You can read Ron's list of the top 25 Voyager episodes on Show Snob.
This is Part 2 of the episode transcript. Read Part 1 here.
Mon: The crew of Voyager believe in each other. That's why they get home in only seven years instead of 75. They have faith in each other's abilities, and they have faith that despite their many, many differences, they can work on it together. I can't say this enough. This is why I love the show.
I want to talk about some of the little moments which reiterate why these characters are so alive. We’ve talked about B’Elanna. She hates everybody. It's just a fact of life. But at the end of Season Five, the Captain has found out that the history of one of her ancestors was quite exaggerated. She's disheartened. She's absolutely crushed. You know, we're looking at this character who is an idol for all of us, an idol for her crew and her own idol has shattered before her eyes.
So, the senior staff put together an Ancestors’ Day to celebrate the people who came before. And the Captain’s like, why are we celebrating my ancestor? She was a nobody. And they say, your love for this person, your aspiration to be this person is the reason why you're here, and why we're here. And she's like, yeah, that's why we’re stuck in Delta Quadrant. And B’Elanna’s like, that's why we have a family. And I’m like, this is B’Elanna Torres? But that's the thing. This is B’Elanna Torres! That’s why we love B’Elanna Torres.
And there's another episode, also with B’Elanna Torres. I cannot reiterate the fact that when I'm watching these episodes, these seasons, I know what's going to happen. Surely, I will not have an emotional reaction? Some of the episodes I'm watching and I think, that could have been written better. And at other times, I'm watching this episode, which I don’t know how many times I've seen, where B’Elanna is at the end of her tether when it comes to her anger management. Nothing has worked. She's literally sitting in a garbage dump of radiation, trying to medicate because she thinks that's going to help her, and that's what Tuvok has taught her, and it's not working.
She and Neelix are trying to get off this Malon ship, get back to Voyager before radiation poisoning kills them. This Malon engineer, who is irradiated beyond survival, he keeps on trying to stop them because he wants to send a message to the rest of Malon. And she's been trying to keep her temper in control, and she just loses it. And when gets back, you can see, there's no expression on her face, she's not saying anything, but you can tell from her body language that she is crushed. She thinks that a) she hurt somebody who didn't deserve to be hurt, and b) she failed herself.
This is me watching this episode for like the fifth time, and in my head I'm like B’Elanna, it's not your fault, i's not your fault. I'm having this conversation, again, like I've watched this episode so many times, but it happens every single time! The power of the writing for these characters, and the power of how these actors bring these characters to life.
Ron: You can expect that by the end of the show, the actors have become so comfortable with the characters that they're not really working at it. They’re in the skin of these people, they're easy to embody now. But even in the earliest episodes, you can see the work that is going into making these people relatable to us. Season One has some really good character-driven episodes.
‘Jetrel’, for example. If you've watched ‘Jetrel’, there is no way you can hate Neelix. All the stuff that Neelix puts up with, being belittled by Tuvok, being yelled at by the crew, not being taken seriously, going on dangerous missions, always facing death. All of that comes from a person that has seen his entire planet burnt to dust. There is so much nuance to this guy, and somehow people just don't get it.
Mon: For Neelix to be able to smile and be there for everyone, and to hide that pain, that's what makes him so real, and so likeable. I have to say that even we weren't all that convinced when we first started watching Netflix. But, again, as soon as you see him sitting quietly in the Mess Hall trying desperately to keep his emotions in check, and as soon as a crew member comes in, he's like all smiles and he's helping them out. And it happens again and again.
Neelix is alone. He hardly knows any Talaxians at all; his entire family is gone. The only thing he has left of his family is one faded holo-image of his favorite sister. And he's still always smiling. It's impossible to hate this guy. That's honestly how I feel about all these characters.
Ron: Every single person has something special about them. And the thing about Voyager is that they have highlight episodes where somebody or the other gets to shine, and sometimes you have a little team up. So, you get to spend time with these characters, and you get to understand the inner workings of their brains. So, by the end of it, you really have a composite idea of these people, and that's what makes you love them.
