star trek voyager flashback imdb

Flashback (episode)

View history
1.2 Act One
1.3 Act Two
1.4 Act Three
1.5 Act Four
1.6 Act Five
2 Memorable quotes
3.1 Introductory details
3.2 Story and script
3.3 Cast and characters
3.5 Wardrobe
3.6 Production
3.7 Effects
3.8 Reception
3.9 Continuity
3.10 Apocrypha
3.11 Video and DVD releases
4.1 Starring
4.2 Also starring
4.3 Guest Stars
4.4 Uncredited co-stars
4.5 Stunt doubles
4.6 References
4.7 External links

Summary [ ]

In the USS Voyager 's mess hall , Neelix is trying to tempt a reluctant Lieutenant Tuvok into sampling a new juice blend that Neelix has concocted. Eventually, Tuvok gingerly samples the beverage and, to Neelix's delight, he finds the drink to be "impressive." After heading into the kitchen with the intention of serving seasoned Porakan eggs for Tuvok's breakfast , Neelix begins explaining the method of the food preparation, a Talaxian mealtime tradition, but the Vulcan is unwilling to hear about the effort put into preparing the eggs , and an unexpected fire suddenly ruins them. Neelix quickly extinguishes the blaze, which Tuvok suggests may have been caused by a thermal surge due to Engineering making adjustments to the plasma conduits , in order to accommodate a new energy source. An audio call from Captain Janeway summons the pair to the bridge .

Neelix and the bridge officers lengthily and with some enthusiasm discuss how they will store and use the sirillium after they have gathered it. Once the ship arrives at its temporary destination, the anomaly (which Kim describes as a class 17 nebula ) is displayed on the viewscreen but, as the crew discuss the anomaly, Tuvok seems disoriented and his hand quivers. Even though an unaware Janeway issues him an order related to the nebula , Tuvok does not respond. The bridge officers subsequently notice his behavior. He confusedly admits that he is feeling dizzy and disoriented, and his request to report to sickbay is granted. En route, Tuvok experiences a flashback of himself as a child; the boy holds the hand of a terrified girl hanging from a cliff but he is unable to hold on to her, so she plummets to her death. In a state of extreme distress, Tuvok stumbles into Voyager 's sickbay, where Kes is on duty, and collapses on the floor.

Act One [ ]

Tuvok, now conscious, relates his vision of the girl hanging from the cliff. Though the episode seemed real, he does not recall it having actually happened. The Doctor offers several possible explanations, including a hallucination or repressed memory of some sort. The Doctor releases Tuvok, but first gives him a neurocortical monitor to record his brain patterns and to alert sickbay in case the symptoms recur. Tuvok approves of this "wise precaution".

In engineering, Ensign Harry Kim explains that his sensor sweeps haven't turned up anything that would affect Tuvok or Voyager . Tuvok suggests to Lt. B'Elanna Torres that, due to being close to Klingon space, Voyager conduct a tachyon sweep of the nebula to reveal any cloaked ships that could be responsible for the symptoms. But, of course, Voyager is in the Delta Quadrant , nowhere near Klingon space, so his remark puzzles Janeway and the other officers present. As he stares at the sensor display of the nebula, Tuvok experiences another flashback, and once again the little girl slips from his youthful grasp and falls to her death from the cliff.

" Damage report! "

In sickbay, The Doctor suggests that a mind meld between the patient and a family member to bring Tuvok's repressed memory to the conscious mind may fix the problem. Being the closest thing Tuvok has to family on Voyager , Captain Janeway agrees to a mind meld with Tuvok. However, instead of accessing the memory of the girl and the cliff, Janeway and Tuvok find themselves on the USS Excelsior eighty years in the past . The Excelsior is engaged in battle with a Klingon vessel. Captain Hikaru Sulu suddenly steps out of the dense smoke.

Act Two [ ]

As Sulu barks orders to his crew and Commander Janice Rand reads a damage report, Janeway and Tuvok (who is crouched over the body of Lieutenant Dimitri Valtane ) are confused why they're suddenly on the Excelsior rather than the precipice with the little girl. Tuvok reports that the ship is in a battle with the Klingons, and that the battle was precipitated by an incident that occurred three days earlier…

Going back in time to the common quarters he shares with Valtane and two other officers on Deck 7, now Ensign Tuvok finishes preparing a blend of Vulcan tea for Captain Sulu, of whom he's noticed that he likes to have a cup of tea in the morning. The others are getting ready to go on duty as part of the gamma shift . Having entered and asked about the tea, Commander Rand jokingly accuses him of trying to get a quick promotion, which Tuvok denies. She then gives him a message from his father serving on the USS Yorktown and leaves to report to the bridge. After she's gone, Janeway remarks to Tuvok " You've never brought me tea. "

" Outstanding! I may have to give you a promotion. "

Later, Tuvok serves the tea to Captain Sulu, who declares it to be outstanding and also jokes about Tuvok trying to get a promotion. When Tuvok denies this, Sulu tells his junior officer that he's got to learn how to appreciate a joke, and says he knows that Vulcans do have a sense of humor. As she follows Tuvok across the bridge to his post, Janeway remarks that Sulu doesn't look anything like his portrait at Starfleet Headquarters ; Tuvok explains that 23rd century holographic imagers had a less accurate resolution than the technology that would be developed in the 24th century. Janeway notices that Tuvok's post is a science station. Tuvok confirms that he served on the ship as one of several junior science officers, causing Janeway to ask why his service record doesn't mention his service on the Excelsior . Tuvok isn't keen to talk about it, but confirms this was his first deep-space assignment after graduating Starfleet Academy at the age of 29. Janeway asks if they're about to battle the Klingons, but Tuvok tells her that the Klingon moon Praxis (which had served as a major source of energy for the Klingon home world) is about to explode. Janeway remembers that the destruction of Praxis had a lasting effect on the Alpha Quadrant , including leading to the first-ever Federation-Klingon Peace Treaty .

Just then, the ship starts to shake as the subspace shock wave from Praxis approaches the ship. Captain Sulu orders shields up, but Excelsior still shudders through the wave, sending the crew flying. Helmsman Lieutenant Commander Lojur tries to maneuver the ship, but the helm won't respond; Sulu orders him to use the starboard thrusters to turn the ship into the wave. Once it passes, Sulu starts to investigate while Tuvok tells Janeway that they were warned off by the Klingons and continued their survey mission. However two days later, two Starfleet officers were arrested for the assassination of the Klingon Chancellor . Captain Sulu felt an intense loyalty to both officers having served with them for many years. The two then go forward to the point where Captain Sulu (against orders) begins to plan a rescue of James Kirk and Leonard McCoy .

As currently illustrated in his memory, Tuvok tells Janeway that while the rest of the crew were happy to follow the captain in his defiance of Starfleet's orders, he wasn't. He then argues with Sulu that as Starfleet officers, they are under obligation to follow any and all orders. Sulu finds Tuvok's declaration to be rather bold for someone who has had an entire two months of space duty. Rand, having served with Sulu, Kirk, and McCoy on USS Enterprise as a yeoman , is aghast at Tuvok's behavior and chides him for questioning the captain's decision. She attempts to relieve him of duty while apologizing to the captain, but Sulu motions to her that it's okay. Sulu tells Tuvok that while he's technically right, he also couldn't be more wrong. He explains that when you serve with people for long enough, a strong bond and a sense of family can form. Having served with Kirk and McCoy for so many years and owing his life to them a dozen times over, regardless of Starfleet's orders he's going to help his friends, " let the regulations be damned. " Tuvok believes this to be a most illogical line of reasoning; Sulu tells Tuvok he " better believe it, " and orders Excelsior to warp speed. Janeway tells Tuvok that he did the right thing, but Tuvok now feels that he may have been wrong to question Captain Sulu's orders.

Sulu decides to take Excelsior through the Azure Nebula to conceal their entry into Klingon space. When it appears on the viewscreen , Janeway notices that it appears almost identical to the nebula encountered on Voyager . Suddenly Tuvok starts to have a panic attack as the memory resurfaces, this time with Janeway seeing the incident with the girl on the cliff, and the meld is broken as The Doctor scrambles to help him.

Act Three [ ]

Tuvok lies unconscious in sickbay. The Doctor warns him that if the repressed memory keeps resurfacing, he could experience brain death from synaptic pathway degradation. As Tuvok needs to be left to rest, Janeway decides to conduct her own research.

Later, Ensign Kim brings Janeway a comparison between the Azure Nebula and the one Voyager has just encountered in her ready room . Although both contain sirillium and are visually similar, the two are actually quite different; the Azure Nebula is a class 11 nebula while the one Voyager has encountered is a class 17. Having talked with The Doctor, Kim suggests that Tuvok's memories of the Excelsior were just triggered by how similar the two nebulas look, but this still brings up the question of where the memory of the little girl fits in, as it is so far removed from Tuvok's service with Captain Sulu. Janeway had decided to check Sulu's logs for some clues about the nebula but has come up with nothing, as Sulu omitted the trip through the nebula in his logs, except for a brief, cryptic remark about the Excelsior suffering damage from a gaseous anomaly and requiring repairs. Kim is surprised to hear about this clear breach of protocol, but Janeway reminds him of the differences between starships from Sulu's era and their own, and most importantly, how it was a different breed of Starfleet officers who served on them. The technology wasn't as advanced, the Federation constantly on the verge of war with the Klingons, the Romulans ' covert activities, and their ships were only half as fast. Despite all this, and noting that the officers of the time would have been very quickly booted out of the Starfleet of the present, Janeway expresses a desire to have served even once with officers like Kirk and Sulu.

The Doctor revives Tuvok, who completes the story of the interrupted mind meld. The Excelsior was ambushed by Klingons and forced to abort the rescue mission, but this still has no connection to the repressed memory. Tuvok attempts another mind meld with Janeway, but once again they find themselves on the Excelsior over Valtane's body. Now convinced that this isn't a coincidence but something that happened on the Excelsior is causing Tuvok's illness, Janeway and Tuvok go back to when the ship was in the nebula.

Having estimated that their path through the nebula would take five hours, Sulu decided that gamma shift needed to get some rest. However back in their crew quarters, Lieutenant Valtane, Tuvok's bunkmate, wants to talk about the situation. While Valtane admires Sulu, Tuvok doesn't and makes no secret of the fact that he dislikes Humans and their flippancy with emotions. The Vulcan explains that he only joined Starfleet under pressure from his parents, and that he planned to resign his Starfleet commission once the ship's survey mission is over. As Valtane goes to sleep, Janeway asks Tuvok if he really meant what he said. Tuvok says that he did at this point in his life, admitting that his opinions on Humans and Starfleet were biased due to the fact he hadn't voluntarily chosen to join the service. After resigning, he returned to Vulcan and started to study kolinahr to purge his emotions. However, six years into his studies he underwent pon farr and took T'Pel as a mate and began raising children, whereupon he understood his parents' decision to send him to Starfleet Academy, and that there was actually a lot he could learn if he allowed himself to do so. Tuvok therefore rejoined Starfleet in order to expand his knowledge of the galaxy , and to learn from Humans and other species. Suddenly, the ship trembles and Sulu calls for a red alert . As he and the other officers quickly get up to return to their stations, Tuvok explains to Janeway that a Klingon ship had decloaked in the nebula and began firing concussive charges across their bow.

Act Four [ ]

USS Excelsior and Kang's cruiser faceoff

The Excelsior and Kang's K't'inga -class cruiser

On the bridge of the Excelsior , Sulu finds the captain of the battle cruiser is none other than Kang , who congratulates Sulu for his well-deserved captaincy, and in a thinly-veiled threat advises Sulu to "not let it end prematurely". Sulu, of course, lies about his rescue mission, claiming they got lost inside the nebula while surveying it due to a navigational system malfunction. Kang insists on escorting the Excelsior back to Federation space, so Sulu plays along while looking for a way to lose him.

With Kang's forward disruptors trained on them, Sulu asks Tuvok about the nebula's composition. On the mention of sirillium gas, Tuvok confirms that it's highly combustible and when asked on how they can ignite it, suggests modulating a positron beam to a subspace frequency, which would cause a thermochemical reaction. " Like tossing a match into a pool of gasoline , " enthuses Sulu, but not wanting to destroy them, asks if Kang's shields would withstand the blast. Tuvok says they would, but their sensors and weapon systems would be disrupted for several seconds. This is enough for Sulu, who has his solution. He instructs Tuvok to prepare the beam and when they exit the nebula first, to fire on Sulu's command.

As they clear the nebula, the "match" is ignited, disabling Kang's ship with the resulting explosion, and the Excelsior quickly resumes its course at maximum warp to Qo'noS . However, three Klingon battle cruisers intercept the Excelsior and begin firing torpedoes at it. Tuvok gets an alert and warns Valtane that his console is about to explode due to a plasma conduit rupture behind it, but Valtane tarries and doesn't leave his station in time; he takes the full force of the blast. Calling in the medical emergency to sickbay, Tuvok kneels next to Voltane, who calls Tuvok's name with his dying breath. Suddenly, the "memory" of the girl on the cliff resurfaces.

In Voyager 's sickbay, Tuvok's memory engrams are destabilizing and The Doctor attempts to terminate the mind meld, but is unable to. Tuvok's brain damage is accelerating and he will be brain-dead within twenty minutes if the mind meld continues.

" Who the hell are you?! "

Janeway tells Tuvok that the death of Valtane is connected to the repressed memory, however Tuvok winces as he realizes that something has gone wrong with the mind meld. Sulu is looking around, but when he turns in their direction, he can actually see Janeway on his bridge.

