Episode 39: The Thaw

Yay for Michael McKean.  He’s plays a homicidal clown in this episode, so I guess this is Voyager’s Stephen King’s It.  

The crew of the Voyager come across an artificial hibernation system which the aliens have been in since a natural disaster, though they’re being held hostage in the system by the aforementioned clown.  A personification of their fear, don’t you know.  So then part of the episode becomes a philosophy lesson on the nature of fear itself.  And yes, the fear itself quote was used, but needless to say Kim didn’t know who said it.
 
The Doctor was used to good effect in this, taking him out of the sickbay and into the virtual reality world that the alien’s inhabit now, as Janeway’s hostage negotiator.  Though I don’t rate Janeway’s negotiation tactics, since a third of the original inhabitants ends up dead because of them.... okay, that’s only one but still....not sure how they’re going to repopulate the species with just two left out of 400,000.
 
While I thought the ending was very good the way it was done, couldn't they have found a way to incorporate him into the crew somehow?  It would have been great, people would have been afraid to go into the holodeck, thus saving energy!  And yes, I’m ignoring their technobabble to explain why holodeck energy couldn’t be used.