When the clown showed up I thought that it was maybe an alien messing with their minds by capitalizing on their biggest fears (although I just do not understand the fear of clowns). It's been done before but it was still enjoyable. There really isn't anything 'new' out there, everybody uses bits & pieces of other things to write a story. Not a big deal (to me).

It seems like a better question - or at least an earlier one - might be, in "Command Performance" - episode TWO of the whole series - why would Ed and Kelly just believe that his parents were all the way out there in space and just happened to meet up with them? That was even better evidence of something strange going on, but they ignored it.

It's similar to how in the Star Trek TOS episode "Shore Leave," Kirk should have known it was just impossible for Ruth or Finnegan to actually be there, especially when they appeared no different than they had been 20 or whatever years ago.

And in the Planet of the Apes movie - the original - Heston's character should have known he was back/still on Earth the moment he heard the apes speaking perfect Engrish. I knew it.

I didn't guess the simulation. But I did notice that all of the wierd incidents seemed to relate to Alara, and that she seemed to be the key.

I thought it was a good episode in general, particularly since it planted certain clues ( that there was a powerful holodeck, or that at least one crewmeber had a phobia about clowns) rather than springing them on the viewer at the end.

The one problem is that the captain let the violation slide too quickly. Using a phony declaration of emergency to lock the captain out of the computer, in order to solve a personal problem, should have been a serious offense -- in fact, several offenses. In fact, they could have left out the whole lockout angle simply by omitting the final crisis.

Actually, at first what I thought was "psyche test," from TNG. And in a way, that's really what it all was.

But it's a spaceship, all the "gravity" is artificial. Why didn't they just turn off - or turn way down - the "gravity" in Engineering so those heavy beams or whatever they are, just aren't heavy any more?

After that, Captain Mercer telling the crew to be on the lookout for pies, seltzer bottles, balloon animals... I know it's supposed to be kind of a jokey show, but that seemed a bit much.

So much of the rest seemed like the TNG episode "Where No One Has Gone Before" where things the crew thought of became real, even moreso than the Shore Leave planet.

I didn't guess that it all was a simulation either just thought that it might have been, although I was leaning towards the space peyote angle myself. I am still not sure how this would have helped Alara. I will have to re-watch it to catch any clues, kind of like re-watching "The Sixth Sense" movie.

It wasn't ALL a simulation, though. Alara put herself into the simulation to test herself, after the real incident at the start where someone actually died.

I got that but then it went straight into the story. A good reason to watch it again to straighten out the reality and unreality. Although I was puzzled why Alara would simulate a boxing ring. I figured the ship would have enough room for a real one.

Maybe so. But when you have the simulator technology, it eliminates the need to take up extra space with a lot of separate things that can simply be "created" when needed. Boxing gym, basketball court, hockey rink (with ice etc), music room even concert halls...

And at least so far, their use of the "holodeck" has been far less stupid than TNG.