Talk:The Doctor

FA removal (06 May - 18 June 2005, Success)
This is lacking quite a bit. It lacks his medical acomplishments, some of his recreational activities (holo-photography for example), and much of his personal relationships with the crew. Tyrant 16:01, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)Tyrant
 * Disagree - while I do believe that those additions would be excellent, I do not feel that their absence reduces the deserved status of the article. -- Dmsdbo 13:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Agree - This article does lack some information that's not crucial, but should be expected from a Featured Article. I've seen some articles that go deep in-depth into the characters, they are really great featured articles, but this one doesn't really reflect a lot of that. -AJHalliwell 04:44, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Agree - I agree that it lacks his medical achievements and there really should be a lot more information on his personal relationships with the crew. The article on Jean-Luc Picard, to me, is far more detailed yet it is not featured as it still lacks some crucial information.--Scimitar 10:51, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The second on the Doctor's life is nice, but it completely lacks information on personal relationships and medical accomplishments. Ottens 12:25, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Doctor or the Doctor
How does one correctly write this on MA? Is it always 'The Doctor' or just 'the Doctor'? I've seen both used on MA. I'm just curious to know which is now the correct one. A decision should be made on this, because people keep editing this back and forth. Some prefer to use 'The Doctor' while others just write 'the Doctor' and they keep correcting each other. Personally I think 'The Doctor' is the best way to go. It is a name after all and those should be written with a capital letter. Marjolijn 18:33, 25 oktober 2007 (CET)


 * I agree... I think it should be "The Doctor", and that's what I change it to when I edit articles. -- Renegade54 16:42, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

the or The
A couple of days ago someone changed all the instances of "the Doctor" to "The Doctor" in this article, and I reverted it since this is an informal title (his full title, as shown in is properly referenced as "Emergency Medical Hologram, starship Voyager"), and as such proper English grammar indicates that "the" in his title should only be capitalized at the beginning of a sentence. Rather than get into an edit war (especially since at this point he user in question has made multiple edits changing this, some including other fixes, so sorting it out's not a simple matter of a quick revert), we should probably sort this out here first to establish a precedent not only for this page but for others on MA referencing this character. -Mdettweiler 18:37, February 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * I seem to recall that a decision was made on this a while back that his chosen name was actually "The Doctor" (note the caps there) and that we should refer to him that way all the time. I don't recall where this was made, but I believe that R54 might be able to point the correct way here.  I've left a note on his talk page about this. -- sulfur 18:42, February 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * The last time the article was up for FA status, part of the reasoning behind why it didn't make it was because of this very issue. At the time all of the "The"s were changed to "the". Since this is currently up for FA status again, once some decision on this is made, it should then posted at the top of the talk page so it doesn't get changed back a few months later. - 19:12, February 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * All my changes were reverted? Oh well, can't please everyone. But really, I think this is the only article about The Doctor that has "the" lowercase. While the "proper" name is EMH, Mark I, the crew always referred to him as The Doctor. Thus stating that it was his name (before he had chosen another).--Obey the Fist!! 19:49, February 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the point of "the" over "The" is that it's not his name, but his title. In that case, using a "T" instead of a "t" is wrong, since it would be the same as calling Picard The Captain, or Data The Operations officer. I don't really care either way, but a decision needs to be made before any more edits are made to the article. - 20:07, February 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * Aside: There are no few scripts available online (unlike TNG/DS9), but the latest two Voyager novels use "The Doctor".
 * The major point is... there was a decision made. I know that Renegade54 was part of that group.  We should (must) be consistent on the usage everywhere on the Wiki.  So, whatever the choice has been, that's what is done here, and that's not a show-stopper for FA candidacy.
 * I also believe that the decision was come to after that last FA nomination. -- sulfur 20:33, February 26, 2010 (UTC)

I have made all of the revisions of "The" back to "the" while keeping my other changes from last night. I am currently looking at the Mem Quotes section to see if everything is structured correctly as compared to other Mem Quotes sections.--Obey the Fist!! 20:39, February 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * There actually are some scripts available here. Not many, but some. They use "the Doctor" in the one I was looking at, The Raven. --OuroborosCobra talk 20:39, February 26, 2010 (UTC)


