TREKCORE > VOY > EPISODES > PROJECTIONS > Behind the Scenes
 

	Writer Brannon Braga: "I'm very proud of this episode. I just wanted to do a doctor show, and basically a one-liner just popped into my head one day: What if the doctor discovers that Voyager is a hologram and he is real? Then I got into the argument 'I think, therefore I am'; what does being real mean? I just thought it was an opportunity to do a real mind-bending kind of story. Then we came up with the idea of putting Geordi LaForge in but then I thought it would be more fun to have Barclay and the doctor, and those two were so good together they should have a spin-off series."
	Although the doctor continues to remain nameless, the naming of his creator, Dr. Zimmerman, finally realized the dream to use production designer Herbert Zimmerman's name as inspiration. Robert Picardo: "I think Paramount has been waiting for the right licensing agreement to be struck. I believe they've finally decided my name will be Dr. Scholl. The other names that were considered and rejected were Dr. Pepper, Dr Ruth and Dr Kevorkian. I think the whole notion of an indecisive computer program is funny for the producers, and I think I will continue to be named by various beautiful women guest-stars, and then when they're out of my life, I'll simply change my name to the one that the next beautiful woman guest-star chooses, and that kind of works for me. I think that some of the most interesting things about the character are his limitations, and if we resolve them all too quickly, well, then I'll have nothing left to do."
	Michael Piller: "I never had a doubt in my mind that the doctor would be developed into the most popular character. And I knew that because I was having a hard time communicating what I had in my mind to people, I really had to write the doctor's voice for about five episodes before people started catching on. The character of the doctor is a servant, but in a defensive way which shows vulnerability. It's very hard to communicate that, and there must have been a hundred actors who came in the room who couldn't figure out what to do. I knew it would be hard." "You have a character who is not human, who has basically been forced into existence and he's just trying to adjust to a new kind of life. He's self-aware, he's definitely got an inferiority complex, and so he's trying to measure himself as to where he is going to fit into this world. Those are the qualities that a character like Data had, who looks on the human race and gives us a mirror image of ourselves through an objective, nonhuman point of view. To be able to come up with another one of those characters and do it in a fresh way is quite an achievement."