star trek voyager episodes ranked

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Every Episode of Star Trek: Voyager, Ranked (with comments)

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VOY Ranking by Titles Only

On one level, Star Trek: Voyager feels forced. It’s like that D&D campaign where people decided to make characters they hadn’t played before, like the Orcish Ranger, the Tiefling Paladin, and the Dwarven Bard. I really didn’t take to it at first.

However, in going back to watch the entire series, it definitely rose in my estimation. For one thing, they did two-parter episodes really well — so much so that I really wonder why they went with a one-part season finale for season four. I mean, “Hope and Fear” was good, and the fifth season opener “Night” was even better, but man, I wanted another “Scorpion” or “Equinox.”

In short, Voyager did what every other Trek series has managed to do: tell some timeless sci-fi stories well. If the tone and quality was uneven — and if it seemed like they went back to particular Trek wells a bit too often rather than delving for their own– that may explain why they don’t get as high in the overall rankings. Indeed, this is a show that had both a pile of dismembered Borg and a charming storybook holodeck program designed to amuse children. I wish there was some kind of way I could drive this home…

(Want to watch or re-watch Voyager before delving into spoiler territory? Check out this viewing guide! )

Note: Everything below may contain spoilers and definitely contains some snark.

Kathryn Janeway Let me come right out and say it: this woman made Admiral for a reason. Faced with seven years of tough decisions while she had to keep a stiff upper lip that would impress Hornblower, she not only got her crew home, she did it bringing new technology and by decisively defeating the Borg. Janeway is awesome (and being an ardent scientist is an added bonus).

Chakotay Look, any XO (executive officer) is going to be a bit tough on occasion. It’s their job. When it comes to serving under XOs, Spock and T’Pol might be Vulcan sticklers and it’s well established Kira needs medical prescriptions to have fun. But Chakotay? Chakotay is that XO who understands. While Matt McCoy’s Devinoni Ral probably has him beat as “most sensitive man in the Star Trek universe,” Chakotay is definitely in the running. I bet he’ll sign your leave slip.

B’Elanna Torres Half-Human, half-Klingon, all engineer: you know the deal.

Tom Paris The would-be oh-so bad boy really comes across as more of a rapscallion. He’s not a favorite, but he sometimes adds a very necessary amount of snark to the show that could sometimes get too serious.

Tuvok Speaking of serious, let’s talk about Tuvok. If he was ever a straighter straight man, he’d be used by comedy statisticians to calibrate their instruments. He probably thinks that “comedy statisticians” are a thing. Tuvok, babe: don’t ever change.

Harry Kim Combining elements of Wesley Crusher’s enthusiasm, Geordi’s romantic mishaps, and O’Brien’s tendency to suffer, poor Ensign Kim probably had one of the worst seven-year journeys of all of them (the sad fate of Lt. Carey notwithstanding). I certainly hope he got a promotion on his return.

Seven of Nine Jeri Ryan plays a perfectly fine continuation of the character commenting on humanity from afar (even though she is human under all the Borg nurturing and nanotech). Alas, the promise of a more ambitious character arc hinted at the beginning of season 4, in which her Borg implants could be removed and she could more fully reassert her humanity, basically stalled (I’m sure the producers felt it wasn’t broken, so why fix it?).

The Doctor The clear “breakout character” of Voyager , the Doctor’s character arc throughout the series was a joy to see, even if we didn’t always dig the opera. The fact that he became more personable and well-rounded while maintaining an acerbic core is a tribute to Robert Picardo.

Neelix I’m not saying every starship couldn’t use a cheerful bar rodent (Q’s term, not mine). I’m saying he’s the Pumpkin Spice of Star Trek characters: good for certain situations, not for every storyline.

Kes What if we had someone who was just incredibly nice? Oh, and she has untapped psychic powers? And let’s not have her do much of anything, okay?

161) “Threshold” Season 2, Episode 15 Meddle not with the mysteries of the universe by going to warp 10, otherwise you too may turn into a giant space salamander, your captain will turn into a giant space salamander, and you shall mate with one another. No, I’m not kidding.

160) “Tuvix” Season 2, Episode 24 Okay, I’m going to give unequivocal props to Tom Wright for his portrayal of Tuvix. He’s a great actor who you can see doing great work in no end of films. Many consider this a great exploration of morality and identity in the grand Trek tradition. Perhaps I’d be more forgiving if it was one of the crazy-go-nuts episodes of the animated series (which got really crazy). Nevertheless, I’ve watched it multiple times and I still can’t take it seriously.

159) “Parturition” Season 2, Episode 7 Do you really need to spend an entire episode with Tom and Neelix bickering? No.

158) “The 37’s” Season 2, Episode 1 The appearance of an odd object in space (a hand, Abraham Lincoln, a truck)  never bodes well. At least some of the other episodes that start off this way have the decency to explore some intriguing ideas. This episode, however, spends undue attention to the heretofore unknown “Blue Alert” which normal people call “landing your damn spacecraft” and then proceeds to have the most interesting action of the story occur off camera (e.g., the visit to the civilization the humans’ built, the unlikely decision by all of the crew to stay on Voyager). What a sour note to start a season on.

157) “Parallax” Season 1, Episode 3 Say, how about we begin our first season with a little bit of the Maquis getting integrated with the Voyager crew and a whole lot of technobabble?

156) “Elogium” Season 2, Episode 4 Kes is feeling frisky. How about we give her and Neelix the room?

155) “Blood Fever” Season 3, Episode 16 Apparently, the only way to advance the Tom/B’Elanna relationship is by making Pon Farr contagious.

154) “Faces” Season 1, Episode 14 “The Enemy Within” without any energy and zero cute space dogs.

153) “Fair Trade” Season 3, Episode 13 Neelix wants to feel important. This episode isn’t.

152) “Cathexis” Season 1, Episode 13 An unremarkable alien possession story.

151) “The Haunting of Deck Twelve” Season 6, Episode 25 Did you really think an episode with this title would be anything more than padding to get to the season finale? Blah.

150) “Alice” Season 6, Episode 5 The possessed spaceship plot does little but reaffirm that Tom and B’Elanna do, in fact, have a relationship.

149) “Deadlock” Season 2, Episode 21 An anemic entry into the alternate timeline story is nothing special. Wait until “Shattered” and ”Endgame.”

148) “Jetrel” Season 1, Episode 15 Some good ideas about prejudice and forgiveness are explored here, but it’s proportionate to how much you like Neelix.

147) “Phage” Season 1, Episode 5 The Vidiians are introduced and, although they’re potentially a fun “villain race,” this episode is mainly unsatisfying.

146) “Sacred Ground” Season 3, Episode 7 Look, the whole matter of Janeway coming to balance her love of science with a bit of faith is okay, but not great. The main reason I’m ever rewatching this episode is for Estelle Harris, Keene Curtis, Harry Groener, and, especially, Parley Baer. And for you young whipper-snappers who don’t know who they are, get off my sacred ground!

145) “Prime Factors” Season 1, Episode 10 Tuvok betrays Janeway’s trust for what turns out to be no good reason. I mean, it’s logical, but we’re all a bit bummed by the end of this.

144) “The Fight” Season 5, Episode 19 Chakotay likes boxing so much he will even box characters that seem to be from a Jack Kirby fever dream.

143) “Vis à Vis” Season 4, Episode 20 Tom Paris is a jerk in a way that Tom Paris is not usually a jerk because of ALIENS.

142) “Lifesigns” Season 2, Episode 19 The Doctor falls in love and B’Elanna learns a bit more compassion, and, um, that’s about it.

141) “Favorite Son” Season 3, Episode 20 Alien femmes have designs on Harry Kim, which means his romantic life remains bad.

140) “Good Shepherd” Season 6, Episode 20 Janeway works on team-building, which somehow turns into a life-or-death situation.

139) “Spirit Folk” Season 6, Episode 17 Due to a glitch, the residents of Fair Haven become more self-aware and — oh, for the love of all that’s Trek, can we give the malfunctioning holodeck episodes a rest?

138) “Twisted” Season 2, Episode 6 The crew pads for time as they explore Voyager-as-Magic-Labyrinth

137) “Human Error” Season 7, Episode 18 An okay character-based episode where Seven of Nine tries to sort out how human she wants to become or can become. It errs a bit more on the frustrating versus existential side, though I suppose if it was in French with B&W cinematography it would be hailed at Cannes.

136) “Fair Haven” Season 6, Episode 11 How can Captain Janeway experience any romance on the long journey home? Why the holodeck, of course! If you’re on board for Voyager , this episode scratches a good character-based itch.

135) “Someone to Watch Over Me” Season 5, Episode 22 It’s Pygmalion with the Doctor and Seven of Nine. Tell you more? It’s nice work if you can get it I suppose, but at the end, the Doctor, pardon my English, goes girl crazy. Okay, I’ll stop with the Gershwin references.

134) “Q2” Season 7, Episode 19 John de Lancie and John de Lancie’s son play Q and Q’s son in this final Q outing. If you liked Q on Voyager, you’ll like this.

133) “Live Fast and Prosper” Season 6, Episode 21 A somewhat charming, but far from amazing episode where the Voyager crew contend with some flim-flamming imposters. If the term “flim-flam” made you queasy, this probably isn’t for you.

132) “Alter Ego” Season 3, Episode 14 Harry falls for the wrong person… again. Tuvok does not prove to be a good wingman.

131) “One” Season 4, Episode 25 Seven of Nine learns that Voyager might just be her new collective. Awww.

130) “Author, Author” Season 7, Episode 20 What rights do writers who are holograms have? The Doctor finds out.

129) “The Cloud” Season 1, Episode 6 Janeway’s coffee-based motivation is never clearer than in this episode. Not bad, but could use a bit more story cream and sugar.

128) “The Chute” Season 3, Episode 3 Tom and Harry are wrongfully incarcerated and have to go through the typical motions of a prison story.

127) “Investigations” Season 2, Episode 20 Neelix as an investigative journalist is somewhat mitigated by his efforts moving the Seska/Kazon storyline along.

126) “Projections” Season 2, Episode 3 A kind of fun take on the Trek “mind-warp” tale where the Doctor questions his holographic existence. Hey, Philip K. Dick’s android said it was okay.

125) “Mortal Coil” Season 4, Episode 12 Neelix gets very existential exploring his ideas of the afterlife. Thoughtful.

124) “Life Line” Season 6, Episode 24 Robert Picardo gets to do a father-son drama playing both parts! Decent.

123) “Pathfinder” Season 6, Episode 10 A little Barclay goes a long way and this episode gives you a lot of Barclay. Gird your holodeck loins!

122) “Learning Curve” Season 1, Episode 16 The Maquis learn that “discipline” and “procedure” aren’t just things Starfleet created to annoy them and Tuvok learns to improvise. A little.

121) “Remember” Season 3, Episode 6 B’Elanna goes on a magical mystery tour… in her mind. Okay, it’s more mystery than magical, but it’ll do.

120) “Darkling” Season 3, Episode 18 What if the Doctor was EVIL?

119) “Tattoo” Season 2, Episode 9 Thrill to the… okay, Marvel to the… Fine. Observe Chakotay’s backstory adventures in Flashback-Land.

118) “Non Sequitur” Season 2, Episode 5 Harry gets caught in an alternate timestream allowing him to suffer general AND romantic angst.

117) “Real Life” Season 3, Episode 22 B’Elanna is something of a jerk, the Doctor gets the O’Brien treatment, and your room may get a bit dusty at the end of this one.

116) “Waking Moments” Season 4, Episode 13 If you like Chakotay and lucid dreaming, you’re going to love this episode.

115) “Resistance” Season 2, Episode 12 A rather touching tale absolutely aided by Joel Grey.

114) “Child’s Play” Season 6, Episode 19 Icheb’s parents are not nice. I mean, you can understand their motivations in a ends-justifies-the-means kind of Greek mythology not-nice way, but they’re still not nice.

113) “Virtuoso” Season 6, Episode 13 The Doctor learns a great deal about fame and fads.

112) “Drive” Season 7, Episode 3 A reasonably involving story where a multi-species spacecraft race is used to illustrate B’Elanna and Tom’s relationship. They also make time for Harry to be unlucky in love again.

111) “Ex Post Facto” Season 1, Episode 8 It’s TNG’s “A Matter of Perspective” with a little smattering of DS9’s “Hard Time” with Tom as the Riker/O’Brien stand-in.

110) “Heroes and Demons” Season 1, Episode 12 A surprisingly enjoyable holodeck outing where the Doctor contends with a Beowulf-type tale. I’m still bummed he didn’t stick with the name “Schweitzer.”

109) “Initiations” Season 2, Episode 2 You get both Nog and the Vasquez Rocks in this story of a young Kazon training to become a proper dudebro Kazon.

108) “Macrocosm” Season 3, Episode 12 Janeway does her best Linda Hamilton impersonation as she takes on a macro-virus. If you’re on board for a wacky monster-of-the-week episode, it’s pretty fun.

107) “Repression” Season 7, Episode 4 Tuvok is the Manchurian Vulcan in a reasonably effective mystery-thriller.

106) “Collective” Season 6, Episode 16 Borg children are precocious. And by “precocious,” I mean “just as deadly as regular Borg if they can get away with it.”

105) “Resolutions” Season 2, Episode 25 Some attempts at serial storytelling come into play here what with callbacks to previous encounters with the Vidiians (aka, your make-up class final exam) as well as exploring the relationship between Chakotay and Janeway. However, there’s nothing exceptional.

104) “Coda” Season 3, Episode 15 Janeway experiences a bit of Groundhog Day. There’s a lot of temporary death in this episode, which, depending on how you feel about the Voyager characters, is either a plus or a minus.

103) “The Gift” Season 4, Episode 2 Let’s officially make the ensemble change from Kes to Seven of Nine and give Kes a good sendoff, okay?

102) “Extreme Risk” Season 5, Episode 3 A notable story in introducing us to the Delta Flyer as well as showing a character work through clinical depression. Because let’s face it, life in a Star Trek series is pretty taxing for one’s mental health.

101) “Emanations” Season 1, Episode 9 An enjoyably philosophical episode comfortably in the Trek wheelhouse looking at beliefs around the afterlife. Plus, Harry Kim is tormented physically and mentally, so you get to check both those boxes off your Voyager bingo card.

100) “Nothing Human” Season 5, Episode 8 Following in the footsteps of TNG’s “Ethics,” the Doctor gets to question whether he can benefit from the research of a Cardassian Dr. Mengele type. Maybe not gold medal, but still Olympic-level wrestling with morals.

99) “Before and After” Season 3, Episode 21 An entertaining enough story where Kes becomes “unstuck in time,” serving as a prelude to the following season’s excellent “Year of Hell.”

98) “The Disease” Season 5, Episode 17 Yes, Harry has another failed romance which, actually, almost kills him. In the meantime however, he gets his groove on and we get to see some okay drama about a generation ship.

97) “Imperfection” Season 7, Episode 2 Character building between Icheb and Seven of Nine which isn’t bad, but rather dependent on you being more than a casual viewer.

96) “The Swarm” Season 3, Episode 4 Irwin Allen is nowhere to be found in this installment which is titularly about xenophobic aliens and their flocks of ships, but really is more about what to do with the Doctor who has outgrown his holographic specs.

95) “Repentance” Season 7, Episode 13 A solid scenario where Federation ideals such as non-interference and no capital punishment come in conflict with a race that plans to execute some of their criminals. Good character moments for several of the crew.

94) “Rise” Season 3, Episode 19 If you like the idea of space elevators and can abide by Neelix, you’re going to be perfectly happy with this one.

93) “Riddles” Season 6, Episode 6 Neelix finally gets to be besties with Tuvok, but Voyager still needs a good tactical officer, so his possible new career path as a jazz-loving baker is cut short.

92) “Homestead” Season 7, Episode 23 The producers wisely realize that Delta Quadrant native Neelix probably won’t like being the lone Talaxian in the Federation and so they send him off in decent style, where he gets to rally a colony of his people against miners in a clear Homesteaders/ranchers homage. Bonus points for the obvious, but enjoyable bit of closure with Tuvok.

91) “Nightingale” Season 7, Episode 8 Okay, so maybe it’s okay for Harry Kim to remain an ensign for a while.

90) “Workforce” (Parts I & II) Season 7, Episodes 16 & 17 A decent, but not standout two-parter that gives some good character moments, especially, for Janeway and the Doctor — yet the story doesn’t match some of Voyager’s more epic two-parters.

89) “The Voyager Conspiracy” Season 6, Episode 9 Seven of Nine becomes a poster child for the every instructor who has ever wanted to illustrate how data is different from information which is different from knowledge which is different from wisdom.

88) “Once Upon a Time” Season 5, Episode 5 A charming tale about Neelix living up to his role as Voyager ‘s morale officer with a fun little world-building reveal at the end featuring Janeway, making you speculate whether there are holodeck versions of Goodnight Moon and Dr. Seuss books.

87) “Warlord” Season 3, Episode 10 Jennifer Lien has a field day playing a would-be military dictator who can’t quite escape Kes’ irrepressible niceness.

86) “Scientific Method” Season 4, Episode 7 Pitiless aliens experiment on the crew once again making a critical mistake pretty much all the villains make on Voyager : when you go against Janeway, you have to go all-in.

85) “Tsunkatse” Season 6, Episode 15 A decent but not particularly surprising diversion of an episode involving gladiatorial combat. You could say this episode puts Seven of Nine between The Rock and a hard place. I won’t say it, but you might.

84) “Think Tank” Season 5, Episode 20 Nefarious aliens will get what they want, and they want Seven of Nine! But have you noticed people who cross Janeway tend to wind up broken or dead?

83) “The Q and the Grey” Season 3, Episode 11 The repercussions of “Death Wish” come to pass in an entertaining enough outing where John de Lancie’s self-important Q is joined by Suzie Plakson as his significant Q other. Bonus meta points for Miss Q flattering B’Elanna about Klingons.

82) “Caretaker” Season 1, Episodes 1 & 2 A somewhat perfunctory, but decent enough series premiere gives us a taste of what to look forward to –and what we might find annoying– about the latest Star Trek series. That they revisit Janeway’s fateful decision to strand themselves in the Delta quadrant because of Federation ideals later in the series is good. It’s also nice that Voyager represents some technical sophistication after endless episodes of the Enterprise (in multiple series) being completely outclassed (and it also gives a good covetous motivation for the new villains, the Kazon).

81) “Alliances” Season 2, Episode 14 In a great move for the overall Kazon narrative, Janeway and the crew find the limits of selling the Kazon on their Federation principles. Cultures used to betrayals and power games tend not to change overnight.

80) “Day of Honor” Season 4, Episode 3 A good entry in both B’Elanna’s ongoing exploration of her Klingon heritage and her relationship with Tom Paris.

79) “Drone” Season 5, Episode 2 Mix a transporter mishap with the Borg and 29th century technology and you have yourselves a spicy meatball of an episode!

78) “Retrospect” Season 4, Episode 17 A tale of assault, abuse, doubt, and trust that offers enough great moments for Seven, Janeway, and the Doctor to make one feel properly uncomfortable.

77) “Infinite Regress” Season 5, Episode 7 Jeri Ryan gets to act her socks off and Naomi Wildman continues her quest to become the “captain’s assistant.” Fun all around.

76) “Latent Image” Season 5, Episode 11 The Doctor gets to experience conflict as never before in a thought-provoking story about ethics and choice.

75) “Lineage” Season 7, Episode 12 As with many couples suddenly facing a family addition, Tom and B’Elanna are forced to consider their heritage. B’Elanna’s struggles with her familial baggage are very real and a welcome presence in a Star Trek story.

74) “Friendship One” Season 7, Episode 21 Do you remember Lieutenant Carey? He’s been with us since season one. Prepare to be depressed.

73) “Prophecy” Season 7, Episode 14 A good story filled with enough action that will in no way alleviate B’Elanna’s anxiety about having a baby as her unborn child may be the Kuvah’magh… or the Kwisatz Haderach… or both! Also, for better or worse, we discover more about Neelix’s tastes in women.

72) “Natural Law” Season 7, Episode 22 A perfectly enjoyable Trek outing about cultural progress and survival focusing on Chakotay and Seven of Nine.

71) “Time and Again” Season 1, Episode 4 Writer David Kemper would go on to explore more time travel and causality themes in Farscape , but despite some technobabble, this is an entertaining entry. Bonus points for showing how Tom Paris can do some math in his head.

70) “Thirty Days” Season 5, Episode 9 A good framing device often adds to the richness of any story as well as drawing you in. Here, we want to know what happened that led to Tom’s demotion and we get some good wrestling with the Prime Directive as well.

69) “Survival Instinct” Season 6, Episode 2 Seven of Nine being a first-class tool back when she was part of the collective has some repercussions. Also, Vaughan Armstrong needs to play another Star Trek race.

68) “Inside Man” Season 7, Episode 6 While not as intricate a plot as the film “Inside Man,” this Dwight Schultz-packed story of deceit is reasonably satisfying.

67) “The Omega Directive” Season 4, Episode 21 The “omega particles” are about as ridiculous science as “red matter,” but it does make for some entertaining space opera amid the technobabble.

66) “Eye of the Needle” Season 1, Episode 7 A nice installment for season one, where the crew is still focused on getting out of the whole premise of being in the Delta Quadrant in the first place. Space-time twists can be the worst twists, can’t they?

65) “Juggernaut” Season 5, Episode 21 The character storyline of B’Elanna learning to deal with her rage and the plot storyline of monster aboard the freighter don’t quite mesh, but the resulting episode works well enough.

64) “Cold Fire” Season 2, Episode 10 Kes learns more about her mutant -er- psychic powers from Gary Graham, who’s clearly honing his multilayered antagonist character in advance of playing Soval on “Enterprise.” Plus, we get followup on the Caretaker of sorts.

63) “Renaissance Man” Season 7, Episode 24 We get one last relatively light adventure before the grim series finale, and focusing on the breakout character that is the Doctor is a good way to do it. If “The Blue Danube” isn’t stuck in your head by the end of this episode, you may have a natural resistance to earworms.

62) “Random Thoughts” Season 4, Episode 10 The premise of a race of telepaths who have a secret longing for unsavory thoughts makes this a fun mystery with allegorical overtones.

61) “Fury” Season 6, Episode 23 Kes is back for character-based closure –and a few explosions– and it works out pretty well.

60) “False Profits” Season 3, Episode 5 In a fun follow-up to TNG’s “The Price,” we find the Ferengi lost in the Delta Quadrant are behaving like, well, Ferengi.

59) “Dragon’s Teeth” Season 6, Episode 7 Voyager shows off its visual effects budget as we are introduced to the Vaadwaur, an ancient race not unlike the Iconians, except they used subspace tunnels versus portals as their chosen tool of conquest. Despite their antagonistic potential, we sadly never see them again in the series.

58) “Barge of the Dead” Season 6, Episode 3 Both Klingon world-building and B’Elanna Torres character-building are on display as we get a look at Klingon hell (well, mainly the metaphorical road to hell and how it’s paved).

57) “Persistence of Vision” Season 2, Episode 8 Not content to have just one crew member experience a “mind warp” episode, the writers cleverly figure out how to get just about the whole crew involved. The villain, sadly, never appears again.

56) “Ashes to Ashes” Season 6, Episode 18 The idea of an alien species reproducing by re-purposing old humanoid corpses is almost as interesting as the lengths Voyager ‘s writers will go to in order to cause Harry Kim romantic heartache.

55) “Critical Care” Season 7, Episode 5 A very blatant allegorical look at healthcare which is just as topical –if not more so– that it was when it aired about 20 years ago.

54) “Counterpoint” Season 5, Episode 10 A solid, enjoyable episode mixing elements of a heist or “long con” caper with a noble Starfleet goal of protecting people who are too different for an uptight race. Guest star Mark Harelik channels William Campbell’s Original Series performances as ingratiating villains, and Janeway gets to show her own form of three-dimentional thinking.

53) “Maneuvers” Season 2, Episode 11 Machinations with the Kazon –aided directly by Seska being the schemer she is and indirectly by Chakotay being a bit of an idiot– make this a decent entry in the overarching Kazon storyline.

52) “Nemesis” Season 4, Episode 4 Chakotay gets brainwashed to fight in someone else’s war in a story with allegorical overtones of far too many conflicts around the globe.

51) “State of Flux” Season 1, Episode 11 Seska has multiple secrets as the Kazon storyline starts taking off.

50) “The Raven” Season 4, Episode 6 We get some quality backstory on Seven of Nine just as we learn she didn’t exactly have a quality childhood.

49) “Hope and Fear” Season 4, Episode 26 A solid episode aided by a great performance by Ray Wise and a shipload of mystery. The one quibble is that, as a season finale, it lacks the heft of some of the two-parters Voyager proves to do so well.

48) “Flashback” Season 3, Episode 2 Voyager took a different, more serious take for their 30-year anniversary assignment and it’s both entertaining and ingenious.

47) “Gravity” Season 5, Episode 13 Lori Petty learns that Vulcans are hard to love as Trek writers find yet another way to mess with space and time, which works quite well both thematically and plot-wise.

46) “Displaced” Season 3, Episode 24 A surprisingly engaging mystery where the Voyager crew is cautious but helpful… and gets overwhelmed by a bunch of medieval hat fanatics. Luckily those marauding milliners didn’t count on Starfleet stubbornness and ingenuity. Bonus points for the universal translator being useless in the face of alien computer displays.

45) “Prototype” Season 2, Episode 13 Frequent Trek guest star Rick Worthy is unrecognizable under his robot costume, but the tale of artificial intelligence gone awry, plus the ethical questions Torres and the rest of the Voyager crew face are familiar and nicely done.

44) “Message in a Bottle” Season 4, Episode 14 Voyager ‘s sending out an S.O.S. The Doctor as an S.O.S. But there’s Romulans in the bottle. And by bottle, I mean pretty darn cool experimental starship located in the Alpha Quadrant.

