Inside Man

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Voyager gets its very own Barclay for Sweeps! And sweeping up is what this interactive hologram should do instead of making grand rescue plans. Holo-Barclay claims a geodesic fold in a red giant star will shunt the Voyager home instantly! Janeway had already discarded this idea. Historically this procedure is useless- because all you'd get back is a radioactive ship with 150 liquefied crew-shaped floor stains.

Of course, the fast-talking shmoozer assures everyone it's all perfectly safe these days. Step into the changing rrroom! You will NOT be cooked!

Voyager's crew is desperate to believe in Holo-Barclay. Of course, real Barclay is having a terrible time back home. For one, someone stole his hologram and his girlfriend Leosa ran off at suspiciously the same time. For two, he's losing all credibility. Screaming "Borg!" in a roomful of kids on a field trip. Chasing Deanna Troi down on her Risian beach vacation. (Or maybe only the beach CHAIR was from Risa? It looks pretty overcast for that weather-controlled paradise. It's probably not Vancouver, though.)

Leosa works on Nunk's Ferengi casino ship. She dated Barclay in order to get her hands on the profits from the Borg nanoprobes they were planning to strain out of Seven's Corpse Puddle.

Can Admiral Paris and Commander Troi save Barclay's reputation, and incidentally the lives of the Voyager crew about to throw themselves into a sun?

"Inside Man" is old home week that intentionally tugs on the old nostalgia. When I hear that two months ago Barclay and Data were singing a duet at Geordi's birthday party it's like the series I miss most is still running somewhere off-screen. So, no, I don't mind them pushing the regular cast aside. Because Riker and Troi are setting Barclay up on a double-date in Tiburon! (The city in California, probably, rather than the alien planet.) And speaking of alien planets, what is the Doctors' obsession with playing golf on Giedi Prime? The only way I'd want to tee off with Baron Harkonnen is if I was actually teeing off WITH Baron Harkonnen- as in hitting that hovering bloated man-ball with a golf club.