“Timeless”

My only issues with this episode are minor at most; Seven gets drunk and the doc tells her that her "blood/synthehol" level is... some large number. Isn't the whole premise of synthehol that it's a non-alcoholic substance that can't get you drunk? Maybe it's a borg thing.

The other issues, while minor, are probably necessary for the plot, and therefore excusable. I'm a bit iffy on Harry's initial plan in the "past"; If future Harry is so adament that it took 10 years to get the right corrections (which turned out to be wrong), and he can't do it in three minutes, was past Harry just extraordinarily naive to believe he could make the corrections in realtime while leading Voyager? Or was he just very unaware of the difficulty? Why didn't they bother to test THIS plan on the holodeck like they did the drive itself? It's also convenient that Harry's message gets to Seven exactly after the comline to the Flyer gets knocked out, and before it's too late to stop the slipstream safely. Kim presumably had to guestimate the four minutes before Seven's death that he set as the destination time for the message; yet this isn't considered by Kim when the plan doesn't work. Of course, we of the audience have seen the past and know that this isn't the problem, but Kim in the future can't know this; I would like to have seen a more accurate way of determining the exact time to send the message. They still have the flyer; I would think with all the logs these Starfleet ships keep, one of them would have the time he sent the wrong correction to Voyager, or when the comlink was lost. This would eliminate the doctor's entire reason for being there, however.

My only beef of a creative nature (non-plot) was the way the crash of Voyager was handled. When Kim and Chakotay find Voyager, it's mentioned that several decks are compacted and that the ship must have crashed at full impulse (that would be 1/4 the speed of light - only about 270 million KPH... not too fast). I don't know why the writers add dialogue like that (a speed) when they know the visual team is not likely to match to it. I didn't even see any evidence of damage to the ship from the initial impact (certainly no crushed decks - nothing near the damage I'd expect a ship slamming into the ground at even the speed of gravity). And then they cut away while the ship is coasting along the ground. I'm torn on whether that was a good or bad decision, but I'm still sort of curious how the ship ended up under ice as it was. Perhaps it crashed during the winter, and was found during the winter, but there was a nice summer in between where the ice melted and the ship settled in a pond.

Finally, I wanted to point out the excellent scene between LaForge and Chakotay where the former acts somewhat unlike most "law enforcement" characters on Trek - he doesn't just angrily demand they stop and turn themselves in, but he has a real conversation, understanding Kim and Chakotay's reasons for doing what they are doing, even mentioning that he might be doing the same thing in their positions - a sentiment I thought had a bit more impact on the viewer given the fact that we know LaForge and his (at least former) crew and can imagine LaForge doing everything he can for the old TNG crew. I also liked the "good luck" exchanged between the two, as well as fact that the writers were consistant in not having LaForge later turn pushy by insisting that they beam over once Chakotay declined following the start of the breach.

Where were 29th Century guys? I thought they prevented alterations in the timeline. I guess in this case they cut the Voyager crew some slack.

If the Delta Flyer can make it home in a slipstream, why not build 9 or 10 more Flyers, cram the crew on to those and leave Voyager behind? :)

I love love love this episode. Except for one thing. The Slipstream lets them travel 10,000 in a matter of minutes and Janeway orders the damn thing taken apart! I could almost hear the log entry: "If the crew can't get us home in one big jump, then I'm not interested. Its the principle of the thing!" :)

I interpreted the dismantling of the slipstream drive to be Captain Janeway's way of not pressing her, and the crew's, luck.

Am I the only one wondering why Janeway didn't promote Harry at the end of the episode?

Jake, keep in mind Ensign Kim was the one insisting on taking the slipstream trip (even after Lt. Paris proved its instability) and the one who failed to get Voyager safely through the slipstream. His adventure in time travel was simply him making up for his earlier screw-ups. If he hadn't screwed-up earlier, there would have been no need for his heroics later. That's why he didn't deserve a promotion.

Well, didn't he make up for his fatal error in, arguably, the best possible way. And even if he didn't do anything in this episode, he certainly should have made Lt. by this point in the series according to Data (in TNG's "Datalore" Data says one is usually an Ensign for 3 years; Harry's been one for at least 4 by this point, and would still be one by the end of the series).

For some reason it was decided that Harry Kim would always be an Ensign. Notice when Tom Paris was repromoted to Lieutenant Harry Kim notes he still had not been promoted; everyone just ignores him.

The most confusing thing in this episode for me is that the slipstream is presumably based on the technology they discovered at the end of season 4 (when evil bloke wanted to trick them back into borg space). This technology would get them home in approx. 3 months according to that episode. Suddenly here we have Janeway planning to be in the Alpha Quadrant "tomorrow".

In the US Navy, one typically receives a promotion from Ensign to LTJG in 12-18 months, assuming your nose is clean and your shoes are shined.
That Harry never gets a promotion is merely a necessary plot device to keep him a "green rookie"-type stock character. Which is fine, by the way. These are stories, after all.

I was also wondering where the Time Police were, by the way. The whole idea of temporal enforcement, while logical from an in-universe point of view, is an absolute killer for the sake of drama, since no one wants to write a spec script that says:
(1). Tried to time travel.
(2). Stopped by time police.
(3). The End.
Besides, Captain Braxton does show up later in season 6.

It's an excellent episode. Well directed, emotionally strong. However (and this is a big however), I've always been extremely ambivalent about time-travelling in Star Trek and this episode provides further ammunition for it. First ofcourse, there was the absence of the time police, as already noted. This episode, as all others featuring time-travel should've been null and void from the start.
Moreover, if the Borg have technology that allows them to send messages to their past-selves, then what is stopping them from making any mistakes ever? They could have warned themselves about species 8472 and how to defeat them, just to give one example. They'd essentially never be beaten.

This brings me to a misgiving I have with this series, and that's its tendency to create huge inconsistenties with the Borg (maybe just because it features them so often). We've had the Borg utilising deceptive diplomatic tactics (re negotiating with Janeway to defeat species 8472). Yet they're supposedly unable of deception since they have no need for it in a collective. We've also learned that the Borg posses slip-stream technology that can bring them to Earth in a matter of months (according to Hope and Fear), or in a matter of hours (according to this episode), yet they somehow never got around to sending entire swarms of cubes to Earth to assimilate it (and they do are interested in doing so, as we've learned in the past).
Actually, they could have assimilated the entire Milky Way galaxy before James T. Kirk was even born.

The writers of Voyager really should've been more careful writing episodes featuring the Borg and time-travel, because they tend to blow huge holes in established knowledge of ST-universe.

Tuvok gets promoted to Lt. Commander somewhere along Voyager's run, which presuambly would have opened up a Lt. position for Kim. Alas, no. Captain by night, ensign by day, right til the end.

I wonder why people attack every time travel plot with "Where are the time police?".

These people dont spend their days trying to correct or prevent every temporal incursion that has ever happened. Rememeber, except when interacting with the 29th century, all time travel plots in all of Star Trek are part of 29th century history. These events have already happened for the people of the 29th century, they werent caused by someone in their time.

Infact if they were to stop Voyager, or anyone else in the 24th century, from engaging in time travel plots, they would themselves be violating the Temporal Prime Directive. They would be changing their own history. And thats just bad management.

Oh my lord. I am sick and tired of this. This episode is NOT good, there is no point saying it is good just because it has a cool shot of Voyager crashing into an ice planet, and because it has LeVar Burton. With all due respect, LeVar Burton? Is that the best they can give us? For DS9's 100th anniversary they gave us the entire cast of the Original Series. There is a whole list of things DS9 did better than Voyager, but I still like Voyager, I just think this episode is criminally overated

The most over-rated episode of Voyager! No better than other time travel stories. To give this **** stars is just plain ridiculous. Garrett Wang is a competant actor, but his efforts in this episode (where he is required to stretch himself) are poor. It's also oh! so conveniant that Voyager stays intact after crashing into the ice planet. LeVar Burton's presence adds nothing.

@Will: Actually, DS9's 100th episode was "The Ship"; "Trouble" happened a few episodes later.

I enjoyed this episode a great deal; though I found old Harry's "angst" to be a bit overdone in spots, his final cry of triumph at the end was just about the best thing I've ever seen Wang do on the show; it felt very real after all the years of dealing with his (Harry's, not Wang's) failure.

If I had to rate the show with a gun to my head, I'd say 3 1/2.

If I read this right, Harry's mistakes are interesting. In the course of the story we see the crash as a result of his first attempt to correct the crash - in fact, his corrections from the future could be what caused the crash in the first place!

As suggested above, it was established in "Future's End" that the temporal police interfere in things which frak up their canonical timeline - so Voyager wasn't fated crash in the prime timeline, obviously.

The real inconsistency is that in "Hope and Fear" they got Slipstream up and running at a moment's notice and maintained it for a pursuit of the faux Dauntless (with weapons discharges) and for a while afterwards. Plus they have knowledge of (related) Borg Transwarp tech to draw on. The Slipstream here was just too hinky to make sense in that context. Let alone that they can get Slipstream, Borg shields, portals to Fluidic Space (the Borg assimilation process re-armoured the hull in "Scorpion," the crew could surely do something along those lines), open at the drop of a hat, fix the guy's Coaxial Drive from "Vis a Vis"...

This is the episode where the Doc's mobile emitter suddenly starts working again, without explanation as to how it was recovered or repaired.

Great to see Geordi.

But who designed the StarFleet comm badge of the future, the London 2012 committee? And doesn't the Challenger look INCREDIBLY like the Enterprise...considering the Enterprise was the Flagship of the fleet, how can there be sister ships? Come on Voyager - continuity, please??!!