43) “Warhead” Season 5, Episode 25 In something of a follow-up to “Dreadnought,” the crew contends with an AI that, in this case, takes over the Doctor. Entertaining variations on the theme.

42) “In the Flesh” Season 5, Episode 4 You could speculate that this was simply a cost-effective way to get another story about Species 8472, but I’m not entirely convinced it wasn’t just a ploy to get Ray Walston back to Star Trek. Nevertheless, the tale has satisfying Trekkish overtones of cold war detente.

41) “Hunters” Season 4, Episode 15 The first episode with the Hirogen is pretty solid as the newly discovered race stands between Voyager and better contact with the Alpha quadrant. Somehow, we also find time for Harry Kim’s angst. Focus on the Hirogen.

40) “Prey” Season 4, Episode 16 An immediate improvement over “Hunters” thanks to the appearance of Species 8472 and Tony Todd as an Alpha Hirogen. Plus, we get some mileage out of Seven of Nine’s adjustments to Voyager.

39) “Flesh and Blood” Season 7, Episodes 9 & 10 An occasionally ungainly two-parter that explores the aftermath of “The Killing Game” and the notion of sentient holograms. Iden’s descent into crazed would-be savior is uneven, but the moral and ethical questions raised throughout are classic Trek.

38) “Future’s End” (Parts I & II) Season 3, Episodes 8 & 9 Look, I know that Ed Begley, Jr. may not be anyone’s ideas of a villainous industrialist nor is Sarah Silverman the first person you picture when I say “plucky astronomer,” but the whole two-parter works a lot better than you’d expect. Plus, the Doctor gets a mobile emitter out of it.

37) “The Thaw” Season 2, Episode 23 Of course Micheal McKean can play a freaky clown well. His villainy creeps up into the episode quite effectively, but Janeway’s got a schedule to keep, so…

36) “Distant Origin” Season 3, Episode 23 A bold and fun story about dogma and scientific discovery with Voyager and her crew being a catalyst for questions. Though I don’t mind a Chakotay-focused episode, demerits for having Janeway and several of the others inelegantly disappear from the narrative near the end.

35) “Basics” (Parts I & II) Season 2, & Season 3, Episodes 26 & 1 The on-again, off-again Kazon storyline (with Seska seasoning) finally pays off with some inventiveness in both halves, though peaceful it’s not. Bonus points for the Harryhausen-esque monster.

34) “Dark Frontier” Season 5, Episodes 15 & 16 Much ballyhooed when it originally aired as a feature-length episode, it remains an entertaining exploration of Seven of Nine’s backstory along with some Voyager vs. Borg action that becomes a mainstay in the latter half of the series.

33) “The Killing Game” Season 4, Episodes 18 & 19 A disturbing amount of alien races in Star Trek seem to be at home in Nazi uniforms, but the Hirogen work the schtick pretty well. Plus, we get some fun moments of holodeck-imitating-life as the crew finds ways to resist in character. Best of all, the ending isn’t an unabashed win for the Voyager crew, leading us later to “Flesh and Blood.”

32) “Concerning Flight” Season 4, Episode 11 John Rhys-Davies’ outsize performance as Leonardo da Vinci makes this more than just an average get-back- Voyager ‘s-tech caper.

31) “11:59” Season 5, Episode 23 A fun exploration of ancestry, using the contemporary coming of the millennium to good effect as Janeway learns the truth and myth around some of her family lore.

30) “Memorial” Season 6, Episode 14 An unsettling episode that you’ll be forgiven for thinking wandered in from the DS9 writers’ room. Regardless, it raises some great Trekkish questions about how history is remembered.

29) “Innocence” Season 2, Episode 22 Tuvok enters and then exits, playing his part in this strange eventful history: one whose twist is second childhood and mere oblivion.

28) “Shattered” Season 7, Episode 11 Voyager does an inventive and entertaining take on the “alternative timeline” tale that makes full use of the seven years’ worth of storylines.

27) “Bride of Chaotica!” Season 5, Episode 12 Look, if you can’t enjoy this goofy homage to old Flash Gordon serials and somewhat meta-commentary on Voyager itself, you’re going to miss out on some wonderful character moments and a chock full of delight.

26) “Unforgettable” Season 4, Episode 22 Some significant suspension of disbelief is needed to accept that anyone could forget Virginia Madsen, but the tale of reclusive, biologically unmemorable aliens is a solid tragic romance tale. Bonus points for pen and paper being the solution to all the technobabble.

25) “Demon” Season 4, Episode 24 Because Voyager is ultimately not a horror movie, we end up with a very Trek end to discovering a strange new world and new life, but what a wonderfully creepy ride through a great sci-fi scenario in the meantime!

24) “Bliss” Season 5, Episode 14 Mix a TNG “mindwarp” story with TOS’s “The Immunity Syndrome” and add in a bravura performance by W. Morgan Sheppard, and you have a humdinger of an episode, you betcha!

23) “Dreadnought” Season 2, Episode 17 B’Elanna’s past sins and Voyager ‘s current problems with the Kazon are all wrapped into an action-packed race to disarm a doomsday weapon.

22) “Muse” Season 6, Episode 22 A wonderful story that explores the power of storytelling within its own plot of an ancient Greek type civilization and an artist struggling to please his patron. Kudos for having B’Elanna Torres as the irascible muse and bonus points to Harry Kim for clearly remembering all his Starfleet survival training.

21) “Death Wish” Season 2, Episode 18 A spirited, philosophical Voyager entry that takes us to the dawn of time back to the 24th century, wrestling with notions of mortality and purpose in an insouciant manner that only the Q can.

20) “Unimatrix Zero” (Parts I & II) Season 6, & Season 7, Episodes 26 & 1 What’s this? More Seven of Nine backstory, you say? She’s part of what could become a Borg Liberation Front, you say? We’re going to have a rousing two-parter with a cliffhanger that makes us wonder how our heroes will recover? Count us in.

19) “Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy” Season 6, Episode 4 The Doctor contains multitudes and within those multitudes can be found comedy gold — as we see in this Walter Mitty-esque sci-fi outing.

18) “Course: Oblivion” Season 5, Episode 18 A surprise follow-up to “Demon” that surpasses its predecessor and ends on an incredibly downbeat ending — while still holding true to Starfleet boldly going and the desires (and constraints) of the silver blood aliens. Well done.

17) “Night” Season 5, Episode 1 A season opener packed with moral quandary as a Janeway is presented with deal with the Devil that promises to banish her own demons.

16) “Unity” Season 3, Episode 17 An intriguing take on the needs of the many versus the needs of the one using the Borg… or a variant thereof as a stand-in. It hints at the events of “Scorpion” and the nuanced Borg stories to come.

15) “Meld” Season 2, Episode 16 The episode proves to be an almost theatrical exploration of ideas –and no easy answers– right in Trek’s wheelhouse absolutely elevated by Brad Dourif’s portrayal of the remorseless Lon Suder and matched by Tim Russ’ now placable Tuvok. Dark humor points are grudgingly awarded for naming the victim “Darwin.”

14) “The Void” Season 7, Episode 15 A quintessential piece of Star Trek as the Voyager crew is faced with ignoring their Federation ideals in order to escape the titular void, but finds a solution through those selfsame ideals. The demerits for the convenience of the alien stowaways are offset by the bonus points for them representing lifeforms that others do not value.

13) “Blink of an Eye” Season 6, Episode 12 Take a seat, armchair anthropologists, and enjoy the epic of a species’ evolution with Voyager as its constant star.

11) “Revulsion” Season 4, Episode 5 A spectacularly creepy episode of AI gone wrong due in no small part to Leland Orser’s effective performance. Plus, you get at little Harry Kim romantic angst to lighten things up.

10) “Relativity” Season 5, Episode 24 A clever and engaging time travel episode where Seven of Nine gets to shine, Janeway gets to show off more of her backstory, and Braxton gets to be more than Captain Ahab vis-à-vis Voyager .

9) “One Small Step” Season 6, Episode 8 A homage to the explorers that have inspired Trek… just as Trek has inspired people to become scientists and explorers. Seven of Nine finds your observation that the room is getting dusty entirely valid.

8) “Worst Case Scenario” Season 3, Episode 25 Yet another holodeck episode… only done right. Starting as a holodeck Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, mayhem quickly ensues thanks to the impossible appearance of Seska. Bonus points for the reprogrammed Doctor and the general meta commentary on writing.

7) “Body and Soul” Season 7, Episode 7 Sci-fi makes for a great excuse for a body-swapping farce and both Ryan and Picardo deliver. Plus, when they’re in their respective bodies, we get wonderful banter erupting between Seven and the Doctor with Harry Kim as the bewildered Ralph Bellamy straight man (come on, the character was born for this!). Megan Gallagher and Fritz Sperberg round out a great cast — and Tom Paris proves to not be a total schmuck (I think that’s a Vulcan term).

6) “Living Witness” Season 4, Episode 23 An absolute standout sci-fi tale playing with perception and how history is written that starts with Voyager and her crew, but goes far beyond it.

5) “Endgame” Season 7, Episodes 25 & 26 Give credit where credit is due: Janeway leads her crew home and wins a decisive victory over the Borg. Oh, and she picks up some fancy futuristic technology along the way. For a conclusion that ends with our crew winning, it’s surprisingly grim — even DS9’s conclusion, with its elements of genocide and a Pyrrhic victory, had a charming curtain call for the benefit of the viewers. Still, it’s a solid entry following in the footsteps of “All Good Things…”

4) “Timeless” Season 5, Episode 6 A well-told time travel story filled with heroism, regret, and a nice cameo by director LeVar Burton.

3) “Equinox” (Parts I & II) Season 5, & Season 6, Episodes 26 & 1 Obsession, duty, and the importance of choices dominate this taut two-parter with some truly freaky monsters, some truly monstrous acts, a great performance by John Savage, and a guarantee you’ll never look at the Doctor the same way again.

2) “Scorpion” (Parts I & II) Season 3, & Season 4, Episodes 26 & 1 Starting with what is arguably one of the best ever Trek cold opens (assuming viewers know of the Borg), we get an action-packed, Borg-infested, issue-wrestling two-parter that takes things to eleven and gives us Seven of Nine.

1) “Year of Hell” (Parts I & II) Season 4, Episodes 8 & 9 Take a villain with an obsessive quest, played wonderfully by Kurtwood Smith, and place it in a story that allows you to do whatever you want (thanks to a magic sci-fi reset button) and you have Voyager ‘s best episode bar none. Every member of the crew gets some great moments here and the ending lands expertly.

'Star Trek: Voyager' Episodes Ranked

1. Star Trek: Voyager

Scorpion, part ii.

2. Star Trek: Voyager

Blink of an eye.

3. Star Trek: Voyager

4. Star Trek: Voyager

Distant origin.

5. Star Trek: Voyager

Living witness.

6. Star Trek: Voyager

Eye of the needle.

7. Star Trek: Voyager

8. Star Trek: Voyager

9. Star Trek: Voyager

Year of hell.

10. Star Trek: Voyager

11. Star Trek: Voyager

12. Star Trek: Voyager

13. Star Trek: Voyager

14. Star Trek: Voyager

Year of hell, part ii.

15. Star Trek: Voyager

16. Star Trek: Voyager

Dark frontier.

17. Star Trek: Voyager

18. Star Trek: Voyager

Equinox, part ii.

19. Star Trek: Voyager

One small step.

20. Star Trek: Voyager

Unimatrix zero.

21. Star Trek: Voyager

Projections.

22. Star Trek: Voyager

Worst case scenario.

23. Star Trek: Voyager

Tinker tenor doctor spy.

24. Star Trek: Voyager

Dragon's teeth.

25. Star Trek: Voyager

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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: Every Season of Voyager, Ranked

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Star Trek: Voyager was one of the most ambitious Star Trek series yet conceived. It proffered a return to the “five-year mission” format of the original series, but with a twist: the ship would be trapped on the other side of the galaxy, with no ready way to return to Federation space. The crew was forced to contend with whatever the writers had planned on their own, with only their ship and their ideals to guide them.

It was a bold move from a franchise already enjoying a Renaissance on the backs of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . And what started as a slightly more formalized take on the original series soon gave the showrunners license to shoot for the moon every week. That led to a lot of ups and downs, with brilliant, gutsy moral meditations and succeed-or-die crisis episodes contrasted with dreadful misfires and good ideas that never got off the ground. Through it all, another stalwart cast created another crew full of memorable characters worth tuning into through good episodes and bad. Below is a list of Voyager’s seven seasons, ranked in order from worst to first.

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Star Trek: Voyager, Season 1

First seasons have rarely been kind to Star Trek series, and Voyager was saddled with a potential disaster right off the bat. Star Catherine Deneuve left the series shortly after shooting began and was replaced at the last minute by Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway. The new lead proved more than up to the challenge, but the show evinced other problems that wouldn’t be vanquished so easily. It expressed a timidity in its storylines, and often strayed into the ridiculous.

It also showed early shades of Gilligan’s Island syndrome: the ship was unable to resolve its central dilemma lest the series end, and thus any efforts to return home would end in failure by default, robbing the episode of any tension. Perhaps worst of all, its fascinating premise of a mixed Starfleet/Maquis crew was never explored, rendering of its strongest concepts inert from the start. Despite that, the first season scored its share of decent episodes, along with an intriguing early villain in the organ-hunting Vidiians. As with other Trek shows, better things lay ahead.

Star Trek: Voyager, Season 2

The second season applied what it had learned from the mistakes of the first, and the result was an improved series that took better advantage of its opportunities. The strongest entries came late. Episode 23, “The Thaw,” featured Michael McKean as a psychotic clown in a VR world eternally tormenting the hapless aliens connected to it. The very next episode, “Tuvix,” is widely cited as one of the best of the series, as a transporter accident fuses Tuvok and Neelix into a single entity. Both featured what became a series hallmark: Janeway doggedly finding a third path to resolve a seemingly impossible situation.

Sadly, the doldrums from the first season continued to dog Voyager in the second. A new villain, the Kazon, generated little excitement, and other episodes intended to evoke the best of the original series felt aimless and bland. The low point was Episode 15, “Threshold,” which turned Paris and Janeway into salamanders. It’s widely regarded as one of the worst Star Trek episodes of all time, and easily marks Voyager’s nadir.

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Star Trek: Voyager, Season 6

If Season 5 found Voyager hitting its marks, Season 6 started missing what could have been terrific concepts. The ambition was there to take full advantage of the show’s grandest conceits, as the crew increased their efforts to get home and individual episodes explored all manner of novel sci-fi concepts. Not all of them lived up to their potential, and more then a few ended up falling flat or otherwise disappointing.

Despite that, its high points were present and strong. Reg Barclay returned to Trek  in a pair of episodes that helped the character come into his own. The season delivered an intriguing coda to Kes’ story, bringing the aging Ocampan back for one of the series’ most emotionally intense episodes. There was even a cameo from The Rock in Episode 15, “Tsunkatse,” an otherwise uninspired outing that let Dwayne Johnson take an early step away from wrestling.

Star Trek: Voyager, Season 3

Voyager found its rhythm in Season 3, focusing on high-minded stories evocative of Gene Roddenberry and exploration-based episodes involving new phenomena and civilizations. They didn’t always hit, but their ambition was limitless, and entries like Episode 19, “Rise,” deployed reliable sci-fi concepts in new and interesting ways. The end of the season brought the dramatic return of the Borg in “Scorpion, Part 1” along with Species 8472.

The season’s principal shortcoming came from the shadows it still worked to get out of. Its Borg reveal arrived after Star Trek: First Contact had reached theaters, and with Deep Space Nine accelerating into the Dominion War, Voyager felt a like an outcast. Season 3’s greatest achievement may have been elegantly taking up the Borg after  First Contact ; a sign of better things to come.

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Star Trek: Voyager, Season 7

Season 7 finished stronger for Voyager than the previous seventh seasons for either The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine . Unlike TNG, it didn’t yet feel complete, and its single central plotline developed with a great deal more clarity than the Byzantine storylines of  Deep Space Nine . With the end growing near, the writers could throw themselves into the question of getting Voyager home without treating failure as a foregone conclusion.

The results felt well-balanced and dramatic without stretching the bounds of Trek technology, as well as delivering a smash-bang face-off between Janeway and the Borg Queen as the series' climax. The cast had more chances to play with their characters, along with moments like Neelix’s goodbye to the crew and the birth of Paris and Torres’ child. It was a strong ending that ironically left the whole of  Star Trek momentarily searching for a way forward.

Star Trek: Voyager, Season 4

Season 4 is best known for the introduction of Seven of Nine, and the simultaneous departure of Kes. The Borg came into their own with Seven’s arrival, and Voyager used the opportunity to develop what being separated from the Collective might be like. The seeds it planted came to full fruition with Season 1 of Picard , with Jeri Ryan already defying conventions about how an ex-Borg might behave.

Beyond that, the show finally realized some of its long-dormant concepts, such as Episodes 8 and 9, “Year of Hell,” which put the ship through the kind of wear and tear only hinted at in earlier seasons. When the Borg weren’t around, the more mundane Hirogen stepped in, forming a nice counterbalance to the well-traveled Collective. And for the first time, the crew made contact with the Alpha Quadrant, signaling that while they might not get home right away, they were still making progress toward their goal. The pieces all worked, and the odd misfire was easily forgiven for the strong material surrounding it.

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Star Trek: Voyager, Season 5

Season 5 found Voyager handling a variety of plot threads with confidence and aplomb. With Seven firmly ensconced in the crew, Ryan set about proving that the character was far more than a catsuit in fascinating Borg-centric entries like Episode 7, “Infinite Regress,” and Episodes 15/16, “Dark Frontier.” Her partnership with Robert Picardo’s Doctor quickly became one of the big reasons to tune every week. The remainder of the crew got some refreshing doses of humanity as well, as Paris and B’Elanna got married and Neelix bonded with young Naomi Wildman.

The Borg’s appearances felt measured and justified – giving the writers unexpected venues to take the vaunted space zombies – and other episodes took chances on big concepts that often paid off. Episode 3, “In the Flesh,” involved a training ground for an invasion of Earth, and Episode 1, “Night,” sent the ship through a dark region of space. It even had fun with its goofier side, getting Janeway in a 30s space queen costume for Episode 12, “Bride of Chaotica!” and it concluded with the shocking sight of two Federation vessels turning on each other in the season finale, “Equinox.” It was the season that Voyager became everything it wanted to be, and the show reveled in the opportunity.

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Star Trek: Voyager Episode Rating Graph

Jan 1995 - May 2001

Browse episode ratings trends for Star Trek: Voyager . Simply click on the interactive rating graph to explore the best and worst of Star Trek: Voyager 's 169 episodes .

Best Episodes of Star Trek: Voyager

23rd May 2001

Stardate: 54973.4 - Twenty-six years in the future, a regretful Admiral Janeway hatches an audacious plan to bring Voyager home sooner, rather than have it spend an additional sixteen years making its journey.

Scorpion (1)

21st May 1997

Stardate: 50984.3. Voyager finally enters Borg space, only to discover a threat more powerful than the Borg themselves.

Scorpion (2)

3rd Sep 1997

Stardate: 51003.7. The Voyager crew, allied with the Borg, prepare to battle the sinister alien Species 8472. But can an alliance between opinionated individuals and a collective race of consumers survive such fundamental differences?

Message in a Bottle

21st Jan 1998

Stardate: Unknown. When Seven discovers an alien communications array, the crew devises a way of sending the Doctor's program across it into the Alpha Quadrant, where he finds himself aboard a Starfleet vessel that has been commandeered by the Romulans.

Blink of an Eye

19th Jan 2000

Stardate: Unknown. Voyager becomes the target of a society it inadvertently helped to create within a short period of time.

Dark Frontier

17th Feb 1999

Stardate: 52619.2. When Janeway hatches a daring plan to steal technology from a crippled Borg ship, Seven is coerced into returning to the Borg collective.

19th May 1999

Stardate: Unknown. After Kim beams an alien missile onboard Voyager it links up to the Doctor's systems and requests that it is allowed to complete its mission of mass destruction.

The Disease

24th Feb 1999

Stardate: Unknown. Unable to resist his strong feelings for an alien woman, Ensign Kim breaks Starfleet protocol and engages in a torrid affair that lands him in hot water with the captain.

18th Nov 1998

Stardate: Unknown. In the future, Harry Kim attempts to correct a mistake he made 15 years earlier, which had resulted in the loss of Voyager during use of experimental engine technology.

21st Oct 1998

Stardate: Unknown. A transporter accident merges some of Seven of Nine's nanoprobes with The Doctor's mobile emitter to create a 29th century Borg drone.

Year of Hell (1)

5th Nov 1997

Stardate: 51268.4. The Voyager crew finds its determination and morale challenged when trying to survive a brutal, long-lasting conflict with a race called the Krenim.

Distant Origin

30th Apr 1997

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.

Year of Hell (2)

12th Nov 1997

Stardate: 51425.4. While Chakotay and Paris remain on board Annorax's time ship, Janeway attempts to repair Voyager enough to pursue her crew members' abductors.

1st Dec 1999

Stardate: Unknown. An obsessed Barclay tries to find a way to communicate with the starship Voyager with the use of an artificially generated micro-wormhole. He becomes so involved that he needs the help of Counsellor Troi to keep his grip on reality.

18th Mar 1996

Stardate: 49548.7. An accident in a plasma cloud duplicates Voyager after they are attacked by the Vidiians. During the aftermath, the ship is severely damaged, Ensign Wildman's baby dies and Harry Kim is sucked into space through a hull breach.

13th May 1998

Stardate: 51929.3. The crew goes into stasis during a month-long journey through a nebula, leaving Seven and the Doctor in sole charge of running the ship.

19th Feb 1996

Stardate: 49301.2. A suicidal Q threatens the future of the Q-Continuum after he requests asylum aboard Voyager.

Future's End (1)

6th Nov 1996

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.

In the Flesh

4th Nov 1998

Stardate: Unknown. The crew discovers an outpost manned by a group of Species 8472, who have taken human form as a training measure for an invasion of the Alpha Quadrant.

17th Jan 2001

Stardate: Unknown - A spatial anomaly divides Voyager into various time frames of the past and future, leaving Chakotay as the only person who may be able to put the pieces back together.

9th May 2001

Stardate: 54868.6 - Neelix finds he must make hard choices when he becomes involved in the struggle of Talaxian refugees whose home in an asteroid belt is threatened by alien miners.

Future's End (2)

13th Nov 1996

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.

Ex Post Facto

27th Feb 1995

Stardate: Unknown. Tom Paris is accused of a murder he claims he did not commit. His sentence is to re-live the last few moments of his victim's life every 14 hours through a memory transplant.

Hope and Fear

20th May 1998

Stardate: 51978.2. When an alien helps the Voyager crew decode the mysterious encrypted message from Starfleet, the crew learns the whereabouts of a secret experimental starship that may be able to get them back to the Alpha Quadrant within a mere matter of months.

10th Sep 1997

Stardate: 51008. Janeway begins the process of integrating Seven of Nine into the Voyager crew. Meanwhile, Kes begins to experience extreme advances in her mental powers.

Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy

13th Oct 1999

Stardate: Unknown. The Doctor alters his program, allowing himself to daydream—but the unexpected arises when a crewman on an alien ship taps into The Doctor's program in an attempt to spy on Voyager.

Unimatrix Zero (1)

24th May 2000

Stardate: Unknown. Seven of Nine is contacted by Borg drones who have the ability to exist in a virtual realm that gives them freedom as individuals.

4th Sep 1996

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.

14th Feb 2001

Stardate: 54553.4 - Voyager is pulled into a barren spatial void where survival is based on preying upon others.

14th Oct 1998

Stardate: 52081.2. Traveling through a large area of space completely devoid of stars and civilizations, the Voyager crew copes with the prospect of long-term isolation.

Unimatrix Zero (2)

4th Oct 2000

Stardate: 54014.4 - Partially transformed into Borg drones, Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres run a covert operation on board a Borg ship to infect the collective with a virus that will free subdued individuals from the hive's control.

Worst Case Scenario

14th May 1997

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

Imperfection

11th Oct 2000

Stardate: 54129.4 - A key Borg component in Seven's brain begins shutting down, leading to the possibility that she may be facing the equivalent of a terminal illness.

Equinox (2)

22nd Sep 1999

Stardate: Unknown. As Janeway's determination to capture Captain Ransom becomes an obsession, Ransom begins having second thoughts about his methods.

Dreadnought

12th Feb 1996

Stardate: 49447. When Voyager encounters a Cardassian missile ship in the Delta Quadrant named 'Dreadnought', B'Elanna must disarm it before it destroys a planet with millions of innocent people.

16th Jan 1995

Stardate: 48315.6. While in pursuit of a Maquis ship in a region of space known as the 'Badlands', Captain Kathryn Janeway and her crew aboard Voyager and the Maquis ship are transported 70,000 light years from home into the uncharted region of the galaxy known as the Delta Quadrant.

Living Witness

29th Apr 1998

Stardate: Unknown. 700 years into the future the Doctor must defend the crew of Voyager and set history straight when an alien race claims that the Warship Voyager was responsible for war crimes commited against their race.

12th Feb 1997

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 Killing Game (1)

4th Mar 1998

Stardate: Unknown. After having taken over Voyager, the Hirogen supply the crew members with artificial identities and subject them to violent holodeck simulations.

Scientific Method

29th Oct 1997

Stardate: 51244.3. When members of the crew begin suffering from bizarre mutations, Seven of Nine may be the only one who can uncover the reasons why.

20th May 1996

Stardate: Unknown. Voyager receives a distress signal from Seska, who claims that Maje Cullah is going to take her baby away from her, a baby she says is Chakotay's. Chakotay is skeptical, but can't take the risk of abandoning his child, should it really prove to be his. Janeway authorises a mission to rescue Chakotay's child and the ship moves deep into Kazon Nistrim territory. However: was Seska for real, or is this all an elaborate trap?

