About The Doctor's holographic family in "Real Life"....

[Paradise City]

Torres spiced up the program, didn't she?. The computer presented an agreeable family before that. (or was it the Doc that designed it?)

Anyhow, Torres had a tumultuous start in her life and she integrated what would otherwise might be an unrepresentative depiction of 24th century family life, into the Doc's program.

 

[Triskelion]

This from the same person who wanted to reprogram her own child's DNA to keep a man. Who then proceeded to reprogram the Doc to go ahead and violate his Starfleet-reg ethical subroutines. Let's face it, the woman is reckless with other people's stuff. What's it to her if one of the Doc's family dies in a simulation of organic life? And btw just how is he supposed to learn how to deal with familial issues as an MD if his family randomly gets smeared by a drama asteroid? There's verisimilitude for story's sake, and then there's story taking itself very, very seriously. I suppose Muse was realistic enough for her Eternalship?

And while she may not have programmed the course of events, she fully programmed the parameters of the narrative to convert the EMH's characters from a holographic paradigm to organic worst case scenarios. Let's shelve the debate of whether the EMH would necessarily have to be restricted to organic weaknesses in his own family support group - a right and comfort B'Elanna effectively denied him. An external limitation she imposed in favor of the organic model, onto a being who was clearly experiencing a desire to be more than his program, and who perhaps has the right, as an individual, of a support group and a home and family of his own. Not organic, not relevant?

(It was a touching episode, don't get me wrong; and conflict is of course needed for the story).

 

[Paradise City]

I have no problem with Torres overhaul. She tests the Doc, brings his to edge, he faces the death of a loved one and he experiences grief for the first time. Torres helped the Doctor in this episode.

 

[φ of π]

What she should have done was program the son and daughter to be in a life-threatening accident with identical injuries but the Doctor only has time to save one of them.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

There are many forms of wealth. In a moneyless society the dominant form is likely influence and prestige which would still stress people out, just not so much as the threat of poverty. Millionaire athletes stress over championships even when it has little impact on their wealth.

 

[The Rock]

Even if you remove the 'acquisition of wealth' element from family life, I would assume many of the trappings of stressful family life would still exist. We are well aware that many (some? most? all? a few?) people still have jobs (running restaurants, joining Starfleet, painting, etc) and to be successful at any of those jobs you have to put yourself in a place where what you do means something. Just because you aren't making money from it doesn't mean its not important. If I were doing some big project for a 24th century architectural firm because I love architecture, and a project I had been working on for months, suddenly the client decided they wanted to do something different, I'd definitely be upset about it and that might affect my personal life. It's not hard to imagine. If things aren't going perfectly well, then it causes stress. Kids still act like kids, have to be told to do their homework, and all that kinda stuff. I'd like to think that the family portrayed regular every-day life in the 24th century reasonably accurately, albeit from a very 20th century lens.

I've never thought of Earth life as an actual EVERYTHING IS AWESOME utopia where everyone is literally happy at all times...more like a place where people don't have to worry about food, shelter, crime, and disease. Its a place where people can live their lives the way they want to, and the struggle comes from how they live that life, rather than a struggle to survive.

Even if you were doing some big project that you had been working on for months, and it didn't work out, it still wouldn't really be all that stressful, IMO. Why? Because you wouldn't have to worry about losing quality of life because of it. You would just shrug and try again. And if you lost your job at that firm, no big deal. You wouldn't have to worry about losing your house or anything like that. You would be content in the fact that you would always be taken care of by the government.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

Perhaps you would feel this way, but I definitely would not. You are making presumptions on how I would feel and invalidating my opinions based on your own view. Not everyone is so blase about what they do with their lives; not everyone is in it for the money. Some people can shrug things off and some people can not.

 

[Sophie74656]

Even if you were doing some big project that you had been working on for months, and it didn't work out, it still wouldn't really be all that stressful, IMO. Why? Because you wouldn't have to worry about losing quality of life because of it. You would just shrug and try again. And if you lost your job at that firm, no big deal. You wouldn't have to worry about losing your house or anything like that. You would be content in the fact that you would always be taken care of by the government.

