Season 2, Episode 13: Prototype
Estelle and Max say: Watch it! 4/5 Janeways
In this robotic grand tour, B'Elanna tries to save an artificial species. This episode twists and turns, and hits on just about every sci-fi robot trope.
Reasons to Watch Extremely good robot content. The surprises just keep coming. B'Elanna is always great.
Reasons to Skip Lots of B'Elanna, but not much view into her character. No real point. Janky costumes.
What We Remember What little we thought we knew turned out to be wrong.
“Thank you for reactivating me”
-Automated Unit 3947
There's a lot that's not great about Protoype. The aliens, for instance, are little more than human actors with plastic faces and silver abs. That's why I was so startled that I enjoyed it so much.
I think it's so striking not just because it's fast-paced and full of twists but because Prototype is isn't really a normal Star Trek episode. It doesn't tell a story so much as explore the entire depth and breadth of the idea of robots. This isn't so much an episode but a greatest hits collection of robot tropes in science fiction.
From the jump, we get some signals that this isn't business as usual. Our view isn't the omniscient role of the audience, but, recalling a similar montage from Robocop, that of the robot itself. They (we) drift helplessly through space, are rescued by Voyager, and are revived by B'Elanna. Sadly, the episode can't commit to this unusual form and after the credits we're back in our comfortable seats as spectators.
The early part of the episode recalls the story of Frankenstein, itself the prototype for many science fiction robot stories. In this instance, B'Elanna takes the role of Doctor Frankenstein. She obsesses over reviving not a cadaver but the prone robot Automated Unit 3947. Instead of a bolt of lightning, the jolt of an EPS conduit and some warp core plasma bring life to the silver humanoid.
Later, 3947 kidnaps B'Elanna, and forces her to do what Captain Janeway forbade: build a prototype (wink) robot so 3947's people can learn to procreate and survive. Again, B'Elanna is Dr. Frankenstein but instead of a bride for the monster she and 3947 create a kind of platonic offspring.
“Who are we to swoop in, play god, and then continue on our way...”
– Captain Janeway
A rescue of B'Elanna seems impossible, but in a moment of quite literal Deus Ex Machina, a second robot species nearly identical to the first (but more copper than silver) appears and attacks the ship where 3947 holds B'Elanna captive. It's revealed that they were made by the Cravic, who were once at war with the Pralor Builders who invented 3947's people. The robots are continuing the war of their long-dead creators.
This recalls the almost mechanical cycle of violence, but also a key paranoia about automation that appears frequently in fiction: that our mechanical offspring become eternal weapons. Unlike humans, that can fail, grow, or make peace, robots simply follow instructions. Like the doomsday machine of Dr. Strangelove, we fear that mechanical creations will maintain the wars humans are unwilling to fight.
During the episode's climactic battle, 3947 reveals that his robotic people turned on and killed the Pralor. This recalls so many stories of the created turning on creator, as early as the Greek Gods killing the Titans who birthed them to the robots of The Matrix who overthrow humanity. A more direct connection is to R.U.R., the play by science fiction writer Karel Čapek. This work not only coins the word “robot” to mean a constructed humanoid, it also establishes the idea that robots kept in servitude will eventually overthrow its creators.
Between all these rapid-fire developments, we have a few moments where B'Elanna and Janeway touch on some traditional Star Trek questions: is artificial life really life? Do artificial creations deserve the same rights and considerations as organic life? Can we live in a society with mechanical beings?
These are met with equally rapid answers. Yes, robots deserve equal treatment. Yes, we can live with them—just look at Data (who is mentioned by name). The episode doesn't wish to dwell on these particular issues, almost self-conscious of how thoroughly they are trod by previous Treks. Still, they are moments that help fill out the dance card of robot tropes.
One caveat is that B'Elanna brings up Data as an example of sentient, artificial life in the Federation. He is the one example, she says. That's odd, since she spoke to the Doctor, a sentient hologram, just a short time before. It's either the writers being blinded by fan service, or carefully considering that for this crew the Doctor is still a thing and not a person.
”...the prototype looked up at me and asked me for programming.”
-B'Elanna Torres
Prototype ultimately comes up short is in what it does with all this material. B'Elanna, having traversed through the entire history of robot tropes, doesn't have much to show for it. Her experience is couched in terms more akin to parenthood than god-like creator, and besides reflecting on the excitement and sadness of it, there's little more said.
In fact, writing about it now, I worry that I don't have much else to say on it. Is this essay anything more than just pointing out all the things I recognize? I'm not sure. For me, at least, I managed to pull apart why I thought Prototype was important, and maybe why it's more than just engrossing television.
Where Prototype succeeds is celebrating its subject. It revels in the history and of robots, the power of science-fiction, and how many imaginations have been fired by creators of dreaming of and dreading mechanical beings. It does not break the mold, but instead shows us the glittering, wonderful things the mold can make.