Star Trek: Voyager — 1x04 — Time and Again
Synopsis
Paris and Janeway are sent back in time.
Remarkable scenes
- Paris having shifted through time briefly.
- Janeway and Paris shifting back in time just as she orders the beam up.
- The Doctor bemoaning about Kes' brain not being on file, not realizing the Federation has had no contact with her species.
- The Doctor, after hearing about the captain being missing: "Seems I've found myself on the voyage of the damned."
- Tom scaring away the kid.
- The doomed civilization foolishly suspecting Tom and Janeway as spies.
- Janeway breaking the temporal prime directive.
- Janeway telling the guard she's a hostage. She's got some balls!
- Janeway "fixing and resetting" time.
Review
I don't think it was a very good idea to show two predestination time travel stories back to back, especially this early in the series. Another annoying detail was that the doomed civilization in this episode looked gasp exactly like humans! You'd figure the writers would be able to sort out these kinds of cliches by now, what with three television series behind them and two in progress. Guess not. That said, this "version" of the predestination plot is far more intelligently constructed. I like how Voyager was in fact the cause of the explosion and how Janeway realizes this and breaks the cycle. As a result, nothing in this episode actually happens. In the ending, Kes retains a memory of the events. Her intuitions make her kind of a combination of TNG's Troi and Guinan, which is both amusing and kind of cool. Overall, a decent episode, I largely forgive the reset button.