I don't know if I agree with this. Certainly this would be the case for some people but I don't know about the majority. I think it's hard to look at that society because we can't imagine the concept of not having to worry about money. I think people still take tremendous pride in their work and that would be the driving force to complete a project by a deadline. If you did not complete your work or didn't make a deadline you wouldn't be concerned about loosing your home but about letting down your superiors and those who may have been relying on what it was that you were working on.

 

[The Rock]

Perhaps you would feel this way, but I definitely would not. You are making presumptions on how I would feel and invalidating my opinions based on your own view. Not everyone is so blase about what they do with their lives; not everyone is in it for the money. Some people can shrug things off and some people can not.

Sorry if I offended you. I didn't mean anything personal by it. I never meant to invalidate anything you said. Please forgive me.

 

[crashchaos]

Even if you were doing some big project that you had been working on for months, and it didn't work out, it still wouldn't really be all that stressful, IMO. Why? Because you wouldn't have to worry about losing quality of life because of it. You would just shrug and try again. And if you lost your job at that firm, no big deal. You wouldn't have to worry about losing your house or anything like that. You would be content in the fact that you would always be taken care of by the government.

HOW DARE YOU. How DARE you try to presume what other people think and feel. Who do you think you are? You must be considerate of everyone's feelings on here when you make your posts. You are not better than anyone else.

 

[The Rock]

HOW DARE YOU. How DARE you try to presume what other people think and feel. Who do you think you are? You must be considerate of everyone's feelings on here when you make your posts. You are not better than anyone else.

I apologize if I have offended you, or anyone else here. Honestly. I really am sorry.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

Sorry if I offended you. I didn't mean anything personal by it. I never meant to invalidate anything you said. Please forgive me.

Oh goodness, that may have came off harsher than intended; I should be the one to apologize. crashchaos's response is not at all what I meant, and I want to assume that response was also in jest, but I wouldn't want to speak for them.

 

[The Rock]

Oh goodness, that may have came off harsher than intended; I should be the one to apologize. crashchaos's response is not at all what I meant, and I want to assume that response was also in jest, but I wouldn't want to speak for them.

Oh, not a problem. It's all good.

 

[fireproof78]

An interesting, dramatic, episode, but honestly, not one that I enjoy. I disagree strongly with Tom's argument that the Doctor should go experience the death of his child, when it goes against what Star Trek was trying to do. One, death was supposedly move on from in the future, at least according to GR, so the insistence that the Doctor must know what it's like falls flat. Secondly, from a story perspective, I don't feel anything is gained by watching the Doctor suffer. There is nothing cathartic about it, because the character is completely invented out of thin air, and killed off just as quickly. The only character I can identify with is the Doctor, and, I'm sorry, randomly inflicting pain upon him is not my idea of a good episode.

It would interest me more if it felt like there were some consequences, but I think that "Latent Image" handled it so much better. This episode feels unnecessarily cruel.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

It might have been more dramatic if these characters had recurred several times and then she had die ultimately. "Real Life" would have progressed as it did, except instead of death, he could learn to treat his kids like people, not just re-program them to do what he wanted. He could have mentioned his kids and wife occasionally in other episodes ("Now Belle wants to be a ____. Last week, she wanted to be a ___." "We're having dinner with the Martins again. I like him, but I can't stand that wife of his. She's always talking about her cats." "I have to go to a PTA meeting at Jeffrey's school tonight. Charlene volunteered me to help set up booths for the spring carnival.") Things would be said to him like "At least you can turn off your family when you need to, make a plan for what to do, and go back to the program." When Belle does die, it could have been later in the series, around when they have contact with Earth, and via Pathfinder, etc, Barclay could set up a meeting with Deanna Troi for him to decide whether or not to feel/experience it. If this happened just after Lineage, Torres telling him not to change the program would be more poignant, as she can draw on her decision not to change Miral's DNA to be less Klingon to advise him not to skip Belle's death, or if before Lineage, he could have pointed to this to advise her.

The thing is that unlike Fair Haven and Captain Proton, which are clearly fictional lives they can't live without the holodeck, The Doctor is attempting to live a kind of life that he could live on Earth.

