Season 4, Episode 6 “Virtuoso" (VOY) with Asterios Kokkinos

Get ready to sing some royalty-free tunes as we warm up our pipes for “Virtuoso”!

Comedian, writer, and podcaster Asterios Kokkinos joins the show this week for a look at an episode of Star Trek: Voyager that explores the nature of humanity, artistic expression, and working on the railroad. The Doctor becomes a singing sensation when the crew meets a race that has never before heard music. As his fame increases and his captain expresses her reservations, the Doctor must decide if being human means following your dreams or fulfilling your responsibilities.

Voyager gets its own “Measure of a Man” in this episode, and both the Doctor’s responsibility to the crew and the crew’s responsibility to him as a sentient being are weighed in the balance. During our discussion, we talk about why ethical dilemmas are so entertaining and how sci-fi makes them more palatable, the “AI trolley car problem”, how far the egalitarian nature of the Federation extends, whether an unjust deed can be considered moral, how the Doctor is the opposite of Data, and why Trek’s problems are about us and not the future.

We also talk about what to do if your toaster makes a toaster, proving you can play the sax, Nintendo in the woods, the Doctor drawing boobs, the Napster planet, the “Musical Prime directive”, Voyager as The Breakfast Club in space, Delta Quadrant trap music, Aaron wants to know how long you wait to introduce someone to the DMB, and Asterios compares Neelix to Han Solo!

What the hell does Harry Kim do, anyway?