Star Trek: Voyager — 3x25 — Worst Case Scenario

Aired 1997-05-14

SpaceOpera.com rating:5

Average reader rating:6.35

Synopsis

A holo-novel program becomes all too real.

Remarkable scenes

Chakotay starting a mutiny out of nowhere...
Seska's appearance.
Tom walking in on Torres' holodeck experience.
Neelix, Tom, and Torres discussing the how the holonovel reacts to different situations.
The holonovel ending right when Tom meets Tom. :)
Tuvok declaring himself the author of the holonovel.
Janeway showing enthusiasm for the holonovel. That's kind of surreal.
Holographic Janeway vaporizing herself due to the sabotaged phaser rifle.
Tuvok reconfiguring the phaser to overload on Seska.

Review

The writers were trying to set up a mysterious opening plot, similar to what they did in Voy: Distant Origin. But it seemed pretty obvious directly after the opening credits that things weren't exactly as they seemed. Tuvok mentioned something about Chakotay's "new duties" as first officer, and Torres was called an ensign by Chakotay. If the mystery was to be successful, they should have cleaned up those details. Instead, the mystery was totally unsuccessful and I knew right off the bat that this was all holographic. Seska's appearance kind of solidified this. Yes, we're on Voyager in early season one. Either through a holodeck program or some kind of temporal anomaly. At least the holodeck thing was more original. That said, I did enjoy the concept of this story quite a bit. And it's something of an irony that in the last aired episode of Star Trek, we get a story in which all the Maquis are slaughtered. (DS9: Blaze of Glory) In this episode they come back in full force through Voyager. I guess the writers don't want to let them die. ;) This harmless and cute story goes quickly sour once again though. It seems so petty that Seska had nothing better to do than to tamper with Tuvok's holonovel in the small chance that it might score her some revenge some day. So while the episode is entertaining and exciting, the flaws make an average episode at best.

7 reader comments

Holy crap. This episode just placed in my list of (underrated) favorites. It has an excellent premise and the "mutiny simulation" is just damn cool to watch. Especially the very beginning, before Paris interrupts Torres' simulation. Somewhere in those first ambiguous minutes I started to think, "This has got to be some kind of holoprogram or something," but even with those suspicions the initial scenes have a certain undeniable "HOLY SHIT" factor. Chakotay takes over Voyager. There's a shootout on the bridge. Torres shoots Harry. Full-scale mutiny. Just awesome.
It's also neat how everyone IRL is part secretive, part excited, part embarrassed about the whole thing, and I love Janeway's reaction to the matter: "I'm not just a captain of a ship. I'm the leader of a community, and communities need entertainment." Interesting to see how the crew and leadership reacts to an "inflammatory" subject matter.
The twist at the end with "Seska's ghost" haunting and torturing Tuvok and Paris is satisfactory and quite plausible (a "booby-trapped" holoprogram, safeties off, makes sense to me). The insane doctor is quite amusing to watch as well. Ending is fine.
IMHO, it's the basic premise that earns this episode its points, not so much the specific details.
(RE whether or not Seska had better things to do than booby trap Tuvok's holonovel… hmm.. kind of a fair point. She's not really an irrational character… or at least, she's only irrational when it comes to Chakotay. At the same time, this may not have been such an irrational thing for her to do. If her intent was to eventually take control of Voyager, what better thing to do than to kill off Voyager's security officer? Tuvok would've been priority one (after Janeway) and this holo-boobytrap thing selectively targets Tuvok, as opposed to some kine of less specific form of sabotage that could kill potentially useful Maquis crewmen.)
by holy@crap | 09/16/2011 at 3:24 am

I don't think it was a matter of Seska hoping to get retribution one day. I imagine that she thought Tuvok would activate her version of the program much sooner, probably prior to when she eventually left the ship. I figure that she was not expecting Tuvok to begin to trust the Maquis crew members and stop creating additions to the program.
by Vincent | 10/03/2011 at 4:26 am

This is perhaps my favorite star trek episode of all time. The part I liked best was in the beginning when all those Borg cubes were coming at the voyager when all of a sudden,they were destroyed by an aliens phaser(8472)
by Janice Trekkie | 07/06/2012 at 6:00 pm

I just love this one, especially that everyone have the notion that they are so well fitted to contribute and improve on the revolt scenario. Neelix, Torres and in the end even Ceska.
With just a few small changes this could have been one fantastic episode…
-Someone stop me, now I am doing it too!!!!
by TheAnt | 10/10/2013 at 9:50 pm

Some amusing ironic meta-commentary from Chakotay on the illogic of Voyager's usual episode formula… "Under my command, we won't let almighty Federation principles get in the way of opportunites, the way Janeway did when she destroyed the array that could have gotten us home. And we won't be wasting precious time stopping to investigate every insignificant anomaly that we come across. What we will do is use any means necessary to acquire technology that can shorten our journey home. To hell with Starfleet regulations."
Seems like the writers acknowledging some of the inconsistent decisions given Voyager's prime motivation.
by L | 12/22/2013 at 7:23 am

The Vulcan book Dictations on Poetics surely must reference Aristotle's Poetics. A book most hollywood writers are acquainted with.
by Mikael | 01/28/2014 at 10:49 pm

Oh boy, what a surprise - another holodeck episode! Thank goodness we traveled all the way to the Delta quadrant just to have half the episodes from this season be about the holodeck. How did this show last 7 seven seasons? Does it get better? It has to, it couldn't get much worse…
by thaibites | 05/19/2014 at 12:13 pm