 * In looking through the various scripts, most of them use "the DOCTOR", even in dialogue. Just as an amusement. :)
 * Still, before going through every article and spending 20+ edits on it in a short period of time, can we please take a few minutes and wait for some input for the people that might remember the prior discussion and the logic behind it?
 * Thanks. -- sulfur 20:42, February 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, unfortunately (or fortunately), all the changes have already been made to the main article. The good thing this time is that we CAN revert these as all I changed were the "the"'s.--Obey the Fist!! 20:52, February 26, 2010 (UTC)


 * The decision to use "The Doctor" versus "the Doctor" was made quite a while ago, so long ago I don't remember where the discussion was actually held. If I remember correctly, the reasoning was that "The Doctor" was his (pseudo) name, until/unless he decided on a "new" one, not his title, and as such, should be capitalized as a name. Proper capitalization, MA style, holds that titles such as doctor, captain, etc. are not capitalized at all unless used as a title preceding a name; thus, you would have "Captain Janeway", or "Captain Kathryn Janeway", but it would be "the captain", not "the Captain". Using this logic, if his "doctor" appellation was a title, everywhere throughout the site it should be "the doctor", and neither "The Doctor" nor "the Doctor". As a name, though, it would/could be rendered as "The Doctor". I guess another similar situation (though not exact) might be the Albino, for which our usage has been a lowercase "the" (is albino a title in this case? a name?). As far as "The Doctor" versus "the Doctor", I'm not wedded to either, as long as we're consistent. I have a current preference towards "The Doctor", if for no other reason, most references across the site are currently in this format (after many edits to get them that way). If we decide to go back to "the Doctor", someone else can fix them all. :) -- Renegade54 21:36, February 26, 2010 (UTC)


 * In followup, after further discussion offline, we have come to the conclusion that "The Doctor" is how things should go because the character took it as his "name". Not just "Doctor," but "The Doctor."  I've updated the Manual of Style to suit (with Cid's blessing), and have updated the character page too. -- sulfur 15:24, March 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * In terms of "the Albino," that was a "nickname" (of sorts) given to him by the Klingons who were hunting him down. -- sulfur 15:26, March 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * So I should go back and change all of the Voyager episode rewrites I have done over the past two days (Season 3 into Season 2 if I remember)?--Obey the Fist!! 15:28, March 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * You shouldn't have been changing them until we got a consensus. So, yes. -- sulfur 15:32, March 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, yes (*supplicated groveling*). Well this gives me something to do while I hear back from Cid about my changes of abbreviating ranks (yippie something else I made admins upset about). Much love.--Obey the Fist!! 15:34, March 5, 2010 (UTC)

Redux
I realize this convention is fairly common, but I think that the capitalized "The" is wrong, for several reasons. First, as Sulfur points out above, "the" isn't capitalized in the scripts. The all-caps DOCTOR is a script convention for the first appearance of any character; the same scripts use JANEWAY and TUVOK and so forth when they first appear in an episode. After the first introduction, and in dialogue, the scripts consistently use "the Doctor" except at the beginning of a sentence. For example, see scene 99 in this script from :


 * 99 INT. BRIEFING ROOM
 * Janeway standing at the head of the table, addressing Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris, Torres, the Doctor, Kes and Neelix. ....




 * JANEWAY: In developing a treatment for Harry, the Doctor has found a way to attack the aliens at a microscopic level.

To me, that's a strong argument for using the lowercase "the". Furthermore, even if we consider that the EMH used "the Doctor" as his name, the article "the" wasn't part of it. When another character addressed him, they didn't say, "What do you think, The Doctor?" (By contrast, think of "The Cheat" from Homestar Runner, who is always addressed as "The Cheat", with the "The"; therefore, the "The" was part of his name.)

Obviously, I wouldn't make any changes unless I can change a few minds and alter the previously established consensus. On Wikipedia, there's a policy that ; does the same principle apply here? —Josiah Rowe 15:46, August 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * Consensus can always change. At the moment, this is actually in our Manual of Style that we've chosen to do "The Doctor" because we're viewing it as a "proper" name. -- sulfur 15:56, August 20, 2010 (UTC)

I realize that. My argument is that the "the" isn't actually part of his name, because it's not used in direct address. It's not like "The" is his first name and "Doctor" his surname. —Josiah Rowe 16:18, August 20, 2010 (UTC)

Jason, son?
I was somewhat baffled as to why it was assumed Jason was somehow Doc's actual biological son. It seemed obvious to me that he was most likely adopted, as I said in my edit.