Flesh and Blood (1)

29th Nov 2000

Stardate: 54337.5 - Voyager answers a distress call from a Hirogen outpost – only to find carnage caused by holographic technology that Captain Janeway has given them.

Counterpoint

16th Dec 1998

Stardate: Unknown. When trying to transport illegal refugees through the territory of a xenophobic civilization, Janeway must put her trust in a defector who offers his help.

Investigations

13th Mar 1996

Stardate: 49485.2. After weeks of erratic behavior, Tom Paris leaves Voyager and joins a Talaxian convoy.

10th May 2000

Stardate: Unknown. News reaches Voyager through the up-and-running Pathfinder project that the Doctor's creator, Lewis Zimmerman, is critically ill. In an attempt to save his life, the Doctor's program is transmitted to the Alpha Quadrant, but once there, he finds Zimmerman does not want to be examined by an 'obsolete' EMH program.

5th May 1999

Stardate: Unknown. Captain Janeway relates the story of her distant ancestor Shannon O'Donnell during the construction of the Millennium Gate on Earth during New Year's Eve 1999. She must convince the last holdout, local bookstore owner Henry Janeway to approve the plan.

The Omega Directive

15th Apr 1998

Stardate: 51781.2. When the Voyager computer detects a mysterious, powerful, and extremely dangerous substance, Janeway must risk all to attempt destroying it.

18th Feb 1998

Stardate: 51652.3. The crew rescues a critically injured but aggressive Hirogen hunter, who threatens to have his allies destroy Voyager if Janeway comes between him the hunt for his latest prey: a single creature from Species 8472.

26th Apr 1999

Stardate: Unknown. An accident on a Malon freighter becomes a countdown to an explosive toxic-waste disaster, and preventing the explosion depends on Torres' ability to take control of a volatile mission.

The Killing Game (2)

Stardate: 51715.2. The crew must stop an artificial holodeck rendition of a World War II battle from spilling onto the decks of the ship while simultaneously dealing with a Hirogen takeover.

Body and Soul

15th Nov 2000

Stardate: 54283.3 - In a region of space where holograms are prohibited, the Doctor is forced to hide by transferring his program into Seven's mind, upon which he takes over control of her body.

Worst Episodes of Star Trek: Voyager

31st Mar 1999

Stardate: Unknown. A group of extremely intelligent aliens offers to help Voyager escape from a race of bounty hunters known as the Hazari, in exchange for Seven of Nine.

12th Jan 2000

Stardate: Unknown. As the crew enjoys time off in a holo-program created by Tom Paris, and set in an Irish village named 'Fair Haven,' Captain Janeway falls for a handsome holo-character specifically designed for her. A deadly neutrino wave approaching Voyager shortly bring the festivities to a halt as this wave may prove to be more dangerous than they first imagined.

12th May 1999

Stardate: Unknown. The crew of a time ship from the future recruits Seven to attempt preventing Voyager's forthcoming destruction.

29th Jan 1996

Stardate: Unknown. After finding a type of dilithium that can survive at a higher temperatures, Tom Paris comes up with the ingenious idea of attempting to cross the transwarp threshold in an attempt to find a way to get home faster.

3rd May 2000

Stardate: Unknown. Kes returns to Voyager in a state of rage, blaming Captain Janeway for her past. Using her expanded Ocampan powers in a fit of revenge, she travels through time to deliver the crew to the Vidiians.

18th Sep 1995

Stardate: 48921.3. When the crew of Voyager investigate a cluster of space-borne life forms, Kes is forced into a stage in her life known as the 'Elogium.' This is the only time in her life when she can have a family.

Barge of the Dead

6th Oct 1999

Stardate: Unknown. A near-death experience sends Torres into the apparent Klingon afterlife, and leaves her searching for answers when she returns.

Sacred Ground

30th Oct 1996

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

6th Nov 1995

Stardate: Unknown. Upon discovering a cultural symbol drawn in the ground on a planet that was used by his ancestors to 'heal the land', Chakotay tries to contact the beings his tribe called the 'Sky Spirits.'

24th Sep 1997

Stardate: 51082.4. Chakotay is stranded on a planet where two races are trying to wipe each other out in a massive, planet-wide war.

Unforgettable

22nd Apr 1998

Stardate: Unknown. An alien woman who requests asylum on board Voyager claims that she was onboard the ship a month ago, and she fell in love with Chakotay.

2nd Feb 2000

Stardate: Unknown. The crew of Voyager experience vivid memories and dreams of a battle they don't remember having, with an enemy they have never encountered.

29th Apr 1996

Stardate: Unknown. The crew of Voyager encounters a planet that has recently entered an ice age. They discover a series of stasis chambers where a small group of people are mentally connected to an artificial environment that turned horribly wrong.

Spirit Folk

23rd Feb 2000

Stardate: Unknown. The inhabitants of the holo-city of Fair Haven suspect the Voyager crew of having mystical powers when they witness the use of their futuristic technology.

26th Apr 2000

Stardate: Unknown. An alien poet discovers an unconscious B'Elanna Torres after her crash landing in the Delta Flyer. However, this poet intends on using her in a play based on her life on Voyager to win favour with his Warlord.

Parturition

9th Oct 1995

Stardate: Unknown. When Neelix and Paris find themselves trapped on a planet dubbed 'Planet Hell', they become the unwilling parents of an infant alien that is near death. In the meantime, a ship appears and begins attacking Voyager.

Once Upon a Time

11th Nov 1998

Stardate: Unknown. While Voyager searches for the crew of the crashed Delta Flyer carrying Tuvok, Paris and Ensign Wildman, Neelix must keep Naomi occupied. When it is discovered that Samantha is badly injured, he must decide how much he should tell her daughter.

19th Feb 1997

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.

Favorite Son

19th Mar 1997

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.

False Profits

2nd Oct 1996

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.

Initiations

4th Sep 1995

Stardate: 49005.3. A young Kazon trying to earn his name and place among his people kidnaps Chakotay.

20th Nov 1996

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.

Bride of Chaotica!

27th Jan 1999

Stardate: Unknown. Trans-dimensional photonic lifeforms become entangled in a war with the characters from Tom Paris' "Captain Proton" program after mistaking Voyager's holodeck for reality.

13th Mar 1995

Stardate: 48623.5. While investigating an asteroid belt containing a new element, Harry Kim is pulled into a 'subspace vacuole' and switched with a dead body. Soon after the body is revived the crew learn that the asteroid belt is the graveyard of an alien culture that transports its dead in the belief that they evolve into a higher state of consciousness. Harry's appearance on the homeworld begins to raise questions about the existence of their afterlife.

8th May 1995

Stardate: 48784.2. The Vidiians capture Paris, Torres and Durst while on an away mission. Torres is taken to a lab and 'split' into two people: one human, and one Klingon.

9th Oct 1996

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.

20th Oct 1999

Stardate: Unknown. Tom Paris persuades Chakotay to allow him to buy a shuttle from a junkyard. While repairing it, the shuttle, named 'Alice', begins to gain control over Tom's mind.

Good Shepherd

15th Mar 2000

Stardate: Unknown. Captain Janeway takes three crewmen with poor performance records on an away mission in the Delta Flyer in an attempt to bring them to Starfleet standards. However, an unexpected collision with a Dark Matter comet leaves the crew in a perilous situation.

18th Sep 1996

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

Someone to Watch Over Me

28th Apr 1999

Stardate: Unknown. Under the guidance of the Doctor, Seven of Nine learns some social aspects of human dating.

25th Oct 2000

Stardate: 54090.4 - An investigation of mysterious attacks on members of the crew uncovers a buried plot involving Tuvok and a Maquis fanatic.

Concerning Flight

26th Nov 1997

Stardate: 51386.4. Janeway and the hologram of Leonardo da Vinci must work together to retrieve Voyager's main computer processor, which has been stolen by alien thieves.

Nightingale

22nd Nov 2000

Stardate: 54274.7 - Ensign Kim finds himself making the hard choices of mission commander when he agrees to help the crew of a ship in need.

1st May 1995

Stardate: 48734.2. After Chakotay and Tuvok are injured in a shuttle accident, a non-corporeal life form begins to wreak havoc on Voyager by infiltrating the minds of the crew and altering the ship's systems one by one.

26th Jan 2000

Stardate: Unknown. When the Doctor's singing talents are discovered by a technologically superior race, his new found popularity makes him consider resigning his commission to stay on the alien world with his millions of adoring fans.

Mortal Coil

17th Dec 1997

Stardate: 51449.2. Neelix is killed during an away mission, but is revived when Seven of Nine modifies Borg technology to revive him. Soon, he begins to question all that he has been taught about the afterlife.

Prime Factors

20th Mar 1995

Stardate: 48642.5. Harry Kim discovers advanced technology when a race of aliens known as the Sikarans offer shore leave to the crew of Voyager. This would send Voyager 40,000 light years closer to home, however, the Sikarians' "Canon of Laws" forbids them from sharing their technology with anyone.

25th Feb 1998

Stardate: 51658.2. While re-fitting Voyager's systems with newly traded weapons, Seven of Nine claims to have been assaulted by Kovin, the weapons dealer. The Doctor soon makes a surprising discovery about the situation.

8th Apr 1998

Stardate: 51762.4. An alien test pilot who has the capability of switching bodies manages to take Tom's place aboard Voyager in order to escape the law.

29th Jan 1997

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.

8th Apr 1996

Stardate: Unknown. When Tuvok crashes on a moon, he discovers three small children who believe they are about to die.

15th May 1995

Stardate: 48832.1. The man, who designed the weapon that destroyed all life on the moon of his home world, including that of his family, diagnoses Neelix with a fatal illness.

20th Nov 1995

Stardate: Unknown. After the Kazon steal some Federation technology Chakotay goes after them on his own and is captured.

15th Jan 1997

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.

13th Feb 1995

Stardate: 48546.2. In the search for omicron particles to boost the ship's energy supplies, Voyager inadvertently injures a space-faring life form.

Course: Oblivion

3rd Mar 1999

Stardate: Unknown. The entire ship and crew begin to disintegrate, leading to a discovery that they aren't what they seem.

Eye of the Needle

20th Feb 1995

Stardate: 48579.4. The discovery of a wormhole leading to the Alpha Quadrant elates the crew, however, their only contact within range is a skeptical and paranoid Romulan.

Non Sequitur

25th Sep 1995

Stardate: 49011. Harry Kim arises one morning to find he is back in San Francisco on Earth with his girlfriend Libby. In order to help him restore reality, he enlists the help of a shady figure in France by the name of Tom Paris, who has no idea who Harry is.

Nothing Human

2nd Dec 1998

Stardate: Unknown. A moral dilemma arises when the Doctor is forced to consult the specialized medical database of a Cardassian war criminal in order to save Torres' life.

The Haunting of Deck Twelve

17th May 2000

Stardate: Unknown. When Voyager encounters some engineering problems, Neelix keeps the Borg children entertained by telling the story of an adventure that the crew experienced several months ago, with the ghost that lives on deck twelve.

6th Feb 1995

Stardate: 48532.4. During an away mission in the search for dilithium crystals, Neelix is attacked and his lungs are surgically removed by a disease-ridden race of aliens known as the Vidiians. His only hope for survival is if the crew of Voyager can get them back.

Star Trek: Voyager Episode Guide

23rd Jan 1995

Stardate: 48439.7. As the Maquis crewmembers begin to integrate themselves into the Starfleet crew, Voyager becomes trapped in a quantum singularity.

Time and Again

30th Jan 1995

Stardate: Unknown. After being hit by the shockwave of a devastating planet-wide explosion, Voyager investigates. While on the surface, Janeway and Paris are accidentally 'shifted' one day into the past.

State of Flux

10th Apr 1995

Stardate: 48658.2. When stolen Federation technology is found on a severely damaged Kazon Nistrim ship, Seska becomes the prime suspect. The evidence is further reinforced when questions arise regarding her true heritage.

Heroes and Demons

24th Apr 1995

Stardate: 48693.2. Harry Kim disappears from the holodeck during his holo-novel, "Beowulf." According to the characters, he died at the hands of a mystical beast known as "Grendel". When Chakotay and Tuvok also disappear, the Doctor is transferred to the holodeck to investigate.

Learning Curve

22nd May 1995

Stardate: 48846.5. In order to bring some rebellious Maquis crewmembers into line, Tuvok gives them a Starfleet Academy crash course.

Star Trek: Voyager Storyline

Where to watch star trek: voyager.

• Endgame S 7 E 25 rated 8.5
• Scorpion (1) S 3 E 26 rated 8.3
• Scorpion (2) S 4 E 1 rated 8.2
• Message in a Bottle S 4 E 14 rated 8.2
• Blink of an Eye S 6 E 12 rated 8.1
• Dark Frontier S 5 E 15 rated 8.1
• Warhead S 5 E 24 rated 8.1
• The Disease S 5 E 16 rated 8.1
• Timeless S 5 E 6 rated 8.1
• Drone S 5 E 2 rated 8.1
• Think Tank S 5 E 19 rated 6.5
• Fair Haven S 6 E 11 rated 6.9
• Relativity S 5 E 23 rated 6.9
• Threshold S 2 E 15 rated 6.9
• Fury S 6 E 23 rated 7.0
• Elogium S 2 E 4 rated 7.0
• Barge of the Dead S 6 E 3 rated 7.0
• Sacred Ground S 3 E 7 rated 7.0
• Tattoo S 2 E 9 rated 7.0
• Nemesis S 4 E 4 rated 7.0

The first episode of Star Trek: Voyager aired on January 16, 1995 .

The last episode of Star Trek: Voyager aired on May 23, 2001 .

There are 169 episodes of Star Trek: Voyager.

There are 7 seasons of Star Trek: Voyager.

Star Trek: Voyager has ended.

Shows for Fans of Star Trek: Voyager

25 Must-Watch Episodes of ‘Star Trek: Voyager’

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Biggest Differences Between 'Battlestar Galactica's Reboot and the Original Series

This 'interview with the vampire' season 2 easter egg teases a major book storyline, the wild true story behind ‘dancing for the devil: the 7m tiktok cult’.

Paramount+ recently renewed their roster of Star Trek shows, meaning fans have access to Star Trek all year-round. One of the best things about New Trek has been a renewed appreciation for Star Trek: Voyager . Be it the return of Kate Mulgrew as Hologram Janeway on Star Trek: Prodigy , Jeri Ryan reprising her role as Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Picard or Voyager’s enduring legacy nearly 1000 years in the future as seen on Star Trek: Discovery , the show has been inescapable. Former Voyager actors Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill have also revived interest in the show through their recaps on The Delta Flyers podcast.The fifth Star Trek show to debut on screens, Voyager was the first to have a female captain leading its crew and one of the more diverse casts in the roster when it debuted in 1995. Voyager faced plenty of criticism when it aired, but viewers’ newfound love for it is hardly misplaced. There is a lot to love and enjoy during the show’s seven-season run.If you’re wondering where to start with this underrated show or want to take a trip through the Delta Quadrant, let’s look at some of the best episodes to watch. RELATED: ' Star Trek: Voyager': The 7 Best Time Travel Episodes

Season 1, Episode 1: "Caretaker"

The pilot episode of Voyager sets the tone for an unpredictable journey through the Delta Quadrant. Voyager is tasked with retrieving a rebel Maquis ship when both ships are pulled more than 70,000 light years away by an entity known as the Caretaker. Neither crew emerges unscathed, and Captain Janeway must weigh impossible options to either return her crew home or save an entire civilization.

The episode gives viewers a glimpse of all the main characters and their unique personalities. We also meet the Kazon, the bane of Voyager’s life in early seasons. What “Caretaker” does well embodies the varied aspects of a Star Trek episode in one—there’s action, there are uncomfortable alliances and there’s solidarity in the face of adversity.

Season 1, Episode 14: "Faces"

“Faces” is a bold episode to include in the first season of a show. Voyager’s away team is captured by the Vidiians, a species that have advanced medical technology but are unable to cure themselves of the devastating disease, the Phage. The chief surgeon of the facility splits Voyager’s Chief Engineer B’Elanna Torres ( Roxann Dawson ) into two people—a Klingon and a human.

The episode examines B’Elanna’s conflict with her mixed heritage, the bullying she suffered because of it and her journey to accepting who she is. Through B’Elanna, we see an analogy for real-world discussions of identity, especially among minority communities. “Faces” will resonate with anyone who is struggling with their identity and how it’s viewed by others.

Season 1, Episode 15: "Jetrel"

Neelix ( Ethan Phillips ) was introduced as comic relief but “Jetrel” shows us a very different side to him. Dr. Ma'Bor Jetrel ( James Sloyan ) arrives at Voyager with dire news for Neelix but Neelix refuses to engage with him. Jetrel was the man behind the metreon cascade that decimated Neelix’s home world, killed his family and hundreds and thousands of other Talaxians.

The beauty of science-fiction is its ability to reflect real-world incidents through a genre-specific lens. “Jetrel” is obviously an analogy of the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The story channels the consequent suffering of the Japanese people through Neelix. The creators don’t attempt to redeem Jetrel but instead balance the varied emotions that both Jetrel and Neelix navigate when faced with each other.

Season 2, Episode 12: "Resistance"

Captain Janeway is separated from her away team and rescued by an alien named Caylem ( Joel Grey ). Caylem is convinced Janeway is his daughter, so Janeway tries to use his help to get back to her crew. Meanwhile, B’Elanna and Tuvok ( Tim Russ ) are captured and try to find a way out.

This seems like a straightforward episode—stranded on a planet, split up, captured by aliens, standard Star Trek stuff. But the episode allows B’Elanna and Tuvok to bond and get to know each other despite their differing personalities. However, it’s that heartbreaking dénouement that makes it a must-watch. Captain Janeway’s humanity and generosity come to the fore with a few lines of dialogue and will have you reaching for the tissues during the finale credits.

Season 2, Episode 21: "Deadlock"

Voyager spots Vidiian ships and hides in a nebula, only for the ship to start failing in mysterious ways. Lives are lost, and the ship is in shambles. Captain Janeway and her crew locate the source of their troubles. It’s another Voyager?

Duplicates, high stakes, technobabble, “Deadlock” feels like classic Star Trek. The creators capture the claustrophobia of a ship-based story and the sets perfectly capture the differing scenarios aboard the two Voyagers. The episode writers don’t pull any punches; sometimes space exploration can be deadly and Voyager has to face that fact. The conclusion is such a surprise—just when you think you know how the episode will end, the creators chuck in another twist.

Season 2, Episode 25: "Resolutions"

Unrequited love is a standard trope across pop culture, but “Resolutions” takes it to a whole new level. Captain Janeway and First Officer Commander Chakotay ( Robert Beltran ) transport to an isolated planet after they’re infected with a contagious disease. While Chakotay immediately takes it upon himself to make the planet their new home, Janeway still holds out hope that they’ll return to Voyager.

The episode is incredibly romantic despite lacking a concrete romance. Chakotay veritably declares his undying love for Janeway without saying the actual words, but just when Janeway begins to imagine her life without Voyager, Captain and Commander are miraculously saved. A happy ending has never been sadder. The thread of their almost-romance informs Janeway and Chakotay’s relationship throughout the show, but never overshadows it.

Season 3, Episode 3: "The Chute"

Tom Paris (McNeill) and Harry Kim (Wang) became fast friends in the first episode of Voyager and their friendship is one of the best in the franchise. So, what happens when the close buddies are wrongfully convicted and imprisoned in an alien prison?

“The Chute” is a tense episode that shines a spotlight on Tom and Harry during one of the worst ordeals they have together. It’s stressful watching Tom deteriorate and Harry reach the end of his tether. We’re on tenterhooks throughout worrying about how this friendship will survive this episode if it can at all! It all comes to a head in the final scenes and a simple line of dialogue that rights the world. This is heart-wrenching stuff that showcases the power and importance of friendship.

Season 3, Episode 8 & Episode 9: "Future’s End Parts I & II"

Time travel is an integral part of Star Trek, and one of Voyager ’s most memorable temporal stories is the two-parter “Future’s End”. In the episode, Voyager becomes trapped in the 20th century and can’t get back until they stop Henry Starling ( Ed Begley, Jr. ), a con man who has stolen future technology for his own gains.

This is an entertaining episode but also thought-provoking. Starling is a truly reprehensible villain compared to the other aliens that Voyager has met in the Delta Quadrant. The crew are also faced with an interesting conundrum—they’re back on Earth but in the wrong century, do they really want to return to their time when they’re 70-odd years away from home?

Season 3, Episode 16: "Blood Fever"

B’Elanna Torres is accidentally infected with the Vulcan Pon Farr which sets her hormones in overdrive. When she and Tom Paris are alone on an away mission, sparks fly but how real are these feelings?

“Blood Fever” is a sexy episode, with a lot of hot and heavy emotions bubbling to the surface. B’Elanna is aggressive with her desires, but the writers do a great job in making consent a priority. Tom was introduced as a cad on Voyager , and had his eye on B’Elanna, but he refuses to give in despite B’Elanna’s requests because she isn’t in a position to consent. The gender-flipped power play adds to the appeal of this episode. In the end, “Blood Fever” sets the stage for a romance but doesn’t ignite it, which is an important difference. Also, a new terrifying villain is introduced in the final moments. What’s not to love?

Season 3, Episode 23: "Distant Origin"

There are a few Star Trek episodes that have attempted to investigate the origins of humans, but in “Distant Origin” two scientists from an alien species called the Voth believe they originate from human beings. They capture Chakotay who reluctantly helps them.

The debate between traditional dogma and science is familiar to everybody and “Distant Origin” reflects the destructive impact of such rigidity through the Voth and the Doctrine. It’s maddening to watch the scientists lose their hard work and their future because of bureaucracy, which is what makes this episode so brilliant (and sadly, relatable). Another fantastic element is Chakotay’s characterization—his kindness and understanding are a balm during an otherwise tense episode. This is also a rare moment where aliens help Voyager altruistically.

Season 3, Episode 25: "Worst Case Scenario"

“Worst Case Scenario” begins with B’Elanna seemingly being encouraged by Chakotay to begin a mutiny, but just when things get interesting, the holo program stops. Suddenly everyone wants to play this program and learn the identity of the author.

While the author reveal is surprising, what comes after is gripping stuff. Tuvok, who had conceived the story as a training program, is convinced to complete the narrative, alongside a very eager Tom Paris. And that’s when things go very wrong. Tuvok and Tom make for an unlikely comedic duo—Tuvok, dour and logical as ever, Tom, a bit too flippant considering the danger they find themselves in.

There are twists and turns that one would never expect, and laughs aplenty, as the entire ship finds itself facing a talented adversary.

Season 4, Episode 8 & Episode 9: "Year of Hell Parts I & II"

Another time-focused two-parter, “Year of Hell” puts the Voyager crew through the grind, and they shine despite it all. The ship is caught in a series of temporal incursions created by Krenim scientist Annorax ( Kurtwood Smith ) and each one devastates the ship more and more. Unable to get out, the crew do everything they can to survive.

“Year of Hell” is a harrowing episode, but the best part of it are the character interactions and dynamics. Tuvok and Seven’s relationship, Chakotay falling for Annorax’s big ideas, Neelix’s promotion, the politics aboard the Krenim ship, Captain Janeway’s valiant sacrifice—they all come together to create a moving and immersive experience. The Voyager crew have never been closer than in this two-parter. The dénouement feels like a well-earned relief.

Season 4, Episode 14: "Message in a Bottle"

If you need a laugh, “Message in a Bottle” is the perfect bottle episode. The Doctor ( Robert Picardo ) is transmitted as a holographic message to the Alpha Quadrant. The only problem? The ship he arrives at has been overtaken by Romulans. The Doctor then has to partner with the captured ship’s emergency medical hologram, the Mark 2 ( Andy Dick ), to survive and save the ship.

If you thought the Doctor had a bad attitude, the Mark 2 somehow trumps even him. The banter between the two EMHs powers this entire episode and the comedic timing of Picardo and Dick is stellar. What should be a stressful situation becomes a comedy of errors because we’re following the exploits of two doctors—EMHs—not trained Starfleet officers.

Season 5, Episode 6: "Timeless"

One of the most heartbreaking episodes on Voyager is another time travel story. This time, Harry and Chakotay are on a mission to save their friends who died in the Delta Quadrant fifteen years ago.

From the opening teaser reveal to the final scene, “Timeless” tugs at the bond that the Voyager crew has formed with one another, and with the viewer. Director LeVar Burton perfectly juxtaposes the joyous celebrations of the past with the eventual doom in the ‘present’. Seeing Harry transform from hopeful and optimistic to jaded and fatalistic adds another layer of shock to the proceedings. “Timeless” will make you want to bawl your eyes out. It doesn’t matter how many times you watch this episode; you will be overcome with emotion by the end.

Season 5, Episode 10: "Counterpoint"

Star Trek has rarely shied away from reflecting the atrocities committed by humanity and “Counterpoint” is another great entry in the franchise. Voyager is secretly housing telepathic species who are seeking refuge through an expanse of occupied space. The ship is constantly inspected by the smarmy Devore Imperium officer, Kashyk ( Mark Harelik ). And then one day it’s Kashyk who’s asking for refuge.

There are so many layers and subtleties that make this episode a memorable and heartbreaking one. The obvious references to Nazi Germany make it a powerful watch, but the interplay between Captain Janeway and Kashyk is riveting. This is a spotlight episode for the captain, and she is written as compassionate and intelligent. The writers cleverly subvert our expectations of the conclusion, and you will be left feeling as crushed as Janeway by the end of it.

Season 5, Episode 12: "Bride of Chaotica"

Another Captain Janeway episode, but this one is so different. Tom and Harry’s The Adventures of Captain Proton holodeck program is one of the more memorable holodeck programs in the franchise. In “Bride of Chaotica”, photonic lifeforms mistakenly believe the program is real and begin fighting the evil Doctor Chaotica ( Martin Rayner ). The battle affects the ship and soon Janeway is on the holodeck assuming the new role of Queen Arachnia.

