You know things have gotten bad when one of your main characters, Harry Kim in this case, has less success with romance than a side character from another series who is most known for being super awkward. Yup, I am talking about Reg. I actually rather liked this episode honestly and it had some of the better Troi stuff from any series honestly. I have always thought they totally wasted having an empath on TNG by never using her to their advantage. Hell, in The Price we see a Betazoid who knows what to do with his powers while Troi I guess uses in in her counselling but never seems to usefully help Picard in dealing with hostile aliens. I also thought it was funny that the thing about the Barclay hologram that the Doctor finds so strange is how not socially awkward he is, which if you actually know Reg, is a huge change.
We open with the news that the regular data transmission from Earth didn't make it last month and something is up with the current one. Kim has been up working with Seven on it all night and the two of them discuss their discovery that it is a hologram. It damages the computer a bit, but Kim gets it downloaded. Next Janeway is introduced to the guest, a holographic Barclay! He has plans to send Voyager home now through some sort of dangerous radiation gateway thing, but he promises that his shield modifications will protect them. Back on earth though things aren't going so well, they know that their last two attempts to send the Barclay hologram haven't worked but they don't know why. On Voyager they are preparing to send a reply when the Barclay hologram adds his own message which we see being received by his real masters, some Ferengi jerks. This kinda spoils a bit the rest of the episode since it could have been a mystery who is interfering and why, but no, it is Ferengi and they want nano-probes.
Barclay's boss makes him take time off since he is back to not trusting Barclay again, but honestly I kinda get it too. Instead of actually relaxing though he goes straight to Troi and gets her to help him investigate. She eventually figures out that his ex-girlfriend is a con artist working for the Ferengi and after some creative interrogation Troi gets her to spill the beans, but it is too late, The Ferengi are opening the portal for Voyager. The Barclay hologram knocks out Seven but the real Barclay convinces the Ferengi he is the hologram and gets them to start closing the portal. Hologram Barclay freaks out and beams him and Seven into an escape pod that he takes though, but Voyager beams him and Seven out in time.
Review: There are a few things I would call plot holes in this episode, but overall it actually works pretty well. Troi is better in this than in most of TNG and Barclay is interesting to see in two ways.
6 out of 10
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