Another possibility is that Jason was a hologram, programmed with some of Doc's (and, by implication, Mareeza's) features, but since absolutely nothing was said regarding the planet's holographic technology&mdash;or that they even had holo-tech at that time&mdash;I left this scenario out in my edit. Randee15 15:48, 26 Mar 2005 (EST)
 * There's no evidence to suggest that he wasn't really the Doctor's son. The Doctor has no reason to mislead anyone either. Alex Peckover 03:02, 27 Mar 2005 (EST)
 * It took me a while to remember which episode we were referring to here, and unless I'm mistaken: . In which case, I fully agree with keeping the inclusion of that information.  I agree with the sentament that the Doctor would have no reason to lie or mislead anyone with regards to that.
 * Would anyone object to putting quotation marks around Children in his sidebar? It is written in this way in Data's sidebar. The situation isn't entirely comparable between the two, but clearly both the Doctor and Data didn't father their respective kids by way of normal human procreation. (And I think Jason was Mareeza's son from a previous relationship.) --Patito 10:44, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

His name (or lack thereof)
According to, isn't he Dr. Shmulluss or however you spell it? I also remember some episode calling him Dr. da Vinci (I think). Was there an explanation for why he's still "The Doctor"? --Vedek Dukat Talk 04:24, 29 Nov 2005 (UTC)


 * Shmullus was merely a nickname given to Doc by Denara Pel (it was the name of her uncle, who always made her laugh). Da Vinci was a name Doc chose for himself in the alternate future Kes visited in . -- Miranda Jackson (Talk) 05:02, 29 Nov 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes and on a few other occasions the Doctor did try some other names. I do not recall the name he had for the Beowulf episode, but he gave that up after the Female character he was attached to died in the Holodeck simulation. I think that was his only "official" name, however short lived.Jlandeen 08:22, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

How about where the two EMHs call each other Mark One and Mark Two, should this be added to the Name section? Or even more interesting where his Alter Ego says something like "every time I hear his name" which may only refer to "Doctor"? Or is it that he has no name, but a title, much like Seven of Nine is her designation? We also mention "Zimmerman" in the Background section. What is our policy of also adding it to the Name section?Swedish Doctor 20:43, March 15, 2012 (UTC)

Spelling
I've corrected a myriad of spelling and grammar errors on this page. I haven't got them all yet - I haven't had the time, but if someone else wants to finish up that'd be appreciated. Lukasa 21:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

First Activated
I think the stardate Stardate 48308.2 is incorrect. In the Voyager episode,, Admiral Patterson activates The Doctor for a short demonstration. This takes place before Voyager journeys into the Badlands and throw into the Delta Quad. However, the exact Stardate of this demonstration is unknown. (15:37, 16 April 2006 Tyger)

Probably meaing first activated for real, not diags or tests. 19:54, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * In, the Doctor states "when I first was activated on stardate 48315, and I found myself...". I don't think this can be explained on Annorax and the changes he made in the timeline in these episodes...? Although not greatly different from the stardate stated in the article, I think this should be noted. Commodore 16:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, on Emergency Medical Holographic program article, it concurs with the stardate stated in . Commodore 16:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I could be mistaken.. but isn't the EMH used on the Enterprise during First Contact? Or are we talking strictly The Doctor..?Jlandeen 08:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Just The Doctor, the EMH has it's own page. - Archduk3 15:43, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

PNA
This article can probably use a good once over (or two or three) to weed out the remaining formatting issues, wikification (especially removed redundant links), and maybe make the Voyager section flow better than just a list of the Doctor's appearances in chronological order. - Intricated 17:37, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, the relationship sections could probably use some (relevant!) images of the doctor with the character. Janeway and Paris for example are just their promo shots. Wasn't there a time the Doctor slapped Paris, the first Vidiian episode I think? Or With Janeway, her end-of-the-ep speech in "Virtuoso" for how he's suffered, it could fit into a well written summary of the ep as well. - AJ Halliwell 23:21, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

EMH an enlisted?

