Star Trek: Voyager: "Bride of Chaotica!"

Star Trek: Voyager, "Bride of Chaotica!" Production #207, season 5, episode 12 (27 January 1999).[1]

The brief statement of premise on IMDb (lightly edited here — RDE): "The Voyager crew encounters photonic lifeforms that mistake warmongering characters as real in Tom Paris' far-fetched 'Captain Proton' holodeck program." The user-provided Storyline: "As Tom and Harry run an episode of their 'Captain Proton' holodeck program, Voyager gets caught in a layer of subspace. This 'subspace sand bar,' as they nickname it, is home to a race of photonic aliens that aren't able to detect Voyager or its carbon based lifeforms (e.g. humans). Instead, they transport onto the holodeck and thereby start a war with Dr. Chaotica's Army of Evil. When Voyager detects internal weapons fire on the holodeck, Capt. Janeway dispatches Tom and Tuvok to investigate, and the adventure begins."[2]

Coverage by Anna L. Kaplan et al. in Cinefantastique 31.11 (April 2000),[3] calls attention to the episode as a gentle parody of and homage to the FLASH GORDON serials of the 1930s and notes how "two black and white aliens beam into the [holodeck] program" (p. 43). The FLASH GORDON serials — definitely as watched on TV in the 1950s — were in black and white.

See for those "photonic lifeforms" living out lives, so to speak, on and far outside of the holodeck.

RDE, finishing, 9Jul22