Message in a Bottle

[hux]

An entertaining episode overall and Andy Dick does an amusing job in the EMH double act routine (bit hammy) but none the less, i still don't like the fact that they make contact with the alpha quadrant so early in the series (mid season 4). The reason Voyager is my favourite is because they're alone, lost in space and have become a community. Would have preferred they waited a little longer to put them back in touch with Starfleet

That aside....couple of Doctor questions

Firstly when Torres tells him about the possibility of sending him to the alpha quadrant in sickbay, she grabs his mobile emitter and next we see them together in astrometrics (the doctor wearing it). Then they download/transfer/compress him and send him through the sensor network....the mobile emitter doesn't drop to the ground, it just vanishes with him.....is that just a gaff

Secondly (and more fun to be had), the doctor mentions sex and "lets just say i made an addition to my programme". So when he wants to have sex, he has to tell the computer to put him in naked mode? He's just a surface really like Oddo was (Oddo had eyes but there's no reason to believe he could see with them specifically....maybe he just sensed from all over his body) whereas the doctor did see with his eyes (cos there was an episode where he went blind and started waving his hands in front of his eyes)

So if the doctor wanted to have sex, he would have to tell the computer to make him appear naked (rather than remove clothes cos he isn't actually wearing clothes)....then he would have to tell the computer to "attach penis" cos obviously it wouldn't be there as he was nothing more than a projected surface (unless his penis is permanently on show down there)

If not then wouldn't..."computer, attach penis"...spoil the mood somewhat?

 

[Triskelion]

Good questions, hux, nice take on Message. I liked the epi even though I don't relate to Andy Dick and felt casting him would have been as out of place as Scott Thompson (Someone To Watch Over Me) - yet both actors did succeed despite a stretch into the sci fi venue.

Good catch on the mobile emitter! Hm, how do you transport a magnetic containment field?

As for the holo-parts question, when you look at the episode Latent Image, where the Doctor was performing a holographic record of each crewmember - and again in Lifesigns, when the Doctor reconstructed a holographic body for the Vidiian Denara Pel - you could see that these holograms were actually computed from the interior bone structure out.

This might have made them more lifelike in 3D space - with physical characteristics, force field substance, and movement. Contrast this to just projecting an image - which might not interact with the physical environment quite accurately. In other words, their 3D holograms seem to have had substance under the exterior surface. So he wouldn't have had to "De-Ken Doll" himself. My question is, would he feel anything or would he just respond as if he had felt something?

 

[HIjol]

If memory serves, Odo could, he just preferred not to...as for the EMH, he did have a son in one episode, and also if memory serves, he wrote programs to enhance his "completeness"...do not remember how complete, but kinda gives "mobile emitter" a whole new meaning!!!

 

[Guy Gardener]

Picardo at a convention stated that he had no idea that the Doctor had had a sex life until he read this script.

 

[HIjol]

Picardo at a convention stated that he had no idea that the Doctor had had a sex life until he read this script.

Now THAT is what I call sexual awakening!!!

 

[F. King Daniel]

I loved "Message in a Bottle", although I must admit... it does rankle a little that Voyager's first contact with the Alpha Quadrant turned out to be a comedy episode. The USS Prometheus was badass incarnate (well... it was at the time. I suspect the USS Vengeance would eat it whole) and OMFG THEY WERE GONNA GET A MESSAGE HOME!! That was huge.

As for the Doc's cock, I figured it was a callback to "Resolutions" (and that a bit more went on between the Doc and Denara than we were shown)

 

[Danny99]

The first of many EMH ego stroke episodes. Don't get me wrong, I love Picardo and he can do great things with a script. But the writers seemed to want to turn him into this pompous character that no one could stand.

 

[HIjol]

The first of many EMH ego stroke episodes. Don't get me wrong, I love Picardo and he can do great things with a script. But the writers seemed to want to turn him into this pompous character that no one could stand.

Agree, agree, agree, Danny99...there were times when he really pushed through that pomposity wormhole the writers were trying to steer him down and showed his range and ability...the "analgesic creme" scene with the Borg still makes me laugh.

 

[HIjol]

I loved "Message in a Bottle", although I must admit... it does rankle a little that Voyager's first contact with the Alpha Quadrant turned out to be a comedy episode. The USS Prometheus was badass incarnate (well... it was at the time. I suspect the USS Vengeance would eat it whole) and OMFG THEY WERE GONNA GET A MESSAGE HOME!! That was huge.

As for the Doc's cock, I figured it was a callback to "Resolutions" (and that a bit more went on between the Doc and Denara than we were shown)

King Daniel, you hit it!!!...they absolutely should have had a Doctor vehicle episode named "The Doc's Cock"...

"Please state the nature of the...oh, goodness, Ensign Luscious, you seem to be missing some items of...say, I do not think I can...ah! perhaps I can..."

Hope that was not too much for the rating of the thread, Mods!

