[8.3/10] I love it when a story has layers. “In-universe” the Voyager crew has been cast as a small but plucky and resourceful resistance group trying to fend off their malevolent occupiers. In “real life” the Voyager crew are also a small but plucky and resourceful resistance group trying to fend off their malevolent occupiers.
Because the Hirogen have taken over the ship off screen, but rather than eviscerating our heroes and collecting their organs and bones, these hunters want to use the crew as fodder for their games on the holodeck, which recreate famous historical battles in the guise of teaching the Hirogen more about their enemies.
Like all holodeck stories, you do need to walk into this one with a fair amount of willing suspension of disbelief. This whole episode turns on the hunt-obsessed Hirogen having “neural interfaces” that not only work nicely with human (and Vulcan and Talaxian and half-Klingon) biology, but are able to sync perfectly with the holodeck’s database and (mostly) override the crewmembers’ actual personalities and memories. Technology has long been basically magic in Star Trek to this point, and “The Killing Game” duology leans hard into that, but the quality of the story justifies the indulgence.
Because unlike much of Voyager, this episode is just plain cool. Many holodeck episodes in Star Trek know how fun it is to see our heroes step outside of their workaday professionalism and cosplay in some unique setting for a while. There’s something downright neat about transposing Janeway and company into a Cabaret style nightclub, where they entertain Nazis by night but plot against them by day. Hell, kicking things off with the Captain as a Klingon comes with a winning novelty to it.
This is a monotony-breaker of the highest order, and watching the good guys decode allied messages to aid the resistance, or fire machine guns at alien nazis has a cool factor that’s tough to articulate.
But I think some of it comes from how well “cast” everyone is. The first half of the “Killing Game” makes great hay from the roles the Voyager crew step into. Some of the dynamics are a little convenient, but I’ll take it in the name of engaging character interactions and fun surprises. The parallels between the characters’ real life roles and their fictional personas are especially striking.
Janeway is a natural as the head of the resistance unit who has to use diplomacy with her adversaries and guile in the shadows. She’s obviously skilled as a leader, so the shoe fits, but it’s also a treat to see her schmooze guests and play host in a way we don’t often get to see. Tuvok slots in nicely as her number two, the “logical” tactician of her squadron. And Neelix as the well-met baker who’s nonetheless aiding the resistance is a fun role for him.
The best “casting”, though, is Seven, who plays the musical entertainment in Janeway’s club, but is the pugnacious and mistrusted munitions expert for the resistance in her spare time. While a touch too coincidental, I appreciate how Seven’s role as the new addition to the resistance unit whom the others worry may be an untrustworthy turncoat, at the same time Seven herself is a new addition to the Voyager crew who’s given Janeway and company cause for alarm about her loyalties.
Seven’s 1940s musical numbers go on a bit long (and oddly presage a bit of Borg balladeering in Star Trek: Picard), but this is as different a persona as we’ve seen her take on, while the character’s “shoot first, ask questions” later nature cannot be denied. That’s one of the things I like about the construction of this one; you can see the characters’ real personalities bleeding through their programming in interesting ways.
That dynamic also works when Harry and The Doctor figure out a way to de-hypnotize Seven while she’s in the simulation, at the cost of her not remembering anything about the scenario she’s been plopped into or the character she’s supposed to play. The way French Resistance Leader Janeway suspects Munitions Expert Seven of being a double agent dovetails nicely with how the real Seven suddenly seems uninterested in their plans to bring down the Nazi communications grid and “forgets” to do basic tasks for the explosives. It’s canny and clockwork writing.
The same goes for how Harry and the EMH are working with a few collaborators to try to surreptitiously take back the ship at the same time Faux Janeway and her collaborators are trying to take back their French village. And the parallels even benefit the characters who aren’t involved in the simulations.
To the point, this may be the most I’ve ever liked Harry. He often takes on the role of the naive, wide-eyed ensign. But here he’s courageous, assertive, clever, and even a little manipulative. The way he stands up to his Hirogen captors making him repair and remake the ship, the way he conspires with the Doctor to find a means of subduing them, and the way he covers up his actions by invoking the Hirogen chain of command all show a guile and a self-possession we’ve never really seen from Harry before. Let’s see more of it!
This is an equally good outing for The Doctor. His twin roles of having to patch up the poor souls injured in the Hirogen’s games, while working against them in secret, recalls his actions in “The Basics” and shows how he can “do no harm” while also taking steps to protect and defend his colleagues and friends.
