A New Spinoff Just Turned Your Favorite Star Trek Character Into A Perfect Parody
By Chris Snellgrove | Published
When Starfleet Academy was announced, many old-school fans were worried that the new show (which is somewhere between a Saturday morning cartoon and a CW teen drama) wouldn’t feel like Star Trek. To alleviate those concerns, Paramount brought back one of the franchise’s most familiar characters of all: Robert Picardo’s beloved Doctor, who was always a source of dry humor and gentle wisdom. Voyager. Unfortunately, the show made a complete joke of him, embodying all of the character’s extreme qualities while turning this once dignified character into a joker.
In its own way, the Doctor’s poop joke was the first thing that really got me out of it Starfleet Academyalthough the time is relatively short. While photographing new cadet Caleb, the Doctor discovers that he has lungworms in his intestines and treats the young man before telling him to “watch your bowel movements for the next three days.” That was bad enough, but then he closed with a sarcastic “Call me if anything moves.”
Star Trek Goes to the Crap (literally)
Now, I’m not someone who doesn’t like jokes. I always watch shows like this Beavis and Butt-Head (a revival indeed, indeed well, y’all), where gross-out gags are the norm. It can also be used in Star Trek with good characters, like when Vance tells the visiting Orion baddie Adoption that he was eating repeated feces (“it’s sh*t, you know”). An unintentionally funny moment that worked for the plot by discovering that Vance really wants to shock his archenemy and that he’s not bothered by the revelation of his (and his, after repeated food bites) real potty mouth.
Opened Star Trek: VoyagerHowever, neither the Doctor nor anyone else has ever made such a bad joke, so this forced attempt at humor felt really off. Why bring in a beloved ’90s Star Trek character just to talk like a dirty Zoomer? I know I’m making a mountain out of a molehill (or should that be a dunghill?) here, but this bad comedy gets even worse when you consider all the other ways Robert Picardo’s Doctor doesn’t act like him.
The Doctor Is Out (For Status)
For example, he absolutely refuses to be the mentor of the little hologram, saying, “I am no one’s mentor;” when he rightfully points out all the times he’s been a mentor before (like on Voyager and Prodigy), his “sensitivity ratings” start to rise. She tells him this, and he surprisingly insists that “I’m not afraid of anything.” It seems like Starfleet Academy he sets up some kind of backstory for the Doctor, which is doubly weird. Not only does this make sense to this stoic and cynical Voyager character, but it seems to wild doing this with someone who was making wild jokes a few scenes earlier.
The previous baddies continue with the second episode, “Beta Testing” (a really good title he asked people to make fun of Starfleet Academy on many levels), where the Doctor delights in telling his students how to work with “self-replicating mucus.” Before long, he explains how “loving snots” are and that if any cadets find them, they will have to live with snots and “spend the holidays with their parents.” I was really surprised by this…like, it’s bad enough to do VoyagerHe’s the most modest character in the body work comedy, but now they have a sex-loving Robert Picardo snot?
Robert Picardo Sings for His Supper
In that same episode, one of the Doctor’s contributions is singing…specifically, singing Amadeus Mozart’s “Pa-Pa-Pa Papagena.” Apparently, the plucky hologram sang Voyagerso it’s not like this (or making him a sponsor of an opera group) is the exact opposite. However, while that previous Star Trek game just had short moments of singing from time to time, this one Starfleet Academy the song i painfully long and just an excuse for Robert Picardo to hold the camera.
This is proof that the writers didn’t know what to do with this classic ’90s Trek character…he’s like a Frankenstein monster made of the worst parts of Trek and NuTrek. Sometimes, he looks snot and poop like a smart teenage cadet, and other times, he acts like a Flanderized version of himself. Voyager a certain character who imitated in bad fairy tales. Know that this previously reserved character bounces around with strong mental energy way again and again, and it’s clear that the Doctor has become a parody of himself.
It’s a shame because Robert Picardo is an insanely talented actor, and he (like Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti) is doing his best with some of the worst writing in Star Trek history. But his lover Voyager the character (whom he once again admired greatly The Prodigy) now feels empty instead of holographic: an empty parody of his former glory. The wise and wise counselor of old is now the guy who makes dirty jokes, but maybe that’s worth it…after all, Starfleet Academy the biggest piece of the franchise since Section 31 the movie!