Harry Kims finest moment - The triumphant "YES" just before the DF goes boom.

I loved this story when it was first broadcast over 10 years ago, and it is probably my favourite Voyager episode. It’s a shame that the series couldn’t be this good every week, but in retrospect I would say that Season 5 is the strongest so far (I’m working my way through the box-sets).

On a side note – You just gotta love the Doctor… He is neck and neck with Data for best ST character ever.

Paul, the Enterprise certainly can have a sister ship. In the TNG episode "Contagion", its sister ship (the Yamato) was destroyed. Why can't it later have another sister ship?

My main issue with this episode was Janeway's choice to land the ship on a planet. With inertial dampeners offline, and hull breaches happening all over the ship, the Voyager crew should have:

1)AVOIDED landing the ship,
2)AVOIDED any kind of acceleration/deceleration
3)Tried evacuation by shuttles & escape pods

(it's b/c they landed the ship that they were destroyed)

Other than that, the episode is very solid.

For me, this was where the Voyager story ended, in the real timeline.

All further adventures they had, was in an alternative universe, one of the ones we saw the Enterprise from at the end of Parallel in TNG (but not the one where Riker's ship is all thats left of the Federation!!)

So in theory, they could go back to any point, preferably to when the Caretaker nuked the atmosphere of the Ocampa's homeworld... or better still, even further back and stop the Borg coming about.

In the normal timeline though, let the epitaph read "The Starship Voyager crashed with the loss of all hands. (bet you wish you promoted Ensign Kim to something higher now!)"

There are loads of Galaxy Class ships (Enterprise-D sisters).. especially in the various Dominion battle episodes in DS9 or heck even the DS9 opening has one docked.

I do find it hard to believe they're still using about a 30 year old ship design (at that point 15 years into the future) but that's another story!

Anyway.. very good episode. Admittedly I'm a sucker for the time travel stuff. About all I have negative to say is that it seemed very slow for the first act or so but that's only minor. Once it got going it showed all these awesome things I thought Voyager had left behind like continuity, consequence and characterisation. Who'd have thought it?! Easily one of the best episodes of Voyager so far in the series, and a good sign after an awful Season 4 and shaky start to Season 5.

Galaxy designs in the tech manual are supposed to endure for a hundred years, which considering the excelsior has lasted that long isn't that strange. They'd probably modify systems internally often, but seeing as how the current carrier enterprise is 50ish and a starship probably doesn't go through the same kind of aging, it makes sense to me.

But this ep was quite nice and I like the way it unfolded slowly. And there was some great acting all around. Crazy determined long hair Harry was a nice change of pace. one little thing I liked was that ace pilot tom paris was the cautious one and straight-laced harry kim was the one to take the risk. Also geordi making an appearance tied it into the bigger star trek universe and makes sense behind the scenes too. I just love star trek crossovers! Though, the first time I heard captain la forge was appearing in a voyager episode, I immediately thought it was gonna be geordi's mother who'd gone missing! This was just a really great episode and I enjoyed it a lot.

One of Voyager's strongest episodes definitely. It would probably be churlish of me to note that it doesn't have a fraction of the power or resonance of DS9's "The Visitor", an episode of reminded me of a fair bit - but for what it is, it works very well. Although the reset is inevitable, it's still so engaging that it entertains throughout.

Interesting that Garrett Wang seems far more comfortable (and gives a far stronger performance) as the bitter older Kim than the regular Kim. Only Chakotay's presence seems a bit superfluous here and comes across as a little too bland - and his girlfriend is the epitome of pointless. But great to see Geordi in a cameo role. Good stuff

Doc: Ensign!
Kim: I go by Harry now.

uh....didn't he always? Ensign is just a job title.

An amazing piece of work! Brannon Braga's work during Voyager's fifth and best year was definitely a career highlight. Although some fans will never forgive him for Enterprise(or Threshold). I think he and Joe Menosky were a more natural fit as writing partners given their sensibilities than he and Ron Moore.

Enjoyable, but as others have mentioned, I just don't get the urgency, the all-or-nothing attitude the Voyager crew takes regarding the slipstream drive. We have one technobabble line about how the crystals will decay or something... But so what? They got to this point in a few months. Why can't they do it again? Find some new crystals and make another 10-year trip (or 5-year, to not push their luck) in a year or two. At the very least, make a test run, and call a 30-second flight progress! The cautious, one-step-at-a-time approach in Hope and Fear seemed a lot more believable.

Maybe someone mentioned this, but Season 5 of VOY was set in 2375, so the future setting in this episode was 2390. I would think a Galaxy class vessel like the one LaForge commanded would be rather obsolete by then. A Prometheus class like the one from Message In A Bottle would have been better...

Finally a really good harry kim episode! Actors can't get better if they don't get stretched. I'm glad they finally treated the harry charater some respect. I just wish everyone has had some promotion by now. Janeway come on!

BTW, great job levar, geordi is one of my favorites. Made me want to be an engineer and i did lol.

@jack prometheus is too small for what galaxy class starships are meant for: floating cities in space with starfleet and civilian crews meant for deep long explorations. In the trek universe galaxy class is the biggest for quite some time. Ent-E is actually smaller. 15-20years isn't that long a time if you think about it. Think 747 still in use or nuclear subs still active. Maybe at this point galaxy class is just starting to be replaced.

Jay, I think when Harry said, "I go by Harry now" (not Ensign) it was a reference to the fact that he had resigned from Starfleet.

This is Braga/Menosky high concept Trek at its pinnacle - its absolute best. As I said in the comments of "Drone," this is why I watched Voyager throughout its lowest moments. Because episodes like this were bound to happen sooner or later.

I love Drunk Seven!

I enjoyed the episode (I just ignore the nonsensical time travel contradictions), but I think it could've been even better without Chakotay along for the ride. Harry had the doctor to play off of, and that was enough. I could've bought Chakotay coming along to rescue Janeway because he never stopped carrying a torch for her, but not when he brings a girlfriend along.

Tessa was even stranger: she's so attached to Chakotay that she goes renegade with them and risks death....for the sake of ending their time together and even their memories of each other? What's her motivation again? Just another Chakotay romance that fizzles into nothing.

Did Chakotay say"it looks like VOyager hit the ice at full impulse"? From the crash scene, it was clearly not going anywhere near what that speed seems to be established to be...if it had I would think there wouldn't be a piece of Voyager left larger than a nickel.

Alternate future episodes are fun.
Drunk Seven was a riot 'You are my Mentor and We are One.' both excellent lines.
Some great FX, pulling back to see Voyager under the ice for the first was amazing.

Can see this as the catalyst for Janeway to change the future in Endgame. After all if Harry can do it to save Voyager why can't she.

I liked Voyager Harry, future Harry not as much.
Again, wondered why he was never promoted, can only assume he gets a Captaincy as soon as they got home.

This really was a classic episode, pretty much near flawless. I thought Garret Wang showed an energy and dynamic presence normally completely void in his acting performances as dorky Harry. Maybe he's just better suited for darker or more edgier roles, I really bought him as this bitterly desperate and unstable Bad Ass Harry.

The writers would do well to at least attempt to play to Wangs' strengths and revive Harry from the depths of blandness....unfortunately I know this was not to be and I nearly groaned outloud when I read from the comments that dorky Harry is going nowhere, not even in rank!

Alas, it doesn't effect this episode and how extremely good it is.

TH,

Yes, they fixed the Seven drunkenness thing in a later episode by flat-out saying that she can get drunk from synthehol. It was the highly entertaining season 6 or 7 episode where they hide the doctor in Seven's body and he takes control. Can't blame the guy for wanting to experience food and drink :P

Regarding the episode, definitely one of the best. Right up there there with "Living Witness" and "Year Of Hell."

Vegetarian Chakotay eats salami?

I enjoyed this episode a lot - and that's coming from someone who despises time-travel episodes.

The visuals in this episode were just great, details like Voyager under the ice and the celebraion in slow-motion just made thus episode stand out to me.

I also loved many of the little character moments, somethign we generally don't get enough of on this show.

It's just too bad that this episode, like most of Voyager in general, doesn't do human drama well. The episodea are usually filmed and edited in such a way, that we don't get a chance to "linger" on the emotinal impact on a character. Some TNG or DS9 pacing would've meant a world of difference for the way we perceive older Harry in this episode - as it is, we get a sense that he's bitter an all that, fine ... but we never get under his skin, the epsiode doesn't make us feel what he feels. As a consequence, I (as a viewer) don't really care whether he suceeds or not, it's all more or less a matter of going through the morions, getting from point A to point B of the story.

So, to me this episode is enjopyable and entertaining - not "great" or "fantastic" or even something I'll remember a week after watching it, unless I really strain my memory.
But that's just the nature of Voyager as a whole (in my eyes).

Yes, they fixed the Seven drunkenness thing in a later episode by flat-out saying that she can get drunk from synthehol.
-------

That doesn't fix anything. It's a crap excuse for a previous plot hole, and makes no sense.

For Chakotay's excuse to do this: I think he still harbors a subconscious romantic interest with Janeway.

No, I am not shipping them, I am just being honest here. It would explain the line in the episode between him and his new lover, Tess, about his heart still being on Voyager after he heard Janeway's log entry, speaks volumes about him. I know his denial in "Shattered" and series finale gave us an unexpected lover interest with Seven and Chakotay, but there is no chemistry for Seven.

(Also for the readers of the Star Trek Novels, including "Full Circle", yes big spoilers, Chakotay and Janeway are a verified couple).

