The Male Cast Members Of Star Trek: Voyager Had One Complaint About The Doctor
This author recalls reading an issue of TV Guide in 1994 (yes, I am quite old) about the then-upcoming TV series "Star Trek: Voyager," set to debut in January of 1995. The TV Guide noted that Robert Picardo, a Joe Dante repertory player, would play a character named Doc Zimmerman, the holographic doctor on board the U.S.S. Voyager. This name was culled from pre-production notes on the series, and the showrunner fully intended for Zimmerman to be the character's name.
The premise of the show, however, dictated that the Doctor have no name. The Doctor was an Emergency Medical Hologram, only meant to be activated in times of extreme crisis when a chief medical officer is not available. Once the crisis was over, the hologram was meant to be shut off. Thanks to the stranded state of the U.S.S. Voyager, however — it was stranded across the galaxy, 70 years from home — the Doctor was never shut off. He eventually began to develop a personality and emotions of his own, essentially coming to life. By the end of the series, the Doctor had hobbies, friends, ambitions, and even love interests.
That last point was something of a sticking point with the cast of "Voyager." At least with the members of the cast who hoped they, too, would receive love interests and play scenes with other actors they would get to kiss. In a 2022 interview with StarTrek.com, Picardo revealed that several of his co-stars were jealous that the Doctor — not even a human character — got multiple love interests and kissing scenes when they hadn't received any.
The kissing Doctor
In the first three seasons of "Voyager," the Doctor was frequently paired with a character named Kes (Jennifer Lien), a deeply compassionate character who served as the conscience of the series. She believed the Doctor was alive before anyone else, and she was the one who taught the Doctor how to be a more sensitive and humane being. Starting in the show's fourth season, however, Kes was written out and replaced by Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) a former Borg dressed in a skintight catsuit. The relationship between Seven and the Doctor is quite different, as he takes on the role of teacher, trying to parlay to Seven what it is to be human.
Some "Voyager" fans shipped the two characters, hoping they would get together. Picardo never felt they should have, as the Doctor had plenty of romance in his life besides. "[T]here's a lot of teasing about them ending up together," he said, "but I'm only kidding about that. I think it would not have been appropriate at all, it's much better to have the audience wish for something than for it to actually happen." Which is a fair point. Picardo, like many "Voyager" fans, was a little baffled that Seven began dating Chakotay (Robert Beltran) in the show's seventh season.
He also noted that he had many holographic lovers in the show's seven years, saying:
"The Doctor had plenty of romance for a hologram over seven years. At one point at the end of season 3 or early in season 3, the other male cast members actually complained that The Doctor had been kissed by beautiful women more often than any of the other actors."
Indeed, if one looks over the series, one finds the Doctor had seven love interests throughout.
The Doctor's seven lovers
In the episode "Heroes and Demons" (April 24, 1995), the Doctor was sent into the holodeck to confront a monster that seems to be dematerializing the Voyager crew. There, he fell in love with Freya (Marjorie Monaghan), a holographic Geat from an adaptation of "Beowulf." For that episode only, the Doctor referred to himself as Dr. Schewitzer.
In "Lifesigns" (February 26, 1996), the Doctor discovered a dying Vidiian, a species that had been ravaged by a flesh-rotting disease called the Phage. Using a rare brain shunt, the Doctor is able to project a hologram of his patient and finds her — Danara Pel (Susan Diol) — to be utterly charming. The Doctor acknowledges that he might be falling in love for the first time. I guess he forgot about Freya.
In "Read Life" (April 23, 1997), the Doctor attempted a life of normalcy by creating a holographic family on the holodeck. His imaginary wife was a bright-eyed tradwife type named Charlene (Wendy Schaal). I'm still unsure if Charlene was alive, or a mere simulation.
In "Blink of an Eye" (January 19, 2000), the Voyager discovers a planet living in a pocket of time that moves immensely faster than ours. To investigate, Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) sends the Doctor down to the surface for a few moments. For him, however, he lived below for three years, falling in love with an off-screen character named Mareeza. He and Mareeza even had a son together, although it's never explained how a hologram could reproduce.
The Doctor's seven lovers (contiuned)
In "Virtuoso" (January 26, 2000), the Doctor meets a species that never invented music, and he is happy to show off his opera skills to them. Very briefly, he impresses a woman named Tincoo (Kamala Lopez-Dawson). Not much came from this relationship, but it's worth noting.
In "Body and Soul" (November 15, 2000), the Doctor shunts his consciousness into the body of Seven of Nine using her Borg implants. As Seven, the Doctor developed a rapport with a hologram-hating woman named Jaryn (Megan Gallagher). Meanwhile man named Ranek (Fritz Sperberg) is attracted to Seven/the Doctor. Seven, meanwhile, objects to the Doctor using her body to flirt. She disallows any romance or sex to take place while she and the Doctor are sharing a body.
And finally, in the show's final episode, "Endgame" (May 23, 2001), the series flashed forward several years to a time when the U.S.S. Voyager had returned to Earth, and the Doctor had become a man-about-town with his own wife, a woman named Lana (Amy Lindsay). Sadly, that episode involved time travel and parallel timelines, so it's likely that Lana was erased when Janeway began mucking around with causality. And, yes, "Voyager" beat "Avengers: Endgame" to the punch with its title, and also its story which involved going back in time and confronting a time-traveling villain.
How rude.