"Shadowplay" (season two, episode sixteen; 21 February 1994): Wikipedia-link.
Commentary: "Shadowplay" gives us our third mention of the mysterious Dominion, after "Rules of Acquisition" & "Sanctuary."
As to the episode itself, the thing that's never sat right with me about "Shadowplay" is how nonchalantly the holographic denizens of the holographic village react to learning that they are holograms, having always believed themselves to be flesh & blood. They essentially just shrug their shoulders at the news. This rather proves the lie of the episode's thrust, that the holographic denizens are "real" because of the lone flesh & blood denizen's affection for them: if they were sapient lifeforms, that would experience existential angst, but because they are merely holograms, having only programming & no free will, only simulating emotions & not expereince them, they take the world-shattering revelation in stride.
"Shadowplay" is an inversion of "Hollow Pursuits," an episode of The Next Generation. "Hollow Pursuits" introduced Lieutenant Reginald Barclay, who is persuaded to leave his holodeck fantasies behind & face the real world; in "Shadowplay," Rurigan is left to live out the rest of his days surrounded by his holographic "kith & kin," who now know that they are holograms, but do not know that he is not..
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