voyager season 3 episode 10

Star Trek: Voyager

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Season 3 – Star Trek: Voyager

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Watch Star Trek: Voyager — Season 3 with a subscription on Paramount+, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

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Kate Mulgrew

Capt. Kathryn Janeway

Robert Beltran

Roxann Dawson

B'Elanna Torres

Robert Duncan McNeill

Jennifer Lien

Ethan Phillips

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Star Trek: Voyager - Episode Guide - Season 3

The slo-o-o-o-ow evolutionary progress of Star Trek: Voyager continues in season 3, as the show finally starts to more closely resemble, you know, Star Trek.

Voyager season 3 is still fairly uneven in quality, but some good old ST staples still get some good use in this season. The crew experiences trippy time paradoxes in “Coda” and “Before and After”, while the entire ship visits the 1990s a la Star Trek IV in “Future’s End.” The holodeck, well more used in Voyager than in any other ST series, is done extremely effectively in the ripping yarn “Worst Case Scenario” and the surprisingly interesting “Real Life.” (To be fair, however, there is “Alter Ego”…)

1. Basics, Part II – Talk about your pat resolutions: The Voyager crew survives in Stone Age conditions for about six hours of so and befriends a shaman while Paris, with the assistance of the Doctor, rounds up some galactic cavalry and Voyager is returned with nary a scratch. O yeah, Seska dies and the baby for which Janeway and Chakotay were willing to sacrifice ship and crew is never heard about again. **

2. Flashback – In Voyager’s version of “Trials and Tribble-ations,” Tuvok and Janeway mentally travel back to Tuvok’s time on the Excelsior, which awesomely intersects with the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and gives Captain Sulu an opportunity to kick a little ass. ****

3. The Chute – With no knowledge of how they arrived, Paris and Kim find themselves in a prison straight out of Escape from New York. Kim’s sad attempts to act the aggressive badass are thankfully outweighed by a neat twist or two. ***

4. The Swarm – Janeway et al attempt to maneuver Voyage through a space packed with a swarm of small ships, but it’s Robert Picardo who deservedly gets the quality screen time. The Doctor’s memory is rapidly degrading and so B’Elanna crafts a holodeck program of the EMH’s designer, Dr. Zimmerman, to assist. ***

5. False Profits – Full disclosure: Star Trek Guide digs the Ferengi as fantastic satirical content on consumerism, so that may bias this synopsis. So … remember the dudes looking to bid on rights to a wormhole in the ST:TNG episode “The Price”? This is what happened to them after traveling through the ultimately unstable wormhole: The two conniving Ferengi found ways to exploit the local mythology of a nearby planet to their advantage; clearly The Prime Directive has no business (so to speak) conflicting with the Laws of Acquisition… ****

6. Remember – B’Elanna has recurring dreams which appear to be induced by visiting aliens called Enarans ; these are a side effect of an attempt to repress certain bits of Enaran history or something, but we’re still trying to figure out why Torres was susceptible rather than the Vulcans and Betazoids kicking around…**

7. Sacred Ground – Metaphysics and subatomic physics collide in a story that would likely have had Gene Roddenberry foaming at the mouth. When Kes is left comatose outside of a monastery while on shore leave, Janeway must take a less than scientific approach to restoring her to consciousness. **

8. Future's End, Part I – Kinda like Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home except not quite as humorous and set in the 1990s. An interesting time-travel tale which includes time travelers from the 29th century and Voyager’s escape into the 20th, where an unknown event will destroy the Earth 1,000 years later. Interesting stuff made even more compelling with Ed Begley Jr. playing an EEEvil Steve Jobs. ****

9. Future's End, Part II – Part II keeps the tension and intrigue high, while giving Tuvok and Paris some a few funny bits. Time ticks away as the unanswered questions demand resolution: Can Henry Starling be stopped? How will Voyager return to the 29th century? Does The Doctor get to keep that dope mobile emitter? And will Paris bag that attitudinal 90’s chick? ****

10. Warlord – An alien warlord takes control of Kes’s mind and whoa are the results boring … *

11. The Q and the Grey – Kind of like two Q-centric episodes put together: Q tries to convince Janeway to have a baby with him (guess he should have been around for Kes’s Elogium), and then reveals that Janeway’s decision in “Death Wish” has led to a civil war among the Q that’s having deleterious effects in the standard four-dimensional plane of existence. ***

12. Macrocosm – The classic virus-from-another-planet Star Trek trope goes one step further when a “macrovirus” invade Voyager. Watchable despite the silly presence, basically because The Doctor and Janeway are ultimately the only ones standing (literally). **

13. Fair Trade – Neelix finally admits that he knows nothing about the space they’re traveling through and goes on to whine about his uselessness. And then he gets scammed out of Voyager resources thanks to an “old friend.” **

14. Alter Ego – Kim and Tuvok vie for the affections of a holodeck babe, which then (sigh) comes to life outside the holodeck. *

15. Coda – Head trip for Janeway: The captain appears to be trapped in a time loop involving various death scenarios before the plot line takes a crazy left turn into the afterlife. ***

16. Blood Fever – Another rule of Voyager: Any story line involving B’Elanna Torres flipping out can immediately be labeled a non-classic. In this pretty silly episode. Tuvok goes through Pon Farr – and “passes it” to B’Elanna. I know, right? 0

17. Unity – In an episode set just outside of Borg space, a couple of subplots featuring the deadly force involve the investigation of a dead Borg cube and rogue Borg units who have (mostly) de-assimilated from the collective. ****

18. Darkling – Picardo gets to chew the scenery a bit in this one, based on an attempt by the Doctor to expand his personality. Unfortunately, this experiment goes awry and a Mr. Hyde type emerges at random. ***

19. Rise – Tuvok and Neelix (gods help us) crash land a shuttle (no kidding). Sensors and transporters aren’t working (imagine that) because reasons, so Neelix lies, claiming to know how to repair the nearby space elevator; also, there’s a bomb aboard. And Neelix squeakily complains that Tuvok doesn’t respect him. *

20. Favorite Son – In a plot line straight out of Kirk’s playbook, Kim is revealed to actually be a member of another species and is recalled to a planet where women are the vast majority, so even the ensign can get some. Or so he thinks … **

21. Before and After – Head trip for Kes: She suddenly finds herself years in the future and saddled with a terminal disease. She then begins traveling backward through her life. ***

22. Real Life – The Doctor creates a too-perfect family with whom to interact on the holodeck, so it’s a good thing that Anson Williams of Happy Days fame is aboard to direct. Includes a surprisingly touching ending. ***

23. Distant Origin – A nice script steadily unpacks a compelling tale about a reptilian scientist who believe their species evolved from humans. This one includes a very interesting reaction to the typical stirring speech by Chakotay as well… ****

24. Displaced – Head trip turns into invasion, as Voyager crew members are replaced one at a time by aliens who’ve discovered quite the unique pilfering strategy… ***

25. Worst Case Scenario – This show may take (justifiable) flak for overusing the holodeck, but at least three Voyager episodes make the list of top ST stories using the device. This is the first of the best. When a mysterious, anonymously-programmer holo-program starring the Voyager bridge crew and set in a time of Maquis rebellion, nearly everyone on board is obsessed. When the “author” is revealed to be Tuvok and the “holonovel” actually a training exercise, the crew nevertheless encourage him to finish writing; Paris offers to lend a hand. ****

26. Scorpion, Part I – The wussification of the Borg begun in the post-Best of Both Worlds seasons of ST:TNG continues, as the Voyager crew discovers a totally badass bunch of dudes known only as Species 8472. The Borg then condescend to negotiate (!) with Janeway regarding safe passage though Borg space in order for assistance with the 8472s.

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Star Trek: Voyager

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Star Trek: Voyager - Season 3

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Streaming, rent, or buy Star Trek: Voyager – Season 3:

Currently you are able to watch "Star Trek: Voyager - Season 3" streaming on Paramount Plus, Paramount Plus Apple TV Channel , Paramount+ Amazon Channel, Paramount+ Roku Premium Channel or buy it as download on Apple TV, Vudu, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies.

As Capt. Janeway and her crew continue their journey home, they face many obstacles, including a time rip that sends them back to 20th-century Earth.

20 Episodes

S3 e1 - basics (2), s3 e2 - flashback, s3 e3 - the chute, s3 e4 - the swarm, s3 e5 - false profits, s3 e6 - remember, s3 e7 - sacred ground, s3 e8 - future's end (1), s3 e9 - future's end (2), s3 e10 - warlord, s3 e11 - the q and the grey, s3 e12 - macrocosm, s3 e13 - fair trade, s3 e14 - alter ego, s3 e15 - coda, s3 e16 - blood fever, s3 e17 - unity, s3 e18 - darkling, s3 e19 - rise, s3 e20 - favorite son, where does star trek: voyager rank today the justwatch daily streaming charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. this includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. this includes data from ~1.3 million movie & tv show fans per day..

Streaming charts last updated: 1:21:04 PM, 04/26/2024

Star Trek: Voyager is 13943 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The TV show has moved up the charts by 6040 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than The Dragon Prince but less popular than Still Open All Hours.

Streaming Charts The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

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• Seasons & Episodes
• TV Listings
• Cast & Crew

Star Trek: Voyager Season 3 Episodes

• 66   Metascore
• Drama, Action & Adventure, Science Fiction
• Watchlist Where to Watch

A starship is stranded in the uncharted Delta Quadrant in this fourth 'Star Trek' series, the first to feature a female captain. Here, the crew grudgingly teams with Maquis rebels to try to return to Earth after Voyager is hurtled 70,000 light-years from Federation space.

Season 3 Episode Guide

26 Episodes 1996 - 1997

Basics, Part II

Wed, Sep 4, 1996 60 mins

Conclusion. The treachery of Seska and Culluh (Martha Hackett, Anthony De Longis) leaves Janeway and the crew stranded on Hanon Four, while the Kazon's control of the Voyager is undermined by unlikely saboteurs. Suder: Brad Dourif. Chakotay: Robert Beltran. The Doctor: Robert Picardo.

Wed, Sep 11, 1996 60 mins

A Vulcan mind-meld between Tuvok and Janeway takes them back to Tuvok's first deep-space assignment, aboard the Excelsior with Capt. Sulu (George Takei). Janice Rand: Grace Lee Whitney. Kang: Michael Ansara. Valtane: Jeremy Roberts. Helmsman: Boris Krutonog.

Wed, Sep 18, 1996 60 mins

The Akitirians declare Kim and Paris to be terrorists, and they are thrown into a hellish prison where devices attached to the inmates' necks drive them insane. Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill. Janeway: Kate Mulgrew. Chakotay: Robert Beltran.

Wed, Sep 25, 1996 60 mins

Voyager enters a section of space belonging to a culture that doesn't tolerate trespassers; meanwhile, the Doctor (Robert Picardo) begins to lose his memory. Diva: Carole Davis. Chardis: Steven Houska. Kes: Jennifer Lien. Janeway: Kate Mulgrew.

False Profits

Wed, Oct 2, 1996 60 mins

After discovering traces of a wormhole that may lead to the Alpha Quadrant, Chakotay and Paris find something else---two Ferengis who've become holy leaders of a Delta Quadrant planet. Chakotay: Robert Beltran. Paris: Robert Duncan McNeill. Torres: Roxann Dawson.

Wed, Oct 9, 1996 60 mins

While shuttling a group of telepathic aliens to their homeworld, Torres (Roxann Dawson) experiences realistic dreams, which may represent an actual occurrence involving murders that seem genocidal. Jareth: Bruce Davison. Girl: Tina Reddington. Woman: Nancy Kaine.

Sacred Ground

Wed, Oct 30, 1996 60 mins

Kes (Jennifer Lien) becomes comatose after entering a sacred shrine, prompting Janeway to try to learn the cryptic ritual necessary to save her. Kate Mulgrew. Paris: Robert Duncan McNeill (who also directed). Neelix: Ethan Phillips.

Future's End

Wed, Nov 6, 1996 60 mins

A 29th-century ship attacks Voyager, then both are drawn through a temporal rift that throws them back to 20th-century Earth. Part 1 of two. Starling: Ed Begley Jr. Rain: Sarah Silverman. Braxton: Allan Royal. Janeway: Kate Mulgrew. Chakotay: Robert Beltran.

Wed, Nov 13, 1996 60 mins

Conclusion. As Starling and Janeway battle for the timeship, Rain, Paris and Tuvok try to run interference; and Chakotay and Torres are captured by militiamen. Starling: Ed Begley Jr. Rain: Sarah Silverman. Janeway: Kate Mulgrew. Paris: Robert Duncan McNeill. Tuvok: Tim Russ.

Wed, Nov 20, 1996 60 mins

Kes (Jennifer Lien) is possessed by a centuries-old Ilari warlord, dragging the crew of Voyager into a civil war that Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) wants to avoid. Adin: Anthony Crivello. Demmas: Brad Greenquist. Nori: Galyn Gorg. Resh: Charles Emmett.

The Q and the Grey

Wed, Nov 27, 1996 60 mins

Q (John de Lancie) returns, intending to mate with Janeway. But the arrival of another Q (Suzie Plakson) reveals his true reason for reappearing---a civil war in the Continuum. Janeway: Kate Mulgrew. Chakotay: Robert Beltran. Neelix: Ethan Phillips. Paris: Robert Duncan McNeill.

Wed, Dec 11, 1996 60 mins

Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) discovers Voyager has been invaded by macroviruses that have infected the entire crew---and are now hunting her and the holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo). Neelix: Ethan Phillips. Chakotay: Robert Beltran. Paris: Robert Duncan McNeill.