Act Five [ ]

The young Kathryn Janeway in the flashback

Sulu calls for an intruder alert as Tuvok offers to break the mind meld, warning Janeway that if his brain is fatally damaged that she will suffer brain damage as well. Janeway declines, as she feels that they are very close to the truth. Excelsior 's security officers arrive and arrest the two, as they realize that Janeway's presence will stop the memory from following its proper course so she will need to appear inconspicuous among the crew of the Excelsior .

Going back in time to the moment Tuvok was preparing Sulu's Vulcan tea, Tuvok performs a nerve pinch on Rand and the two help themselves to her uniform, so that Janeway will more likely escape notice of Sulu and his officers.

Meanwhile, The Doctor fits a cortical stimulator on Tuvok to bring him out of the meld with bursts of thoron radiation . This exposes a virus masquerading as one of Tuvok's memory engrams, and The Doctor increases the amount of radiation to kill the virus.

On the Excelsior bridge, Rand's absence is noticed but before Sulu can investigate further, the Klingons attack and Valtane once again dies after his console explodes. Janeway asks Tuvok to concentrate, to bring them to the precipice with the girl. Meanwhile, the virus in Tuvok's brain migrates to the captain's, and accordingly, Janeway experiences her version of Tuvok's flashback, seeing herself as a child in Tuvok's place. The Doctor fits a stimulator on Janeway and irradiates her brain, causing the virus to move again, and now Tuvok's flashback recurs. As the virus begins to die, The Doctor once again increases the amount of radiation to eighty kilodynes . The flashback recurs now with a young Valtane hanging on to the girl, and then again and again with other children – presumably the other hosts the virus has infected in its lifetime.

It turns out that the virus feeds on neural peptides and bypasses the immune system of its host by disguising itself as a memory engram – the false memory of the girl falling from the cliff, so traumatic that the mind would repress it, thus ensuring that it would not be detected living in the brain of the host. Tuvok concludes that Valtane, as he lay dying, infected him with the virus, the same way the virus infected the captain as Tuvok's mind began to degrade. Kes wonders whether the girl ever really existed, and in response The Doctor surmises that the memory has been passed on so many times, that there is no way of knowing the true history behind the memory of the fall or if the girl even ever existed.

Leaving sickbay, Janeway asks if Excelsior managed to rescue Kirk and McCoy. Tuvok tells her that the ship was forced to abandon the rescue mission. However, like many times previously in their careers, Kirk and McCoy provided their own means of escape, and both the Excelsior and Captain Sulu and the starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk himself, ended up playing a pivotal role in the following events at Khitomer . Janeway notes that Tuvok sounds almost nostalgic about those days. Tuvok reminds her he doesn't feel nostalgia, however as he remembers those events and meeting Kirk, McCoy, and Spock , he is glad that he was a part of them. Janeway remarks that, in a funny way, she feels like she was a part of it as well. Tuvok responds that perhaps, she can be nostalgic for both of them.

Memorable quotes [ ]

" I am not Human. " " No kidding. "

" Structure. Logic. Function. Control. The structure cannot stand without a foundation. Logic is the foundation of function. Function is the essence of control. I am in control. I am in control. "

" Mr. Tuvok, if you're going to remain on my ship, you're going to have learn how to appreciate a joke. And don't tell me Vulcans don't have a sense of humor; because I know better . "

" Ensign, do you know this woman? "

" You'll find that more happens on the bridge of a starship than just carrying out orders and observing regulations. There is a sense of loyalty to the men and women you serve with. A sense of family. Those two men on trial… I served with them for a long time. I owe them my life a dozen times over. And right now they're in trouble and I'm going to help them; let the regulations be damned. " " Sir, that is a most illogical line of reasoning. " " You better believe it. Helm, engage! "

" Mr. Neelix, I would prefer not to hear the life history of my breakfast. "

" Mr. Sulu, I see they have finally given you the captaincy you deserve. " " Thank you, Kang. " " Do not let it end prematurely. "

" Nice to see you again, Kang. " " Grr… "

" As a Starfleet officer, it is my duty to formally protest. " " Tuvok! "

" I don't know what happened to you, but there can be any number of explanations – hallucination, telepathic communication from another race, repressed memory, momentary contact with a parallel reality… take your pick. The universe is such a strange place. "

" All right, Gamma Shift. Time to defend the Federation against gaseous anomalies. "

" Seal that conduit! "

" Who knows what goes on in a Vulcan's mind. "

" I've observed that Captain Sulu drinks a cup of tea each morning. I thought he might enjoy a Vulcan blend. " " Oh, I see. Trying to make lieutenant in your first month? I wish I'd have thought of that when I was your age. Took me three years just to make ensign. " " I assure you I have no ulterior motive. " " Whatever you say, ensign. See you on the bridge. " " You've never brought me tea. "

" It would seem that Captain Sulu decided not to enter that journey into his official log. The day's entry makes some cryptic remark about the ship being damaged in a gaseous anomaly and needing repairs, but… nothing else. " " You mean, he falsified his logs? " " It was a very different time, Mister Kim. Captain Sulu, Captain Kirk, Doctor McCoy. They all belonged to a different breed of Starfleet officers. Imagine the era they lived in: the Alpha Quadrant still largely unexplored… Humanity on the verge of war with the Klingons, Romulans hiding behind every nebula. Even the technology we take for granted was still in its early stages: no plasma weapons, no multi-phasic shields… Their ships were half as fast. " " No replicators. No holodecks. You know, ever since I took Starfleet history at the Academy, I've always wondered what it would be like to live in those days. " " Space must have seemed a whole lot bigger back then. It's not surprising they had to bend the rules a little. They were a little slower to invoke the Prime Directive, and a little quicker to pull their phasers. Of course, the whole bunch of them would be booted out of Starfleet today. But I have to admit: I would have loved to ride shotgun at least once with a group of officers like that. "

" Whew… Vulcans! You guys need to relax. "

" Who the hell are you? "

" We could have just asked her. " " Asking female officers for their clothing could lead to misunderstanding. "

" Memory is a tricky thing. "

" I'm curious: did the Excelsior ever save Kirk and McCoy? " " Not directly. We were forced to retreat back to Federation space – as usual, Captain Kirk provided his own means of escape… But we did play an important role at the subsequent battle at Khitomer. " " Mr. Tuvok, if I didn't know you better, I'd say you miss those days on the Excelsior . "

" But there are times when I think back to those days of meeting Kirk, Spock and the others, and I am pleased that I was part of it. " " In a funny way, I feel like I was a part of it, too. " " Then perhaps you can be nostalgic for both of us. "

" Tuvok! Please, Tuvok! Don't let me fall! "

Background information [ ]

Introductory details [ ].

"Flashback" was Star Trek: Voyager 's tribute both to the films starring the cast of Star Trek: The Original Series and to Star Trek 's 30th anniversary , recreating many scenes from the feature film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country .
This episode was written and produced after UPN declared that, as they had done with the first and second seasons of Star Trek: Voyager , they would air four episodes produced at the end of the series' second season as part of its third season . ( Star Trek Monthly issue 15 ) This episode was, in production order, the third of the four that were written and produced during the second season of Star Trek: Voyager but intentionally included in the third season, the other episodes being " Sacred Ground ", " False Profits ", and " Basics, Part II ".

Story and script [ ]

With the date of Star Trek 's 30th anniversary located early in Voyager 's third season, the studio executives at Paramount Pictures requested a Voyager episode that would tie into and serve as an homage to Star Trek: The Original Series , thereby fitting the occasion. ( Star Trek Monthly issue 15 ) " We already had on hand the story premise of a memory problem for Tuvok that Janeway saves him from, " writer and supervising producer Brannon Braga recalled, " and when the request came down from the studio for a 30th anniversary show, that seemed like a natural to get us back into that era without yet another time travel plot. " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ) Braga also stated, " We thought, [the event was] a perfect opportunity to use the sci-fi gimmick, mind melding, and go to save Tuvok from a psychic trauma. And back [in] time, that was what we were going to do [originally]. We were going to see Janeway's first commission. It was going to be more about Janeway and that relationship. We just used that story as a departure and it worked very nicely. But the gag was always the same, to do a time travel story without doing time travel, by doing a meld. " It was after deciding on this plot device that the writers chose to go back to the Excelsior , posting Tuvok aboard that ship. The memory virus was another part of the original story idea. Laughing, Braga noted, " It [was] always in there. It's always the idea that repressed memories could possibly be the result of alien inhibition. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 87)
In an uncredited capacity, Juliann Medina had some input into this episode's story. ( Beyond the Final Frontier , p. 296, et al.)
The episode's first draft script was issued on 15 March 1996 . The teleplay's final draft was submitted on 26 of that month.
Brannon Braga originally wrote a scene in which Nyota Uhura , via viewscreen, provided some necessary plot points from the bridge of the USS Enterprise -A . Actress Nichelle Nichols declined her invitation to appear in the episode, however, due to the limitedness of her part. ( Star Trek Monthly issue 18 ) Sulu actor George Takei referred to Uhura's part of the installment as "a nice little scene" and clarified, " She would have communicated with me, as Uhura to Tuvok, over the viewscreen. I pleaded with her on the phone to do it because it would have been wonderful to have her back as well. She felt the part did not do her justice, so she passed on doing it. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 ) Brannon Braga remarked, " I would have liked to have had Uhura, but we had to write […] her out. We couldn't make a deal with her. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 88) Partly due to the scene's deletion, the episode ended up being approximately five minutes too short, so two additional scenes were written to fill up the rest of the episode's duration: an extension of Tuvok's breakfast with Neelix, and the Keethera scene between Tuvok and Kes. ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ) The removal of the Uhura scene was done after 26 March, as evidenced by the cast list in the episode's final draft script, which includes Uhura among the episode's characters.
The episode was originally to have started with the log entry that, in the episode's final version, immediately follows the breakfast scene.
According to George Takei, Tuvok actor Tim Russ made some changes to the script, immediately eliciting the writers to correct some discrepancies. ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 ) Takei explained, " He made script changes that made Tuvok's behavior consistent with Vulcan culture where the writers had been derelict. For example, the script suggested that Tuvok had an affair with a non-Vulcan before his pon farr . He made sure that was corrected. " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 22 ) Additionally, Russ inadvertently drove Brannon Braga to include more about Tuvok's backstory in the episode than had originally been scripted, being particularly instrumental in the writing of what Tuvok says to Janeway while in his bunk aboard the Excelsior . " Initially that whole speech wasn't in there, a page and a half of dialogue, " Russ revealed. " She asked me, 'What made you come back to Starfleet?' and [Braga] had written some line which really wasn't consistent with Vulcan character. I said, 'Brannon, the line itself doesn't work.' So I said, 'Give him a real reason why he came back to Starfleet.' I expected a paragraph, and I ended up getting a page and a half of dialogue. Things like that do make a difference. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 100)

Cast and characters [ ]

Cast members were generally impressed by the script. George Takei described the episode's bridging of the generations as "a very imaginative" and "clever" concept, and further enthused, " I thought […] they did an absolutely wonderful job of bridging the generations, of making Captain Sulu, Tuvok and Janeway all organic parts of the same episode. " ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features; Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 89; The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 ) Likewise, Tuvok actor Tim Russ commented, " I thought it was a blast when I first heard about it, really a great idea. How do you tie in to the old series when you're in the Delta Quadrant? So, it was just a kick to find out. " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ) He also remarked, " I thought it was a piece of genius, story-wise […] [It] is a coup d'etat , story-wise, because nobody would see it coming. " ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features) Russ also liked how the episode's depiction of the Excelsior differed from Star Trek VI , saying, " I really appreciated the clever aspect of the storyline being placed inside a part of the ship from a certain angle that we never saw in the original film. Being able to play that out and being tied to that story so directly was great. " ( Star Trek: Voyager Companion (p. ? )) Russ elaborated, " It was a brilliant story to tie into the bridge of the USS Excelsior in that film, having not seen that part of the ship and having me on it […] It was fabulous. " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 25 , p. 12) Janice Rand actress Grace Lee Whitney offered, " It was just a great episode. " [1]
George Takei originally learned of his forthcoming appearance in this episode via a phone call in January 1996, from a male fan who was also a friend of the actor. The friendly fan congratulated Takei for the fact he was about to make a guest appearance on Star Trek: Voyager , news that the fan had learned on the Internet but which Takei was not yet aware of. He dismissed the information as an untrue rumor but, after he ended his call with the curious fan, Takei called his agent, who also knew nothing about the upcoming episode. About a fortnight afterwards, Takei was guest-starring on the Nickelodeon TV series Space Cases , on location in Montreal, when (one day, after shooting) his agent called him back with confirmation of the claim. Takei's agent continued by detailing the offer to him. ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features; Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ; The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 )
Writing on the episode began only after George Takei accepted the invitation to appear. Brannon Braga recalled, " When George Takei was contacted and agreed to do it the writing took off. " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 )
George Takei initially hoped that his guest spot on the series would allow him to work with the entire cast of Star Trek: Voyager , particularly with Kim actor Garrett Wang . " When my agent confirmed for me that I was doing a guest shot on Voyager , " Takei remembered, " I was looking forward to working with the entire cast, because I've been watching the series and the only one I knew was Garrett Wang […] My only disappointment was that it was working with just Kate [Mulgrew] and Tim. " ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features)
However, another regret for George Takei was that, due to Star Trek VI having been produced five years earlier (i.e., in 1991 ), the actors from that movie had changed so much that the original shots of them from the film could not be utilized and, generally, recreated scenes instead had to be filmed anew. ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features)

