When the "Irish village" holodeck program by Tom Paris is thrown into continuous use by the crew, it begins to malfunction. Characters become aware of unexplained "magic" being worked by visiting crew members, and soon come to view them as malicious "spirits" who mean the village harm.
I can understand why the cast and crew of Star Trek: Voyager might have had a lot of fun making "Fair Haven." They got to wear different costumes, film in different locations, and generally take a break from space opera for a week. But I can't help but feel that the writers had a real blind spot about how much the audience might have enjoyed it, to dive back in and continue the story only a few episodes later. Maybe everyone just loved working with the guest cast (they're all back for round two). Maybe they needed to amortize the cost of sets built.
But granting all that, why come back with a story that has even lower stakes than the first time around? At least our first visit to Fair Haven had something to say about Janeway and the emotional tolls of command. This time, the episode is basically about the fictional holodeck characters, and it's impossible to care about what happens to any of the one-off (well, two-off, apparently) stereotypes. The episode doesn't even have anything vaguely interesting to say about the dangers of artificial intelligence, as The Next Generation did when it made a holographic Moriarty sentient (and then cleverly followed up that story).
Indeed, the Voyager characters become virtual guest stars on their own show, and to support the story, their behavior throughout ranges from perplexing to idiotic. Kim is wasting his replicator rations to make flowers for a holographic date (when he could just conjure them on the holodeck). Paris thinks the height of hilarity is to make his "best friend" kiss a cow. (I'm beginning to question why Kim actually wants to be friends with him.) Janeway is far too willing to let this scenario play out even after the lives of her crew are endangered.
If you work hard, there are a few pleasures you can extract from this episode. Ian Abercrombie ("Mr. Pitt" from Seinfeld) joins the guest cast this time around, bringing some additional comedic heft. The jokes at the Doctor's expense all feel pretty fun (even the other holograms think he can be a blowhard). Also, a quirky subset of Trekkers out there have made an annual tradition out of this episode: if you begin playing this episode at 11:49:35pm on December 31st, midnight and the new year will arrive exactly when Harry Kim kisses a cow. (No, I didn't do that this year. Or any other.)
Other observation:
- Just the one: how are the characters able to shoot out the hologrid to turn off the safety protocols? Should those very same protocols keep the characters from being able to inflict that damage in the first place?
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