With that explained, I thought the episode lacked something; we knew it was an obvious reset button, so I wasn't really interested or drawn in. Harry is a more serious character, which I liked, but it just gets reset at the end. There is little real character development.

7.5/10

Certainly an overated episode.

Sure, nothing in this kind o episode pleases me more than seeing one of the insane, dumb, unprofessional risks taken by the captain quite often finally ending up in the obvious disgrace they should have caused many other times before this.

But common, it is offensive to watch yet another insane suicidal decision that felt completely bizarre in that artificial sudden sense of uregency to try a crazy new way to get home. It's utterly absurd. The crew develops an experimental idea in a ship that is lost from home for more than 4 years. And the captain is ready to try it even after knowing that there is a fundamental flaw!


What to say about Chakotay in this episode? Only that it is still painfully annoying to watch he agreeing once again with the captain's crazy decision of the wee, in yet-another-are-you-with-me-scene.

The episode had many other issues. From the corny countdown where the action happens when it reaches zero, to the super corny (and fairly silly) message that Kim sends to him in the past.

Yes, it was a well executed episode in terms of dialogue, especial effects, camera, etc. And yes, there were good pieces like Chatkotay and Kim as fugitives in the future. Still, here we have to swallow that they are willing to go back in time and make a history change of, in this case at least, pottentially enormous consequences. Without a moral doubt shown on screen.

Ok, it was sort of entertaining to watch. But it was not exactly good and is easily the most overated episode of Voyager I have found in this website so far. Certainly not more than 2 stars for me.

I just finished watching this episode... it had been a few years, but I always remember it being one of Voyager's best moments. God knows I have my issues with Voyager overall, but I stand by the fact that some of the entire franchises' greatest shows happen to be Voyager episodes. OK, maybe not "some", but three or four....and this would most definitely be one of them (and the only non-Doctor centered one as well)

I just wanted to comment on a very subtle moment that was really well done. Right after they rescue the Doctor and bring him on board the Flyer, Kim fills the Doc and us in on the back story - he says something like, "ka-boom...thank you, Ensign Kim." And the Doctor looks over at Chakotay, who stares back with this expression that speaks volumes. An entire conversation is there just in that moment of eye contact. The Doctor is taken aback by Kim's self loathing and overriding guilt, and Chakotay is telling him, "He's been doing this for 15 years now...I stopped trying to talk sense into him a long time ago." Or something like that. Fascinating.

Anyway, Voyager is usually about as subtle as a sledgehammer, so this quiet little glance really resonated with me, and I'd appreciated it. In a lot of ways I think it's a testament to the acting chops of Picardo and Beltran.

I guess I missed something...
If they can send a message (even a video message!)
back in time, why couldn't he just tell them to not even try the slip stream drive in the first place?

This is my problem with a lot of lazy time travel stories. Why go back to a point in time just before an major event? Why not much earlier?

Harry blamed himself for the crew getting killed. He became obsessed about getting the crew home. It never occurred to Harry to simply to keep the crew from crashing Voyager into that ice planet.

The only reason Harry's and Chakotay's mission was successful was because the Doctor told Harry to try to send a message to Seven that would save the crew, even though it would not get the crew home. At that time, Harry was having a nervous breakdown, his attempt to get the crew home having failed.

So basically, Harry tried for the whole hog (crew home), failed, then (on the Doctor's advice) sent a last second message to Seven to cause her to inadvertently shutdown the slipstream drive and thereby save the crew.

"Can you eject the core?"

"No, emergency systems are offline."

Man, how crappy are all the safety functions in Trek's version of the future? You've got what amounts to antimatter warheads zipping about the galaxy getting into precarious situations with no reliable way to avoid catastrophic failure.

@ Shaen

We have nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines now. Last time I checked, we don't have an easy way to clean it up should something go wrong.

It's not implausible that future humans would take the same risk, especially since 99.999 whatever percent of space is empty.

While this episode does have its moments (Drunk Seven!) it's alright at best. Not a four star romp.

Watching it, it really bothers me that Janeway decided it was a good idea to land on a planet. Why didn't she just cruise on toward the alpha quadrant, or, if she wanted to regain control of the ship, just put it in orbit of the planet until reverse thrusters could work properly?

You know, this would have been the perfect episode to get rid of Harry and Chakotay. If the slipstream drive shot them to the alpha quadrant on Voyager's first attempt, then it could have shot them back home on the second attempt too. That way the ship would still be ten years ahead, and the two blandest characters on the series would be gone. Now that's a different direction.

@ Shaen

We have nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines now. Last time I checked, we don't have an easy way to clean it up should something go wrong.

=========

Man, you need to learn more about aircraft carriers.

OK, have I forgotten some important bit of Trek canon? Where is it established that synthehol doesn't get you drunk? And what would be the point of *that*? We already have low/non-alcoholic beverages. Wouldn't the point of synthehol be *to* get a little tipsy, without the other effects of alcohol, like brain and liver damage (though the latter, at least, is easily treatable by Federation medicine)...?

DLPB, if you're going to suggest that somebody else doesn't know what they're talking about, maybe you should offer your own interpretation, or some facts, or something, in counter. There are assuredly nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in use today, such as the GHW Bush, now launching sorties against ISIS. Do you believe its reactors are invincible and inviolable forever?

DLPB, is there an easy way to clean up radioactive contaminants in the environment? I would hope you've heard of Chernobyl and Fukushima before.

I loved this episode. I don't really understand the negative comments about Garret Wang's acting when I see an episode like this. He was great in this one. I think I can say I liked this episode a lot more than anything in season 4.

Just watched this ep over at streamup.com.

"The Slipstream lets them travel 10,000 in a matter of minutes and Janeway orders the damn thing taken apart! I could almost hear the log entry: "If the crew can't get us home in one big jump, then I'm not interested. Its the principle of the thing!"

This is exactly what I was thinking. Why couldnt they make little jumps at a time? 3 star ep from me.

I'm always one to question Janeway's command decisions but....

"KIM: The benamite crystals at the heart of this engine have already started to decay. It could take years to synthesise more. I don't know about the rest of you, but I didn't do all this work just to be stopped by a point four two phase variance. No offence, Captain."

"JANEWAY: It could be our only chance to use the Quantum Drive.
CHAKOTAY: True, but if you showed this data to any Starfleet engineer, they'd think we were out of our minds. We can find another way home. We've waited this long."

The episode seems to establish that the slipstream tech is a limited time opportunity. It's entirely possible they dismantled it and then spent years synthesizing more crystals and reviewing data for another attempt, but that Janeway didn't want to risk it again given what "happened/didn't happen" last time.

I suppose they could try to open up little jumps, but we're not even sure that they can. Maybe they little crystals can't open up 8 little 5 year slipstreams, and the 10 year jump almost got them killed.

I guess my point is that I'm just accepting that there's a good reason they can't make a bunch of little 3 year jumps that they don't have time to discuss on camera.

If you read the novels, Slipstream actually does get developed into a working technology, but at an extreme cost in lives and interstellar stability (read "Destiny" and "Typhon Pact" series). I wished Voyager had one or two more seasons after they got back to the alpha quadrant and dealt with the rest of the trek universe and their new tech.

Still, this is Star Trek Voyagers' time travel story, just like TOS had City on the Edge of forever, TNG had Yesterday's Enterprise, DS9 the Visitor.... (E2 doesn't count), you have to give the writers credit where it is due.

I am a little saddened and baffled that, in the future, engineers and possibly researchers will abandon the practice of testing new inventions before using them. Of course I'm talking about Kim's solution. He and Tom Paris were testing the system in the holo suite, confirmed that it didn't work, conveniently skipped trying out Kim's fix, and went out to try it (of course, the materials of whatever they had assembled would degrade if they didn't go RIGHT NOW).

Then, Kim in the future spends 15 years studying a new solution, not testing it (at least it's understandable, since he might not have had a chance at a holo projector), not making obvious plan B (aborting the flight instead of making it work), and, especially, not thinking of the obvious plan A: just send the message at a reasonable time, like, for example, before the last minute.

I do hope that I missed something vital to make everything, well, make sense. But as of now, I find myself in the rather weird position of being in agreement with the review, and disagreeing with the rating by a significant margin.

Well, I'll be damned. An interesting Harry Kim story. Truth be told, I didn't think it was ever gonna happen. But I'll give credit where credit is due. Garrett Wang did really well for this episode. He played his aged character perfectly as well as his more assertive, determined younger self.
For what it's worth, I also like the subtle make up use to make Harry and Chakotay appear aged. It's only been 15 years, so they shouldn't have changed too much, but you should still see a few more lines, a bit more grey in their hair. Make up did a great job with that.

I'm not going to try to poke holes in the timetravel aspect of the story, although there were definitely a few details that made my DOES NOT COMPUTE alarm go off in my head, but like Janeway says in this episode: Don't even bother.
Timetravel is always riddled with holes and inconsistencies. I must say, so far Voyager later season really outshine their earlier ones. I haven't seen if the trend will hold all the way to the finish line yet, but I'm liking the improvements so far.

Overall, Voyager was never my #1 favorite (DS9, then TNG) and I stopped watching after maybe mid Season 4 and never saw this episode before yesterday.

DAMN THIS WAS AWESOME.

If only all of VOY could have been more like this one. And wow Kim was actually awesome in this for once.

"Why didn't she just cruise on toward the alpha quadrant, or, if she wanted to regain control of the ship, just put it in orbit of the planet until reverse thrusters could work properly? "

I believe the ship was tumbling around crazy and was in the process of breaking up. So while I can't say that landing was the best move, I don't think that remaining tumbling in space was an option at that point.

