Robert Picardo Spoils 'Renaissance Man'

This Wednesday, UPN will be airing 'Renaissance Man,' the final regular Voyager episode ever. According to a new interview with Robert Picardo (the Holodoc) that appeared online today, the episode might make some Voyager viewers wonder whether Janeway has finally given up on her goal of getting the ship home.

As previously reported, in 'Renaissance Man,' Captain Janeway and the Holodoc go on a mission together, only to have Janeway captured and held hostage by a group of aliens. They send the Doctor back to Voyager to steal the ship's warp core, threatening to kill Janeway if he does not comply. Speaking to Starburst Magazine (via the Great Link), Picardo revealed more of the episode's premise.

"They’re monitoring the Doctor’s every move, so he literally is their eyes and ears," Picardo said. "Therefore, he cannot confide in any members of the crew about what he's doing. He morphs into Janeway and progressively other senior officers on board, pretending to be them in order to get, as quickly as possible, what he’s supposed to get and deliver it in a time-frame where they won't kill Janeway."

The Doctor is able to do this by downloading the physical parameters of his crewmates from the holodeck. "What's fun about the story is that the audience doesn't find out (until later in the episode) that this strange acting Janeway is really the Doctor in disguise," Picardo continued, apparently only talking about that portion of the audience not reading Voyager interviews. "The way the story is revealed creates a certain kind of tension where our viewing audience will go 'Gee, has Janeway really given up on the idea of trying to get home?'...There are all sorts of issues that are raised before it is revealed to the audience what the Doctor is doing."

"It's quite dramatic, but it has a comic ending," Picardo continued. "After all this other information is added to his program, the Doctor's program is in jeopardy and is frit-zing uncontrollably, and it looks like his program may spontaneously decompile, and so he gives he equivalent of a deathbed confession. He explains to every member of the crew whatever terrible secret that he's been keeping about their relationship. Of course, concluding very dramatically, with his big secret about Seven of Nine. So its quite funny because he's getting all of this off this chest, and then he doesn't die and he's completely mortified. It really has a fun ending."

More from the interview with Picardo, in which he also compares the various executive producers Voyager has had over the years, can be found by following this link.

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