 * from talk:USS Voyager.

An edit was just made moving the Doctor from the enlisted to the officers because he is Chief Medical Officer. The reason given was that he cannot be an officer and enlisted at the same time. I disagree with this, well, not so much disagree with it as feel it is flawed.

His position was Chief Medical Officer. Whether he is enlisted or not is a matter of rank, not position.

For example, I used to be a cadet in something called Civil Air Patrol, the Auxiliary of the US Air Force. We follow a military rank and position structure. When I was a Cadet Senior Airmen (an enlisted rank), I was made the Cadet Aerospace Education Officer (a position).

I feel we are dealing with the same thing when it comes to the EMH. His rank may have been an enlisted level, while his position was Chief Medical Officer. Granted, the Civil Air Patrol is a civilian organization, and may not follow the military practice to the full letter, but Starfleet is not the current military either, so I think the comparison is valid.

I will revert the change tomorrow, unless someone objects. --OuroborosCobra 07:20, 1 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think you are right. The EMH did not hold an officers' rank, and thus should be under Enlisted personnel. Ottens 11:48, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I know this is an old discussion, but as per [{e|Virtuoso}}, the Doctor resigned his commission. That makes things a lot more confusing. Thoughts? -- Kevin W. Tlk 06:07, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Old discussion indeed, but I was pondering this, and wondering if the EMH and Seven of Nine and Neelix should actually be listed as "Enlisted" Crewmembers. I'll grant that the status of the EMH might be fuzzy, but unless Seven and Neelix actually joined Starfleet (and if they did, why aren't they wearing uniforms like the rest of the crew the majority of the time - Neelix in Ops gold in Year of Hell not counting?) then they're not technically "Enlisted". The Doctor we could argue about as definitely being Starfleet, as he had *some* kind of commission, but on the other hand, and maybe somebody who's been in the military can back me up, having a commission would tend to imply to me that he is in fact an officer, and not enlisted. --umrguy42 06:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Originally, it would seem that the EMH would be neither Officer OR Enlisted. He was a hologram, ostensibly he would be incapable of holding either position.  Further, one could use his lack of a rank insignia as further indication he is not considered either.  This lends itself to the pretext of is the Doctor a life form or property, similar to the dispute regarding the status of Data from .  One could note however, that later in the series, with the implementation of the Emergency Command Hologram  the Doctor was given officer rank pips for Captain.  His Resignation attempt may have been simply a resignation of his status as CMO.  -- Kooky 23:08, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Doctor Who?
Could it be possible that the Doctor's lack of a name was inspired by the "Doctor Who" BBC television series? To be honest, I'm surprised there aren't more Doctor Who references in Star Trek. Every time I see a timeship, I half-expect it to be labeled "TARDIS." - 04:28, 25 September 2006 66.140.35.56
 * The two shows have been borrowing ideas from each other for years.  See TOS  and compare it to Doctor Who's The Gunfighters as one of the biggest examples.  However, I don't think the hologram doctor's name is necessarily borrowed from Doctor Who.  He rarely introduced himself the same way ("Hello, I'm The Doctor").  Also, Doctor Who, unlike the holographic doctor, actually has a name, it's just never been said on-screen.  I think in this case, it's more of a case of parallel development.  Or you could be right.  In any case, because it's never been said in any commentary or citable source, it can't be included in the article.  --207.215.78.126 03:17, 29 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Removed the following passage making a similar claim. Who suggested it?  And, if it hasn't been confirmed, it's speculation.

It has been suggested that the use of the name in Voyager was an homage to Doctor Who, but this has never been confirmed. Both long-running franchises have made occasional one-off references to each other (both in canonical and non-canonical stories), but this is the only occasion in which ongoing characters have shared the same name.--31dot 15:44, November 19, 2009 (UTC)

two images?
Do we really need the two images in the sidebar? The Doctor is an ageless hologram, and those are otherwise identical pics. —  THOR  =/\= 18:31, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it's just to keep him consistent with the other character articles, which always have at least first and last appearance. Anyways, seeing that he is the same actually helps people know he is ageless. -- Commodore Sixty-Four(talk) 04:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Seven of Nine
Shouldn't there be a Seven of Nine section in relationships? --207.215.78.126 03:18, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Species
Shouldn't a hologram be considered a species? I admit, they are modeled after the species that designed them, thus seeming to vary between types, but they're all basically light and dynamic force fields. It just bugs me to see an N/A under "Species".--Gaeamil (Not logged in)

Removed passage
Removed the following:


 * It is however more likely he was refering to his experiences in the episode heros and demons with the Beowulf character freya with whome it was made very clear a sexual encounter ocured.