Can someone tell me why Hope & Fear is considered bad and this so good? I think they are both near;y equally good episodes..what do you uthink

Jammer, you are spot on! This is one of the best episodes of the entire series, and was thoroughly enjoyable to watch... And for all of you who commented that it was terrible, what in the hell is the matter with you? If you can't be satisfied with a stand-out episode like this, then you must be in a permanent state of depression or anger, or whatever. Seriously, this was as well of a written, acted, and directed of an episode of Trek that you're ever going to get, and you still bitch and moan. Get some therapy already... Geez!

Two stars. Jammer downgrades a lot of episodes for being turn off your brain entertainment, but four stars for this? This episode has more holes than plot, bad logic and bad writing.

Time travel stories like these are cheap thrills, but no real meat.

"Mr. Neelix, you are an unending source of astonishment."

Deadpan Tuvok at his finest.

This is one of the best episodes of the series.

It could have easily been made a movie. The plot is mindblowing very well executed.

Kim's acting is so different from the usual optimist Kim who sees good in everything. Here we have a man full of guilt, self-loathing and absolute no positive emotions other than his hope of restoring Voyager. When he thinks he failed, the man is a mess.

I can see both sides of the debate. On the one hand, the plot did kinda frustrate me a bit, as I think I'm getting sick of time travel plots. And it felt too much like it was trying to be a Very Special Episode. I mean, plot-wise, there's not much there, right? We have a rehash of Hope and Fear, with the possibility of the slipstream drive bringing people home. We have a rehash of Threshold, in which a risky endeavor is approved despite the risks. And we have a rehash (admittedly much better) of Non Sequiter, where Harry makes it home yet still remained obsessed with getting back to Voyager. Basically, what I'm saying is, it could have been trite.

What saved it, and probably what is giving it such accolades, is the artwork and direction. The atmosphere of the episode is just incredible, from that first scene showing Voyager in the ice (one of the best teasers Voyager's done since Scorpion), to the excellent back and forth between the future and the present, to the way the events impacted Harry Kim. The story may have been just ok, but the execution of the story was stellar. Because of that, I think this episode was great, but perhaps not quite four star material. But I can certainly understand why some fall on one side or the other.

Guess I don't have much to say about this one...

The best thing about this episode is the directing. Jammer mentioned it in his review, but the juxtaposing of scenes from future to present really brings a sense of urgency to what could have been another run-of-the-mill time travel episode. I too like how the story was set up to make you think Future Harry had solved the slipstream problem and his future efforts would get Voyager home (not just save it).

The Borg temporal transmitter is also an interesting piece of Sci-Fi. It's not like Future Harry could interact with Voyager of the past, but I like the idea that he could leave a message in a bottle for Voyager to ponder and act upon. The limitations of the transmitter frankly makes the story more believable, and I applaud it's introduction.

The one thing that bothered me was Chakotay's sidekick. What exactly is she getting out of this? The episode implied it was all about sex, but she must realize that if she changes time she's going to lose that too right? Her presence feels just unnecessary or underdeveloped.

One of the best episode of Voyager, 3.5 - 4 stars here.

I love that the 29th century time police are usually ("Future's End," and "Relativity," implicitly this and "Endgame") depicted as pretty incompetent or at least highly limited. However, it is an interesting idea that preventing timeline changes made by people before the 29th century would itself be changing the timeline.

A pretty great episode except that it bothered me that the Doctor rather than Kim came up with the somewhat obvious alternative at the end.

Ironically I felt this was a strong Harry episode, but not for the reasons most others have given. For me, bottom line is that Harry Kim is still a screw up (after 10 years work he still screws up the calculations) and needs the Doctor to bail him out at the end with a simple enough idea. And that is a brave old move on the writer's part in my view.

What else do we have? Top of the line production values, great FX shots, great direction (the slow-mo celebration and the intercutting between the past and present shuttle) - and a guest appearance from Geordi too.

I also like the fact that Janeway basically tells us that time travel episodes make no sense. And we get drunk Seven telling the Doctor he's her best mate. Can't ask for more than that in terms of entertainment value. 4 stars.

Perhaps because I'm sick of Steven Moffat's bs time travel plots in Doctor Who, I came to this with a jaundiced eye. You can't change the past, it would be really, really bad. So terrible. Until you can for the purposes of the plot. It seems to me a fake kind of shouting - this is DRAMATIC. And I love Janeway's comment at the end: to the effect, don't think about it. Maybe if I'd have watched this 15 years ago I'd have been less irritated. Now I need to watch Drone again.

OK, I do enjoy this episode but to think Harry develops at all is a little off the mark.

Think about it. He failed, Voyager crashes, everyone dies.

He makes it, grumbles for 15 and calculate for 10 years and....

He screws it up again!!! Good god, all Harry "I can't get a lock" Kim can do is fuck up!

Then, instead of realizing he's got to buckle down and fix his calculations, he whine like a little kid! Doc has to slap him upside the head!!

"KIM: Great, just great! It took me ten years to make these corrections. I can't fix it in three minutes!
EMH: You've got to try.
KIM: I can't! It's not working. Why won't it work? I killed them!
EMH: Control yourself!
KIM: They trusted me, and I killed them!
EMH: Mister Kim! I didn't spend all those years in an ice bucket so I could listen to you berate yourself. If you want to wallow in self-pity, fine! Do it on your own time.
KIM: Don't you see? History's repeating itself! I destroyed Voyager once, and I'm doing it again!
EMH: Somebody has got to knuckle down and change history, and that somebody is you.
KIM: It can't be done, Doc. I told you."

So, 15 years of grumbling, 10 years of calculations and it takes DOC to have the obvious Einstein moment and figure out ....

"EMH: No, you told me you can't correct their phase variance. All right, we have to accept that. But what about sending Voyager a warning? Is there a way to get them to abort the Slipstream flight?
KIM: Yes. Yes! I could send a phase correction which would disperse the Slipstream entirely.
EMH: If we can't get the crew home, at least we can save their lives."

That was never a consideration? The brilliant Harry Kim can't even come up with that? How can that NOT be a contingency?

The only difference between our new Harry and Ensign Kim is he's 15 year's older and has long hair.

Good lord. I'm surprised he didn't bring the frakin clarinet along.

He figured out a way to send himself a text message but can't send one that say DON'T DO IT!!! I'm a loser!

....and Wang's acting wasn't any better than the other "Harry episodes"... he just had better direction this time.

Tessa: ... I don't think her coming along is a problem at all.

This is one of those episodes for me that gets WAY too much love. I don't skip it, it's a fun ride, but it's really more of the same for Harry.

3 out of 4 from me.

My favorite part of this episode was the Doctor nonchalantly holding a piece of Seven's dead skull while holding a conversation with Harry. A little disturbing.

You would think in 15 years, Starfleet would've done something about Voyager being on that planet. Anyone could stumble on it and take the technology, no matter what shape it was in. Certainly some families would want the remains of their loved ones returned.

First time commenting here, but I felt I really needed to get this out there, and this seemed to be the most logical place.

While watching "TIMELESS" for the first time with my daughter (both of us being ST and NASA groupies..) I found myself trying to figure out the significance (if any) between this episode and the name of the Galaxy class starship, "Challenger". The air dates did not line up to any anniversary, so I was a little baffled. Then it hit me. While I have no way of knowing if this was intentional in any way, the emotional effect was rather extreme and really seemed to bring the future Harry Kim much more clearly into focus, for me anyway.

Those of us who sat glued to their television screens that January morning, staring in utter disbelief at what was unfolding, will forever be scarred with the deep sense of loss, followed by the usual stages of grief - guilt, anger, and so forth. But I am sure I speak for many when I note that so many 'what if' scenarios continually nag at our conscience even today. And I am sure I am not the only one who would imagine being able to go back in time - or even send a message to the right person - to stop the launch. Or even to jettison the SRB's at the right moment, anything that would prevent the loss of the Shuttle and her crew. Did the engineers at NASA, Thiokol, and other contractors continually run and re-run calculations, desperately trying to find the flaws? How many hours of sleep were lost, how many tears were shed, wishing over and over that that one little piece of information would be found, heard and acted upon?

If this is not the hidden story behind the episode, then perhaps it should have been. How better to immerse the viewer into the world of 'method acting' than to re-live that sense of connection and unimaginable loss that Harry Kim would have no doubt experienced, to the point of complete obsession?

Just an observation.....

Well everyone, we may have solved the quandry of how Seven could be drunk off synthehol: (just add the three w's)

independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/hangover-free-alcohol-david-nutt-alcosynth-nhs-postive-effects-benzodiazepine-guy-bentley-a7324076.html

Maybe synthehol is like this - makes you drunk but with no bad aftereffects. This would be consistent with previous episodes of Trek where people used to synthehol wouldn't be able to handle the adverse effects of alcohol. It would also explain why anyone bothers to drink synthehol in the first place.

Full disclosure: Although I'm an enormous Star Trek fan, I missed most of Voyager -- along with DS9 and Enterprise -- during its first run on TV. The bulk of my early Trek fandom came from devouring the movies, TOS, and TNG. So as I work my way through every Trek episode ever filmed on Netflix right now, celebrating the 50th anniversary, I'm experiencing most of these Voyager episodes for the first time.

Having said that much, I must say I found this episode "Timeless" to be average at best, representing another Incredible Plot Contrivance Designed to Facilitate Character Development that Means Nothing (TM) episode. Few things are more boring and frustrating than watching a Star Trek episode that sets you up for: 1. A story where the crew seeks out a goal you know in advance they cannot achieve; and 2. A story that promises big character development for a main cast member, but only in an alternate timeline that you know will have zero real impact by next week's episode. While I appreciate that "Timeless" allowed Garret Wang to play Harry Kim with a bit more nuance and grit than usual, I wonder if that factor alone has caused many fans to overrate this installment out of a wish to see his character improve, elevating its quality simply by virtue of comparison to previous weak episodes featuring Kim and failed gambles to get back to earth.

