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Star Trek Voy - Season 3 - Episode 14

Star Trek Voy - 3x14 - Alter Ego

Originally Aired: 1997-1-15

Synopsis:
A holodeck character is obsessed with Tuvok. [DVD]

My Rating - 6

Fan Rating Average - 4.79

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Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 19 2 6 20 7 10 13 21 14 5 5

Problems
- Tuvok was beamed through shields in this episode.

Factoids
- This is the first episode to feature Kalto, or "Vulcan Chess".

Remarkable Scenes
- Tuvok regarding the Vulcan game of Kalto: "Kalto is to Chess and Chess is to Tick Tack Toe."
- Tuvok playing Kalto with Marayna.
- Harry: "Hi. My name is Harry read-me-like-a-book Kim."
- Harry freaking out at Tuvok for playing Kalto with the Marayna.
- Marayna transferred herself to sickbay, stole the doctor's mobile emitter, and went to Tuvok's quarters. Hilarious!
- I like the discussion about just what Marayna could be. Nice references to TNG: Elementary, Dear Data and TNG: Ship in a Bottle.
- Tuvok, Paris, and Torres all being attacked by Hawaiian holodeck characters.
- Tuvok beaming to Marayna's space station.
- Tuvok and Harry making up in the end.

My Review
This episode is interesting and original in a few ways. Firstly, we have our main characters obsessing over a holographic woman. First Harry wants to learn to be more Vulcan, then Tuvok seems to act more human when he lets himself get swept away by Marayna. Then Marayna turns into Moriarty style sentient hologram and attempts to take over the ship. Well, Marayna actually ended up being a woman on a space station keeping the nebula from blowing up; controlling the holographic woman remotely. The episode nicely explores the personalities of Harry, Tuvok, and Marayna respectively. The only thing neglected is this fascinating dampening technology. Personally, I would have liked Voyager to have spent some time figuring out how to adapt the technology to come up with a new way to prevent a warp core breach.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From adam on 2010-09-27 at 4:16am:
    I suddenly realized that they are writing Tuvok as Warf. That's kind of annoying, but promises to be comical.
  • From thaibites on 2014-03-21 at 4:31am:
    Did we really need to go all the way to the Delta quadrant to have another holodeck episode?
    WTF!?!
  • From Jadzia Guinan Smith on 2015-06-02 at 12:58pm:
    At first I thought this was a rehash of both Minuet and Moriarty. It got saved - sort of - by the twist in the end. But, frankly "an alien in the nebula" is not fresh enough to be a really GOOD twist. Also, why didn't the aliens have a small team aboard their vessel instead of one lonely individual slowly going mad? If they can afford this level of technology just to preserve a thing of "beauty" then it seems they should be able to provide life support for more than one person.

    But the exploration of Tuvok's emotions was great. I like that he is shown to be truly an emotionally disciplined being who sometimes has to work to find balance, rather than an emotionally cripple being struggling to repress herself, like T'Pol. When it comes to this whole emotion vs. logic dilemma, I think Tuvok is the best-written Vulcan of all time. If it wasn't for Spock's inexplicable charisma, Tuvok would be my personal favorite Vulcan.... Yeah, I know it's "illogical" to prefer someone just because of "charisma" :-)
  • From The Emergency Obampresidential Hologram on 2022-02-14 at 4:41am:
    They could have made a better reveal of the twist:

    Kim should not have gotten jealous over a character in a computer game. He should have just played with another copy.
    And then they might have noticed that there is more to this character!

    I mean I didn't get jealous when my brother also romanced the govenour in Monkey Island, I had my own savegame!

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