Season 4 was a turning point forStar Trek: Voyager.There was a notableboost in ratings betweenVoyagerseasons 3 and 4, and the story generally reflects that. Season 4 brought the Borg toVoyageras major antagonists, and the reintroduction of one ofStar Trek’s most terrifying enemies immediately raised the stakes for the USS Voyager. But whereas the Borg onStar Trek: The Next Generationhad been intermittent antagonists, appearing in only 6 episodes,Voyagerturned a Borg drone into a member of the crew.
Perhaps the single biggest change betweenStar Yrek: Voyagerseasons 3and 4 was swapping Jennifer Lien’s telepathic Ocampa, Kes, forJeri Ryan’s iconic former drone, Seven of Nine.Seven of Nine served as a foil for Captain Kathryn Janeway(Kate Mulgrew), revealing more about the occasionally isolated captain’s inner life than almost any othercharacter onStar Trek:Voyager. On the whole,Voyagerbroadened the scope of both its character choices and external conflicts in season 4, adding a whole new dimension to the growing show.
10"Omega Directive"
Star Trek: Voyager Season 4, Episode 21
In “Omega Directive,“Star Trek: Voyagerintroduced one of the most interesting pieces of lore toStar Trek’s canon: the mysterious and highly charged Omega particles that are so deadly that Starfleet trains all captains to destroy them immediately. The simple fact thatevery single Starfleet captain has had knowledge of Omega since the 23rd centuryand has had to keep it secret from their senior officers immediately adds nuance and complexity to everyStar Trekcaptain’s relationship with their first officers.
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Beyond adding some very cool lore, “Omega Directive” also offered insights into both Captain Janeway and Seven of Nine’s characters. For Captain Janeway, the Omega Directive first required her to keep secrets from her crew, straining her friendship with Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran) in particular.When Captain Janeway eventually chooses to bend Starfleet protocol, it affirms the fact that the bond betweenVoyager’s characters is unmatched.For Seven of Nine, Omega is a divine symbol of perfection for the Borg. Her reaction reveals a religious side ofStar Trekthat isn’t often explicitly explored.
9"Scorpion Part 2”
Star Trek: Voyager Season 2, Episode 1
“Scorpion Part 2” isStar Trek: Voyagerseason 4’s premiere, concluding season 3’s cliffhanger.“Scorpion Part 2” made it immediately clear that the stakes would be higher than ever in season 4and thatVoyager’s characters would rise to the occasion. The episode serves as a great introduction to Seven of Nine, framing her firmly as a member of the Borg Collective with no desire for individuality. UnlikeJonathan Del Arco’s Hugh inStar Trek: The Next Generation,Seven of Nine had no desire to be known as an individual.
Voyager fired shots in the Collective’s war with Species 8472, an act that would be unthinkable under Starfleet protocol in the Alpha Quadrant.
Star Trek: Voyager’s season 4 premiere also created a great conflict between Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay. As the episode’s title suggests,Commander Chakotay thought the Borg Collective was fundamentally untrustworthy whereas Captain Janeway thought a temporary alliance was possible.As a result of Captain Janeway’s trucem], Voyager fired shots in the Collective’s war with Species 8472, an act that would be unthinkable under Starfleet protocol in the Alpha Quadrant. The only reason this episode doesn’t rank higher is that it was more of a set-up for laterVoyagerepisodes than a narrative in and of its own right.
8"Revulsion”
Star Trek: Voyager Season 4, Episode 5
In many ways,Star Trek: Voyager’s holographic Doctor(Robert Picardo) is a perfect inverse ofTNG’s Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner). Both are artificial lifeforms searching to grow beyond their programming and become more human, but Data’s journey is centered on emotions - a quality that the Doctor has in spades. “Revulsion” offers a different foil for the Doctor’s personal journey, in the form of the holographic Maintenance Unit, Dejaren (Leland Orser). As a result,“Revulsion” gives a great view into the Doctor’s psyche,and what the difference between biological and holographic life in the Delta Quadrant is like.
Daniel Davis plays another sentient hologram, Professor James Moriarty, in theStar Trek: The Next Generationepisodes “Elementary, Dear Data” and “Ship In A Bottle.”