Honestly, nothing much makes sense in this episode. The script treats the "15 years later" timeline as an alternate reality even though it's clearly the normal timeline, avoiding any perspective on it other than Harry Kim's and skirting any serious moral discussion of what altering that timeline would mean. Chakotay is a bad choice for Future Kim's sidekick to alter the timeline, as his refusal to accept the course of history's events doesn't make sense in the context of his character, and his motivation for helping Kim remains underwritten. Janeway's motive for taking a gamble to get home in one shot feels underwritten, as the ship seems to be under no pressure to act in desperation. And the quantum drive is Treknology at its worst, working only insofar and inasmuch as the writers desire it to work. I could go on and on, but this story is truly one of the most terrible and convoluted setups for a Character Development Episode that I've ever seen on Trek, piling nonsense upon nonsense in its manic quest to let Garret Wang wear a leather jacket and make a pouty face that is supposed to represent survivor's guilt as well as perfectionist self-hatred over past mistakes.

I would give this episode 2.5 stars because it's a slightly classier version of two bad Voyager cliches: the Episode Where They Try to Get Home and You Know They Won't (yes, the episode plays this angle up for drama, with future Kim thinking he's solved the engine equation) and the Episode Where Big Character Development Occurs Without Actually Meaning Anything. By saying the ship saves 10 years on its journey with the short quantum trip, the writers strive to make this episode feel like less of a colossal downer than previous installments where the ship ends up back where it started or worse than before. But as Cyrano Jones says, "twice nothing is still nothing," and this 10-year thing at the end doesn't save us from the frustration of watching yet another episode where nothing matters because we know -- the plot itself uses it as a stated goal -- that the Big Fat Reset Button awaits us at the end. The message from future Kim to present-day Kim is a nice idea, but Harry starring thoughtfully at the screen without dialogue about what he's just seen doesn't amount to any actual character development or salvage the previous 45 minutes from feeling like an exercise in pointlessness.

Kim himself, I'm sorry to say, is part of the problem: The fact that Voyager's writers had to labor this hard to contrive a story for his character to develop, except that he doesn't *really* develop, is a sign of poor imagination on the part of showrunners who obviously wanted him to remain the innocent rookie throughout the series. And I'm sorry, but the sight of Garret Wang in a leather jacket with a pouty look on his face -- you're so bad, Garret -- pulls out the Starfleet Renegades Wear Leather Jackets cliche (see Star Trek III and Insurrection) in a way that doesn't really change that image. By next week's show, he'll be back to the same Ensign Kim we've seen all along.

Nice to see Captain Geordi La Forge in a Galaxy Class Starship in the future timeline, even though this episode came out when the Enterprise-E was already a thing and we hadn't seen a Galaxy ship on Trek in four years. That brief moment of slash fiction bumps this episode up half a star for me, even if Geordi's appearance amounted only to a cameo.

Lol at the Cyrano Jones reference.

I couldn't help but draw parallels between Harry's motivations and Annorax from "Year of Hell". Annorax was trying to alter history to correct an error he had made many years earlier that caused his wife to be deleted from time. Harry's trying something similar. The methods were very different, and Harry isn't going around wiping whole species from history, but he is prepared to erase 15 years of history to make up for his mistake.

This is one of my favourite voyager episodes. I did wonder why Harry didn't consider just sending a message to seven telling her to abort the quantum slipstream use, but I guess he wasn't expecting to be under attack while making the effort. He probably thought he'd have plenty of time, and even be able to make multiple attempts if the first failed. I also thought Janeways decision to even make the attempt was quite foolhardy, but those things aside it was a gem. 3.5 stars

Too many plot holes in this story.

Why hadn't they tested the slipstream drive and discover the phase variance before they smashed the champagne over it?
Why would you let a fallible human being manage the phase correction procedure when you had a hologram, a borg and a shuttle computer that would never screw up?
Did they even have one successful simulation where the shuttle strategy actually worked? (nope).
Why wouldn't the future Harry Kim initially take the most risk averse strategy when the crew's lives were the centre of his motivations?
Why didn't they just run the slipstream journey in 20 second bursts and shut it down before things went to hell?
Why not create a copy of the EMH and a duplicate of Voyagers logs, shove it in the Delta Flyer and let it zip off to the Alpha Quadrant, so the Federation could benefit from slipstream technology and probably pick them up in a few years?

Oh well, overthinking it.

The only thing I liked about this episode was seeing Janeway's frozen corpse. Serves her right - getting killed on account of the same propulsion technology she acquired from an alien race that was assimilated/destroyed by the Borg because of her selfish desire to get her crew home.

For me, a very uneven episode. At first I was excited to see a TNG character appear on the show, but ultimately it all falls flat. As others have pointed out, there are too many plot holes and inconsitencies to make this a great episode. Also, I like someone's comment that said that Voyager basically ended in this episode.

One major thing that sticks out for me is the dialogue between Kim and the Doctor where Kim tells him that he can either join them or have his program taken offline. Imagine if that conversation happened between two people, that is, if the Doctor wasn't a hologram - it would be something like this: join us or die. And the way it's casually performed is even more appaling. If Kim had really wanted to give the Doctor an honest alternative, he should've said join us or we can beam you aboard the Challenger.

I agree with Filip. I also thought that the dialogue betwen Harry and Doc, where Harry gives Doc the ultimatum to either join him or die, was unpleasant to watch, even more so because it was completely played off. I don't dislike Harry - in fact I quite like him usually, but in this scene he came across as callous and very un-Star Trek.

The Tessa actress was likeable, but was it really necessary to make her Chakotay's girlfriend? I thought her being shoehorned in as Chakotay's lover was jarring and out of place. I get that they wanted to give a motive for helping out him and Harry, but they could have come up with something less cringe-inducing. She could have been written as Janeway's fiance's daughter or something.

Wow all these haters. this is just annoying. no wonder voyager doesn't get the respect it deserves. Yes there's a few boring episodes or whatnot but good grief. oh and yeah by the way this is not DSN's Anniversary.

You're welcome/.

LeVar Burton sucks and he is a racist Negro.
I can't stand him.

This is yet another outstanding episode of Voyager which is competitive against the best of DS9 and TNG. The Voyager crew are probably my favourite of all the crews because they are funny, warm and interesting, despite Rick Berman's incompetent handling of Trek characters and his very poor "24th century dialogue".

I am genuinely surprised to see people slating this episode but then again, I shouldn't be. The usual crowd will bay like jackals at everything that happens in every episode of Voyager. Yet another toxic fanbase, every bit as moaning and unpleasant as the Games Workshop's or World Of Tanks'.

Harry Kim screws up, time paradox garbage, and another story disjointed from the rest of the show.

But it's a bit harsh. It's enjoyable. Could have been a two parter. However it's still massively flawed and still I come to rewatching and think meh because it's just an alternate timeline that never happens, reset at the end.

3 star.

3.5 for me on balance. There are a few key fudges/issues that stops the ep from being an outright great:

- The whole idea of Voyager inventing a technology with which they could traverse the galaxy in a few minutes beggars belief. If, say, the slipstream drive would have reduced their journey time to 6 years instead of 60, I'd be more open to it. The whole thing with Janeway and co. acting as if they're totally certain they will be in the Alpha Quadrant by tomorrow is just silly and strains credulity. We're used to expecting so much caution from Janeway.
- Surely the calculations (of this complexity) should be done automatically by the software and not reliant on Harry Kim (an ensign) doing them manually? Added to which:
- If they could run highly accurate holodeck simulations of the slipstream flight (accurate enough to correctly predict its disaster every time it was run), why couldn't they run simulations of the Delta Flyer-guided version? Instead, they do it for real without ever testing it - they should never have entered the slipstream without at least simulating the Delta Flyer-guided approach.
- Why are they throwing a party in engineering to celebrate the new drive/being home tomorrow if it's failed every single simulation, absurdly leaving Tom Paris as the sole voice of reason?
- Why is B'Elanna so sidelined and why's she allowing her engine room to be fitted with a tech that in every simulation run has ended in the ship's destruction?
- This episode requires the crew to be as absurdly, short-sightedly enthusiastic about getting home as they were in Bliss, and equally unprofessional, except in that ep it worked because it was the point. Here, they're incredibly dilettantish, first and foremost Janeway. It's one of Janeway's worst characterisations in the entire series run (no surprise Berman + Braga + Menosky wrote the ep), the disaster is her fault, not Harry's. Harry should never have been put in a position where a simple minor human error on his part would have the power to kill everyone. That's what senior officers are there for, to prevent situations like that from ever emerging. Janeway should have put the whole slipstream project on ice (pun semi-intended) until it had been rigorously tested, just like any company would do with a new product (let alone a new engine) today. No car company launches a new vehicle without successfully test-driving it a ton of times until it's passed every single test and complies with every regulation. Instead, for the ep to work, Janeway is written as naively gung-ho to fatal effect. It's just bad writing.
- Geordi should have been much keener to stop Chakotay and Kim. He even wishes them luck. As written, he seems pretty ambivalent about the last 15 years of his and everyone else's life being erased. He should have immediately fired on them.

