Enemies All About
"The Killing Game Part One" Plot Summary:
A Hirogen shows up in the midst of a ferocious Klingon battle and wounds Janeway, who appears to be a full Klingon. Four Hirogen ships have surrounded Voyager, and the aliens hold the crew captive by means of neural implants which link into the ship's holo-emitters. The Hirogen leader orders Janeway to be treated in Sickbay and sent to a different holosimulation. There, Seven of Nine is singing and Tuvok is working at a bar which is run by Janeway's character Catrine...in France during the German occupation. Several Hirogen come in dressed as Nazis. Janeway tells them, as she tells all her patrons, to leave the war outside. But once the patrons leave, she announces to Seven that she needs radio equipment. She's the local leader of the French Resistance.
Tuvok suspects that Seven may be a collaborator as her violent impulses threaten them all, but Janeway insists that she's the only munitions expert they have. B'Elanna - here, Brigitte - works the radio and decoding equipment, and warns Janeway that the Allies intend to take St. Clair, and will need the Nazi communications equipment out of commission. Meanwhile, Neelix, who sells bread and wine by bicycle cart, is stopped and threatened by a Hirogen Nazi. Unlike his superior who wants to study the prey, this S.S. officer wants to kill the crew off one by one.
Torres manages to infiltrate Nazi headquarters because she's pregnant with the child of a Nazi officer. She finds the location of the German radio equipment while outside, Neelix and Seven are shot by Hirogen who are tired of waiting for their commandant to give the order to execute the prey. Neelix is treated and sent to the Klingon simulation, but the Doctor awakens Seven while her implant is disabled. He tells her that the Hirogen have had the crew trapped in holodeck simulations for several weeks. The safeties are off, and there have been fatalities. The Doctor warns Seven that she must find the panel in the holodeck to activate the bridge access relays.
Meanwhile, on the bridge, the Hirogen are forcing Harry to help them expand the size and power of the holodecks. The Hirogen leader wants to recreate the battle with the Borg at Wolf 359 next, but his underling insists that they should take their trophies and move on. The alpha Hirogen argues that their race is slowly dying out in pursuit of the hunt, but with a holodeck, they could keep the hunt tradition without having to spread all over the quadrant to do it. The technology could save Hirogen culture.
Seven has problems when she returns to the holodeck because she no longer remembers the words to the songs her character was programmed to sing; Janeway becomes further suspicious that she may be a spy. Still, she plans to take Seven with her to break into Nazi headquarters to disable the radio, though Seven forgets to connect the detonater. Meanwhile, the Allied forces arrive, led by Captain Miller (Chakotay) and his lieutenant, Bobby Davis (Tom Paris), who was once Brigitte's lover and never forgot her - or St. Clair. While Janeway transcribes the German messages, Seven searches for the holodeck controls. Janeway catches her and is about to shoot her when Harry and the Doc successfully disable Janeway's neural implant, and she remembers who she is.
Chakotay meets and joins up with Tuvok in the struggle against the Hirogen. The "Americans" blow up the Nazi building just as Janeway and Seven escape, but the grids overload. The building takes on the appearance of an incomplete hologram, which Chakotay assumes is a new type of Nazi bunker. At the same time, with the safeties off, holograms begin to appear all over the ship. Harry warns the Alpha Hirogen that he now has a real war on all the decks of Voyager.
Analysis:
That's right: Janeway's a Maquis, and Chakotay's a captain for the Allied Forces. Never let it be said that the Hirogen don't have a sense of humor. I really enjoyed this episode, though as with most Voyager two-parters, the best aspects were lost to a reset button. In this case, both Fierce Klingon Janeway and Alluring Resistance Restaurant Owner Janeway vanished much too quickly, not to mention Seven the Singing Borg. But we still have a pregnant spy Torres, a hot young soldier Paris, and Captain Chakotay, so I don't think the fun's over yet.
Things I liked: terrific directing, particularly the lighting, with a fast-paced and engrossing script. Also the Hirogen explanation for why the holodeck could be so important to them. They still remind me too much of the Tosk from Deep Space Nine, but the parallels with the Nazis were effective and disturbing. I loved the whole idea of "Catrine's," and the look of the place - classier than Sandrine's - in addition to Nazi headquarters, with pillaged European art adorning the walls. The cast was very well-used, I liked the way Roxann Dawson's pregnancy was worked into the storyline and the discovery that Jeri Ryan can sing. Chakotay and Paris had nice moments together; these two should get more casual interaction within the context of rank hierarchy.
Things that bugged me: the Doc and Harry have been working for the Hirogen while their captors tortured the crew for three WEEKS, without trying to blow the ship up or anything? Harry appears to have had quite a bit of access to ship's systems; I'd think he'd have tried some of the hot-headed stuff he pulled when Tuvok was in command and he didn't like the Vulcan's orders. Moreover, I can't believe that the Hirogen are incapable of creating holographic technology but they ARE capable of using neural implants to hook into it so completely that they can control the crew. And if the Hirogen are nomadic and lack a home base, where do they keep their women?