Oh dear, more trouble in the holodeck...but this is actually pretty fun, and finally gives me some payoff for struggling through that endless poem...What a good adventure for the Doctor...WHAT did you say your name is?...Oh, all right.PLOT
Janeway and Torres are putting their scientific brains together to study some photonic energy they've found in a protostar. It might help them to boost Voyager's energy efficiency. Beaming up two samples into their containers, however, causes them some trouble. They manage to get their samples in the end, though, and call for Kim to come and help them.
No Kim. No Kim anywhere on the ship. The computer doesn't know where he's gone, and none of the shuttles are missing. They try to look in his last known location, the holodeck, but something weird’s going on in there; they can't even scan it.
Chakotay and Tuvok go to the holodeck, and find that Kim's program of Beowulf, a 6th Century epic poem from Denmark, is playing and won't shut off. The program's command codes aren't working [Can you image that!!] and neither are the safeties [Well, gosh and golly gee! I didn't know that ever happened in a holodeck! You'd think people would stop going into holodecks if they knew things like that could happen!].
Anyway, Chakotay and Tuvok venture into the program, walking through a misty forest at night, and are confronted by Freya, the king's shield maiden. She talks about poor "Beowulf" with his black hair and fiery eyes, and they realize it's Kim. However, "Beowulf" was killed by Grendle and dragged down to his foul lair. Freya is glad Tuvok and Chakotay are here to avenge his death. She takes them to the mead hall to meet the king.
The fear of Grendle oppresses the hall, and the ring-giver is old and tired. Freya calls for Tuvok and Chakotay to be welcomed, but Unferth gets pissy and tries to challenge them. The king says if they want to slay Grendle, it's no skin off his nose, and the holocharacters all retire.
Tuvok and Chakotay report their experience to Janeway, who grabs on to the fact that they haven't yet found a body. She orders them to fix the holodeck's imaging scanner and relay tricorder data.
Chakotay and Tuvok's perfectly lovely discussion of literature is interrupted by "Grendle's" arrival. They tell Janeway they're reading photonic energy as some sort of light starts coming through the door. Tuvok wonders if somehow this disruption of photonic energy has caused the holodeck to dematerialize Kim. The energy intensifies, and though Torres does her best to beam them out, the two officers, like Kim, vanish.
Janeway tells Torres and Paris that the photonic energy she and Torres were working with may have contaminated the holodeck matrix and be causing the computer to convert real matter into energy when Grendle appears. Paris says Kim, Tuvok, and Chakotay's patterns may still be there. They need someone to go in there and study the photonic energy, and the perfect candidate is...the Doctor! He can go in there without worrying about his real matter, because he has no real matter.
Janeway tells the Doctor his data stream will be redirected into the holodeck, and that he'll be able to protect himself from harm by making himself solid or unsolid at will. His mission will be to scan the photonic energy when it shows up.
The Doctor accepts his first away mission with some discomfort, but readily brushes up on his knowledge of Beowulf. Kes gets him to talk about how nervous he is. Not only has he never been on an away mission before, he's never even "seen a sky, or a forest, let alone Vikings and monsters." Kes suggests that he finally decide on his name before he goes on the mission, to make himself feel more like a Starfleet officer.
Paris transfers the Doctor to the holodeck, where he smells a tree. The Doctor goes into the forest and is challenged by Freya, whom he recognizes. She's flattered that he knows of her and asks his name. Proudly, he announces, "Schweitzer...Dr. Schweitzer." On the way to the mead hall, they talk about drinking a broth made from a fungus and whether the Vikings could still beat the Saints if the Saints were given a forty-point lead and the Vikings all had their legs chopped off.
At the mead hall, Unferth is even pissier to the Doctor than he was to Tuvok and Chakotay. In fact, upon hearing from Freya that the Doctor plans to slay Grendle, Unferth tries to cleave our good medical man from the knave to the chops. The Doctor just makes himself unsolid and suggests that Unferth put some ice on the hand he hurt slamming his sword into the stone floor.
Freya calls for all of them to hail Lord Schweitzer and the Doctor digs it.
At a banquet, the Doctor eats elk and recounts the glorious adventure of creating an inoculant against some alien measles. Unferth can hardly stand any of this and finally tells the king it's time to retire.
The Doctor now gets his first groupie (Kes doesn't count) as Freya invites him to her bed and lays a big one on his lips. The Doctor digs it.
Alone, the Doctor watches as "Grendle" approaches in blinding light, a swirl of photonic energy which curls a tentacle around his right arm. "Get me out of here!" he screams, and Paris takes his own sweet time about it, but does retrieve him...all but the arm, that is.
Hey, Doc! Need a hand? HAHAHAHAHA
Paris gets the Doctor back together and Torres studies the data from his tricorder. That photonic energy is showing synaptic patterns. She and Paris go to engineering to see if they can read such patterns in the little samples they have, and one of the samples escapes its containment field and cuts through the ship to escape. Torres and Paris realize it's showing intelligence [I mean, would you want to stay in that containment field?] and Janeway lets it go.
Out in space, the little photonic energy guy flies into an energy lattice which may be some sort of ship for the creature. The ship's sensors also pick up three bio-electrical patterns in the lattice, and Janeway thinks this could be Kim, Tuvok, and Chakotay. Think about it, she says, when Voyager accidentally took intelligent creatures from the protostar and started experimenting on them, perhaps the beings retaliated by taking crewmembers hostage. They fix up the remaining photonic creature in a Tupperware container and give it to the Doctor. He'll have to go in and somehow convince the photonic Grendle that they mean these creatures no harm. He'll also have to stay solid so he can hold on to his Tupperware.
He returns to the holodeck and Freya, who's pleased to see him. He says his Tupperware "talisman" will slay Grendle, but out pops Unferth the Totally Uncool, and says the talisman must be some sort of evil thing, because the Doctor must be in league with Grendle. He and the Doctor tussle a bit and Freya comes to the Doctor's aid. If only she knew this is rarely a good idea for women on Star Trek, particularly when they're guest stars! Anyway, Unferth stabs her before grabbing the talisman and running off. She dies in the Doctor's arms, and he takes her sword to the mead hall.
There, he restrains himself from chopping off Unferth's head and calls out for Grendle to show up. The door glows with that light again and the light-tentacled creature appears. The Doctor tries to seem calming and opens the lid of his Tupperware to release the creature, which is still quite fresh, and it joins the mass of tentacles.
Chakotay, Tuvok, and Kim are returned, confused about where they were.
Later in Sickbay, Janeway tells the Doctor she's entering a special commendation in the log for the Doctor's heroism on his first away mission. [Now, this is just the sort of thing captains are supposed to do for their crew, but don't you think it'll draw an odd look or two back at Headquarters?] She wants to cite him by name, but he doesn't want to remember the painful experience of watching Freya die with "Schweitzer" on her lips.
This is fortunate, as it was somewhat painful for me as well -- much as I love this episode.
She tells him that she's sure he'll have more adventures in his life, and we all agree.
