‘Star Trek: Discovery’s Dr. Kovich Is Pretty Useless as a Doctor but We Like Having Him Onboard
Paging Dr. Kovich. Dr. Kovich. Earth’s healthcare system is getting a little dicey, and the Doctor from Doctor Who is not actually a medical professional. I don’t know where else to turn. So like the rest of the cast of Star Trek: Discovery: I turn my eyes to space.
Dr. Kovich, who are you?
Dr. Kovich was a government official from the 32nd century. He loves Earth stuff! His doctorate was actually in cognitive science. Robots. Synthetic intelligence. That sort of thing. He’s like a … robot therapist?
We first meet Dr. Kovich as he is interrogating the time-traveling Philippa Georgiou upon her arrival at the Human Federation (not to be confused with the Human League, a band from the 80’s). His Roman Empire was the Terran (meaning “Earth”) Empire as he was fascinated by what he saw as the Terran Empire’s driving maxim behind doing anything: “Because we feel like it.”
Kovich also expressed genuine interest in Philippa’s time-traveling shenanigans (because who wouldn’t?). He later helped advise an actual medical doctor, Dr. Hugh Culber, who was trying to treat Philippa’s weird time travel-related disease. His answer, like a real Earth doctor, was basically “I have no idea.”
Despite his apparent lack of knowledge about anything relevant in the present, Dr. Kovich began to work as a consultant for Starfleet Academy. Doing what? Team building exercises. Like some sort of glorified HR department head. He also “helped” Hugh Culber once again during the Dark Matter Anomaly saga. You know, the super destructive gravitational anomaly that suddenly appeared in the Milky Way. His advice to Hugh was essentially “IDK try to get some sleep”. Thanks, Doc. The only thing this guy was ever good for was figuring out what was up with Zora, the AI of the USS Discovery. Turns out the ship’s computer had developed consciousness, and he reasoned that the newly self-christened “Zora” was a brand new sort of synthetic lifeform. Damn, Doc. I could have told you that.
Who plays Dr. Kovich?
The generally useless Dr. Kovich’s only saving grace is that he is played by super cool film director David Cronenberg. You know, the guy who does those gross body horror movies like Videodrome and The Fly. He’s the only reason that the Discovery keeps this guy around. For morale. Being in the presence of a star director playing a doctor is good for something.
(Featured Image: CBS)
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