This episode fully embraces the cheesy, hammy style of classic science-fiction. Tuning in to “Bridge of Chaotica” is like switching off your brain and enjoying 45 minutes of bombastic performances, bulky props and a lot of fun. This is exactly the kind of silliness that a holodeck-based episode should embrace.

Season 5, Episode 21: "Someone to Watch Over Me"

It can be very icky when an older gentleman falls for a much younger woman, but “Someone to Watch Over Me” still makes the interaction between the Doctor and Seven of Nine a touching one. The Doctor takes it upon himself to help Seven learn some social skills, especially the art of dating. The two of them bond over songs and banter, and it’s not long before the Doctor begins falling for his student.

The episode doesn’t go any further with their relationship, and that’s the beauty of it. Once Seven decides to put dating on hold, the Doctor realizes the door to explore other aspects of their relationship is closed. Voyager is made for lovers of unrequited love, and you will be all choked up as Picardo sings a heartbreaking version of “Someone to Watch Over Me” as the episode closes.

Season 6, Episode 4: "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy"

The Doctor is a man of many talents, or so it seems in “Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy”. The story sees the Doctor alter his program so that he can daydream, only for an unsuspecting alien scientist named Phlox ( Jay M. Leggett ) to tap into the feed. Soon, Phlox’s mistake and the Doctor’s tampering put Voyager at risk. And only the Emergency Command Hologram can save them.

There’s a lot to be said about the innovative ways the Voyager writers allowed Picardo to flex every muscle he could. This laugh-out-loud episode is crisply paced and comedic gold. The Doctor’s love for daydreaming is one of his most human aspects. But it’s the writers’ ability to imbue the unknown character Phlox with so much personality and high stakes that elevates this episode.

Season 6, Episode 6: "Riddles"

Frenemies Tuvok and Neelix are returning on the Delta Flyer when Tuvok is attacked and loses his memory. The crew is desperate to get their chief tactical officer back and Neelix takes it upon himself to help Tuvok heal. But along the way, both characters learn that there’s more to each other’s personalities and themselves.

Star Trek is all about friendships and “Riddles” captures the importance of that. Tuvok always acts like he barely tolerates Neelix, but Neelix never seems to take the hint—this episode explores why. It’s so sweet and the relationship between Tuvok and Neelix is affectionate and touching. “Riddles” was actor Roxann Dawson’s first directorial effort on the show, and she does a great job evoking myriad emotions from the central cast.

Season 6, Episode 10: "Pathfinder"

“Pathfinder” is a rare episode that doesn’t center Voyager. Set on Earth, Lieutenant Reginald Barclay ( Dwight Schultz ) is part of the Pathfinder project to help the ship find her way home. Except, Barclay is a little too obsessed with the project and his holodeck program… of the Voyager crew. When the problem reaches a peak, Barclay’s friend, Enterprise Counselor Deanna Troi ( Marina Sirtis ) tries to help him work through it.

Brilliantly paced with obvious roots in Star Trek: The Next Generation , “Pathfinder” feels very meta. Barclay is every Star Trek fan come to life—desperate to be part of a story he dearly loves. Schultz and Sirtis step into the shoes of their TNG characters with ease, and the workplace setting also adds to the novelty of the episode.

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The Best Star Trek: Voyager Episodes

List of the best Star Trek : Voyager episodes, as determined by voters like you. With all the amazing episodes of the show that exist, it's hard to trust just one person's opinion of what the top Star Trek: Voyager episodes of all time are. Fans of Star Trek: Voyager are very passionate about the show, and there are often debates over which episodes are the greatest. That's why this list exists- so you can vote for your favorites and we can find out once and for all what everyone thinks the best episode is.

Blink of an Eye

Year of Hell, Part II

Scorpion (Part 1)

Year of Hell

Message in a Bottle

Living Witness

Scorpion, Part II

Year of Hell (Part 1)

Scientific Method

Future's End (Part 1)

Scorpion (Part 2)

Latent Image

Future's End (Part 2)

Eye of the Needle

Dark Frontier

Year of Hell (Part 2)

Investigations

Distant Origin

Bride of Chaotica!

Hope and Fear

Worst Case Scenario

Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy

Child's Play

Counterpoint

Basics (Part 2)

Someone to Watch Over Me

Equinox (Part 2)

Imperfection

Body and Soul

Critical Care

Course: Oblivion

Resolutions

Waking Moments

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These are the shows that you definitely should be watching, along with a few that you should avoid.

30 Best Episodes Of Star Trek: Voyager According To IMDb

The third spin-off for the franchise, "Star Trek: Voyager" launched not long after "The Next Generation" left the airwaves. Set aboard the U.S.S. Voyager, its first mission saw Captain Kathryn Janeway in pursuit of a group of renegade Maquis. But when both ships were hurled into the far off Delta Quadrant by a mysterious alien entity, the two crews were forced to join together as they embarked on their long journey back to Earth.

Airing for seven seasons on UPN, "Star Trek: Voyager" may not have been the ratings hit that "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was, but thanks to years of reruns and streaming, its popularity has grown in the years since its conclusion, with many episodes ranking among the franchise's most watched, according to StarTrek.com . During its time on Netflix, in fact, episodes centered on the Borg, and fan-favorite character Seven of Nine proved especially popular — so much so that Paramount+ made sure to include both in the revival series "Star Trek: Picard."

But which "Voyager" episodes rank the best among its entire 172-episode run? According to IMDb, the 30 we've collected here are the ones that top the charts.

30. Scientific Method (Season 4, Episode 7)

Janeway is pushed to the brink and Seven is left to save the day in the Season 4 episode  "Scientific Method." As the episode begins, the newest addition to the Voyager crew — ex-Borg Seven of Nine — is still learning to adjust to life aboard a Federation starship, unused to the hierarchy of command and the little social niceties of life in a human social structure. 

But while Voyager explores an unusual binary pulsar, a race of cloaked aliens have infiltrated the ship without anyone even realizing it. These aliens aren't looking to conquer however, and instead have been secretly experimenting on members of the crew — including the captain — as a gruesome form of medical testing without their knowledge. With only The Doctor and Seven of Nine able to detect them, it's up to a hologram and an uncertain former Borg to expose the alien threat and save the ship. 

29. Worst Case Scenario (Season 3, Episode 25)

In  "Worst Case Scenario"  B'Ellana discovers an apparent holo-novel that reanacts a disturbing takeover of the ship by its Maquis crewmembers, led by first officer Chakotay. More intrigued than disturbed, she shares it with Paris, then Kim, and before long the narrative becomes the center of ship-wide gossip as officers rush to play the interactive program for themselves. But it's soon revealed that the story was crafted by Tuvok as a training exercise and was abandoned when the Maquis became valued members of the crew.

Sent back in to finish the story for their own amusement, Paris and Tuvok discover that the program was co-opted by former Maquis crew member Seska and turned into a deadly form of payback. Suddenly the pair find themselves in a cat-and-mouse game with Seska's elaborate scenario that's been designed to torture them, while Janeway attempts to help them outside the confines of the holodeck. Racing against time, they'll have to play by Seska's rules if they want to stay alive.

28. Hope And Fear (Season 4, Episode 26)

In the fourth season finale  "Hope And Fear,"  Seven of Nine is forced to confront her humanity when it looks like Voyager has found a way home. It starts with the arrival of a man named Arturis who helps them finally repair and descramble the damaged message they received from Starfleet in "Hunters." In the message, Admiral Hayes claims they've sent an experimental new starship out to meet them just light years away, with a new slipstream engine capable of getting them home in a matter of months.

As Seven of Nine weighs staying behind — unsure if she'll fit in back on Earth — the crew discovers that the ship, the U.S.S. Dauntless , may not be what it appears. Now, the captain must balance her desire to get her crew back to Earth with her feeling that their ticket home may be a little too convenient.

27. Life Line (Season 6, Episode 24)

We're seeing double in  "Life Line"  when The Doctor comes face-to-face with his creator, Dr. Lewis Zimmerman. After his appearance in the "Deep Space Nine" episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume," the famed scientist is diagnosed with a terminal illness, and Voyager selflessly sends their holographic Doctor back to Earth via the Hirogen communication array to make a house call. But meeting his proverbial father isn't the jubilant family reunion that he'd expected as Zimmerman wants nothing to do with his own creation.

As The Doctor works to push past his creator's stubborn streak, Reg Barclay calls on the services of Counselor Deanna Troi to help the two work through their issues. But a problem in The Doctor's matrix forces Zimmerman to step in to save him, and The Doctor finally learns the basis for his father's ill feelings. A memorable episode that featured two long time cast members from "The Next Generation," it was ultimately a tale of an estranged father and son struggling to find common ground.

26. One (Season 4, Episode 25)

In "One," Seven of Nine is attempting to learn social skills with the help of The Doctor — and struggling with it — when the ship encounters an unusual nebula too vast to go around. But the nebula is found to contain a kind of subnucleonic radiation that proves deadly to the crew, save Seven of Nine and The Doctor. The only solution appears to be to put the entire crew, including the captain, into stasis pods for the duration of the journey, while Seven and The Doctor guide the ship.

Left alone, Seven at first enjoys the solitude, but the isolation soon begins to wear on her. Just as she needs companionship the most, The Doctor's program goes offline, and Seven is left to fend for herself as her mind begins to slowly erode. As hallucinations start to confuse her, she'll have to make a fateful choice if she wants to keep the crew alive.

25. Someone To Watch Over Me (Season 5, Episode 21)

"Someone To Watch Over Me"  sees The Doctor once again trying to help Seven of Nine improve her social skills, this time teaching her the art of dating. When Paris finds out, he makes a wager with The Doctor on whether Seven will be able to successfully find a date for an upcoming diplomatic reception. But as The Doctor spends more time with Seven of Nine, he finds himself developing romantic feelings for her himself.

Ultimately The Doctor asks Seven to the event, and when it comes out that he had made a bet with Paris over her love life, things go predictably wrong. Meanwhile, Neelix is tasked with entertaining Tomin, a Kadi diplomat, and struggles to stop the conservative, monk-like visitor from dangerously overindulging in the ship's leisure facilities. A more light-hearted affair, the episode is another key step in the development of both Seven of Nine and The Doctor and their common goal to learn to become more human.

24. Deadlock (Season 2, Episode 21)

It's double trouble in Season 2's  "Deadlock"  after Voyager encounters subspace turbulence that seems to be the cause of problems throughout the ship, as the warp core is rapidly being drained. But when B'Ellanna uses a series of proton bursts to restart the anti-matter reaction, it makes things worse, and Ensign Wildman's impending childbirth in sickbay is endangered. After a catastrophic hull break kills Ensign Kim, B'Ellana discovers that the subspace field they passed through has actually created a quantum duplicate of the ship and its crew, and there are now two U.S.S. Voyagers, slightly out of phase but sharing the same anti-matter reserves. 

Unfortunately, just as they think they have figured a way out of the situation they come under attack from the organ-stealing Vidiians. Thanks to the discovery of a small rift that allows passage between the two Voyagers, the duplicate crews find a new way to work together to fend off the alien attack while severing the link between their two ships. But for one of them to survive, the other may have to make the ultimate sacrifice. 

23. Equinox, Part II (Season 6, Episode 1)

It's an all-out war with Captain Ransom in the sixth season premiere,  "Equinox, Part II."  After the renegade Starfleet commander reprograms The Doctor and takes Seven of Nine hostage, he sets off to parts unknown to continue his torture of the alien creatures he needs to power his ship. Back on Voyager, Janeway is determined to get back her crewmen — and to do it she threatens to cross the line between justice and revenge. 

With members of the Equinox left aboard the ship, the captain will do whatever it takes to get them to tell her Ransom's plans. While Ransom's EMH secretly attempts to sabotage Voyager, an unexpected ally surfaces and could be key to stopping the Equinox. But as Janeway's methods continue to become more vicious, first officer Chakotay becomes increasingly uneasy, leading to a confrontation that could change the nature of their relationship forever. 

22. Eye Of The Needle (Season 1, Episode 7)

Early in "Star Trek: Voyager" the crew was still hopeful of finding a shortcut back to Earth, and they almost find one in the first season installment,  "Eye of the Needle."  Encountering a micro wormhole, they realize they can't get the ship through, but may be able to transmit a message, and potentially use their transporters to send the crew back to the Alpha Quadrant. Unfortunately, the ship they find on the other side of the galactic gateway isn't a friendly Federation starship but a secretive Romulan cargo ship.

Attempting to convince the Romulan captain that they aren't some kind of Starfleet deception is the first hurdle they encounter, as the adversaries have little reason to trust one another. But once they finally earn the captain's confidence they discover that the wormhole isn't all that it seems to be. With hopes diminishing, they realize that getting home may be more complicated than activating their transporters.

21. Future's End (Season 3, Episode 8)

Season 3's  "Future's End"  is another classic "Star Trek" time travel adventure that sees the crew of the starship Voyager hurled back in time to the then-present day of 1996. It all happens when the Timeship Aeon emerges from the 29th century and its captain, a man called Braxton, claims that Voyager is responsible for a disaster in his time that will annihilate Earth's solar system. His attempts to destroy Voyager fail, and the two ships are instead sent through a spatial rift, nearly 400 years into the past. 

Arriving in 1990s Los Angeles, Janeway is disturbed to discover that Braxton has been trapped there for 30 years already, and the technology aboard his ship has fallen into the hands of a Steve Jobs-like industrialist named Henry Starling (Ed Begley, Jr.) who is using it to amass his fortune. Realizing that it was future technology that was responsible for the '90s tech-boom, Janeway must find a way to retrieve Braxton's ship and get back to the 24th century, all while Starling hopes to collect Voyager's technology for himself.

20. Future's End: Part II (Season 3, Episode 9)

Still trapped in 1996,  "Future's End: Part 2" sees tech mogul Henry Starling finally getting Braxton's ship operational. Janeway realizes that it's Starling's use of the Aeon that will destroy the solar system, and must find a way to stop him. But Starling manages to steal The Doctor's program, and using 29th century tech taken from Braxton outfits him with an autonomous holo-emitter, allowing him the freedom to walk about unfettered for the first time.  

To get The Doctor back, Paris and Tuvok find a friend in a young astronomer named Rain Robinson (guest star Sarah Silverman), while Janeway makes contact with Captain Braxton himself, now a vagrant living in the city's underbelly. Chakotay and B'Elanna try to locate Braxton's ship, but become prisoner's of right-wing militants. To save Earth and return to the 24th century, Voyager's crew may have to risk exposing themselves to the people of the past.

19. Shattered (Season 7, Episode 10)

Another sci-fi time-bender, the Season 7 episode  "Shattered"  sees the ship pass through a temporal distortion field that fractures the ship into different time periods. Awakening in sickbay more than four years in the past, Chakotay is given a newly developed chroniton serum by The Doctor that allows him to pass through the various time shifts aboard the ship. To bring Voyager back into temporal sync he'll need to spread the serum throughout the ship's own circuitry, but he can't do it alone.

Traveling to the bridge, he finds a version of Captain Janeway from before they met, and he must somehow gain her trust to recruit her to execute his plan. But it's easier said than done with they discover the villainous Seska and her Kazon allies are in control of engineering, during the events of the Season 2 episode "Basics." A nostalgic look back at Voyager's seven-season run, "Shattered" sees the return of several former heroes and villains from past episodes.

18. Death Wish (Season 2, Episode 18)

The immortal all-powerful trickster Q finds a new ship to annoy in the Season 3 episode  "Death Wish."  Coming upon a rogue comet, Voyager discovers that it's actually home to a member of the Q Continuum, a being who has grown bored with his endless life and wishes to commit suicide. Dubbed "Quinn," he seeks asylum aboard Voyager when Q arrives to put him back in his cosmic prison cell. Though Janeway doesn't want to get involved in their god-like squabbles, she feels ethically obligated to consider Quinn's request, and grants them a hearing aboard the ship.

While Q summons the likes of Commander Riker, Isaac Newton, and a hippie from Woodstock to give statements, Tuvok defends Q's right to not exist, should he so choose. Disturbed by the fact that granting asylum would mean Quinn's suicide, Janeway attempts to convince Quinn that life is worth living. Undergoing his own crisis of faith, Q is forced to acknowledge the problems his people face, and makes a decision that will change the Q Continuum forever.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

17. Latent Image (Season 5, Episode 11)

  "Latent Image"  begins with The Doctor finding evidence of a surgical procedure on Ensign Kim that seems to have no explanation. What starts out as an investigation into a minor mystery leads to the disturbing realization that it was he who performed the surgery, but he has no recollection of it. Soon he learns that someone has been tampering with his program, erasing his memory — and perhaps the memories of the entire crew. But with the help of Seven of Nine, he discovers that the problem is even bigger than he feared, and everyone on the ship may be lying to him.

An episode that explores the problems that come with the holographic Doctor's existence as a growing sentient being, the story shows the crew slowly discovering that he has become more than just a program. It's also an intriguing allegory for how society often treats mental illness, and gives actor Robert Picardo some of his best work in his role as the ship's resident artificial surgeon.

16. Equinox (Season 5, Episode 25)

Janeway and Voyager are shocked to encounter another Federation vessel in the Delta Quadrant in  "Equinox,"  the dramatic fifth season finale. Commanded by the revered Captain Ransom (guest star John Savage), the U.S.S. Equinox is a science vessel that was catapulted to the region by the same entity that sent Voyager there. Ill-equipped for deep space assignments, Ransom and his crew have barely been able to survive on their slow journey home, and both crews seem buoyed and hopeful by the chance meeting. 

But the happy reunion is cut short when Seven of Nine uncovers evidence of corruption aboard Equinox, and the discovery that Ransom has been capturing and killing alien creatures and using their corpses to fuel their warp drive. Furious at the violation of Federation ideals, Janeway attempts to take control of his ship. But unwilling to go quietly, Ransom kidnaps Seven of Nine, and along with The Doctor's program, escapes aboard the Equinox. 

15. Pathfinder (Season 6, Episode 10)

In a surprising episode set almost entirely off of Voyager,  "Pathfinder"  follows "TNG" standout Reginald Barclay as he seeks help from his old friend, Counselor Troi. Now working at Starfleet HQ, he's part of the Pathfinder Project, which hopes to find a way to communicate with Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. Certain that he can use an itinerant pulsar to open a fissure that would allow two-way communication, he uses holodeck simulations to test his theories. But Barclay hit a wall when his superiors didn't believe in the potential of his ideas. 

After his boss, Commander Harkins, discovered that Barclay was living inside a simulation of Voyager and grows concerned for his mental stability, he was kicked off the project. Barclay approached Admiral Paris — who was running the project — about a second chance, but didn't get the response he was looking for. After speaking to Troi, Barclay breaks into the lab to put his plan into action before the pulsar moves out of range.

14. Dark Frontier (Season 5, Episode 15)

Janeway comes up with a bold scheme to attack a Borg ship in the double length episode  "Dark Frontier,"  that saw the Borg Queen's debut on the series. The plan is to steal a Borg ship's transwarp technology, capable of getting them back to Earth much faster than their conventional engines, and Janeway will stop at nothing to succeed. But the presence of Seven of Nine on the mission causes her some concern. 

Because Seven of Nine is still adjusting to being fully human Janeway fears the experience of returning to the Borg could be traumatic for her. Unbeknownst to Voyager, though, the Borg Queen has already learned of their daring plan, and finds a way of secretly communicating with Seven of Nine. The Queen offers her former drone a tempting deal: She will allow Voyager to succeed, effectively handing them an easy way home, in exchange for Seven of Nine rejoining the Borg. 

13. Endgame (Season 7, Episode 24)

The epic feature length series finale  "Endgame"  opens in the future on Earth, with an older Admiral Janeway unhappy with how history has turned out. She did get Voyager home, but it took more than 20 years and cost them the lives of several crewmen, including Seven of Nine. But when she finds a way to travel back in time to visit her past self, she devises a plan to change history and get Voyager home much sooner.

Visited by the older, more cynical Admiral Janeway, Voyager's Captain Janeway finds her future self's story hard to believe, but the plan she proposes makes sense: sneak into the heart of a Borg Uni-complex and use one of their transwarp hubs to travel back to Earth in an instant. The plan hits a snag, however, when the younger Janeway instead wants to use the opportunity to deal the Borg a crippling blow. Now the two Janeways find themselves at odds over the choice between defeating a mortal enemy or getting Voyager home.

12. Distant Origin (Season 3, Episode 23)

A story that explores the battle between religious dogma and scientific discovery,  "Distant Origin"  is told from the surprising perspective of an alien culture. We first meet a pair of Voth scientists named Gegen and Veer, who discover the remnants of one of Voyager's earlier ill-fated away missions. Studying the remains of a human crew member, they match its genetic structure to their own, providing evidence for a theory that their people originally evolved on Earth millions of years ago.

The two scientists show their evidence to their leaders, but are ostracized for challenging long-held doctrine that the Voth are a supreme form of life. Now facing persecution for their scientific discovery, they finally track Voyager itself, and capture Chakotay. With his help they hope to convince their people that they are actually descended from intelligent dinosaurs that roamed the Earth before the first ice age.

11. Drone (Season 5, Episode 2)

A transporter accident fuses Borg nano-probes from Seven of Nine with the 29th century technology of The Doctor's mobile emitter in the fifth season episode  "Drone."   Using the emitter, the nanoprobes steal genetic material from a passing crew member to create an advanced, 29th century Borg drone unlike anything that had been seen before. Unconnected from the Borg hive mind, the newly born Borg — who takes the name One — is a blank slate, and Janeway wants Seven of Nine to be his teacher and guide to humanity.

But when the Borg Collective discovers his existence they come to assimilate him, putting the ship, crew, and entire galaxy in jeopardy as they fear the Borg getting access to even more advanced technology. As the drone begins to question her about the Borg, Janeway fears he may want to join them, forcing Seven of Nine to finally answer the question of where she belongs.

10. Relativity (Season 5, Episode 23)

A mind-bending time travel adventure,  "Relativity"  opens aboard Voyager before its first mission when Captain Janeway is touring the ship in spacedock. But somehow Seven of Nine is present, and is secretly searching for a dangerous weapon at the direction of Captain Braxton. But before she can locate it she's discovered, and Braxton pulls her out of time, killing her. Flashing back to the present, a series of space-time fractures are causing temporal paradoxes all over Voyager when they discover a highly volatile temporal disrupter hidden in a bulkhead.

Just before it destroys the ship, Braxton's men abduct Seven again and send her back to find the disrupter in the past, figure out who planted it, and why. But if she's going to save the ship, Seven may have to do the one thing she's been ordered not to: tell Captain Janeway in the past about their future and recruit her to help complete Braxton's mission. 

9. Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy (Season 6, Episode 4)

When The Doctor starts experimenting with a daydreaming program in  "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy"  things go wrong, and he finds himself unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy. But when a low-ranking alien agent unwittingly taps into his daydreams, he believes The Doctor is actually the captain of the ship, and devises a plan to invade and conquer Voyager. 

After the bumbling alien spy realizes that he's gotten things wrong, he tries to call off the attack but it's too late to convince his superiors. As The Doctor's fantasy's are spinning out of control, the alien makes contact in the hopes of averting an embarrassing incident. To avoid confrontation, The Doctor must convince Janeway to let him take command. A more playful episode, it successfully mixes the kind of light-hearted comedy that works well with The Doctor, with the best adventure elements the show has to offer. 

8. Year Of Hell, Part II (Season 4, Episode 9)

"Year Of Hell, Part II"  picks up two months after the events of Part I. Voyager is in ruins and manned by a skeleton crew, while Janeway herself is in rough shape, barely able to survive repeated assaults from the Krenim. Tuvok has lost his sight, and requires Seven as his guide, while much of the ship itself is falling apart. Aboard Annorax's temporal warship, Chakotay and Paris are at odds, with Paris wanting to attempt escape while Chakotay wants to help find a way to use the ship's history-altering power to save Voyager.

Janeway meanwhile is attempting to assemble a loose alliance of friendly ships in the hopes of mounting an attack on Annorax. Seven of Nine successfully develops a new kind of temporal shield that they believe will be able to protect them against the Krenim's weapons. But if their plan doesn't work, it could mean Voyager never existed.

7. Living Witness (Season 4, Episode 23)

In the closest thing "Voyager" got to a Mirror Universe episode, the fifth season episode  "Living Witness"  saw The Doctor's program activated by an alien civilization some 700 years in the future. There, two neighboring species have been arguing over who started their centuries-old war, and believe that Voyager may have played a part in sparking it. Now with The Doctor active, one historian believes that he could hold the key to discovering just what happened.

Through the use of a holodeck of sorts we view the historical account of how they believed the crew of Voyager started the war. In the recreation, a tyrannical Captain Janeway brutally attacks the Kyrian people with biogenic weapons developed by The Doctor, wiping out entire populations. Now it's up to The Doctor to set the record straight, and if he can't convince them of what really happened, he may be put on trial for the crimes that Voyager is thought to have committed against their people. 

6. Message In A Bottle (Season 4, Episode 14)

Controversial comedian Andy Dick makes an unexpected appearance in the Season 4 episode  "Message In A Bottle"  that also marks Voyager's first communication with Starfleet. Upon discovering a Federation starship on the edges of hailing range of a deep space alien communication array, they fail to make contact, so instead send The Doctor's holographic program. Aboard the experimental U.S.S. Prometheus, The Doctor also finds that the ship has been taken over by Romulans, and its entire crew killed.

But with the help of that ship's own EMH, a dismissive and snarky Mark II, it's up to The Doctor to fight back and retake the ship. Once successful, he manages to get in touch with Starfleet and finally let them know that Voyager is alive and well in the Delta Quadrant. An offbeat episode that once again mixes humor and adventure, the highlight is the impeccable comedic chemistry between the two EMH's played by Robert Picardo and guest star Andy Dick.