David Livingston and George Takei on the Excelsior Bridge set of this episode

Both Brannon Braga and director David Livingston were very pleased that George Takei decided to participate in the episode. " It's very exciting, " Livingston said, midway through filming, " to have someone from Classic Star Trek to come in and do the show. George is wonderful–with his energy and enthusiasm, I feel like an old man around him! He's incredible, and his spirit infuses everything! He's wonderful as the captain. He's got this power that's terrific, and that wonderful voice of his! " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ) For his part, Braga enthused, " George was great. He is Sulu. He's got that great booming voice, and bombastic demeanor. I liked him. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 88)
Tuvok actor Tim Russ also immensely enjoyed the opportunity to work with George Takei. Russ later commented, " Working with George on the bridge, as Sulu's character, and having him aboard as a guest was wonderful, not only from a nostalgic standpoint but also because he's a very good actor, a very wonderful personality, very warm, very giving, very easy to work with, and we had a good time, and some good laughs. " ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features) Russ also stated that he found working with Takei was "a rush," "a great honor and fun," "a thrill," and "extraordinary." ( Star Trek: Voyager Companion (p. ? ); ( Star Trek Monthly issue 25 , p. 12; Star Trek Monthly issue 41 , p. 28)
Tim Russ found that this episode's production period was very tiring. " That was one hell of a show to shoot – it was absolutely exhausting, " declared Russ. ( Star Trek Monthly issue 41 , p. 28) On the other hand, he also enjoyed the making of the episode, particularly shooting the back-and-forth scenes of the outing (with Tuvok dividing his attention between interacting with Janeway in the present and with his own memories of life aboard the Excelsior ), which he found to be "fascinating". ( Star Trek Monthly issue 25 , p. 12) He also said, " It was very interesting and a lot of fun to do that episode. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 88)
A specific aspect of this production that thrilled Tim Russ was how closely it related to TOS, he having been a fan of that series for many years. He noted, " To be able to get so close again to the original series after having enjoyed it so much when I was younger was just fantastic. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 ) In fact, George Takei was very impressed by how aware Russ was of the Star Trek canon , as the latter actor repeatedly reminded Takei of things he had done in TOS that he had forgotten about. " It was kind of an eerie feeling, " related Takei. " He's very Vulcan in that respect. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 101) Indeed, Takei was especially impressed by how knowledgeable Russ was about Vulcans, commenting, " I was impressed by how Tim has totally, completely and organically absorbed in his Vulcan heritage – the culture, the persona, the physiognomy, and the psyche of a Vulcan […] I was very impressed by him, as an actor who makes a full and total commitment. " ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features) In summation, Takei noted, " I enjoyed working with Tim. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 )
George Takei actually enjoyed working not only with Tim Russ but also with Kate Mulgrew. Regarding the pair of Voyager actors, Takei enthused, " It was really great working with the two of them, because they are very, very professional. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 88) About Mulgrew particularly, Takei declared, " Kate was wonderful […] She was very pleased that we were doing the episode and she made me feel very welcome on the set […] [She] played her part with great gravity and also, in her moments with Tuvok, great tenderness. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 )
George Takei's belief that Kate Mulgrew enjoyed this episode was true to life. Mulgrew cited this as one of her favorite eight installments from Star Trek: Voyager 's third season, describing it as "quite good." Similarly, Takei's positive impression of their relationship was mutual. Mulgrew remarked, " George Takei was a pleasure. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 14 , p. 32) The actress also commented, " I was so impressed with George. He was fabulous to work with, very, very erudite and gentlemanly. He was full of anecdotes about the original show and full of lessons for me as an actor on a Star Trek show. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 )
Having previously worked together on Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , this episode reunited George Takei with Grace Lee Whitney (Janice Rand), Jeremy Roberts ( Dimitri Valtane ), Boris Krutonog ( Excelsior helmsman Lojur ), and even some extras. David Livingston stated, " We brought back the actors that we could from Star Trek VI […] It was kind of surrealistic in a way because the actors were sort of picking up where they left off several years ago in a feature film and now they're doing a TV show. So that was fun, and great to work with George Takei and Grace Whitney and Boris Krutonog and whoever else we got from the original cast. " ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features)
George Takei was amazed by the attention to detail involved in recreating the scenes from Star Trek VI , particularly the use of the other performers. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 88) He reminisced, " The Voyager behind-the-scenes people did an outstanding job of recreating those sequences from Star Trek VI […] [Rehiring some of the same performers] really lent to the verisimilitude of those scenes, which were based on scenes we had shot five years earlier. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 ) Citing one particular scene, Takei noted, " The recreation of the first explosion scene, the Praxis scene from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country ; movement for movement, throw for throw, and all of the principal actors in that scene. Some had left the industry – one came back from Portland, Oregon, or some place like that, he told me, that he was no longer pursuing a career, but Paramount came after him. So, their integrity and the tremendous research they did in finding all the actors was very impressive. " ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features)
As with George Takei, news that Grace Lee Whitney would be appearing in this episode was made available on the Internet before she even knew about the upcoming episode herself. At one point, Whitney met with Brannon Braga in his office and he advised her of some rewrites and script changes. ( Star Trek Monthly issue 16 ) Whitney appreciated the largeness of her role in this episode. " This is really great for me because I really have dialogue, " she said, " I have had an attitude, a purpose. I'm a lieutenant commander and I tell the ensign what to do! " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ) Prior to filming on the set, Whitney was introduced to Voyager 's cast and crew. She was excited to meet them and vice versa. ( Star Trek Monthly issue 16 ) Whitney was also pleased to be working with George Takei again. Likening the episode to their work on Star Trek VI , Whitney stated, " To be back on the bridge with George, it's just deja vu. When you watch the monitor of us working, you can hardly tell the difference. " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 )
During production, Grace Lee Whitney's eldest of two sons, Scott Dweck , was proud to visit the set. ( Star Trek Monthly issue 19 ) He himself had, in common with his mother, made previous appearances in Star Trek .
Having worked with Grace Lee Whitney not only on Star Trek VI but also on the original Star Trek series decades beforehand, George Takei experienced a sense of nostalgia while working on a bridge set with her again for this episode. Midway through production, Takei enthused, " It's a glorious, glorious feeling to be in that circular configuration with Gracie there. And it's a funny thing–it doesn't feel like it's been 30 years when you're in that setting. It feels like it was just yesterday. Thomas Wolfe was wrong: you can indeed go home again, and it is so sweet! " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ) Throughout the filming of this particular episode, Whitney's enthusiasm was evident to Takei. " Grace Lee was on cloud nine the whole time, " he offered. " She's normally effervescent, and she was like an agitated champagne bottle on the set, spilling and bubbling all over the place. She had some wonderful things to do in the episode, and I was happy to have her beside me. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 )
Kate Mulgrew, David Livingston, and Brannon Braga also enjoyed working with Grace Lee Whitney. Comparing her to George Takei, Mulgrew noted, " I didn't have quite as much dialogue with Grace Lee, but I was quite impressed with her as well. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 ) " Grace was great, " Livingston said, " a den mother but still with that Starfleet control and attitude. " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ) Similarly, Braga noted, " It was delightful having Grace. She added a nice Star Trek touch. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 88)
For her part, Grace Lee Whitney enjoyed guest-starring alongside regulars Tim Russ and Kate Mulgrew. Whitney reminisced, " Kate (Mulgrew) was amazing and Tim (Russ) told me that he'd just loved me as a kid, and here we were working together. It was great. " [2]
Jeremy Roberts was thrilled to be invited to reprise his role of Valtane in this episode. The actor explained, " I was very surprised to get the call. After Star Trek VI I figured that was it, I was lucky to be in one. Of course, now I'm not too thrilled about dying in this one! In 1991 I was sitting there looking at George Takei and thinking, 'I'm part of it! All right !' And when it's over, that's it; I got pictures, that was enough for me. Then they call and say, 'You want to do it again?' I'm there ! " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 )
Despite hobbling due to having recently pulled an Achilles tendon while playing basketball (a five-week old injury whose cast was effectively covered, during filming on the episode, with a black stocking), Boris Krutonog found that, as the Excelsior helmsman, he was able to appreciate appearing in Star Trek more in this case than he had done during production on Star Trek VI . He explained, " I was born in Russia , and there was no Star Trek in Russia […] So I started to realize the importance of Star Trek after Star Trek VI. Back then it was just another movie, but this–this is fun! And a piece of history! " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 )
As of this episode, Michael Ansara ( Kang ) has played the same character on three different live-action Star Trek series. The only other actors to do so are Jonathan Frakes ( Commander William T. Riker ), Marina Sirtis ( Counselor Deanna Troi ), Armin Shimerman ( Quark ), John de Lancie ( Q ), Richard Poe ( Gul Evek ), Patrick Stewart ( Captain Jean-Luc Picard ), Michael Dorn ( Worf ) and LeVar Burton ( Geordi La Forge ).
Michael Ansara previously played Kang in both the TOS : third season episode " Day of the Dove " and the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine second season episode " Blood Oath ". The scripted scene description for when Kang first appears in this episode reads, " A Klingon named Kang appears (as seen in the Deep Space Nine episode "Blood Oath," but he should look younger here). " Besides his appearances as Kang, Ansara also played Jeyal in the DS9 episode " The Muse ".

During production, an adjustment is made to the ceiling of the Excelsior bridge set

This episode required that the Excelsior bridge, in the same configuration from Star Trek VI , be recreated. However, rebuilding the set was initially hampered by difficulties. Production designer Richard James recalled, " I said, 'This is a really neat script but, you know when you have a bridge, you usually have three months to build it and half a million dollars, and I've got to recreate something that's already been seen by millions of people.' " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 25 , p. 30) David Livingston further explained, " Richard James, our production designer, showed me the original plans of the bridge and I said, 'Build it!' and he said 'I don't know if they're going to let me!'–not enough money and not enough time. So they asked if I could shoot with just half of it. Well, no, there's three shooting days, explosions, people moving all around… how do you shoot on half a set? " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 )
Although the Excelsior bridge had taken the film crew of Star Trek VI twelve weeks to build from scratch, Richard James and the rest of the art department, as well as the construction and production departments, were tasked with reconstructing the same bridge set in less than two weeks. James proudly recalled, " We scurried in a mad dash and were able to recreate that set. Everybody was amazed when they came in […] We were able to recreate that bridge and probably did it in less than 10 days. And we did a three hundred and 60 degree set. It was not like on the [episode] " Relics ", where we just created a few walls and used blue screen to accomplish the total look. This was a full set. My carpenters and prop makers just did a tremendous job. " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 25 , p. 30) David Livingston enthused, " It was wonderful how fast they were able to put that bridge together […] I don't know how they did it, but the art department, construction department and the production department all got together and found the money to do it. They had to work a couple of weekends, but they pulled it together and it's amazing. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 10 )
Due to the severe time crunch, however, some elements of the set were necessarily made simpler. Scenic art supervisor Michael Okuda (yet another production staffer who worked on Star Trek VI ) acknowledged, " Some things had to be simplified, but I think everyone's got a lot to be proud of. " ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features) Similarly, Richard James stated, " We eliminated a few details that were subtle, and I don't think anybody missed them. " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 25 , p. 30)
Only a tiny portion of the original Excelsior bridge set survived in storage, having been cannibalized for DS9 (notably, for use on the SS Xhosa ) or Star Trek Generations , or else simply destroyed. However, the main viewscreen, the ops and conn consoles, as well as the aft bridge alcove and the consoles on either side of it had all been kept in storage. ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ) Richard James remembered, " What we did was we tried to find if any of [the original Excelsior bridge set] existed from old feature stock. There were a couple of walls that were still in existence that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had modified into a Klingon set wall. They let me use those. I thought it was a help, but actually, as it turned out, we could have just built it from scratch. Anyway, we did incorporate those walls. " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 25 , p. 30)
The Excelsior bridge's graphics that were available from storage included virtually all the upper-level graphics and half the mid-level displays. Scenic artists Wendy Drapanas and Jim Magdaleno digitized much of Michael Okuda's art from Star Trek VI , producing it much quicker than it had originally been done. Okuda stated, " Wendy Drapanas and Jim Magdaleno again recreated all the backlits, because – even though the set existed – there was a great deal of work to be done. " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 )
All the tape loops of sensor images used in Star Trek VI were found, fairly intact, in storage. These loops were then displayed on twenty-five video "computer monitors" on the reconstructed Excelsior bridge set. Monitors were loaned from both DS9 and Star Trek: First Contact , in a concerted effort to help produce this anniversary installment of Voyager . Finally, the positions and exact timings of the loops were intricately matched with footage from Star Trek VI . Video supervisor Denise Okuda recalled, " Michael and I sat in front of our laserdisk ST:VI at home and tried frame by frame to match it. There were inconsistencies in the film due to editing, but we tried to match as much as possible the location and position of the monitors. The only downside is that our taped displays today are around 5-10 minutes long to give the video operators a break, but the tapes from ST:VI are a maximum of 12 minutes. " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ; Star Trek Monthly issue 22 ) For his part, Michael Okuda stated, " Our video operator, Ben Betts, put in an amazing number of hours along with Denise [Okuda], to recreate as much as possible all the video monitors we had on the set. " ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features)
The bridge of Kang's battle cruiser was an oft-reused generic Klingon bridge set, which went on to serve as the bridge of the IKS Rotarran on DS9. ( Delta Quadrant , p. 132)
George Takei was impressed by the sets of this episode. He remarked, " The sets looked great. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 ) Of the Excelsior bridge specifically, Takei recalled, " The set was new. Once we got into it, it felt like we had been working yesterday on the film version. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 88)

Wardrobe [ ]

Shortly after he started to become involved with this episode, George Takei found that his captain's costume from Star Trek VI no longer fit him. " It was funny, but they dragged out a costume that, they told me, was the same one I wore as Captain Sulu in the movie, " Takei recalled. " I tried to put it on and I was very shocked at the cheap material that they had used. The fabric had somehow shrunk. The pants didn't fit! " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 )
Remarking on how his own 23rd century uniform felt, Tim Russ stated, " Like a rug: thick and heavy, all wool. The shirt underneath is Lycra, but they're generally much harder to get in and out of. " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 )
Grace Lee Whitney had her costume fitting for the episode on Wednesday, 27 March, 1996. ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 )

