Seven uses the holodeck to explore her humanity, but it starts to interfere with her work on board Voyager.

Once again there are too many inconsistencies in this episode and too much rubbish. If the producers think that seeing a Seven/Chakotay romance is what we viewers really want, they've got another think coming. Presumably only done to keep Robert Beltran from moaning about his lack of material for five minutes, there's no reason for Seven to choose the commander to test her relationship skills if he's a hologram when she could pick anyone else from the crew or a hologram she's created to really stretch her abilities. She's obviously made some alterations to Chakotay's personality for the hologram as, for one, he's never shown any interest in her before.

That aside, Beltran and Ryan do seem to work together well as a couple, it's just not particularly fascinating watching the pair have dinner together or enjoy some rather worrying romantic moments. One thing that particularly occurred to me with this episode was how often social events seem to call for an amusing comment relating to hi technology: 'I replicated it myself', for instance. It's been going on in Trek for years, but why? We don't spend all our time making crap jokes about toasters do we? So why do denizens of the 24th Century?

The sub-plot about a dangerous weapon isn't interesting in the slightest, with the usual load of technobabbley nonsense taking care of the situation, but the biggest mistake is in its handling of Seven. Whereas the seventh season should see character arcs being brought to a satisfactory close, the writers have gone the other way with Seven. Why can't she lose the rest of her implants and fully rediscover her humanity? Why the need to shut down even the possibility when it would make a lovely and touching close for her character? It seems incredibly short-sighted.

Overall then, unless you want some low-level eroticism, don't bother with this episode as it doesn't have anything much else to offer.

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