Notable Appearances
It has been noted Star Trek has "a number of interesting 'holodeck' episodes that very roughly point towards interesting philosophical and sociological issues of virtual realities".
The first episode featuring a holodeck was "The Practical Joker", an animated episode in which it was called a "recreation room". Due to interference with the ship's computers, several crew members were trapped in it until the engineering crew managed to force open the doors.
There were several incidents of crew being trapped or injured by holodeck malfunctions in later episodes. One resulted in the shooting of the ship's historian on board Enterprise. In the episode "A Fistful of Datas", Lt. Worf, his son Alexander, and Counselor Troi were trapped in a 19th century American West adventure with the safety protocols disabled when a computer experiment involving Lt. Cmdr. Data went awry. Worf received a minor gunshot wound when the computer began remaking all the characters as replicas of Data. However he was able to safely play out the story, and once the story ended the trio was able to leave the holodeck. Jean-Luc Picard experiences an upgraded holodeck in "The Big Goodbye", in which he portrays the detective Dixon Hill, a boyhood hero of the captain's. This episode establishes the power and function of the holodeck. A malfunction leads to Data, Jean-Luc, and Beverly Crusher being trapped on the holodeck. Picard portrayed the character again in Star Trek: First Contact.
The disabling of a holodeck's safety protocols was used as a tactical advantage in Star Trek: First Contact, when under attack from the Borg, Jean-Luc Picard disables the security protocols and grabs a holographic tommy gun, shooting and killing two Borg drones.
The holodeck was used as a plot device to explore metaphysical questions, in such episodes as "Elementary, Dear Data" and "Ship in a Bottle", in which a holodeck character becomes self-aware and contemplates the nature of his identity and continued existence. In Michio Kaku's TV series Sci-Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible, he discussed the Holodeck in an episode entitled Hollodeck.
Read more about this topic: Holodeck
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