The Haunting of Deck Twelve

Interesting variation on the traditional 'haunted house' tale - in this case a 'haunted starship'. With a power outage plunging Voyager into darkness, Neelix is given the job of entertaining a group of Borg children recently taken on board. To do this he decides to tell a ghost story. The sceptical-at-first youngsters are soon drawn in, hanging on his every word (despite trying to put on a brave front!).

The writers do a good job of transposing a ghost story to the sci-fi world of Star Trek; several haunted house tropes are woven-in, in such a way that they don't feel out of place - there are even one or two creepy moments. Neelix is a character I could never take to, but here he's kept to tolerable levels. The rest of the regular cast do their usual fine job. Is the ghost real? That would be telling! A welcome change from the norm. 7/10.

This episode unfolds primarily from Neelix's talking to the Borg Children while Voyager has to shutdown main power for a couple hours. It's a new twist on the old Campfire Ghost story.

The director uses some unique angles for the scenes that are supposed to take place during Neelix's story, and there are some cool effects shots.

We also get to see crewman Tal Celes, who we first met 5 episodes earlier in "Good Shepherd".

This episode was probably done as a budget saver with the season finale coming up the following week. The Borg Children have some funny lines, but some fine action and acting from the cast keep this episode from skewing too far into the Nickelodeon realm.

Voyager powers down for a while and in the resulting darkness Neelix tells the Borg children a ghost story.

I realise the above description doesn't sound good, but it honestly isn't as bad as it could have been. The concept is good and the story scenes are quite exciting and well put together.

Neelix, who (undeservedly) is a regular object of ridicule by fans, looks creepy in the light as he talks, adding to the atmosphere. The Borg children react well and it feels plausible.

The main problem I found with the concept was my inability to invest in what is actually a pretty good story told by Neelix. You know that if it's true, everything will work out okay in the end and if it's not true you don't really care. Also, it gets annoying when Janeway starts talking to the ship and from then on made me wish it would hurry up and finish.

Very good idea for an episode, but didn't quite hold me.

When this episode begins, Neelix is telling the children a ghost story. Now considering it has Neelix AND kids, it seemed to have two strikes against it--yet it turns out to be a pretty good show.

The story Neelix ends up telling isn't really a story at all--it's what's been happening on the ship. But he phrases it like a story and the kids relax. It turns out that the ship is experiencing lots of random electronic problems. However, after a while, it is obvious they aren't random at all--and soon IMPORTANT systems begin malfunctioning. How the Captain deals with all this is surprisingly intelligent and the episode, to me, is quite creative. It manages to combine Kids, Neelix and a ship-bound episode into a decent show and the ghost story style really helps.

This is a not watchable episode. What was this supposed to be? A crappy Friday the 13th ripoff?

Trying to scare the Borg kids makes zero sense - not sure they have emotions? After trying to scare the Borg kids, it really does not close their content. Neilix is a complete clump in the episode- why is he on this show?

Seems like the writers really run out of ideas. How did this get produced. What was the goal? This was not a Halloween episode. Maybe that would work for a few viewers?

I hope never to see this episode again.

This is the worst Star Trek episode ever.

I do not understand the high scores. I completely do not understand??