Production [ ]

Filming on this episode started on 27 March 1996 . ( Information from Larry Nemecek ) It was also Grace Lee Whitney's first day of working on the episode, she having been informed of the episode perhaps only a week and a half before the start date. ( Star Trek Monthly issue 16 ) Following a meeting with the producers to collect a script on Thursday 28 March and attending the long-planned Novacon IV convention (at which Robert Picardo also guested) in Tysons Corner, Virginia during the upcoming weekend, Whitney returned to the Paramount lot on her birthday of Monday, 1 April, for a 4:15 am makeup call. ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ; Star Trek Monthly issue 16 )
Although the Excelsior scenes in Star Trek VI had taken less than a week to film, the equivalent scenes of this episode required three days of filming on the ship's bridge (i.e., George Takei attended filming on three days), and another two days for the scenes set in the officers' bunkroom. ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 )
While most of the scenes aboard the Excelsior had to be filmed anew, David Livingston found that filming scenes that were "sort of continuations of the feature film […] was a real challenge and really fun to do." ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features) In fact, Livingston recreated some of the same camera angles that director Nicholas Meyer had used in Star Trek VI . " We couldn't recreate some of them, " Livingston admitted, " because we didn't have enough time and the wherewithal to do so, but we did match some of the same angles. Some I did differently because by necessity it had to fit into the story we were telling, but I thought it would be fun for the fans to see some of the same camera angles. So the people who know Star Trek VI should get a big kick out of it. I am. " Furthermore, several visual effects shots, together with the shot of Sulu's teacup shattering, were reused directly from the film. ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ) Despite these reused camera angles and footage, the episode does not credit Nicholas Meyer.
David Livingston employed, in this episode, a filming technique whereby a continual shot moves all the way around a character. The episode's first scene in which this camera move is incorporated involves Tuvok in a turbolift , en route to sickbay during the teaser, in which the technique is used only once, with the camera revolving on a horizontal axis. The second time the technique is used is in the scene wherein Tuvok collapses in engineering, in which the camera rotates on a vertical axis while hovering on a close-up of Tuvok. Livingston commented, " We did 360s stuff […] If you want to, you can sort of do that on Star Trek . Sometimes, they look at you askance. But, God, if you can't do it on a science fiction show with people wearing screwy make-up, where else are you going to do it? So, to me, it's play and you might as well go for it because, if you don't, you're going to regret it later. Try not to be boring, that's the main thing, try not to be boring. So, making 360s around a character who's going nuts? That makes sense to me. That's not boring, I hope. " ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features)
One of two reasons (the other being a scene deletion) why this episode was, at one point, not long enough was that David Livingston employed a characteristically fast-paced style in creating the episode's action. " We were just over 5 minutes short, " he noted, before saying in reference to the producers, " I had warned them, but I guess they wanted to wait and see how much. " Of the two scenes that were duly added to the episode, Livingston remarked, " The Neelix scene has a good drive, but the Kes scene is very slowly paced to milk it for every frame we could get out of it! " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ) In order to film the latter scene, it took "about six takes" for Tim Russ to balance the Keethera while keeping his eyes closed. [3] (X)
In the episode's first view of Sulu, the character emerges from smoke and assumes an heroic stance. David Livingston recalled, " I wanted to, for the audience's delight and hopefully surprise, I wanted to do a really cool reveal of Sulu, because we didn't really know where we were initially. So what we did was – the ship was in distress, so that's always a justification for me to have liquid nitrogen pouring out of somewhere – so what we did was, on the ship, we created this big wall of liquid nitrogen, put the camera really low, and then had George walk through it in this very heroic pose and it was a great reveal of him. It surprised the audience and made him look really, really cool, so that was fun. " ( Flashback to "Flashback", VOY Season 3 DVD special features)
The last day of this episode's production period was 4 April 1996 . ( Information from Larry Nemecek )

Effects [ ]

The visual effects shots that had originally been created for Star Trek VI and were reused in this episode were exterior shots of the Excelsior and the shock wave from the explosion of Praxis. The exterior views that are not taken from Star Trek VI , however, show a slightly different ship; the Excelsior 's warp nacelles have the typical blue glow in the new footage but not in the original.
The model used for Kang's battle cruiser was the last reuse of the K't'inga -class model , which had been used in Star Trek VI to represent Kronos One .

A temporary composite of the elements in the Klingon-explosion scene

The shot of the Excelsior emerging from the nebula and causing an explosion that disables the pursuing Klingon ship was created by filming the motion-control studio models, detonations that were shot with a Photo-Sonics camera – pointing straight up and running at 360 frames per second, rather than the typical 24 – and an element to show clouds billowing apart. Of the explosions, visual effects producer Dan Curry explained, " If you have a small explosion happen in real time, it may occur like pfft! and it's over. But if you take a special camera that runs film at very high speed, […] it stretches time. So, an explosion that in real life may take a split-second can be stretched out into several seconds, so it looks vast. And by shooting it straight up, it gives the illusion that it's happening in space without gravity, because all the parts of the explosion fall equally around the lens, so there's no apparent arc from gravity, so that we will accept that it happens in space. " Of the cloud-like element, Dan Curry said, " What that was was a four-inch deep, four-by-four-foot vat, lined with black velvet and filled up with vapors of liquid nitrogen, which stay in the vat because they're heavier than air because they're so cold. Then, [visual effects supervisor] Ron Moore took a piece of cardboard, or sometimes he used a Dust-Off can, and just [put] a little puff of air down, which would push the liquid nitrogen apart, and then it would billow back in. And because it's so cold and the way the vapors move, it moves very slowly so it looks huge, even though it's a very tiny thing. " ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features)

Reception [ ]

The writing of this episode prevented an idea similar to the installment's premise from being included in Marvel Comics ' run of Star Trek: Voyager comics . Shortly thereafter, writer Laurie S. Sutton remarked, " The only challenge [of writing Marvel's Voyager comics] is to write a story to get [ Voyager 's crew] home and then bring them back without it being disappointing like, 'They've got to get back and–aw, darn, they're back in the Delta Quadrant. Well, better luck next time!' As a matter of fact, I have some ideas for those kind of stories […] Apparently, Paramount has already beaten me to it […] because I wanted to do a story where Voyager gets literally thrown back into the Alpha Quadrant, but back in time where they meet Captain Sulu. Well, they're doing a Sulu story, so I went, 'Aw, phooey!' " A similar incident had occurred with " Basics, Part I ". ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 )
According to Grace Lee Whitney, when Brannon Braga advised her of script revisions, her first concern was how much she could tell the fans of Star Trek . Although Whitney believed that the episode could not have been possible without fan support, Braga's reply was for her to tell the fans nothing. ( Star Trek Monthly issue 16 )
Even before she began performing in the episode, Whitney had a chance to gauge audience reaction to it during the Novacon IV convention, held in the weekend prior to production. " I lifted up the script at the convention, " she recalled, " and the fans just went crazy. " Remarking on the episode itself, she said, " It's wonderful for the show; it keeps the fans interested, and it's a great tie-in for the anniversary […] George has a wonderful speech about the family of the Enterprise sticking together, which Tuvok just can't understand. The fans will love it! " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 )
Although Nichelle Nichols declined to appear in this installment, two of George Takei's compatriots from the original Star Trek series – namely, James Doohan and Walter Koenig – were very happy for Takei to appear on Voyager . He revealed, " Jimmy and Walter were both delighted for me. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 88)
George Takei, who had fought long and hard for a Captain Sulu series to be greenlighted, hoped that the success of this episode might finally grant him that wish. " This could be the first early warning sign! " Takei remarked. " Sometimes they use episodes as a pilot before they commit to a series, so – knock on wood! " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 22 ) Indeed, Internet rumor suggested that this episode would serve as the pilot for a new Captain Sulu spin-off series, entitled Star Trek: The Adventures of Captain Sulu . " It was right about 'Flashback' happening, so who knows? " Takei remarked, laughing. ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 ) According to Grace Lee Whitney, the possibility of this episode leading to a Captain Sulu miniseries was not fantastical. She said of the installment, " They told us it was a (backdoor) pilot for (an Excelsior) mini-series. " [4]
The date on which this episode first aired was three days after Star Trek 's 30th anniversary. The episode achieved a Nielsen rating of 5.2 million homes, and an 8% share. [5] (X)
Although no new Star Trek series with Sulu in command was ultimately commissioned (due to a lack of popularity for the idea), executive producer Rick Berman described this episode as "absolutely delightful." ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 109 , p. 14) He also commented that this installment (in common with " Trials and Tribble-ations ", Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's own 30th anniversary offering) was "a lot of fun and […] did very well in the ratings." ( Star Trek Monthly issue 24 )
On the other hand, Brannon Braga ultimately believed this episode was of lesser quality than "Trials and Tribble-ations". Of this episode in particular, he said, " It was a nice little tribute, not as good as 'Trials and Tribble-ations' from Deep Space Nine . It was OK. I just think they came up with a better idea. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 88)
This episode's successful viewer response made sense to Tim Russ. After praising the installment as "a killer episode," he added, " It was so right, in terms of the 30th anniversary of Star Trek . " Contrasting the experience of watching this episode with the enjoyment he got from appearing in it, Russ declared, " I think fans of the original series watching 'Flashback' get a different but similar kind of thrill. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 9 )
Cinefantastique rated this episode 2 and a half out of 4 stars. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 87)
Star Trek Magazine scored this episode 2 out of 5 stars, defined as "Impulse Power only". Additionally, Lou Anders , a writer of the magazine, wrote a review of the installment, commenting, " 'Flashback' contains many interesting elements, such as the revelation that Tuvok has had two Starfleet careers. The performances are good, and it is a genuine pleasure to see George Takei, as superb as always, reprise his role as the popular original series character […] One wishes that he was given more to do in the episode. Unfortunately, the plot is slow, and Sulu's impromptu rescue attempt seems too poorly thought out and too uncharacteristically reckless to be believable. " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 23 , pp. 58 & 59)
The unauthorized reference book Delta Quadrant (p. 135) gives this installment a rating of 8 out of 10.
The book Star Trek 101 (p. 175), by Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block , lists this episode as one of "Ten Essential Episodes" from Star Trek: Voyager .
In a 1998 interview, George Takei expressed an interest in making a return appearance on Voyager . " [I] would love to do the show again, " he reckoned. " Maybe I could work with the entire cast the second time around. " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 42 , p. 41)

Continuity [ ]

In this episode, Tuvok states that two days after the explosion of Praxis, two Federation officers were arrested for the assassination of Gorkon. However, in Star Trek VI , Spock says that a Federation starship monitored an explosion on Praxis two months ago. He makes that statement before Enterprise is sent to rendezvous with Kronos One , so at least two months elapse between the explosion and Gorkon's death.
Prior to this episode, a Captain Sulu is mentioned by Chakotay in the Season 2 episode " Tattoo " and, in the later second season episode " Alliances ", Tuvok references Spock 's initially controversial recommendation for an alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, as depicted in Star Trek VI . In the latter episode, Tuvok mentions that he himself "spoke out against such a coalition," placing him at the time when the film is set, as this episode continues to do.
Tim Russ thought the way in which this story places Tuvok on the bridge of the Excelsior was foolproof, in regard to continuity. " Nobody could question it, " he said. " The timeline was consistent so nobody could say, 'Hey, he couldn't possibly, blah-blah,' or, 'No, we didn't see that, blah-de-blah' – they couldn't say it; it worked perfectly. So, I thought that was the coolest thing, because they make sure the fans don't catch anything. That's always a neat trick. " ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features)
Tim Russ also liked how this episode provided much continuity for Tuvok that the actor could later draw on. Russ commented, " The whole story becoming a back-story for Tuvok… I thought was great. It tightens the relationship between he and the captain, and it exposes to the people of the audience what this character is all about, where he comes from. Because before that, we didn't have a history for him. And after that, we had a history for him. Now he's got a back-story, now he becomes a little bit more complete , as a person. Now, if he does something three episodes down the line, ah well, that's because so-and-so was established way-back-when. And that's always beneficial when you're playing the character as you have something to grab onto. So, 'I can use this, because we learned this.' We know where he came from, we understand what happened and now, you can use that as a motivational factor down the line. So it's always good to have that. " ( Flashback to "Flashback" , VOY Season 3 DVD special features) Russ also enthused, " It was a great back story for Tuvok, about why he joined Starfleet, when he got married, why and how, and why he left and then came back to Starfleet. All that information is valuable, just to create more layers of history for this character. " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 25 , p. 12)
Momentarily confused of when he is, Tuvok suggests a tachyon sweep for cloaked Klingon ships, at the time being adversaries of the Federation. Voyager 's crew didn't know that by sheer coincidence, the Federation and the Klingon Empire were currently engaged in another war , soon to be ended by a cease fire .
At the end of the third season, Tim Russ cited this episode as one of four or five installments (in the first three seasons) in which Tuvok's "defenses have been breached" and "his control has been taken away or lost", other such episodes being " Cathexis " and " Meld ". ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, No. 6/7, p. 100) Following the production of Voyager 's fourth season, Russ similarly observed that – in common with "Meld" – this installment "really pushed the envelope with how outside forces affect Tuvok's character and what happens." ( Star Trek Monthly issue 41 , p. 28)
At one point before or during production, Brannon Braga cryptically told Grace Lee Whitney that her character of Janice Rand might later be brought back to the series. The actress fondly recalled, " Brannon Braga was very cute with his remark: We're not killing you off, Grace, so we can bring you back! " ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 108 ) This Voyager episode is, however, the only one in which Rand appears.
Neither Sulu nor Janice Rand appear in "Trials and Tribble-ations". In fact, George Takei is the only regular cast member from Star Trek: The Original Series who does not feature in that episode of DS9. This is due to Takei having not appeared in the original " The Trouble with Tribbles " (during which the DS9 episode is set), and Whitney had left the series the previous season. Thus, their appearances in Flashback allowed all the main Original Series cast members to appear in a 30th anniversary episode.
Tuvok mentions having thought about talking to "one of the other Vulcans on the ship", establishing that the Voyager crew comprises at least three Vulcans. One of these Vulcans, Vorik , later appeared in " Fair Trade ".

