Review

This is the first of a long line of Voyager Barclay episodes, as odd as it may sound. Barclay was the best choice for this story though. For one, Barclay has struggled with holodiction, which makes this whole episode a bit ironic. Though Barclay presents a very convincing case arguing the doctor is not a hologram but a real person. Had me fooled pretty well. As such, the plot has lots of intrigue. The one flaw in the logic is Barclay's incessant cries for the doctor to destroy the ship, even though it's clear that the holodeck safeties weren't working. Even a simulated warpcore breach would surely kill someone on the holodeck with the safeties off. So as soon as Barclay started acting like that, I knew exactly what was going to happen. The climax thus became something of an anticlimax to me. The climax retains some greatness in the end, expressing some of the doctor's hidden desires. Kes as his wife and a struggle to be a real person. Fortunately the twist at the end where the doctor returned to reality but was in fact in another illusion sparked my interest once again. It reminded me a lot of TNG: Frame of Mind in which Riker couldn't figure out what was real and what wasn't. Fortunately, this wasn't overdone and the episode ended with a particular charm. I like how the doctor had to test putting his arm outside of sickbay just to make sure he was really a hologram.