The Doctor has been stolen and no one seems to know where
he's gone. except for the Doctor of course, who finds himself
stranded on an alien hospital ship. Worse still, his ethical
subroutines are challenged when he is forced to ration treatment
depending on the value to society of the patient. Can Voyager
find him before he is totally tied in with the hospital's
central computer..?
At
its best Critical Care is a sly parody of American
health care policy and there are some genuinely sharp judgements
made by the script about the balance between ethics and money.
However, much of this gets washed aside by a glib ending and
some poor comedy moments. But a Doctor episode can't be all
bad.
Instead of getting letters from home, the monthly news bulletin
to Voyager from Star Fleet turns out to be a hologram of Reg
Barcley who claims to have found a way to get Voyager home.
But is the hologram of the nervous engineer really telling
the truth..?
Reg,
Deanna, Ferengi, a totally stupid plot and lots of crass comedy:
that's enough cholesterol to give an elephant heart failure.
But despite the over-egging, Inside Man works, albeit
in a rather fragmented way. It's just a shame that the writers
couldn't decide which way to play out the action - drama or
comedy.
Anthony
Clark
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