So why 3.5? Because everything else works. Apart from the last point, all of these credibility-straining issues pertain to the scenes set in Voyager's present; by contrast, the scenes set in the future work entirely (and this is fortunately where the episode spends most of its time), and the character themes become more effective as the episode progresses. I wouldn't say Wang's performance is as good as in The Chute but he's OK.

Why is that characters always act so incredibly unrealistically in alternate timelines? Their premature celebration over the slipstream drive made absolutely no sense and was totally out of character. They would never act that way in the "real" timeline.

Otherwise an okay episode. 2.5 stars

I loved tipsy Seven, but I found this episode quite irritating. I couldn't get beyond my outrage at Janeway's awful recklessness in insisting on going the slipstream route in the first place, although perhaps my irritation should be directed at the script writers for making her suddenly utterly unprofessional so they could get this tiresome plot off the ground.

Wow - a very good Harry Kim episode. Didn't think it was possible but Wang puts in a great performance, especially as Kim 15 years into the future as an obsessed, guilt-ridden man. Really nailed the facial expression when he sees the message from his future self at the end.

It's a compelling story, reminds me of "Yesterday's Enterprise" and obviously "...City on the Edge..." but it's not quite at the level of those classics. The idea of communicating with somebody (7 of 9) in the past is an interesting one and I guess Kim gets to do it twice after his first failure. That's one thing that takes a bit of lustre off the episode. The other is Chakotay's role -- that he'd be so willing to help Kim at the risk of his career and then get cold feet at the end -- seemed questionable. La Forge and Chakotay are so polite toward each other...

There's a fair bit of technobabble with the slipstream and Borg implants, temporal receiver or whatever etc. but that doesn't detract from the episode. It makes no sense but if you wave your hands, "Timeless" is a good episode. Like in "Generations" we see Voyager crash through the ice -- pretty amazing scene, even if it has been done before. It's still not the kind of thing you see in the TV series every day.

One thing I don't get is how the Delta Flyer has slipstream technology -- isn't it a big massive thing in Voyager? Maybe I missed it in an earlier episode that I didn't see.

"Timeless" gets 3 stars from me, nearly 3.5. Should also mention that I'm starting to like Picardo as the doctor more and more. The premise is a bit of a stretch but alternate timelines and resets will always have holes, logical flaws -- but they make for compelling stories. Wang is the star of the show here.

Rahul,

It didn't necessarily. They needed it out in front of Voyager.

"KIM: I've got an idea. It's tricky, but I think it could work. The trouble begins about seventeen seconds into the flight. The phase variance kicks in and the Slipstream becomes unstable. What we need is someone in a shuttle to ride the rapids in front of Voyager.
TORRES: Yes. They could map the threshold of the Slipstream as it's forming and send the phase corrections back to us. That is a great idea, Harry. "

Prince’s Log, Stardate October 19th, 2017

I have just finished reading Jammer’s review and all the comments on it for the Voyager episode “Timeless.”

I find myself conflicted, unsure of how to proceed. My first priority is to protect the crew, yet I feel I must allow them to see how pretentious and bombastic so many of these comments are.

It will be for the crew’s own good, though I anticipate an immediate and debilitating effect on morale. This is the price one must pay when in command, and I can only hope some good will come out of it.

I like this one a fair amount, but I have a few problems. For now, just the first one: Tessa. I don't mind the actress and I think that having someone besides the three Voyager crew leads in the future is a decent idea in terms of plausibly reminding us that the story is not *only* about Voyager. The problem is that her motivation for wanting to reset the timeline is extremely thin -- she loves Chakotay, okay, but that relationship will be erased, along with most of her life. The episode also tries to suggest she's some sort of Voyager groupie, which also doesn't work. She seems ultimately too well-adjusted in the scenes we see of her to really get why she's willing to throw out her entire life in order to do a hard reset for the sake of other people; granting for the moment that her life won't end with the reset, it's still unclear why she'd agree to this. And while Chakotay hems and haws a little, he's ultimately really blase about completely upturning his girlfriend's life. To be fair, I have some similar problems with the material between Jake and the aspiring writer/fan in The Visitor. (In All Good Things, the crew helps Picard to reset the timeline, but that's to save humanity.)

I was thinking, is there a way to keep the character (or some variation on her) in a way that makes more sense and has more resonance? And here's my idea: what if Tessa were replaced by a family member of someone on Voyager? One of Tuvok's children, perhaps (though the Vulcan-logical objection to the plan might need to be dealt with), or maybe Naomi's father (get out that Ktarian makeup from The Game!), or someone like that. And then their willingness to sacrifice the way their life has gone over the past 15 years would make total sense -- and also highlight the other, unseen cost of Voyager's destruction and the loss of its crew in addition to Harry and Chakotay's experience.

I'm getting more and more sidetracked, so at this point let's drop the pretense that this will be anything like an analysis or review and go into wild speculation and rewriting: what if the episode had also had Chakotay and Harry *opposed* to each other, with (say) Harry insisting on saving Voyager and Chakotay being part of the mission to try to stop him? Or alternatively, this could be moved to the "family member" material as well -- with (say) Admiral Paris (maybe the grand commander of Starfleet by this point?) pursuing on La Forge's ship (we can still have the Geordi cameo, I'm saying). I don't think the episode is really *about* the moral dilemma of whether to change time to save Voyager, so much as that this is an element the episode touches on, but I could imagine the episode really diving into that conflict with more than just a cameo-Geordi giving the primary voice of opposition. (And there, again, I like the cameo, I'm glad to see Burton in front of the camera as well as behind. Still, I kind of wish that he had taken a harder edge. I like the "mutual respect" angle, but I wish he didn't go as far as to say that in Chakotay's place he might do the same. No! Don't give him that much.)

Anyway, I'll add some more when I think of other things to say about this one.

3 stars. I wanted to like this more than I did

It really is a very inventive idea that the episode is centered around—exactly the kind of stuff I’ve come to expect from Brannon Braga over the years with an iconic image of the ship buried under ice, a Borg temporal transceiver to facilitate contact in the past

Unfortunately the series never did a good enough job in making me care about any of the characters except Janeway and Seven. So I really didn’t share the joy and excitement at possibly getting home It also didn’t help that over the years the series didn’t really make one feel the crew were all that lonely or isolated—TNG “QWho” managed to do that amazingly in a matter of minutes when they were thrown 2 years away from Federation space

So I can appreciate the smart plot details and the gratuitous Geordi cameo but the emotional part didn’t work for me. It also didn’t help the focus of the episode was Harry Kim—a character who was pretty much an annoying cypher the entire series. Poor writing certainly didn’t help in that assessment but Garrett Wang’s acting was also part of the problem. So I really couldn’t take his overwrought shininess in this episode. Maybe with a different character the kind of sympathy for his emotional plight and survivor guilt may have packed more of a pinch but here as is was not that great

Whininess not shininess
Punch not pinch

If you examine almost any aspect of this episode for more than about 2 seconds, it makes no sense. Most of this has been mentioned already, but when you put it all together it's a bit much.

Crashing at full impulse but ship is basically intact and crew not piles of mush.
Celebrating the slipstream drive, when they didn't even know if it worked or not yet, having apparently done no simulations of it.
Once they realize it doesn't work, by finally doing simulations, they do no simulations using the delta flyer.
Janeway's bizarre decision of trying it out with the untested delta flyer though it may kill them all (and it does!), just to get home sooner. Worst captain ever.
The borg can send messages back in time. (!)
Salami sandwiches.
Why not send the coordinates, or better yet, any other message they want, to an even earlier time?
Tessa wants to die or have her past erased for no apparent reason.
Harry after years and years, still not making the right corrections.
Harry couldn't figure the right corrections to keep the slipstream going in only three minutes, but he could figure out a correction to collapse the slipstream in only three minutes.
Wang still can't act.

I'm forgetting some stuff I'm sure.

2 1/2 stars.

Better than the average Voyager episode, but overrated.

Reasons to like it:

Cool visuals (Voyager entombed in ice, Voyager crashing into ice, interior of frozen Voyager)
Good job making Harry Kim and Chakotay look older
Garrett Wang gets to play a more serious version of himself instead of the goofy never-promoted guy who's intimidated by Seven's big boobs.
Geordi La Forge fan-service cameo

Reasons why it's just another stupid Voyager episode:

Another episode with time travel
Another episode with a crash landing
Another episode with loads of technobabble
Another Gilligan's Island episode where they find a way to get home but it doesn't work
Another episode where the day is saved at the last possible second
Why they have to use the slip stream drive if it's not completely tested makes no sense.
Why Voyager has to crash into a planet makes no sense.
Why does Chakotay have a girlfriend whose willing to die in order to violate the Temporal Directive, makes no sense
Why can't they send more messages back in time? Why don't the Borg themselves use the technology?
Etc.

What bugged me is that Harry is able to send a full video log entry to seven, so why in the world didn't he just do as the Doctor suggested and send a full warning well ahead of time? Why did she have to receive it at just the right moment if he could send her a detailed message like that?

Pity that the Doctor wasn't able to send his own message to Seven. It would be something like this:

"Harry Kim is a total screw up. His stupid calculations will destroy the ship. And then he'll spend 15 years trying to correct his error and still destroy the ship. Whatever you do, don't listen to a word that drooling moron says."

Still a 4-star episode and one of the best of the series or any Trek series.

FF rating: No fast-forwarding. Just let it play.

After another re-watch I like this one a tad more -- there's a visceral quality to it that is absent from almost all VOY episodes. It's clear a great deal (far more than average) of thought and special effects were put in here -- the ship's crash on the icy world, DF explosion etc.

Also, Harry Kim's performance is great here and that's refreshing to see.

