Story By: Micheal Taylor
Directed By: Robert Duncan McNeil
Rating: **** (out of 5)
�Body and Soul� is interesting in hindsight to �Revulsion� in Season 4 where a murderous hologram hated organics. Here the organics hate the holograms equally as much and their conflict is like the white and the dark people of Earth, it�s a kind of racial issue and they�re at war except the holograms are somewhat equal to the organics instead of being their oppressed slaves. The organic aliens despise the photonics like the Devore hated telepaths in �Counterpoint.� We never actually see this war as it�s only a plot device, but it would be an interesting thing to see.
�Body and Soul� brings up the interesting notion that Seven doesn�t use her organic abilities while Doc wants the abilities Seven doesn�t use. Unfortunately the story focuses much more on the novelty of the Doc controlling Seven and the action of escaping detention rather then any of the deeper issues.
While �Body and Soul� says a little bit about how we take our sensations for granted and a bit on racial prejudice neither issue is fully explored to make this a really deep episode. It�s good for the Doc and Seven relationship and brings up some philosophical issues plus has a bit of action and comedy but it�s not deep and surprisingly the episode is rather forgettable.
I loved seeing Doc feel the sensations of eating for the first time and his description of it. The scene at the end, when Seven brings Doc a meal, was a good conclusion to the episode and shows how the understanding, respect and friendship for each other has grown.
The entire relationship with Ranek between Seven/Doc was silly and only really served as comedy and to move the plot along. However the relationship with Jaryn was far more interesting. Even if it was rather contrived by having her learn to try and accept holograms. That subject alone would�ve been enough for an episode, if done right. Ranek only served a good purpose when he�s injured and Doc must help him but everything else was silly.
Tuvok�s pon-farr was handled okay. I�m glad it wasn�t the center of an entire episode and the events in the episode didn�t really effect Tuvok because it seems that every trivial thing has some kind of alien influence to it. It�s nice to simply deal with an issue instead of adding more to it. At one point the holodeck is disengaged while Tuvok attempts to mate with the holographic version of his wife but we never see any repercussions of this and we�re assured that everything went as it was meant to. I loved Paris�s bedside manner on the matter, although it makes me wonder why the Doc hasn�t trained more of the crew as physicians in case he�s disengaged for long periods.
Jeri Ryan�s performance was wonderful. It was so much fun to watch Jeri imitate Rob Picardo�s actions so precisely. It was almost as though Picardo really was controlling Ryan and it was wonderful. Rob Picardo did a great job too, as always and everyone else did great too.
�Body and Soul� is an episode I must remember for reference to a typical Voyager episode; an episode with a good and rich idea but takes the easy, non-risky way out. It takes the fun way out. It pretends to be a philosophical episode. This could�ve been better, but I got sucked in anyway and had a good time.