Hell, even the Hirogen are interesting here! To date, they’ve mostly gotten by on vibes alone, as tall, menacing, single-minded hunters who thrive on the intimidation factor of their look and their trophy rooms. Here, we get a little bit more. The Alpha Hirogen, the one who organized this peculiar kind of theater, isn’t just playing around in the holodeck. He’s trying to forge a new way forward for his people. There’ll be more to explore here in the second half, but the idea that he’s a Hirogen who sees a day beyond “the hunt” as an all-consuming thing for his culture, but rather a need that could be met through this technology, freeing them to do more, and do better, once this “territory” is exhausted, is intriguing.
Not for nothing, it’s also nice to see him dress down a Nazi! It works on multiple levels. For one, it helps demonstrate that there’s something sympathetic, even honorable about the Alpha Hirogen, even though he’s the antagonist here. For another, it countermands Star Trek’s unfortunate history of Nazi apologia (mostly in The Original Series). It shouldn't be a big stretch to have a character say “Nazis are bad,” but considering how hard it’s been to get current political leaders to admit that, and considering how Star Trek itself has tried to excuse Nazism in oblique ways, there’s something oddly rousing about hearing this alien brute point out the flaws in the Third Reich’s ideology and dub them cowards.
That’s just another layer to add onto this one. What’s great about “The Killing Game” is that it works on multiple levels.
It works as pure story. Even if you didn’t have the Hirogen, the tale of a small French resistance band trying to weaken their Nazi occupiers before the American cavalry arrives is an exciting plot. Even if you didn’t know Tom and B’Elanna’s romantic history, the tale of an American G.I. reuniting with his onetime French sweetheart, only to find she’s a member of the resistance carrying a Nazi officer’s baby, is a captivating setup. Even if you didn’t have the holodeck simulations, the story of the Doctor and Harry working under the Hirogen’s noses to take back the ship with guts and guile is gripping.
And then, with all those layers, all those parallels, Voyager literally blows up the walls between them. Suddenly, the American soldiers think they’ve found a Nazi bunker. The Hirogen on Voyager have to deal with holographic/brainwashed characters spilling out onto the regular corridors of the ship. The fake good guys and the real bad guys and the fake bad guys and the real good guys are all suddenly mixed together into one explosive collision course.
There are better Star Trek: Voyager episodes than this, but there may be none more thrilling, or more cleverly constructed, with all the different levels of this one coming together in one blockbuster crescendo.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2023-11-18T00:08:18Z
[8.3/10] I love it when a story has layers. “In-universe” the Voyager crew has been cast as a small but plucky and resourceful resistance group trying to fend off their malevolent occupiers. In “real life” the Voyager crew are also a small but plucky and resourceful resistance group trying to fend off their malevolent occupiers.
Because the Hirogen have taken over the ship off screen, but rather than eviscerating our heroes and collecting their organs and bones, these hunters want to use the crew as fodder for their games on the holodeck, which recreate famous historical battles in the guise of teaching the Hirogen more about their enemies.
Like all holodeck stories, you do need to walk into this one with a fair amount of willing suspension of disbelief. This whole episode turns on the hunt-obsessed Hirogen having “neural interfaces” that not only work nicely with human (and Vulcan and Talaxian and half-Klingon) biology, but are able to sync perfectly with the holodeck’s database and (mostly) override the crewmembers’ actual personalities and memories. Technology has long been basically magic in Star Trek to this point, and “The Killing Game” duology leans hard into that, but the quality of the story justifies the indulgence.
Because unlike much of Voyager, this episode is just plain cool. Many holodeck episodes in Star Trek know how fun it is to see our heroes step outside of their workaday professionalism and cosplay in some unique setting for a while. There’s something downright neat about transposing Janeway and company into a Cabaret style nightclub, where they entertain Nazis by night but plot against them by day. Hell, kicking things off with the Captain as a Klingon comes with a winning novelty to it.
This is a monotony-breaker of the highest order, and watching the good guys decode allied messages to aid the resistance, or fire machine guns at alien nazis has a cool factor that’s tough to articulate.
But I think some of it comes from how well “cast” everyone is. The first half of the “Killing Game” makes great hay from the roles the Voyager crew step into. Some of the dynamics are a little convenient, but I’ll take it in the name of engaging character interactions and fun surprises. The parallels between the characters’ real life roles and their fictional personas are especially striking.
Janeway is a natural as the head of the resistance unit who has to use diplomacy with her adversaries and guile in the shadows. She’s obviously skilled as a leader, so the shoe fits, but it’s also a treat to see her schmooze guests and play host in a way we don’t often get to see. Tuvok slots in nicely as her number two, the “logical” tactician of her squadron. And Neelix as the well-met baker who’s nonetheless aiding the resistance is a fun role for him.
