The Doctor takes a joyride in Seven’s body, leading to a comedic love triangle with some holo-hating fascists.
Think of “Counterpoint”, the season 5 episode where Janeway is briefly and ambiguously involved with a fascist who claims to have reformed.
Now imagine that episode, but replace Janeway with the Doctor and Seven, add a love triangle and a pile of gender panic, and remove the “pretending to have reformed”, and you’ve got “Body and Soul”.
Yes, it’s bad.
The story is by Michael Taylor, who I assume is the source of the overall “what if ‘Counterpoint’ but shit” vibes. The script is credited to Eric Morris, Phyllis Strong and Mike Sussman, and I’m sorry, but that many credits on one story is always a bad sign. Eric Morris did the original teleplay, and then freelancers Strong and Sussman were brought on board to rewrite it. They did such a good job (…) that they wound up on the writing staff for Enterprise, where they did a lot of very respectable, series-defining work.
But this? This is quite terrible.
I mean, first of all, there are fascists
I assume that a sufficiently talented and sensitive team could get a solid romantic comedy out of the concept of fascists unwittingly falling in love with the object of their hatred. Maybe. I’m not really sure how, and “Body and Soul” certainly doesn’t provide any enlightenment.
Like. Okay. The Delta Flyer is boarded by soldiers searching for “photonic insurgents”. Seven hides the Doctor by sideloading him into her own head, meaning he’s driving her body for the time being, and then Doctor Seven sets out to escape by winning over his captors. And, along the way, the captain falls in love with “Seven”, while the Doctor falls in love with the ship’s doctor, who is in turn in love with the captain.
It’s hilarious. I especially love the scene where Jaryn reminisces about the enslaved hologram who raised her, who seemed really happy with their life, and she just can’t understand why they up and joined the insurgency. You can really see the moment the Doctor falls in love with her, and why.
And the scenes where Ranek attempts to get romantic with “Seven”! If you look really closely, you’ll actually see Rick Berman manifest on screen to remind people that homosexuality is wrong and gross. Ranek actually seems pretty consent-forward, for a fascist, but the Doctor is not that into him.
Speaking of consent — don’t worry, Seven doesn’t. Consent, that is. “You became sexually aroused in my body” is a line of dialogue which definitely seemed like a good idea at the time. And this is after she’s sick and hungover from the Doctor over-indulging in food and drink that disagrees with her.
You would think that after all this, the Doctor learns an important lesson about respecting Seven’s boundaries. No, don’t be silly. The episode ends with the Doctor apologising for his transgressions, before Seven apologies for being uptight, and sitting down to eat a meal that will make her sick so the Doctor can vicariously experience gluttony.
In short, this is terrible. Let’s check out the B-plot.
“Tuvok goes into pon farr.”
Oh no.
Everybody is pon farr fighting
This is a slight, silly plotline which is completely inoffensive provided you’ve never, ever seen any of the other episodes of Star Trek which deal with pon farr.
Tuvok enters his seven-yearly compulsory mating cycle. (Prayer circle for the asexual Vulcans.) The Doctor has created a medication to resolve it without drama, but it’s not working, so Tom has to come up with an alternative solution: a holodeck recreation of Tuvok’s wife.
Operation: Get Tuvok Photonically Laid is delayed by the A-plot, but eventually he finds relief. As it were. All is well.
Anyway, way back in Star Trek: The Original Series, in the episode that introduces the concept of the Vulcan mating cycle, we are explicitly told that what resolves the blood fever is either violence, or sex with someone with whom the Vulcan can mind meld. It was 1967, so no one was crass enough to ask if some quality time with one’s right hand was enough, but the strong implication is that it was not.
Let’s not ask questions.
Other observations
- I’m going to say something nice about this episode: the costumes are good
- I just think that the Doctor’s personal development should not come at Seven’s expense.
- This episode coming right on the heels of a Barclay story feels targeted at me personally.
- Hottest take: this episode is so bad that even Jeri Ryan gives a mediocre performance — it’s so broad that it makes Picardo looks restrained.
In conclusion
You have better things to do with your life, trust me. One New York cheesecake out of five.