5. Timeless (Season 5, Episode 6)

Opening on the stunning visual of the starship Voyager buried beneath the surface of a mysterious ice planet in  "Timeless,"  we meet a small group of explorers trying to excavate it. Breaking into the ship we learn that the space-bound archeologists are none other than Chakotay and Harry Kim, 15 years into the future. Finding The Doctor's mobile emitter, they've come back to the site of a disaster that destroyed the ship, with the hopes of changing history.

Flashing back to the "present" we see that Ensign Kim has spearheaded a project to retrofit Voyager with the same slipstream technology they were introduced to in "Hope And Fear." To use it, Chakotay and Kim man a shuttle ahead of the ship, to guide Voyager through the slipstream. But a miscalculation sends Voyager off-course and while the shuttle made it safely to Earth, Voyager was doomed. With the help of Borg technology from Seven of Nine's corpse, an older and remorseful Kim must evade Captain Geordi La Forge and the U.S.S. Challenger if he hopes to succeed in his quest for redemption.

4. Scorpion, Part II (Season 4, Episode 1)

After successfully negotiating an alliance with the Borg in the Season 3 finale, "Scorpion, Part II" kicks off the fourth season with the Borg agreeing to give Voyager safe passage through their vast territory in exchange for their help in defeating an emerging new threat: Species 8472. Chakotay firmly opposes the collaboration, especially when the collective sends a Borg aboard to act as a liaison, a female drone named Seven of Nine. Despite their agreement, Janeway's first officer doesn't believe they can trust their new allies.

But thanks to the neural link that Chakotay has retained from the events of "Unity," he proves to be the key to a plan to stop the Borg should they betray them. And once Species 8472 is dealt with that's exactly what they do, with Seven of Nine attempting to assimilate the ship. Remembered for the introduction of Seven of Nine , the character helped reinvigorate the series, and would go on to become one of the franchise's most beloved characters, returning in 2020 in the spin-off "Star Trek: Picard."

3. Year Of Hell (Season 4, Episode 8)

In "Year Of Hell" Voyager encounters the Krenim Imperium, a powerful empire that rules a region of space they are attempting to pass through. But little do they know that the key to the Krenim's power is a man named Annorax (guest star Kurtwood Smith), a scientist who has developed a devastating weapon capable of altering history. Annorax has been using the weapon to alter the past in the hopes of restoring his people's empire to their former glory and resurrect his long-dead wife.

While Janeway and the crew are helpless against the Krenim's weapons, they go on the run, mercilessly attacked by the Imperium wherever they try to hide. But when Annorax continues annihilating entire planets in his quest, his calculations are thrown off by Voyager's anomalous presence and they suddenly find themselves his newest target. With the ship falling apart, and time running out, Janeway may have to abandon Voyager if they are to survive. 

2. Scorpion (Season 3, Episode 26)

In the third season finale  "Scorpion"  comes face-to-face with the Borg Collective for the first time after they discover that their territory is too big to go around on their journey home. But when they discover a corridor devoid of Borg ships they at first think it's good news. Until they discover an even bigger threat: a new race of inter-dimensional beings known as Species 8472, who are destroying the Borg, and threaten Voyager as well. 

But when The Doctor develops a biological weapon capable of defeating 8472, Janeway hatches a plan to exploit the conflict between the two warring species. Though the crew is conflicted, Janeway hopes to form an alliance with the Borg, and give them the weapon that could defeat 8472. But will Janeway really help the Federation's greatest enemy defeat the only ones who have ever been able to stop them?

1. Blink Of An Eye (Season 6, Episode 12)

In Season 6's "Blink Of An Eye"  Voyager encounters a strange planet where time passes at an increased rate where one second for Voyager is nearly a day on the planet. Approaching to take a closer look, Voyager is pulled into its orbit and trapped there, disrupting the planet's natural energy field, and causing frequent seismic disruptions on the surface. Below, the people who live on the planet are in awe at the shining new star in their night's sky, not realizing that it's Voyager. 

Over the next thousand years, the planet's civilization evolves, while just days pass aboard the ship, and Voyager — which they called "the sky ship" slowly becomes part of their society's mythology. But when a brave astronaut from the planet comes to visit (guest star Daniel Dae Kim), he's suddenly confronted with the reality that his childhood heroes aren't at all what he imagined.

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Milestones In the Learning Process: Everything You Need to Know

Independent reading opportunities: everything you need to know, product review of the tineco floor one s7 steam, a product review of stormbox flow, a product review of stormbox blast, reading workshops: everything you need to know, product review of kerafactor’s skincare for hair, product review of the reolink argus 4 pro, developing phonemic awareness: everything you need to know, school transition tips for learners with autism: everything you need to know, the 10 best star trek: voyager episodes, ranked.

“Star Trek: Voyager,” the third spin-off in the “Star Trek” franchise, continued the grand tradition of exploring new worlds and civilizations. It stood apart with its focus on a single starship’s journey home from the far side of the galaxy. Through seven seasons, “Voyager” gave us some incredible episodes that have since become fan favorites. Below are the 10 best “Star Trek: Voyager” episodes, ranked for your reading pleasure.

1.Scorpion (Part I & II) (Season 3, Episode 26 & Season 4, Episode 1) – A crucial turning point in the series that introduced Seven of Nine and the unsettling alliance with the Borg against a deadly new foe, Species 8472.

2.Year of Hell (Part I & II) (Season 4, Episodes 8 & 9) – This two-parter sees Voyager enduring a year-long battle for survival within a severely altered timeline dominated by the malevolent Krenim Imperium.

3.The Gift (Season 4, Episode 2) – Serving as a poignant farewell to Kes and an intriguing deeper dive into Seven of Nine’s humanity, “The Gift” is compelling and character-driven storytelling.

4.Endgame (Part I & II) (Season 7, Episodes 25 & 26) – The series finale delivers closure as an older Janeway comes back to ensure Voyager’s return home is expedited at a lesser cost than what her original decisions lead to.

5.Timeless (Season 5, Episode 6) – A hundredth episode marked by regret and redemption, where Harry Kim and Chakotay must correct a past mistake that left Voyager destroyed and lost in time.

6.Counterpoint (Season 5, Episode 10) – A dance of deception and romantic tension between Captain Janeway and a Devore inspector makes for one of the most sophisticated episodes of “Voyager.”

7.Blink of an Eye (Season 6, Episode 12) – Exploring an intriguing science fiction concept where time passes rapidly on a planet trapping Voyager in its orbit, this episode was philosophically rich and emotionally resonant.

8.The Killing Game (Part I & II) (Season 4, Episodes 18 & 19) – The Hirogen take over Voyager and force the crew into deadly holodeck scenarios reflective of Earth’s violent history providing profound commentary on violence and identity.

9.Living Witness (Season 4, Episode 23) – Set centuries after Voyager’s journey home, this episode explores how history can be skewed over time with The Doctor awakening in a museum as an exhibit from another time.

10.Distant Origin (Season 3, Episode 23) – This thought-provoking episode presents a theory about Voth society’s ancestry connected to humans on Earth challenging societal beliefs versus scientific truth.

These selected episodes represent the inventive spirit of “Star Trek: Voyager,” offering viewers not just thrilling adventures through space but also deep explorations into complex characters, morality, and humanity.

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Every Season Of Star Trek: Voyager Ranked Worst To Best

When "Star Trek: Voyager" premiered on Monday, January 16, 1995, it didn't just mark the launch of the fourth live-action "Star Trek" series. Its broadcast also marked the launch of UPN, Paramount's stab at establishing a fifth American television network after CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX.

Picking "Voyager" for this important corporate duty was, to borrow a phrase, flawlessly logical. At the time, executives at Paramount saw the 1960s science fiction program and its spin-offs as so important to the studio that they reportedly referred to it as "the franchise." Indeed, with "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" in the midst of its third successful season in first-run syndication and "Star Trek: The Next Generation" having made the jump to the big screen with the box office success of "Star Trek Generations," the "Star Trek" franchise was at an all-time high.

Almost 30 years later, interest in "Voyager" remains high, with characters from the series featured in prominent roles on "Star Trek: Lower Decks," "Star Trek: Prodigy" and "Star Trek: Picard." A crowdfunding campaign for a retrospective "Voyager" documentary successfully raised more than $1.3 million from nearly 12,000 backers. And many fans who didn't love the show at the time have developed a new appreciation for "Voyager."

In light of all that renewed interest in "Voyager," let's take a look at the show's seven seasons, which originally ran from 1995 until 2001, and see how they stack up against one another, from worst to best. We'll highlight specific episodes that characterize each season, but won't discuss every one — after all, there were 172 of them!

7. Season 7

They saved the worst for last. Season opener "Unimatrix Zero, Part II" all too neatly resolves the previous season's cliffhanger, but ends with an intriguing premise: a Borg civil war is brewing. The first of many empty promises. "Repression" seems like it will finally confront the fact that a quarter of the Voyager's crew are former Maquis, terrorists in the eyes of the Federation. Instead of examining this long-dormant dynamic, however, the episode veers off into a silly mind-control plot that is easily resolved and utterly without consequences.

Even the season's best installment, "Author, Author," dealing with The Doctor (Robert Picardo) and his pursuit of holographic rights, feels like a warmed-over version of "The Next Generation" episode "The Measure of a Man" and derivative of earlier episodes like "Living Witness" or "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy."

And lastly, there's "Endgame." The out-of-left-field romance between Seven of Nine ( Jeri Ryan ) and Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran) is awkward and unconvincing. Alice Krige reprises her role as the Borg Queen for the first time since "Star Trek: First Contact," but is utterly wasted. There's a disjointed and obligatory action finale. "Hull breaches on decks six through twelve!" shouts Ensign Kim ( Garrett Wang ), going through the motions. That much of the final episode is spent in an alternate future soon to be erased by the reset button of temporal intervention, rather than truly confronting what it will mean for these characters to finally return home, is a perfect distillation of the show's worst impulses.

6. Season 5

Season 5 is the epitome of conservative and unambitious television. There are good, even great episodes here, but they're trapped in an episodic formula with a perpetual status quo.

Consider "Timeless," the best episode of the season and a series standout. It has a cracking teaser (Voyager frozen in the ice, nearly all of the crew dead) and focuses on a character rarely in the spotlight, Harry Kim. Mostly set 15 years after the show's "present," Kim believes he made a mistake that killed all of his friends and is obsessed with traveling back in time to change history. It's a terrific yarn, but it reveals the limitations of the "Voyager" format. In an alternate future, Kim's personality can change, Chakotay can have a lover, series regulars can die, and characters can return home, but in the Season 5's perpetual present, every character is the same week in and week out.

Similarly, in "Extreme Risk," B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) confronts her trauma after learning that all of the Maquis left behind in the Alpha Quadrant perished. The thing is: B'Elanna learned this 15 episodes ago, but hasn't displayed any such behavior before now. Worse, when Torres resolves the problem du jour, it seems to magically cure her psychological problems. In the end, Torres orders a stack of banana pancakes with maple syrup, smiles, and all is well, her issues never to be mentioned again in any meaningful way. This is emblematic of the season's problems.

5. Season 6

Season 6 has several ongoing storylines that leave its characters a little less frozen in amber than in Season 5. While only one actually works, Season 6 ranks just a bit higher than Season 5 for at least trying to be more ambitious.

Voyager regains contact with the Alpha Quadrant — the season's best storyline — in "Pathfinder" and "Life Line." There's no reset button at the end of either; after "Pathfinder," the Voyager is in regular contact with the Alpha Quadrant for the remainder of the series. A second storyline involves a group of Borg children who are discovered in "Collective," then recur in three other episodes. That all adds up to a season low point, as they further the show's defanging of the Borg as a meaningful adversary. Even more unfortunate is an Irish village on the holodeck. It was abandoned after only two episodes, "Fair Haven" and "Spirit Folk," but not before subjecting audiences to more grating stereotypes than even "The Next Generation" stinker "Up The Long Ladder."

Beyond these three storylines, this is a season once again driven by episodic fare, and although there are some worthwhile installments (including "Survival Instinct" and "Barge of the Dead," both written by Ronald D. Moore), there are quite a few clunkers. Those clunkers, including "Alice," "Virtuoso," "Tsunkatse" (aka "The One with The Rock"), "Ashes to Ashes," and "Live Fast And Prosper," have nothing on "Fury," a series nadir. Marking the return of Kes (Jennifer Lien), it is a total misuse of the character, whose motivations are paper-thin and inconsistent with previous characterization.

4. Season 3

After the cliffhanger resolution in "Basics, Part II," Season 3 ditches Seska (Martha Hackett) and the Kazon. Other early-season elements, including the Vidiians, the Caretaker's race, and the Ocampa (outside of Kes) are also dropped. What's left is a series looking to remake itself as more plot-driven and episodic, and the results were mixed.

"Flashback" has fun revisiting the events of "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," but it's a hollow nostalgia trip. "The Swarm" features a great performance by Robert Picardo as both The Doctor and a hologram of his creator, Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, but it ends with a promise immediately broken. The Doctor's memories are erased. How would this rest affect the rest of the crew, who have formed relationships with the EMH that he can't remember? Doesn't matter, it's forgotten and ignored! "False Profits" asks us to swallow the premise that the Ferengi lost in the Delta Quadrant during "The Next Generation's" "The Price" are somehow along the Voyager's narrow path home. Another miss.

The season picks up steam with "Blood Fever," a Vulcan mating story with a cliffhanger three seasons in the making: the Voyager approaches Borg territory. Followed up in "Unity," which has Chakotay encounter a group of humanoids who separated from the Borg Collective, this is more fully paid off in the season finale, "Scorpion, Part I." The Borg would become a well that "Voyager" dipped into too many times, but in Season 3 they were still a dangerous adversary.

3. Season 1

"Voyager" kicks off with "Caretaker," a solid premiere that introduces a cast of nine regulars and establishes the Delta Quadrant's new aliens, including the Kazon, Ocampa, Talaxians, and the Caretaker's species. It's the only season that treats the show's premise seriously. Janeway's abrupt integration of the Starfleet and Maquis leads to interpersonal conflicts, most notably in "Parallax" and "Learning Curve." The Voyager's need to replenish energy supplies is covered in "The Cloud," which also establishes that the ship's stockpile of photon torpedoes is finite. But, as early as the second episode, we're told the holodeck's energy matrix "isn't compatible with other power systems," which allows the writers to pay lip service to supply shortages without curtailing their holo-addiction.

The series also kneecaps itself by opting to use the Kazon as its primary villain. Deliberately modeled after street gangs in Los Angeles , the Kazon (primarily white actors in brownface) come off as a less interesting and more racist iteration of the Klingons. The Vidiians should have been the focus instead. Featured in two of the season's best episodes, "Phage" and "Faces," the Vidiians are driven by an illness that breaks down their internal organs and can only be staved off by frequent transplants, which some acquire by force.

Although front-loaded with two awful episodes ("Parallax" and "Time and Again"), the first season picks up as it goes along and really finds its swing in the back half. That cements its position on this list.

2. Season 2

Season 2 features some of the show's finest episodes and tries to push what a "Star Trek" series can be. There was even an attempt at more serialized storytelling — involving Seska, the Kazon, and a traitor aboard Voyager — which doesn't stick the landing ("Investigations" in particular is anticlimactic), but at least they tried.

"Death Wish" is the best use of Q (John de Lancie) outside of "The Next Generation." Quinn (Gerrit Graham), a fellow Q, wants to commit suicide in defiance of the Q Continuum and seeks asylum with Janeway in order to do so. Janeway pleads with Quinn to "think hard" before he gives up his life, but with Q's help, he goes through with it. Brad Dourif plays his usual character type as Lon Suder in "Meld," but he's so good at bringing sociopaths to life that it's hard to fault the casting director. His interplay with Tuvok (Tim Russ) provides the Vulcan with some of his best scenes in the entire series, and their relationship pays off when Suder returns in "Basics."

But this is also the season of "Threshold," a nonsense warp 10 story that climaxes with Janeway and Paris as salamanders. Worse is "Tattoo," the pinnacle of patronizingly vague Native American spiritualism that defined Chakotay early on. It's unsurprising that "Voyager" had no American Indian writers on staff and that Jamake Highwater, the show's Native American advisor,  was a complete fraud,  an Italian American posing as a Cherokee.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

1. Season 4

The arrival of Seven of Nine as a new regular in "Scorpion, Part II" is a hypo in the arm for the series. And although Seven's introduction means Kes' departure, the show gives the latter character a fitting send-off in "The Gift."

"Year of Hell" was originally conceived as a season-long arc  but cut down to a two-parter. It truly delivers on "Voyager's" core premise. As the ship is attacked and damaged, it stays damaged. As power becomes rationed, the crew gets dirtier, and everyday survival becomes difficult. Tuvok's blindness is the kind of character turn that should have been made permanent. Alas, even in Season 4, "Voyager" is still an episodic series, and all is undone by a reset button. "Mortal Coil" is a frank tale about death that rejects the magical realism often embraced by televised science fiction. And "Living Witness," a format-defying story that confronts the politically driven revision of history, is even more relevant today than when it first aired. On top of all this is a six-episode arc about the Hirogen, an imposing race of big-game hunters who provide the ship with its first chance in four years to (briefly) communicate with the Alpha Quadrant, finally letting people back home know that they're alive.

If there's one major misstep, it's the finale, "Hope and Fear," which dangles the possibility of returning home before the inevitable bait-and-switch. But at least it has the decency of forgoing a thunderous cliffhanger.

Best Star Trek: Voyager episodes

From battles with the Borg to explorations of humanity, we’ve picked out the best Star Trek: Voyager episodes.

Running from 1995 to 2001, Voyager was a departure for the Star Trek series, journeying into new territory, literal and metaphorical. It was the first in the franchise to feature a woman in the captain's chair, with the strong and stubborn Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) taking the helm. In the pilot episode, Caretaker (January 1995), the Intrepid-class starship Voyager is catapulted to the Delta Quadrant, a hitherto unexplored quadrant of the galaxy. Voyager’s mission (and overall story arc) was simple then: Make it back to Federation space, even though it was 75 years away (spoiler: it didn’t take that long). 

During its seven seasons and 172 episodes, Voyager introduced new species, like the Hirogen and the bane of the Borg, Species 8472. It explored emotional and ethical quandaries, such as hologram sentience and reformed drone Seven of Nine’s dating life, and along the way had fun with rogue Klingons and Q. It was a somewhat uneven show and didn’t fully hit its stride until season four, but it still provided plenty of memorable moments.  

Although Voyager never quite reached the heights of cast alchemy and narrative depth of its immediate forebear, the iconic The Next Generation, it broke new ground. Most significantly perhaps, it centered, for the first time, on a woman captain – one who commanded with utmost confidence, inspiring the love and loyalty of her crew, helping to pave the way for the gender-breaking 2017 series Discovery. And, it also included some very fine writing, as this list demonstrates (note: spoilers for individual episodes and the series follow, and two-parters will count as one episode for the purposes of this list).

If you want to relive Voyager's best episodes, then check out our Star Trek streaming guide to find out where you can watch the show online. Or if you’re a just big fan of all things Star Trek then check out our list of Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best , 

Now, let's count down our top ten best Star trek Voyager episodes, starting with...

10. Distant Origin

• Season 3, episode 23 
• Original air date: April 30, 1997

As Voyager was set in a distant part of the galaxy, 70,000 light years away from home, the series was always a touch more whimsical than The Next Generation (TNG) or Deep Space Nine (DS9). In this episode, Voyager, one of the jewels of Starfleet, more than meets its match in a race known as the Voth, when the entire ship is transported inside a massive Voth vessel. 

It turns out the Voth might’ve evolved from Earth’s dinosaurs aeons ago in this tale about the importance of scientific curiosity and open-mindedness. “Eyes open” is the memorable line uttered by the trailblazing Voth paleontologist as he tries to prove humans and Voth once shared the same origin.

9. Good Shepherd

• Season 6, episode 20  
• Original air date: March 15, 2000

Recalling the The Next Generation episode Lower Decks, Good Shepherd gives viewers the chance to see Voyager from a different perspective – not of the captain and her officers, but from much lowlier crewmen. Focusing on a Bajoran who has trouble with her sums, a hypochondriac, and a misanthropic physicist, Captain Janeway decides to take these three on an away mission, to steer these lost sheep back on course. 

It’s a fine episode that shows Voyager as the hierarchical starship it always was, and the importance of its many crewmen that help it to remain running. Fun fact: Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello appears in this episode as Crewman Mitchell.

8. Nightingale

• Season 7, episode 8  
• Original air date: November 22, 2000

The “lowest ranked officer” Ensign Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) finally gets his chance to shine as he asks Captain Janeway to give him his first command mission. This episode was an efficient education in the finer points of leadership, as the junior officer took command of an alien ship, revealing the Captain and First Officer’s jobs were harder than they looked. 

Watch as Ensign Kim undermines the confidence of his new crew and overemphasizes the importance of routine checks, among other lessons in what not to do as a leader.

7. Human Error

• Season 7, episode 17  
• Original air date: March 7, 2001

Human Error finds Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) trying to outgrow her Borg limitations in a bid to become more human. It’s romantic, amusing, awkward, emotionally expansive, and yet oddly claustrophobic. As Seven navigates various social activities such as a baby shower, small talk, and, most poignant of all, dating, this episode unpicks obsession, perfectionism, and Seven’s sensitive interior, which belie her inscrutable drone façade. 

With some fine performances by Ryan and Picardo as The Doctor (who is secretly in love with Seven), this episode is slightly flawed, yet more ambitious, and more attuned to human moods than much of Voyager’s oeuvre.

• Season 2, episode 16  
• Original air date: February 5, 1996

“You live on the edge of every moment, and yet, in its own way, violence is attractive, too. Maybe because it doesn’t require logic. Perhaps that’s why it’s so liberating” – Suder’s chilling words to Tuvok.

The early seasons of Voyager were patchy as the crew took time to establish chemistry, while antagonists such as the Kazon were uninspiring. But in season two, we were treated to an episode of high drama that didn’t rely on alien battles. Instead, it came via an onboard murder. The resident Vulcan and Chief Security Officer, Tuvok (Tim Russ), is charged with solving the case. Attempting to establish motive, the logical Tuvok is baffled when the murderer, the crewman Suder, replies that he committed the crime for “no reason”. Tuvok mind melds with Suder in order to better understand him. 

Needless to say, Tuvok experiences adverse effects from the meld in this study of extreme violence, and grapples with the ethics of appropriate punishment. Anchored by a charismatic performance by Brad Dourif, as the sociopath, Suder even gets a chance at redemption, returning in the two-parter Basics (season 2, episode 26), when he helps to retake the ship from the Kazon. 

• Season 5, episode 25 & season 6, episode 1 
• Original air date: May 26, 1999 & September 22, 1999

This season five finale has a grittiness and darkness that later series Enterprise and Discovery would utilise more. Encountering another Starfleet vessel in the Delta Quadrant, Captain Janeway goes to the aid of the U.S.S. Equinox. A much smaller and less powerful vessel, the Equinox is a Nova-class starship not designed for long-range missions. 

So, how have they managed to survive this long? In this tense and dramatic two-parter, Janeway is pitted against fellow Starfleet officers and turns vengeful as she discovers the horrifying truth about the Equinox's betrayal of Star Fleet's principles and the Prime Directive.

4. Blink of an Eye

• Season 6, episode 12 
• Original air date: January 19, 2000

The U.S.S. Voyager investigates a world that rotates 58 times a second, with time passing much more quickly on its surface than in space, but gets trapped as it is caught by the planet’s orbit. Meanwhile, the primitive natives on the surface see a new star in the sky, which happens to be Voyager. 

In this enjoyable episode, the crew of the ship, and we the audience, get to see the evolution of a world and its inhabitants before our very eyes. Featuring a pre-Lost Daniel Dae Kim as an alien, Blink of an Eye has a charm and sweetness that is magically expressed in the episode’s final moments.

• Season 7, episode 24 
• Original air date: May 23, 2001

When Voyager’s finale aired, it was met with mixed audience reactions, with a consensus that it wrapped things up a little too neatly. While that criticism is not invalid, in retrospect Endgame was more of a treat than a sour note. After all, over its 86-minute runtime the two-parter finally gave its characters a little more room to breathe. This generosity extended to include the return of the wonderful Alice Krige as the Borg Queen, who first appeared in the role in the Star Trek: First Contact movie. 

Involving a Borg showdown, among other delights, Endgame treated us to the sights of a Voyager crew in old age, as we learn of the crew’s destinies, the wonders of even more futuristic technology, and a white-haired Janeway coming to terms with how stubborn her younger self could be.

2. Year of Hell

• Season 4, episode 8 & 9 
• Original air date: November 5, 1997 & November 12, 1997

This two-parter is among the darkest and grittiest Star Trek has ever gotten. This was Voyager in distress and Captain Janeway at her most grim. Voyager gets embroiled in an interspecies conflict, but finds itself drawn into a more personal story. Kurtwood Smith delivers an authoritative performance as the villain Annorax – a brooding figure who commands a temporal weapon ship capable of erasing objects and civilizations from the timeline. 

Year of Hell had an epic quality, a sense of awe and real peril as it was difficult to imagine Voyager surviving through the onslaught. Full of memorable imagery – from Janeway as a gung-ho militaristic figure to a devastated ship with holes in its hull – this was Voyager at its most hellish.    

1. Timeless

• Season 5, episode 6 
• Original air date: November 18, 1998

A mini-masterpiece. For Voyager’s 100th episode the show’s producers and writers Brannon Braga, Rick Berman, and Joe Menosky created something special. With Levar Burton (of Geordi La Forge and The Next Generation fame) as director, Timeless had the majesty of a movie. The 45-minute run-time included the extraordinary image of Voyager encased in ice and a plot that was as satisfying as it was compelling (as well a cameo from Burton as a Starfleet captain). 