 * as a judgment call not appropriate for an article, though if reworded could be put back. However, there is very little evidence that The Doc had any type of sexual activity with Freya beyond kissing. --31dot 00:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Removed quote
Removed the below quote, as it, by its own admission, was not said by The Doc. It was said by the Seska-programmed character. It also doesn't seem particularly relevant to him.

"20 ccs nitric acid. A little proverbial salt in the wound."  (Spoken by The Doctor character in a holonovelic work programmed by Seska to kill whoever was running the program at the time)
 * - --31dot 12:55, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

"Room man"
I removed the following:
 * "The fact that the Doctor's creator was named Dr. Zimmerman and that this was an early consideration as a name for the Doctor may have been a subtle joke because Zimmermann is German for "room man"."

Dr. Zimmerman was named after Herman Zimmerman. If they chose his name because it translates to "room man", there should be a citation for it; if not, then it doesn't belong. For the record, the German word for "man" is "Mann," not "man." --From Andoria with Love 05:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Zimmerman is actually the German equivalent of 'Carpenter' as a surname- Dr. Jekyl 20 October 2008

Same actor, different height?
Can somebody explain why The Doctor looks taller than his creator? (Look at the picture with two of them face-to-face!) 89.164.238.239 14:03, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Zimmerman had a complex about being short? :) -- sulfur 14:12, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Zimmerman was also a slouch. While the Doctor was standing up perfectly straight in that picture, Zimmerman was slouching a bit. Also, being the designer of the EMH, he no doubt had the prerogative to make himself appear taller than he really was. --From Andoria with Love 03:09, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: The Doctor (moved from DhaliaUnsung's Talk Page)
Hi! Some of the changes you've made to this article significantly alter the definition of sentences while others undo a lot of changes I already made to it in the last edit of the page, so I'd be interested in talking through each section with you! Firstly, the quote and introductory paragraph. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the quote at the top of the page would more correctly be credited to "the Doctor", rather than to "The Doctor", as it's similar to a quotation like, '"The milkman is late," the girl said.' I don't see a reason why the "the" would be capitalized in that sentence (such as "The girl said"), nor the particular difference between that form of sentence and the one at the top of the The Doctor page that would necessitate capitalization. Does that make any sense, or am I just talking nonsense?! :) I'm fairly certain that there should, by most punctuation standards, be a comma between "however" and "on the USS Voyager", in the introductory paragraph. I'd be interested to know what you think! --Defiant 16:29, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I need to run out the door soon so I'd be happy to go over it more in detail later. (I hadn't noticed you'd made changes, I should have been more careful and I am sorry about that!)


 * The quote at the top: I moved it to "The Doctor" because it was the begining of a "sentence" per se  and if it is a "sentence" it should be capitalized.  I could be wrong, in fact, my husband agrees with you!


 * As for the however:
 * You're probably right but as you pointed out there were SO many commas (and huge run-on sentences), I was trying to rewrite them with less. I really think the page needs to be rewritten without all the "however" "meanwhile" etc so we can cut out the commas.  I think you agree with me from your original post.


 * If you want to undo my edit, I'm fine with that. It was a quick attempt to get started making sense of it.  Maybe we should move this to his talk page and not necessarily his nomination page where more people are probably going to see it.


 * Thanks for being so kind and working with me, I'm learning as I go and really enjoying editing this wiki.

-- DhaliaUnsung 16:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * No problem. I think we're all here for the right reason(s) - to improve the wiki! And you have some great ideas! :) I was also starting to think we should move at least some of this to the article's talk page, as it pertains to the article itself more than it relates to you alone. But, like you, I also need to rush away for the time being! --Defiant 16:58, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Opening Communications Channels
A sentence from the 2372 section of this article currently reads, "Upon activating, the Doctor opened communications channels all over the ship for a short period, until Janeway told him not to snoop." Did this happen only once or was it a repeated situation? --Defiant 11:28, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * -Sickbay to bridge please turn on your emergency medical holographic channel. I hope you don't mind that I've been eavesdropping, but I have something important to contribute... (blahblahblah planet sucks, making medicine)


 * -Tell me, just how often do you... eavesdrop?

