Helping an alien race with a superiority complex, the Doctor's singing causes consternation, as the visitors have never heard music before. After regular performances, the Doctor becomes the latest star attraction with hordes of fans and requests for regular concerts. Will he be tempted away from Voyager?
Now, do any of you out there think this sounds like a great set-up for an episode? Well, at some point the Voyager execs sat down and listened to someone pitch this concept to them, and said 'Yes, that's a fantastic idea. Let's do it.' So how did it all go so wrong? Well, firstly, everyone knows that in drama you have to have conflict, and there's none here until far too late in the day. The visiting aliens get off to a good start with their superiority, but this quickly fades into the background, as putting the equally superior Doctor centre stage, as it were, loses all the fun this could bring.
There's no examination of the aliens themselves, just the Doctor trying to 'find himself' and far too much singing. Now, if it was Robert Picardo (and a fair amount is), this might be quite enjoyable, but watching him mime to opera becomes increasingly tedious, culminating in his finale performance which brings Janeway to tears.
The Doctor's programming also shouldn't allow half of the things he manages here, especially his jealousy of his replacement, and I don't see how he can imbue music with his 'heart and soul' when, like Data, his voice is only a collection of algorithms mimicking another person's singing ability. He should only be able to duplicate a performance, not interpret it. More could have been made of the aliens' desire to make music, too. Perhaps the Doctor teaching them that it isn't just mathematics, it's feeling that makes music good. Even if you've never heard music before, that doesn't mean you'll like anything.
There are some fun comments on the nature of fandom (although Seven seems unusually stupid on the issue) and some high quality scenes between the Doctor and Janeway and him and Seven. However, Virtuoso drags horribly, bores the viewer to tears and doesn't offer much of a moral, or anything else for that matter, by the end. Over the next few episodes, we've got Seven in a wrestling match, Borg kids and a return to Fair Haven. If that's the best the writers can come up with, Voyager and Star Trek itself could meet a horribly death. After this badly-judged run of episodes, you can almost hear Gene Roddenberry spinning in his grave.
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