Apocrypha [ ]

The novelization of Flashback (written by Diane Carey ) includes several additional elements, the most prominent subplot being Kes succumbing to Tuvok's hallucinations as his own telepathic barriers begin to collapse, causing Tuvok to unintentionally assault Kes and cause her to take on the role of the girl in his hallucination. This continues to such an extent that Kes attempts to attack Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres as they conduct a survey of the nebula in a shuttle, motivated by Tuvok's 'transferred' memory of the attack on Excelsior , until the repressed memory is treated and the virus is removed.
At one point, Sulu tells Tuvok that he knows Vulcans have a sense of humor. He could be referring to a brief exchange that took place on the bridge in TOS : " The Corbomite Maneuver "; a young officer, Lieutenant Dave Bailey , defends raising his voice in excitement as the natural result of having "a Human thing called an adrenaline gland". In response, Spock dryly observes that such an organ could prove inconvenient, and wonders whether the lieutenant should consider having it removed. Sulu then advised Bailey that an attempt to "cross brains" with Spock, a Vulcan, was doomed to failure: "he'll cut you to pieces every time".
The episode implies that Starfleet crew members sleep in their uniforms, as observed during a scene where both Tuvok and his bunk mate Dimitri Valtane lay down to sleep in their bunks fully dressed including the outer red jacket tunics and still wearing boots. In the film Star Trek VI , crew members are contradictorily seen sleeping in night clothes, perhaps implying that Tuvok's memory is faulty in this regard.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 3.1, 13 January 1997
As part of the VOY Season 3 DVD collection
As part of the Star Trek: Fan Collective - Captain's Log collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway

Also starring [ ]

Robert Beltran as Commander Chakotay
Roxann Biggs-Dawson as Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres
Jennifer Lien as Kes
Robert Duncan McNeill as Lieutenant Tom Paris
Ethan Phillips as Neelix
Robert Picardo as The Doctor
Tim Russ as Lieutenant Tuvok
Garrett Wang as Ensign Harry Kim

Guest Stars [ ]

Grace Lee Whitney as Janice Rand
Jeremy Roberts as Dimitri Valtane
Boris Krutonog as Lojur
Michael Ansara as " Kang "
George Takei as "Captain Sulu "

Stunt doubles [ ]

Tom Morga as stunt double for Jeremy Roberts
Unknown stunt performer as stunt double for George Takei

References [ ]

47 ; 23rd century ; 2264 ; 2289 ; 2293 ; 2349 ; ability ; acid ; accusation ; adrenaline ; all hands ; Alpha Quadrant ; antibody ; argon ; Azure Nebula ; battle cruiser, Klingon ; battle stations ; bearing ; beats per minute ; Beta Quadrant ; blood factor ; Bolian ; brain damage ; brain death ( brain dead ); brig ; bunk mate ; Bussard collector ; captaincy ; career ; cartilage ; class 17 nebula ( unnamed }; class 11 nebula ; coma ; conduit ; cooking ; cortical stimulator ; cordrazine ; crew quarters ; crustacean ; cryostatic chamber ; cup ; " curry favor "; damage ; damage report ; day ; deflector shield ; degree ; department head ; dill weed ; dizziness ; dozen ; emotional response ; encephalographic profile ; Enterprise -A, USS ; anthraxic citrus peel ; Excelsior , USS ; Excelsior -class ; Excelsior class decks ; Federation ; Federation space ; fluorine ; freedom ; garnish ; gaseous anomaly ; gasoline ; Golwat ; hallucination ; heart ; heart rate ; helium ; hippocampus ; holodeck ; Human ; hydrogen ; ice cream scoop ; Intrepid class decks ; intruder alert ; junior science officer ; Kang ; Kang's battle cruiser (2293) ; Keethera ; Khitomer ; kilodyne ; Kirk, James T. ; Klingon battle cruisers ; Klingon Empire ; Klingon space ; Kolinahr ; K't'inga -class ; lobotomy ; logic ; loyalty ; mark ; McCoy, Leonard ; memory virus ; milligram ; Milky Way Galaxy ; mind meld ; minute ; Mister Vulcan ; multiphasic shields ; murder ; Neelix' mother ; neural pattern ; neural structure ; neurocortical monitor ; neuroelectricity ; nostalgia ; orange juice ; oxygen ; panic attack ; papalla seed extract ; panic attack ; pantry ; parallel reality ; parboiling ; parietal bone ; parts per million ; peptide ; percent ; plasma conduit ; pon farr ; Porakan eggs ; Porakas IV ; Porakas IV sector ; positron beam ; Praxis ; precipice ; Prime Directive ; pyllora ; Qo'noS ; red alert ; rengazo ; replicator ; repressed memory ; replicator ; rescue mission ; Romulans ; sense of humor ; shotgun ; sirillium ; space duty ; Spock ; Starfleet Academy ; Starfleet Headquarters ; Starfleet Regulations ; state of mind ; storage bay ; subspace frequency ; subspace shock wave ; survey mission ; synaptic pathway ; tachyon sweep ; Talax ; tea ; telepathy ; thermal array ; theta-xenon ; thoron radiation ; tissue ; T'lokan schism ; T'Meni ; touch (aka hint ); tongue ; T'Pel ; traumatic memory ; trial ; turbolift ; Tuvok's father ; vital signs ; Vulcan (planet); Vulcan (species); Vulcan nerve pinch ; vulture ; Wyoming , USS ; year ; Yorktown , USS

External links [ ]

"Flashback" at StarTrek.com
" Flashback " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
" Flashback " at Wikipedia
" "Flashback" " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

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Published Sep 11, 2014

Throwback to Voyager's "Flashback"

It was January of 1996 and Star Trek ’s 30th anniversary loomed large. Paramount Pictures knew they wanted to celebrate the landmark anniversary, but how? The answer turned out to be “ Flashback ,” which aired on September 11, 1996, and was the second episode of Star Trek: Voyager ’s third season – though it was actually filmed at the end of season two and banked; Deep Space Nine tipped its cap to Trek ’s 30th anniversary as well with the episode “ Trials and Tribble-ations ,” which aired in November, 1996.

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30 Best Episodes Of Star Trek: Voyager According To IMDb

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

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

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

30. Scientific Method (Season 4, Episode 7)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

27. Life Line (Season 6, Episode 24)

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

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

26. One (Season 4, Episode 25)

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

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

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

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

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

24. Deadlock (Season 2, Episode 21)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

19. Shattered (Season 7, Episode 10)

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

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

18. Death Wish (Season 2, Episode 18)

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

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

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

17. Latent Image (Season 5, Episode 11)

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

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

16. Equinox (Season 5, Episode 25)

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

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

15. Pathfinder (Season 6, Episode 10)

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

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

14. Dark Frontier (Season 5, Episode 15)

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

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

13. Endgame (Season 7, Episode 24)

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

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

12. Distant Origin (Season 3, Episode 23)

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

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

11. Drone (Season 5, Episode 2)

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

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

10. Relativity (Season 5, Episode 23)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. Living Witness (Season 4, Episode 23)

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

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

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

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

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

5. Timeless (Season 5, Episode 6)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Scorpion (Season 3, Episode 26)

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

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

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

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

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

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Star Trek: Voyager – Flashback (Review)

This February and March (and a little bit of April), we’re taking a look at the 1995 to 1996 season of Star Trek , including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager . Check back daily for the latest review.

Flashback was largely advertised as Star Trek: Voyager ‘s contribution to the thirtieth anniversary celebrations of the Star Trek franchise.

It featured guest appearances from three alumni of the original show. It was set during the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . It featured Tuvok and Janeway dressing up in movie-era uniforms. It was publicised as “a very special episode.” It aired only three days after the thirtieth anniversary, while Star Trek: Deep Space Nine waited nearly two months to broadcast Trials and Tribble-ations . Anybody would be forgiven for looking at Flashback as the obligatory nostalgic celebratory adventure to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Star Trek franchise.

Put simply, Flashback does not work in that context. Although it features Captain Hikaru Sulu, the episode doesn’t actually allow him to accomplish anything. As far as “secret histories” go, the episode turns out to be a bit of a cul de sac . More to the point, the continuity is a mess, both in broad franchise terms and specifically with regards to the feature film it heavily references. Although it is great to see Grace Lee Whitney and George Takei back, the script only allows them to interact with Tim Russ and (fleetingly) Kate Mulgrew.

In fact, it could convincingly be argued that Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II do a much better job of filling the “celebratory thirtieth anniversary story” slot than Flashback, despite the notable absence of any actual characters from the original show. Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II feel like a gigantic (and enjoyable) homage to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , which is both hugely fun and also weirdly appropriate in a play-on-words sort of way. That is more in line with what fans were expecting for the anniversary: nostalgic fun.

Tim Russ was as excited as anyone to get a Tuvok episode.

In contrast, Flashback is something altogether stranger. Brannon Braga had been working on the story before it was suggested that Voyager should do a thirtieth anniversary episode, and Flashback plays more as a Brannon Braga script that ties into an anniversary more than an anniversary episode that happens to be written by Brannon Braga. Despite its high-profile guest cast, Flashback has more in common with Braga’s mind-bending scripts for Frame of Mind or Projections than with Trials and Tribble-ations .

Nevertheless, there is something fascinating about Flashback , because it allows Braga to use the springboard of the thirtieth anniversary to talk about memory.

The teacup that he shattered didn’t come together…

Braga was always going to be an interesting choice for this assignment. During his time on Star Trek: The Next Generation , Braga had established himself as something as an enfant terrible , giving provocative interviews designed to rile the fanbase. Whereas his fellow writers like Ronald D. Moore and René Echevarria talked about their influences and their love of the franchise, Braga was fond of talking about kinky sex. It is interesting to wonder just how much of Braga’s divisive reputation can be traced back to those early pieces.

During those early interviews, Braga tended to downplay any real attachment to the franchise. Unlike Ronald D. Moore or René Echevarria, Braga was not a life-long fan who had taken advantage of Michael Piller’s open submission policy to earn a place on staff. Braga’s first fond memory of watching Star Trek is catching The Enemy during the third season of The Next Generation , a year before he ended up on staff as an intern from Santa Cruz . Braga played up the idea that he was not a hardcore fan of the franchise.

A melding of generations…

Part of this included a boast that he had never even see the original show. This was a bold claim for such a prominent writer. Although he eventually got around to watching (most of) them, he still found himself addressing the issue as late as 2001 :

“Yeah, I’ve taken a lashing from the fans, but just for the record, here’s how that started,” Braga told the official magazine. “I think there was a period about eight years ago when I made some stupid comments, in one or two interviews, about never having seen an episode of the original series, which was true. And in fact, when I first started here, when Gene Roddenberry was still alive, he said to me, ‘Don’t watch the original series. If you haven’t seen it, don’t watch.’ “And I (asked) why? And he said, ‘Because you will bring something fresh to the table’ — because he was very adamant that (Star Trek: The Next Generation) not be the original series, and not redo anything. So I was like, ‘Fine.’”

In hindsight, it seems quite surreal that Braga would be the co-creator and showrunner of Star Trek: Enterprise , a prequel to the original Star Trek . (Of course, it makes more sense if you think of it as a sequel to Star Trek: First Contact .)

To be fair to Braga, he has softened on that hardline position in recent years. However, in the documentary Before Her Time , Braga concedes that continuity was never an aspect of Star Trek that interested him as a writer:

My relationship with the fanbase – or some of the fanbase, I don’t know how much of the fanbase, it’s hard to tell on-line – started with some dumb interview where I said I’d never seen the original series. Which, I can understand why that would be upsetting. And I think I was viewed as arrogant or something. I think I was just kinda young, and maybe came across as arrogant or something… maybe, I don’t know. And I made a couple of jokes about “continuity porn”, which I thought was a clever phrase but was just insulting, you know, to people who value continuity – like Manny Coto. But, my point was that to me Star Trek was always about “new.” The canon, the continuity, it was a valuable storytelling element on the show, but to me it was always about exploration – about exploring new things. That’s what Gene told me, that’s what Rick told me, that’s what the show was. And I never wanted to get mired in too much continuity.

It should noted that Braga is speaking with the benefit of hindsight in that particular quote. The infamous “continuity porn” interview was given in the lead-up to the broadcast of Broken Bow , years after the release of Flashback . If anything, his position wold have been more extreme while writing Flashback .

Mental blocks.

Still, even allowing for the fact that Braga was being deliberately confrontational when he talked about having never watched the original Star Trek and for the likelihood that his perspective was beginning to soften by this point in his time working on the franchise, Braga still seems like a very strange choice to write the big thirtieth anniversary script. Flashback is supposed to be one of the “blockbuster” episodes of the season, given prime position and hyped to an absurd degree. Giving it to somebody who is fairly ambivalent about the original Star Trek seems an odd decision.

Of course, it is not as if many alternatives suggest themselves; hardcore Star Trek fans Bryan Fuller and Michael Taylor were not on staff yet, Jeri Taylor was not particularly continuity-obsessed, Kenneth Biller and Lisa Klink were still Star Trek novices. Whereas the Deep Space Nine staff were falling over one another to make their mark on the teleplay for Trials and Tribble-ations , there seemed to be markedly less enthusiasm among the Voyager staff. Brannon Braga seems a more reasonable choice when the alternatives are considered.