Wed, Jan 8, 1997 60 mins

Neelix (Ethan Phillips), fearing his usefulness on the ship may be over, enlists the aid of a fellow Talaxian, Wix (James Nardini), to procure star maps, but Wix's methods lead to trouble. Bahrat: Carlos Carrasco. Sutok: Steve Kehela. Vorik: Alexander Enberg. Map Vendor: Eric Sharp.

Wed, Jan 15, 1997 60 mins

When Harry falls for a holodeck character (Sandra Nelson), he goes to Tuvok for Vulcan guidance---but the character becomes intrigued with Tuvok and breaks free of the holodeck. The Doctor: Robert Picardo (who also directed). Harry: Garrett Wang. Tuvok: Tim Russ. Janeway: Kate Mulgrew.

Wed, Jan 29, 1997 60 mins

Janeway and Chakotay (Kate Mulgrew and Robert Beltran) crash-land a shuttle on a planet, where a strange chain of events is initiated and Janeway appears to die---several times. Adm. Janeway: Len Cariou. The Doctor: Robert Picardo. Kes: Jennifer Lien. Tuvok: Tim Russ. Torres: Roxann Dawson. Kim: Garrett Wang.

Blood Fever

Wed, Feb 5, 1997 60 mins

After Torres encounters Vorick, who is in the grip of the Vulcan mating urge, she finds herself increasingly out of control, jeopardizing an away mission. Torres: Roxann Dawson. Vorick: Alexander Enberg. Tuvok: Tim Russ. Paris: Robert Duncan McNeill. Chakotay: Robert Beltran. The Doctor: Robert Picardo.

Wed, Feb 12, 1997 60 mins

Chakotay (Robert Beltran), responding to a distress signal, finds a colony of races formerly assimilated by the Borg; Janeway comes face-to-face with one of the Borg cubes adrift in space.

Wed, Feb 19, 1997 60 mins

The Doctor's experiments in personality enhancement create a murderous alter ego that takes control of him. The Doctor: Robert Picardo. Tuvok: Tim Russ. Janeway: Kate Mulgrew. Torres: Roxann Dawson. Chakotay: Robert Beltran.

Wed, Feb 26, 1997 60 mins

Voyager aids a planet under bombardment by an asteroid, but the team assigned to investigate crash-lands. Neelix: Ethan Phillips. Lillias: Lisa Kaminir. Sklar: Kelly Connell. Tuvok: Tim Russ. Janeway: Kate Mulgrew.

Favorite Son

Wed, Mar 19, 1997 60 mins

Harry (Garrett Wang) exhibits precognitive skills by anticipating an attack, then guides the ship to a planet where he is greeted as a long-lost son. Eliann: Cari Shayne. Lyris: Deborah May. Taymon: Patrick Fabian. Rinna: Kelli Kirkland. Malia: Kristanna Loken.

Before and After

Wed, Apr 9, 1997 60 mins

Kes (Jennifer Lien) awakens to find herself as an old woman on her deathbed, but then discovers she is moving back through her life, seemingly to a point before her birth. Linnis: Jessica Collins. Amis: Michael Maguire. Young Kes: Janna Michaels.

Wed, Apr 23, 1997 60 mins

The Doctor creates a holographic family to enhance his performance as a physician; meanwhile, Voyager encounters a highly destructive "astral eddy." The Doctor: Robert Picardo. Janeway: Kate Mulgrew. Kes: Jennifer Lien. Paris: Robert Duncan McNeill.

Distant Origin

Wed, Apr 30, 1997 60 mins

An alien scientist (Henry Woronicz) tries to prove a heretical theory for the origin of his species---but his first contact with humans goes disastrously wrong. Odala: Concetta Tomei. Veer: Christopher Liam Moore. Haluk: Marshall Teague. Chakotay: Robert Beltran.

Wed, May 7, 1997 60 mins

As crew members begin to disappear, they are replaced by confused aliens called Nyrians, who seem to have no idea how they've boarded the ship. Rislan: James Noah. Lang: Deborah Levin. Jarlath: Mark L. Taylor. Dammar: Kenneth Tigar.

Worst Case Scenario

Wed, May 14, 1997 60 mins

Tuvok's holonovel about a mutiny aboard Voyager becomes a real threat to the ship when a booby trap set by Seska (Martha Hackett) is discovered within it. Tuvok: Tim Russ. Janeway: Kate Mulgrew. Chakotay: Robert Beltran. Torres: Roxann Dawson.

Scorpion - Part 1

Wed, May 21, 1997 60 mins

The Voyager enters Borg space and encounters a devastating new threat.

Screen Rant

Star trek: voyager & ds9 crossed over in the mirror universe.

Despite being stuck in the Delta Quadrant, a Star Trek: Voyager crew member briefly crossed over into the Mirror Universe to join the DS9 cast.

• Star Trek: Voyager and Deep Space Nine crossed over within the Mirror Universe, bringing the shows together across vast cosmic distances.
• The crossovers featuring characters like Tuvok and Doctor Zimmerman added depth to the interconnected Star Trek universe.
• Despite differing tones, Voyager and DS9 remain beloved shows, delighting audiences through streaming platforms today.

Despite being separated by thousands of light years, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine crossed over inside the Mirror Universe. Voyager and Deep Space Nine were very different in tone, due to the differing approaches of the shows' respective producers, Brannon Braga and Ira Steven Behr. Where DS9 was a serialized drama that tackled huge themes, Voyager embraced a traditional episodic approach that could sometimes feel disposable and regressive . Despite their differences in tone, DS9 and Voyager are two beloved Star Trek TV shows that still delight audiences to this day via streaming, which is a testament to the versatility and timelessness of the franchise.

As the USS Voyager was stranded in the Delta Quadrant, it was hard, but not impossible, for Star Trek: Voyager to cross over into Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Alpha and Gamma Quadrant settings. In fact, there was a surprising number of Star Trek characters who guested on Voyager from Captain Hikaru Sulu (George Takei) to Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes). Creative approaches such as intervention by Q (John de Lancie), glimpses of Starfleet's attempts to locate the missing USS Voyager, and even the Mirror Universe allowed Star Trek: Voyager to crossover with its 1990s contemporaries, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .

Every 1990s Era Star Trek Crossover

Star trek: voyager’s tuvok crossed over with ds9’s mirror universe, star trek: deep space nine, season 3, episode 19, "through the looking glass".

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 3, episode 19, "Through the Looking Glass", Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) is captured and taken to the Mirror Universe by "Smiley" O'Brien (Colm Meaney). The Rebellion in the Mirror Universe wanted Prime Sisko to convince the ex-wife of his Terran counterpart to join the resistance against the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance . As Sisko is taken to the Terran Rebellion's enclave, he meets the Mirror Universe variants of his DS9 crew mates. In the same scene Sisko also meets the Mirror Universe version of Star Trek: Voyager 's Lt. Tuvok (Tim Russ), leading a more logic-driven faction of the Rebellion.

Mirror Tuvok is the only Mirror Universe variant of a Star Trek: Voyager character that has appeared on TV.

Tuvok was included in "Through the Looking Glass" at the request of Rick Berman , who presumably wanted to strengthen the links between Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager . DS9 season 3 and Voyager season 1 aired concurrently with each other, and "Through the Looking Glass" aired on April 17, 1995, a week when there was no new episode of Voyager . In this gap between "State of Flux" and "Heroes and Demons", therefore, a brief crossover between Voyager and DS9 was a good way to keep the fledgling Star Trek show in the minds of the audience.

Every Voyager & DS9 Star Trek Crossover

"Through the Looking Glass" isn't the only crossover between Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . The Voyager pilot "Caretaker" features the USS Voyager depart from Deep Space Nine to search for the missing Tuvok and the Maquis ship, the Valjean in the Badlands. As with McCoy and Picard in the previous Star Trek pilots, DS9 's Quark (Armin Shimerman) appeared in "Caretaker" to pass the baton to Voyager . In a scene that demonstrated how green the young Ensign Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) was, he almost falls for one of Quark's latest scams, until he's rescued by Lt. Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill).

Gul Evek (Richard Poe) and Morn (Mark Allen Shepherd) are the two other Star Trek: Deep Space Nine characters that appear in the Star Trek: Voyager pilot.

A version of Star Trek: Voyager 's Doctor (Robert Picardo) appeared in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 5, episode 16, "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" alongside his creator Dr. Lewis Zimmerman (also Picardo). Technically, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine marks the first real appearance by the EMH's creator, who had previously appeared in Voyager as a holographic replica. The real Zimmerman would later appear in Star Trek: Voyager season 6, episode 24, "Life Line", which also featured Lt. Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz) and Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) further strengthening the bonds between different corners of the Star Trek universe.

All episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

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Not available

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.

Star Trek: Voyager

The fifth entry in the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek: Voyager, is a sci-fi series that sees the crew of the USS Voyager on a long journey back to their home after finding themselves stranded at the far ends of the Milky Way Galaxy. Led by Captain Kathryn Janeway, the series follows the crew as they embark through truly uncharted areas of space, with new species, friends, foes, and mysteries to solve as they wrestle with the politics of a crew in a situation they've never faced before. 

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The 10 best Star Trek: Voyager episodes, ranked

As much as fans love to praise Star Trek as groundbreaking science fiction, it’s important to remember that, for most of the franchise’s history, Trek was weekly procedural television. Until the streaming era, each series was churning out roughly 26 episodes a year, and by the later seasons of Star Trek: Voyager , some of the creative crew had been in the business of making Star Trek for over a decade. The franchise was a crossover commercial success, the kind of success that the money men like to leave exactly as it is for as long as it’s doing steady numbers.

10. Counterpoint (season 5, episode 10)

9. the thaw (season 2, episode 23), 8. mortal coil (season 4, episode 12), 7. latent image (season 5, episode 11), 6. bride of chaotica (season 5, episode 12), 5. living witness (season 4, episode 23), 4. prime factors (season 1, episode 10), 3. year of hell, parts i & ii (season 4, episodes 8 & 9), 2. blink of an eye (season 6, episode 12), 1. timeless (season 5, episode 6).

The operation was essentially on rails, and there was a lot of pressure from the studio and the network to keep it that way, which accounts for the general blandness of Voyager and the early years of its successor, Enterprise . The waning years of Trek’s golden era were plagued by creative exhaustion and, consequently, laziness. Concepts from previous series were revisited, often with diminishing returns, and potentially groundbreaking ideas were nixed from on high in order to avoid upsetting the apple cart.

That’s not to say that Star Trek: Voyager isn’t still a solid television show, and even many Trekkies’ favorite. The saga of Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and her gallant crew finding their way home from the farthest reaches of the galaxy may not be as ambitious as it could have been, but it is steadily entertaining, which is why new and nostalgic fans alike enjoy it as cozy “comfort viewing.” For our part, however, we tend to enjoy the episodes that have a certain emotional intensity or creative spark, that feel like conceptual or stylistic risks. As such, you might find that our list of the 10 best Voyager episodes differs greatly from some of the others out there. We like when Voyager dared to get heavy, or silly, or sappy, or mean. So, without further ado, let’s raise a glass to the journey …

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Counterpoint drops the audience into the middle of an ongoing story,in which Voyager is boarded and inspected by agents of a fascist government, the Devore. The Devore treat all travelers through their space with suspicion, but are particularly concerned with capturing and detaining all telepaths, who they view as dangerous. Despite the risks, Captain Janeway is attempting to smuggle a group of telepathic refugees to safety, all while putting on a show of cooperation for smiling Devore Inspector Kashyk (Mark Harelik). Much of the plot takes place in the background, obscured from the audience in order to build suspense. The real focus is on the evolving dynamic between Janeway and Kashyk, a rivalry that simmers into one of the Voyager captain’s rare romances. Kashyk works in the service of what are, transparently, space Nazis, but when he offers to defect to Voyager, can his intentions be trusted?

Beyond its intriguing premise, Counterpoint is a particularly strong production with a lot of subtle hints of creative flair. Director Les Landau and director of photography Marvin Rush, who had been both working on Star Trek since the 1980s, shoot the hell out of this story, breaking from Voyager ’s even lighting and predictable camera moves to make some very deliberate choices that build a great deal of tension around what is essentially a bottle episode. The makeup team, supervised by equally seasoned Trek veteran Michael Westmore, supplies a memorable and imaginative makeup design for an alien astrophysicist who appears in all of two scenes in this episode and is never utilized again. Most of all, Kate Mulgrew provides what may be her most subtle, human performance in the entire series, embodying Janeway’s famous conviction and strength of will while also granting a rare glimpse at her more vulnerable side without ever straying into melodrama.

If you look back at Star Trek: The Original Series , in-between the deep dramas and camp classics, you’ll find a lot of episodes that are just plain weird. The same is true for the best Star Trek spinoffs, and there’s no Voyager story as boldly off-putting as The Thaw , which guest stars This is Spinal Tap and Better Call Saul ’ s Michael McKean as a maniacal AI who literally scares people to death. In this episode, Voyager comes across a group of aliens who have been trapped in suspended animation ever since an environmental disaster struck their planet two decades earlier. To pass the time while in hibernation, the survivors have hooked their brains up to a virtual reality, where they are supposed to be entertained by a wacky character known only as “the Clown.”

Unfortunately, what the Clown finds most entertaining is probing their minds for their innermost fears and turning it into weird performance art, and he refuses to let his audience leave. When the Voyager crew attempts to rescue them, the Clown takes Ensign Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) hostage and proceeds to menace him for most of the episode. And, folks, it’s a trip.

