Returning to Star Trek for a second time, Robert Picardo is set to make yet another appearance as part of the new cast of Starfleet Academy as he revives ‘The Doctor’ hundreds of years after first materialising on screen in Voyager’s pilot episode. So, who is The Doctor…?
Conceptualised in the mid-24th century, the Emergency Medical Holographic Program was proposed to take action in the event of a crisis to supplement or replace the medical staff on a short term basis. The idea was simple. Whether in the heat of battle or during humanitarian aid, anything could overwhelm the medical team and that cost of life, any life, was too much to bear. With the advancement of holographic technology, the plan was to create a program that could be drafted in when required to save the day.
Leading Starfleet Engineer Dr Lewis Zimmerman was tasked with spearheading the project into development alongside some of the most advanced and skilled hole-engineers. An incredible challenge resulted in an incredible product; a highly sophisticated computer simulation based on the experience of 47 individual medical officers serving in Starfleet combined with the knowledge of the entire Federation medical database, covering three thousand species and containing over five million medical protocols to follow. It wasn’t just a walking database either; the EMH had to be able to adapt to it’s surroundings, learn new skills and techniques and even act as a psychologist if required.
Following successful tests, the EMH programs were built into newly developed designs and became part of the package on Intrepid and Nova Class Starships. Other designs in development, including the Sovereign Class, would also receive the new technology. After one year of service, nearly 700 EMH program’s were running and the software was considered for fleet wide rollout.
The original Mark I model did have some flaws. Mainly it’s short term nature. All in it only had the capacity to run for 1,500 hours before memory degradation and due to it’s usage being limted to emergency function, there was no research conducted on it’s social skills. Instead it’s physical model and personality was based on Zimmerman himself.
One of the earliest interventions of the EMH happened in 2370 on board the USS Voyager. During a mission to track down a Maquis ship, Voyager was captured by an entity known as the Caretaker and transported 70,000 light years from it’s position. The capture was fast, yet volatile, and in the transfer the ship was severely damaged and took on multiple casualties including it’s medical staff. Their EMH was activated to take control of the medical emergency, but there was a bigger problem to come; the ship would become stranded and their EMH would soon become a permanent installation.
That is where The Doctor began. Forced to become the sole medical officer, the Doctor spent nearly eight years in service on the ship where he had to evolve and break from his original programming; partly through crew intervention starting with them finding a way around the ‘expiry date’ of the software’s limited run time, and partly with self-tweaking and exploration of his program. His egotistical and sarcastic personality, a carry over from Zimmerman’s self implementation of himself, began to change and develop over time as he grew as both a program and a person with the day to day challenges of being a fully serving doctor, as well as in dealing with active situations that required learning and adapting well beyond his initial program.
In his early years he argued for more autonomy, being treated as a person instead of a program they could switch on and off at will, and despite being confined to sickbay and the holodeck – the only locations with holographic emitters – an encounter with 29th century technology would offer him more independence thanks to a mobile emitter that allowed him to roam the ship and beyond to any location.
Developing friendship the crew, and gaining the respect of their captain, the Doctor experienced a full range of emotional growth from a software that caused a psychological breakdown, to learning how to be an artist through song, writing and photography. He’d eventually become one of Seven of Nine’s mentors, using his own expanding humanity to help her understand and find her own and through contact that was eventually made with the Federation, became an inspiration to other holograms like him despite being denied the rights of an individual by Starfleet.
While the Doctor was asserting himself as a person more than a program, back home his model wasn’t faring too well. The original Mark I’s were withdrawn from service and reprogrammed for menial tasks dye to overwhelmingly negative feedback on their personality. The Doctor would meet his replacement, the Mark II in a mission to communicate with the people back home, but even then there were two more generations of improvements; not including the Long Term Medical hologam which was initially to be based on Deep Space 9’s Julian Bashir before knowledge of his genetic modifications was made public.
Yet in spite of his model being long retired, by the time Voyager made it back to Earth the Doctor had developed so far from his original programming that he became an anomaly. Given the nature of his unique growth, he continued his works as a author while continuing to serve in Starfleet even after Voyager was decommissioned. Rejoining Janeway’s staff years later, he’d become th echief medical officer on the Voyager-A acting as a mentor to new prospective cadets. And it seems that service would last several lifetimes as we’ll see the Doctor return in 32nd century show Star Trek Academy, centuries after being switched on during the Caretaker crisis.
Given life by veteran character actor Robert Picardo – who’d previously be seen as everything from the Johnny Cab in Total Recall to a stern executive in Gremlins 2 – the Doctor became a huge fan favourite for his wit, sarcasm and surprising depth in character. Picardo has since managed to make multiple appearances across the franchise, including in a cameo as the EMH in First Contact, Dr Zimmerman and test holograms on Deep Space Nine as well as revising the character for Prodigy’s second season and the upcoming Academy show launching in 2026.
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