Then she says Chakotay will discuss it with him later.
 * -(The Doctor looks uncomfortable, shifts in his seat) I am simply trying to... monitor issues involving the heath of the crew, Captain. When activated, the emergency medical hologram establishes comlinks with all areas of the ship, and I have, on occasion... I am a doctor, not a voyeur!


 * I hope that helps! -- DhaliaUnsung 14:06, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, DhaliaUnsung! --Defiant 11:13, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Piano Playing
I see no references to the Doctor playing the piano at the Chez during Seven's dinner date in Someone To Watch Over Me. Should this be added underneath the creative outlets section? I am currently unaware of any other references to his playing piano, but it is established in the holodeck scene. The camera focuses on him several times and he smiles at Seven, keeping an eye on her. --Kahwless 04:02, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Humour section?
I don't know, but seeing that Data had severe troubles with it and the Doctor had a good sense of sarcasm and humour from the start, wouldn't that be a major advancement into Federation personality programming worth noting in one capacity or another? For a program running on a computer with a holographic interface he's quite funny at various points. GarakxBashirKawaii 00:24, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * There's nothing that says an artificial intelligence can't be humorous - it just means that Data lacked the ability. I think the fact that it was pointed out that Data didn't understand humor and that it wasn't pointed out that the Doctor had a sense of humor means we don't need a section on it. Data is an exception as that was made a big point of his character. &mdash; Morder (talk) 00:32, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, Data's holodeck adventures were never pointed out explicitly too, along with all the other things in his 'personal interests' section. But as far as I recall, The Doctor was the only federation-made artificial intelligence that had a clear facility for humour. After all, it's noted too that Vic Fontain has high personal skills for a hologram? GarakxBashirKawaii 18:52, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Redirect from "Emergency Medical Hologram Mark 1"
I see that a redirect has just been added on Emergency Medical Hologram Mark 1 that redirects to this page. Wouldn't this be better pointed to Emergency Medical Hologram since it refers to all EMH Mark 1's, not just The Doctor? -Mdettweiler 04:06, November 25, 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes indeed. That was an unfortunate byproduct of the unilateral move of this article to "Emergency Medical Hologram Mark 1," which I could revert, but not delete. A move that doesn't make much sense for the same reason a redirect to this article doesn't make sense. There may have been hundreds or thousands of EMH Mk 1s, but there was only one "the Doctor" referred to with that as the only name. --OuroborosCobra talk 04:10, November 25, 2009 (UTC)

Sentience and emotion for The Doctor. How? Why? What about Data?
After 7 years of TNG, watching Data struggle to understand and have emotion, and hearing again and again how his uniquely, artificially borne sentience was all but completely unreproducible, I was surprised to watch an EMH on Voyager easily be/become both sentient and emotional. I'm also surprised that no other characters are surprised by this -- as though this sort of capacity for artificial creatures was common place in the 24th century. Is this ever explained or discussed in the ST canon? Am I missing something?