The Thaw is a colorful, not entirely comprehensible, totally unclassifiable episode. It’s sort of horror, it’s sort of comedy, it’s sort of character study, but mostly it’s just entertaining. And for however much of it is up to interpretation, it’s a rare glimpse at the psyche of Harry Kim, one of Voyager’s least explored characters. Above all, however, it’s a delight to watch McKean perform what’s essentially his take on the Joker, a homicidal clown with a genius intellect and a poetic flair. Mulgrew, consequently, gets to play Batman, facing down his gleeful menace with stillness and determination. It’s one of the few real treats from the early seasons of the series, one whose reputation among fans has only grown since its premiere in 1996.

Aside from maybe The Next Generation ’s Wesley Crusher, no Star Trek character was as immediately reviled as Voyager’s chef, ambassador, and morale officer Neelix (Ethan Phillips). On most episodes of Voyager , Neelix is the goofy comic relief, performing folksy, unfunny antics around the mess hall or annoying the stoic Vulcan Lt. Tuvok (Tim Russ) with his naivety and effervescence. His unsettling long-term romantic relationship with Kes, who is technically a two-year-old when the series begins, is also part of Trek’s most irritating love triangle.

And yet, when Neelix is the center of an episode, it often reveals him to be one of the show’s most textured and interesting characters. Neelix is a survivor of a devastating war that destroyed his home and claimed the lives of his entire family. Beneath the persona of a “happy wanderer” resides a deep sea of melancholy and a predisposition towards depression. It’s a performance for his own benefit, as well as for the weary Voyager crew, and if it seems like he’s trying too hard, that’s because he is.

In the episode Mortal Coil , Neelix is killed on an away mission, only to be resuscitated 18 hours later by Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and her advanced Borg medicine. The crew is happy to have him back, but the experience rocks Neelix to his core. Neelix has always believed that he would be reunited with his family in the afterlife, but upon his death, he experienced no such thing. Neelix’s crisis of faith provides Phillips an opportunity to really dig his teeth into his character, and to take a heavy, nuanced look at belief, mortality, depression, and suicidal ideation.

Writer Bryan Fuller, who would go on to create NBC’s Hannibal , puts his psychological horror chops to great use here, and director Allan Kroeker sustains a feeling of dread that places the audience on edge and off-balance. The story resolves itself a little too quickly and is never mentioned again, but that’s par for the course on Voyager. But when evaluated on its own, Mortal Coil  holds up against some of Trek’s best character studies.

Following up on the popularity of Data on The Next Generation , Voyager debuted with its own artificial crewmember, the Emergency Medical Hologram (Robert Picardo), usually just called “the Doctor.” Rather than a supposedly emotionless android , the Doctor is a hologram based on the grouchy engineer who designed him and endowed with the medical knowledge of the entire Federation. At the start of the series, everyone — including the Doctor himself — considers him to be a tool intended for short-term use, rather than a person, but since he’s left online for years rather than hours, he gradually develops his own personality and preferences, becoming a sentient individual.

Unlike in Data’s case, however, it takes the crew a long time to get used to the idea of the Doctor being his own man, and they continue to infringe on his rights, his privacy, and his very programming for much of the series. Sometimes the Doctor’s indignity is played for laughs, sometimes for sympathy, and in our next episode, for horror.

In Latent Image , the Doctor discovers evidence that he performed a delicate neurosurgery on Ensign Kim 18 months earlier, but he has no memory of the event, and neither does the rest of the crew. With the help of Seven of Nine, who joined the cast in the intervening year, the Doctor attempts to unravel the mystery of what really happened, leading to a terrible discovery that calls his relationship with Capt. Janeway and the rest of the crew into question. We won’t give away the answer here, but the story digs deep into the complexity of the Doctor’s character and his nature as an ascended artificial intelligence, and offers Picardo his meatiest acting challenge. You won’t find it on a lot of Best of Voyager lists, but it remains one of the show’s greatest hidden treasures.

Lest we leave you with the impression that the best of Voyager is all gloom and doom, our next entry is one of the lightest and funniest episodes of the series. Despite being set aboard a Starfleet vessel blasted to the far side of the galaxy with limited resources and no support, Voyager assures the audience early on that the ship’s holodecks are still fully functional, allowing the crew to go on their LARPing (live-action role-playing) adventures just like on The Next Generation . Most of the crew’s fantasies proved to be pretty forgettable, until the introduction of Tom Paris’ (Robert Duncan McNeill) new favorite holonovel, The Adventures of Captain Proton . Modeled after the classic Flash Gordon film serials — right down to the cheap effects and black-and-white photography — Captain Proton became a recurring treat during Voyager ’s fifth season, and is at the center of the No. 6 pick on our list, Bride of Chaotica!

In this episode, Tom and Harry’s latest excursion into the monochrome world of Captain Proton attracts the attention of photonic beings from another dimension, to whom the fictional villain Doctor Chaotica (Martin Rayner) is terrifyingly real. War breaks out between the photonic sentients and the 1930s-style bad guys, and the only way to save the day is for the crew to play along with the campy program. And because no Star Trek series is complete without the captain getting into a silly outfit and hamming it up, Janeway must pose as Chaotica’s evil bride, the devilish Arachnia! Mulgrew and the rest of the cast are plainly having a ball with this episode, and the fun is contagious. Keeping the holodeck around for the run of Voyager  may have been one of the signs that the series was going to play things relatively safe, but it did give us one of the franchise’s best holodeck episodes.

History is written by the victors, and subject to countless revisions over the passing centuries. How much of what we think of as historical fact is actually widely accepted conjecture or outright fabrication? We’ll probably never know, unless some eyewitness from the distant past turns up in our present to set things straight. This, naturally, is exactly what happens in Living Witness , as a backup copy of the Doctor is reactivated on an alien planet 700 years after Voyager participates in a pivotal political conflict.

For the Kyrians, it’s a well-known fact that the Warship Voyager eagerly aided their aggressive neighbors, the Vaskans, in unleashing a weapon of mass destruction against their homeworld. Captain Janeway is a cutthroat who will stop at nothing to get her crew home, Seven of Nine habitually assimilates her enemies and maintains her own small Borg collective onboard, and the Doctor is an android. When the holographic Doctor is awakened, he is aghast at the way his friends have been mischaracterized and sets out to prove what really happened, or else be punished for the genocide they’re accused of committing.

The Voyager cast never got the chance to play in the famous Star Trek Mirror Universe, home to the over-the-top evil versions of our Starfleet heroes, but Living Witness offers Mulgrew, Robert Beltran (Commander Chakotay), and company the opportunity to go full cartoon baddie, all in the name of poignant satire. It’s a bizarre comedy episode with an uncomfortable, but undeniable lesson: Time flattens everything. From a distance, every person, group, or thing becomes either all good or all bad, and that evaluation changes depending on who’s looking, and from where. In order to preserve the nuance of truth, we have to be willing to treat history as a process rather than a product, or else lose all sense of reality.

For fans who hoped that Voyager would lean into its intriguing premise of a motley crew of officers and terrorists having to rough it in the wilderness of space, much of the series turned out to be a real letdown. Almost immediately, the tension between the upstanding Starfleet and scrappy Maquis crewmembers, and the added tension of having to scrape and forage to survive, began to dissolve until Voyager was more or less the same familiar Trek that fans had been getting for the previous seven years. However, early on, there are a few episodes that truly capitalize on the show’s potential. The best example of this is Prime Factors , which introduces a dilemma that divides the crew between those who hold Starfleet’s principles as sacrosanct and those who didn’t sign up for this and just want to go home.

The setup is a terrific reversal of a classic Star Trek problem. A group needs help, but helping them means violating the Prime Directive, which forbids interfering in the internal affairs of other cultures. The twist? This time, our heroes aren’t the technologically advanced institution debating the virtues of foreign intervention, they’re the party in need. The friendly, benevolent Sikarians have the technology to send Voyager home instantly, but their own Prime Directive dictates that they not share it. How do Janeway and company feel when the shoe is on the other foot? How will a divided crew take the news, and will they all be inclined to abide by the Sikarians’ ruling?

It’s a fascinating study of ethics, ethical relativism, and the smugness often projected by even the most well-meaning of privileged do-gooders. How many planets have been a Federation ship’s “problem of the week” to be solved (or not solved) and then forgotten? In Prime Factors , our Starfleet stalwarts experience what it’s like to become someone’s pet cause, and learn that the charity of the privileged and comfortable only lasts as long as it’s convenient and self-gratifying.

If Prime Factors exemplifies the potential of Voyager ’s beginnings, Year of Hell  is a glimpse of what the show could have become if it had stayed the course. In this episode, which was initially envisioned as a season-long arc , Voyager’s long journey home takes them through the Krenim Imperium, whose brutal militaristic regime treats them as invaders and repeatedly kicks the crap out of them for 12 long months. The situation aboard Voyager gets increasingly dire as the crew takes casualties and the ship falls into disrepair. Hard choices have to be made about how to survive, and whether or not their goal of reaching Earth is even attainable. Janeway and company are pushed to their limits and left with permanent physical and psychological scars.

Or, they would be, if this wasn’t also a time travel story. The thrill of Year of Hell is undercut somewhat by being a “What If?” story whose events are erased from the timeline before the credits roll on Part II, but the actual time travel mechanics of the episode are fun and interesting. From the outset, the audience knows that the timeline of the story is in flux, as the power-mad Krenim scientist Annorax (Kurtwood Smith) selectively erases entire civilizations from time in order to restore his planet’s empire to full strength and rewrite his wife’s untimely death.

However, the characters don’t learn this until nearly nearly a third of the way through the story, after we’ve already seen their circumstances suddenly change a few times. Year of Hell  becomes a story about causality, about the reverberations of the smallest actions upon the grand tapestry of history, and the futility of trying to curate one’s own fate. It’s a terrific two-hour epic, and even if we’d rather have seen it play out over the course of an entire year, we wouldn’t dare try to go back and change it.

If Voyager isn’t going to be about a struggle for survival in the wilderness of space, then it damn well ought to be about exploring its wonders. Blink of an Eye is the kind of episode that could easily fit into any Star Trek series (or a non-Trek one, as its premise is suspiciously similar to the 1980 Robert L. Forward novel Dragon’s Egg ). Here, Voyager becomes trapped in the orbit of a planet with a strange property — for every 1.03 second that occurs in normal space, a year passes below. As the civilization on the planet evolves over centuries from a pre-industrial society to a futuristic one, the starship Voyager remains a fixture in their sky, inspiring religion, folklore, and a cultural obsession with reaching the stars.

The story cuts back and forth between the Voyager crew’s attempts to escape the planet’s orbit and generations of scientists and philosophers as their understanding of their celestial visitor evolves. Where some Trek episodes such as A Piece of the Action or Who Watches the Watchers frame accidental interference into an alien culture as a irreversible calamity, Blink of an Eye  takes a more subtle approach, showing the often inspiring ways that a civilization grapples with the great mysteries of life.

The highlight of the episode is guest star Daniel Dae Kim (pre- Lost ) as one of the first astronauts from the planet to set foot aboard Voyager. Through his eyes, we get to experience the joy and overwhelming emotional power of discovery, the very thing that inspires our Starfleet heroes to explore space in the first place. Star Trek is, ultimately, a show about curiosity, about humanity’s irrepressible drive to learn and understand our universe. There are few episodes in the entire Star Trek canon that capture this feeling more perfectly than Blink of an Eye . It’s the kind of story that, though simple and relatively low-stakes, should tug on the heartstrings of anyone who has sought inner peace through knowledge and appreciation of their outside world.

For Voyager ’s 100th episode, producers Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, and Joe Menosky decided to crash the ship into a planet and kill off almost the entire cast. We’re kidding! Well, sort of. Timeless  follows future versions of Chakotay and Harry Kim, the only survivors of Voyager, which was destroyed during a test of a new form of propulsion. This new technology brought Chakotay and Kim’s shuttle all the way home, but the rest of the crew was condemned to an icy grave. Racked with guilt over his role in their deaths, Kim becomes obsessed with going back in time to undo the disaster.

The story is told across two time frames, splitting between the present of the show and a future in which Kim and Chakotay’s quest to fix their mistake has made them outlaws. It’s a thrilling time travel episode that puts the focus on the show’s most neglected regular characters. Chakotay gets to be roguish again, a quality he’d long since shed along with the rest of his personality. For his part, Wang actually gets to show some range, playing a brooding, self-loathing wreck with nothing left to lose.

Even though it’s a foregone conclusion that the time travel mission will succeed and none of this story will have happened, Timeless truly feels like an event. It’s emotional, it’s visually striking, and occasionally very funny. (Seven of Nine’s first experience with alcohol ranks among the most quotable and memetic scenes in the series.) It’s only an hour long, but it plays like a movie. The stakes are high, the scope is vast, the characters are rich, and there’s even a cute cameo from Next Generation star LeVar Burton, who also directed the episode.

Voyager is often feather-light, and occasionally, as the rest of this list demonstrates, super heavy. Timeless perfectly captures the balance of intensity and fun of a great “Star Trek” feature, akin to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan or Star Trek: First Contact . It probably shouldn’t be anyone’s first Voyager , but when we’re in the mood to check out just one of the show’s episodes, this is the one we reach for.

For more Star Trek content, please check out the best Star Trek: The Original Series episodes , the best Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes , and the best Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes .

