'Star Trek' is Inept Science-Fiction. Discuss

Watching 'Fair Haven' has made me realise how inept a piece of science-fiction Star Trek is. Now, I've watched Star Trek for years, and enjoyed it when I was younger – but the opportunities it passes over have only recently struck me.

'Fair Haven' is an episode of the fourth set of Trek shows, Star Trek: Voyager, in which the ship's captain falls for a man created on the holodeck (he's a hologram, a being made of light energy, forcefields and computer subroutines). What has always been the strength of Voyager against other series was the way it had taken that 'Boldly Go...' idea, the outward exploration idea, and turned it on its head; the Voyager crew are stranded on the other side of the galaxy and are returning to Earth, rather than heading away (or being rooted somewhere familiar) like previous series. In a similar revolutionary move, the captain is a woman and her second-in-command is a former guerilla terrorist whose crew have been absorbed into Captain Janeway's regulars.

Let's worry about the holodeck first. It's basically a big fantasy arena, a room that can create virtual reality simulations of pretty much anything imaginable. The show's writers often use it as a means of having bits of story outside of the ship, without requiring that Voyager is near a convenient planet, or so that the crew can indulge in recreation without consequences – it's okay to treat holodeck creations as unpaid labour or disposable villains (in a shoot-'em-up) because they're not real. In this way, the holodeck can be used to examine exactly what makes humans human, by contrasting us with what is essentially not human and forcing us (the audience) to define the boundaries between human and holodeck creation. It's the same reason that aliens exist in sci-fi; they are non-humans we can use as examples to self-define against.

All well and good. Trek also tends to play with the convention of a fantasy realm by having something go wrong. For example, in a Next Generation episode, the Moriarty character from a Sherlock Holmes holodeck program gains sentience – becoming more than a hologram – and tries to take over the ship. More recently, the Doctor onboard Voyager is a hologram – he is all the medical textbooks ever written, but with a personality (of sorts) and a bedside manner (of sorts). He's an emergency replacement for the 'real' doctor, who died when the ship got stranded all those trillions of miles away. There have also been episodes – a specific Voyager one comes to mind – in which crew members have fallen in love with holograms (and vice versa).

So, when Janeway fell for the barman in the holographic Irish town of Fair Haven, I remembered with some unease that earlier episode. On that occasion, an Ensign fell in love with a young holographic lady and the potential relationship was treated with concern by his friends. His love interest was fictitious! Appalling! It turned out they were justified in their fears; the holodeck had been hacked by an alien who wanted to keep the ship near to her for company.

So when a real man falls for a holo-woman, it's bad because she's an ugly, lonely alien who needs help from the enlightened (male) crew members to avoid her holding up the ship's journey (forever) or destroying it. But when Janeway falls for a holo-man, everyone thinks it's a bit of a laugh and she can carry on. Is that because she's the captain, or because her woman's love affairs are trivial and don't matter?

Anyway, that's not the main problem with 'Fair Haven'. The problem is the conversation Janeway has with the Doctor (he's a hologram too, remember) after she deserts her new lover in the holodeck. It's the scene [3:50 on the YouTube clip] that should be the crux of the episode (which it is) while developing themes of romance, interpersonal relationships, a leader's responsibilities and what it means to be human and to be in love (which it doesn't, really). The Doctor has taken his role as the Irish priest, and is talking to Janeway as a friend, but it takes far too long for either of them to point out the irony that he too is a hologram.

Thing is, this conversation shouldn't take up a scene; it should be the episode. A lot of time is taken up establishing that Janeway likes the barman, changes his specifications (see where the sci-fi comes in?) and that he goes crazy when she leaves him. Too long is taken on the reason why the crew is retreating to the holodeck (there's a space storm of some kind, so the ship can't move for a few days) for distraction. Then, too long is taken on getting free from that storm. The human dilemma – the issue of a strong woman in a leadership role falling for a man she can't have – is almost entirely missed.

This is where Trek really falls down. It doesn't get under the surface of the problems its raises, and gets bogged down in technobabble. We as audience really don't need all this guff about the storm or inverting the warp core to avoid neutrino radiation (or something). Of much more interest is the human story. Sci-fi can be many things, but what it should always try and do – or at least, good sci-fi tries to do – is take recognisable situations and examine them in different contexts – then we can re-examine what we thought was certain, and/or see it from a new perspective. Sci-fi maintains the human interest amid the science and technology, and keeps that interest paramount. 'Fair Haven' makes too much of the argument that the barman is all protons and forcefields, and not enough of the fact that the captain has fallen in love. Yes, the Doctor makes a stab at this, but the irony – which should have been capitalised on earlier – is that he too is holographic; he's not 'real' either, and it takes an unreal man to give the captain this lesson of the heart (how lonely is command – another issue avoided by this episode).

This episode should be making its audience reassess what it is to be human, to be in love, and what is and isn't acceptable behaviour for a commanding officer isolated from her home port. If you want intelligent sci-fi that keeps human issues central, and paramount over the technobabble, check out Babylon 5. I hear the reboot of Battlestar Galactica is good for political sci-fi too.