First, Zimmerman mentions he hasn’t left Jupiter Station for four years. So, this already ignores Doctor Bashir I Presume, three years previous. Plus he looks ten years older than in that episode and has a completely different personality. Also, this is my first time seeing this episode in a decade, but seems like a missed opportunity for Voyager to learn the war they missed was won and just have one scene addressing it. Crew members learning they lost family in the war, having guilt they couldn’t fight with them. Also side note. Watching Haunting Of Deck Twelve I’m remembering it’s the first episode that aired after the first time I joined this board. (I was here with a different name Voy season 6 through Ent season 2. I forget the old name, maybe something to do with Tony Soprano?)
How much time in the overall Star Trek fictional universe is between Dr. Bashir, I Presume and Life Line? As for his aging, I assumed whatever disease he had caused him to look older. It's probably just an oversight for whoever wrote Life Line that when that line was written about him not leaving Jupiter Station for 4 years that it was contradicting something in the other show. There wasn't even a mention of the starship Voyager disappearing in the Badlands on the show DS9.
No but the EMH and Mirror Tuvok appeared. And that’s not a fair comparison because the DS9 crew would not be nearly as emotionally invested in one missing ship with nobody they know on board as the Voyager crew should be about the fate of their families and the future of their civilization in a major war.
The four years line could work. The end of VOY season 7 is 2378. Sisko comments in "The Maquis" several ships have been lost in the Badlands.
In the DS9 ep script, his first name was "Louis." But in VOY, it's "Lewis." So they're completely different characters. There, mystery solved! Kor
The brothers Zimmerman who together pioneered holography? Life Line was in season 6. And DS9’s Zimmerman was a skirt chaser, not a curmudgeon.
I thought the line was specifically a reference to the time he left the station in DS9. Now where'd I set my stardate calculator... As for his hair, how bout he usually dyed it, but lately has been letting himself go because he knows he's gonna die, and hates his life anyway. He should have plenty of gray hair as he's in his 50's. As for the personality, I don't really see a difference. In DS9 he was an asshole that people can barely tolerate, but his life's work(the EMH)has so far been a great success, and Starfleet wants him to begin on the next step. By the time of the Voyager episode, his EMH has been rejected by Starfleet, was hated by everyone, and now are being used as slave labor(!?). He's particularly devastated because he used his own likeness and, as O'Brien remarked "annoy thousands of people he's never even met." He's alone with no friends and is gonna die. There's another episode with Zimmerman in early Voyager, and he looks just like he does in the DS9 episode.
Dude this is Star Trek, where Worf's son was 4 years old a year after his conception. And where Khan and Kirk both say it's been 15 years since they saw each other but the official chronology puts their encounters 18 years apart. I assumed his appearance was part of his fatal illness? As for personality, 4 years is a longer time than it seems.
I agree with a lot of the answers here - he looked really aged because of his illness. In real life - I've seen people have intense surgeries/illnesses and they suddenly look like they have aged ten plus years. It's incredible the toll certain illnesses can have on the body. It's been a while since I've seen this episode but I think he has a fictional illness (I could be wrong). If he does - they can say whatever they wan in terms of how it impacts the body. Regarding his personality being different - I don't think it was. He was a sarcastic, often exasperated with others, and bitter person in both episodes. In terms of not being the horn dog he was in DS9 - that could just be because he was sick and didn't feel up to any "kama sutra" with alien women? I agree they probably should have included a quick reference that this disease has taken a strong physical toll on him but ... they probably just wanted us to assume it. IDK. Or the more likely reason - those writers didn't know he was on DS9? :P
Yeah, it seems they just didn’t compare notes and wrote the character from scratch. I just think it could have been a powerful scene if Kim or someone found out their best friend died in the war. There could have been a subplot of people having survivor’s guilt for being trapped across the galaxy while all their friends went to war.
Didn't VOY kind of do that in the episode where Torres was hurting herself after she found out the Maquis were wiped out? It probably would have been nice if they had showed a POV from the Starfleet side considering how devastating the Dominion War for Starfleet. I guess they just didn't want to repeat/remove the strong focus on Torres.
It would also explain Noonien Soong. When he appeared in "Brothers", Soong is dying and looked very old, but in a later ep (the one with Data's "mother", Soong's ex) I think we see a message from Soong in which he doesn't look anywhere near that old.
Picardo has a story credit on wikipedia for Life Line. I saw him talk about it at a convention. He wrote a vignette. A professional fleshed it out for him, possibly a friend, into a script, and then the producer/writers room fleshed it out further, which was credited as teleplaying.
So? The message was dictated before the guy got old, is all. Basically, it seems Soong dictated the message more or less immediately after fleeing the Omicron colony and building the android replacement to his dying wife. So that's 2338 or thereabouts, while "Brothers" is in 2367 or so. Thirty years of bachelor life gotta show. As for the four years between "Dr Bashir, I Presume" and "Life Line", both are stardate-free, but the former is bracketed by SD 50564 and 50712 (closer to the former), while the latter falls somewhere between SD 53896 and SD 54014 (perhaps halfway). More than 3,000 units, less than 4,000, but it's quite possible to round up there. But "over" four years? Only if he is counting in Bajoran years! Then again, Memory Alpha assumes that "Dr Bashir" takes place in 2373 and "Life Line" in 2377. This may work out, even if only barely: the DS9 episode's stardate and season place it in S3 of VOY, meaning that a S6 VOY episode such as "Life Line" ought to be in 2376 instead, but perhaps S6 was anomalious just like S2 and actually features some early 2377 adventures in its stardate-free tail end (that is, "Life Line" has a stardate like 54002 or whatever). This doesn't yet turn less than four years into more. But anybody looking at the calendar and seeing 2373 and 2377 would automatically assume four years of separation, and then get the "over" bit from the fact that it is actually a bit over three years. I mean, this is a fairly common error ITRW. Timo Saloniemi
Also, Soong was really, really vein. He made all his androids look like him. Why not program your hologram to resemble you at your physical peak instead of an old grey man?
True enough. It's just that we also have a timeline of sorts for when Soong recorded his interactive message: it's in a chip inside the Julianna Tainer android, and it's not as if Soong would have had the opportunity to pay her monthly visits after their break-up, to knock her out and mess with her circuitry... Then again, we already have to accept that Soong's avatar is aware of the break-up, meaning either that it's capable of eavesdropping on what its host is doing (although not constantly, as the presence of Data surprises it), or then that Soong performed at least one intrusive one-night stand afterwards. Timo Saloniemi
We don't really know what actually happened with Julianna(the Android), as she merely carries the memories of what happened with the actual person.
Speaking of which, I've often wondered why Barclay would become so emotionally invested with Voyager (other than having an excuse to give him a recurring role, of course, that is). Or was Voyager simply the first object that came along during a phase of his life in which he was particularly vulnerable to developing obsessions?