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Star Trek: Voyager

Pulled to the far side of the galaxy, where the Federation is seventy-five years away at maximum warp speed, a Starfleet ship must cooperate with Maquis rebels to find a way home. Pulled to the far side of the galaxy, where the Federation is seventy-five years away at maximum warp speed, a Starfleet ship must cooperate with Maquis rebels to find a way home. Pulled to the far side of the galaxy, where the Federation is seventy-five years away at maximum warp speed, a Starfleet ship must cooperate with Maquis rebels to find a way home.

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• 427 User reviews
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• 33 wins & 84 nominations total

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• Trivia When auditioning for the part of the holographic doctor, Robert Picardo was asked to say the line "Somebody forgot to turn off my program." He did so, then ad-libbed "I'm a doctor, not a light bulb" and got the part.
• Goofs There is speculation that the way the Ocampa are shown to have offspring is an impossible situation, as a species where the female can only have offspring at one event in her life would half in population every generation, even if every single member had offspring. While Ocampa females can only become pregnant once in their lifetime, if was never stated how many children could be born at one time. Kes mentions having an uncle, implying that multiple births from one pregnancy are possible.

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• Alternate versions Several episodes, such as the show's debut and finale, were originally aired as 2-hour TV-movies. For syndication, these episodes were reedited into two-part episodes to fit one-hour timeslots.
• Connections Edited into Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges (1999)

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Ep 10. Warlord

• November 20, 1996
• 6.6   (1,847)

On Star Trek: Voyager, Season 3 episode 10 titled "Warlord," the crew of the USS Voyager comes across a planet in the midst of a power struggle. The planet, Q'tara, is home to several factions fighting for control. One of the factions is led by a warlord named Tieran, who has recently taken control of the planet by force.

When an away team led by Kes visits Q'tara, Tieran takes over her body through a device implanted in her neck. Using Kes' body, Tieran plans to take control of the ship and use its technology to further his plans of conquest. Meanwhile, Kes must struggle against Tieran's control and find a way to regain her own body.

As Tieran, Kes uses her newfound power to take command of Voyager and begins to enact her plan of conquest. However, her actions prove to be reckless and violent, as she begins to take out anyone who stands in her way. The crew of Voyager must find a way to stop Tieran and save Kes before it's too late.

In order to stop Tieran, Voyager enlists the help of a group of rebels fighting against his rule. These rebels have a device similar to the one used to control Kes, and they use it to help her take back control of her body. With Kes back in control, she is able to stop Tieran and save the crew of Voyager from his destructive plans.

The episode deals with themes of power, control, and the dangers of unchecked ambition. It also showcases the importance of individual agency and the struggle against forces that seek to take away one's autonomy. Overall, "Warlord" is a thrilling episode that highlights the strength and determination of the Voyager crew in the face of dangerous and formidable foes.

• Genres Science Fiction Fantasy
• Cast Kate Mulgrew Robert Beltran Roxann Dawson Leigh McCloskey Anthony Crivello
• Channel CBS
• First Aired November 20, 1996
• Content Rating TV-PG
• Runtime 45 min
• Language English
• IMDB Rating 6.6   (1,847)

The Best Episodes of Star Trek: Voyager Season 3

Every episode of star trek: voyager season 3 ranked from best to worst. discover the best episodes of star trek: voyager season 3.

Pulled to the far side of the galaxy, where the Federation is 75 years away at maximum warp speed, a Starfleet ship must cooperate with Maquis rebels to find a way home.

Season 3 Highlight

The best episode of " Star Trek: Voyager " season 3 is " Basics (2) " , rated 7.8 /10 from 1999 user votes. It was directed by Winrich Kolbe and written by Michael Piller . " Basics (2) " aired on 9/4/1996 and is rated 0.1 point(s) higher than the second highest rated, " Flashback " .

# 1 - Basics (2)

Season 3 episode 1 - aired 1996-09-04.

Stardate: 50023.4. Voyager is captured by the Kazon and the crew are dumped on a planet in its early stages of evolution. As only Tom Paris and Lon Suder have evaded capture, it's up to them and the EMH to come up with a plan to retake the ship.

Director: Winrich Kolbe

Writer: Michael Piller

# 2 - Flashback

Season 3 episode 2 - aired 1996-09-11.

Stardate: 50126.4. After falling ill to what appears to be a repressed memory Tuvok must perform a mind-meld with Captain Janeway in order to survive. The meld takes them back to when Tuvok was a junior science officer aboard the U.S.S. Excelsior under the command of Captain Hikaru Sulu.

Director: David Livingston

Writer: Brannon Braga

# 3 - The Chute

Season 3 episode 3 - aired 1996-09-18.

Stardate: 50156.2. Paris and Kim are sent to an Akritian prison after being accused of a terrorist bombing.

Director: Les Landau

Writer: Kenneth Biller

# 4 - The Swarm

Season 3 episode 4 - aired 1996-09-25.

Stardate: 50252.3. Voyager encounters a region of space owned by a mysterious race of aliens that would take 15 months to go around. Upon crossing the boundaries, a swarm of ships attach themselves to Voyager's hull - an act which drains the ship's power supplies and threatens to destroy it.

Director: Alexander Singer

Writer: Michael Sussman

# 5 - False Profits

Season 3 episode 5 - aired 1996-10-02.

Stardate: 50074.3. A pair of Ferengi is found masquerading as Gods to a culture still in its Bronze Age. It is discovered that they had arrived through the Barzan Wormhole, which leads back to the Alpha Quadrant, however, its Delta Quadrant end is highly unstable and always moving.

Director: Cliff Bole

Writer: Joe Menosky

# 6 - Remember

Season 3 episode 6 - aired 1996-10-09.

Stardate: 50203.1. After Voyager encounter a telepathic species, B'Elanna starts having powerful dreams that depict the life of a woman and her lover in a time of great political and social upheaval.

Writer: Brannon Braga , Joe Menosky

# 7 - Sacred Ground

Season 3 episode 7 - aired 1996-10-30.

Stardate: 50063.2. Captain Janeway has to undergo a rigorous ritual in order to save Kes' life when she is knocked unconscious.

Director: Robert Duncan McNeill

Writer: N/A

# 8 - Future's End (1)

Season 3 episode 8 - aired 1996-11-06.

Stardate: Unknown. Both Voyager and a 29th century Federation Timeship, the Aeon are pulled back in time to Earth in the late 20th century. The Timeship Aeon crashes in Arizona during the 1960's, while Voyager appears in orbit around Earth during 1996.

# 9 - Future's End (2)

Season 3 episode 9 - aired 1996-11-13.

Stardate: 50312.5. While trying to rescue Paris and Tuvok, Torres and Chakotay are captured by a gang of weapons smugglers who believe that they are from the government.

# 10 - Warlord

Season 3 episode 10 - aired 1996-11-20.

Stardate: 50348.1. An injured alien named Tieran transfers his consciousness into Kes' mind moments before he dies. He then gains control over her and begins using her abilities to steal a shuttlecraft and return to his home world to attempt a political coup.

# 11 - The Q and the Grey

Season 3 episode 11 - aired 1996-11-27.

Stardate: 50384.2. Voyager encounters several supernova in a small region of space. Time soon reveals that it is the after effects of a civil war within the Q-Continuum. Q appears and believes that the solution to the problem is for him to produce a child, and his mate of choice is Captain Kathryn Janeway. Matters are complicated when a jealous female Q appears claiming that Q was her boyfriend.

Writer: Kenneth Biller , Shawn Piller

# 12 - Macrocosm

Season 3 episode 12 - aired 1996-12-11.

Stardate: Unknown. After returning from a first contact mission, Janeway, Neelix and the Doctor must retake Voyager from an infestation of microorganisms that grow to an alarming size.

# 13 - Fair Trade

Season 3 episode 13 - aired 1997-01-08.

Stardate: Unknown. Voyager encounters a region of space named the Nekrit Expanse. Since Neelix has no knowledge about the space after this point, he tries to make himself feel useful to the crew by trying to obtain a map from an old friend named Wixiban, who uses him as a courier for illegal substances.

Director: Jesús Salvador Treviño

Writer: Ron Wilkerson , André Bormanis

# 14 - Alter Ego

Season 3 episode 14 - aired 1997-01-15.

Stardate: 50460.3. Ensign Kim asks Tuvok to teach him Vulcan emotional control techniques when he falls in love with a holodeck character named Marayna. Kim soon becomes jealous when he sees Tuvok interacting with her behind his back as she tries to seduce him.

Director: Robert Picardo

# 15 - Coda

Season 3 episode 15 - aired 1997-01-29.

Stardate: 50518.6. Captain Janeway repeatedly dies after she and Chakotay crash into a planet in what appears to be a time loop. Soon, her deceased father appears and tells her that she is dead and must accept her situation and move on.

Director: Nancy Malone

Writer: Jeri Taylor

# 16 - Blood Fever

Season 3 episode 16 - aired 1997-02-05.

Stardate: 50537.2. Ensign Vorik expresses his desire to mate with B'Elanna during his Pon-Farr. After they get in a brawl over the matter, Torres begins showing signs of the Pon-Farr herself.

Director: Andrew Robinson

Writer: Lisa Klink

# 17 - Unity

Season 3 episode 17 - aired 1997-02-12.

Stardate: 50614.2. During an away mission, Chakotay discovers a Federation hailing signature coming from an alien planet. After landing, he learns that all is not peaceful, and those helping him have not been entirely honest about their true origins.

# 18 - Darkling

Season 3 episode 18 - aired 1997-02-19.

Stardate: 50693.2. When the doctor tries to improve his personality by incorporating the psychological profiles of famous and historical people, he is overwhelmed by their dark sides and begins exhibiting signs of a split personality, one the regular doctor, and the other dark and evil. Kes asks to leave Voyager when they encounter a race with vast knowledge of the region of space they are currently exploring.

# 19 - Rise

Season 3 episode 19 - aired 1997-02-26.

Stardate: Unknown. Neelix is pushed to the limits when Tuvok's attitude becomes too much to bear while the pair is on an away mission to help evacuate a Nezu planet, which is being bombarded with asteroids.

Director: Robert Scheerer

# 20 - Favorite Son

Season 3 episode 20 - aired 1997-03-19.

Stardate: 50732.4. Harry Kim experiences strong senses of deja vu in an unknown region of space. He soon learns that he is native to this region and that he is T'Karian, not human.

Director: Marvin V. Rush

# 21 - Before and After

Season 3 episode 21 - aired 1997-04-09.

Stardate: 50973. Kes begins traveling backwards through time from the moment of her death. With each shift, she comes closer to a solution but she also grows months and years younger at a time.

Director: Allan Kroeker

# 22 - Real Life

Season 3 episode 22 - aired 1997-04-23.

Stardate: 50863.2. The Doctor decides he should create a holographic family in order to expand himself. When B'Elanna is disgusted by its unrealistic perfectionism, she alters the program to include random events and outcomes with interesting and devastating results.

Director: Anson Williams

# 23 - Distant Origin

Season 3 episode 23 - aired 1997-04-30.

Stardate: Unknown. An alien palaeontologist discovers a common ancestral link between his people and humans. He believes that this proves that his people (the Voth) evolved on Earth and migrated to the Delta Quadrant millions of years ago, but his government is not as willing to believe his interpretation of the evidence.

# 24 - Displaced

Season 3 episode 24 - aired 1997-05-07.

Stardate: 50912.4. Crew members are replaced one-by-one with aliens from an unknown race.

# 25 - Worst Case Scenario

Season 3 episode 25 - aired 1997-05-14.

Stardate: 50953.4. B'Elanna Torres discovers a holodeck program where Chakotay and the Maquis rebel against Janeway.

8 Alpha Quadrant Things Star Trek: Voyager Found In Delta Quadrant

• Star Trek: Voyager finds familiar things from the Alpha Quadrant in the Delta Quadrant, sparking important questions and connections.
• Encounter with Ferengi negotiators leads Voyager crew to stop their interference in a pre-warp civilization for profits.
• Janeway and crew discover humans abducted by aliens in the 1930s living in the Delta Quadrant, including Amelia Earhart.

For a show with the conceit of being so far from home, Star Trek: Voyager found a surprising number of things in the Delta Quadrant that originated in the Alpha Quadrant, including several from Earth itself. The USS Voyager, commanded by Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), and Commander Chakotay's (Robert Beltran) Maquis raider Val Jean were both brought to the Delta Quadrant in 2371 by the Caretaker (Basil Langton). After Janeway destroyed the Caretaker's array to save the Ocampa , Voyager and the Val Jean were left without a ticket back to the Alpha Quadrant, and banded together to make the long journey.

Finding something familiar in an otherwise totally alien corner of the galaxy brought a sense of familiarity to the USS Voyager crew and viewers at home alike, but the presence of something from the Alpha Quadrant in the Delta Quadrant inevitably raised important questions , like how familiar people and objects traveled 70,000 light years from home in the first place, and whether the find could lead Captain Kathryn Janeway towards a quicker path home to Earth.

Star Trek: Voyagers 20 Best Episodes Ranked

A pair of ferengi negotiators, arridor and kol, star trek: voyager season 3, episode 5 "false profits".

The USS Voyager encounters a pair of Ferengi negotiators, Arridor (Dan Shor) and Kol (Leslie Jordan), who claim to be the prophesied Great Sages of the Takarians, a society with Bronze Age level technology. The Ferengi have no Prime Directive to deter them from interfering with the Takarians' development , so they're performing "miracles" with a standard replicator to reap the monetary benefits of the Takarians' worship. Voyager's crew know the Ferengi reputation well enough to know they're no Sages, so they must figure out how to put a stop to Arridor and Kol's grift.

