First, I think it is important to point out Number One, which will provide for you, gentle reader, a growing collection of images, all of which depict one Commander William T. Riker.

Second, I’d like to thank Number One for pointing out that today is Captain Picard Day!  Happy Captain Picard Day, everyone!

So close and yet so far.  I could really see the potential lurking in TNG in this one.  Maybe, just maybe, the holodeck would be that boost to get us out of the gravity well of The Black Hole of Really Awful Writing.  And right up until the end, the word appearing most often in my notes is “glee.”

So!  Down to business.  There’s a frame story about a high pressure situation in which Picard has to make contact with a species that is really damn picky about its etiquette.  A single mispronounced syllable may lead to 20 years of the cold shoulder from this race.  Picard is freaking out and Troi actually acts the part of counsellor and instead of saying “augh the pain” or “I can’t sense anything!”, she says, “Hey, why don’t you take a break and try out the awesome new holodeck upgrades?”  Good idea, Counsellor Troi!  And off the captain goes to be a thinly veiled analog of Philip Marlowe or maybe Sam Spade named Dixon Hill.

I find it interesting that the holodeck is introduced here as NEW!  and EXCITING! but not so new and exciting that there isn’t one already built into the Enterprise.  So far we’ve seen it twice; Wesley found Data in there once in a lush forest, and Tasha Yar showed off her mad judo skillz to the Ligonians in That One Racist Episode.  I have to extrapolate here that until now, it’s been capable of producing environments and programs for training, and the upgrade gives it capability to sustain a narrative and realistic human personalities.  I guess.

After confusing Hill’s secretary by wandering in in his Starfleet uniform (am I checking off a list of holodeck cliches already?  Because we can list confusion with Futurestuff as #1, I’m sure), Picard gets super excited and invites Crusher on a sort of date, then ruins it by inviting another crewmember who happens to know a lot about 20th century history (not Tom Paris).  Data also invites himself along after speed reading the full Dixon Hill canon.  Everyone’s got Noir Novel Fever!  It’s all COMPLETELY ADORABLE, too.  And despite the quick introduction of Holodeck Cliche #2 (Something Is Wrong With The Program/We Can’t Leave), their reactions to the past and gleeful grins in the face of things like being arrested for murder and being interrogated are really delightful.  Crusher tries to preen in imitation of a floozy and, when a charmed police officer offers her a stick of gum, she swallows it whole. Data adopts a 1940s gangster movie accent.  Everyone is really into their new toy.

And while they don’t know that anything has gone wrong yet, Riker reaaaaaaally needs the captain.  Alien Emily Post has, despite the massive demands for protocol, decided to start the party early and demands the Captain’s presence.  Geordi announces that the holodeck has sealed itself, and Wesley fucking Crusher decides that he really needs to be part of the rescue attempt.  God help me, but I’m trying to give Wes a fair chance.  However, this is the first point where I start to think, “Uh oh.”

Meanwhile, everyone in the holodeck is idiodically gleeful about being held at gunpoint by Guy Doing A Bad Peter Lorre Impression.  How exciting!  Our lives are being threatened!  Good thing this is the holodeck, so nothing can…. aaaaaaaaaaaand bang, Waylon is shot and I am kicking myself for not spotting the redshirt as soon as he was introduced.  Either the holodeck tech is so young that there aren’t safeties yet, or the probe that fritzed the exits also turned them off.  Without messing up any of the other programming.  Convenient, that.

And with this, we enter the What The Fuck territory of this episode.  Firstly, there’s a DOCTOR there and yet this man is lying on the floor with nothing covering his GUNSHOT WOUND.  And when we cut to the operations outside of the holodeck, it’s to Wesley telling us that if he doesn’t do everything juuuust right, he could “make everyone inside vanish.”  What the goddamn hell is this.  A  holodeck failure, instead of just dropping you into the empty holodeck, CAN APPARENTLY DELETE YOU FROM THE WORLD FOR SOME REASON DESPITE THAT MAKING NO SENSE AT ALL.  I beg someone to tell my why or how the holodeck could kill a real person BY DELETING THEM.  I get stabbed or shot or dropped from a height (oops!), but an unexpected program shutdown?  You crash the holodeck and you die?  I’m sorry, I think that maybe such a flaw would make this inappropriate for recreation OR training. I just…. ugh!  Seriously.  I am so angry at this nonsensical danger AND the fact that this is becoming Wes Saves The Day yet again.  (I guess transporters are also dangerous but used all the time, but really?  The holodeck?  I hope they decided this was fucking stupid, because I never heard anything like this in the many, many holodeck-related episodes of Voyager I watched.)

Oh, and also, characters from the programs should not be able to get past the door of the holodeck at all, not even out into the hallway, so FUCK YOU, THIS EPISODE.

Ahem.  Anyway, the captain gets out and gives his greeting flawlessly, and The Data & Geordi Comedy Hour puts me a little more back in charity with this show.  Good effort, team, but we are not out of the woods yet.