Episode Review - Flesh and Blood Part I
Reviewed by Andy Taylor

Synopsis
Two Hirogen are currently on a hunt in a jungle, which for the species, is seemingly normal. However, phaser shots are suddenly fired at them, from what appears to be four Starfleet officers – the two Hirogen are killed dramatically.

Voyager soon receives a distress call on a Hirogen frequency – something shocking to them, as their last contact with the Hirogen was years ago. An away team is beamed over to the vessel that has approached them, and they find themselves in the middle of a jungle. It is not long before they find dead Hirogen officers, killed with Starfleet-issue phasers. Even more odd is that they discover a Klingon bat’leth, stained with Hirogen blood. The team find an injured Hirogen lifesign, but when they approach they are greeted with weapons fire – a scared civilian, Donik, warns the away team away. However, Tuvok sneaks up behind him and easily apprehends the Hirogen. Since he has lost a lot of blood, Paris has him beamed into sickbay for treatment. The team then finds a holographic interface of Starfleet design, and therefore realises that the jungle is a simulation. Seven is able to deactivate the program – only to reveal several dead Hirogen.

Back on Voyager, Chakotay tells the captain that there has been misuse of the holo-technology that she offered the Hirogen three years earlier as a peace deal – it has been modified to be more realistic, but is therefore more dangerous. Janeway is amazed that the Hirogen missed the point and ended up getting themselves killed. She therefore approached Donik in sickbay to ask about what happened. He reveals that he is a technician, and was meant to be maintaining the holodeck systems when the system malfunctioned, and the holograms became able to take control of the vessel and deactivate the safety protocols.

Meanwhile a Hirogen ship opens fire on Voyager – the Alpha-Hirogen demands the departure of Voyager but Janeway tells him of the survivor, Donik. The Alpha and Beta-Hirogen then beam over to Voyager and accuse him of cowardice – he allowed his fellow Hirogen to die in combat whilst he hid. Donik then reveals that the holograms were able to transport themselves aboard a ship equipped with holo-emitters, and are now on the loose.

The Hirogen therefore team up with the Voyager crew in order to locate the holograms. Once their ship is detected, the Hirogen prepare for their new hunt, and Janeway insists that Voyager joins them – after all, she was the one responsible for giving the Hirogen holographic technology in the first place. However, they move in for an attack nevertheless, until they realise too late that the ship is a decoy. It is really a bomb, and after it goes off, the Hirogen ship is badly damaged. Voyager begins to beam out the survivors before the ship self-destructs, until the actual ship of the holograms drops out of warp and opens fire. The holograms are then able to tap into the sickbay holo-emitters, and then transfer The Doctor’s program to their ship. They jump to warp immediately and mask their warp trail, so as not to be tracked.

On the holograms’ ship, The Doctor is surrounded by a myriad of Alpha Quadrant species – Cardassians, Humans, Breen, and Bajorans; in particular a Bajoran named Iden whom welcomes him aboard. The Doctor demands to be returned to Voyager, but Iden says that there are ‘wounded’ holograms onboard. The Doctor angrily suggests that they have captured the wrong person – he is not an engineer, but Iden insists that he tries.

Back on Voyager, Janeway learns that the renegade holograms are highly sophisticated - Donik then tells her that it was he who modified the holograms so that they could have the ability to learn and adapt, this making deactivating them a difficult task. Janeway tells the Beta-Hirogen of her knowledge of what Donik was told to do; yet he insists that he will continue the hunt regardless of her feelings. She says that they must try and deactivate the holograms from a safe distance – either that, or she threatens to leave the surviving Hirogen on the nearest habitable planet. With no other choice, the Hirogen agrees.

Meanwhile on the hologram’s ship, The Doctor is able to develop a ‘subroutine transplant’ to aid a holographic Klingon – he is successful in the routine with the help of Kejal, an intelligent Cardassian hologram. The Doctor is then shocked to see the holograms bleeding and actually feeling pain – Kejal says that the Hirogen programmed them to suffer when they die to make their prey more realistic. As soon as he’s done ‘treating,’ The Doctor finds Iden, whom is currently praying at a Bajoran altar. He asks how someone programmed with deep spiritual beliefs is able to commit such a massacre. However Iden explains that the Alpha-Hirogen would hunt and kill him over and over again, causing him to live in fear and feel pain. His ability to adapt allowed him to become quite cunning and he managed to escape, and he banded together with other oppressed holograms that had also chosen to fight back. The training facility that the holograms had attacked earlier was actually their third such target. He then appeals to The Doctor to stay behind – his life can never be liberal as long as he continues to be oppressed by organics. The Doctor solemnly refuses.

