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Are the crew supposed to be bigger idiots than we thought? If they want to tell these doctors apart, wouldn't they make the new one look different?

They better not use this idea. If they do, I say we elect a member of the Forums to go hunt down Picardo and slap him upside is bald little head... :-)

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"Is he live or dead? Has he thoughts within his head?"
-Black Sabbath, "Iron Man"

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

I don't like the idea at all. It may be funny for one episode, but then they would have to find an excuse that the second doctor is defunct. The plot isn't that new, either.

In "MiaB" Harry already tried to create a second EMH, and he utterly failed. In the very same episode our Doctor already had to do with a newly activated EMH. In "Nothing Human" a perfectly working consulting program was created in only a few minutes, let the consistency be damned.

In "The Swarm" the Doctor already exceeded his capacity and could only be saved by overwriting his diagnosis program. Another episode stated that the EMH couldn't be copied at all. In "Living Witness", however, there was apparently a complete copy of the Doctor.

Summarizing: No new Doctors, please.

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"Naomi Wildman, sub-unit of Ensign Samantha Wildman, state your intentions." (VOY: "Infinite Regress")
Ex Astris Scientia

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

I think it's a pretty good idea, as far as character development goes. Unfortunantly it revolves around something that we are led to believe should be impossible. (Thought that didn't stop them in "Living Witness".) It's also a copy of the Red Dwarf episode. But it did work quite well for that show.

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"It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long, the grasshopper kept burying acorns for winter while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came and the grasshopper died and the octopus ate all his acorns, and then he got a racecar. Is any of this getting through to you?."
--
Futurama

Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :

Cue Tom Paris aksing "How's Mrs EMH?"

Ugh - it's a terrible idea, because it's already been done.

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"He'll kill us all if we don't kill him first!
KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!!!!"

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

In "Nothing Human" the consulting program was pre-installed. It was also mentioned in that episode that they couldn't use the consulting program again when the 2 matrixes (sp?) were combined.

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Life on Earth is expensive, but it does include a free annual trip around the sun!

=\V/=

[This message has been edited by Altair (edited December 02, 1999).]