 

[Refuge]

An interesting, dramatic, episode, but honestly, not one that I enjoy. I disagree strongly with Tom's argument that the Doctor should go experience the death of his child, when it goes against what Star Trek was trying to do. One, death was supposedly move on from in the future, at least according to GR, so the insistence that the Doctor must know what it's like falls flat. Secondly, from a story perspective, I don't feel anything is gained by watching the Doctor suffer. There is nothing cathartic about it, because the character is completely invented out of thin air, and killed off just as quickly. The only character I can identify with is the Doctor, and, I'm sorry, randomly inflicting pain upon him is not my idea of a good episode.

It would interest me more if it felt like there were some consequences, but I think that "Latent Image" handled it so much better. This episode feels unnecessarily cruel.

His 'family' annoyed me actually. The wife especially, I wouldn't have been invested like the Doctor was.

 

[Sophie74656]

An interesting, dramatic, episode, but honestly, not one that I enjoy. I disagree strongly with Tom's argument that the Doctor should go experience the death of his child, when it goes against what Star Trek was trying to do. One, death was supposedly move on from in the future, at least according to GR, so the insistence that the Doctor must know what it's like falls flat. Secondly, from a story perspective, I don't feel anything is gained by watching the Doctor suffer. There is nothing cathartic about it, because the character is completely invented out of thin air, and killed off just as quickly. The only character I can identify with is the Doctor, and, I'm sorry, randomly inflicting pain upon him is not my idea of a good episode.

It would interest me more if it felt like there were some consequences, but I think that "Latent Image" handled it so much better. This episode feels unnecessarily cruel.

Honestly I thought that it was a good thing for him. Having never experienced anything he doesn't have the same empathy for his patients that most doctors would. Just like when he gave himself that flu to experience what being sick was like, I think that this experience helped him as a doctor. Also, even though it wasn't the point of the thing, when Henry Starling inflicted pain on him that was good for him too as a doctor.

 

[Sophie74656]

It might have been more dramatic if these characters had recurred several times and then she had die ultimately. "Real Life" would have progressed as it did, except instead of death, he could learn to treat his kids like people, not just re-program them to do what he wanted. He could have mentioned his kids and wife occasionally in other episodes ("Now Belle wants to be a ____. Last week, she wanted to be a ___." "We're having dinner with the Martins again. I like him, but I can't stand that wife of his. She's always talking about her cats." "I have to go to a PTA meeting at Jeffrey's school tonight. Charlene volunteered me to help set up booths for the spring carnival.") Things would be said to him like "At least you can turn off your family when you need to, make a plan for what to do, and go back to the program." When Belle does die, it could have been later in the series, around when they have contact with Earth, and via Pathfinder, etc, Barclay could set up a meeting with Deanna Troi for him to decide whether or not to feel/experience it. If this happened just after Lineage, Torres telling him not to change the program would be more poignant, as she can draw on her decision not to change Miral's DNA to be less Klingon to advise him not to skip Belle's death, or if before Lineage, he could have pointed to this to advise her.

The thing is that unlike Fair Haven and Captain Proton, which are clearly fictional lives they can't live without the holodeck, The Doctor is attempting to live a kind of life that he could live on Earth.

I do agree with this. I think it would have been better to see them over a few episodes. From the Doctor's point of view he's been using the program for a while so he's invested with these characters, but as the viewers we're not. So while Belle's death and the Doctor's heartbreak over it were certainly very sad, it didn't have the same emotional kick in the gut it would have had if we had seen more of them.

 

[fireproof78]

Honestly I thought that it was a good thing for him. Having never experienced anything he doesn't have the same empathy for his patients that most doctors would. Just like when he gave himself that flu to experience what being sick was like, I think that this experience helped him as a doctor. Also, even though it wasn't the point of the thing, when Henry Starling inflicted pain on him that was good for him too as a doctor.

This feels like a conversation from Firefly:

 

[Refuge]

Yeah B'Ellana in all her smug hypocrisy - helping out the Doctor. She was just being a bitch.