As someone who suffers from generalized anxiety at times I can really feel for the Doctor in this episode. The problem he has of getting stuck in a loop thinking the same thoughts until he self destructs is something I know way too much about. I also kinda wish they had someone to try and talk the Doctor through it rather than just leaving him to stew. Janeway says that is what she is there for and a certainly believe she is trying her best, but have they totally forgotten about cognitive behavioral therapy in the future? Also, can't he accept that triage is a thing he has to do? It seemed obvious to me as and EMT that Kim was in better shape than Jetal, he is conscious, she isn't, and she has burns to a much larger part of her face. I realize that people have problems dealing with problems with even more obvious answers, but it would have been nice if they had set it up as a more realistic medical dilemma.
We open with the Doctor taking holoscans of all the of the crew as a part of their annual checkups. There is some comedy with Naomi before we get to Kim who the Doctor discovers has scars from a surgery, performed by the Doctor. Kim claims to have no memory of it a and later that day the Doctor mentions it to the captain while performing her exam but she denies knowing about it as well. The Doctor asks Seven for help but when she arrives to help several hours later he has no memory if it. She helps him recover data deleted from his holocamera and there are pictures he doesn't remember taking and include an ensign he has no memories of. She manages to restore some of his memories of that day and he recalls being in a shuttle with Kim and Jetal, the missing ensign, and being attacked by an unknown alien. He tells the captain and she orders an investigation but also tells him to deactivate for his own safety.
But the Doctor is getting suspicious and sets his program to restore memories if they are deleted and his camera to take a picture of whoever comes into sickbay next. He wakes up after having his memories erased and restored and finds an image of Janeway doing the altering. He confronts her on the bridge and she finally tells him he was altered after something happened that damaged him. Sevent argues with the captain to let him know and after some resistance she goes to the Doctor to tell him what happened. It seems he was on the shuttle with Kim and Jetal when they were attacked. They were both badly injured but Jetal much more so than Kim. In sickbay he only had time to save one of them and he saved Kim and Jetal died. Soon he started breaking down unable to deal with his choice to the point that he couldn't perform his duties.
Seeing what happened causes the Doctor to enter the same feedback loop so the captain deactivates him. She consults with Seven asking of Seven would do things the same way again and she agrees that she would. This leads Janeway to decide that the Doctor is going to have to learn to live with himself again so they all take shifts sitting with him in the holodeck as he goes over what happened again and again. Janeway stays for 16 hours despite being sick and we see that the Doctor is very concerned with her health. He talks her into going to bed before he picks up her poetry book and reads the line, "In that book which is my memory, on the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you, appear the words: Here begins a new life."
Review: A really touching episode somewhat hindered by a lack of medical knowledge by the writers. It doesn't ruin the story, it just helps to turn off triage mode when the actual trauma scenes are taking place to accept the dilemma.
7 out of 10
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