"False Profits" serves as a Star Trek sequel episode to Star Trek: The Next Generation season 3, episode 8 "The Price", as Voyager catches up with Arridor and Kol (formerly played by J. R. Quinonez) seven years after their Delta Quadrant arrival. The Ferengi took a test flight through the supposedly stable wormhole near Barzan II, which was supposed to emerge in the Gamma Quadrant, but instead stranded the Ferengi in the Delta Quadrant, where they made the best of their situation as only Ferengi can.

Star Trek: Voyager Season 3, Episode 23 "Distant Origin"

"Distant Origin" opens on Forra Gegen (Henry Woronicz), a scientist who discovers that his people, the Voth, share certain genetic similarities with the humans aboard the USS Voyager. While this confirms Gegen's theory that the Voth are the descendants of a species brought to their homeworld millions of years ago , religious leader Minister Odala (Concetta Tomei) refuses to accept the truth. Even with Commander Chakotay present as a living specimen of humanity, Odala pushes Gegen to recant, because Gegen's theory goes against the Voth Doctrine that keeps Odala in power.

After meeting Gegen's assistant, Tova Veer (Christopher Liam Moore), Janeway and the Doctor use the holodeck as a research guide to extrapolate how hadrosaurs might look in the 24th century if they'd been able to evolve into a humanoid form with comparable intelligence. The result resembles Veer, so Janeway and the Doctor conclude, like Gegen, that the Voth evolved from hadrosaurs into a highly advanced species on Earth , then fled to the Delta Quadrant in spacefaring vessels instead of being wiped out with the other dinosaurs.

The Friendship One Probe

Star trek: voyager season 7, episode 21 "friendship one".

By Star Trek: Voyager season 7 , the USS Voyager is in regular contact with Starfleet Command, and Starfleet gives Voyager a mission to retrieve a 21st-century Earth probe, Friendship One . The probe proves difficult to find, but once discovered on an alien planet suffering devastating climate collapse, the implications of Friendship One's launch become clear. Besides the irreversible damage to the planet's climate, the inhabitants are all suffering from radiation sickness, and bear understandable hostility towards Earth, because the aliens believe humans orchestrated their destruction with the Friendship One probe.

The United Earth Space Probe Agency was one of the early names for the organization the USS Enterprise belongs to in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode, "Charlie X".

Friendship One was launched in 2067 by the United Earth Space Probe Agency with the intention of making friends with whomever found it, as the name implies. Although Friendship One, the 400-year-old Earth probe, traveled for centuries carrying messages of peace, musical recordings, and ways to translate languages, the people who discovered Friendship One in the Delta Quadrant took a greater interest in the antimatter it used to travel across space. Without the proper knowledge of its use, antimatter proved devastating to the planet and its people, resulting in death and disease for generations.

Dreadnought, a Cardassian Missile

Star trek: voyager season 2, episode 17 "dreadnought".

The USS Voyager discovers a dangerously powerful, self-guided Cardassian missile in the Delta Quadrant, which Lt. B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) recognizes as one nicknamed "Dreadnought" . When B'Elanna was with the Maquis, Torres had actually reprogrammed the missile herself, with the intention of turning the Cardassians' own weapon against them. Without a Cardassian target in sight, the artificially intelligent Cardassian Dreadnought targets a heavily-populated Class-M planet , Rakosa V. B'Elanna determines she must be the one to keep Dreadnought from hurting anyone else, and boards the missile to convince it to stand down.

While no concrete reason is given for exactly how the Dreadnought wound up in the Delta Quadrant, its last known location in the Alpha Quadrant was the Badlands, the same rough patch of space where Voyager and the Val Jean, Chakotay's Maquis raider, fatefully met. Because of this, Torres theorizes that Dreadnought arrived in the Delta Quadrant the same way that Voyager and the Val Jean did , courtesy of the Caretaker.

Star Trek: Voyagers BElanna Is More Klingon Than TNGs Worf Ever Was

A klingon d-7 class cruiser, complete with klingons, star trek: voyager, season 7, episode 14 "prophecy".

The USS Voyager certainly never expected to find a Klingon ship in the Delta Quadrant, but more surprising is the fact that the crew of the Klingon D-7 Class Cruiser believes their savior, the prophesied kuvah'magh, is aboard Voyager . Janeway assures the Klingon captain, Kohlar (Wren T. Brown), that the Federation and Klingon Empire have been allies for the past 80 years, and offers Voyager's own half-Klingon, Lt. B'Elanna Torres, as proof their societies are working together now. The kuvah'magh is Torres' unborn daughter, who does save the Klingons, but not the way they expected.

Centuries ago, Kohlar's great-grandfather set off on a quest to find the kuvah'magh, and the Klingon D-7 Cruiser became a generation ship that is now crewed by the descendants of its original crew . The quest begun by Kohlar's great-grandfather brought Kohlar and his crew to the Delta Quadrant after four generations of searching. Whether B'Elanna's child is actually the kuvah'magh or not, Kohlar desperately wants the baby to be their savior, so that his people may finally rest.

Amelia Earhart

Star trek: voyager season 2, episode 1 "the 37s".

The discovery of a 1936 Ford truck, seemingly disconnected from any parent vehicle, leads the USS Voyager to a nearby Class-L planet, where they find eight humans who have been in cryo-stasis since they were abducted by aliens in the 1930s. Among them are one of Janeway's personal heroes, legendary American aviator Amelia Earhart (Sharon Lawrence) , who disappeared without a trace while attempting to fly around the world, and Earhart's navigator, Fred Noonan (David Graf). Earhart and the other preserved humans are known by the planet's inhabitants as "The 37s", and revered as sacred.

Originally thought to be aliens, the natives of the unnamed planet are the descendants of humans. A species called the Briori abducted the natives' ancestors, along with Earhart and the other 37s, from Earth centuries earlier , and took them to the Delta Quadrant. Once held as slaves, the humans who weren't in stasis revolted to free themselves from the Briori, and developed a thriving, Earth-like civilization in the Delta Quadrant. Voyager's crew consider staying with the humans in their little slice of home, while Janeway also offers a ride back to Earth to anyone who wants it, including Amelia Earhart.

The USS Equinox

Star trek: voyager season 5, episode 26 & season 6, episode 1 "equinox".

The crew of the USS Voyager believe they're the only Starfleet vessel in the Delta Quadrant until they find the USS Equinox, five years into their journey home. Captain Rudolph Ransom (John Savage) and the Equinox crew have had a harder time in the Delta Quadrant than Voyager, with more damage, fewer starting resources, and fewer opportunities to make friends along the way. Ransom's survival tactics include sacrificing innocent nucleogenic life forms for a more efficient form of fuel, which Janeway finds hard to stomach, and decides that Ransom needs to be held accountable for defying Federation ideals, regardless of how badly the Equinox is damaged.

Although Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) suggests that the Equinox might be in the Delta Quadrant on a rescue mission to find Voyager, the USS Equinox's specs don't fit the profile of a starship that would be assigned to a long-range mission. The explanation of how the Equinox arrived in the Delta Quadrant in the first place seems fairly simple, because Captain Ransom tells Janeway that the Equinox was also abducted by the Caretaker , just like Voyager, but the Equinox has only been in the Delta Quadrant for 2 years, and Janeway destroyed the Caretaker's array 5 years earlier.

Seven of Nine

Debuts in star trek: voyager season 4, episode 1 "scorpion, part 2".

When Captain Kathryn Janeway allies with the Borg in order to secure safe passage across Borg space, Janeway refuses the cursory assimilation that the Borg want to use to communicate with Janeway and Voyager's crew, and instead requests a speaker for the Borg, citing the existence of Locutus (Patrick Stewart) as precedent. Seven of Nine , Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01, is selected as the Borg drone to act as liaison between the Collective and Voyager, likely because Seven of Nine had once been a member of Species 5168, like most of Voyager's crew -- in other words, human.

Voyager season 5, episodes 15 & 16, "Dark Frontier" provides even more detail of the Hansens' fateful journey.

After Seven's link with the Collective is severed, more information about Seven's human origin comes to light. In Voyager season 4, episode 6 "The Raven", when Voyager nears the Hansens' ship, the USS Raven, memories of Seven's early life surface, revealing that Seven had been six-year-old human Annika Hansen , the daughter of Magnus Hansen (Kirk Baily) and Erin Hansen (Laura Stepp), Federation scientists who were studying the Borg when they were assimilated. Voyager season 5, episodes 15 & 16, "Dark Frontier" provides even more detail of the Hansens' fateful journey, showing the Raven arriving in the Delta Quadrant by following a Borg Cube through a transwarp conduit.

10 Ways USS Voyager Changed In Star Treks Delta Quadrant

Star Trek: Voyager links back to the greater Star Trek universe with people and starships from the Alpha Quadrant. Connections to the familiar were especially important early on, because Voyager 's place in the Star Trek franchise was established and aided by the legitimacy these finds offered. Later, when the USS Voyager used the Hirogen communications array to communicate with Starfleet Command, links back to the Alpha Quadrant were plentiful again, not only to prove that the USS Voyager was closer to home, but to help Star Trek: Voyager maintain connections to Star Trek and carry the franchise in its final years.

Star Trek: Voyager is available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Voyager

Cast Jennifer Lien, Garrett Wang, Tim Russ, Robert Duncan McNeill, Roxann Dawson, Robert Beltran, Kate Mulgrew, Jeri Ryan, Ethan Phillips, Robert Picardo

Release Date May 23, 1995

Genres Sci-Fi, Adventure

Network UPN

Streaming Service(s) Paramount+

Franchise(s) Star Trek

Writers Michael Piller, Rick Berman

Showrunner Kenneth Biller, Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, Brannon Braga

Rating TV-PG

Best Episodes

10 Best Episodes of Star Trek: Voyager - Season 3

Star Trek: Voyager is a beloved science fiction show that first aired in 1995 on UPN. Pulled to the far side of the galaxy, where the Federation is 75 years away at maximum warp speed, a Starfleet ship must cooperate with Maquis rebels to find a way home. It ran for eight seasons and has become a classic for sci-fi fans. As the show has become more and more popular, viewers have come together to choose and rank their favorite episodes. Here we will explore some of the best episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, as rated by viewers.

Written by Sophie and last updated on feb 06, 2024.

PS: The following content contains spoilers!

PPS: I will admit that parts of this page was written with the help of AI - it makes my work so much easier to not start from a blank page!

#15 - Rise (Season 3 - Episode 19)

Stardate: Unknown Neelix is pushed to the limits when Tuvok's attitude becomes too much to bear while the pair is on an away mission to help evacuate a Nezu planet, which is being bombarded with asteroids.

The episode was rated 7.53 from 381 votes.

#14 - Macrocosm (Season 3 - Episode 12)

Stardate: 50425.1 Janeway and Neelix return from an away mission to find Voyager adrift in space and the crew barely alive. They soon learn that the ship has been overrun by viral life forms that are rapidly growing in size.

The episode was rated 7.57 from 410 votes.

#13 - Blood Fever (Season 3 - Episode 16)

Stardate: 50537.2 Ensign Vorik expresses his desire to mate with B'Elanna during his Pon-Farr. After they get in a brawl over the matter, Torres begins showing signs of the Pon-Farr herself.

The episode was rated 7.59 from 366 votes.

#12 - Displaced (Season 3 - Episode 24)

Stardate: 50912.4 Crew members are replaced one-by-one with aliens from an unknown race.

The episode was rated 7.61 from 378 votes.

#11 - The Swarm (Season 3 - Episode 4)

Stardate: 50252.3 Voyager encounters a region of space owned by a mysterious race of aliens that would take 15 months to go around. Upon crossing the boundaries, a swarm of ships attach themselves to Voyager's hull - an act which drains the ship's power supplies and threatens to destroy it.

The episode was rated 7.62 from 423 votes.

#10 - Before and After (Season 3 - Episode 21)

Stardate: 50973 Kes begins traveling backwards through time from the moment of her death. With each shift, she comes closer to a solution but she also grows months and years younger at a time.

The episode was rated 7.62 from 378 votes.

#9 - The Q and the Grey (Season 3 - Episode 11)

Stardate: 50384.2 Voyager encounters several supernova in a small region of space. Time soon reveals that it is the after effects of a civil war within the Q-Continuum. Q appears and believes that the solution to the problem is for him to produce a child, and his mate of choice is Captain Kathryn Janeway. Matters are complicated when a jealous female Q appears claiming that Q was her boyfriend.

The episode was rated 7.66 from 396 votes.

#8 - Flashback (Season 3 - Episode 2)

Stardate: 50126.4 After falling ill to what appears to be a repressed memory Tuvok must perform a mind-meld with Captain Janeway in order to survive. The meld takes them back to when Tuvok was a junior science officer aboard the U.S.S. Excelsior under the command of Captain Hikaru Sulu.

The episode was rated 7.74 from 419 votes.

#7 - Worst Case Scenario (Season 3 - Episode 25)

Stardate: 50953.4 B'Elanna Torres discovers a holodeck program where Chakotay and the Maquis rebel against Janeway.

The episode was rated 7.85 from 360 votes.

#6 - Unity (Season 3 - Episode 17)

Stardate: 50614.2 During an away mission, Chakotay discovers a Federation hailing signature coming from an alien planet. After landing, he learns that all is not peaceful, and those helping him have not been entirely honest about their true origins.

The episode was rated 7.86 from 368 votes.

#5 - Basics (2) (Season 3 - Episode 1)

Stardate: 50023.4 Voyager is captured by the Kazon and the crew are dumped on a planet in its early stages of evolution. As only Tom Paris and Lon Suder have evaded capture, it's up to them and the EMH to come up with a plan to retake the ship.

