Awhile back I talked about some of the goofier transporter malfunctions on Star Trek. Writers love making that piece of technology fail in some spectacular way. But the transporter isn’t the only one. When we were first introduced to the holodeck in TNG, you just knew crazy malfunctions were on the way. And we sure got them!
To be fair holodecks were used for many things, like training exercises or just the crew killing some time. It duplicated the original Enterprise bridge in “Relics” and helped Seven of Nine explore her humanity in Voyager. But they are the most fun when things don’t go quite as planned!
So this list covers actual malfunctions so lots of episodes don’t count like the idiotic holo-novels we got also on Voyager (Seriously who thought tat was a good idea?) or the boring as all hell TNG “Cost of Living” episode. Also doesn’t include “Hollow Pursuits” which deserves its own underrated article or the series finale of Enterprise which I’d rather not discuss anyway.
Here are the five best and worst Holodeck malfunctions. Starting with the Best (in no specific order)
The Big Goodbye
Ok ok, this is not my favorite episode. It’s full of season one tropes that makes it hard for me to get into. The malfunction doesn’t even make sense, aliens scanning them cause the malfunction? what? and yet Picard, Crusher, and Data end up stuck in a Dixon Hill simulation where, of course, the safeties are off. Time is also of the essence due to aliens which really play no part in anything. There is some great dialogue here and it did set a standard that the rest of these episode, good or bad, will follow. The setting and mood is good, 40’s detective noir, and the Dixon Hill program would return again which cool.
A Fistful of Data’s
It would be so easy to hate this episode. I mean, real easy. But I can’t bring myself to. It’s another episode where they knew it was silly and just had fun with it. Worf’s wild west program is interrupted by a glitch in Data. Worf and Troi are trapped with gun slingers who look like Data and even have all of Data’s abilities. I think I like this for one simple reason, Brent Spiner. He does like six different characters and is superb in all of them. As far a wile west episode of Trek goes, this one isn’t half bad.
Our Man Bashir
DS9 doesn’t have many of these, for obvious reasons, so I can certainly forgive that they dabbled at least once. Ok there was an episode about Sisko playing baseball which is so dumb, but not a malfunction episode per se. I love this episode! A shuttle accident causes the patterns of Sisko, O’Brien, Kira, and Dax to take the plaxe of characters in Bashir’s story which is a spoof of James Bond movies. I think what makes it work is how committed the actors are. They are clearly having fun. And the malfunction makes sense. More or less. I put this on my transporter malfunction list also but it works as a holosuite malfunction too. I think the coolest thing in this one for me is that everyone is involved, including the officers trying to solve the mess and restore the crew to normal. By the way Voyager ripped this off with “Heroes and Demons” only it was Beowulf not James Bond that time. It was not as good.
Bride of Chaotica
As I noted above, the holodeck episodes should have been an excuse to have fun. And this episode sure does, it’s campy and silly and you gotta love it. Tom Paris has this program which is a spoof of old sci fi serials like Flash Gordon. Aliens accidentally think it’s real, and start a war with the holograms. In order to solve the problem the crew need to enter the program as characters and convince the aliens of there mistake. This episode is soaked in campy sci fi with brilliant overacting and even a sepia tone environment….and loves every second of it.
Worst Case Scenario
This episode is a lot better than it needs to be. It feels like a filler episode, “Scorpion” was next I think, but it takes its premise and works. Tuvok’s training exercise in case of Maquis rebellion is mistaken as a story someone wrote and never finished. When the crew decide ti finish, Tom and Tuvok get trapped in the simulation. Turns out Seska found the program and decided to tinker with it to punish the Voyager crew. Of course the malfunctions affect the ship as well as those in the holodeck. It’s a cute episode and the mutiny parts in the start are also well done, it’s fun to see Chakotay be bad ass.
Ok, so now the worst:
11001001
Ah, season one TNG. Why did you have to suck? Ok this is an unusual one, these aliens called the Bynars steal the Enterprise. They use the holodeck to trick Picard and Riker into coming along for the ride. How do they do this? They create a holographic woman really real. So real that Riker is smitten with her. It’s boring and forgettable, but to be fair not the worst of season one either.
Elemenrary Dear Data/Ship in a Bottle
I decided the lump these together since one is a sequel to the other. Even though I kind of like Ship in a Bottle. But man is Elementary Dear Data stupid. Putting aside Pulaski, who was in supreme irritant mode in his one, the whole thing makes no sense. As Geordi and Data masquerade as Holmes and Watson, Moriarty becomes self aware, somehow. He even starts to take over the ship. They defeat him by talking him into surrendering. Wow, exciting. And the follow up has its charming moments in the first half but the idea that Moriarty could take over the real Enterprise in the second half pushes things a tad. And how Picard defeats Moriarty is about as predictable as it gets! Ship in a Bottle is not as bad “Dear Data”, by a long short, but the more I see it the more goofy it seems.
Emergence
I think we all know that Season 7 TNG had its problems and this episode is no exception. Not the worst, by far, but you can see there were issues. And man does the directing and acting seem so slow. At one point LaForge has a line it sounds like he’s half asleep. The story makes no sense you can basically sum it up with “Stuff happens, the end”. Ok so he Enterprise is growing an intelligence and the clues to what is happened, and how to stop it, are on the holodeck. For reasons I guess. The emerging intelligence’s goal is to create an alien…thing, that leaves at the end. While the crew are not trapped on the holodeck that’s where the majority of story takes place, and it really makes no sense. Though the idea of Worf shoveling coal to get the warp engines to work is kind of funny.
“Badda-Bing Badda-Bang”
Ok this isn’t a holodeck malfunction per se but man is this episode stupid. I guess it is a malfunction a little since it’s an error in the program that causes this dilemma. Vic Fontaine was a lounge singer who had a sentience of sorts, he knew he was a hologram and the crew existed outside the holosuite. I guess someone liked him because we got this awful episode about Vic and mobsters. They crew needs to fill pretend to be characters in the scenario to fix it, and I feel like I already wrote that line. Been there, done that and very forgettable. The final season of DS9 wasn’t as bad as TNG but it wasn’t perfect either!
Spirit Folk
UGGGHHH. Yeah Fair Haven I decided just didn’t count as a malfunction episode, but this one does. I’m sad to say. So the village of Fair Haven is still a thing until one day the programs starts to break down because its been running 24 hours a day. Why?? At first its not that big a deal until the malfunctions make the villagers aware that the crew is not who they think they are. They kidnap Tom and Harry, and the Doctor, and Janeway solves the problem by talking to the villagers. Ugh, I hate this episode. This may be the worst case of the “Why can’t they just shut the damn program down?” cliche that has to be explained away in all of these episode. The reason? Because they know the people who live there they can’t do that! Please.
Holodeck is something I would love to have in the real world. Though transporters maybe more so.
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