What works is that the questions left unanswered -- sending messages back in time, how Harry/Chakotay retrieve the Delta Flyer and get as far as they did etc. etc. don't drag down the episode, nor does the technobabble.

There is a renewed and genuine sense of hope after the ship makes up 10 years even with the failed experiment -- and this is different from some of the BS prior episodes that directly address Voyager getting home put forth.

"Timeless" is good enough for 3.5 stars -- drawbacks are minor with Chakotay and his girlfriend's motives, a fairly lame performance from Burton as Geordi. The change of perspective from the start of the episode is highly intriguing as is the flashbacks between the future and present day (or 15 yrs ago) Voyager. Terrific, gripping episode. Poignant ending with Harry getting a message from himself in the future -- ended on the perfect note.

Rahul nails it: the look and feel of this episode sets it above most of the others. The visual production and the dynamic nature of the story allowed people to overlook the incredible cavalcade of plot problems. This is Threshold/Maneuvers level writing in that regard.

3 stars. There's a perfect episode here from the everybody except the writers, whose story badly needed a rewrite to smooth out the bumps: there's a massive list of contrivances, plot holes, and unusual behavior from the characters.

Wow. I'm halfway through, and really into this story so far.

Garrett Wang's best yet, and I'm guessing, ever. He really comes through. Picardo and Beltran, too. Surprisingly moving and well done.

Geordi!!! What a nice surprise. Well done.

Beautiful. Mulgrew does a great job with the scene at the end.

The best characters overall in all of a Trekdom. I love Voyager.

I REALLY hated this episode. I did not like the "bad" Harry Kim. Although if anything is going for this one, it's that the ageing makeup works well!

Patrick said:

"My main issue with this episode was Janeway's choice to land the ship on a planet. With inertial dampeners offline, and hull breaches happening all over the ship, the Voyager crew should have:

1)AVOIDED landing the ship,
2)AVOIDED any kind of acceleration/deceleration
3)Tried evacuation by shuttles & escape pods

(it's b/c they landed the ship that they were destroyed)

Other than that, the episode is very solid."

Exactly! There's nothing about tumbling out of control in the emptiness of space that wouldn't be made much much worse by trying to land on a planet. TNG's "Final Mission" had this same problem. Also, how convenient that there just happens to be a planet nearby. It takes hours to traverse a solar system at full impulse, and the space between solar systems is so vast that the distances are measured in lightyears, literally years of travel at warp 1. The idea that Voyager can travel 10,000 lightyears and then just happen upon a planet is several orders of magnitude more ludicrous than walking from New York to Los Angeles and finding Steve Buscemi's wallet along the way.

Still a great episode.

I'd give the show four stars also because it was well directed/acted/written and I enjoyed it. But I have the same problem as I do with all time travel stories. I don’t need to reiterate what the problems are as I’m sure they’ve been mercilessly expounded upon. I just wish they’d leave the time travel stuff in a box in their garage!

Synthehol does have similar intoxicating effects to alcohol, but they can be easily dismissed. So you do get drunk, but you can sober up in an instant if need be. Data mentions this in "Relics".

Who fucking CARES if they made a mild continuity error with Seven getting drunk? Does that REALLY spoil a great episode like this? You fucking nerds don't deserve nice things.

Criminally overrated episode. Couldn't wait for it to be over.

0,5 Star. Would never re-watch.

What the f*ck were you smoking Jammer?

Kim, bitterly describing his homecoming: “Admiral McIntyre even wanted me to marry his daughter.” What a stupid anachronism. Since our gloomy, guilt-wracked and obsessed Kim was probably not much fun, the implication is that a 24th century leader has the same worldview - ‘gotta get my girl married off to the nearest bachelor!’ - as Elizabeth Bennet’s mother.

Equally annoying was the Tessa character, a much-younger woman who followed Chakotay into his obsession and his life of crime.... with the knowledge that altering the timeline would erase her lover from her life, and might erase her existence entirely. Such self-abnegation - why? What were the writers thinking - “Chakotay needs a random romance”? The role of “outsider that provides the main characters with a reason to give exposition” should have gone to a mercenary or hired engineer or pretty much anyone but the character they created.

Good episode marred by the usual bafflingly thoughtless script choices.

Pretty good, but Geordi was ridiculously friendly and understanding. I just feel like since he was directing, he wanted to play it as Geordi not being a bad guy.

Jammer really lays a big smelly rotten egg above.

The review is inconsistent, because this episode has everything Jammer hates: pointless plot, reset button, story is stupid (crew obviously would have aborted or have been told to do so from the future), Wang overacting most of the time, new characters with invalid motivations, ridiculous Janeway decisions (over dinner?) that doom the crew (again). Not even a staff meeting... Chakotay too spineless to push back (again), Torres barely involved. We know everything that will happen in this episode within the first 5 minutes. You don't even have to watch the acting, just listen to the heavy-handed score.

The "eye candy" of LeVar Burton putting himself into his own episode is ridiculous and what was the point?

For a "future Harry" episode, but it's all but Harry, really. Chakotay is obviously holding his hand to get him there. It's not even enough... Harry needs the Doctor to hold his hand too. And after 15 years he still acts like a pompous spoiled brat who comes undone at the smallest challenge. No character development, except for a baby powder wig. And he dooms 15 years of life in two quadrants of the Galaxy (the "real" timeline) by getting that reset button pressed. What are we to learn from this episode? Once a simple-minded self-centred loser, always a simple-minded self-centered loser? And what does past Harry gain from all of this: he remains an incompetent. And his future self doesn't even acknowledge Chakotay or the Doctor... he's narcissistic to boot.

1 star: for sets and for Seven's hysterical drunk line... "we are one."

Had trouble liking this episode.

Didn't buy Wang's grumpy Harry act. He even deepened his voice and walked around frowning lest we don't notice that time has left him bitter. Bless him, but he is not the premier actor on the show by a long way.

It is indeed another time anomaly and fake/finite stakes episode. All sorted by the 45th minute.

For me, just dulllllll. 'They're having sex'. Grumpy Harry wants a slap.

The Seven stuff at the start was the best bit. Says it all about who can carry an episode.

This isn’t just the best episode of the series so far, it’s the best episode of the series so far. It didn’t have that typical thing where Voyager gives us 44 minutes of amazing sci-fi with the last 2 minutes where they kill everything cool about it. This was great through and through. I typically don’t like Trek time-travel stories, but the 3 main exceptions are Trials and Tribble-ations, The Voyage Home, and now this one... all for very different reasons. 4 stars from me!

I loved this episode. Just rewatched it after many years.

I'm going to text Garrett Wang right now and see if he could send a message to late 2019 warning us about Coronavirus.

Then, again, social distancing is probably why I'm rewatching old TV shows again (when my kids let me).

I liked this, but 4 stars seems a bit overblown. 3 stars for me. Best parts: drunk Seven; the visual of Voyager under the ice; and Giordi musing that he might do the same in their shoes but he has a responsibility to his own crew to try to stop them.

I simply ADORED this episode!!!

Sure, there were some of the usual foibles--such as how all the intense fighting, phasering and lasering, etc. stops for folks to have earnest heart-to-hearts with each other--but it didn't spoil the overall effect.

A very curious premiss, thought-provoking, great science, engaging fiction, some neat personal drama thrown in (but not too much of it!). Even Harry "Can't-Get-A-Lock-On-Shit" Kim managed to grow on me in this one.

Notwithstanding the complaints of others, this will always be a great episode for me and worthy of 4 stars (particularly in the context of Voyager). Wang's performance of guilt was very good to me, even though some seem to think it poor. Older Harry is far more hardened and serious and Wang plays it very different to me than young Harry.

The episode is good enough that I can overlook one of its biggest logical flaws (aside from the valid one I just read - did they severely improve slipstream since Hope and Fear where it was going to take 3 months to get home?) which is: Once the slipstream started failing, why didn't Janeway immediately turn it off for safety? Kim sends some corrections and it fails... smart answer? Shut it down so they can analyze what went wrong and try again. No? How about when Harry says he doesn't know what's wrong and he's going to try to figure it out - that's the time to shut it down. Nothing in the episode really gives us any ticking clock reason they have to make it home on this trip or the whole thing is a bust.

There would have been ample ways to fix this. There is brief reference to crystals needed for the drive decaying. Maybe they were trying to imply it, but they could have easily said that the crystals would be gone in 24 hours. Or they could have said they only have enough crystals for one flight so they only get one shot at it. They also could have tried to shut the drive down at a reasonable point as soon as Harry first failed and found it impossible to shut down, giving Harry more panic and urgency to figure it out. That urgency was missing in the "why are they still going?" question.

Also, the whole premise of the trip taking 3 months would have helped as well if they'd kept it because if the trip takes one day, a bunch of little 5-minute trips might at least make a dent. If the trip takes 3 months, little trips might not make much difference at all.

This episode is fantastic! It’s not something we talked about so much in the 1990s, but for multiple episode reasons, Harry Kim’s secret love was Tom Paris.

After 15 years, Chuckles has a lover, but Kim doesn’t. In the original timeline, Tom determined there is a flaw in the slipstream drive, yet they do it anyway. Harry seems to have found a solution to their problem, and there’s no way Janeway would have gone along with it if Tom were saying no way Jose.

Tom didn’t fly that way, but he’s not stupid, and might have supported Harry anyway. (Frankly, I don’t think Tom would have risked the ship like that, but certainly Janeway wouldn’t have supported this anyway, so whatever)

You know, all this, I take extreme exception to many actions Janeway has taken, particularly allying with the Borg.

At the same time, I think as a crewman, I would feel more comforted than any other CO we’ve seen in Trek.