 

[picardo]

It's not sufficiently explained, in season 6, episode "Blink of an Eye" how the doctor got an alien woman pregnant. He named his son "Jason" if I recall correctly.

It's inferred that he lived at least a year and a half with a woman, on this planet, shared an apartment, but how she never realized that his husband was an hologram is a mystery.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Have you never hooked up with someone who already has children?

Sometimes the kids are so young, they overbond as if you were a biological parent, and you might just overbond right back becuase it's really hard not to.

Happens all the time.

 

[hux]

As for the holo-parts question, when you look at the episode Latent Image, where the Doctor was performing a holographic record of each crewmember - and again in Lifesigns, when the Doctor reconstructed a holographic body for the Vidiian Denara Pel - you could see that these holograms were actually computed from the interior bone structure out.

I find the idea of projecting a penis then projecting clothes around that penis, to be utterly baffling to say the least (not to mention a waste of energy) it might make sense for important crew medical records to have layers but they're not up and about, interacting and moving etc

I'm still struggling to comprehend how lungs could have been projected through flesh and bone for Neelix to use

It's not sufficiently explained, in season 6, episode "Blink of an Eye" how the doctor got an alien woman pregnant. He named his son "Jason" if I recall correctly.

I always just assumed he wasn't the biological father...he hints at that i believe

It's inferred that he lived at least a year and a half with a woman, on this planet, shared an apartment, but how she never realized that his husband was an hologram is a mystery.

So i think we can safely say that the attachment was integrated into the mobile emitter.....and functioned adequately enough to keep her from kicking him out

 

[Galileo7]

I loved "Message in a Bottle", although I must admit... it does rankle a little that Voyager's first contact with the Alpha Quadrant turned out to be a comedy episode. The USS Prometheus was badass incarnate (well... it was at the time. I suspect the USS Vengeance would eat it whole) and OMFG THEY WERE GONNA GET A MESSAGE HOME!! That was huge.

...

Agree.

 

[Captain Kathryn]

Good points! But I actually have no qualms with this episode. I love it haha.

About the Doc, I think his program would probably be sophisticated enough to make him appear naked and with his addition underneath the clothes so he could take them off "naturally". After all, those sex-holosuites Quark runs has holograms that are capable of that I think.

 

[hux]

So he takes off his hologram clothes so that he can be hologram naked

See, this is where holodeck technology starts to hurt my brain. In Vis a vis, Tom is working on a Camaro in the holodeck and when he comes out, he's still covered in oil.....how?

I think when we first saw holodeck technology in the TNG pilot, it made more sense. Riker throws a stone and it bounces off the holodeck walls giving us the sense that, yes the hologram projection is brilliantly realistic but it's still just a room. Later series have made holodeck technology a bit too perfect and perplexing

I mean if two men go in and it's a highway then they face each other and start walking backwards away from each other, at what point are you no longer looking at the real person and instead are looking at a projection of the person to make them seem far away

and if they shout to each other, why can't they hear it....how does it affect the ears

They should have stuck with TNG basics

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Yeah, they never went into how the holodeck worked when people were standing far away from each other. It must have had a way to transition to different sections of the holodeck which moved with you like treadmills and created images of people farther away on the sides of those sections.

Only in Killing Game when the entire crew was in the holodeck at the same time in an area much huger than the holodeck, each of those sections must have been like 3 feet by 3 feet. And it would have been awesome if they addressed that in the episode. "It looks like he's 30 feet away but really he's 3 feet away. This isn't a holographic weapon. Just SWING IT!"

 

[Finn]

The first of many EMH ego stroke episodes. Don't get me wrong, I love Picardo and he can do great things with a script. But the writers seemed to want to turn him into this pompous character that no one could stand.

First?

 

[E-DUB]

it's my understanding that physical objects on the holodeck are replicated, so Tom coming out with oil on his coveralls is just fine. Holodeck people are replicated meat-puppets moved by sophisticated force fields. They were kind of inconsistent with how this worked. I assumed that the thrown book dissolved because Picard wanted it to and don't forget that Cyrus Redblock and his henchman made it half-way down the hall rather than simply winking out at the exit.

 

[hux]

I still refuse to accept that there is a permanent holographic penis being projected underneath the doctors holographic trousers at all times. He's having a serious discussion with the captain, shooting his phaser at someone, chatting to Seven about etiquette, demanding holographic rights...and you honestly expect me to believe that it's just there....hanging.....possibly swinging.....beneath his holographic trousers throughout.

I'm frankly sickened that you people have allowed this thread to die....we should be discussing this every single day

Every. Single. Day

 

[Lance]

I still refuse to accept that there is a permanent holographic penis being projected underneath the doctors holographic trousers at all times.

Well, without being able to ask him to take them down and show us, we're never going to know for sure one way or the other, are we.

Unless one of the esteemed authors around here wants to address it in a spin-off novel?