The Doctor soon after finds himself running through a jungle, terrified. He is being hunted by Hirogen, and soon becomes injured and bleeds. He is stabbed to death – and then wakes up, in shock, on the holograms’ ship. Iden tells him that the memory files off one hologram were transferred into his program so that he could see firsthand just what the holograms had to go through themselves. The Doctor is angry – he accuses the holograms of being thugs just looking for a fight. Iden says that all they are looking for is a new home where the Hirogen cannot attack them. The Doctor’s sympathy then begins to grow, and asks to hear more about their new home. Iden and Kejal therefore show him a photonic field generator that they plan to deploy on a planet’s surface, where a holographic environment can then be created to live in. The Doctor suggests that the Voyager’s crew can help – especially Lieutenant Torres who is an expert with holo-emitters. Iden is sceptical, but wishes to know more of Torres.

On Voyager, Donik discusses strategies of how to shut off the holograms with Janeway, Seven of Nine and Torres. The holograms’ ship then intercepts Voyager and hails them – The Doctor appears on a viewscreen and says that the holograms wish to make peace. He comes aboard and tells Janeway that the holograms wish to create a new home for themselves, and want Voyager to help. Janeway does not want to share technology again – the whole problem started with her sharing holodeck technology. The Doctor then becomes frustrated and tells her that she helped to create a new species, and she cannot turn her back on them now. The two then continue to argue on the subject of holographic rights, until they hear that a fight has broken out in the mess hall where the Hirogen are confined.

The Hirogen create chaos, diverting attention from the Beta-Hirogen who is accessing a com panel. Tuvok arrives and stops him, but he has already managed to call for reinforcements. With less than an hour till intercept, Janeway orders Torres and Donik to prepare Voyager’s deflector to try and take the holograms offline to halt the bloodshed. The Doctor objects, but Janeway proceeds and contacts Iden, telling him to prepare his people for transfer into Voyager’s database. Iden does not trust the organic, and begins to move away, attacking Voyager. The Doctor pleads with Janeway for reconsideration, but she orders him to treat patients with Paris in the mess hall. However, The Doctor defies Janeway and instead goes to sickbay, transferring information about the pulse that is about to be fired to Iden, as well as Voyager’s shield frequencies so that he can be beamed off the ship. He is then transported. Iden gives his word that he will not use the shield frequencies to attack Voyager, but he sends a feedback surge when Voyager fires the deflector pulse, which overloads the deflector and causes an imminent warp core breach. Torres is knocked out by a tendril of energy when trying to correct the problem, and is also transported aboard the holograms’ ship, which then escapes at warp, as Voyager lies adrift.


Summary
was looking forward to this new two-parter – I found ‘Unimatrix Zero’ highly disappointing, though other than that Voyager two-parters are generally well done (look at season four’s flurry of decent two-parters). Then there is also the fact that The Doctor has a very prominent role in the story. He may have become the Seven of Nine of the seventh season – he’s already featured in several stories – but I love his character, and after ‘Critical Care,’ a very ethical episode, we were treated to this holographic rights show, an argument that has existed already for a long time on Voyager, but not dealt with as much magnitude as throughout this episode. But was it any good?

Well Robert Picardo played The Doctor brilliantly (as per usual) – playing a man horrified by what is going on with his fellow holograms, who at first cannot accept what the are doing, but then comes accept them in an horrific scene where he ‘dies.’ This was both very entertaining to watch and very well played out. Janeway remained in her role as the person who believes the holograms to be holograms rather than people, perhaps a role that she shouldn’t so readily fall into after six and a half years with having a walking light bulb on her senior staff. But then again the same could be said of The Doctor – how could he bring himself to actually betraying his friends of six and a half years because one of them believes in something that he doesn’t (or vice versa)? I could see him standing his ground at a conference table, but putting the ship into danger?

This all seems a little hard to swallow, as well as the fact that we have another holographic rights episode to swallow – another two hours of The Doctor. Basically it may seem well done, but to me it felt a little repetitive, like we’d been there before (especially with the reappearance of the Hirogen) considering failed holo-technology has been a Star Trek staple for how many years now? Though obviously the nice visuals help to sooth those tired eyes…

It was nice to see the Hirogen – anything to remind us of the great fourth season Voyager had really should go down well… Well, since meeting the Hirogen Voyager has had a few spurts of travelling big distances (try a good 30,000 light years.) Whilst it didn’t detract from the story and would only bug a long-term fan of the series (i.e. me), it just came across as a little weird. Though it was nice to see what had happened to them after Janeway gave them holographic technology back in another two-part episode (‘The Killing Game’), as well as seeing another aspect of their culture: the anti-Hirogen/engineer Donik, showing that the Hirogen aren’t all killing machines (something every well developed Star Trek culture needs…)

With a holographic database at hand, this show allowed us to see some species from the Alpha Quadrant that some of us won’t have seen since DS9 finished [sniff] a while back – Breen, Bajorans, Cardassians and others all made the holographic ship look like a Star Trek convention, but it was nice to see some ‘familiar’ faces, as well as the Hirogen. All in all though, perhaps this is what this two-parter will turn out to be – eye candy (familiar Star Trek races with battles and such) pasted over a familiar-looking plot. Though it was entertaining.

Final Opinion
Half-interesting, half déjà vu, though some nice bits.

7.5/10

Flesh and Blood Part II Review and Synopsis