Bleh. At the same time, I don’t think I could sleep with her actions.

Haha, blah, Voyager is a bit deeper than meets the eye, perhaps.

I think the writers decided it was a running joke to never promote Kim, and they even lampoon it when he wonders why there is no little box on his seat (when Paris is restored as a Lt.)

The problem with this gag is that the audience is more annoyed than amused.

I'm listening to the Delta Flyers podcast, and Wang admits he publicly said some things about the writers that pissed them off, and that also might have been a little vindictiveness on their part in their continued Harry arc (or lack thereof). Which really is unprofessional on all ends.

And it's too bad, since Wang actually adores Star Trek. Kim should have been promoted when Tuvok was, storywise, and as a thank you to the actor for not getting fed up and ditching the show (like Denise Crosby) or just phoning it in (like Robert Beltran).

It rubs the wrong way, like Chewbacca not getting a medal all over again.

Chakotay's line about Voyager crashing into the ice at full impulse, that was a dumb line and completely unnecessary. He could have simply said the lower decks were crushed by the weight of the ice, which is a real thing that happens. Planes have been found crashed in arctic regions where after decades of snow and ice piling up on them become buried and crushed flat. Several people mentioned all this already but yeah, if they had crashed at the speed Chakotay said the ship would have been completely obliterated. Also I'm not sure but were those supposed to be spider webs hanging in the corridors, maybe not because that would be silly.

Borg implants sure do get great reception though. He talked about how he could only send a short message and had to do it at the exact right time so 7 could figure out what it meant, but then in the end we also find out he sent a full log entry to himself in glorious high definition...um? So if he could do that why did he not just send a nice big message to them a few days, weeks or even months before the accident going into detail about what happened and how to avoid it, not to mention maybe sending them some new ideas on getting home thanks to having 15 years of advanced knowledge at his disposal. Nitpicks aside I really enjoyed this episode though.

Good episode. Jammer's review was spot on, imo.

I read the first third of the comments here and there were a ton of really weak nitpicks. Yeah, I'm guilty of it too sometimes, but a lot of the "problems" that get brought up are addressed in the episode itself or in other well known Trek episodes.


Jammer said: "However, one problem I have with "Timeless" is the way this moral theme affects Chakotay. Specifically, just what motivates him to help Harry change 15 years of history."

^

Would the story have worked better if B'Elanna took the place of Chakotay aboard the Delta Flyer? I think it would. Her killing the Voyager crew, including her boyfriend, via her work on the slipstream drive would provide a much stronger motivation than the one Chakotay had. She's already a character who suffers from self-disgust and bitterness. Let Roxanne Dawson take the lead in the angst department while Wang plays a (slightly) more reserved version of what we see here. I think it would play to the strengths of both actors.

Jammer said: "However, one problem I have with "Timeless" is the way this moral theme affects Chakotay. Specifically, just what motivates him to help Harry change 15 years of history."

Perhaps knowing well over 100 of his friends are dead... not really brain surgery, is it? Plus he's used to bending rules as former Marquis. Very good episode.

Bob, that's a good point, B'Elanna would have been a far better choice for this than Chuckles. Far more believable motivation for wanting to undo things, and the actual chief engineer working with Harry on the drive would have been more believable too.


Chuckles' motivations are weak. He's not really to blame, and he has a lover. And she is happy to go along with it too?

To those who say the time police should have been involved, well future Harry & Chakotay fixed the timeline centuries before the time police even existed so the time police would have accepted Voyager getting home as being “correct” history.

@William B (Tue, Nov 21, 2017, 9:27am)

The idea of family being involved with Chakotay and Harry fixing the timeline would be too similar to DS9's “The Visitor”.

Over all score: 7/10

What a range of opinions from the gallery on Timeless....I really liked it, and so did my 'pod', although so many of those commenting lambasted it.

Time travel never fully satisfies....I've tried to unravel it, fight it, hate it, criticize it, but now accept it as a dream device to disturb complacency, and pose a set of problems to be overcome for the characters. To quote Dickens, it is, like Scrooge's dreams "a fragment of an underdone potato" from which issues a nightmare. So many dismiss the nourishment of this episode by citing technical quibbles that, if we are objective about them, do not really sink the boat.

It is, indeed, often fun to criticise things visciously and it does make for laugh-worthy reading. For example, 'I thought Tessa was dumb', or 'Geordi was too nice' Or 'At one quarter impulse, Voyager would have been flattened to the size of a small pizza (without anchovies).' Or 'Chakotay should have just opened a yoga clinic and left Harry to sort things out for himself.'

I accept that this is Harry's nightmare, plain and simple. Enjoyed the story, and liked all of the performances within this underdone potato.

Also liked the ultimate message of the episode: Harry has to give up his original dream to escape from his nightmare. At this point, given all that has happened, I have decided not only to love, but also try to be guided by, the EMH's wonderful exhortation: "Somebody has got to knuckle down and change history and that somebody is you."

Yes! 4 stars unequivocally ....I will admit that 9 million km passes awfully quickly in the episode...I just wish 160 km had gone as quickly for me at age 5 in the back seat on the way to grandma's.

This story is some premium Wang.

I love this episode, one of VOY's best. However, Jammer is right about Chakotay and his GF being completely wrong for this episode. As someone else said B'elana would have been a far better choice who would hold herself responsible for allowing it to happen, and of course she'd want to save Tom.

What would have made this a classic Trek episode, not just a great VOY episode, would be if B'elana had formed a bond with Tom's dad and he would do anything to get this cleaned up version of his son home, including helping her and Harry steal the Borg tech and the Delta Flyer. B'elana could have implanted this info in the message to Seven, alongside Harry's to himself. Multiple emotional payoffs.

Even when VOY writers do their best, it's still a case of missed potential.

This is one of my favorite episodes of all Trek series. People can nitpick if they chose but I absolutely love the story. No one carries more guilt than Harry so he is the perfect person to chose to screw the whole thing up. The doctor is great as always and I love the cameo from Captain LaForge. Also have to say that at the end Janeway says they have a new momentum, it kind of feels that way for the whole series, as season 5 is off to arguably the best start of any of the Voyager seasons to this point.

My favorite episode of the series. Just rewatched it. Great editing, great story, great focus on Harry Kim. Good enough to be a season finale.

On the subject of Kim never being promoted, it's a stupid thing they did, especially since at one point they DE-mote Tom Paris from Lt to Ensign. That would have been the perfect time to promote Kim to Lt. That way they still have their quota of ensigns and both Kim and Paris get some character development that lasts (Paris was later re-promoted while Kim gets nothing).

I'm unsure of a rating here. It's very well produced and has an epic feel to it. Voyager got pretty good at making epic feeling episodes in its later years.

Big problems though, as jammer notes, Chakotay's involvement makes very little sense and might even be the worst possible character here. Torres or even Doc would make more sense. (Janeway could work as well considering motivations, but then it would have become a Janeway vehicle instead of Harry.)

Chakotay's girlfriend being enthusiastically involved makes less sense and is quite insane.


Voyager crashing into the glacier was quite impressive, but they needed to find a different reason for it happening. It's ridiculous (and unique to this episode) that being on a planet is less stressful to the ship than being in space.

One of the better Voyager episodes, mostly because it how addresses human relationships. It went below the surface for a change.

I don't have much to add that others haven't already said. I will say that it didn't make sense to only have one person on the Delta Flyer (Ensign Kim) doing all of the important course adjustments on a razor's edge. In science, anything that is so high jeopardy would have a whole team doing it, with each member of the team being responsible for some portion of the calculation.

Or... you know... maybe Seven of Nine should've been doing it.

Does the doc have some kind command override protocol in his program? Why would he go along with Future Harry and Chakotay plan, even after Harry told him they were wanted for high treason and conspiracy to violate the Temporal Prime Directive? Wouldn’t Doc’s program prevent him from breaking Starfleet law? Even after Harry told him he had resigned from Starfleet, Doc continues to follow his orders.

Maybe Doc realized from the start that he was saving his own “life” too, so he along with it, protocol be damned??

Wow, Harry Kim’s ego is taking a real beating lately. First he pushes to lead the mining operation on demon planet, which went about as horribly as it possibly could with he and Paris unconscious and asphyxiating while alien clones take over their lives.

And then Harry is the leading voice rallying everyone to charge ahead with their highly unstable slipstream tech, even manning the calculator needed to adjust the whole flight path, a calculator he apparently misread because he screwed everything up and got everyone killed.

Then to top it all off, his own future self sends him a message basically saying “you’re lucky you’re me you giant fuck up. You’re WELCOME.” I imagine It’s gonna be tough for Harry going forward.

What I don't understand is how the Delta Flyer was able to keep using the slipstream to return to Earth when it was being generated from Voyager. When the two ships were separated the DF should've entered normal space. Oh well. Other than that, great episode.

The one thing I really don't get about this episode is how we never seen them building the drive at all. I get continuity was never Voyagers string point but I'm surprised it was never mentioned before hand.

Aside from that the episode is great.

I love this episode.

I agree, Harry screwed up.

But consider this, Harry was obsessed over the past 15 years in changing history and altering the timeline. That is not the actions of a screw up.

He understands his limitations, even expecting his calculations to work. But no the whole point is Harry knew the doctor would come in useful, even once they reactivate the ENH on finding voyager.

This reaction by Harry is an indication of something bigger going on. Harry was setting up to fail, but his failure provided the catalysis for his success and 15 years of obsession and devotion to the voyager crew.

Janeways reaction speaks volumes. There is success without failure.

Why not just do 5 more short jumps and bail when it gets scary, taking 10 years off per jump?