On top of these character insights,“Revulsion” is also an extremely well-written episode ofStar Trek:Voyager.Dejaren is a genuinely scary villain, building tension in nearly every scene, and nearly killing Lt. B’Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) in the episode’s climax. The only drawback to an otherwise nearly perfect episode is the episode’s B-plot of Ensign Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) attempting to seduce Seven of Nine. These moments of comic relief ultimately clash with the horror-movie tone of the rest of the episode.
7"The Killing Game"
Star Trek: Voyager Season 4, Episodes 18 & 19
Star Trekhas a lot of excellent holodeck episodes, andStar Trek: Voyager’s “The Killing Game” is one of the franchise’s best. The two-part episode pitsVoyager’s crew against the Delta Quadrant’s fearsome species of migratory hunters, the Hirogen. “The Killing Game” starts with the Hirogen having already taken over the USS Voyager, brainwashed the crew, and put them in various holographic environments to slake their bloodlust. As a result,most of “The Killing Game” takes place in a holographic version of Nazi-occupied France, with Captain Janeway leading a local resistance cell.
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It’s fun and tense to see the USS Voyager’s tactical officer, Lt. Tuvok (Tim Russ), fighting with a revolver, while Captain Janeway receives hidden messages on wine bottles. Outside the holodecks,the Doctor has some genuinely heroic moments that would be impossible in most other episodes ofStar Trek:Voyager.And, as a cherry on top of an excellent episode, seeing Neelix (Ethan Philiips) as a drunken Klingon warrior swapping battle stories is genuinely hilarious. While “The Killing Game” may not be the single most substantive episode ofStar Trek: Voyager, it is one of those episodes that is a joy to watch from beginning to end.
6"One"
Star Trek: Voyager Season 4, Episode 25
Seven of Nine is one of the most interesting characters inStar Trek, and her arc throughout her first season ofVoyageris centered on growing into her individuality.Her name, “Seven of Nine,” reflects the fact that she is not willing to embrace her original human identity as Annika Hansen. So, after a whole season of watching Seven of Nine struggle between her human and Borg natures, “One” serves as a great culmination of her arc. As the penultimate episode ofStar Trek: Voyagerseason 4, “One,” proves that Seven of Nine has grown into a full member of the Voyager family.
Even during her appearances inStar Trek: Picard,Jeri Ryan’s character still chooses to go by “Seven of Nine” instead of her human name, “Annika Hansen.”
In “One,” Seven of Nine is the only person who can remain conscious as the USS Voyager passes through a toxic nebula. From the first moments of the episode,Seven is forced to put her earlier growth into practice and be truly alone for the first time in her life.In the episode’s culmination, Seven of Nine chooses to turn off life support in order to keep the rest of Voyager’s crew safe in stasis. In “One,” Seven of Nine is willing to sacrifice herself for Voyager, and the amount of growth from “Scorpion” to this moment is mind-boggling.
5"Scientific Method"
Star Trek: Voyager Season 4, Episode 7
Star Trekis at its best when it confronts psychological and philosophical dilemmas, and “Scientific Method” brings in just such a conflict with a uniqueVoyagertwist. As the episode begins,the initial symptoms of the experiments on the USS Voyager’s crew are just the right level of gruesome without feeling jarring.Commander Chakotay and Neelix, in particular, suffer visually interesting yet undeniably horrible physical symptoms. When the alien interlopers threaten the Doctor, it is also fun to see him in the unusual setting of the DaVinci simulation.
Captain Janeway totally shuts down any attempt at ethical equivocation by flying the ship between two pulsars, and it is the perfect conclusion for the episode.
In the climax of the episode, the aliens and Captain Janeway have a direct confrontation, where they point out that the medical knowledge, they gain from Voyager will save many lives, even if it comes at the cost of the crew. WhileCaptain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) or Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) might have attempted to negotiate a solution, Captain Janeway makes the awesome choice to force the aliens' hands. Captain Janeway totally shuts down any attempt at ethical equivocation by flying the ship between two pulsars, and it is the perfect conclusion for the episode.
4"Mortal Coil"
Star Trek: Voyager Season 4, Episode 12
“Mortal Coil” is probably Neelix’s best episode in allseven seasons ofStar Trek: Voyager. When an accident leaves Neelix dead for nearly 19 hours, he suffers a crisis of faith since he did not experience an afterlife while dead.“Motal Coil” deals with some of the darkest themesStar Trekever tackles.Death and his subsequent loss of faith drive Neelix to the point of attempting suicide, and writer Bryan Fuller handles those themes with a deft hand. Neelix’s actor, Ethan Phillips, delivers one of his bestStar Trekperformances, blending grief and loss in a stellar performance.