Nebulous concept…

It helps that Braga happened to have a story unto which this big anniversary celebration might be grafted. As Braga explained to Cinefantastique , the “viral memory” idea actually predated the whole “anniversary episode” idea:

“When the 30th year anniversary rolled around, [it] was suggested that we do an homage to the original series,” said Braga. “We thought, what a perfect opportunity to use the sci-fi gimmick, mind melding, and go to save Tuvok from a psychic trauma. And back [in] time, that was what we were going to do [originally]. We were going to see Janeway’s first commission. It was going to be more about Janeway and that relationship. We just used that story as a departure and it worked very nicely. But the gag was always the same, to do a time travel story without doing time travel, by doing a meld. Tuvok’s old enough that we can go way back. We went back to Sulu’s ship, and events that happened in Star Trek VI. That was what we combined. But it still ended up being a kind of interesting Tuvok character piece, and you learned more about him, his feelings about humans.”

As such, it is no surprise that Flashback struggles as a big “let’s celebrate Star Trek!” episode, because it was not originally conceived as such. That idea was grafted into a preexisting story. (Not unlike the parasitic contagious memory, to be fair.)

Sulu flying solo…

Even without knowing this production back story, it is clear that Flashback is an awkward fit for the anniversary story. Most notably, Captain Hikaru Sulu does not actually appear until fifteen minutes into the episode. As such, the episode feels like a party where the honoured guest can’t be bothered to show up until a third of the way through. Trials and Tribble-ations revealed the Enterprise at the end of the teaser. Relics introduced Scotty before the opening credits. Even Unification, Part I featured Spock’s picture in its opening scenes.

In contrast, the teaser to Flashback ends with Tuvok… falling over . It is an effective sequence, one that plays like a pulpy horror movie, but it lacks the visceral impact of putting the anniversary elements up front. Flashback consciously buries the lede, although it has no reason to do so. The audience knows Sulu is coming. The episode had been hyped for weeks before it aired. Even if viewers tumbled into the episode blind, George Takei is listed prominently in the guest cast credits. So it seems strange to spend so much of the episode waiting for his arrival.

He has fallen, and he cannot get up.

As such, it is no surprise that Flashback was a disappointment to fans eagerly anticipating a nostalgic celebration of the franchise’s history. It doesn’t help matters that all sorts rumours were swirling about the possibility of a Star Trek spin-off starring George Takei and set on board the USS Excelsior. Takei himself had been a massive cheerleader for the idea, reflecting in hindsight :

It was a substantial idea. There was a huge following for it. And after all, Star Trek VI seemed to have opened the door for an Excelsior television series. But for whatever reason, Paramount didn’t pick up the idea. So despite that massive and heroic effort that was launched by all of the people, and I was absolutely convinced that the audience was there based on the reception of Star Trek VI, the idea didn’t go through. I was absolutely baffled.

Despite the fact that it very much feels like an attempt to do a Star Trek spin-off in the mould of Joey or A Man Called Hawk, those rumours simply refused to die. There was a concentrated effort to launch a “Captain Sulu” series after Voyager left the air in 2001 , although the production team opted to reach even further back in time. The idea of an “Excelsior” movie was a credible April Fool’s joke as recently as 2012 .

Cooking up a treat…

Of course, the prospect of launching a “Star Trek: Excelsior” or “Star Trek: The Adventures of Captain Sulu” television series was patently absurd, particularly in the context of 1996. Deep Space Nine was halfway through its run, and Voyager was barely started. A third Star Trek television series would have been overkill, particularly at a point where Voyager was deeply troubled and there was a very credible risk of Star Trek over-saturation for die-hard fans of the franchise, let alone casual audience members.

Nevertheless, there was a recurring suggestion among fandom that Flashback might serve as a “backdoor” pilot for a new series focusing on Captain Sulu. After all, that is how other franchises tended to launch spin-offs, allowing the cast of the parent show to visit the location and cast of the new spin-off. (The CSI franchise would elevate this style of cross-promotional launching to an artform at the start of the twenty-first century.) The expectation seemed to be that this would be a “Sulu” episode guest starring the Voyager cast.

Klingon to the connection…

These rumours were consciously stoked and fueled by the guest cast. George Takei would drop the idea into interviews. Even in hindsight, Grace Lee Whitney insisted that there was always the hope of spinning off a new show from the episode :

It was great. They told us it was a (backdoor) pilot for (an Excelsior) mini-series. I’d said, “Why don’t you do this show and bring us on every three months in an episode? We could bring in all of the people, one at a time, from the original show?” But they couldn’t get enough people to support it.

To be fair, if the episode had performed phenomenally – breaking records, cracking the mainstream press, becoming a fan favourite – it might have generated some traction. But it is hard to look at Flashback and think that the episode was written to jumpstart a Captain Sulu series. That is just wishful thinking.

Rough ride…

Flashback was always going to disappoint on that front. It was never going to venerate Sulu in the same way that Trials and Tribble-ations venerated the original series or Relics venerated Scotty. Despite all the hype around the episode, the return of Sulu was never the central point of Flashback . The episode might have featured a guest appearance from Sulu, but it was never about Sulu. Coupled with the episode’s flagrant discontinuity, this meant that Flashback was never going to be the episode that the marketing team (and audiences) wanted it to be.

Flashback is, first and foremost, a Brannon Braga script. It comes from a long line of Brannon Braga scripts that engage with high-concept science-fiction ideas as a way to play with fundamental concepts like self and identity. Flashback is very much a companion piece to episodes like Cause and Effect or Frame of Mind or Projections . The comparison with Projections is particularly on point, given that Flashback was another episode produced at the end of the production season but held back until the start of the next broadcast year.

“The good old days…”

While Projections is a story about identity and reality filtered through the prism of Philip K. Dick, Flashback is more interested in memory. Sulu and the Excelsior very clearly serve this theme, rather than the other way around. Flashback touches on abstract ideas of memory and nostalgia, in a way that feels entirely appropriate for the thirtieth anniversary of the franchise, even if it is not exactly what fans expect from an episode like this. ( Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II do a more straightforward tribute to the original show.)

Flashback is full of contradictions – both explicit and implied – between the version of events witnessed by Tuvok and the version depicted in The Undiscovered Country . There are the little niggling details, of course. Tuvok’s account of his opposition to the Khitomer conference in Alliances never mentioned that he was serving on the Excelsior, which is an odd little detail. Certainly, the two facts are not mutually exclusive, but it seems a strange omission. It would be like commenting on the Cuba Missile Crisis without mentioning you were on the bridge of the USS Essex.

Not his cup of tea…

It is a strange choice to reveal that Tuvok was actually serving on the Excelsior during the crisis, given that an earlier episode had already filled in some of the blanks around what Tuvok had been doing at the same time. However, given the circumstances, it is a logical contrivance. Tuvok is the only member of the Voyager cast old enough to have been around during the time period of the original Star Trek show. Using Tuvok as a tether to anchor the story makes sense, leaving aside little details like that.

Other bits of back story are harder to reconcile. Sulu describes Tuvok as “an ensign with only two months space duty under his belt.” However, Sulu’s opening log from The Undiscovered Country suggests that the Excelsior just spent “three years” mapping “gaseous planetary anomalies in the Beta Quadrant.” It seems strange (although perhaps not impossible) that Tuvok could find his way on board Sulu’s ship thirty-four months into a thirty-six month mission. Maybe Starfleet just has a terrible H.R. department.

No mind, no matter.

However, there are bigger issues of discontinuity. Most obviously, the fact that the history depicted in Flashback is impossible to reconcile with that of The Undiscovered Country . This is not the first time that Braga would be responsible for trying to awkwardly shoehorn one story inside another one; trying to nest Flashback within The Undiscovered Country very much sets a precedent for trying to slot These are the Voyages… within Pegasus . However, at least the issues with Flashback are explored within the episode itself.

Sulu’s attempted rescue of Kirk and McCoy in Flashback is the stuff of fan fiction – albeit a different sort of fan fiction than that evoked by Resolutions . This particular adventure of Captain Hikaru Sulu is one of those great “but what happens to a particular character when they are off-screen?” stories, the kind of postmodern high concept that inspired Tom Stoppard’s Rosencratz and Gildenstern are Dead . It is too much to imagine Sulu sitting idly by and waiting for Spock to act while Kirk and McCoy are in danger, so Flashback gives him a parallel narrative.

Chart a course, directly for that plot hole!

Of course, that parallel narrative does not fit at all with the version of events presented in The Undiscovered Country . In The Undiscovered Country , Sulu explicitly considers staging a rescue mission. When the verdict comes in, Sulu instructs his staff to send a message to the Enterprise that they are “ready to assist.” Later in the film, while Spock is stalling for time, Sulu is woken up to receive word that the Enterprise has yet to return to Spacedock. The next time that Sulu appears, he is guiding the Enterprise to Khitomer.

Although never explicitly stated, the clear intent of these scenes is to suggest that Sulu and the Excelsior were essentially waiting patiently on the sidelines during the crisis, ready to render any assistance necessary but not committing unilaterally to any action. The events of Flashback are hard to reconcile with this. Did Sulu unilaterally decide to mount a rescue mission without informing Spock, who was quietly planning his own rescue mission simultaneously? It seems a little bit of a stretch.

Because he Kang…

More than that, it is difficult to reconcile Sulu’s confrontation with Kang with the events of The Undiscovered Country . There was a reason that Spock did not charge head-first into a rescue. When Chancellor Azetbur agrees to reopen negotiations with the Federation, she explicitly warns against attempting a rescue mission to recover Kirk and McCoy. “We would consider any such attempt an act of war,” she advises the Federation President. That is also why it is so important that Spock and Uhura infiltrate Klingon space by means of subterfuge.

In contrast, Sulu comes into conflict with the Klingons twice . First, Sulu encounters Kang. Using only the power of technobabble (and a delightful Star Trek analogy of “tossing a match into a pool of gasoline” ), Sulu disables Kang’s ship. Given that Sulu is sneaking into Klingon space to recover Kirk, this is clearly an act of war. Even if Kang is not willing to plunge the Klingon Empire into war over Sulu’s intrusion, it seems strange that none of the Klingon ships that ambush Excelsior later in the episode seem to report the incident. It is hard to reconcile this with the film’s plot.

Wrapping their heads around it…

There are other cosmetic inconsistencies. The Excelsior takes quite a beating during the ambush in the nebula. The bridge is on fire, allowing Sulu to step theatrically through a plume of smoke to make his big entrance. However, when Excelsior reappears immediately following Kirk’s rescue in The Undiscovered Country , the bridge still looks new and fresh. There is no evidence of massive damage or destruction. Of course, this is Voyager . It seems to take about five minutes to recover that “new starship smell” after nearly apocalyptic damage.

There are other inconsistencies that cannot be so easily dismissed. Quite pointedly, Flashback focuses on the death of Dmitri Valtane. It is not a trivial detail. It is a massive plot point. Valtane is responsible for “infecting” Tuvok with the memory virus that drives the story. However, Valtane is very clearly alive at the climax of The Undiscovered Country , after the events depicted in Flashback . While there there are all sorts of awkward fixes to this – Valtane is a twin! Valtane is a clone! Valtane got really better for a little while and then died! – it bakes a very obvious continuity issue into the episode’s premise.

Quite frankly, it’s a load of bunk…

All of these little details chip away at the idea that Flashback is supposed to be a continuity-heavy celebration of the franchise’s history by positing a lost adventure unfolding alongside the events of The Undiscovered Country . As the episode unfolds, it becomes increasingly difficult to accept Flashback at face value, as a parallel narrative that runs in the background of the final film to feature the cast of the original series. Flashback is not a nostalgic attempt to fill in the gaps. It is something else entirely.

Braga’s script candidly and repeatedly acknowledges these inconsistencies and discontinuities. Even Janeway has trouble fitting all the pieces together. “Tuvok, why doesn’t your service record reflect any of this?” she demands. “I thought your first assignment was aboard the Wyoming.” Janeway even calls out Tuvok’s memory for its inaccuracy. “He doesn’t look anything like his portrait at Starfleet Headquarters,” she reflects. Tuvok responds, “In the twenty third century, holographic imaging resolution was less accurate.”

It’s okay. Tuvok remembers in high definition.

This is worth dwelling on. Janeway’s experience of Sulu is explicitly compared to that of the audience watching at home. Janeway is working with the memory of Sulu, filtered through an image captured and projected. Flashback is full of these postmodern touches, particularly in portraying Tuvok’s memory. Tuvok’s memory of events is consciously structured like an episode of television. More than that, it is consciously structured like an episode of Star Trek . The episode repeatedly ties together the idea of memory and media narrative.

Tuvok’s memory begins in media res , with Sulu’s heroic entrance serving as something of a teaser to the episode playing out for Janeway. In fact, as noted above, Sulu’s heroic entrance would be the image expected to close the teaser on a more straightforward and nostalgic version of Flashback . Janeway is cast in the role of the audience, an “objective observer.” Tuvok provides exposition and voice-over, even handling scene transitions. ( “This battle was precipitated by an incident that took place three days earlier…” )

“Valtane, we hardly knew ye…”

As the audience, it is Janeway who is asked to make sense of the events – to properly contextualize and integrate them. “You will help me reconstruct the memory in its entirety,” Tuvok advises Janeway, setting a firm barrier between actor and audience. “And as I am reliving it, you will help me to objectify the experience. By processing the experience, rather than repressing it, I can begin to overcome my fear, anger and the other emotional responses, and to reintegrate the memory into my conscious mind.”