What was even more surprising was Garrett Wang playing an older, grizzled Harry Kim, in probably his standout performance, for a story that was full of pathos and regret. Can the older Kim send a message back through time to correct a huge mistake and avoid the deaths of his crewmates? Timeless really does have a timeless quality to it, since it’s the finest episode of Voyager ever produced.

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Lu-Hai Liang is a British Chinese writer and reporter. He has a degree in multimedia journalism and has written about culture for The Atlantic, BBC, CNN, Eurogamer, IGN, and Wired among others. He was based previously in Beijing for six years and reported on China’s changing society and development in business and technology. Generally, he likes sci-fi, video games, and space.

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Star Trek Ranks & Podcast

From @enterprisenxtra.

Episode Ranks

While I may have Star Trek: Voyager ranked as my No. 5 favorite Star Trek series, that doesn't mean I don't love it. (By the way, there is no wrong answer to the question: "What is your favorite Star Trek series?")

For me, Voyager is the Trek show with the biggest pure science fiction scope and ideas. From Blink of an Eye to Living Witness to Counterpoint , Voyager managed to build classic Star Trek morality plays around intense sci-fi e lements.  No concept was too big (see Scientific Method and Deadlock ). and  they were all faced by a captain who had to make the critical decisions without the guidance of Starfleet.

With so many great episodes to choose from, this list was not easy to narrow down, but oddly my Number One choice was never in doubt. Scroll down to find out below.

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Voyager's end: Every Star Trek series finale, ranked

Credit: Paramount/CBS

For over 50 years, Star Trek has served as one of pop culture’s biggest load-bearing columns. Hundreds of hours of television and 13 feature films later, Trek is more popular now than ever — as proven by Star Trek: Discovery , Lower Decks , Star Trek: Picard , and more Trek shows on the air or in the works than ever before. Of course, each of these journeys has to end, and some are better than others.

As Star Trek ’s future boldly goes forward, fans can’t help but get nostalgic for its past by revisiting previous shows via streaming — especially Star Trek: Voyager . The adventures of the instantly iconic Captain Janeway and her crew, stranded in a faraway corner of the galaxy, have become increasingly popular thanks to new fans discovering Voyager on Netflix and spending time with one of the ‘90s best and most inclusive series. As Voyager ’s series finale — the somewhat divisive “Endgame” — turns 20 this year, SYFY WIRE figured it was a good time to beam on down for our definitive ranking of every Star Trek series finale ever. 

Credit: CBS/Paramount

06 . Star Trek: The Original Series - “Turnabout Intruder” (1969)

“Turnabout Intruder” was never intended to be the series finale of the classic Star Trek series. This infamous Season 3 episode, which features a cheesy body swap premise with an even cheesier execution, became the last hour of the  Original Series  to ever air due to declining ratings and budget concerns. NBC decided to put the Enterprise in mothballs and go out on an installment that featured Captain Kirk (William Shatner) trading bodies with a former love and current mad scientist, Dr. Janice Lester (Sandra Smith). Why? So Dr. Lester could satisfy her lifelong (but, as scripted, unearned) dream of commanding a starship. 

Fans consider “Intruder” to be one of the worst Star Trek episodes or the worst one ever, with the slog of a story working overtime to make a strong case for either. Based on a story by Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, “Intruder” struggles to find anything interesting for Kirk to do and makes the baffling choice to have its guest star character, Lester, drive most of the story. Audiences are more likely to believe that alien body swap tech exists before they would ever believe that Kirk’s best friends and shipmates would never notice that their captain has traded places with a mentally unwell baddie. Eventually, Spock discovers who his captain really is, but not before getting caught trying to help him (er, her) and getting court-martialled. The back half of the episode is a talky affair that strains one’s suspension of disbelief to the point of completely letting go of any interest to see how the matter resolves itself. 

After watching this "Intruder," it’s amazing that Star Tre k ever got a second chance to become what it is today. 

05 . Star Trek Enterprise: “These Are the Voyages…” (2005)

“It was a kind of a slap in the face to the Enterprise actors. I regret it.”

Co-writer and former Star Trek: Enterprise  showrunner Brannon Braga didn’t sugar coat his feelings about Enterprise ’s infamous 2005 series finale, “These Are the Voyages…”, in this 2017 interview addressing the problematic episode he developed and co-wrote with executive producer Rick Berman. While Braga and Berman thought framing the Enterprise finale as a “lost episode” of Star Trek: The Next Generation was a great idea while writing it, Braga soon realized after watching it that “great” was far from an apt description. 

“Voyages” centers on Commander Riker, played once again by Jonathan Frakes, and the events surrounding TNG ’s Season 7 episode “The Pegasus." Here, the Enterprise-D’s first officer uses the holodeck to help him solve his problems by revisiting the final mission of Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and the crew of the first Enterprise, the NX-01. That means that all the 22nd Century scenes featuring Archer and his crew are all holodeck simulations. Yup. For the first-time ever in Trek history, a series ends with holographic versions of the real characters that fans spent years following. It’s shocking how much wrong they managed to pack into one normal-sized episode of television — the first Trek finale since The Animated Series not to be feature-length.  

Setting aside the fact that Riker never once mentioned an affinity for Archer, his ship, or his crew throughout his entire TNG tenure, making a 24th century character the focus of a series finale that takes place in the 23rd century denies agency to the Enterprise ensemble that deserves the spotlight — not have it stolen by characters who already had their fair share of it. (Having Marina Sirtis cameo as Counselor Troi adds even more distracting fan service.) Even Bakula was incensed with the story, with Braga recalling that this episode was the first time Enterprise ’s lead actor ever got confrontational with the writer-producer. After watching the final product, we can see why. 

04 . Star Trek: The Animated Series - “The Counter-Clock Incident” (1974)

“The Counter-Clock Incident” allows Star Trek to combine two tropes it loves — morality plays and stories that deal with the effects of aging backwards. In doing so, fans are treated to an episode that works far better than it has any right to, largely due to its timeless themes and the earnest way the episode dramatizes them. 

The sixth episode of The Animated Series ’ second season, and final episode of the series, finds the Enterprise and her crew pulled into a “negative universe” where time moves backwards and causes Kirk and his officers to grow younger. ( Star Trek: The Next Generation would tackle similar “de-aging” sci-fi in the high-concept episode “Rascals.”) But what’s unique about this episode is that, as Kirk reverts back to being a child, the first Captain of the Enterprise ever — Robert April — gets a second chance to relieve his prime years. April goes from being a senior citizen on the eve of retirement to his good ol’ days as a dashing senior officer, wrapping up his tenure in Starfleet with one hell of a final mission.

While the low-budget limitations of Filmation’s 2D animation haven’t (ironically) aged well, they don’t distract from “Counter-Clock” tackling ageism in a respectful way that reminds viewers of all ages to respect their elders and the value their experience and knowledge can bring. 

03 . Star Trek: Voyager - “Endgame, Parts 1 & 2” (2001)

Star Trek: Voyager ’s “Endgame” has plenty of feature-level action to satisfy fans, but at the cost of giving them and the show’s crew the homecoming they deserve. 

Lost for seven seasons in the Delta Quadrant, Janeway and her dogged crew aboard Voyager struggled across unexplored space to find their way back to Earth. One would think they would be given more than two scenes depicting their dream coming true, of seeing their home planet again, but that’s all “Endgame” gives them. The episode’s abrupt final moments conclude the series on one of the franchise’s most underwhelming and anticlimactic notes. 

“Endgame” opens with Voyager ’s crew already back on Earth, having lost their Borg attache, Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), in the process. This loss haunts Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), who, now an Admiral, pines for a second chance to make good on her promise to bring every member of her crew back home. With the help of time travel, Janeway finally gets an opportunity to re-do her voyage home — which leads to one final confrontation with the Borg Queen ( Star Trek: First Contact ’s Alice Krieg). In the process, Janeway seemingly wipes out the Borg (or, at least, defeats them — how they survived this fate is left unclear when they reappear in Star Trek Picard ). That’s a seismic event in the Trek Universe, and the finale has barely time to pay it lip service because the two-parter has to rush to the last scene: Where Voyager is joined by a few starships and ushered back to Earth before the credits roll.

Seven seasons spent with this crew, rooting for them to get home, and the show can’t be bothered to spend any significant time exploring how reaching Earth feels for those who doubted they would ever see it again. It’s a baffling, rushed choice that leaves fans wishing the series went with its original finale plans: Dedicate a mini-arc of episodes in the final season to show  Voyager ’s return to Earth and how the crew re-enters their lives. The dramatic potential there alone is more satisfying than most of “Endgame.”

02 . Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - “What You Leave Behind” (2000)

After devoting its last two seasons to a largely serialized arc concerning the Federation’s war with the evil Dominion, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine wrapped up its seven-year run with a near-Biblical finale full of action, heart, and loss. 

Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) began the show as a brooding commander who couldn’t wait to leave his new post — a former Cardassian space station in orbit of the Bajoran homeworld. But by the end of “What You Leave Behind,” he literally gives his life to save both DS9 and the Bajoran people that view him as an emissary for their gods, the Prophets. Sisko’s sacrifice calls back to the show’s first episode, and his dealings with the Prophets — a race of non-linear beings worshiped by the Bajorans. His corporeal life is just the beginning, as Sisko’s death seemingly features him transcending into a higher plane of existence, one that, at first, he wanted nothing to do with. 

Sisko’s story coming full circle is just one of the many satisfying and poetic beats found in “What You Leave Behind.” The episode finds a wildly entertaining, if at times uneven, balance between epic space action and dramatic scenes wrapping up seven years of some of the best serialized storytelling the genre has ever done. (The less said about the so-so blue screen effects depicting Sisko’s weird, ethereal battle with his nemesis, the evil Gul Dukat, the better.) 

But the show is more interested in its character moments, however, giving its exceptional ensemble cast some truly moving moments to shine in the finale’s back half. And while the final scene in the holosuite, at the crew’s favorite Rat Pack-inspired night club, feels a little too long and self-indulgent, it’s the perfect ending for this crew and their journey. At the start of their mission, they couldn’t have been any more discordant. They shouldn’t have been in the same room, let alone on the same team. But, as “What You Leave Behind” movingly proves, that’s the definition of family. And that’s exactly what this crew became to each other and for their fans. 

01 . Star Trek: The Next Generation - “All Good Things…” (1994)

“All Good Things…” is the best Star Trek series finale ever. It’s the one that all Trek finales are measured against. 27 years after it originally aired, none have come remotely close to matching it. 

Written by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, “All Good Things” proved to be a better cinematic-worthy adventure than The Next Generation crew’s first movie, Star Trek: Generations . The briskly plotted, feature-length episode, and its compelling storyline involving paradoxes and second chances, features Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) moving back and forth through time. He slips in and out of three key time periods: The past, just before the launch of Enterprise-D’s first mission; the present, and the future. Here, Picard is a very retired — and very old — man who runs his family vineyard. He also struggles with a debilitating neurological syndrome that makes it hard for his former shipmates to believe him when he says he’s playing Sliders across multiple timelines. Picard’s mission requires that all three versions of his crew work together, under the manipulative watch of the omnipotent Q, to stop an anomaly from unraveling existence as we know it. 

The tension and stakes couldn’t be higher, as TNG gives the cast and their characters a perfect final episode that brings them together as a family in ways the series left surprisingly unexplored for most of its run. Watching a futuristic Enterprise, blasting newly-mounted phaser cannons, fly vertically for the first time in Trek history proves to be as entertaining as the smaller, quieter beats between characters are. Especially the scenes where Picard has to convince his untested crew in the past to follow him and their counterparts on a mission that will cost them their lives. 

But the episode’s beating heart lies in its final moments, where Picard finally joins his crew for their regular poker game. The first time Picard ever sits down with his crew at their poker resonates with his officers as deeply as it does with fans, which is a testament to the finale’s commitment to giving Next Generation the action-packed, emotionally earned send-off it deserves. 

• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Star Trek: The Original Series
• Star Trek: Voyager

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1 Of Star Trek: Voyagers Best Episodes Was Saved By Rick Berman

• Rick Berman's story change transformed Star Trek: Voyager's "Distant Origin" into a great episode, thanks to a "Galileo" figure.
• "Distant Origin" is classic Star Trek, holding similarities with TNG's best episodes.
• Berman's influence brought TNG features to Voyager, enhancing the series' quality and storylines.

A great episode from Star Trek: Voyager season 3 was saved from obscurity by Rick Berman, according to writer Joe Menosky. Rick Berman became Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's right-hand man at the beginning of Star Trek: The Next Generation , and ascended to the role of franchise leader after Roddenberry passed away during TNG 's run. Berman was responsible for shepherding the Star Trek timeline through its most popular era in the 1990s and early 2000s , and this included being an executive producer on all seven seasons of Voyager .

Although later seasons of Voyager were undoubtedly better than earlier ones, season 3 was arguably where the show began to turn a corner. The seasons contained some incredible episodes, such as the two-part-time-travel epic "Future's End," and storylines tended to be better overall as the series picked up momentum and Voyager 's cast of characters gelled with each other. However, one great episode toward the end of Voyager season 3 might never have been a hit if it weren't for Rick Berman.

20 Best Episodes Of Star Trek In TV History, Ranked

Across almost 60 years, 11 TV shows, and hundreds of episodes, the Star Trek franchise has provided some of the greatest hours of television drama.

Joe Menosky Explained How Rick Berman Saved An Important Star Trek: Voyager Season 3 Episode

Berman's story change ensured the "distant origin" went from good to great.

In an interview with Cinefantastique in 1997, Joe Menosky detailed how Berman was instrumental in making sure that Voyager season 3, episode 23, "Distant Origin" succeeded. "Distant Origin" dealt with the crew of the USS Voyager encountering an alien race, the Voth, who were descended from a species of dinosaur on Earth. The episode had a great classic Star Trek premise, incorporating real-world science and allegory , but according to Menosky, it only got that way because of Berman's suggestions when the idea was pitched. Read Menosky's full quote below:

"He happened to come into the room when we were talking about this show. The first story notion that Brannon laid out to Rick in Jeri's office was the action-oriented story idea and Rick just hated it. He said, 'All I see is a bunch of lizards with AK-47s. Where's the Humanity? This should be Galileo.' As soon as he said Galileo, I thought, that's perfect. I've done a lot of research in Italian history, so I knew exactly what he was talking about. Rick Berman's participation at that basic story level made this episode happen."

Thanks to Berman's suggestion of including a " Galileo " figure as the episode's protagonist, "Distant Origin" became one of Voyager season 3's better episodes. The character of Gegen (Henry Woronicz) added a wonderfully humanizing element to the plot, and basing most of the episode from the Voth's point of view brought in a more exciting perspective than the traditional Voyager episode . Additionally, "Distant Origin" ended up being very popular among Voyager ’s creative team, receiving praise from several writing and production staff members. This also spoke to the impressiveness of the episode's story overall.

Voyagers Distant Origin Is A Classic Star Trek Episode Thanks To Berman

"distant origin" has all the hallmarks of the greatest star trek episodes.

Without its connection to real-life events, “Distant Origin” might never have become so popular. Joe Menosky further enthused in the same Cinefantastique interview that the episode had a lot of unique things going for it, even going so far as to say that it was like a great episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation . According to Menoksy, the episode “ ...felt as close to TNG in spirit, as anything I've ever been involved on since I've been writing for Voyager ," and was " frankly closer to the spirit of the kind of best TNGs than a lot of TNGs I've done. "

This is high praise, considering that TNG was the gold standard for Star Trek TV shows at the time. "Distant Origin" does have many of the hallmarks of a great TNG episode, including the very human debate about science versus religion from an alien perspective . Given that Rick Berman began his Star Trek tenure on TNG , it isn't surprising that he would be able to shape episodes for other series like Star Trek: Voyager that included some of TNG 's distinctive features.

Source: Cinefantastique , Vol. 29

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 Kenneth Biller, Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, Brannon Braga

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

Rating TV-PG

Where To Watch Paramount+

Every Star Trek: Voyager Season Ranked From Worst To Best

How do Star Trek: Voyager's 7 acclaimed seasons stack up?

Like Star Trek iterations before it, Voyager got off to a slow start, but soon found its feet once both the writers and actors became more familiar with the characters they were bringing to life. As such, Voyager had its share of bad episodes in the first season and beyond. However, it also provided viewers with some of the best tension and characters in Star Trek.

Stranding the crew in the Delta Quadrant provided ample opportunity to explore new and different storylines and give the characters more depth, which the writers did many times. Each season gave viewers episodes filled with humour, heartbreak and lots of tension, creating the integral connection between them and the characters they were watching.

This connection was continuously expanded for some characters more than others, with later seasons relegating Chakotay and Harry Kim to background players, and Seven-of-Nine and the Doctor gaining increasingly more storylines. Having the largest main cast in Star Trek was clearly a hindrance to the writers, and it's unfortunate that characters had to suffer.

Despite this, Voyager was able to provide storylines that engaged viewers and every season has their own collection of them. However, they were not all created equal, and so some are better than others.

But which season was the best? It's time to find out...

7. Season 1

Voyager's first season was consistent with some good episodes, but no real stand outs. It does however have a brilliant story arc running throughout focusing on the tension between the Marquis and Starfleet crews. Portraying the difficulties both crews face when they are thrown together and forced to work together provides for excellent character development, and the episodes Learning Curve and State of Flux are excellent examples of that.

Highlighting the differences between the mentalities of the two crews in Learning Curve and providing a clear progression in how those views change throughout the episode allow viewers to identify where the changes have come from and why. A sudden change in the Marquis crew's beliefs about Starfleet and Voyager's crew would have been confusing to viewers, but this episode prevents that with an engaging storyline and solid writing.

State of Flux provides tension and a brilliant reveal about Seska and shows what happens when a Marquis crew member cannot put aside their beliefs about Starfleet. Seska's story is more complex than that, however the main storyline in this episode is her betrayal of the Voyager crew. It is well written and provides some great twists that gave audiences a glimpse into how good the writing on this show can be.

This season provides tolerable episodes, but no episodes that wow the audience like other entries in this list. There are no episodes that ratchet up tension or make the viewer fear for the life of a crewmember, despite The Phage trying to with Neelix. The writers and cast were still clearly trying to create and understand these characters throughout this season, which could explain the mediocrity of the first 15 episodes.

It was a solid start for the series, but it is the worst season of the show.

A recently created Star Trek fan with a special affinity for the adventures of Voyager and its crew. I enjoy the occasional horror movie and love anything 80s to the point where I've been told I was an 80s child reborn. I'm a true blue Aussie and proud of it.

The Top 57 Episodes of ‘Star Trek,’ Ranked From Great to Perfect

First, let’s be clear: Ranking the best “Star Trek” episodes is a silly thing to do. To date, the longest-running American TV franchise has aired a gargantuan 890 episodes and counting, starting with the original series in 1966. Since then, at least one “Star Trek” TV show has aired (or streamed) every decade, totaling 11 so far (with more on the way ). Choosing the best episodes within such a boundless, occasionally contradictory storytelling galaxy seems about as wise as cheating when playing poker with a Klingon.

On the other hand, there may be no more time-honored tradition among “Star Trek” fans than a vigorous debate over what constitutes the best of the franchise. (Best series ? Best captains ? Best starships ? Best aliens ? Best uniforms ? They’ve all been ranked multiple times !)

In that spirit — and to commemorate the 57th anniversary of “Star Trek” on Sept. 8 —  Variety ’s resident “Trek” geeks have ranked the top 57 episodes of all time, across the franchise.

Creating our list required some deep-dish nerdiness in its own right: We compiled a long list of episodes from each series that we felt deserved to be on the final ranking. Then we created our own individual rankings — and promptly realized our taste was quite divergent. To reconcile our lists, we adopted the approach of the great movie ranking podcast, Screen Drafts : We took alternating turns placing a pick from 57 to 1, and we each had two opportunities to veto the other’s pick (which in every case was to ensure it was placed higher on the list).

Other than the short-lived “Star Trek: The Animated Series” (1973-1974), this list reflects every other iteration of “Trek” on TV: “Star Trek: The Original Series” (1966-1969); “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987-1994); “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” (1993-1999); “Star Trek: Voyager” (1995-2001); “Star Trek: Enterprise” (2001-2005); “Star Trek: Discovery” (2017-2024); “Star Trek: Picard” (2020-2023); “Star Trek: Prodigy” (2021-2022); and the ongoing “Star Trek: Lower Decks” (2020-present) and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” (2022-present).

The Way to Eden

“The Original Series” — Season 3, Episode 20

Look, this episode gets a lot of hate. But the fact is “TOS” is known (by today’s standards) for being very campy, and there is no episode campier than this one. A group of space hippies board the Enterprise on their journey to a mythical planet called Eden, where they can live happily forever. The episode memorably features Charles Napier (who would go on to a long career playing tough guys, villains, cops and the like) breaking out into song a bunch of times, including a jam session with Spock (Leonard Nimoy). —Joe Otterson Original airdate: Feb. 21, 1969

Terra Prime

“Enterprise” — Season 4, Episode 21 More than any other episode of “Enterprise,” “Terra Prime” made the most of the show’s mission to dramatize the beginnings of Starfleet, 100 years before the events of “TOS.” Just as a newfound coalition of planets begins to form on Earth (a precursor to the Federation), Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) and his crew must stop a xenophobic terrorist (played to the hilt by future “Star Trek Into Darkness” villain Peter Weller) bent on forcing all aliens to leave Earth. Subtle, it ain’t, but the story feels more relevant today than it did 20 years ago, and everyone in the cast gets a moment to shine. Alas, it came too late: “Enterprise” had been canceled before this episode even went into production. —Adam B. Vary Original airdate: May 13, 2005

“Prodigy” — Season 1, Episode 6

The animated “Prodigy” was the first “Star Trek” series geared toward kids, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t things for older “Trek” fans to enjoy. In particular, “Kobayashi” perfectly embodies what makes this show a worthy entry in “Trek” canon. Dal (Brett Gray) and Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas) discover the holodeck aboard the Protostar, where they decide to go through the Kobayashi Maru, a.k.a. the “no-win scenario” that Capt. Kirk successfully beat during his time at the Academy. He gets help along the way from legendary characters like Spock, Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) and Odo (René Auberjonois). —J.O.

Original airdate: Jan. 6, 2022

Stormy Weather

“Discovery” — Season 4, Episode 6

On a mission to discover the origins of a cataclysmic gravitational anomaly, the U.S.S. Discovery enters a subspace rift and finds itself trapped inside a lethal black void that threatens to collapse in on the ship. The result is a classic race-against-time thriller (directed by “Trek” mainstay Jonathan Frakes), but what makes “Stormy Weather” stand out amid the heavily serialized episodes of “Discovery” is its emotionally resonant use of the ship’s sentient A.I. computer, Zora (Annabelle Wallis), who has to learn how to calm her mind from overwhelming stimuli in order to guide the ship out of danger. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Dec. 23, 2021

Seventeen Seconds

“Picard” — Season 3, Episode 3

“Picard” didn’t find itself until Season 3, which reunited the core cast of “The Next Generation” — and it was really Episode 3 that sealed the deal. Riker (Frakes) is forced to take command of the Titan as Vadic (Amanda Plummer) and the Shrike hunt them. Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Dr. Crusher get an all-time great scene together as she reveals why she never told him about their son, Jack (Ed Speleers). Worf (Michael Dorn) makes his big return. We learn the Changelings are still intent on attacking the Federation. Riker and Picard end up at odds in a way we’ve never seen before. In short, epic. —J.O.

Original airdate: March 2, 2023

The Enemy Within

“The Original Series” — Season 1, Episode 5

The transporter — the cause of, and solution to, so many “Star Trek” problems — accidentally splits Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) into two people: Good Kirk, who is wracked with indecision, and evil Kirk, who is a histrionic asshole. Come for a meditation on the darkness that lies tucked inside everyone’s psyche, stay for some of William Shatner’s most deliciously hammy acting — and this was just the fifth episode of the series! —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Oct. 6, 1966

Family Business

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 3, Episode 23

The Ferengi episodes of “DS9” are always great comic relief, with this episode giving fans their first view of the home planet of Ferenginar and Ferengi culture in general. Quark (Armin Shimerman) and Rom (Max Grodénchik) must return home when their mother, Ishka (Andrea Martin), is accused of acquiring profit (gasp!), something Ferengi females are forbidden to do. Shimerman and Martin shine as they play out Quark and Ishka’s relationship, while Grodénchik really gets to put his comedic chops on display. This episode is also notable as the first appearance of Brunt (Jeffrey Combs) from the Ferengi Commerce Authority, as well as Kasidy Yates (Penny Johnson Jerald), frequent love interest of Cmdr. Sisko (Avery Brooks). —J.O.

Original airdate: May 15, 1995

Blink of an Eye

“Voyager” — Season 6, Episode 12

The Voyager gets stuck in orbit around a planet where time passes far more rapidly than in the rest of space, as the episode alternates between the bemused curiosity of Capt. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and her crew and the awestruck preoccupation of the expeditiously progressing populace on the planet below, for whom Voyager is a sparkling, fixed constant in the night sky. At one point, the Doctor (Robert Picard) beams down to the planet to investigate, and a delay of only a few minutes on Voyager means he spends three years on its surface. He even adopts a son! One of the great, wild what if? episodes of “Star Trek.” —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Jan. 19, 2000

“The Next Generation” — Season 3, Episode 23

Mark Lenard absolutely crushed the role of Spock’s father, Sarek, in multiple episodes across multiple “Star Trek” series and movies, but this episode is perhaps his finest performance as the character. Sarek comes to the Enterprise-D on what is meant to be his final mission, only for the crew to learn he is suffering from Bendii Syndrome. The condition leaves him prone to uncharacteristic emotional outbursts while also causing him to telepathically influence the emotions of those around him. Picard saves the day by mind melding with Sarek, allowing him to finish his mission with dignity — and provide Stewart with the chance for some powerhouse acting as he channels Sarek’s volcanic emotions. —J.O.

