The acting is good. The clown plays psycho control freak quite well. Janeway is strong and the doctor is his usual excellent self.
However, the plot suffers from a hole big enough to drive a star ship through, we shouldn't care if anyone dies as heart failure should be easily handled by the doctor. Being scared to death should be of no consequence. People who have heart failure can be revived now, you'd think 300+ years of tech advancement and less than 1 minute between event and medical response would take care of it.
We already know that Picard has an artificial heart, and Neelix survived with holographic lungs for a time. These folks would have revivable hearts. The goal should have been to kill them in the simulation and then revive them.
The episode is settled in a clever way, but ends too abruptly. There should have been further info on what happened to the survivors. The planet was dead and only two survivors appeared to remain, unless the whole planet is full of more stasis pods. This episode should have ended with two new alien crew members.
However, the plot suffers from a hole big enough to drive a star ship through, we shouldn't care if anyone dies as heart failure should be easily handled by the doctor. Being scared to death should be of no consequence. People who have heart failure can be revived now, you'd think 300+ years of tech advancement and less than 1 minute between event and medical response would take care of it.
We already know that Picard has an artificial heart, and Neelix survived with holographic lungs for a time. These folks would have revivable hearts. The goal should have been to kill them in the simulation and then revive them.
The episode is settled in a clever way, but ends too abruptly. There should have been further info on what happened to the survivors. The planet was dead and only two survivors appeared to remain, unless the whole planet is full of more stasis pods. This episode should have ended with two new alien crew members.