 * This isn't really what talk pages are for, but perhaps Data's existence helped make it easier to accept other artificial life forms. We know from  that Torres was familiar with Data.  If you've watched the first season or two of Voyager, some of the characters did not accept him as a person right away.  It took time.--31dot 21:04, July 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * Plus, an Emergency Medical Hologram is just that, only for emergencies, they even said on the show that they had no clue how his programming would react after running for so long, perhaps it was just the way he was coded differently from Data, besides, if I recall, Data was specifically programmed to not have emotions due to what happened with his brother who was programmed with emotions. felinoel  ~  (Talk)  22:03, July 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah--the general idea I got from watching the show was that the Doc's relative ease of attaining emotional awareness was due to holoprograms being designed from the start to emulate a particular personality with all its nuances, whereas Data's was an attempt to create a new personality from scratch. In the case of the latter, it was clearly possible to create an android with a full palate of emotions (ref. Lore), but it fell prey to the old adage of "superior ability breeds superior ambition", as originally applied to the Augments--so the only alternative was to program an emotionless android that would have no incentive to disobey his ethical subroutines. Later, of course, Data got the emotion chip, but that was after he'd already had many years of being sufficiently grounded in obedience to his ethical subroutines that he wouldn't ignore them on the first capricious whim of his new emotions. By contrast, as of 2371 (when the EMH was introduced), it was no problem for Federation holotechnology to produce a program with a personality matrix based on a real person's psychological profile, and behave just about exactly as the real person would (ref. ). The EMH, being based primarily on Lewis Zimmerman's personality, with a few modifications contributed by others on the development team, therefore had no problem expressing that personality. For Voyager's Doctor, his personality would have started out as a mere simulation--but as he developed sentience, he quickly would have internalized that personality as one that he's actually feel emotions based on. That in and of itself would have speeded up the process of attaining sentience somewhat anyway, so hence we have a Doctor that within a few episodes (i.e., a couple of months) had gone from an automaton to a sentient being with a full range of feelings.


 * And yes, I know, talk pages aren't really intended for this kind of discussion. My apologies for the digression. :-) -Mdettweiler 04:04, July 26, 2010 (UTC)

Original poster here again (I should probably sign up :). Sorry if this seemed like an incorrect used of discussion. My hope was that someone more knowledgeable than myself would add to the article information that explains this topic. However, it seems that, other than inference and conjecture, there's no direct justification in the ST canon for the doctor's sentience and emotional capacity. Despite what I have been told here, I say this because, Data could not give himself emotions, and Lore only got his from Sung. That technical knowledge and also the ability to create a stable positronic brain (the only thing touted as capable of housing Data's level of articificial intelligence and sophistication) died with Sung. While we have other computing devices becoming intelligent and self-aware (such as the Enterprise-D's main computer) its nothing like Data. Anyhow, thanks for the discussion


 * I personally would not call assuming that because the technology is actually there and present as, "inference and conjecture," because not only did Lore exist with emotions, but Data had his emotions before the EMH existed too, and Data probably gave the data from his emotion chip to Starfleet like he did with the rest of his self and so the EMH's emotions possibly were even designed off of Data's emotion chip. My point is, it is not inference and conjecture because the technology existed, in more places than just one, and that is likely why it is not listed in the article. felinoel  ~  (Talk)  09:33, July 26, 2010 (UTC)

Virtuoso singing
In a cited interview, Robert Picardo gives the name of a professional singer named "Augostino Castellnano" in a guessed, doubtful spelling. He probably means Agostino Castagnola, who has a YouTube channel claiming to be the true singer in this episode.

Hippocratic subroutine
Just how flexible were the Doc's ethical subroutines, anyhow? (Never mind how badly protected from tampering they were...) In "Nothing Human", he has specific, explicit instructions from Torres not to operate, yet when Janeway orders him to, he does. :/ gul garak 10:16, March 10, 2011 (UTC)
 * They were as flexible as the writers needed them to be. ;) --31dot 11:23, March 10, 2011 (UTC)

Uniformity
After, The Doctor could have reprogrammed his holographic matrix to appear wearing the uniforms worn in the Alpha Quadrant. He could have made himself the only crewmember on USS Voyager dressed in modern Starfleet style. I can sorta understand the remaining crew keeping the old as it would use energy from the ship to fashion new uniforms across the board but The Doctor could easily upgrade his look and resemble his EMH colleague in. A great chance for Voyager to look current from the most fashionable standpoint was missed.--67.84.73.254 21:08, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

Fifth year
This section is very bad written and presents both grammatical and logical errors, please review. For instance:

After Seven pointed out that they should not treat The Doctor like a piece of equipment but instead like the individual he had become, the captain decided that this time, instead of deleting his memories, they would stand by him and try to help him in this crisis, just as they would a friend or any other flesh-and-blood member of the crew. Janeway helped him accept his decision and realize that part of being an individual is making tough decisions and learning to live with them. (VOY: "Latent Image")

''Later that year, The Doctor tried to give Seven of Nine social lessons and how to date. During their sessions, he became quite infatuated with her but could not bring himself to admit his feeling''. 94.36.35.115 20:28, December 20, 2012 (UTC)