Mon: Yeah, I think as we talk about some of our favorite episodes, it will become clearer why some of the characters really pop off the screen, and why some of the chemistry is our favourite. [Laughs]
Ron: So, we've already talked about B’Elanna Torres a lot, but we can't not talk about the Season One episode ‘Faces’. This is an episode where B’Elanna’s two distinct heritages, her human and her Klingon sides are split. She becomes two people. First, the acting by Roxann Dawson as these two characters is just out of this world. Even her own family didn't recognize her under the Klingon makeup. So that's a fun anecdote.
But she does such a great job of playing this very lost, timid human, and this extremely angry, but powerful Klingon. And through this episode you get to see why these two aspects of B’Elanna are so important to making the whole B’Elanna that we so love. As scared as her human side is, she's also extremely smart and thinks very quickly. As angry as her Klingon side is, she's also very strong, very powerful, and she doesn't have any fear.
You can see how those two sides are constantly warring inside of her, and that's why she struggles with her emotions so much. It's such a great episode, and the fact that it's in season one? What a task for a new actor! It's amazing.
Mon: Another couple of powerhouse performances come in ‘The Chute’. This Season Three episode starts off with Harry Kim realizing that he’s stuck in a prison in outer space. He and Tom have been falsely accused and they now have to survive in this hellhole. You know, the episode is going… it’s just going. There’s subterfuge; there’s sabotage. You don’t know if Tom and Harry are gonna make it. But who knew that the one driving force would be their friendship?
You know, we’re only in Season Three; we’re still getting to know these characters, they’re still getting to know each other, but man, I love this episode. Tom is the confident, manly-man. But in this episode, he gets injured so Harry has to keep trying to take care of him. And Tom's getting more deranged, and he keeps sabotaging what Harry’s trying to do to get them out of there.
And in the end, Harry completely loses his temper, because Tom has ruined yet another tool. He's so upset at Tom, he almost hits him. But Tom doesn't remember any of that at the end. Tom just tells him, the only thing I remember is you fighting off all those people saying, nobody come near my friend.
And as I said, I have watched Voyager, and several episodes of Voyager so many times I've lost count. With ‘The Chute’, every time Tom says that I am like, yeah, who’s crying? You’re crying!
Ron: Harry and Tom’s relationship is so powerful, and it's so consistent throughout. Like even with ‘The Chute’, you have this moment where the two of them really aren't in the right state of mind, because there's something embedded in their heads that’s really throwing the balance of their brains off. But in the end, they come out of it being fiercer friends then even before.
Mon: Moving beyond ‘The Chute’, Harry and Tom's friendship, it's effortless. They don't try too hard. It's not like they have a lot in common, but they enjoy each other's company. Which is why when they’re playing Captain Proton or they're spending their free time together, they enjoy being with each other. And with ‘The Chute’, it just brings to the fore that the two of them are really there for each other.
Ron: And ‘The Chute’ does subvert the Tom Paris character. Another episode that does that is ‘Blood Fever’. We really love this episode because it does not go the direction you think it's gonna go. Now, we know that the Vulcans have their issues with feelings and emotions. The problem is when they end up transferring those to Klingons who have a lot of feeling and a lot of emotion.
And that's exactly what happens here. We have this young Vulcan who is experiencing particular emotions for the first time and he transfers them to B’Elanna, who's already very feisty, and she just goes out of control. She has no idea what to do with herself. And the object of her affections just happens to be around, and that’s Tom Paris. It's funny that we gets these inklings about their relationship as early as Season Three. Because up until this point, B’Elanna, Harry and Tom, and before that, Seska, before she became a traitor, they were really good friends. And they used to hang out a lot.
