I really wanted this to be a great episode. I certainly thought it was when I was 11, but today it falls a little flatter than it once did. I still think it is a good episode though, so put down the torches. The basic idea of a holodeck program becoming self aware is a little silly, but not wildly so. I guess the holodecks within holodecks idea just seemed a lot fresher in the pre-Matrix world. Also, it seems a bit unrealistic that Moriarty would experience the world the same way we do and would be unable to detect that he was still in a simulation. But I guess maybe he just wanted to believe so bad he didn't notice? I guess he wouldn't really have any basis for comparison either. Ah well, it was a fun ride at least.
We begin with Data and Geordi back in action as Holmes and Watson, but just as Data gets to the grand reveal that the person he is talking to must be the guilty part it all goes awry. Data's reasoning hinges on the man being left handed, but when he is thrown a book of matches he catches it with his right hand. Data realizes something is wrong and shuts it down and calls Barclay to come fix it. He scans the memory for any errors and finds a bunch in a protected memory file. When he runs the file he encounters Moriarty who claims to have been aware inside the memory the entire four years he was saved. Barclay has a hard time believing that a program could be self aware, but he agrees to Moriarty's demand that he be allowed to meet with the captain.
On the bridge the crew are preparing to watch two giant plants collide and turn into a star. Barclay tells Data and Geordi about what happened on the holodeck and they all take it to the captain. Picard, Barclay and Data meet Moriarty on the holodeck and after some speech making Moriarty blows their minds by walking off the holodeck. He further demands that they do everything they can to get his girlfriend off the holodeck as well. Back on the bridge Picard tries to get Worf to fire some probes at the colliding planets but it doesn't work, Moriarty has seized control of the ship! Barclay, Data and Geordi get to work on a plan to use the transporter to get them out of the holodeck. They try it on a chair, but it fails. When Data checks the transporter logs he finds they are empty. Meanwhile Geordi has called Picard down to engineering to try and take command of the ship. Picard tries his voice codes, but it doesn't work. Just then Data arrives and tells the captain they are still in the holodeck, and by saying the command codes he has just given control of the actual Enterprise to Moriarty.
Back on the real bridge Riker is forced to negotiate with Moriarty. If he doesn't get back control of the ship they will be destroyed by their lack of understanding of physics. For some reason the writers believe that the planets colliding and turning into a star will increase their mass which makes absolutely no sense, they have the same total mass they had before the collision, possibly less since they will almost certainly throw matter into space during the collision. But for the purposes of the episode it is a crisis. They trick Moriarty into believing they have solved the problems and beam him and the countess out of the holodeck. They give him a shuttle and he releases control of the ship at which point they store his program in a cube on the captains desk for the rest of the series.
Review: This is a fun adventure episode if you just shut off your brain a few times along the way. I enjoyed watching it, but it didn't seem as rock solid as I remembered.
6 out of 10
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