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SUMMARY: The Doctor adds the virtues of past great figures to his program, but there are evil and sinister consequences.
 | As Voyager crew spend time exchanging travel news with the Mikhal Travellers at one of their Lodges in order to try and learn what lies ahead, the Doctor spends time in the Paxau Resort holoprogram, engaged in a new project to add the admirable qualities from famous historical figures to his own program. These figures include Gandhi, Lord Byron, Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Madame Curie and T'Pau of Vulcan, whom he re-creates in holographic form, interviews them and selects desirable character elements to merge into his own program. He hopes to gain an improved bedside manner, a fresh perspective on diagnoses, and "more patience with his patients". After the Doctor explains his project to Kes, he questions her close involvement with Zahir, a Mikhal Traveller, suggesting that he is a rebound after her recent break-up with Neelix, but she points out that she is a grown woman of three years, capable of looking after herself. |
Torres has to be treated in Sickbay after becoming ill from eating a small alien salad because Klingons lack an enzyme for metabolising the planet's vegetation. While being treated for this, she expresses concern at the Doctor's new fawning and flirtatious bedside manner, so he explains about his personality improvement program. She counters that the additional subroutines may interact unpredictably and offers to review his program. When they both catch the Doctor's hand resting intimately on her leg, the Doctor realises what she means about unpredictability and orders the computer to suspend the new character traits for the time being.
That evening Kes stays out late spending a romantic time with Zahir. When she returns she goes to Sickbay to complete a report and finds the Doctor still working. He points out that she is neglecting her duties in Sickbay. While Kes ponders whether to accept Zahir's invitation to explore the Sylleran Rift with him, Zahir is seriously injured when a mysterious cloaked figure pushes him off a cliff. Shortly afterwards, the cloaked figure enters the Lodge and reveals himself to the Mikhal Traveller there, named Nakahn; the cloaked figure is none other than, it seems, the Doctor. He seizes Nakahn and holds his hand in the fire to hurt and intimidate him, and orders him to procure passage for the Doctor off the planet. The next day, a distraught Kes hurries into Sickbay to report the attack on Zahir. The Doctor seems genuinely surprised at the news and is happy to assist the attending physician there. The Doctor and Kes are on the transporter dais about to beam down to the planet when Torres hurries in and says she has found a potential problem with his program.
Kes reports the attack on Zahir |
Torres stops the Doctor from beaming down to attend Zahir |
The Doctor leaves Kes to beam down alone and accompanies Torres back to Sickbay. There Torres notes that the subroutines he has added to his program also include dark character traits. For instance, Lord Byron is described as a creative, poetic genius, but he was also emotionally intense and even unstable. T'Pau is described as a diplomat, a judge, a philosopher, and one of the most logical minds in Vulcan history, but she was utterly ruthless in her application of that logic. But part-way through the program analysis Torres looks at the Doctor and suddenly freezes with horror. Later, Tuvok and Janeway find Torres collapsed on the floor of Sickbay. They invoke the Doctor's program who comes online and he is as surprised as they. Scanning her, the Doctor reports she is in anaphylactic shock caused by something she ate.
Tuvok and Janeway depart, but then the Doctor's program fritzes and he transforms into the sinister "darkling" Doctor, the character whom Nakahn encountered earlier in the Lodge. The Darkling brings Torres to consciousness, but he has removed her combadge so she that she cannot call for help, and has injected her with an intraspinal inhibitor to paralyse her from the waist down so that she cannot run away. The Darkling admits he caused her earlier collapse to look like anaphylactic shock, by actually injecting her with cateline to simulate the reaction, in order to hide his tracks from the original Doctor whom the Darkling despises for what he describes as his do-good, pathetic and subservient traits. The Darkling tries to coerce Torres into removing his original personality from his unstable blend of subroutines. Torres refuses, infuriating him with the observation that the subroutines are rapidly destabilising.
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| the Darkling Doctor tries to force information from Torres |
He gives her a hypospray injection to knock her out again and hurries to the holodeck, convinced that his "progenitors" (holo-Gandhi, holo-Byron etc.) will know what he wants to know. In the Paxau Resort holoprogram, the Darkling, in his attempt to adjust his program on his own, discovers that his holographic progenitors are useless to him. His treatment of them results in damaged holograms, which shocks Kes when she arrives looking for the Doctor after discovering the unconscious Torres on the Sickbay's primary biobed.
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| the Darkling Doctor damages the holograms from whom his dark character traits came |
The Darkling informs her that the original Doctor is within him. The Darkling seizes her combadge and kidnaps her, stunning Crewman Nozawa in the transporter room, setting up a scattering field to mask their signatures, and forcibly taking her with him to the planet.
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| the Darkling Doctor kidnaps Kes and they beam down to the planet together |
Tuvok, Chakotay and Zahir discover residual holographic signatures near the place where Zahir was attacked, which alerts the Voyager crew to the fact that the Doctor is the culprit. Janeway sends to Sickbay to ensure Torres' safety and sets to work trying to overcome the Darkling Doctor's scattering field, while the away team start tracking the Darkling. Attempting to flee the planet, the Darkling Doctor forces Kes along the mountain path where he assaulted Zahir. However, Kes realises that the Darkling's behaviour shows that he cares for her and some of his rantings reveal his anger toward Zahir. Janeway overcomes the scattering field so that the ship's scanners are able to locate the Darkling and Kes. The away team manages to trap the Doctor on the cliff, by the precipice.
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| the Darkling Doctor is cornered |
Refusing to give up, the Darkling Doctor throws himself and Kes over the precipice. Fortunately Voyager's transporter beams them up before they strike the ground. They beam onto Voyager to be faced by security guards pointing phasers at them. But the Darkling Doctor has vanished and it is the original Doctor who rebukes them, telling the guards to put the phasers away before someone gets hurt and he has to clean up the mess. The Doctor successfully treats Torres. She then deletes the dangerous subroutines, which restores the Doctor fully to normal.
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| the (restored) Doctor with Torres after treating her |
The Doctor supports Kes in her decision to remain on Voyager which she now feels is the best place to experience life, being among friends. The Doctor recites aloud to himself the Hippocratic Oath: "I swear this oath by Apollo Physician, by Asclepius, by Health and by all the gods and godesses: In whatsoever place that I enter I will enter to help the sick and heal the injured, and I will do no harm."
the Doctor supports Kes when she decides to stay on Voyager |
the Doctor recites the Hippocratic Oath aloud to himself |
 | | KES TO JANEWAY: Everyone here has been so good to me. I don't want you to think I'm ungrateful. I've just been thinking that maybe there's more. I don't know what that means. But I know I'm changing and I know that there are things that I'm not satisfied with. I want complication in my life. |
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