Star Trek: Voyager — 4x19 — The Killing Game, Part II

Aired 1998-03-04

SpaceOpera.com rating:7

Average reader rating:5.31

Synopsis

A World War II holodeck simulation goes awry.

Remarkable scenes

The drunk Klingon Neelix.
Janeway warning the American soldier Chakotay about the "eccentric people" who live in the "caves."
Tom: "Boy or girl?" Seven: "It's a holographic projection." Torres: "Unfortunately a very good projection. I feel 20 kilos heavier. It even kicks."
Janeway's discussion with the Hirogen captain.
Hirogen: "Sing." Seven: "I will not." Hirogen: "Sing, or you will die." Seven: "Then I'll die." Tuvok: "Seven, you're a valued member of this crew. The logical response would be to grant his request." Seven: "Logic is irrelevant. One day the Borg will assimilate your species, despite your arrogance. When that moment arrives, remember me."
Neelix: "Pardon me, gentlemen. I wonder if I might have a word with you." The doctor: "They're Klingons. Not kittens."
Seven of Nine and her photonic grenade.
Janeway using the range limit of the holographic projectors to her advantage.
The doctor and Neelix unleashing Klingons into World War II...
Janeway killing her would-be hunter.
The peaceful ending.

Review

Why couldn't we get the Wolf 359 simulation mentioned in Part I instead of World War II? I was really, really looking forward to that. It would have made the episode loads less cliched and a lot more fun from a fanboy perspective; for we've not been able to see an unabridged version of the battle of Wolf 359. Also, the death of the Hirogen leader was somewhat cliche. It manufactured some new danger for the last few minutes. And I found it hard to believe Janeway could negotiate a peace so easily even after the two leading Hirogens were killed. Despite that, the peaceful ending was no less gratifying. While giving technology to the Hirogen may be borderline Prime Directive violation territory, I thought that it was truly in the spirit of Star Trek that Janeway cares about helping Hirogen society even after all she'd been through. Well done.

4 reader comments

This two-parter was very enjoyable. I had vague memories of it from when it was originally aired--in particular the surreal image from the end of Part I of the damage from the holo-explosion exposing parts of the ship.
As a fan of "space fantasy" like Dr. Who, Farscape and the like, I especially enjoy Star Trek episodes that find a plausible "hard SF" way of achieving the same kind of general esthetic, such as the juxtapositioning of the WWII setting and the space/future setting in this episode. It struck me as similar in feel to one of the new Dr. Who episodes featuring a spaceship filled with time portals to 17th Century France, but of course using the holodeck technology established in Star Trek to make it less "fantasy".
So my favorable memories of watching the episode 10 years ago were confirmed from this rewatching. Good stuff, IMO. I rated it 8/10.
by David from California | 11/09/2007 at 6:31 pm

Are you kidding me? Klingons going into battle against the Nazis was one of the all-time funniest moments in all of Trek! I thought the guns would be problematic, but I underestimated the Klingon gifts of agility, determination, and the element of surprise!
by Adam | 11/12/2010 at 9:04 am

Don't you think Naomi Wildman probably died 7 times during this episode… >.>
by Gategod | 07/06/2011 at 5:16 am

It's nice to see Neelix actually accomplish something useful. So many times he's an active obstacle the rest of the crew has to overcome in order to achieve their missions-like when he fell down while spelunking, or when he stupidly ignored orders and had his lungs stolen. Getting the Klingons to attack the Nazis, that's amusing.
I really like this episode, but I nearly have an aneurysm every time I watch Seven making that grenade. "This explosive will be harmless to organic tissue but will disrupt all holographic activity within twenty meters." WHAT!? It's a FRAGMENTATION grenade, Seven. How are you going to make that thing detonate without shooting shrapnel everywhere? I mean, I get that's she some sort of super genius with Borg technology, but fragmentation grenades are cannisters filled with TNT and black powder detonators-she's just as likely to get her shoes to emit a "photonic burst" as she is that grenade. And when we see it go of…it doesn't disrupt all holographic activity. It just makes a few holographic people disappear, but the buildings and the ground remain the same.
I'm so thrilled that this thing didn't end up saving the day because it's so ridiculous. It's actually kind of a nice subversion of typical expectations for Voyager that she spends almost half the episode working on this nonsense tech solution, and it end ups backfiring on them. It's probably why this ends up being a good episode in the end-they can't just spin some magic science nonsense to fix everything, they had to suffer and fight to finally agree to a truce.
by Bronn | 08/30/2013 at 9:49 pm