With this episode , Shankar sought to move the Doctor out of sickbay , and while he was looking generally to involve Vikings on the holodeck , it was n'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
Emmy Awards
47th Primetime Emmy Awards
Heroes and Demons