Fred Topel is still maxing and relaxing at a film festival or something, and has not yet to time to return to Best Episode Ever. Witney Seibold, then, working as a guest critic, will continue to pick out the best episodes of each of the “Star Trek” series to date.
Although it is often maligned in the Trekkie community – often vying with “Enterprise” as the most hated “Star Trek” property – and critics tend to focus on how terrible Captain Janeway was – seriously, that woman was a dangerously reckless me-first autocrat – it could perhaps be said that “Star Trek: Voyager,” in it’s premise alone, was the most “Star Trek” of the “Star Trek” shows. The title of the show has the word “trek” in it, and the Voyager did just that for seven straight years, which is more than can be said for the space station Deep Space Nine.
What’s more, the show was the first Trek series since the original to deal with the unfamiliar. The show followed the titular Federation starship Voyager (NCC-74656) as it was unexpectedly whisked 70,000 lightyears away from Earth. In Trek parlance, that equals a 75-year journey back. This was a Federation ship – and a small one at that – wholly separated from the Federation, unable to communicate with home, deep inside alien space, having to limit their resources and rely on their wits to survive. The aliens they inevitably encountered had never heard of the Federation, so their assumed authority as a Starfleet vessel had been entirely undone. They were truly alone.
In that situation, interesting questions come up about command. If there’s no Federation to give a court martial to an unruly captain, how important is it to retain a Federation power structure? If you’re utterly stranded, how much do you adhere to protocol? I would argue that Captain Janeway was tough and resolute, and she was the first Starfleet captain we’ve seen that could openly talk to and relate to her crew (Picard and Sisko were relatively aloof). But she also tended to put herself and the entire ship at unreasonably grave risk merely in order to – it certainly seemed – swing her dick around. Remember that one episode where she knocked her pilot out of his chair and steered the Voyager toward the destructive surface of a nearby sun just to prove to a nearby alien that she would do it? This is not the action of a Starfleet captain. This is the action of a surly alcoholic. If this is the show’s creators idea of machisma, perhaps they need to rethink a few things.
“Star Trek: Voyager” also tended to – much to many viewers’ chagrin – pander. The show wasn’t as highly rated as its compatriots, and you could see the show’s makers ofter inserting gimmicks to lure outsiders into the fold. In the show’s third season, they introduced a holographic bikini resort that the crew would often visit, just to get some more skin onto the show. There was one episode where Tuvok (Tim Russ) went back in time to meet Capt. Sulu (George Takei) during the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. There was even a two-part episode wherein the Voyager crew was transported to Earth in the present day (i.e. 1996) to do battle with a Bill Gates-like computer tycoon (played by Ed Begley, Jr.) with 29th-century technology hidden in his office. Sarah Silverman smooched the ship’s heartthrob Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill).
And, of course, many people either love or totally hate the 4th season gimmick of jettisoning the compassionate character of Kes (Jennifer Lien) and replacing her with a hot, busty Borg babe in a skintight bodysuit. Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) is a fine character on paper, I suppose, but it’s hard to get past the fact that she was clearly hired for her figure. Embarrassingly enough, “Voyager’s” ratings picked up when she made it onto the show.
But the show is, despite all these gimmicks, richer than it got credit for. It dealt with matters of ethos and philosophy more directly than some of the other shows did. It played fast and loose, and there is a refreshing quality to having a “Star Trek” crew – usually comprised of the best and the brightest – mutated into a family of ragtag ragamuffins.
The best episode of “Star Trek: Voyager” came long before the gimmicks began, near the end of the show’s second season. The episode in question is a nightmarish and bizarre story with a scary lead character, a weird setting, and one of the more salient philosophical questions “Star Trek” has ever asked. The episode is “The Thaw,” which aired on April 29, 1996. This may be an odd choice, as it doesn’t deal with the fate of the crew or the character of the central captain in any way (as all my previous choices have). But it does ask – and come up with a good answer to – one vital human question. I’ll get to that below.
“The Thaw” is not well-known by any stretch, so let me refresh your memory. The crew of the Voyager encounter a planet that has been ravaged by environmental disaster. There are only five beings left on this planet, and two of them have died of heart attacks. What’s more, they seem to be connected to a Matrix-like computer that has been creating a virtual reality for them to keep their minds active while they hibernate through the disaster.
Two of Voyager’s crew members (Harry Kim and B’Elanna Torres) enter the virtual reality world, and find a nightmarish carnival populated by myriad sadistic creatures in masks, led by an evil gray-and-white clown with no name. The clown is played by Michael McKean. The three aliens have been kept alive by this program for decades, and have been ritualistically tormented and even killed by the clown. Kim and B’Elanna learn that the virtual reality world was created from their own minds, but something went haywire, and their fears and anxieties manifested as this clown figure. An evil clown that is literally made of fear and sadism. That’s pretty effing scary. Since the program is also taps directly into the users’ brains, the clown can also read your mind (after a one-minute delay).
So what we have with “The Thaw” is one of “Star Trek’s” rare horror episodes, highlighted by what is possibly the franchise’s scariest figure. The Borg may be threatening, and Q may be exciting. Species 8472 may seen unbeatable. But this charismatic cackling monster is just plain terrifying.
Janeway and crew try to think of ways to release the aliens from the VR world, but the clown is too savvy to allow for any tinkering, and essentially continues to keep them hostage. How does one defeat a creature that only exists in the mind? What – as the crew begins to ask – does Fear want from us?
And that’s the question that takes this episode from merely good and spooky into the Best Episode Ever. Here we have a villain who is Fear, and now there are actually physical stakes to overcoming Fear. This is not some vague heroic overcoming of fear, where someone finds inner courage and rises above to save the day, etc. etc. etc. This is a tangible battle with Fear, one that requires that an age-old philosophical question be untangled in order to escape. For once, a “Star Trek” crew has to literally out-think its foe.
This is a brilliant way to envision a philosophical and emotional struggle. If you’ve ever dealt with persistent fear, anxiety, or depression, you may begin to think of those feelings as alien entities that feed off of you; parasites. This episode of “Voyager” makes fear into a living entity. One who wants to torture you, wants to live on, one who wants to thrive at your expense. Your metaphysical body made manifest. And y’know what? Fear would look kind of like that, don’t you think?
And the ultimate question: What does that emotional entity want from us? What is fear’s ultimate function? Although they tried holographic and computer trickery to save the aliens, the crew must eventually answer that question to truly understand this villain. And answer it they do! Fear, you see, exists to protect us from danger, to keep us sharp, to – as it turns out – be defeated. Fear exists to be overcome. Armed with that notion, Janeway faces off with the clown, and simply thinks him into non-existence.
“Star Trek: Voyager” is loved by many, as dismissed by as many. But with an episode like “The Thaw,” one may count it as a wholly worthy “Star trek” Show.
Witney Seibold is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly articles Trolling, Free Film School and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
