Life Line

“Computer, deactivate iguana.”

This Story: Season 6 Episode 24 (production code 243)
VOY Overall: Episode 144
Trek Overall: Story 568, Episode 600
Airdate: 10 May 2000
Story by John Bruno & Robert Picardo
Teleplay by Robert Doherty, Raf Green, & Brannon Braga
Directed by Terry Windell

Notes

• Running fired torpedo count: 66.  This contradicts the hard limit set in “The Cloud” of 38.
• The plot is similar to TNG’s “Brothers” (with Data, Lore, & Dr Soongh).
• Robert Picardo has a writing credit for this episode. It’s the second of three times (as of May 2026) that a Trek cast member has a writing credit.  The others are Walter Koenig (TAS, “The Infinite Vulcan“) and Tawny Newsome (SA, “Series Acclimation Mil“).
• Features the return of Dwight Schultz & Marina Sirtis as Reg Barclay & Deana Troi who last appeared in Voyager in “Pathfinder“.
• Rob Picardo plays the creator of the EMH in the flesh for the second (and final) time.  The other time was on DS9’s “Doctor Bashir, I Presume“.  He did appear a few other times as a holographic recreation of Zimmerman, though.
• The only time we see anything from USS Enterprise NCC-1701E outside of the two movies it appears in, and it’s not much – just a scene inside Deanna’s office on that ship.
• There is a loose reference to DS9’s “Doctor Bashir, I Presume” when Zimmerman mentions the last time he left Jupiter Station.
• This is also the only time Jupiter Station is ever shown on screen despite being named many times in a few incarnations of Trek.
• Dr Zimmerman claims there were 675 Emergency Medical Holgrams in existence at one point.  The only two we’ve ever seen are the one on USS Voyager, and one on the Enterprise NCC-1701E.
• This episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series.”
• Admiral Hayes was played by Jack Shearer.  He played the character in “Hope & Fear” and “Star Trek: First Contact“.  He played a different Admiral (Strickler) in “Non Sequitur“, as well as a Romulan (Ruwon) in DS9’s “Visionary” and a Bolian in DS9’s “The Forsaken“.

Links