Tom never seemed to make any suggestions to B’Elanna that he was interested in anything more. But it turns out that B’Elanna had different ideas, and it comes out in this episode where she's really struggling, and Tom is the only one who can help her. But Tom decides to be the better man. And by Season Three, honestly, it shouldn't come as a surprise. Because the Tom Paris character may have intended to be kind of chauvinistic, but it definitely works. There were instances, maybe in the first season, when we thought, where are we going with this guy? But, whether it was the actor or the writing team, or who it was that was fighting against it, Tom took a whole different turn. And that becomes most obvious in ‘Blood Fever’, when things could have gone completely differently, but it didn't, and I really enjoyed this episode.
Mon: And it sets the stage for Tom and B’Elanna’s relationship. Over the course of the seasons, it becomes obvious that Tom is desperate to be B’Elanna’s friend, maybe something more, but his first priority is to be her friend. And he keeps trying all these things. He makes Klingon programs in the hopes that she enjoys them, but he doesn't realize that she actually doesn't enjoy anything about her Klingon heritage. So, he’s always trying to get in her good books but because she's not really open about it, he keeps trying different things, and along the way he muddles to the right option.
I guess it's a good time to talk about Tom and B’Elanna. Did we see this relationship coming? Well, yes, we already watched the last two seasons. So, for us it was really the enjoyment of watching how they grow.
Initially, all the aliens and all the ladies are always throwing themselves at Tom, but he's always like, no thank you. I mean, Robert Duncan McNeill even jokes about it on the Delta Flyers podcast about how he's supposed to be the playboy, but he never gets any girls. Whereas Harry Kim has everyone fawning all over him and he has no game. Which is what I liked about this character because, as we said, this was the 90s, he could have easily been disgusting, but he wasn't.
Which is why it was easy for us to get invested in Tom and B’Elannas relationship. Tom’s always trying hard, and with B’Elanna, she's interested in Tom…
Ron: But she has a very funny way of showing it.
Mon: B’Elanna professes her undying love for Tom while they're about to die of oxygen deprivation, in the middle of space, in their spacesuits. Talk about being extra.
Ron: B’Elanna really knows how to make a statement.
Mon: Everything she does is memorable. You may not live through it, but you will remember it if you do.
Ron: But the bold thing about Voyager is that they pretty much took the two most eligible characters on their show, and paired them up, like in season four and kept them that way till the end of the show. And not once did either of them find somebody else.
Mon: There was no cheating drama, there was no falling out drama. None of that. A lot of times, you can actually forget that they are a couple because this is life, and their life happens to be work. They don't have time for all the mushy stuff. It's obvious that when they have time for the mushy stuff, everybody gets to know.
Ron: As Seven gladly points out.
Mon: So, that’s what I like about them. They don't always have to be wrapped around each other to show that they are close, that they care for each other. There’s an episode when B’Elanna is being sucked dry by a parasite. You can see the concern on Tom’s face. And similarly, when Tom is lost on a planet, you can see that B’Elanna is trying very hard not to freak out. That's what I like about how they write these characters. It's subtle.
Ron: And also, I like the fact that just because the two of them become partners, doesn't mean that they lose the other relationships that they have. Chakotay and B’Elanna were always friends, since they were in the Maquis and then they joined Voyager, and that friendship continues throughout. Harry, Tom, and B’Elanna hang out all the time. B’Elanna has her own particular relationship with the Captain; that continues on, as well. In fact, the Captain is very helpful when things get a bit tetchy between B’Elanna and Tom. It's not like the two of them become a unit and that's it. Everything continues around them. And then they add more people, like the Doctor, like Neelix.
But another relationship that doesn't really happen and that's the Captain and Chakotay. Their chemistry is there from the very beginning. And we do have the Season Two episode ‘Resolutions’, where Chakotay pretty much declares how he feels about the Captain. It's a really, really cute episode and Chakotay is adorable in it. Again, there was this subversion of the female and male roles.
