Sooooo nice to be back on a physical keyboard! Touch screens have come a long way but I am probably ten times faster typing on the real thing. And speaking of things that aren't quite real, tonight episode over Voyager falls into the classic TNG category of episodes about the holodeck going wrong. This time though the cause isn't hitting some sort of energy field in space or something, it is sabotage. Probably the biggest thing this episode did was make me realize that I really don't miss Seska. She wasn't a great character and her love of Chakotay never really felt like a real relationship. I did really enjoy the cold opening of Chakotay asking Torres to join his mutiny though, that was pretty badass.
Speaking of, we open with Chakotay complaining about Tuvok to Torres and then in the turbolift asking her to join his mutiny. She is hesitant but agrees. On the bridge the captain leaves for a mission on a shuttle and as soon as she is gone Chakotay signals his allies. They take out Tuvok and Torres shoots Kim. All the officers are thrown into the brig the rest of the crew are held in the cargo bay and given the option of joining the rebellion or being marooned on a planet forever. Just then Paris walks in and asks Torres what is going on. She pauses the program and eventually tells him she found this holonovel in the ships databases but can't figure out who wrote it. He insists on joining and plays the program for a while. It doesn't work out since he opposes the mutiny but he tries again, this time joining in. It plays up to the point where Janeway gets onto the ship with the holographic Paris who the real Paris confronts in the transporter room and then the program ends.
They also discover while talking about it that Neelix and several other crew members have discovered the program. At briefing the captain brings it up and Tuvok admits to having created the program. He is also worried that it would inspire an actual rebellion and insists on deleting it. But Janeway overrules him and even orders him to finish it. It seems she is a fan too. Tuvok resists so Paris volunteers. In the mess hall Paris is working on the program when Tuvok walks in. He insists on helping finish the program and Paris objects, but then he learns Tuvok is the only one who can edit it so he agrees. They open the program for editing in the holodeck when everything shimmers for a second. On the bridge they find that the holodecks are locked and the transporters are down.
In the program Tuvok and Paris find themselves in the brig confronted by Seska. She explains she found the program and booby trapped it so the next time Tuvok edited it this would happen. The safeties are off and there is now way out. She tells them to run and they realize they have little choice. They head to the transporter room and run into Janeway, but she is killed when her phaser backfires. Seska shoots Paris in the arm and they flee again. This time in sickbay they are attacked by the Doctor and forced to flee into the Jeffery's tubes. They encounter a plasma fire but the real Janeway has figured a way to help so a fire extinguisher appears. She tries sending them a message but they get caught as the Seska program adapts. They end up in the cargo bay but Janeway gets an alien race to attack just then and they get a gun. Seska threatens to destroy the ship unless they give her back the guns so Tuvok rigs it to explode before giving it to her. She fails to notice and after being killed the program ends.
Review: This episode manages to examine entertainment in the future in a very interesting way. So much so that the holodeck is trying to kill them trope managed to actually be interesting in a way it hasn't for a while.
8 out of 10
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