By Chris Snellgrove
| Revealed
There’s an outdated, considerably controversial assertion about artistic works usually attributed to Pablo Picasso: “good artists copy, nice artists steal.” The quote usually ruffles the feathers of artistic sorts as a result of it seemingly glorifies the act of stealing from another person’s concepts. Nonetheless, the best sci-fi franchise ever created has been participating on this apply for over 60 years.
The primary Star Trek present was initially conceived of as “Wagon Practice to the celebs,” which meant it could take the fashion and sensibility of Western TV exhibits and adapt them to a sci-fi setting. Subsequent spinoffs adopted this identical mentality and, inevitably sufficient, a few of Trek’s greatest episodes ended up cannibalizing the very best episodes of earlier exhibits. For instance, the author of the fan-favorite Voyager episode “Projections” admitted that he created this seemingly unique story by mashing collectively two totally different episodes of Star Trek: The Subsequent Era.
If You Glitch Him, Does He Not Bleed?
“Projections” is a Voyager episode with a really fascinating idea: after an assault on the ship, the holographic Physician discovers that he’s flesh and blood. Because the episode unfolds, he begins to imagine that he’s really a human being and that the remainder of the crew are literally holograms. Because of a shock look from minor TNG character Barclay, the Physician is satisfied he should destroy the ship with the intention to finish the holographic program he’s caught inside. Nonetheless, he realizes far too late that he’s really caught on the holodeck, and listening to Barclay’s damaging orders will really delete his personal program.
This Voyager episode was written by Brannon Braga, the rockstar author who helped remodel The Subsequent Era into must-see TV. He was so well-versed in that earlier Star Trek present that he wasn’t afraid to borrow closely from it when he was writing Voyager episodes. In an outdated interview with Star Trek Month-to-monthhe admitted that the plot of “Projections” is a mashup of the plots from two very totally different THG episodes: “The Measure of a Man” and “Body of Thoughts.”
Mixing And Matching Star Trek Tales
“The Measure of a Man” is, after all, the long-lasting TNG episode by which Lieutenant Commander Knowledge needed to show in court docket that he was a sentient being slightly than Starfleet property. In the meantime, “Body of Thoughts” (which Braga additionally wrote) has Riker trapped in an asylum after the completion of a current covert mission. He has bother telling what’s actual and what’s not, finally discovering that he was captured by enemies in the course of the mission, and all the thoughts video games he was experiencing had been a facet impact of those aliens probing his thoughts for Federation secrets and techniques.
How does combining the plots from these two TNG episodes add as much as Voyager’s “Projections?” Like Knowledge in “The Measure of a Man,” the Physician should show that he’s precisely who and what he thinks he’s. However there’s an fascinating inversion right here: the synthetic Knowledge needed to show he had the identical rights as people like Riker and Picard, whereas the Physician needed to show that he was fully synthetic and never a flesh-and-blood human being.
The Final Story Synthesis
The parallels between “Projections” and “Body of Thoughts” are even simpler to see: in every episode, the first character needed to resolve which model of actuality was genuine. The Physician had to determine whether or not he was really an Emergency Medical Hologram or Lewis Zimmerman, the human scientist who created the EMH in his picture. Riker, in the meantime, had to determine if he was really the primary officer of the Federation flagship Enterprise or a loopy man trapped inside an alien asylum.
Brannon Braga was the primary to confess that “Projections” wasn’t probably the most unique story as a result of it mashed up the tales from two earlier Subsequent Era episodes. Nonetheless, he managed to synthesize two older tales into one thing that felt each recent and revolutionary. The outcome was an episode that has thrilled followers for many years because of its cool idea, vaulting ambition, and pitch-perfect performing.