Original airdate: May 14, 1990

“Enterprise” — Season 3, Episode 10

“Trek” loves a moral dilemma, and this one’s a doozy: After Cmdr. Tucker (Connor Trinneer) is critically injured while the Enterprise is on a deep space mission, Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley) suggests growing a “mimetic symbiote” of Trip — effectively, a clone with a built-in two-week lifespan — in order to create the brain tissue needed to save Trip’s life. But that means the Enterprise crew must endure watching Trip’s clone rapidly age from a precocious kid to an adult man (played by Trinneer with eerie self-possession), who then pleads for his own right to live. Creepy and heartbreaking in equal measure. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Nov. 19, 2003

Trials and Tribble-ations

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 5, Episode 6

This episode is a love letter to the original series, with the Defiant’s crew transported back in time to the events of “The Trouble With Tribbles.” A Klingon agent is planning to use a booby-trapped tribble to assassinate James T. Kirk. Thanks to digital editing, the crew is able to interact with the original Enterprise crew and keep the timeline intact. —J.O.

Original airdate: Nov. 4, 1996

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 2, Episode 23

Mirror universe episodes of “Star Trek” are (almost) always fun, if ultimately a little silly. But this one — in which Kira (Nana Visitor) and Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) find themselves in an alternate reality in which Bajor, Cardassians and Klingons subjugate humans as slaves — comes closest to matching the spark of discovery in the original “TOS” episode. It’s especially fun to watch Visitor devour the role of Kira’s deliciously wicked mirror counterpart, the Intendant. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: May 16, 1994

Memento Mori

“Strange New Worlds” — Season 1, Episode 4

This episode proved “Strange New Worlds” — the newest “Star Trek” series — could be as action-packed as the very best of “Star Trek.” The Enterprise crew find themselves on the run from the Gorn, a savage enemy (first introduced on “TOS” and largely ignored in “Trek” canon) about which they know virtually nothing. They are forced to use every resource at their disposal to outwit and outrun the Gorn, including tapping into the subconscious of La’an (Christina Chong), the only crew member who has encountered the aliens and survived. —J.O.

Original airdate: May 26, 2022

Counterpoint

“Voyager” — Season 5, Episode 10

The main story is a tense, WWII allegory: Capt. Janeway and her crew hide telepathic refugees while passing through the space of the Devore, who have outlawed telepaths. But the real story is the relationship Janeway forms with the lead Devore inspector, Kashyk (Mark Harelik), who suddenly shows up alone and announces he’s defecting. As Kashyk aids Janeway in finding safe harbor for the refugees, she realizes how much he’s her intellectual equal, and she finds herself drawn to him — in spite of (or perhaps spurred on by) her continued suspicion of his motives. A great, subtle performance by Mulgrew captures both Janeway’s steely wits and her private yearning. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Dec. 16, 1998

The Drumhead

“The Next Generation” — Season 4, Episode 21

“Star Trek” has done a number of courtroom episodes, and this is one of the best. Rear admiral Norah Satie (Jean Simmons) is sent to investigate suspected sabotage aboard the Enterprise. The investigation quickly spirals into paranoia and accusations of treachery against a crew member who is revealed to have Romulan lineage. It is an excellent reminder of what can happen when persecution is dressed up as an attempt at greater security, with Picard using Satie’s father’s teachings to bring about her downfall. —J.O.

Original airdate: April 29, 1991

“The Next Generation” — Season 7, Episode 8

More thwarted romance! The seasons-long will-they/won’t-they between Picard and Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) gets its best showcase, when the pair are captured by isolationist aliens and given implants that allow them to read each other’s thoughts. You get the feeling Stewart and especially McFadden had been dying to play out this dynamic on the show, so they both bring years of sublimated longing to the episode. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Nov. 8, 1993

In the Hands of the Prophets

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 1, Episode 20

Louise Fletcher’s performance as Vedek Winn (later Kai Winn) ranks among the best “Star Trek” villains of all time. Deeply religious to the point of fanaticism, Winn protests Keiko O’Brien (Rosalind Chao) teaching children on Deep Space Nine that the wormhole aliens are not deities, as many Bajorans believe. Winn’s words whip Bajorans on the station into a frenzy; Keiko’s school is bombed. But what Winn really desires is power, to the point she tries to get one of her followers to kill a fellow Vedek she sees as a threat. The episode sets up Winn’s role as a major antagonist throughout the series to great effect. —J.O.

Original airdate: June 21, 1993

The Trouble With Tribbles

“The Original Series” — Season 2, Episode 15

If you’ve seen any episode of “TOS,” chances are it’s this one. While on shore leave at a space station, the Enterprise comes upon an adorably furry alien creature called a tribble, which are born pregnant, multiply exponentially, consume enormous quantities of food and react with alarm when in the presence of a Klingon. Fizzy and funny and, to this day, one of the best-known episodes of “Trek” ever. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Dec. 29, 1967

Balance of Terror

“The Original Series” — Season 1, Episode 14

Introducing the Romulans alone makes this episode worthy of being on the list. But it’s also an epic cat-and-mouse game between Kirk and a Romulan commander played by none other than Mark Lenard, who would go on to play Sarek starting in Season 2. Kirk successfully lures the Romulan ship into a trap, leading to Lenard delivering the iconic line, “You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend.” —J.O.

Original airdate: Dec. 15, 1966

“The Next Generation” — Season 4, Episode 20

John de Lancie never disappoints when he plays Q, but this episode offered a wonderful twist on his usual appearances. Following the events of “Deja Q,” Q returns to the Enterprise saying he owes Picard a debt. Picard repeatedly tells Q he wants nothing from him, but Q notices Picard has eyes for Vash (Jennifer Hetrick), the mercenary archeologist Picard first met on Risa. Being Q, he naturally transports Picard, Vash, and the bridge crew to a Robin Hood fantasy in which Picard must rescue Vash from the evil Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Clive Frevill). Added bonus: Worf, in scarlet tights, exclaiming in protest, “I am not a merry man!” —J.O.

Original airdate: April 22, 1991

“The Original Series” — Season 1, Episode 18

The classic “trial by combat” episode that pitted Kirk against a Gorn captain on a barren, rocky planet (i.e. the storied filming location Vasquez Rocks ). Few images from “Star Trek” have become more iconic than the original Gorn costume, which was essentially an actor dressed as a large lizard. The ending is also an all-timer, with Kirk choosing to spare the Gorn, proving to the all-powerful Metrons that set up the trial by combat that humans are capable of more than just random violence. —J.O.

Original airdate: Jan. 19, 1967

A Mathematically Perfect Redemption

“Lower Decks” — Season 3, Episode 7

“Star Trek’s” first pure comedy (and second animated series) often plays as a twisted love letter to the entire “Trek” franchise — like when Peanut Hamper (Kether Donohue), one of the sentient Exocomp robots first introduced on “The Next Generation,” abandons the crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos in a time of need. This episode tracks Peanut Hamper’s journey to redemption afterwards, which involves her encountering a seemingly primitive species called the Areore. To say anything more would spoil the fun; suffice it to say, “Trek” has rarely provoked gasps of deep laughter like this episode does. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Oct. 6, 2022

Bar Association

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 4, Episode 15

What better episode of “Star Trek” to talk about after Hollywood’s hot labor summer? Fed up with the unfair conditions at Quark’s bar, Rom talks the other workers into forming a union and going on strike. Max Grodénchik truly shines in this episode as the would-be union leader. Once Rom successfully gets Quark to agree to all the workers’ demands, he outright quits and goes to work as a repair technician for the station, setting up some of Rom’s best moments in the episodes to come. —J.O.

Original airdate: Feb. 19, 1996

“Voyager” — Season 5, Episode 26 & Season 6, Episode 1

The Voyager swoops to the rescue of the Equinox, another Federation starship stranded in the Gamma Quadrant — only this one, led by Capt. Ransom (John Savage), is a smaller ship not meant for deep space travel. With their crew whittled down to just 12 people, Ransom has resorted to murdering alien creatures to use their bio-matter to boost the Equinox’s engines — a horrific violation of everything Starfleet stands for. The discovery pushes Janeway to her own limits, as she obsessively pursues the Equinox despite the cost to her own crew and her morality. The two-parter is one of the darkest episodes of “Star Trek,” a chilling reminder of how easily good people can find themselves slipping into disgrace. —A.B.V.

Original airdates: May 26, 1999 & Sept. 22, 1999

Who Mourns for Morn?

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 6, Episode 12

Morn (Mark Allen Shepherd) was a “Deep Space Nine” fixture, always at Quark’s bar, but never actually speaking onscreen. But in this episode, with Morn apparently dead in an accident, everyone reveals the offscreen times they spent with him, including the revelation that he “never shuts up.” Quark inherits all of Morn’s property, which Odo relishes revealing is ultimately nothing. But as it turns out, Morn had a much more adventurous life before his time on “DS9” than anyone knew, leading his former comrades to seek him out to get a hold of the money they believed he still possessed. —J.O.

Original airdate: Feb. 4, 1998

Species Ten-C

“Discovery” — Season 4, Episode 12

Other than the Gorn, almost all of the aliens on “Star Trek” are, essentially, humans with slightly different forehead ridges. But in its most recent season, “Discovery” embraced “Trek’s” prime directive (seeking out new life, bolding going where no one’s gone, etc.) by crafting a species that is truly alien: the Ten-C. Throughout the season, the Ten-C are presented as both a total mystery and an existential threat; when Capt. Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the crew of the Discovery finally reach them — outside the barrier of the Milky Way galaxy — they are unlike anything the show has ever encountered. Rarely has “Trek” applied more intellectual and emotional rigor to what it might actually be like to attempt first contact with extra-terrestrials, and rarely has it been this compelling. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: March 10, 2022

A Man Alone

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 1, Episode 4

Odo is one of the best characters in “DS9” — and in the “Star Trek” universe — in general, and this is the first episode to really establish him as a standout . A known criminal returns to the station only to die shortly after, and Odo is accused of his murder. Odo’s status as an outsider, but ultimately someone to be respected, is made crystal clear in this episode, with even his archenemy Quark acknowledging that Odo is not the type to murder someone in cold blood. —J.O.

Original airdate: Jan. 17, 1993

Mirror, Mirror

“The Original Series” — Season 2, Episode 4

The transporter strikes again, this time accidentally zapping Kirk, Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Scotty (James Doohan) and Bones (DeForest Kelley) from their reality into a parallel universe in which the benevolent Federation has been replaced by the bloodthirsty Terran Empire, governed by brute force and fascistic exploitation — and Spock has a goatee! More silly than serious (and no less fun for it), the episode effectively spawned an entire sub-genre of parallel universe episodes of TV (from “Supernatural” to “Friends”) and gave generations of actors a chance to play wildly against type. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Oct. 6, 1967

“The Next Generation” — Season 4, Episode 2

People rave about “The Best of Both Worlds” and Picard’s assimilation by the Borg, but fewer remember this incredible follow-up episode. Picard returns to his family vineyard to put the Borg incident behind him, even briefly thinking that he will leave Starfleet. Jeremy Kemp crushes it as Picard’s brother Robert, with the two sharing a memorable (and muddy) scene in which Picard breaks down and admits how much his assimilation has shaken him. The episode is also memorable for the appearance of Worf’s adoptive parents, who come to the Enterprise to be with him following his discommendation. —J.O.

Original airdate: Oct. 1, 1990

Living Witness

“Voyager” — Season 4, Episode 23

For several minutes, “Living Witness” seems like a mirror universe episode, as a ruthless Janeway, captain of the “warship” Voyager, agrees to aid the Vaskans against the insurgent Kyrians by unleashing a biological weapon upon millions and executing the Kyrian leader. But then we realize that we’ve just witnessed a recreation at a Kyrian museum 700 years in the future, at which point a copy of the Doctor enters the story and learns, to his horror, how much the Kyrians have gotten wrong. What could have been a Rashomon-style caper instead becomes fascinating meditation on how the telling of history can be weaponized, even inadvertently, to maintain old wounds rather than heal them. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: April 29, 1998

Unification

“The Next Generation” — Season 5, Episode 7 & 8

Spock appeared on “The Next Generation” a month before the release of 1991’s “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” — but this time, at least, crass cross-promotion prompted some sublimely entertaining TV, as Picard and Data (Brent Spiner) aid Spock in his effort to reunify the Romulan and Vulcan peoples. [Stefon voice]: This two-parter has everything : Klingon warbirds, rude Ferengis, Tasha’s evil Romulan daughter Sela (Denise Crosby), Data and Spock philosophizing on their twin pursuits of logic and emotion, the death of Sarek, Worf singing Klingon opera with a four-armed bar pianist, and Picard and Spock mind-melding! —A.B.V.

Original airdates: Nov. 4 & 11, 1991

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 7, Episode 9

Gul Dukat is the best villain in “Star Trek.” Yes, you read that right. The writers and actor Marc Alaimo created an incredibly nuanced character that goes through a remarkable arc over the course of the series. This episode, near the end of “DS9’s” run, reminds fans that Dukat sees himself as a savior, but is ultimately a force for evil. He establishes a cult dedicated to the Pah wraiths on Empok Nor, luring a number of Bajorans to his side. But of course, he also sleeps with his female followers and tries to trick them into a mass suicide. Amazing stuff. —J.O.

Original airdate: Nov. 23, 1998

The Last Generation

“Picard” — Season 3, Episode 10

The cast of “TNG” infamously never got their swan song, after 2002’s “Star Trek: Nemesis” bombed in theaters, so this series finale serves as a gift both to them and to “TNG” fans. Every character gets their spotlight, including the resurrected Enterprise-D, as Picard, Riker, Dr. Crusher, Data, Worf, LaForge (LeVar Burton) and Troi (Marina Sirtis) all help to take down the Borg once and for all. The final scene — everyone sitting around a poker table, laughing and reminiscing — is as pure and satisfying an expression of fan service as anything “Trek” has ever done. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: April 20, 2023

“The Next Generation” — Season 3, Episode 13

Until this episode, Q was an enjoyably malevolent force within “TNG,” an omnipotent being who’d gleefully pop up now and again to play with the lives of the Enterprise-D crew. But here, when Q suddenly appears on the bridge, he’s been stripped of all his powers (and all of his clothes) and begs Picard for safe harbor. At first, no one believes him — even after Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) stabs him with a fork — which only fuels John de Lancie’s sparkling performance, as Q confronts life as ( shudder ) a mortal human. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Feb. 3, 1990

An Embarrassment of Dooplers

“Lower Decks” — Season 2, Episode 5

The title refers to an alien called a Doopler, who duplicate themselves whenever they get embarrassed — which, naturally, becomes an issue the moment one steps foot on the Cerritos. But really, this episode is one of those deeply enjoyable “Trek” episodes that is less about story than it is about the vibes , as the characters spend their downtime winningly contending with the central premise of the show: The bittersweet contentment of life at the bottom of the ladder. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Sept. 9, 2021

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 2, Episode 19    

The lives of the past hosts of the Dax symbiont are a recurring plot device on “DS9,” and no episode does it better than this one. A group of Klingons who knew Curzon Dax arrive at the station and enlist Jadzia’s (Terry Ferrell) help in killing their sworn enemy, a criminal known as The Albino who killed the three Klingons’ first-born sons. Jadzia ultimately honors the blood oath, as the episode explores the meaning of honor and solidarity. —J.O.

Original airdate: March 28, 1994

Where No Man Has Gone Before

“The Original Series” — Season 1, Episode 3

The famed second pilot episode of “Star Trek” (which introduced William Shatner as Capt. Kirk) is a strange artifact today: Bones and Uhura aren’t aboard yet, Sulu (George Takei) isn’t at the helm, the Enterprise has a psychiatrist (played by Sally Kellerman), and the uniforms and sets look a bit off. But the central story — Kirk’s best friend, Gary Mitchell (Gary Lockwood), is zapped by an energy blast at the edge of the galaxy, and begins to exhibit extraordinary psychokinetic powers — is vintage “Trek”: Brainy, brawny, and just the right side of uncanny. And it’s fascinating now to see how well-established Kirk and Spock’s dynamic of emotion vs. logic was from the very start. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Sept. 22, 1966

The Measure of a Man

“The Next Generation” — Season 2, Episode 9

Data’s quest for humanity is at the very core of “TNG,” and this stirring episode literally puts that quest on trial — and establishes the show’s voice for the rest of its run. A Starfleet scientist wants to dismantle Data in order to create more androids, but Data refuses, setting up an intense courtroom drama — is Data merely a machine and the property of Starfleet? — with Picard representing Data while Riker is forced to represent the scientist. —J.O.

Original airdate: Feb. 13, 1989

“The Next Generation” — Season 4, Episode 26 & Season 5, Episode 1

The Klingons started on “Trek” as a not-that-thinly-veiled metaphor for the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, but over the decades, they’ve developed their own richly detailed mythology. This two-parter (which aired just before the fall of the USSR) depicts a civil war within the Klingon Empire that leads to Worf’s decision to leave the Enterprise and join the fight. For a series that was episodic by design, this is the closest “TNG” ever got to serialized storytelling, incorporating events from several previous episodes — including the shocking introduction of Tasha’s Romulan daughter, Sela. —A.B.V.

Original airdates: June 17, 1991 & Sept. 23, 1991

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 1, Episode 11

It is endlessly entertaining to see Quark get what he wants as he then  learns that it’s way more trouble than he realized. This episode sums that idea up nicely, while also featuring the first of many wonderful appearances by Wallace Shawn as Ferengi leader Grand Nagus Zek. Zek unexpectedly names Quark his successor, only for Zek to die shortly after. Quark is thrilled at first, before he realizes being the Nagus puts a massive target on his back. This episode also helps build the friendship between Nog (Aron Eisenbeg) and Jake (Cirroc Lofton), with Jake secretly teaching Nog how to read. —J.O.

Original airdate: March 22, 1993

Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy

“Voyager” — Season 6, Episode 4

Yearning to grow past his programming, the Doctor allows himself the ability to daydream, in one of the flat-out funniest episodes of “Trek” ever. It opens with Robert Picardo singing opera as Tuvok (Tim Russ) undergoes pon farr (i.e. the madness to mate that consumes Vulcan males) and just gets wilder from there, up to the moment when the Doctor, who’d fantasized about taking over command of Voyager in an emergency, does it for real. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Oct. 13, 1999

“The Original Series” — Season 2, Episode 1

Speaking of pon farr, this is the “TOS” episode that first establishes it — as well as the planet Vulcan, several Vulcan customs and traditions, and the now legendary Vulcan salute (honorable mention: Spock actually smiles!). Wracked with pon farr, Spock asks for leave back on his home planet, and eventually reveals that he must meet his betrothed, T’Pring (Arlene Martel). Naturally, Kirk and Spock end up in a fight to the death in one of the most iconic battles in “Star Trek” history. —J.O.

Original airdate: Sept. 15, 1967

Year of Hell

“Voyager” — Season 4, Episode 8 & 9

The most lasting criticism of “Voyager” is that every week, no matter what happened in the previous episode, the ship and crew emerged unscathed and ready for a new adventure. As if in response, this two-parter tracks a year in which the Voyager is ravaged to the point of near ruin by repeated encounters with an aggressive alien species called the Krenim. Unbeknownst to the crew, they’re actually the victims of a Krenim scientist, Annorax (Kurtwood Smith), who developed a technology to alter the fabric of time by erasing entire species from ever existing. This is as harrowing and merciless as “Trek’s” ever been, but it’s not quite the best episode of “Voyager” due to the irony of its ending: Janeway crashes the husk of the Voyager into Annorax’s timeship — which resets the timeline completely, as if nothing that we’d seen had ever happened. —A.B.V.

Original airdates: Nov. 5 & 12, 1997

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 3, Episodes 11 & 12

“Star Trek” often addresses timely societal issues, but this episode put them firmly in a 21st century context. Sisko, Bashir, and Dax accidentally wind up in San Francisco circa 2024, where poverty and oppression of the disadvantaged are running rampant (crazy how that remains timely, huh?). When a man meant to serve an important purpose in an historic riot is accidentally killed too soon, Sisko is forced to take his place. —J.O.

Original airdate: Jan. 2, 1995 & Jan. 9, 1995

Those Old Scientists

“Strange New Worlds” — Season 2, Episode 7

In one of the rare “Trek” crossover episodes, Ens. Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Ens. Mariner (Tawny Newsome) from “Lower Decks” find themselves zapped back to the era when Capt. Pike (Anson Mount) captained the Enterprise. Marshalled by Jonathan Frakes’ steady hand as a director , the disparate tones of “Lower Decks” and “Strange New World” somehow mesh perfectly, and hilariously, together. Packed with guffaw-worthy laughs, “Those Old Scientists” also becomes a deeply poignant expression of the impact “Trek” has had on generations of fans. Maybe it’s controversial to place one of the most recent “Trek” episodes so high on this list, but this one more than earns its spot. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: July 22, 2023

The Best of Both Worlds

“The Next Generation” — Season 3, Episode 26 & Season 4, Episode 1

This two-parter is frequently cited as the best “Next Generation” storyline of all time, mostly because it features one of the most iconic cliffhangers in all of television. The Borg attack the Federation, leading to a showdown with the Enterprise. Picard is captured and assimilated, revealing himself to his crew as Locutus of Borg. If we’re splitting Borg nano-probes, the second half doesn’t quite live up to the first, which is why, for us, it doesn’t quite rank into the Top 10. Special shoutout to this episode for setting up the incredible “Star Trek” film “First Contact.” —J.O.

Original airdate: June 18, 1990 & Sept. 24, 1990

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 1, Episode 19

When a Cardassian named Marritza (Harris Yulin) arrives on Deep Space Nine, Kira realizes he must have worked at one of the most notorious labor camps during Cardassia’s occupation of Bajor, and she arrests him as a war criminal. What follows is effectively a two-hander, as Kira’s interrogation of Marritza leads to a series of revelations that unmoor her hard-won fury at the atrocities inflicted upon her people. The conventional wisdom is that “DS9” didn’t get cooking until the Dominion War, but this early episode proves that this show was providing great, searing drama from the start. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: June 14, 1993

“The Original Series” — Season 1, Episode 22

Ricardo Montalbán makes his debut as Khan Noonien Singh, a genetically superior dictator from Earth’s Eugenics Wars. Khan and his people have been in suspended animation for 200 years and are looking to dominate humanity once again. Naturally, Kirk is able to beat Khan in a riveting confrontation, but rather than send him and his people to a penal colony, he agrees to let them settle on the wild planet, Ceti Alpha V. The episode proved to be so good, it led to the 1982 film “Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan,” arguably the best “Trek” movie of all time. —J.O.

Original airdate: Feb. 16, 1967

“Voyager” — Season 5, Episode 6

There’s something about time travel — and the twisty narrative paradoxes it can cause — that has engendered some of the best episodes of “Trek” ever made. That certainly includes this stunning “Voyager” episode, which opens with Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) and Chakotay (Robert Beltran), 15 years in the future, discovering the frozen husk of the Voyager buried inside a glacier on a barren ice planet. It turns out Kim made a critical mistake that caused the catastrophic accident, from which only he and Chakotay survived. Their unyielding fixation to right that wrong — and erase the previous 15 years from history — makes for a gripping nail-biter about regret and devotion. Not only did LeVar Burton direct, but he cameos as Capt. Geordi La Forge! —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Nov. 18, 1998

The Defector

“The Next Generation” — Season 3, Episode 10

Did a Romulan admiral really defect to the Federation, or are the Romulans perpetrating an elaborate hoax on Picard and the Enterprise crew? This wonderful episode sees the admiral in question (played by James Sloyan) claiming the Romulans are building a secret base within the Neutral Zone, forcing Picard to consider whether or not he should investigate and thus risk starting a war. It also features the excellent opening in which Picard tries to teach Data about humanity by having him act out scenes from Shakespeare’s “Henry V.” —J.O.

Original airdate: Jan. 1, 1990

Chain of Command

“The Next Generation” — Season 6, Episode 10 & 11

Lured into Cardassian territory under false pretenses, Picard is captured and systematically tortured by a ruthless interrogator, Gul Madred, in a chilling performance by David Warner. Their disturbing tête-à-tête — Picard is stripped naked and nearly broken by the end — would be enough for one of the all-time best “Trek” episodes. But this two-parter also boasts Ronny Cox as Capt. Jellico, Picard’s replacement on the Enterprise, whose prickly and demanding leadership style creates all kinds of thrilling friction among the crew. —A.B.V.

Original airdates: Dec. 14 & 21, 1992

In the Pale Moonlight

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 6, Episode 19

In this fantastic episode, Sisko grapples with the ethics of doing whatever it takes to get the Romulans to join the Dominion War on the Federation-Klingon side. This includes falsifying evidence and freeing a known criminal from Klingon prison with the help of master spy Garak (played by the always wonderful Andrew Robinson). Sisko (while recording a personal log) delivers a series of powerful monologues direct to camera about why he did what he did, ultimately deciding it was worth it in the end. —J.O.

Original airdate: April 13, 1998

The City on the Edge of Forever

“The Original Series” — Season 1, Episode 28

Accidentally hopped up on stimulants, a crazed Bones leaps through a time portal on an alien planet and winds up changing history so drastically that the Enterprise disappears. Kirk and Spock travel back to stop him, and land in New York City during the Great Depression, where they learn that Bones saved the life of Sister Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), a pacifist whose message resonates so strongly that the U.S. stays out of WWII, allowing the Nazis to conquer Europe. Alas, Kirk falls deeply in love with Keeler, establishing a classic “Trek” moral dilemma: How does one suppress their most profound personal feelings for the greater good? An all-timer that still resonates today. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: April 6, 1967

Far Beyond the Stars

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 6, Episode 13

In this Avery Brooks-directed episode, Sisko envisions himself as a Black science fiction writer in 1950s New York named Benny Russell. Russell dreams up a story about the crew of a space station led by a Black captain, but his publisher refuses to run it. This episode is memorable for many reasons, the biggest of which being its handling of racism, but it also allows the show’s main cast gets to appear without any prosthetics or makeup, as completely different characters, to great effect. —J.O.

