Someone to Watch Over Me

Yes, it is an intergalactic "My Fair Lady." The doctor has been teaching Seven social integration. She is, of course, quite a challenging student. He decides it's time for her to start dating. So she chooses a shy man from engineering and asks him out. Of course, it is an utter disaster. But as this happens, the Doc (Henry Higgins) begins to feel a romantic attraction for our Borg bombshell. Jeri Ryan is perfection in her role. She connects with him, but we have to remember that her circuitry works differently. She admires her successes but doesn't quite cross the threshold. There are some seriously touching scenes. Meanwhile, a subplot is the adventures of a young man from a sterile planetary society going bonkers when he finally gets to spread his wings, overeating, overindulging, and carrying on in general. Neelix almost has a heart attack tracking the guy.

To me this is the best episode of Star Trek Voyager. I think that The Doctor and Seven Of Nine are by far the best characters and this episode is almost entirely about them. Seven is very funny in an understated way and The Doctor is extremely charming and charismatic. I have autism and so I relate to Seven Of Nine a lot. The side story is fun enough, but the best part is The Doctor teaching Seven all about dating and social skills. Seven Of Nine really is my dream woman, she is stunningly beautiful, but also smart and kind, and there are no annoying mental games with her, she will just tell you exactly how she feels at all times, and I like that a lot. I wish she was my wife. P. S. My God what a body! WOOF!

Continuing his efforts to teach Seven the art of social interaction, the doc is now destined to unravel the secrets of the dating and romantic relationships chapter. The doc himself though is more of a beginner than a professional when it comes to romance and love, but among the blind people the one-eyed man is king.

Since Seven still has a rather wooden and direct tone towards those around her, the doc's lessons lead to all sorts of funny situations, for example when Seven invites a colleague on a date and there is an incident while eating lobster. At the end of the date, she almost dislocates his arm while dancing, so he has to be treated by the doc for a torn ligament.

As the doc goes through the individual lessons with Seven, he slowly begins to fall in love with her. Some users see this as borrowing from the myth of Pygmalion, but the doc doesn't create his perfect woman himself for his own pleasures. It's more like the spark of romantic affection is ignited between two outsiders. However, Seven does not feel this affection to the same extent as the doc, so he ultimately does not openly express his feelings towards her.

The B-plot, on the other hand, is pretty lame and can easily be forgotten. Neelix has been given the task of looking after a diplomatic guest. However, the guest surprises him by discovering that he is not as averse to worldly pleasures as he assumed. Neelix plays babysitter while his guest makes his way through half of Neelix's menu and also gets a taste for synthehol. In contrast to the A-plot, this seems rather silly.

As interesting as it was to see a relationship happen between The Doctor and Seven, the B story doesn't seems to give any support to the A story. In fact the B story is a complete waste of time.

Neelix is suffering a monk (perhaps a novice) who is outside the monastery, and is now indulging, to an excess, on everything he cannot have back home. This is treated in a very "laughing" and jovial manner, unfortunately that should not have been the case, and it only cements the series itself into being rather flippant about religion. A few lessons could be learned from Deep Space Nine. Instead of the story trying to understand why this novice is overindulging, or perhaps even trying a way to merge the two stories is never approached. What we have is 30 minutes of a fun A story while we suffer through the rest of the episode's B story.

Merging the two could have been easy. A novice who is frightened of making his final vows goes "off the deep end" into over indulgence to curb his fear. The doctor who cannot bring himself to tell Seven that he has fallen for her. Both suffering from a fear of moving forward. Neelix could have offered his experiences to the monk in order to help his decision. Then while trying to recover from intoxication the Doctor and the monk have a one on one. It is this one on one that allows both to move forward. However the monk succeeds at his decision the Doctor is still hesitant.

I understand that to a lot of fans this episodes is on their top list. It's not skippable, but if you are watching on DVD you can fast forward over the monk parts. They are irrelevant to the story.

Perfect. Not one minute is a drag. Great concepts. Humor. Both stories are fun and intertwine perfectly. Directed by Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris). I read they did a new directors class for the staff. Nothing improbable happens. Characters are spot on. Just felt joy and only a little worry watching this episode.