I rather enjoyed seeing an episode that deals with the potential for relationships with holodeck characters in a more mature way than TNG. Sure Janeway has her share of issues, but she at least has it a lot more together in this regard than Barclay ever pulled off. The idea of being able to program your perfect mate might seem fun, and for Janeway it seemed like basically a fling so honestly why not. It seems like the key is being able to walk away and go back to real life after a while which she also seems capable of doing. Presumably society will face a dilemma just like this at some point in the future so best to start thinking it through now.
We open on Paris' latest holodeck creation, the Irish village of Fair Haven where he and Kim hang out at a pub arm wrestling and the Doctor plays a priest so he can lecture people even more than usual. There is an especially thin B story about a wavefront or something which only really has any effect near the end of the episode and really it doesn't matter even then. It does make them sit in the same place for a while so Janeway decides to let Paris keep the program running all the time and even expands it into another holodeck. The captain stops by for a visit that night and is very taken with the bartender, Michael Sullivan, but after spending a few hours together learns he is married. So she comes back in and makes him smarter, more handsome and most importantly single. She returns and the two dance and she deletes all the other characters and starts kissing him. The next day he is moping in the bar and drinking which his character isn't supposed to do. Paris talks to him and learns it is because Janeway has left him. The wavefront thing hits and they have to delete most of the program but Janeway saves Sullivan and locks herself from modifying him again after a long talk with the Doctor.
Review: An almost 100% character episode during which rather little actually happens other than holodeck stuff. Not a terrible episode, but a bit dull.
4 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment