S4 E18: The Killing Game, Part I

Off-screen, the Hirogen have taken over Voyager and are forcing the crew to participate in war games in the holodeck. Most of the crew have neural interfaces implanted to make them unaware that the holographic surroundings aren't real, with two exceptions: The Doctor is constantly patching up injured crew members (the safeties are, of course, off), and Kim has been conscripted to extend the holodecks into the hallways of the ship. While the main crew is in a world war II scenario (with the Hirogen as the Nazis), the Doctor disables Seven's interface, and gives her instructions on how to disable Janeway's. With the safeties off, an artillery blast blows a hole in the holodeck wall, and the crew (who are mostly still in their program specific roles) move into the halls that Harry has equipped with holo emitters, ready to wage war on the Hirogen. To be continued...

Why? For the first half of the show, I'm just wondering why this is all happening. The early reason given by the Hirogen is that they need to understand their prey. But they've clearly completely overpowered the ship already, and if they're deep enough into the computer to dig up information on WWII, then they'll also know that they won't be seeing any other Federation ships any time soon. I also find it hard to believe that this is really the best way for them to study their prey. So much time is spent on building up this scenario in the beginning, before we've been given a reason to care about its outcome.

Midway through, the Hirogen leader (Karr) gives the explanation that the holodeck technology is the best chance he's seen to advance his people. Violent videogames Holodecks can satisfy the Hirogen need for the hunt without dispersing them throughout the quadrant, giving them the opportunity to work together and build a stronger culture. I like that, it gives the Hirogen something more to hold on to than the "the hunt is life!" mentality from Prey. At the same time, it still doesn't fully explain what they're doing in the holodeck. If they're just going to make the crew act out the part of holodeck characters by using the neural interfaces, why are they even using the crew in the first place? It all seems so incredibly contrived, all for an excuse to do an episode in a WWII setting.

Trek is famous for using sci-fi metaphor to discuss current controversial social issues. But in this episode, it feels like the tables are turned; they're using a current (well, closer to current than the 2400s) setting to discuss Voyager. The same issues are still there, including the annoying Janeway/Seven conflict, but now they're disguising it with a new setting. It all seems so very pointless.

Watchability: 2/5

Bottom Line: I don't know why I should care yet, but maybe that's coming in part II. There haven't been many Trek 2-part episodes where the second lives up to the promise of the first (Chain of Command being a notable exception), but since not much is promised here, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.