Original airdate: Feb. 9, 1998

Yesterday’s Enterprise

“The Next Generation” — Season 3, Episode 15

The Enterprise-C, believed to have been destroyed over 20 years earlier, emerges from a temporal anomaly and resets history into a decades-long war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Tasha — killed off in Season 1 (after Denise Crosby wanted to leave the show) — is brought back to life, and falls for the Enterprise-C’s helmsman (Christopher McDonald), while Guinan implores Picard that something is desperately wrong with history and he must send the Enterprise-C back to certain doom. Somehow, this episode crams a movie’s worth of story into a nimble and rousing 44 minutes. Not a second is wasted. Outrageously great. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Feb. 19, 1990

The Inner Light

“The Next Generation” — Season 5, Episode 25

When the Enterprise comes upon a mysterious probe, Picard is suddenly hit with a signal that plunges him into a different man’s life on a dying planet. There, Picard experiences half a lifetime, with a wife, children and grandchildren, all in the space of 25 minutes. When Picard realizes this was all meant as a time capsule — a way to preserve the stories of the people of the planet, which was destroyed 1,000 years earlier by an exploding star — the revelation that he lived the life he’d long forsaken as a Starfleet captain, only to have it ripped away, is almost more than he can bear. But hoo boy, does it make for stunning, deeply moving television. In fact, almost no episode of “Trek” is better. Almost. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: June 1, 1992

The Visitor

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 4, Episode 2

Don’t watch this one without tissues handy. This emotionally devastating episode gets right to the heart of what made “DS9” so special — the relationship between Sisko and his son, Jake. Told in flashbacks by an elderly Jake (Tony Todd), the episode recounts how Sisko became unstuck in time, briefly revisiting Jake over the course of his life, and how Jake is determined to bring him back. In brief, fleeting moments, Sisko tells Jake not to worry about him and to live his life to the fullest. But Jake cannot bear the thought of losing his father forever, ultimately sacrificing his own life to restore the normal flow of time. —J.O.

Original airdate: Oct. 9, 1995

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Every Soong Character Brent Spiner Plays In Star Trek

Star trek guest star had 1 big problem with cardassian role on ds9, a ds9 classic sisko episode owes a weird debt to batman.

• The best Star Trek episodes balance social messaging with entertaining genres like comedy, horror, and romance.
• "Far Beyond the Stars" reflects on Star Trek's power to change societal attitudes about racial equality.
• "Darmok" is a profound story about communication and cultural connection.

With hundreds of episodes across 11 different TV shows, it's a tall order to pick just 20 of the best Star Trek episodes of all time. For almost 60 years, the Star Trek franchise has held a mirror to contemporary society with powerful stories that challenge audiences to do better. While that approach can sometimes run the risk of being too worthy, the best episodes of every Star Trek TV show strike a perfect balance between social messaging and populist entertainment.

Indeed, the Star Trek franchise's secret weapon is that the format enables writers to tell stories from a variety of genres, which is one of many reasons why Gene Roddenberry's vision endures to this day. The best episodes of Star Trek can be mini-movies, outlandish comedies, horror stories, or doomed romances. Across all these disparate genres, Star Trek 's best episodes are defined by a hopeful vision for the future, and a message of peace, love, and understanding between alien cultures.

The Complete Star Trek Timeline Explained

From James T. Kirk to Jean-Luc Picard, from Kathryn Janeway to Michael Burnham, we're breaking down the full chronological timeline of Star Trek.

20 "Species Ten-C"

Star trek: discovery, season 4, episode 12.

Star Trek: Discovery often struggled to live up to its potential, but "Species Ten-C" is one of its finest hours . Star Trek is at its best when it's about the lead characters trying to form a connection with strange new life. This is particularly apparent in "Species Ten-C" in which the USS Discovery go beyond the Galactic Barrier to negotiate with the enigmatic aliens behind the Dark Matter Anomaly. Heavily riffing on Denis Villeneuve's 2016 movie Arrival , the scenes where Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) try to piece together the mystery of Species Ten-C are compuslive viewing.

Star Trek: Discovery

*Availability in US

Not available

Star Trek: Discovery is an entry in the legendary Sci-Fi franchise, set ten years before the original Star Trek series events. The show centers around Commander Michael Burnham, assigned to the USS Discovery, where the crew attempts to prevent a Klingon war while traveling through the vast reaches of space.

Star Trek: Discovery was never tired of telling people to " connect " with each other, but it has actual meaning in "Species Ten-C". It's only by finding a common language that the USS Discovery crew can avert a catastrophe. As an hour of TV, "Species Ten-C" is the perfect distillation of Discovery 's strengths, and adds one of the strangest ever alien creations to the Star Trek canon.

19 "Year of Hell"

Star trek: voyager, season 4, episodes 8 & 9.

"Year of Hell" puts the crew of the USS Voyager through the wringer in ways that the franchise had never done before . Pitted against the tyrannical temporal scientist Anorax (one of Kurtwood Smith's four Star Trek roles ), Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and the crew of Voyager are pushed to the very brink. The time travel elements of "Year of Hell" mean that audiences know none of the damage done to characters like Lt. Tuvok (Tim Russ) will be permanent, but the strength of the performances means that the anguish still feels real.

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. 

"Year of Hell" is a grueling Star Trek: Voyager movie that gets to answer the question of what happens when our heroes lose. With such a high death toll, and impossibly high stakes for the entire space-time continuum, it's one of the more ambitious of Voyager 's two-parters. It's not the sort of thing that fans want from a Star Trek show every week, but for a two-part epic, it really works and gives the Voyager cast a chance to flex their acting muscles.

18 "Those Old Scientists"

Star trek: strange new worlds, season 2, episode 7.

At its core, "Those Old Scientists" is a joyous celebration of what it means to be a Star Trek fan . Transporting Ensigns Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Mariner (Tawny Newsome) to the 23rd century version of the starship Enterprise allows Star Trek: Strange New Worlds to explore the idea of fandom and legacy. In the wrong hands, Boimler and Mariner's hero worship of Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and his crew would be grating, but writers Bill Wolkoff and Kathryn Lyn never lose sight of how that impacts the Strange New Worlds characters.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

A spin-off of Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a television series that takes place before the events of the original series and follows Captain Christopher Pike as he mans the helm of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The show focuses on this previous crew of the Enterprise as they explore the galaxy with returning characters from Discovery.

"Those Old Scientists" is a warm and funny treatise on what it means to meet one's heroes. One of the best scenes in the episode is the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds characters' recognizing their own heroes, a joyous way to honor the legacy of previous Starfleet legends. "Those Old Scientists" is warm, funny, and has a touching story to tell about legacy and the pressures of living up to the expectations of others. It's also packed full of jokes that reward multiple rewatches, making it an instant classic.

17 "The Trouble With Tribbles"

Star trek: the original series, season 2, episode 15.

Occasionally, and generally to its detriment, Star Trek forgets that it's allowed to be funny. There's a long tradition of the Star Trek comedy episode that begins with David Gerrold's "The Trouble With Tribbles" back in 1967. The classic Star Trek: The Original Series episode finds Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) dealing with a grain crisis. While that sounds painfully dull, Gerrold's script introduces the Tribbles, cute fluffy aliens that breed incessantly. So embedded in the cultural zeitgeist is "The Trouble with Tribbles" that it surely inspired the plot of Joe Dante's Gremlins .

Star Trek: The Original Series

Star Trek: The Original Series follows the exploits of the crew of the USS Enterprise. On a five-year mission to explore uncharted space, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) must trust his crew - Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Forest DeKelley), Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (James Doohan), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Sulu (George Takei) - with his life. Facing previously undiscovered life forms and civilizations and representing humanity among the stars on behalf of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets, the Enterprise regularly comes up against impossible odds and diplomatic dilemmas.

"The Trouble With Tribbles" doesn't have the thematic heft or dramatic stakes of other classic Star Trek episodes, but its cultural impact transcends all of that. David Gerrold's classic comedy is one of a handful of Star Trek episodes that has entered the popular imagination , breaking through into wider cultural conversations. Almost everyone knows what a Tribble is, even if they couldn't point to Sherman's planet on a star chart.

Star Trek: Discovery Explains Season 5’s Tribble Is Not A Threat

A Tribble was sighted aboard the USS Discovery, which should be alarming, but Star Trek: Discovery season 5 explains this Tribble is no trouble.

16 "Lower Decks"

Star trek: the next generation, season 7, episode 15.

"Lower Decks" is one of the standout episodes in Star Trek: The Next Generation 's final season . As well as inspiring Mike McMahan's Star Trek: Lower Decks , the episode also provides a new perspective on TNG 's cast of characters , courtesy of the USS Enterprise-D's lower deckers. Centering on a group of lowly ensigns, "Lower Decks" reveals the harsh realities of what it means to be a Starfleet officer. By allowing an audience to get to know Ensign Sito Jaxa (Shannon Fill) before she is brutally killed by the Cardassians, TNG puts the old redshirt trope to bed once and for all.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation is the third installment in the sci-fi franchise and follows the adventures of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew members of the USS Enterprise. Set around one hundred years after the original series, Picard and his crew travel through the galaxy in largely self-contained episodes exploring the crew dynamics and their own political discourse. The series also had several overarching plots that would develop over the course of the isolated episodes, with four films released in tandem with the series to further some of these story elements.

The lack of the series regulars in "Lower Decks" may put people off, but in reducing their presence, the episode gets to provide an outsider's perspective . Audiences love Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) but to the officers that serve under him, he can sometimes be a cruel taskmaster. Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) may be a stoic Klingon warrior, but his mentorship of Ensign Sito allows him to show his vulnerable side. The final scene where Worf lets his guard down and shares a drink with the Lower Deckers is profoundly moving. It's the perfect way to keep the characters fresh in TNG 's home stretch.

15 "Scorpion"

Star trek: voyager, season 3, episode 26 & season 4, episode 1.

There are a lot better Star Trek episodes that deal with the difficult decisions faced by a Starfleet captain than "Scorpion". However, Star Trek: Voyager 's season 3 finale is the closest the show ever got to recapturing the thrill of watching Star Trek: The Next Generation 's "The Best of Both Worlds" . "Scorpion" is a hugely important two-parter in the development of Voyager , as it introduces the groundbreaking Species 8472 villains and debuted Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine. While Seven would endure far longer than Species 8472, they were still a landmark Star Trek creation.

"Scorpion" is a great Star Trek episode because it reveals that the franchise's heroes are fallible and capable of making mistakes . Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) makes a deal with the Borg Collective, because she understandably believes that Species 8472 pose a huge threat to the galaxy. The rug pull that Species 8472 were simply defending themselves is devastating and defines Janeway's mission going forward, as she seeks to atone for her mistake by ultimately bringing the Borg Collective to their knees.

9 Versions Of The Borg In Star Trek

So many versions of the Borg Collective exist in Star Trek, from TNG's original cybernetic villains to Voyager's offshoots and Picard's revivals.

14 "The Last Generation"

Star trek: picard, season 3, episode 10.

Star Trek: Picard 's finale was the final Star Trek: The Next Generation movie that the cast deserved, a fitting send-off that brought their characters' stories to a satisfying conclusion. "The Last Generation" is bigger than any Star Trek finale before or since ; an apocalyptic battle for survival that ultimately boils down to a father's love for his son. While Admiral Janeway weakened the Borg in the Star Trek: Voyager finale, it's only right that Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) gets to finish the job, resolving his decades-old trauma in the process.

Star Trek: Picard

After starring in Star Trek: The Next Generation for seven seasons and various other Star Trek projects, Patrick Stewart is back as Jean-Luc Picard. Star Trek: Picard focuses on a retired Picard who is living on his family vineyard as he struggles to cope with the death of Data and the destruction of Romulus. But before too long, Picard is pulled back into the action. The series also brings back fan-favorite characters from the Star Trek franchise, such as Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), Worf (Michael Dorn), and William Riker (Jonathan Frakes).

"The Last Generation" is everything fans could want from a final Star Trek: The Next Generation movie . There's the strong familial bond between Picard and his crew, thrilling action sequences such as the Enterprise's flight through an exploding Borg Cube, bags of humor and wit, and a handover to the Next Generation 's next generation. The only reason that Star Trek: Picard 's finale isn't higher on the list is that, as the conclusion of a ten-part story, it lacks the standalone appeal of other classic Star Trek episodes.

13 "Living Witness"

Star trek: voyager, season 4, episode 23.

"Living Witness" is an inventive episode of Star Trek: Voyager that brilliantly questions the role of Starfleet in the Delta Quadrant . Awakening in a museum in the far-future, the Doctor (Robert Picardo) is horrified to discover that the history of Voyager doesn't reflect his own experiences. "Living Witness" is an incredibly smart Star Trek episode about how unreliable narrators shape our understanding of history. Although "Living Witness" is a star vehicle for Robert Picardo, the rest of the Star Trek: Voyager cast also get their chances to shine.

"Living Witness" was the only episode of Star Trek: Voyager to be directed by Tuvok actor Tim Russ.

Star Trek: Voyager could sometimes take itself too seriously, so it's refreshing to see the cast let their hair down and play exaggerated versions of their characters. The comedy inherent in these exaggerations helps to emphasize the inaccuracies created by a lack of rigorous historical research. "Living Witness" is a classic Star Trek episode that uses a brilliant sci-fi concept - the futuristic museum - to discuss a huge philosophical point about understanding the past.

Star Trek: Voyager’s 15 Best Doctor Episodes

Star Trek: Voyager's holographic Doctor was one of the series' most popular characters, with a cadre of stellar episodes focusing on him.

12 "The Devil in the Dark"

Star trek: the original series, season 1, episode 25.

Nothing quite sums up the core ethos of Gene Roddenberry's vision like Star Trek: The Original Series season 1, episode 25, "The Devil in the Dark." An episode about the importance of not judging other species by appearances, "The Devil in the Dark" is remarkable for making an audience care about a pile of rocks. It's testament to the power of Leonard Nimoy's performance as Spock that the scene where he mind melds with the Horta doesn't feel remotely ridiculous .

"The Devil in the Dark" has the dubious honor of being the only Star Trek episode that has no female speaking parts, something that Gene Roddenberry noted in a letter to writer Gene Coon after he reviewed the episode.

"The Devil in the Dark" establishes many elements that would go on to become Star Trek tropes in the decades that followed. From setting the framework for Star Trek episodes set in caves to the central idea of seeing beyond appearances to discover the emotional truth of apparent foes, "The Devil in the Dark" cements much of the franchise's core ethos. It's also a tremendous showcase for William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

11 "The Measure Of A Man"

Star trek: the next generation, season 2, episode 9.

After a bumpy first season, "The Measure of a Man" is when Star Trek: The Next Generation starts to come into its own. An early showcase of Brent Spiner's abilities as an actor, "The Measure of a Man" puts the focus on Data, as he's forced to fight for his individuality. A hugely influential episode, Data's fight for his rights would later be echoed in the struggle of Star Trek: Voyager 's Doctor and Seven of Nine's battle to be accepted by Starfleet. Tackling huge themes like individuality, and what it means to be human, "The Measure of a Man" is a classic Star Trek morality play .

Writer Melinda Snodgrass was an attorney, and she used her experiences in the legal profession to write "The Measure of a Man".

Fighting Starfleet's desire to study Data's android body in more detail is Captain Picard, which gives Patrick Stewart an incredible opportunity. The courtroom setting is perfect for Stewart's background on the stage, and he appears to relish the opportunity to deliver big speeches about humanity. The central performances and philosophical questions are just two of many reasons that "The Measure of a Man" continues to be so influential on Star Trek .

Besides playing Data and all of his siblings in Star Trek, Brent Spiner portrayed the android's creator as well as various other Soongs in history.

10 "Balance of Terror"

Star trek: the original series, season 1, episode 14.

Another hugely influential Star Trek episode is "Balance of Terror", which had a considerable bearing on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1. One of Captain Kirk's best episodes , "Balance of Terror" depicts a Starfleet vessel facing off against a Romulan Bird-of-Prey for the first time in a century. While "Balance of Terror" rightly gets plaudits for its tense submarine movie-style atmosphere, there's also much richer material in this classic Star Trek episode.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ' season 1 finale, "A Quality of Mercy" replayed the events of "Balance of Terror" but with Captain Pike in command of the USS Enterprise.

"Balance of Terror" also has an astute point to make about prejudice and racism, as some Enterprise crew members let their historic hatred of Romulans impact their relationship with Spock. This would have been particularly pertinent in the decades following World War 2, and is still relevant now. Not only that, but while Star Trek: The Original Series had a reputation for its disposable "redshirt" characters, "Balance of Terror" kills off a minor character and gives the death some genuine dramatic heft.

9 "Duet"

Star trek: deep space nine, season 1, episode 19.

An early indicator of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's promise, "Duet" is a powerful two-hander between Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) and a suspected Cardassian war criminal, played by Harris Yulin. Kira's determination to prove that Aamin Marritza is actually Gul Darhe'el is compellingly played by Nana Visitor, and Harris Yulin proves to be an incredible foil. The moment where he tells Major Kira that for him, genocide is " a day's work " is utterly chilling.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

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.

"Duet" is one of Major Kira's best DS9 episodes , but it's also demonstrable of what made Star Trek: Deep Space Nine so unique. There was a darker tone to DS9 's treatment of morality, and Marritza's motivations for pretending to be Gul Darhee'l are fascinating to pick apart. "Duet" is a powerful statement about the need to punish war criminals, and whether true justice can ever be found for historical horrors.

Harris Yulin played Cardassian Aamin Marritza in one of DS9's best early episodes, "Duet", but there was 1 problem Yulin had with his Star Trek role.

8 "Yesterday's Enterprise"

Star trek: the next generation, season 3, episode 15.

"Yesterday's Enterprise" is an incredible episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that takes place in an alternate timeline where the Federation is still at war with the Klingon Empire. TNG never did a Mirror Universe episode , so this is the closest that they come to giving audiences the USS Enterprise-D's darkest timeline. The cause of the timeline being changed is the disappearance of the USS Enterprise-C, commanded by Captain Rachel Garrett (Tricia O'Neill). The Enterprise-C was supposed to be destroyed above a Klingon colony, proving to the Empire that the Federation fought with honor.

A younger Rachel Garrett, played by Kacey Rohl, will appear in the upcoming Star Trek: Section 31 movie on Paramount+.

"Yesterday's Enterprise" is an episode about destiny and personal sacrifice that also gives Denise Crosby's Lt. Tasha Yar a more meaningful death . By accepting their fate and returning through the temporal anomaly, the crew of the USS Enterprise-C sacrifice themselves for the future peace of the galaxy. Sacrificing the needs of the one for the needs of the many; there's nothing more Star Trek than that.

7 "The Best of Both Worlds"

Star trek: the next generation, season 3, episode 26 & season 4, episode 1.

"The Best of Both Worlds" is the gold standard of Star Trek 's season finales, ending on the greatest cliffhanger of all time. Revealing the full extent of the Borg threat. "The Best of Both Worlds" assimilated Captain Jean-Luc Picard and turned him against his former crew. "The Best of Both Worlds" is widely regarded as the moment when Star Trek: The Next Generation finally escaped the shadow of TOS , and it's easy to see why. The blockbuster stakes are like nothing that Star Trek: The Original Series could have achieved .

Between parts 1 and 2, rumors emerged that Patrick Stewart would be leaving Star Trek: The Next Generation , which only helped to promote TNG 's season 4 premiere even further.

By establishing the high-stakes season finale, "The Best of Both Worlds" changed the game for the Star Trek franchise. While the resolution may not live up to the set-up of the first episode, the assimilation of Picard, and the Battle of Wolf 359 had a lasting impact on the Star Trek universe. The iconic cliffhanger ending, where Riker orders the Enterprise to fire on its former captain, continues to be influential to this day.

6 "In The Pale Moonlight"

Star trek: deep space nine, season 6, episode 19.

Some of the best episodes of Star Trek question the cost of maintaining the utopian ideals of Starfleet and the Federation . This is best realized in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "In the Pale Moonlight", which forces Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) to make a very tough call. At the height of DS9 's Dominion War , Sisko realizes that the Federation needs an ally like the Romulan Star Empire, and he'll stop at nothing to convince them to join the war effort.

"In the Pale Moonlight" was named after the quote from Tim Burton's Batman movie.

Sisko breaks several Starfleet regulations and actively engages in criminality in his attempts to convince the Romulans to join the Federation Alliance. However, Sisko's actions are done in pursuit of the greater good, proving that Gene Roddenberry's binary vision of a peaceful utopia is a great idea in theory, but doesn't always hold in practice. By upturning Star Trek 's core ethos, "In the Pale Moonlight" demonstrated how important it was to preserve Roddenberry's utopia by whatever means necessary .

One of the greatest Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes, "In The Pale Moonlight," owes its title to Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie.

5 "The Visitor"

Star trek: deep space nine, season 4, episode 3.

More than any other Star Trek show, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine explored the realities of balancing family duty with a commitment to Starfleet. The most powerful depiction of family and fatherhood in all of Star Trek is "The Visitor" , which depicts an entire alternate timeline in which Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) loses his father. While there's a strong sci-fi idea at its heart; a man scattered across time due to a temporal accident, "The Visitor" is really about the way that grief can take over our lives.

The balance of high-concept sci-fi with emotional realism in "The Visitor" is something that all the best Star Trek episodes aspire to, but rarely achieve.

Jake Sisko's obsession with answering the question of what happened to his father completely changes the course of his life. Jake turns his back on a promising career as a writer to pursue his father across time, building to a devastating sacrifice. The older Jake Sisko is the best of Tony Todd's Star Trek roles , as the actor responds beautifully to the script. The balance of high-concept sci-fi with emotional realism in "The Visitor" is something that all the best Star Trek episodes aspire to, but rarely achieve.

4 "The Inner Light"

Star trek: the next generation, season 5, episode 25.

"The Inner Light" is another Star Trek episode that beautifully balances a high-concept sci-fi idea with something deeply profound and human. Captain Picard's encounter with an alien probe allows him to live through the dying days of an extinct civilization as Kamin, a humble iron weaver on the planet Kataan. It's never made clear whether Kamin was a real person, or if he was an amalgam of experiences assigned to Picard. Whatever the truth, Picard's experiences as Kamin have a profound effect on him, represented by his Ressikan flute.

"The Inner Light" has so many layers to it, making it one of the most thematically rich episodes of Star Trek ​​​​​​​ of all time.

Kamin's ambiguity gets more compelling when rewatching "The Inner Light", because it casts doubts on Picard's assertions that he never wanted a family. If Kamin is a simulation specifically designed for Picard, then the iron weaver's loving family reflects something Jean-Luc felt he could never have . "The Inner Light" has so many layers to it, making it one of the most thematically rich episodes of Star Trek of all time.

3 "City on the Edge of Forever"

Star trek: the original series, season 1, episode 28.

"City on the Edge of Forever" is an astonishing episode of Star Trek: The Original Series that still holds up nearly 60 years later. It's a classic butterfly effect conundrum, with Kirk and Spock traveling back to 1930s America to stop Dr. McCoy changing the course of history. However, "City on the Edge of Forever" is so much deeper than that, as it quickly becomes a romantic tragedy. Joan Collins' Edith Keeler is the most important of Captain Kirk's love interests , because you genuinely believe in their romance.

"City on the Edge of Forever" is a romantic tragedy that taps into the unique responsibilities of being a Starfleet officer to heartbreaking effect.

So it's devastating when it becomes apparent that Kirk's love interest and the march of history are on a collision course with each other. The climax of "City on the Edge of Forever", when Kirk is forced to stop Bones from saving Edith's life, is devastating. Kirk's inability to look at the accident is an astute acting choice by William Shatner, who turns in one of his finest Star Trek performances. "City on the Edge of Forever" is a romantic tragedy that taps into the unique responsibilities of being a Starfleet officer to heartbreaking effect.

2 "Far Beyond The Stars"

Star trek: deep space nine, season 6, episode 13.

"Far Beyond the Stars" is a powerful depiction of racism that doesn't rely on the usual Star Trek allegories. Directed by Avery Brooks , Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's finest hour reflects on how far society has come since TOS tried to depict a racially diverse future, and how far it still needs to go to achieve it. "Far Beyond the Stars" doesn't shy away from racial slurs, or gut-wrenching violence to make the point that the dark days of segregation may be gone, but racist attitudes still persist.

It's often said that the past is another country, but in Star Trek terms, the racist 1950s are another planet for Captain Sisko.

In 2024, "Far Beyond the Stars" has lost none of its power, which says a lot about how far from reach Gene Roddenberry's utopia still is . It's often said that the past is another country, but in Star Trek terms, the racist 1950s are another planet for Captain Sisko. "Far Beyond the Stars" dispenses with the sci-fi allegories to give us an unblinking representation of racist violence in America's recent history, which proves that Star Trek 's message of acceptance and understanding is still as vital as ever.

1 "Darmok"

Star trek: the next generation, season 5, episode 2.

"Darmok" is the greatest episode of Star Trek of all time, because it's a profound mediation on communication and commonality. While it's technically a remake of Star Trek: The Original Series ' "Arena", retooled for Shakespearian actor Patrick Stewart, "Darmok" has much more to say about the need to find common ground. Star Trek always relies heavily on the universal translator technology, so "Darmok" flips that on its head by introducing the Tamarians, an alien species whose language doesn't reflect the universal dominance of American English .

The quest for deeper cultural understanding and relating to species that are unlike our own is pure Star Trek...

It's revealed that Star Trek 's Tamarians communicate via culturally specific metaphors. Therefore, Picard, Data, and Counselor Troi have to properly understand Tamarian culture to translate their language. The quest for deeper cultural understanding and relating to species that are unlike our own is pure Star Trek , which is why "Darmok" represents the franchise's finest hour in its near-60 year history.

All episodes of Star Trek are available to stream on Paramount+.