After spending seven seasons building up the Doctor as a fairly well fleshed out, if often annoying, character, they realized we had almost reached the end without a Measure of a Man episode. So we got this. I actually found the idea of the Doctor writing a story about his experiences interesting and seeing how he dealt with the crews reaction was awesome. But I didn't need the trial over subspace to determine if he was an artist. Also it would honestly be easier to feel empathy for him if he wasn't so annoying and uncaring about his patients experiencing pain at times. Also it seems odd to have a holo character creating holo novels filled with other holo character that he has forced to do his will being upset that he is being forced into a role by his crew, but maybe that is just too meta for VOY.
We open with the Doctor working on a fairly incipid holo novel about himself called Photons Be Free. In astrometrics they are testing a new live link the the Alpha Quadrant created by Barclay of course and we learn the crew will be able to make short, live calls to their family. To decide who gets to go in what order they have a lottery of numbered isolinear chips and the Doctor gets chip number one and uses his time to get his holo novel off to a publisher. He convinces Tom to try it out and he is horrified that it is a clear copy of Voyager and her crew and they are all awful to the Doctor. Tom talks his friends into giving it a go and it depicts them all as awful people who think of him as a worthless piece of technology. Janeway calls a meeting to discuss their concerns with him and he totally blows them off. Paris then takes matters into his own hands creating a similar program that replaces the Doctors program and makes him play through a simulation from Paris' perspective. This makes the Doctor absolutely livid and he loudly argues with Tom about it in the hall. Eventually though Paris explains that he thought he had gained some of the Doctors respect and he is sad that he hasn't which makes the Doctor see at least a little reason.
Finally seeing that he is hurting his friends through his actions he decides to revise his novel and resend it to the publisher. But when he tries to contact him he learns that the novel has already been published without his permission. Janeway gets a call from the Alpha Quadrant with similar news. The publisher is claiming that since the Doctor is a hologram and not a person he has no rights as an artist so we have to have a MoaM style trial. But not nearly as convincing. In the end the Doctor wins his rights to the novel and we close with a group of first generation EMH's toiling in a mine talking about his exciting new novel.
Review: If the Doctor were less annoying to work with at times it would be easier to have empathy for him in this situation. I mean, I do have some, but he is also responsible for a lot on the ship and probably should occasionally try to work as a team player. Still not a bad episode even it it is no Measure.
6 out of 10
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