Star Trek Guide

Star Trek: 10 Best Holodeck Characters

When the crew of (almost) every Star Trek vessel is done with their duties, they tend to have a great recreational time in the ship's holodecks. Fans love the holodeck episodes, because they come with some of the most fun and absurd storylines. That can mean Sisko having a grudge match of a baseball game or a cowboy adventure filled with evil Datas.

The possibilities are endless.

What really makes these holodeck experiences special, though, are the holograms in them. They give extra color and flair to worlds that could be really dull and drab without them.

Here are the ten best holodeck characters in Star Trek.

10 Vic Fontaine

The ultimate sentient holodeck character, Bashir's academy friend really knocked it out of the park. Vic was a perfect balance of a welcoming host and entertainer, who understood the struggles his Starfleet viewers went through every day.

Most sentient holograms aren't characters, or don't want to stay as they are. But Vic is content with who he is and just wanted to run his club and make people happy. In a very complex and twisted world of subterfuge, war, religious strife, and more, he's a breath of fresh, contented air. DS9 was lucky to have him.

9 James Moriarty

Before sentient holograms were really a thing (without alien intervention), James Moriarty was just the notoriously clever rival of Sherlock Holmes. He showed up several times in the holodeck's Holmes programs. However, when Doctor Pulasky questioned Data's ability to solve a mystery on his own, they made the mistake of asking the holodeck to make a foe able to match Data.

And viola, so the sentient hologram Moriarty was born.

Every episode with him is a joy, and he's just such a complex, fascinating character that does bad things for such human reasons.

8 Michael Sullivan

When Janeway was struggling with loneliness on Voyager, she turned to Tom Paris' Fair Haven for comfort. There, she met Michael Sullivan, a charming barkeep. After one meeting, she tweaked his programming to make him smarter and very single. Then, the pair talked about the stars and about books and she truly loved him, in her own way.

Any man that could catch the fierce Captain Janeway's heart deserves some praise. Despite his lack of flesh and blood, he made her happy while they were on Voyager together.

7 Minuet

Minuet is a complicated character, and hologram, although it technically isn't really a holodeck character. After all, the Minuet that Riker fell in love with was actually an entity infecting the holodeck, making the character so much more complex until they were brought back to their home planet.

However, the alien was only able to take holographic form, so she's someone Trekkies have accepted counts as a holo-person.

If this Minuet made Riker fall helplessly in love with her after only a few hours with her, to the point she's his imagined wife in a fake illusion, she was a dynamite being.

6 Madeline

One of the first holodeck programs Trekkies ever got to enjoy was Captain Picard's Dixon Hill mysteries, facing off against mobsters and helping beautiful dames solve murders, retrieve their jewels, or find their loved ones. No one really stuck around long enough to matter, though.

That is, except Hill's secretary, Madeline.

A pistol of a young woman, Madeline didn't take Hill or Picard's nonsense. She worked when she was paid, she told him when he was being an idiot, and she stood up to all the scary folk that came to their door.

Madeline deserves a medal, between Picard's moodiness and surviving the harsh story she lived in.

5 Barclay's Crew Copies

As these holograms all lived together in Barclay's warped caricature program, they can be lumped into one entry. After all, there isn't much depth to any of them. Deanna was a sensual goddess, Wesley was a sniveling brat, and Geordi and Picard were bumbling goofs, Riker was a short, helpless villain, and Beverly was his adorable, cozy nap-lap of a paramour.

It makes sense the crew don't love the depictions, but as a fan? Trekkies could appreciate these hilarious versions of their favorite crewmates. Feeling anxious, excluded, and bullied, no wonder Barclay retreated to this world where he was the hero and his intimidating "adversaries" were all useless.

4 Doctor Chaotica

Since Voyager was trapped in the Delta Quadrant, the crew really relied on the holodecks as an escape from their daily lives. There's not much shore leave in a completely different sector of the galaxy, after all.

Tom Paris quickly became a holodeck connoisseur, and one of his favorite programs was an old-school style science fiction adventure story, called Captain Proton. Several times he includes other crewmates in the stories and they all enjoy it.

One of his most frequent villains is Doctor Chaotica, the kind of guy who lives off death rays and robot minions. He's a great holographic character and makes every Captain Proton moment all the better.

3 The Doctor's Family

When Voyager's Doctor was trying to balance his holographic nature and his desire to be a bit more human, he made himself a holographic family, to try out home life. Eventually, B'Elanna pointed out he made them too perfect, and that's where the real fun started.

And by fun, that means things got very complicated.

Even though The Doctor struggled with his son and had to mourn his daughter, the experience taught him a lot about how complicated humanity really is.

2 Harmon "Buck" Bokai

Considering how much the Siskos love baseball, and how much "Take Me to The Holosuite" is a beloved, absurd Trek episode, this list couldn't miss out on one of their faves. The Siskos used a hologram of Bokai to help teach them pitching and the other highlights of baseball. They really loved him and the real version of him was a baseball legend.

However, an alien kinda ruined the hologram for them for a while.

Besides that, though, anything that contributes to the famously amusing Sisko baseball obsession deserves a nod.

1 Data of the Wild West

In a rare Alexander episode, where Worf actually has to interact with his son, the Klingon father and his son try to bond over a Wild West program on the holodeck. Somehow, though, the program goes completely haywire and all the other characters in the story turn into copies of Data.

So yes, an entire holodeck filled with Datas. Even the back guy, with a cheesy, awesome mustache.

Seeing Data play all these absurd characters in their story was fantastic. Any Trekkie would love to try it in other genres, too. Adventure Data? Romance Data? Sign everyone up.

Source: screenrant.com