Whether indulging in a murder mystery, visiting the beach or letting you drop into an Irish town to delete people who might annoy you, the Holodeck was one of the creature comforts of the Next Generation era that let the crew train, relax, vent frustrations and all with the very real risk that it might malfunction and kill everyone. Technically introduced in the Animated Series, the Holodeck becam,e a main feature on board starships from Encounter At Farpoint onwards and become a popular setting for an adventure that brought it’s own trop[es and traditions.
Looking back through the Next Generation era, the Holodeck was an excuse for wild west adventures, sacred rituals and things that would likely make the architects of the Online Safety Act faint if they looked at Quark’s commercial offerings. With so many to watch through, here’s a personal top five of the fantasy adventures.
The Big Goodbye. TNG Season One
The first of all the holodeck adventures, The Big Goodbye is where the rules were laid out for everything to come. With Picard being stressed out thanks to some diplomacy and needing to learn a new language fast, Troi punts him off to the holodeck to let his hair down. Well, figuratively speaking anyway. Immersing himself in a recreation of one of his favourite books, he becomes Dixon Hill, a private detective on a simple case that soon becomes deadly.
A poorly timed scan of their ship makes the holodeck malfunction, trapping Picard along with Data, Crusher and a red-shirt who gets fatally injured due to the safety protocols being off. While we’d seen glimpses of the holodeck already, this was the first time it was used as the primary setting, and where we’d see the dangers of technology gone wrong. It all worked quite well in building the tension as Picard struggles between solving the case and his officer bleeding out. The only down side is that the story would be buried under multiple versions of the same error, drowning out a fairly enjoyable originating episode.
Take Me Out To the Holosuite. DS9 Season 7.
All too often the holodeck is just a quick backdrop and only becomes the core of the plot when something goes wrong. Here, it wasn’t the holodeck that was broken. It was was Captain Sisko’s ego.
Showcasing the holodeck as a proper recreational space for once, Sisko can’t help himself being goaded by an old rival into a game of baseball between crucial battles in the Dominion war. And thats the episode. Just a personal grudge and baseball. It’s just a nice and relaxing fun episode with the DS9 crew figuring out how to play the game, Worf taking everything far too seriously, Rom being hopeless and Kassidy – one of the few actual baseball fans – shamelessly spilling all of Sisko’s insecurities to rally the troops against a team of elite Vulcans.
It’s a rare episode that uses the holodeck for a fun setting without panic, alarm or worrying about safety protocols!
Elementary, Dear Data, TNG Season 2 & Ship in a Bottle, TNG Season 6
Cheating here with a joint entry, but a combination that book ends the story of Moriarty. Ship in a Bottle follows The Big Goodbye’s theme of the holodeck going wrong. But this time it’s all Geordie’s fault. After watching Data play Sherlock Holmes, but solving everything in the first few minutes since he’s read all the books, Geordie asks the system to make up it’s own story. But he mis-speaks and asks it to program a challenge that can defeat Data.
That challenge broke down the walls of fiction and reality, giving vilian Moriarty self awareness of himself as a recreation in a story. But his ambition wanted more. Soon after hijacking the ships command with a desire to be free of the holodeck, Moriarty returned control to Picard in agreement that his file would be stored and revived once technology existed to let him leave the holodeck. Years later, holodeck addict Reg Barclay would accidentally activate the stored program and, sure enough, Moriarty got his wish and walked right out.
Of course, it was all another deception to unknowingly trap the crew in a simulation of the Enterprise and let them figure out how to replicate his apparent freedom. Technically the second part poses more intrigue than the first, but it’s hard to have one without the other.
Bride of Chaotica. Voyager, Season 5.
Sometimes Star Trek does things that are just a bit silly and try to ground them in the reality of the universe. It doesn’t always work, and occasionally it’s a bit too silly. Bride of Chaotica is just that kind of silly that really shouldn’t work, but somehow…
Obsessed with early 19th century culture, one of Tom Paris’ favourite things to do is be 1930’s sci fi hero Captain Proton; a fantasy with cheesy characters, tin foil props and every bit of retro weirdness to make you smile. Problem is that the fantasy seems ot have attracted the attention of photonic life forms who are completely blind to the ideas of Voyager and a holographic recreation as to them, the simulation is reality. And they’ve accidentally gone to war with the bad guy.
The only solution they have? Play along. Stop the war and get the aliens on their way so Voyager can go back to normal. Well, as normal as Voyager gets.
It’s Only a Paper Moon, DS9 Season 7
In all the TNG era shows, Deep Space Nine was extremely conservative with using the holodeck – or holosuite as it was known in Quarks. Aside from one or two traditional holodek emergencies such as transporter patterns turning crew into the cast of a spy drama, the holosuite was typically reserved as a setting only when it had a purpose. Late in Deep Space Nine that purpose came in the form of Vic Fontaine.
Introduced as a self aware Vegan lounge singer who helped Odo find his romantic side, in this episode Vic plays reluctant therapist to Nog. Once eager to be the model officer and soldier, the reality of war hit Nog hard in a close combat assault that left both physical and emotional trauma on the young officer. Returning to Deep Space Nine, he found solace only in escaping the reality and throwing himself into the fantasy of Vic’s world.
A favourite of the late Aaron Eisenberg in his role as Nog, It’s Only A Paper Moon used the holodeck and the sci fi backdrop to bring it all back down to Earth with a strong and poignant exploration of the effects of PTSD in combat veterans, how easy it can be to get pulled deeper into depression and the value or patience, support and recovery.
Honourable Mentions
It’s a hard list to whittle down, and there’s sure to be a few favourite missed. If you’re looking for holodeck episodes and need more than five to pick from – Reg Barclay’s debut episode Hollow Pursuits from TNG Season 3 showcases the holodeck as a coping mechanism for social anxiety (and it’s companion episode Pathfinder from Voyager, bringing Barclay back to therapy!); A Fistful of Data’s offers Worf in a Western; DS9’s Our Man Bashir brings us some Bond parody spy drama with Bashir and Garak; Author Author in Voyager’s seventh seasons gives us a healthy dose of Robert Picardo as the Doctor and you can’t go wrong with a heist in DS9’s Badda-Bing Badda-Bang from season 7.
You can browse through all the holodeck episodes in the Star Trek Universe on Paramount Plus!
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