Heroes and Demons

"Heroes and Demons" is the twelfth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager. The episode first aired April 24, 1995 on UPN. It was directed by Les Landau and written by former Star Trek: The Next Generation story editor Naren Shankar. Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet and Maquis crew of the starship USS Voyager after they were stranded in the Delta Quadrant far from the rest of the Federation. In this episode, after a sample of a protostar is brought on board, crewmen start to vanish from a holodeck simulation of Beowulf. The Doctor (Robert Picardo), a hologram, investigates and finds that a lifeform was transported to the ship alongside the sample. It escaped to the holodeck where it was converting those who entered into energy. The Doctor has the samples brought to the holodeck and released, resulting in the lifeform returning the crewmen to their corporeal states.

Shankar sought to move the Doctor out of sickbay, and while he was looking generally to involve Vikings on the holodeck, it wasn't until later that he realized he had inadvertently followed the story of the Beowulf poem, and so changed the script to include direct references. Composer Dennis McCarthy sought to increase the tempo of the music used in this episode, and included an unused piece written for The Next Generation episode "Qpid"; he was nominated for Outstanding Music Composition at the Emmy Awards for his work on "Heroes and Demons". A further nomination at those awards was received by Marvin V. Rush for Individual Achievement in Cinematography for a Series. Picardo's performance was praised by the crew, and the episode was received positively by critics, who compared elements to The Lord of the Rings and computer based roleplaying games. It received Nielsen ratings of 6.4/11 percent.