They never really get to do anything about it because she's the Captain, he's the commander, and the captain can’t fraternize with anybody below her, which is unfortunate, because the two of them just work so well. At the end of ‘Resolutions’, you can see how crushed they both are because they know that there was a real possibility of them finding happiness, and that's gone because duty has gotten in the way, and they're always going to put the ship before themselves. But despite that, the two of them continue to stay friends. It's really sweet.
Mon: And what I like is that it's not like their relationship becomes uncomfortable, or full of innuendo and unrequited love. They make peace with the fact that their relationship can't happen. So now they're going to be professionals, they're going to be friends, and they're going to finish the mission, which is getting their ship home. You could easily have had a very tenuous relationship between these two, but they didn't. And the show is better for it.
Ron: There are lots of little pairing. Initially, it’s the doctor and Kes, they’re very good friends. The doctor sometimes thinks that there's a little bit more. Then later on, the Doctor and Seven. The Doctor kind of becomes Seven’s mentor in social situations. Can't say he's all that good and Seven isn't the best student, but they do try, and in the process they become excellent friends.
Then you have Tuvok and Neelix. They're butting heads constantly, they don't really get along. But when Neelix leaves, Tuvok is definitely there, and he kind of shows him how much he cares in his own very Tuvok way.
I think some of the pairings that I would have liked to see would have been Tom and Tuvok and Tom and Chakotay. They have some really nice scenes together, but they're few and far between. And there's more that we could have explored but, you know, there's a huge cast, so you can't give everybody time together.
Mon: One of the pairings that I would have liked them to have explored a little bit more was Seven and Tuvok. First of all, they're both lacking in emotions, unlike the others, and they're very logical, very pragmatic. And what got me thinking about it was ‘Year of Hell’. In the episode, Tuvok saves Seven, and ended up being blinded. And Seven sort of takes it upon herself to be his guardian and his caretaker. And I really love that about it because Seven is, you know, supposed to be cold and mean. But she’s a very caring person, and I always liked that about that episode because we could have just not had something like that. But it was so powerful to see a character who has quite literally just joined and immediately she takes it upon herself to be beholden to someone who saved her life. They have very few scenes together, but whenever they do, they fit. And I'm really surprised that they didn't actually spend more time developing a friendship between these two.
Ron: It goes without saying that the Doctor has some of the funniest episodes. But a non-Doctor episode which I really enjoyed was ‘Worst Case Scenario’. Now this is an episode that pairs Tom and Tuvok, and it really works. They’re such an unlikely pairing. And it's such a bizarre situation for them to be in. But every time I watch this episode, I enjoy every second of it.
Mon: With the Voyager crew, they’re always surprised by how their colleagues think, and how their colleagues are often successful. So, as they say, variety it is the spice of life, and with Voyager that's exactly what you get. Sometimes you really feel for the poor crew member who’s stuck with somebody who is the polar opposite of them.
But at the same time, that person is saving your life, and you're like, ‘I wish I was part of this crew’, because I’m thinking again about the fact that somebody like Neelix, who could easily just be the Mess Hall guy, or the chef, who makes very bad soup, but the Captain keeps turning to him. She's always asking him for advice about what he knows about this species, or that area of space. You know, growth comes from opportunity, and the Captain is always giving her crew members opportunities.
Mon: So, somebody like Tom. I often felt like Tom was able to push the boundaries of professionalism with the Captain much more than everybody else. First of all, he was kind of Starfleet but not because he was in jail. Also, the Captain personally picked him for this role, okay, not to be a pilot, but to be an observer, but his behavior was kind of on her.
So, the Captain was always willing to give him that extra edge, whereas with the others, she would be quite stoic. There’s this episode where Harry Kim makes the mistake of getting into relationship with an alien. She is incensed, but as she explains, she was disappointed in him because she expects the best from him. He really is the best of them. But with Tom, it takes him almost causing a war on a water planet for her to actually put him back in the brig. Favouritism, but understandable.
Ron: Well, that's why ‘Thirty Days’ is one of our favorite episodes.
