"Ship in a Bottle" | |
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Star Trek: The Next Generation episode | |
Episode no. | Season 6 Episode 12 |
Directed by | Alexander Singer |
Written by | René Echevarria |
Featured music | Dennis McCarthy |
Production code | 238 |
Original air date | January 24, 1993 |
Guest appearance(s) | |
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"Ship in a Bottle" is the 138th episode of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, the 12th episode of the sixth season. In this episode, which continued a plot line from the second season episode "Elementary, Dear Data", the fictional holodeck character Professor James Moriarty seizes control of the Enterprise in his quest to be freed to live in reality, outside the confines of a holographic environment.
Data and La Forge are enjoying a Sherlock Holmes holodeck program when the two notice that a character programmed to be left-handed was actually right-handed. They call Lt. Barclay to repair the holodeck, but as he checks the status of the Sherlock Holmes programs, he encounters an area of protected memory. He activates it to find the artificial sentient Professor James Moriarty (Daniel Davis) character projected into the Holodeck, who appears to have memory since his creation ("Elementary, Dear Data"), including during the period while he was inactive (a feat Picard claims to be impossible). Moriarty wishes to escape the artificial world of the holodeck and was assured by the crew of the Enterprise that they would endeavor to find a way to free him, and is irritated at the lack of results on the part of the crew and their seeming lack of even the tiniest bit of effort. Picard, along with Data and Barclay, attempts to assure Moriarty they are still working on that goal, but Moriarty is dismissive of that.
Moriarty confuses the crew by seemingly willing himself to existence by walking off the holodeck. He explains this to the stunned Picard and Data by saying, "I think, therefore I am." Moriarty creates a companion for himself, the Countess Regina Bartholomew (Stephanie Beacham), commanding the computer of the Enterprise to place another sentient mind within a female character of the Sherlock Holmes novels. Moriarty then demands that a solution to get Regina off the holodeck be devised. He takes control of the Enterprise through the computer, insisting that a way be found for her to experience life beyond the confines of the holodeck.