The episode was rated 7.96 from 426 votes.

#4 - Future's End (1) (Season 3 - Episode 8)

The crew of the Federation Starship Voyager, led by Captain Kathryn Janeway, are thrown back in time to the late 20th century, along with a 29th century Federation Timeship, the Aeon. The Aeon crashes in Arizona during the 1960's, while Voyager appears in orbit around Earth during 1996. The episode features Janeway's reaction to seeing Voyager on TV, and is full of time travel elements which make it a classic Star Trek episode.

The episode is well-received, with viewers commenting on the humour and time travel elements. Janeway's reaction to seeing her ship on TV is particularly memorable. The episode is enjoyable to watch on an iPad, with viewers noting that the technology seen in the episode is the same as the one used for the device. The episode has a rating of 7.8/10 and truly is a good episode, even if viewers think there could be a little more humour.

The episode was rated 7.96 from 458 votes.

#3 - Future's End (2) (Season 3 - Episode 9)

In the second part of the episode "Future's End" from Star Trek: Voyager, the crew continues their mission to rescue Paris and Tuvok from a gang of weapons smugglers. During their mission, Torres and Chakotay are captured, but fortunately the Doctor saves the day with his portable holographic emitter. This emitter allows him to use his skills and intelligence to outwit the bad guys and helps the crew get safely out of the situation.

The episode also features Ed Begley Jr. as the bad guy, and there is some enjoyable interaction between the Doc and Starling, as well as Paris and Tuvok. The sequence with Torres and Chakotay being captured by the American survival fanatics is a bit painful and moronic, but overall it's a fun and entertaining episode. The addition of the mobile emitter for the Doctor is a great move as it allows his character to grow and develop.

The episode was rated 7.99 from 440 votes.

#2 - Distant Origin (Season 3 - Episode 23)

In the episode "Distant Origin" of Star Trek: Voyager, the crew encounters an alien paleontologist who believes he has discovered a common ancestral link between his people (the Voth) and humans. This would suggest that the Voth evolved on Earth and migrated to the Delta Quadrant millions of years ago, but his government is not willing to accept this interpretation of the evidence.

This episode is a great example of the core values of Star Trek. It portrays the consequences of challenging the foundation of a society and the fear of change of one's beliefs, while also encouraging us to reflect on the potential benefits of change. Not only that, but the episode also features some stunning make-up and special effects.

The episode was rated 8.04 from 406 votes.

#1 - Scorpion (1) (Season 3 - Episode 26)

The first episode of Star Trek: Voyager's fourth season, "Scorpion," is an exciting one that marks a new beginning for the show. Voyager has entered Borg space, only to discover a greater threat than the Borg themselves. This is a surrender of sorts from the writers, admitting that they had exhausted the Delta Quadrant of interesting races and civilizations, and needed to bring back the Borg to fill the gaps. However, this episode brings with it the promise of an even greater menace, and we are presented with the introduction of Seven of Nine into the show.

The Janeway/Chakotay conflict is one that could have been incredibly compelling, but it is handled poorly in this episode. Janeway's inflexible insistence that she is always right is an example of her poorer character traits, and it does not work in this episode. Fortunately, she is redeemed by doing a lot of good elsewhere in the show. The teaser of this episode was thrilling, with something wiping out Borg cubes in mere seconds. This episode is an exciting and promising start to the season.

The episode was rated 8.23 from 547 votes.

Star Trek: Voyager

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Season 3, episode 10: a voyager’s view of earth.

The Voyager 1 spacecraft has traveled farther away from Earth than any human-made object. Candy Hansen and David Grinspoon talk about the Voyager mission, and its humbling perspective of our planet as a tiny blue dot in the blackness of space.

Listen to the Podcast

(Voyager Golden Record greetings) French : “Hello everybody” Hindi: “Greetings from the inhabitants of this world.” Hebrew: “Peace.”

[0:08] Narrator: The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft left our planet 43 years ago, and they both carry something unique, something no other spacecraft has ever had. Affixed to their sides is a phonograph record, made of copper and coated in gold to keep it from interfering with spacecraft electronics.

The identical Golden Records contain greetings from Earth in 55 languages, from Arabic:

(Voyager Golden Record greetings: Arabic)

“Greetings to our friends in the stars. We wish that we will meet you someday.”

(Voyager Golden Record greetings: Zulu)

To Zulu: “We greet you, great ones. We wish you longevity.”

The reason to send greetings in so many languages was not to confuse potential extraterrestrials who might play the record someday, but instead, to have a diverse chorus that represents a broad sphere of humanity.

[1:10] The Golden Records also feature the songs of birds and humpback whales, and also crickets, frogs, a chimpanzee, a dog. There are sounds made by our planet, like volcanoes, earthquakes, thunder, and ocean surf. There are sounds of our vehicles, including a train, a plane, an automobile, and the lift-off of a Saturn V rocket. There are more personal human sounds like footsteps, a heartbeat, and a mother caring for her baby.

(note: sound effects follow each description)

[2:14] The Golden Records encoded more than 100 photographs depicting different scenes of Earth and its inhabitants. And of course, no record would be complete without music.

(Voyager Golden Record music: “Queen of the Night aria from Mozart’s “Magic Flute”)

Narrator: There’s Mozart’s Magic Flute. A Peruvian wedding song.

(Voyager Golden Record music: Wedding Song – Peru)

Narrator: Songs from Aboriginal Australia

(Voyager Golden Record music: “Morning Star and Devil Bird” – Australia)

Narrator: And, perhaps most famously, “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry.

(Voyager Golden Record music: “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry)

[3:04] Chuck Berry performed this song at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1989, to celebrate Voyager 2 reaching the planet Neptune. Among those dancing along to the music was the astronomer Carl Sagan.

Carl was one of the scientists on the Voyager mission, which had been built and tested at JPL. The original goal of the mission had been to fly the two spacecraft past the gas giant planets Jupiter and Saturn, collecting images and information about them and their moons. The spacecraft were built to last 5 years, but if they could last even longer, the outer planets Uranus and Neptune were also within reach.

Normally visiting all those planets would be beyond the capabilities of most spacecraft, because of all the fuel and time needed to ping-pong around the solar system to intersect with each of the planets in their distant orbits around the Sun.

[4:09] But JPL engineer Gary Flandro figured out that during the 1980s, the outer planets would all line up on the same side of the Sun. This planetary alignment wouldn’t happen again for 176 years.

It would take several years for a spacecraft just to reach Jupiter, so Voyager 2 left Earth on August 20, 1977, and Voyager 1 followed a few days later, on September 5. Even though it launched after Voyager 2, Voyager 1 was on a shorter and faster route to Jupiter, and so would reach that planet first.

After the Voyagers completed their planetary tours, they would keep flying on, eventually leaving the solar system to head out into the galaxy. Carl reasoned, why not use this opportunity to also send a message to the stars, a shout of solidarity with our fellow space wanderers?

[5:11] This was a new variation on an earlier theme. The Pioneer 10 spacecraft, launched in 1972 for a Jupiter flyby, was the first NASA mission sent on a path that would eventually take it out of the solar system. It was quickly followed in 1973 by Pioneer 11, which visited both Jupiter and Saturn before heading outwards. Carl had helped ensure each of these future interstellar wanderers sported gold-plated plaques etched with drawings about Earth and humanity. The Voyagers would be going even faster than the Pioneers, and thus travel farther, and recorded messages could convey so much more.

(Voyager Golden Record music: Pygmy Girls Initiation Song, Zaire)

[5:59] The Golden Records may be forever silent, never to encounter other life in the galaxy. But if, by remote chance, one of the records finds itself speaking to an audience on some strange and distant shore, among the many voices of this alien world called Earth, they’ll hear one of Carl’s children. That message perhaps best sums up this auditory time capsule, regardless of your age.

( Voyager record greetings: “Hello from the children of planet Earth.”)

(Intro music and NASA montage)

[7:04] Narrator: Welcome to “On a Mission,” a podcast of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I’m Leslie Mullen, and in this third season, we’ve been following scientists to the ends of the Earth as they explore the many aspects of our home planet.

In the first episode of the season, we pulled back from Earth to see it from an astronaut’s perspective. In this final episode, we’ll gaze upon our planet from an even greater distance, the farthest any human-made object has ever traveled. This is episode 10: A Voyager’s View of Earth.

(NASA audio/Apollo 11) Neil Armstrong: “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind”

Narrator: Like most space scientists who grew up in the 1960s, David Grinspoon was inspired by humanity’s first steps on the Moon during NASA’s Apollo 11 mission. But his household had an extra source of inspiration.

[8:01] David Grinspoon: I have this very specific memory, really my earliest vivid memory, of watching the Moon landing on TV late at night on the little scratchy black and white signal when I was in the fourth grade.

( NASA audio/Apollo 11) Neil Armstrong: “…but it’s adequate to get back up…” (beep)

David Grinspoon: And that blew my mind and help set me on the path I’m on. But in some ways, I had a kind of unusual childhood too, in that my dad’s best friend was Carl Sagan. And he was around our house a lot, and this was before he was famous.

David Grinspoon: My dad was a psychiatrist at Harvard, and he and Carl Sagan became really close friends in the mid-sixties because they were two of the Harvard faculty who were opposed to the Vietnam War, before it was popular to be opposed to the Vietnam War.

[9:00] So I had this guy, Uncle Carl, who was very much in my life when I was a kid, who was involved in some of the early space missions. And he’d show up at the house with an 8 by 10 glossy photograph from Mariner 9. And this was way before the internet when you could just download these things. And as a kid who had already been sparked by Apollo, that was amazing.

And I was very into science fiction and “2001: A Space Odyssey” was coming up and we were going to be going out to Jupiter and, you know, all that fiction and real science was all mixed up in my mind as this excitement about the future and excitement about exploring space.

And kind of also part of this utopian vision of humans solving problems and using science to create a better world. The vision of humans expanding into the Universe was mixed with the visions of humans being more enlightened, and there was a sort of utopian idea that we would become, you know, Homo cosmicus , the cosmic connection, where we would become star folk. ( laughs)

[10:10] David Grinspoon: I was definitely a teenage space geek, and my friends and I were part of something called the L5 society, where we thought we were all going to go live in cylinders in orbit designed by our other hero, Gerard O’Neill, who was this Princeton physicist who wrote this book called “The High Frontier,” and had this idea about space colonies. And they were going to be at the L5 point, which is the stable orbit point between the Earth and the Moon. And in high school, in the seventies, we had these buttons that said “L5 in 95.” Because we were convinced that by the 1990s, we’d be living in orbit. (laughs)

Narrator: David pursued his utopian vision for the future by studying planetary science at Brown University in Rhode Island. Some of his professors were working on NASA’s Viking Mars landers, and before long, David found himself at Mission Control.

[11:01] David Grinspoon: There was this magic land out in California; this place called JPL where all this incredible stuff happened, all these space missions. My first time out at JPL was during the Viking 2 landing on Mars in 1976.

David Grinspoon: I got to go out and stay in Pasadena with Carl Sagan and his son Dorion, who was my best friend. And the Viking 2 landing was incredibly exciting. When those first pictures came down, you know, the way the Viking cameras worked is it came in stripe by stripe. So you see this one little row, that doesn’t really make sense, of pixels, and then the next row, you could start to see all those rocks and those are dunes and you see the image assemble itself slowly in real time as it comes down.

Narrator: David returned to JPL three years later, this time to work as a student intern for the Voyager mission. Voyager 1 was nearing Jupiter, and Carl was on the imaging team responsible for taking photos of the planet and its many moons.

[12:06] David Grinspoon: That was just an amazing experience, being part of Voyager as a student and showing up and seeing all these scientists at work, running the spacecraft that was encountering the Jupiter system up close for the first time. And all these scientists that seemed like gods to me, and they still do, kind of. Not just Carl Sagan, but people like Andy Ingersoll and Gene Shoemaker and Candy Hansen. I could go on listing names, but all these people that were like, wow, these are the real deal. These are planetary scientists. I’m watching them explore planets and I’m helping them doing my little menial clerical tasks.

Although, Carl gave me a real research task that summer that was really hard. It had to do with the solar spectrum in the ultraviolet, and representing it in a specific way that, in order to give him what he wanted, I had to work out some quantum mechanics that I didn’t really know.

[13:09] But I really wanted to do it well and impress him and impress the other scientists. So I ended up going to Caltech and getting into the Millikan library and reading some books and doing some calculations. I have no idea if I even did it right. I probably screwed it up, but it was like, “Wow, I’m doing science!” (laughs)

But mostly just being there and being a fly on the wall was exciting. You know, if you’re in that room, you’re with that small group of humans that are seeing it for the first time. And the other people in that room are the people that built the spacecraft to send out there. Just that sense of discovery, and the latest images would be on the monitors there in the area where the imaging team worked.

The thing about these encounters of the Voyagers, they happen really fast. The spacecraft is approaching for years and months and the planets and the moons are just these single pixel dots. And then a few days before the planet’s starting to get close enough, so you can see it as more than a dot, you can start to make it out as a round object. And then you can start to see detail on the planet and then on the moons.

[14:09] And it happens so fast, partly because the spacecraft is also accelerating as it’s pulled in by the gravity of Jupiter. But in a matter of days, it goes from being a dot to being these resolved objects.