In many respects, the decision to cast Tuvok as the actor and Janeway as the audience is a wry gag of itself. Of course Tuvok is the actor in all this. The character is the only Voyager regular to appear in another Star Trek show at this point, albeit as his mirror universe counterpart in Through the Looking Glass . (Although Robert Picardo would play an alternate EMH and Lewis Zimmerman in Doctor Bashir, I Presume and and alternate EMH in Star Trek: First Contact .) Flashback extends the character’s roots within the shared universe.

Things come to a head…

More than that, actor Tim Russ is notable for being the first actor to share a scene with the franchise’s first four leads. Russ appeared in Starship Mine as a terrorist playing Die Hard with Captain Picard, and in Invasive Procedures as a Klingon hijacking Deep Space Nine during a storm. Russ also had a small role at the start of Star Trek: Generations , playing a bridge officer on the Enterprise-B during its launch. As such, Tim Russ could make a credible claim to be a nexus for the Star Trek franchise in 1996, tying together Shatner, Stewart, Brooks and Mulgrew.

Casting Janeway as the audience is important. Perhaps it is the audience – more than the actors or writers – who are tasked with creating continuity of narrative. It is the audience who must reconcile and integrate a story. It might be argued that continuity is an external construct, a “meta” narrative constructed by fans to serve as a framework for individual elements. Flashback touches on this idea. “You will be an observer in the memory, but not a participant,” Tuvok advises. “This will give you the freedom to guide me objectively.” However, it is not that simple.

“See you for the fiftieth?”

As the memory develops, Janeway goes from observer to participant. She is no longer audience but creator. In some respects, this could be seen to mirror the role of the audience in shaping and fashioning continuity. As Henry Jenkins argues in Textual Poachers , continuity and characterisation are often intuited by fans, pieced together by writing into the space between episodes and dialogue. For example, discussing Danni Bryant’s assertions about Picard’s character:

Yet it is doubtful that any Next Generation episode would perfectly illustrate all of the flaws she locates in Picard’s character. Rather, she is offering a composite view of many different episodes and using that meta-text to comprehend and evaluate the character’s conduct in particular narrative situations. Any new information the series provides about Picard will be fit into this existing grid of assumptions about his character and judged according to its conformity with what has come before. To some degree, such extrapolation is what all viewers do in making sense of program information, but, within fandom, it assumes an institutional status; elaborations become part of the program tradition, gain broad circulation and assume the status of accepted “facts” seen as binding not only on fans but on the program producers as well.

Braga would learn this while producing Enterprise , when fans reacted harshly to the portrayal of the Vulcans in episodes like Broken Bow , The Andorian Incident and Shadows of P’Jem . It did not matter that these episodes were consistent with the portrayal of Vulcan culture as stuffy and superior in episode like Amok Time and Journey to Babel . The portrayal of Vulcans on Enterprise conflicted with the characterisation fans had extrapolated for Vulcans.

The juice is loose…

Conventional wisdom would credit the writer with responsibility for continuity and character. However, the writer’s vision is filtered and modified. The script is shot be the director, who brings their own emphasis to the material; it is performed by actors, who often have their own interpretations of the character; it is watched by audiences who contextualise it within their own reading of the show. In many respects, arguments over “canon” and “continuity” are often just arguments about the correct way to read the series, what counts and what doesn’t.

Most reviews, including the one you are reading right now, are engaged in this process to a greater or lesser degree – albeit framed in less absolute terms than debates about continuity. How an audience member responds to (or tries to explain) certain elements of a text serves to change their perception and understanding of the larger narrative. Being in an audience relies upon interpretation, and interpretation is just one step removed from storytelling. Flashback touches upon this idea, having Janeway transition from a fan to a participant.

Flashback is full of little touches like this. Outlining the situation near the start of the episode, the EMH conspicuously (and repeatedly) refers to Tuvok’s flashbacks as “episodes.” Although the word is medically accurate, it also draws attention to the nature of the show and of this individual script. These are more than just clever rhetorical touches or nods towards the audience, they seem to hint at a deeper theme within the work, the idea of memory as narrative. It is worth noting that Tuvok’s health issues in Flashback are triggered by a discontinuity in his memory.

The EMH even calls the continuity of the whole adventure into question. When Kes wonders about the nature of the memory that spread from Valtane to Tuvok, the EMH observes that memory is malleable and flexible. “Memory is a tricky thing,” he observes. “If it was a real event, it’s been buried and copied and twisted so many times, there’s no way to tell what really happened.” Perhaps the same is true of continuity, which is arguably rooted just as much in memory as material fact.

Looking a second cameo.

(It should be noted that the general characterisation of the Klingons as honourable and the Romulans as treacherous can be traced to the third season of The Next Generation – to Sins of the Father and The Enemy , respectively. This is in marked contrast to the characterisation of the original show, of sneaky Klingons in The Trouble with Tribbles and A Private Little War and of honourable Romulans in Balance of Terror and The Enterprise Incident . However, the Next Generation portrayals are so deeply rooted they carried over to Enterprise without anybody batting an eye.)

Flashback ties the idea of continuity to the idea of memory, suggesting that both are malleable concepts. It is a more modest and conservative application of the approach that Steven Moffat would bring to Doctor Who , suggesting that continuity is inherently subjective and prone to frequent revision. The discontinuity of Flashback feels almost like an affectation, a demonstration of just how malleable and elastic memory can be. How we remember something often has little to do with how it actually was.

Cooking up a storm.

Memory is inherently subjective and undeniably fickle. Although it has a significant influence on juries , studies suggest that eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable . Even the most trusted of memories is not absolute; every time the brain recalls a memory, it effectively re-writes the recollection . The human brain is not a video camera hard drive :

Think about your fifth-birthday party. Maybe your mom carried the cake. What did her face look like? If you have a hard time imagining the way she looked then rather than how she looks now, you’re not alone. The brain edits memories relentlessly, updating the past with new information. Scientists say that this isn’t a question of having a bad memory. Instead, they think the brain updates memories to make them more relevant and useful now — even if they’re not a true representation of the past.

This is not necessarily a bad thing; our understanding of the world is constantly changing, so it makes sense that our understanding of our own past should also change as well. However, it does suggest that human memory should not be treated as an absolute and objective record of events as they occurred. The past may not change, but human perception of it can.

Getting inside Tuvok’s head.

One of the big recurring themes of Braga’s early Star Trek work is the fragile nature of identity and self; the idea that these fundamental concepts are build upon assumptions, and the question of what happens when those assumptions change. Memory is part of that broader theme. “A structure cannot stand without a foundation,” Tuvok repeats during his attempts at meditation. In many respects, memory is a foundation upon which the concept of self is based. What if that foundation cannot be trusted?

It is an interesting idea for an episode. Brannon Braga’s original pitch for Flashback sounds a lot like his scripts for Frame of Mind and Projections , episodes that deconstructed the reality of William Riker and the EMH. It seems likely that the original idea for Flashback might have done something for Janeway. After all, if her memory of a child falling off a cliff is fake, then how can she trust any of her memories? However, this is a much different story than the version that made it to air, and not just because Tuvok is the focal character.

Meme or.. eh?

In the context of the thirtieth anniversary celebrations, Flashback ceases to be a story about personal memory and instead transforms into a tale about cultural recall. In its own weird way, that makes it the perfect story for the year that is in it, even if it doesn’t quite meet the expectations for a celebratory nostalgic crossover episode. Although produced at the end of the second season, Flashback seems to hark forward to the recurring theme of memory and history that plays out across the third season of Voyager .

The second third season episode to be produced was titled Remember . The crew would travel in time in Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II , marking the beginning of the series’ obsession with time travel. Cultural memory and its awkward relationship with material history would form the basis of Distant Origin . The fourth season would revisit the theme in Retrospect , Unforgettable and Living Witness . This is to say nothing about the use of time travel and history in Year of Hell, Part I , Year of Hell, Part II , The Killing Game, Part I and The Killing Game, Part II .

The brains of the operation…

The fifth season of Deep Space Nine would also touch on the intersection of memory and history in episodes like Things Past and Ties of Blood and Water . Of course, Deep Space Nine was a show that was largely about trauma and history, so these themes had been baked into the show since it Emissary . In contrast, Flashback marks something of a turning point for Voyager . It should be noted that Brannon Braga was involved in the development of the third season episodes engaging with the idea of memory and identity.

Flashback is very much a story about the distortion of memory, to the point that the episode’s antagonistic force is a viral memory of an event that never actually happened. This is reflected in the way that Flashback engages with The Undiscovered Country . It treats the sixth Star Trek film as a memory, something malleable and abstract that can be reduced to its biggest moments without much concern for the nitty-gritty accuracy about background characters or internal chronology.

More like insecurity chief, am I right?

For example, while Flashback doesn’t seem to care about whether Valtane was dead or alive at the climax of the film, the episode takes care to duplicate the more memorable Sulu-centric moments. The opening scene of The Undiscovered Country is replicated in great detail, right down to replicating dialogue as the Excelsior is hit by the shockwave from Praxis. More to the point, the imagery is borrowed. The tea cup shattering is borrowed from the film, a memorable image. In fact, Flashback takes enough care to give that iconic moment a back story.

This is, after all, how memory tends to work. The big moments are remembered. The shockwave, the teacup shattering. Those details are more important than the background extras who appear on the bridge of the Excelsior during the climactic fire-fight or the very strong suggestion that Sulu spent most of The Undiscovered Country waiting off-screen to render assistance. The finer details are lost, in favour of the images and the feeling. The specifics are brushed aside for a broader (and more intangible) sense of what the object is.

The Doctor’s theory is Val-idated.

This feels like a powerful an important theme for a franchise approaching its thirtieth anniversary, certain to provoke think pieces about what Star Trek really is and what Star Trek really means at any given moment. Fans who had grown up with Star Trek understandably felt protective towards it, and there was every sense that the thirtieth anniversary celebrations would effectively be a nostalgic love-in. (Consider the Ted-Danson-hosted special Star Trek: 30th Anniversary Special , featuring the cast of Fraser !)

However, the popular memory of the franchise diverges radically from the real history. Much is made of the show’s diversity , but rarely is it acknowledged that NBC wanted that diversity more than Gene Roddenberry . The importance of Uhura is played up , despite the fact that Uhura was horribly under-utilised and shows like I, Spy and Julia were doing a much better job of fleshing out African-American characters. The show’s liberal politics are lauded , but its endorsement of Vietnam in A Private Little War and The Omega Glory is forgotten.

“Damn fine cup of coffee…”

Indeed, there is a tendency to obscure the details of specific stories in favour of mythologised moments. The show is lauded for the interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura in Plato’s Stepchildren , ignoring the fact that I, Spy beat the show to the punch and the fact that Kirk and Uhura were being forced to kiss against their will for the perverse amusement of god-like aliens. As with the memory depicted in Flashback , the imagery and the abstract sense of that moment is more important that the finer details.

In some ways, it feels appropriate that Flashback should return to The Undiscovered Country . As with Flashback , the sixth film was released as part of an anniversary celebration; the release of The Undiscovered Country was intended to mark the franchise’s twenty-fifth anniversary. Like Flashback , the film received criticism for being inaccurate in its engagement with the franchise’s history, albeit for more general and vague reasons than the inconsistencies within Flashback .

Did Tu(vok)!

In particular, Nicholas Meyers recalls arguing with Gene Roddenberry over the characterisation of the Enterprise crew :

“So ‘VI’ is a film in which the crew of the Enterprise has all kinds of prejudice, racial prejudice, vis-a-vis the Klingons. And some of their remarks, including how they all look alike and what they smell like, and all the xenophobic things which we grappled with — that was all deeply offensive to him because he thought there isn’t going to be that.”

Indeed, the portrayal of the Enterprise crew in The Undiscovered Country was controversial to some fans who objected to Kirk’s “overt racism.”

Riding the wave…

This attitude was not confined to fandom alone. J.M. Dillard’s novelisation of the film would bend over backwards to write around the racism expressed by the crew in the script, seemingly so indignant at the portrayal as to miss that it was the entire point of the story. Reading Dillard’s novelistion is a very strange experience, as it frequently seems like the author is going out of her way to belittle and dismiss the central thematic points of the work that she is adapting. It is almost surprising that it was published.

As much as this portrayal of the Enterprise crew diverged from fan expectations and the collective memory of the original Star Trek , it was hardly inaccurate. Kirk and his crew were hardly beacons of tolerance and open-mindedness, even against the context of the sixties. As introduced in Errand of Mercy , the Klingons felt like a racist caricature of East Asian communists – with the script explicitly describing them as “Orientals.” This is to say nothing of the portrayal of “the Asiatics” or “the yellow civilisation” in The Omega Glory .

Recognising his handiwork…

This is not to take anything away from Star Trek . The show was capable of brilliance and insight, wrapped up in a powerful Camelot-era idealism. A Taste of Armageddon is a biting satire of the media management to the Vietnam War, while The Trouble with Tribbles cleverly reduces the Cold War to farcical posturing. Balance of Terror is a powerful and profound anti-war piece, one of the best episodes in the franchise’s history. Mirror, Mirror is a critique of cultural and political imperialism.

However, these issues with Star Trek cannot be easily brushed aside. Even great episodes of the show contain significant problematic elements. Space Seed is a fantastic episode of Star Trek , but its portrayal of Marla McGivers is beyond sexist. The closing scene of The Enemy Within has Spock making a joke about the attempted rape of Janice Rand, a touch that is even more tasteless given what happened to Grace Lee Whitney behind the scenes. Errand of Mercy is a brilliant (and subversive) Cold War analogy, but the Klingons are still uncomfortable.