Mon: The concept itself of this planet made entirely of water, and again, we go into how Tom has a love for the seas and he wanted to be part of the naval force but because of his father, he had to join the Academy. Re-watching it recently, it reminded me so much of Oto Gunga in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Quite funny actually, how similar these themes are.
But the core of that episode, aside from Tom being put in the brig, is that you need to listen to science. And it's a subtle way of saying that humanity is draining its resources and Earth is suffering for it.
So, aside from all that, we have Tom Perez, who is so sure of his convictions that he thinks he can actually convince that Captain that what he’s done—disobeying the laws of the land, and disobeying her orders—is going to be enough to get him to complete his mission. Well, he's wrong. He's stuck in the brig for 30 days, and he's actually kinda in solitary confinement as well. So, the Captain is really angry. You can see it in her face when she’s stripping him off his rank, that you cannot mess with her.
And even when he explains why he did what he did—usually the Captain melts, she understands—but she is stoic on this one. And the other thing that I like about ‘Thirty Days’ is that, this is Tom Paris, he's come from the ground up to be a lieutenant, to be a respected member of the senior staff, and he gets thrown in jail, and stripped of his rank. And now he’s an Ensign. Wow. If that can happen to Tom Paris...
Ron: But what an example to send right?
Mon: And it's not without reason that it's Tom Paris who becomes the example, because again, anything that Tom does wrong reflects badly on the Captain, because she chose him. And it's an interplay that I don't know if the writers were really going with that, but there really is a special bond between these two characters which goes beyond professional or personal.
Ron: Well, going back to the Doctor, and his very many amazing and funny episodes. Like, how do you choose?
Some of our favorites have got to be, ‘Message in a Bottle’ and ‘Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy’. But honestly, every time the Doc does anything, it is genuinely very funny. And he kind of brings that humor to everybody else. So, by extension of what he's doing, other people do funny things as well. So it's the kind of light-heartedness that sometimes is missing in Star Trek, but it's a good way of balancing out some of the more heavy episodes and there are a few of them in Voyager. After all, they are lost in the Delta Quadrant, and they do face some very difficult situations.
Despite that, there are plenty of humorous moments in this series, which we constantly remember at the most inopportune moments.
Mon: Some of the heavier episodes I would say are ‘Memorial’, which is an obvious allusion to the Holocaust and the price of forgetting the Holocaust. There’s, of course, ‘Jetrel’, which we mentioned earlier. There’s ‘Critical Care’, which talks about the healthcare system. These are just a few of them. There's so many.
I mean, even the Malon episode that I was talking about earlier, it's about how the little guy gets stomped and forgotten.
With Voyager, it's so much about how these characters make you feel. None of them are perfect, but together they try and achieve that goal of perfection.
Ron: We you go back to Voyager so often. Even having watched the other Star Trek shows several times, it's always Voyager that we talk about, that we think about. I guess, partly because we saw Voyager at a time when we needed the show. Also, because the way we connected with it was completely different because there was a female Captain, there was a female engineer, the smartest person on the ship was a woman. The cast was very diverse. These are the reasons why we felt attracted to the show, but the strength of the characters and the stories, and how they made this family, that's what really kept us coming back.
Mon: We talked about how when we watch TNG, these are characters that you aspire to, because they're so good at what they do, they're the best at what they do. But there’s always this barrier between you and the characters, so you feel a little bit of a disconnection. It's not like you can't like these characters or love them, but with Voyager, you feel like you are them, or you can be them, and that you can just hang out with these people. They really do feel like family.
Ron: So that's why Voyager is our Flashback Favorite this month. Which Star Trek show is your favorite and why? We'd love to hear from you.
Ron: You can find us on Twitter @Stereo_Geeks. Or send us an email [email protected]. We hope you enjoyed this episode. And see you next week!
Mon: The Stereo Geeks logo was created using Canva. The music for our podcast comes courtesy Audionautix.
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Transcription by Otter.ai, Ron, and Mon.