And it felt like you were almost on the ship and looking out the window. You know, “It’s getting closer, it’s getting closer.” And you see it getting bigger and starting to reveal itself; that real-time sense of discovery, where it was almost like you were traveling with the spacecraft and seeing the Jupiter system go by.

( Voyager Golden Record music: “Tchakrulo,” by singers from Georgia )

Narrator: Each Voyager flyby revealed new details of the planets and their moons. They showed that Jupiter’s moon Io had volcanoes erupting lava hundreds of kilometers high into space. Jupiter’s frozen moon Europa had a strange cracked-ice surface that concealed a vast ocean below.

[15:07] The Voyagers examined the intricate woven threads of Saturn’s dusty rings, and saw that Saturn’s moon Titan was enveloped in a thick orange smog.

While Voyager 2 would go on to visit the cool blue gas giants Uranus and Neptune, Voyager 1’s path around Saturn sent it above the ecliptic, the disc-like region where the planets orbit the Sun, like a record spinning on a record player. From this point on, Voyager 1 would visit no more planets. Instead, all the planets would recede steadily from its view, once again becoming tiny points of light.

Carl wanted to maneuver Voyager 1 so that it could take photos of all those tiny dots, to create a family portrait of the planets of the solar system. But as imaging team member Candy Hansen explains, getting permission from NASA’s Voyager Project Office was no easy task.

[16:02] Candy Hansen: We asked for that picture a number of times, and the first time was in 1981. We asked in 1986 and we asked in 1988, and they just were never really willing to spend the resources.

There were two reasons that we were getting turned down. One was that every time we asked for it, it was either right after a flyby or right before a flyby, when they were either staffing up or staffing down, or in the middle where there was no staff. So there was always an issue with staffing. But there was always this feeling on the project that they didn’t want to pull out all the stops to get this observation, because they didn’t think it was that important.

Candy Hansen: The technical challenges had to do with pointing close to the Sun. And so there was always a concern, if we point too close to the Sun, then we might actually damage the camera, even that far away.

[17:04] And that may have been the reason that Carl waited until Voyager 1’s mission was essentially done in 1981. It was finished with its planetary exploration. And then it seemed like, “Okay, if we use Voyager 1, we’re not taking any risk for future flybys of Uranus and Neptune.” We wouldn’t want to damage the camera on Voyager 2 because it’s got work ahead of it. But it turned out that we actually used Voyager 1 quite a bit as a test bed for the things that we were going to do on Voyager 2. So people still did not want to take risks with the hardware, even if Voyager 1 didn’t really have a scientific need for it anymore.

But also, Voyager was what we call 3-axis stabilized. And what that means is that it had a fixed orientation. You held that fixed orientation with the Sun sensor knowing where the Sun was, and with a star sensor that we usually had parked on Canopus, because that’s the brightest star in the Southern Hemisphere.

[18:12] And so, in a way, the spacecraft was just rock steady in that orientation, and we knew it’s not going to overheat on one side or get too cold on the other. We knew those were stable orientations where kind of nothing could go wrong. So when you take it out of that well-understood configuration, what might go wrong? We took it off the star, will it be able to find it again?

And when we had to do maneuvers, which we actually had to do from time to time, every once in a while, we wouldn’t get the signal back. And everyone would panic, “Oh my God, we lost the spacecraft.” And then they would bring all the big antennas and next thing you know, you’d hear this little tiny whisper of a signal over the low-gain antenna, and everybody’d be like, “Oh, okay, okay, it’s okay.” And then we’d have to wait for it to do its star search till it finally found Canopus again. And then we’d get the big booming signal back again, but every time it was like, “Oh no, we lost Voyager!” (laughs)

[19:15] Narrator: The risk of turning Voyager 1 always outweighed the wish for a family portrait of the planets. After many requests were rejected over the years, time was running out – and not only because the planets were growing fainter in the distance.

Candy Hansen: In 1989, it was obvious that this was going to be our last chance. We knew that the project would be staffing down dramatically. The engineering expertise would be off working on other projects, and we knew we needed to start turning off the instruments because the spacecraft power level was dropping, and so we knew the cameras were going to be among the first instruments to be powered off.

[20:02] And so, there was this kind of band of advocates that were just like, “We’re not going to give up, we’ll just keep asking and keep coming up with ideas.” And Carl never gave up. I never gave up. Carolyn Porco and William Kosmann, they were part of our band of advocates. And then it was, like I said, the fact that we knew this is really our last chance. Carl went to headquarters, and there was a meeting here in Pasadena, and that was the meeting where they decided, “Okay, yes, the project will carry this out.”

But there was still a lot of, I don’t know, a lack of enthusiasm, I guess I would call it. So I kind of took it on myself to personally sell it. You know, tell people, “This is going to be great. Here’s why it’s going to be great. You’re going to love it.”

[20:59] Narrator: On February 14, 1990, Voyager 1 took 60 images of our solar system – the first time a spacecraft was far enough away to capture such a vast distance in a glance. On that Valentine’s Day, Voyager 1 was 3.7 billion miles away from the Sun, or 6 billion kilometers. Candy says the date of the photo session wasn’t deliberate.

Candy Hansen: It was a coincidence, but what a nice coincidence! It’s like Voyager’s Valentine to us.

The original idea that Carl had was to do a whole mosaic of the sky and get the whole stellar background. But the problem was, that was going to take far more images than we had space for on our tape recorder. And the exposure was too short to get stars. I think our cameras could get down to like 10th magnitude stars, but the Earth was brighter than that.

[21:58] And so we knew we wanted to do color of each of the planets, so that took up 18 images or however many it was. We would take the images through the different color filters, and then we would stack the different colors together and do color reconstruction. We had six or eight filters, but we didn’t have enough data volume to send all of them back all of the time. So we would typically pick out which ones sort of worked the best for different situations.

And then we did the wide-angle frames, the bigger ones. The narrow angle are the little ones that have the planets. And so, since we knew we couldn’t do the whole stellar background, we thought, “Well, we’ll just connect the dots.” And that’s why it’s that particular shape, and then we said, “We have a few left over, so let’s go around the Sun.” So this is the design process.

[22:56] Narrator: The photos that make up the solar system portrait are patched together in a long sinuous shape resembling a hobbyhorse, a toy horsehead with a stick protruding from beneath it for a child to ride on. For the Voyager mosaic, the head is made up of photos taken around the Sun — which includes Earth, Venus and Jupiter. Saturn and Uranus are in the body of the stick, and Neptune is at the bottom end. Mars and Mercury are not pictured – Mercury is too close to the Sun to be seen amid the bright glare, while the sunlight reflecting off Mars was too faint from the camera’s perspective.

After the last photo was taken, Voyager 1’s cameras were turned off, and it took more than two months for the spacecraft to send all the images back to Earth.

As expected, all the planets were mere dots, about a pixel in size or less. Earth’s pale blue dot was barely visible amid streaks of light emanating from the Sun. Carl Sagan famously said it looked as though our planet was a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

[24:03] Candy Hansen: To this day, it still gives me shivers down my spine, that connection. That’s home. Voyager is way out there, and looking back at home, and that’s where we are.

You know, to see your home planet up close, it’s like, “There’s the ocean, there’s continents.” And the Pale Blue Dot is, “Take that perspective, but now move out to the outside, way outside.” And now you realize that that beautiful blue orb is this tiny little speck in space. And we’re alone out here, nobody’s going to come save us from ourselves.

(Voyager Golden Record music: Japan, shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (“Crane’s Nest,”) performed by Goro Yamaguchi )

Candy Hansen: I would say we need this image; we need to see how alone the Earth is in space, we need to see how far away any other planets are.

[25:04] If something goes awry here on planet Earth, we are not going to be able to move seven billion people to the Moon or to Mars. Those are not hospitable places, they’re not all that close, and so we really need to take care of our home planet.

And the thing that has really been amazing to me is to realize how timeless that message is, because when we planned that image, it was still the Cold War, and the United States and the Soviet Union had I don’t know how many thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at each other. And today, the existential threat is climate change. So Carl saw that picture as a way to communicate that we’re all in this together.

[26:05] Narrator: The creation of that far-distant image of our home planet bookends Candy’s journey with the Voyager mission, which began for her as a calculated maneuver to come back home to Los Angeles, where she’d grown up.

Candy Hansen: I had gone to Tucson to go to graduate school, but I was really homesick for California. And so, I talked my graduate school advisor, Brad Smith, into sending me to JPL for a summer, like an internship. And because my advisor was the leader of the Voyager imaging team, it was kind of natural for me to work for the imaging team.

Certainly, in my graduate courses, we were looking at images from space, and there’s certain things that you learn about the lighting, what’s good lighting, what’s not good. But mostly, honestly, it was an on-the-job learning experience. And that was okay, that was fine with me, I loved it. So I never did go back to Tucson. I did ultimately finish my PhD at UCLA.

[27:10] Narrator: While Candy was a student intern, she applied for a job with the Voyager mission, and later wrote her PhD dissertation using Voyager data. Since then, Candy has worked on other space missions like the Cassini mission to Saturn, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the Juno mission to Jupiter. Her long career that started with Voyager is all the more remarkable considering Candy never intended to become a space scientist.

Candy Hansen: When I was around 12 or 13, I discovered the science fiction section of our local library, and I read every book on those shelves. But I never thought of it as a career. When I went to college, I was not planning to major in physics, I was planning to major in anthropology and accounting, because I had in mind I wanted to get a job in city government. I liked math, so that’s the accounting connection.

[28:08] My dad drove a bread truck for Oroweat and my mom was a housewife, so I didn’t get a lot of advice on what to do when I got to college. So I know today it sounds a little bit random, but I know I had a plan in my 18-year-old head. ( laughs )

But what happened was, I needed to have some general education classes including a science class. And this was of course all pre-Internet, so you had to actually stand in line for hours to sign up for your classes at Cal State Fullerton. And so I was standing in line and I had the course catalog, and I was looking through trying to decide what my general education science class should be. And the guy standing next to me said, “Oh, I had that physics class, it was really good.” And it was basically, “Intro to Physics for the Non-Science Major.” And so I looked at it and I’m like, “Oh yeah, well, actually that would fit pretty well in my schedule.”

[29:05] But when I got into the class, I loved it. So when you really love something, you tend to excel at it. And it turns out that at that moment, the physics department was trying to beef up their student population, and so they were watching these general education science classes for people that they might be able to pull into the department and get them to change their major.

So my professor one day calls me aside and he said, “You seem to really like this class.” And I’m like, “Oh yeah, I’m really enjoying it.” He said, “What do you think about being a physics major?” He said, “All you have to do is sign here.” Because they had, unbeknownst to me, filled out all the paperwork (laughs ). And so, I was thinking to myself, “Well, if it’s this easy to get into, it should be this easy to get out of again if I don’t like it.” So sure, signed my name.

[30:02] And then I really did like it, but I have to say at that point in time, it was the Vietnam War, and most of the jobs coming out of college with a bachelor’s degree in physics were doing things like weapons development and that sort of thing, and I didn’t want to do that, I knew that. And so, I was really flailing a little bit.

And one of my professors, Professor Wollum, had worked on the Apollo missions, on the surface-exposure experiments — the radiation, and what affect that had on materials in this harsh space environment. And she taught a class called, “Planetary Physics,” which I loved. And so she was the one who suggested that I might go to graduate school at the University of Arizona in Tucson, because the Lunar and Planetary Lab there was kind of a hotbed for this new field of planetary science.

[31:07] Candy Hansen: You know, before spacecraft, all planetary science was within the realm of astronomy. And it wasn’t until we really started flying spacecraft to these places that you could see the geology on the surface of Mars and know it’s a heavily-crated surface in many places. And so the field of geology expanded in that moment from being all about the Earth to, well, when we look at the Moon, when we look at Mars, when we look at Mercury, now we’ve got all these different instances of geology. And kind of the same thing, you know, with atmospheres. Meteorologists study storms on the Earth, but they also were starting to study storms on places like Jupiter.

[31:56] And so, the Voyager imaging team was this collection of people who were geologists who were used to looking for oil, and meteorologists who happened also to think that Jupiter was pretty darn interesting. But there were also astronomers who were used to looking at a point of light as it moved around the sky, and figuring out what you could tell about the surface from the way it was reflecting light. It was quite an interesting mix of scientists who had gone from looking at something on the Earth to looking at something in space. And so they were the first generation, really, of planetary scientists.

Narrator: The Voyager 1 images weren’t just a family portrait of the planets of the solar system. They also were a family portrait of the Voyager mission team, with each planet like a milestone in their lives.

Candy Hansen: When I was hired, there was kind of a flock of us 20-somethings that were all hired around the same time, and so we were all just out of college. So in those days we talked about who we were dating and what was the cool concert we had gone to.

[33:06] And then, as time went by, we bought cars, we bought houses, we got married and we had kids. And so at the end of that 12 years, in a person’s life, that’s where a lot of things happen, right? And we had all, as a group, kind of moved through it together, and all of us told time, in a sense, by the planets. So it was between Jupiter and Saturn that I bought a car, and it was between Saturn and Uranus that I bought a house.

So it was all very special and towards the end, very bittersweet. We learned a lot of really incredible things, a lot of astounding discoveries, but there was a heart to the project as well. We love those spacecraft. ( laughs) I know you shouldn’t love an inanimate object like that, but they are extensions of ourselves.

[34:05] And so that Pale Blue Dot picture was a bit of a gift to ourselves. You know, we’re not just going to shut down and move away. We’re going to do one more cool thing before we call it quits.