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The episode ends with Naomi asking Neelix for a bedtime story, literally pulling Neelix back from the brink, in an incredibly touching display of the beauty of life. While the episode does not pull any punches - Neelix does not explicitly regain his faith by the end - “Mortal Coil” nevertheless delivers an emotionally satisfying ending.Simply put, “Mortal Coil” is a triumph. The only reason it does not rank even higher on this list is thatStar Trek: Voyagerseason 4 is full of triumphant episodes.
3"Hope And Fear"
Star Trek: Voyager Season 4, Episode 26
What makesStar Trek:Voyager’s season 4 finale so outstanding is how well it works in the largerVoyagernarrative.The central conflict of “Hope and Fear” is the most prototypical storyline possible onVoyager- the crew is presented with a technological means to get home that gets taken away at the end. In this case, however, “Hope and Fear” adds in the extra detail that getting home would require abandoning the USS Voyager.This one detail immediately raises the stakes of the episode and adds something bittersweet to the conclusion, forcing Captain Janeway’s crew to stay with her ship.
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But “Hope and Fear” has more than one excellent detail, making it immediately iconic. The reason Arturis (Ray Wise) wants to get Voyager assimilated by the Borg is that he blames them for his own species' assimilation, and he’s sort of right. When Captain Janeway helped the Borg win against Species 8472, she inadvertently made it possible for the Collective to devote resources towards assimilating Arturis’s species.Having a callback to “Scorpion” immediately takes “Hope and Fear” to the next level,and forcing Seven of Nine to confront her past as a drone is excellent.
2"Nemesis"
Star Trek: Voyager Season 4, Episode 4
“Nemesis” is one of those rare episodes of television that completely draws the audience into its own fiction.Star Trek: Voyagerseason 4, episode 4 focuses on Commander Chakotay as he is slowly convinced to fight in an alien army, only to reveal that everything he experienced was part of an elaborate recruitment program. But,from both the audience’s and Commander Chakotay’s position, everything he experiences seems completely real.Indeed, when Voyager first contacts the Kradin (the species Chakotay has come to know as the “Nemesis”), it seems more likely that Captain Janeway is being deceived than Commander Chakotay.
I wish it were as easy to stop hating as it was to start.
But it is the conclusion of “Nemesis” that puts it at the top of this list. After Commander Chakotay has been rescued and has been shown that everything he experienced on the planet’s surface was a lie, Captain Janeway brings in one of the Kradin so that they might thank him. But Commander Chakotay finds that he still cannot trust them, reflecting, “I wish it were as easy to stop hating as it was to start.““Nemesis” offers a deeply convincing example of the power of propaganda,and it drags the audience along for every second of it.
1"Year Of Hell”
Star Trek: Voyager Season 4, Episodes 8 & 9
“Year of Hell” is the best story ofStar Trek: Voyagerseason 4. Not only that, butit’s also one of the series' best storylines overall.In “Year of Hell,” Captain Janeway is functionally at war with time itself, as a Krenim vessel constantly alters the timeline around the USS Voyager. When Commander Chakotay and Captain Janeway are separated, it is deeply touching to see how Captain Janeway continues to carry the pocket watch that was Chakotay’s final gift to her. As Voyager remains the only fixed point in the shifting timelines of Krenim space, seeing the slow destruction of the ship is genuinely tragic.
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As “Year of Hell” progresses across two episodes,virtually every member of Voyager’s senior staff gets a chance to shine.Commander Chakotay and Lt. Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNiell) argue with the Krenim commander, Annorax (Kurtwood Smith), Seven of Nine and Tuvok develop an unbreakable bond, Neelix gets a field commission, and Captain Janeway and Lt. B’Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) use every bit of their engineering skills to keep the ship together.
“Year of Hell” could have been a movie.
But what really makes “Year of Hell” shine is Kurtwood Smith’s performance as Annorax. The final shot of the episode shows a version of Annorax who is finally reunited with his family, drawing up new plans for a temporal weapon. “Year of Hell” could have been a movie in its own right, and it is undeniably the best episode ofStar Trek: Voyagerseason 4.
