25 Essential episodes to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: Voyager
By Louis Skye
S5E6: Timeless
“Timeless” was a no-brainer for this list—it’s a heavy-hitting, heart-breaking, and incredibly Star Trek kind of episode.
Voyager installs a new kind of Warp engine that should take them directly to the Alpha Quadrant—with a slight hitch. Harry and Chakotay need to take the Delta Flyer and lead the way, sending coordinates back to Voyager. Harry gets one calculation wrong and though the Flyer makes it back, Voyager doesn’t.
If that isn’t already bringing you to tears, the actual episode takes place in the future, where an older Harry and Chakotay find the downed Voyager—the sight of them walking around the frozen corpses of their fallen comrades is chilling.
Garrett Wang absolutely kills it in this episode—bringing to life the survivor’s guilt, anger, and general frustration of a person who realized their dream, only to have lost everyone in the process couldn’t have been easy, but he does it supremely well.
This episode may be sad, but it’s also aspirational—keep pushing, believe in yourself, believe in your team, that’s what “Timeless”, and Star Trek, is all about.
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S5E9: Thirty Days
What stands out about Voyager is that nobody is perfect. “Thirty Days” is all about human imperfection.
Tom Paris decides to help out a planet that is coming apart at the seams, even though the planet doesn’t want his help. As a result, he loses his lieutenant rank and ends up in the brig for 30 days. Ouch!
People make mistakes at work, and sometimes its because you really, truly believe you’re doing the right thing. Robert Duncan McNeill beautifully captures Tom’s aspirations, struggles, and his hard-fought belief that he’s justified in his righteousness, even when he isn’t
The important thing to take away from “Thirty Days” is that Captain Janeway loves her crew and she will be lenient with them, but if you break the rules, you’re in trouble.
As much as we love Tom and want the best for him, he kind of deserved the punishment he received in this episode. And, you know what, better to get in trouble for saving good people, than for doing something bad.