I was on Voyager for maybe another six or nine months after that because we were just wrapping up and boxing things up, and outside the door of my office was a bookcase, and in the bookcase we had albums full of hard copy. And the day that they came and took that to the Regional Planetary Imaging Facility, and it was only a couple of floors down, but it was no longer there, outside my door. ( laughs ) I went home that day, I was just kind of devastated, you know? I had this blank wall outside my door.

But when we got the Pale Blue Dot images, we had a big blank wall there, and so we, like a bulletin board, just stuck them up, and made that little hobbyhorse shape out of it, and put it to good use.

[35:08] Narrator: In addition to a child’s toy, a “hobbyhorse” is a term meaning a favorite topic or preoccupation. The Voyager family portrait certainly has been a favorite part of the mission for many of the scientists who worked on it, and for the general public as well. For a while, that hobbyhorse was displayed across 20 feet of wall in JPL’s von Kármán auditorium, and visitors to JPL got to see the solar system spread out before them.

Candy Hansen: The person who was in charge of the von Kármán exhibits at that time was Jurrie van der Woude, and he was this delightful Dutch guy. And after it had been up on the wall of von Kármán for three or maybe four years at that point, he told me the story that people would admire the whole thing, and then they’d walk up and they would have to touch the Earth. You know, that connection of, “That’s us.” And so, he had to frequently replace that picture, because it was continually getting worn. (laughs)

[36:15] Narrator: It’s amazing that just a simple tap, from enough people, can be so destructive over time, like drops of water that eventually wear down a stone. Since that photo of our pale blue dot was snapped thirty years ago, from the Voyagers’ perspective, Earth has disappeared into the darkness.

Candy Hansen: I’m going to guess that Voyager could still see the big planets, Jupiter and Saturn. It can probably still see Uranus and Neptune. I’m very, very doubtful that it has the sensitivity to see the Earth. Because the Earth, even back then, was smaller than a pixel, and now it’s much smaller.

[37:02] And the Voyagers are out in interstellar space now. That was so exciting when the first one left, and now they’re both out there, and it took a lot longer to get there than anyone would’ve predicted. But that teaches us, right?

Narrator: All the planets and the Sun travel together through the galaxy in a sort of bubble, which scientists call the heliosphere, created by the particles and magnetic field of the Sun’s solar wind. There were lots of ideas for how big the heliosphere could be, but no one really knew how far it extended.

Then Voyager 1 crossed over in 2012, at a distance of about 18 billion kilometers from the Sun, or more than 11 billion miles. Voyager 2, following its own path past Neptune, left the heliosphere in 2018, when it also was about 18 billion kilometers from the Sun.

[37:59] Candy Hansen: It was surprising that it took that long, but I’m so glad that they both are operating long enough to be able to tell us where’s the edge of our bubble that the Sun provides for us, magnetically speaking. And just the thought that they’re on this no-return journey, and they’re going to probably outlive the Earth. Because someday, our star is going to turn into a red giant, and that’ll be that, billions of years from now.

And they’re just going to be out there, scooting along with our Golden Record, and it’s a little piece of not only ourselves, but our time, of what was happening right here, right now.

( Voyager Golden Record music: 31/31 String Quartet No. 13 In B Flat, Opus 130, Cavatina, Beethoven )

(Voyager Golden Record greetings)

Armenian: “To all those who exist in the universe, greetings.”

Mandarin Chinese: “Hope everyone’s well. We are thinking about you all. Please come here to visit when you have time.”

Nepali: “Wishing you a peaceful future from the Earthlings.”

Narrator: We’re still talking to the Voyagers, but not for long. Mission scientists estimate in the next few years the spacecraft will run out of power and no longer be able to speak to us.

When we finally say goodbye, the Voyagers will have a long, silent journey ahead of them. It will take many thousands of years for them to fully leave our solar system, where the boundary is marked by a region of comets known as the Oort Cloud. Once they pass through that, given the vast distances between stars, the Voyagers likely will only ever encounter interstellar dust.

(Voyager Golden Record music: Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground, Blind Willie Johnson )

[40:11] Narrator: When our Sun evolves into a red giant star 5 billion years from now, consuming the inner planets of the solar system in its expansion, including Earth, the Voyagers will still be orbiting the center of the galaxy. From the Voyagers’ view, the end of their birthplace will be signaled by a distant background star shining just a little bit brighter, a little redder than before.

The Voyager spacecraft and their Golden Records are our messages in a bottle, set adrift on the cosmic sea. After Earth is long gone, the Voyagers will be our legacy, still speaking our messages of welcome, and singing our songs.

(music continues)

Narrator: If you like this podcast, please subscribe, rate us on your podcast platform, and share us on social media. We’re “On a Mission,” a podcast of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

[run time = 41:31]

NCIS Season 21 Episode 8 Isn't The First Time Tim Russ Has Appeared In The Franchise

Contains mild spoilers for "NCIS" Season 21 Episode 8 — "Heartless"

Tim Russ is a journeyman actor with dozens of roles under his belt — and three of those parts have involved popping up behind the crime tape-laden barriers of the "NCIS" world. 

In the Season 21 episode "Heartless," he's Dr. Erik Harper, a cardiothoracic surgeon and doctor whose training session with a group of young doctors is tragically interrupted by his kidnapping and murder. It's up to the team to find out why Harper's been killed and by whom, a case that ends up paving the way toward a new romance for Alden Parker (Gary Cole). Russ also shows up during Season 3's "Jeopardy." This much briefer part sees him playing Jerry Kemper, head of security at a luxury car rental service located at a hotel where Jenny Shepard (Lauren Holly) is staying when she's kidnapped due to her connection to Ziva David (Cote de Pablo).

The most substantive role Russ has essayed in the "NCIS" universe by far this far is his part on "NCIS: New Orleans." There, he plays Felix Hill in Season 4's "The Ties that Bind." Felix is an old friend of Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula); he owns Delilah's, the jazz club where the NCIS team leader's mother used to perform when he was a youth. But a lot has changed since then, and Felix may be linked to the death of a Navy underclassman — and also connected to an underground network of drug pushers. 

While Russ' parts have been wide-ranging over the years, the actor has specialized in playing one specific type of character.

Tim Russ has played a whole lot of doctors during his time as an actor

One tie binds Tim Russ' latest "NCIS" role to many of the parts he's taken before; he's played a whole lot of doctors over the years. He's suited up in scrubs for projects as disparate as "Hannah Montana," "General Hospital," "ER" and "Freddy's Nightmares" over the years, proving that he definitely has range beyond his signature role as "Star Trek: Voyager" Vulcan Tuvok.

Ironically, per an interview with trekmovie.com , Russ even read for the role of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" doctor Julian Bashir, whom Alexander Siddig would play on the program. His auditioning specialty definitely doesn't start and end with doctors, though, even when it comes to "Star Trek" properties. He was up for the iconic part of Geordi La Forge , which went to LeVar Burton. 

Russ' persistence paid off, and he secured roles on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Star Trek: Generations," and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," where he played a Klingon , on the road to his destiny as Tuvok. "I did audition for all of those shows. Over the course of a year or two, off and on, and finally just booked a few of them. So, I had already been in their wheelhouse prior to Voyager , which was an advantage in my case," Russ said in 2018. It just goes to show that a dose of persistence a day is the best medicine an actor could want.

REVIEW: NCIS Season 21, Episode 8 Is Heartless - Literally and Figuratively

NCIS Season 21, Episode 8, "Heartless" is about a defective heart, but that's not the only thing the CBS show is lacking as it misses its target.

The following contains major spoilers from NCIS Season 21, Episode 8, "Heartless," which debuted Monday, April 22 on CBS.

NCIS is normally very good at balancing drama and comedy -- and knowing when to lay off one in favor of the other. The CBS crime drama's comedic aspect , often manifested as slice of life subplots for the main characters, has become a must. NCIS Season 21, Episode 8, "Heartless" leans too far into the funny, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not, which results in an incredibly uneven hour.

"Heartless" surrounds the abduction and murder of renowned Naval surgeon Erik Harper. When it becomes clear that Harper was taken for his medical expertise, the NCIS team tracks down his mystery patient... revealed to be a Colombian drug lord who's eluded the agency before. The episode takes a particularly nasty turn for Alden Parker, who gets himself thrown into the middle of the action. That makes "Heartless" a great time for Gary Cole, but Parker's problems are also what holds the installment back.

NCIS Has Too Much Fun With Parker's Neck Injury

Comedic element intrudes on the rest of the episode, 10 best ncis seasons, ranked.

NCIS Season 21, Episode 8, "Heartless" begins with Parker arriving at headquarters with a stiff neck, and this quickly begins a running bit in which the other characters all offer him different remedies to fix it... most of which don't even come close to working. It's not surprising that the one idea he avoids -- Nick Torres giving him a very emphatic bear hug -- is the one that does the trick, and that it doesn't happen until the very last minutes of the episode. It's also not surprising that Gary Cole is great with dry humor; anyone who's heard Cole as Sergeant Bosco on Bob's Burgers knows how funny he can be . But the biggest problem is that there's too much joking in "Heartless" and it sometimes turns up in the wrong places.

Having opening and closing scenes about Parker's neck injury would've been fine, with perhaps a well-placed joke or two in the middle to keep the gag going. However, comments about his neck happen in many scenes in which Parker appears, including a fair chunk of the first act, as if to hammer the situation home. It's particularly glaring in the early going, because as NCIS is establishing the early details and ideas of the case, it also keeps circling back to Parker. This breaks up the dramatic flow of the episode, especially since every funny line is overly punctuated by a comedic underscore. The score in "Heartless" borders on Law & Order levels of obvious at times.

The jokes scale back as the episode progresses, but unfortunately the damage is done by then. "Heartless" doesn't create enough momentum or dramatic tension in the early going for the audience to be suitably invested in the case of the week. The only stakes in the episode that the viewer is concerned with involve Parker's fate, and given that he's a main character, there's only so much drama that can provide. NCIS has killed off main characters before , but "Heartless" never ramps up enough to feel like Parker's facing a legitimate threat.

Heartless Misses a Chance for Great NCIS Guest Stars

Guest characters aren't quite developed enough, 10 celebrities everyone forgets guest starred on ncis.

Another factor holding NCIS Season 21, Episode 8 back is what it does with its guest characters. Harper is portrayed by versatile Star Trek actor Tim Russ -- for all of two scenes. Audiences may not immediately recognize Russ without the Vulcan ears that he sported as Star Trek: Voyager 's Tuvok, but he's a solid performer and so it's a shame that viewers don't get to see him do more than give one speech to a group of medical residents and then get thrown into a van.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Christina Kirk from the cult hit DC superhero comedy Powerless portrays Harper's colleague, Dr. Claire Logan. With Harper dead, the Colombians need another heart surgeon to operate on their boss, and so they abduct Logan while Parker is still in her office. Acting quickly -- and somewhat impulsively -- Parker claims that he's also a doctor in order to get himself taken along with her. At this point in the narrative, there could be some interesting dialogue between Logan and Harper, but it's mostly either jokes about Parker's movie-watching taste (his fake name is taken from the John Landis comedy Spies Like Us ) or snarky comments about how he doesn't know what he's in for. That adds to the tone problem, and it also doesn't create any real rapport between the two. When Parker saves Logan's life, it carries no emotional impact; it's just done because it has to be done. Furthermore, there's a cold quality to Logan that makes her sound short most of the time -- except for the ending moments, in which it seems like Kirk is projecting her lines a little too much in a quiet hospital room.

"Heartless" would have been a stronger episode if the characters had been reversed. Audiences would have gotten to see more of Russ, and there would be the concern of whether or not Harper could pull off the procedure at gunpoint with his hand tremors. Logan being the murder victim could be explained at first by her being not the most likable character, so perhaps she had some enemies that the NCIS team could then have investigated before stumbling onto the real plot. As it stands, the two key guest stars both seem out of place.

Is 'Heartless' An NCIS Episode To Watch or Skip?

The episode has its flaws, but are they enough to avoid it, ncis: the best and worst episodes from every series.

"Heartless" is a disappointing outing for NCIS because of its underdeveloped characters and its inability to get its tonal balance right. Especially after the NCIS franchise's milestone 1,000th episode , it feels flat -- as if so much energy went into the previous episode that there wasn't much left for this one. It's also very self-contained, so there are no major plot or character reveals. That means the only people who absolutely need to watch the episode are NCIS die-hards who don't want to miss any of Season 21, fans of Gary Cole, or people who have become fans of Gary Cole since he started playing Alden Parker on NCIS .

Cole is one of those actors whom it's worth tuning into a project for; audiences know him from countless other roles, both dramatic and comedic, and Parker even evokes one of Cole's best characters . "Heartless" not only gives the actor a lot of screen time, but it gives him some different things to do therein, from being handcuffed inside a van to making jokes about getting old. The moment between Parker and Director Leon Vance in which they talk about their injuries is one of the funny bits that the episode gets right. Yet he's unquestionably front and center here; the other actors have their scenes, but all of them are playing supporting roles in Parker's story arc, one way or another.

NCIS Season 21 has had a lot on its proverbial plate. The season not only included the franchise's 1,000th hour, but the tribute episode for David McCallum . The show has done a lot recently -- so it's understandable if a few episodes are clunkers. "Heartless" is a clear miss for NCIS , but nothing that can't be overcome.

NCIS airs Mondays at 9:00 p.m. on CBS.

NCIS Season 21, Episode 8

The NCIS team looks for a motive behind the kidnapping and death of a famous heart surgeon.

• Solid performance by Gary Cole as Alden Parker.
• Too much comedy undermines any dramatic tension.
• The primary guest character is not well-developed.