The best “casting”, though, is Seven, who plays the musical entertainment in Janeway’s club, but is the pugnacious and mistrusted munitions expert for the resistance in her spare time. While a touch too coincidental, I appreciate how Seven’s role as the new addition to the resistance unit whom the others worry may be an untrustworthy turncoat, at the same time Seven herself is a new addition to the Voyager crew who’s given Janeway and company cause for alarm about her loyalties.
Seven’s 1940s musical numbers go on a bit long (and oddly presage a bit of Borg balladeering in Star Trek: Picard), but this is as different a persona as we’ve seen her take on, while the character’s “shoot first, ask questions” later nature cannot be denied. That’s one of the things I like about the construction of this one; you can see the characters’ real personalities bleeding through their programming in interesting ways.
That dynamic also works when Harry and The Doctor figure out a way to de-hypnotize Seven while she’s in the simulation, at the cost of her not remembering anything about the scenario she’s been plopped into or the character she’s supposed to play. The way French Resistance Leader Janeway suspects Munitions Expert Seven of being a double agent dovetails nicely with how the real Seven suddenly seems uninterested in their plans to bring down the Nazi communications grid and “forgets” to do basic tasks for the explosives. It’s canny and clockwork writing.
The same goes for how Harry and the EMH are working with a few collaborators to try to surreptitiously take back the ship at the same time Faux Janeway and her collaborators are trying to take back their French village. And the parallels even benefit the characters who aren’t involved in the simulations.
To the point, this may be the most I’ve ever liked Harry. He often takes on the role of the naive, wide-eyed ensign. But here he’s courageous, assertive, clever, and even a little manipulative. The way he stands up to his Hirogen captors making him repair and remake the ship, the way he conspires with the Doctor to find a means of subduing them, and the way he covers up his actions by invoking the Hirogen chain of command all show a guile and a self-possession we’ve never really seen from Harry before. Let’s see more of it!
This is an equally good outing for The Doctor. His twin roles of having to patch up the poor souls injured in the Hirogen’s games, while working against them in secret, recalls his actions in “The Basics” and shows how he can “do no harm” while also taking steps to protect and defend his colleagues and friends.
Hell, even the Hirogen are interesting here! To date, they’ve mostly gotten by on vibes alone, as tall, menacing, single-minded hunters who thrive on the intimidation factor of their look and their trophy rooms. Here, we get a little bit more. The Alpha Hirogen, the one who organized this peculiar kind of theater, isn’t just playing around in the holodeck. He’s trying to forge a new way forward for his people. There’ll be more to explore here in the second half, but the idea that he’s a Hirogen who sees a day beyond “the hunt” as an all-consuming thing for his culture, but rather a need that could be met through this technology, freeing them to do more, and do better, once this “territory” is exhausted, is intriguing.
Not for nothing, it’s also nice to see him dress down a Nazi! It works on multiple levels. For one, it helps demonstrate that there’s something sympathetic, even honorable about the Alpha Hirogen, even though he’s the antagonist here. For another, it countermands Star Trek’s unfortunate history of Nazi apologia (mostly in The Original Series). It shouldn't be a big stretch to have a character say “Nazis are bad,” but considering how hard it’s been to get current political leaders to admit that, and considering how Star Trek itself has tried to excuse Nazism in oblique ways, there’s something oddly rousing about hearing this alien brute point out the flaws in the Third Reich’s ideology and dub them cowards.
That’s just another layer to add onto this one. What’s great about “The Killing Game” is that it works on multiple levels.
It works as pure story. Even if you didn’t have the Hirogen, the tale of a small French resistance band trying to weaken their Nazi occupiers before the American cavalry arrives is an exciting plot. Even if you didn’t know Tom and B’Elanna’s romantic history, the tale of an American G.I. reuniting with his onetime French sweetheart, only to find she’s a member of the resistance carrying a Nazi officer’s baby, is a captivating setup. Even if you didn’t have the holodeck simulations, the story of the Doctor and Harry working under the Hirogen’s noses to take back the ship with guts and guile is gripping.
And then, with all those layers, all those parallels, Voyager literally blows up the walls between them. Suddenly, the American soldiers think they’ve found a Nazi bunker. The Hirogen on Voyager have to deal with holographic/brainwashed characters spilling out onto the regular corridors of the ship. The fake good guys and the real bad guys and the fake bad guys and the real good guys are all suddenly mixed together into one explosive collision course.
There are better Star Trek: Voyager episodes than this, but there may be none more thrilling, or more cleverly constructed, with all the different levels of this one coming together in one blockbuster crescendo.