Reducing Star Trek to an ideal is a falsification, reducing it to an idealised beacon of liberal utopian philosophy ignores the reality that the show (and its creators) were much more complex. Flashback plays with this idea, having Janeway wax lyrical to Harry about the “good old days” of Kirk and his crew. “Imagine the era they lived in,” she reflects. “They were a little slower to invoke the Prime Directive, and a little quicker to pull their phasers.” Kirk and his crew were legends and heroes.

However, the reality is more complicated than all that. There is some irony in Janeway’s assertion that she would love “to ride shotgun at least once with a group of officers like that.” After all, Turnabout Intruder had Kirk make it abundantly clear the twenty-third century Starfleet had no female captains. (It does not help that the episode featured a psychotic woman who tried – and failed – to become a captain.) As romantic as the popular memory of the original Star Trek might be, there is a sizable gulf between that memory and the reality.

Similarly, there is something pointed in Tuvok’s acknowledgement of his own difficulties with Starfleet in the era, the space between the experience he lived and the world Janeway imagined. When Janeway asks if Tuvok is sincere in his criticisms, the Vulcan reflects, “At this point in my life, yes. My experiences at the Academy and on board the Excelsior were not pleasant.” It is one thing for Janeway to romanticise the past, but she should also acknowledge the reality as experienced by Tuvok.

Tuvok’s complaints could themselves be read as criticisms of certain aspects of the original show. “Ever since I entered the Academy, I’ve had to endure the egocentric nature of humanity,” he advises Valtane. “You believe that everyone in the galaxy should be like you, that we should all share your sense of humour and your human values.” In many ways, Tuvok is critiquing the way that Kirk and (particularly) McCoy behaved towards Spock. Again, that was something of a point of The Undiscovered Country , with Azetbur challenging even the naming of “human rights.”

All of this makes it sound like Braga was being overly critical of the original Star Trek , but that is unfair. Flashback takes care to stress that Tuvok has made his peace with the era and its flaws. Part of maturity is learning to accept these problems. “Raising children of my own made me appreciate what my parents experienced raising me,” he observes. “And I came to realise that the decisions I made as a young man were not always in my best interest.” Accepting that there were issues with the past is not the same as dismissing it entirely.

Perhaps Braga is speaking through Tuvok here. After all, the second generation of Star Trek shows was ten year old at this point. The Next Generation had emerged from the shadow of its predecessor and launched its own spin-offs. Although Braga could be brash in his interviews and statements, recent years have seen the producer soften somewhat. He candidly acknowledges that “there are arrogant comments [he wishes he] hadn’t made in interviews.” Whatever issues his stewardship of Enterprise might have, it is absurd to think Braga hates Star Trek .

That said, it should be acknowledged that this dialogue was not in the original version of the script. In the original drafts of Flashback , Tuvok offered a very different explanation for his return to Starfleet. However, as Tim Russ explained to Cinefantastique , the actor objected to the characterisation:

“Initially that whole speech wasn’t in there, a page and a half of dialogue,” said Russ. “She asked me, ‘What made you come back to Starfleet?’ and [Braga] had written some line which really wasn’t consistent with Vulcan character. I said, ‘Brannon, the line itself doesn’t work.’ So I said, ‘Give him a real reason why he came back to Starfleet.’ I expected a paragraph, and I ended up getting a page and a half of dialogue. Things like that do make a difference.”

It is worth noting that Tim Russ made similar observations about the script for Basics, Part I , suggesting that the actors had to improvise changes to the script to help the story flow better. That said, the rewritten script still came from Brannon Braga. It is still his work; the dialogue is still part of his script.

Still, it is important to acknowledge the gap that exists between the popular memory of Star Trek and the realities of a sixties science-fiction show. These issues have to be confronted and explored. Flashback arrives at an important moment for the show. It is the first episode to air after Basics, Part I and Basics, Part II , and was actually produced between the two. The Basics two-parter was essentially Michael Piller’s thesis statement on Voyager , trying to take the show back to the frontier aesthetic of the original Star Trek .

Piller’s vision of Voyager was largely defined by uncritical nostalgia for the original Star Trek show. Sometimes, the second season could come close to emulating the look and tone of classic Star Trek , whether through the ridiculous allegory of Innocence or the wacky transporter hijinks of Tuvix or the abstract imagery of The Thaw . However, Piller’s attempts to bring Voyager back to the franchise’s roots (back to “basics” , as it were) often felt ill-judged and out-of-touch, a conscious attempt to recapture the tone of the original Star Trek without any interrogation.

Piller championed a vision of Chakotay that reduced the character to an offensive collection of New Age clichés in episodes like The Cloud and Tattoo . Watching those episodes, it seemed like the franchise’s attitudes toward Native Americans had not evolved since The Paradise Syndrome . Piller also advocated for the Kazon, a weird blend of influences that drew from stereotypes of contemporary “gang” culture in Los Angeles and the stereotypical portrayal of “primitives” in frontier fiction. The Kazon were as problematic as the Klingons had been in Errand of Mercy .

The production team had banished the Kazon (and Piller) from the show. Flashback was perfectly timed, as a rebuke of the unquestioning nostalgia that had led to Piller to try to build a version of Voyager anchored in the aesthetics (and politics) of the late sixties. Flashback feels like an attempt to get away from all of that, to acknowledge that the memory of the original Star Trek might not reflect the true complexity of the show. Sulu is more than just a holo projection. Sulu is more than just hollow.

If anything, Flashback feels more powerful now than it did on original broadcast. After all, Star Trek is even more of an object of cultural nostalgia now than it was when the episode was first broadcast. With Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness , JJ Abrams and his production team have taken the show back to its roots in a manner far more fundamental than Voyager ‘s conscious engagement with the frontier aesthetic and sixties imagery. Kirk no longer just haunts the narrative, he is the narrative once again.

Of course, this reflects an even broader trend in contemporary pop culture that seems to pull audiences towards nostalgic fetish objects. Nostalgia seems to be the flavour of the month, if not the millennium. Of course, it is easy to overstate the case. Critics and pundits have always been fascinated with questions about nostalgia, given that the thinkpieces practically write themselves. (Consider, for example, the wave of thinkpieces in 2011, around the time of the publication of Simon Reyolds’ Retromania – Grantland , The New York Times , The Atlantic .)

Even allowing for this, nostalgia seems to be a boom industry of late. So many childhood favourites return to the multiplex and the television screen, with Star Trek Beyond writer Simon Pegg arguing that contemporary pop culture infantalises audiences by appealing to their childhoods . Not only do comic book characters dominate the box office and the television landscape, but concepts like Power Rangers are getting a reboot. Those properties not explicitly rebooted get long-gestating sequels. Jurassic World , Independence Day: Resurgence .

The best of these projects update the source material for a new generation, with Ryan Colger’s work on Creed standing out. However, all too often, the nostalgia feels a little too unquestioning and too uncritical. There are points during the fourth season of Enterprise where it seems like the Star Trek franchise has completely lost any sense of the presence as it delves into the past. Manny Coto’s script of Bound is perhaps the most obvious example of the show’s fourth season buckling under its affection for the past.

It should be noted that the word “nostalgia” was once used to refer to an illness. As Amy Kenyon reflects :

We might all ask what became of its sufferers when nostalgia ceased to be a recognized illness. My suspicion is that the world is full of what we used to describe as nostalgia cases. They live in towns and cities, loosely strung like blinking Christmas lights; there may be acute cases, triggered by life events involving loss, grief, and trauma, but there may also be chronic cases, people constitutionally predisposed to an obsessive attachment to the past. Like the melancholics and hysterics who succeeded them, their symptoms have been subsumed under new diagnostic categories. This is not to say that people suffering from nostalgia cannot find help. Most therapy deals with memory as a matter of course. However, this particular experience of memory – still so widespread – has lost it place in the treatment rooms. And so this leaves us searching for places to speak about it, and constructive ways in which to use it.

Although the term originally referred to something like shell shock, it is a powerful image.

Flashback focuses upon a false and parasitic memory that spreads from Valtane to Tuvok. It is a false memory, but one drawn in broad and archetypal terms. It is a child slipping from the subject’s grip, falling to their death. It is not something that anybody would forget, even though it may never have actually happened. “Memory is a tricky thing,” the EMH reflects. “If it was a real event, it’s been buried and copied and twisted so many times, there’s no way to tell what really happened.”

Nevertheless, it feels real. It passes from person to person, regardless of how real or unreal it might be. It is a wonderfully mind-bending concept, a metaphor for the subtle “knowledge” that passes unspoken from one person to another. In some respects, it captures the reality and fragility of memory; there is some suggestion that many childhood memories are interpolated from stories others tell . If anything, the metaphor of a memory that goes “viral” feels more relevant in the twenty-first century than it would have on broadcast.

In some respects, this parasitic memory feels like the ultimate expression of what Richard Dawkins described as a “meme” in the pages of The Selfish Gene . The word would be appropriated decades later by internet culture, with Dawkins acknowledging that the “viral” metaphor was always a part of his basic concept :

The meaning is not that far away from the original. It’s anything that goes viral. In the original introduction to the word meme in the last chapter of The Selfish Gene, I did actually use the metaphor of a virus. So when anybody talks about something going viral on the internet, that is exactly what a meme is and it looks as though the word has been appropriated for a subset of that.

Knowledge and information passes through social networks like a virus infecting a host organism; it replicates and transmits, occasionally evolving along the way. It does not matter that the memory or knowledge is false. “Beam me up, Scotty” is undeniably tied to the Star Trek franchise, despite the fact the phrase was never uttered on the show.

Flashback is a clever and postmodern script that arguably fits more comfortably within Brannon Braga’s psychological oeuvre than as part of a large scale mass-media anniversary celebration. Still, it is a script that is a lot more ambitious and insightful than is often acknowledged, the muted reaction to it undoubtedly coloured by the fact that it refuses to play its nostalgia straight. Flashback tries to do something more ambitious and self-aware, even if this feels like a very awkward place for such an experiment.

You might be interested in our other reviews from the third season of Star Trek: Voyager :

Basics, Part II
False Profits
Sacred Ground
Future’s End, Part I
Future’s End, Part II
The Q and the Grey
Blood Fever
Favourite Son
Before and After
Distant Origin
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion, Part I

19 Responses

I think Brannon Braga gets some undue hate. After all, he wrote some of TNG’s finest episodes, such as Cause and Effect, Parallels, and the underrated Frame of Mind. I think he was just the wrong fit for Voyager, a show that needed continuity, and as you point out he was averse to this.I sometimes think that maybe the producers could have made a Star Trek anthology show instead of Voyager, which would have showcased Brannon Braga’s strengths much better.

Every time I start to warm to Brannon Braga, he says something to turn me off again. He could be the king of rustling jimmies.

It’s a thin line for me. I like the idea of his willingness to be blunt in talking about or to the fanbase, rather than being patronising or fawning, even if you can imagine Rick Berman just shaking his head knowing that this cannot possibly end well. (I think you see some of that in Behr’s interviews, when he isn’t shy about letting an interviewer know he’s not happy with a particular line of questioning, but Behr is careful not to piss off the fandom.) I kinda like the idea of an enfant terrible of the TNG young pups, as if there’s a weird nerdy boyband with good guys Ron, Rene and Naren, but punky Brannon in the corner. Yes, Brannon Braga is the Harry Styles of the TNG writers’ room. You read it here first.

On the other hand, you hear personal anecdotes that suggest Braga’s abrasive public persona was not just fandom performance art. The horror stories about writers pitching to Braga really put me off the guy, as do the suggestions about how he ran the writers’ room. He’d be the first to admit that he made mistakes, but is a very basic level of professionalism that should be self-evident to anybody in that position.

I think splitting Moore and Braga up after The Next Generation was a bad idea. Arguably for both of them, though I think Moore struck a much better balance on his own than Braga did, if only because I suspect Behr fostered the kind of environment where he might thrive. (Then again, Fuller managed to get through Voyager and come thriving out of the other end just like Moore did coming out of Deep Space Nine.)

I suspect that a Voyager writing staff with a team of Moore and Braga would have been a very different proposition than a writing staff with just Braga.

I seem to recall a story where Braga admitted to making childish homophobic jokes when on the VOY writing team and has come out and apologised for his behaviour, but I can’t find the story online. Which is not great, but it’s better than most of the stories around Berman, and at least he apologised.

(Unless I’ve imagined the whole thing.

I get what you’re saying regarding the nostalgia angle, but if that was what the episode was going for it needed to be better constructed and more fleshed out than the episode we actually got, which was ok at best. The nostalgia angle would arguably work better if it took place in the original series timeframe rather than in the movie timeframe which was more questioning of those attitudes at various points (Particularly in Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country).

It’s a fair point. I think there’s a lot of reading into what is a fairly muddled episodes to support the argument that it is about nostalgia. But I think it does fit, just – as you point out – quite awkwardly.

But I also think that Voyager would never have been as creative as Deep Space Nine was when it came to integrating new and classic footage. As a result, it makes sense to do your nostalgia in the “movie” era, if only because George Takei can still convincingly reenact those scenes from Flashback.

“Memory is a tricky thing”

Yeah, yeah. ‘The Memory Cheats.’

This review has hit on a problem I’ve noticed for some time. The well of creativity has run dry, not just in low art but high art as well. Star Trek was ahead of the curve yet again.

I hope this is just a symptom of increasing media consolidation.

The bigger issue, I think, is that we may be approaching the end of western civilization as we’ve known and cared about it.

That’s a pretty bleak argument.

But, on a related note, I’m pretty much springboarding from my review of Flashback into my ENT S4 reviews next week. One of the advantages of going asynchronously.

“Because you will bring something fresh to the table”

#ThatHappened

Well, I think Cause and Effect and Frame of Mind stand to Braga in that regard. Although, ironically, Braga’s fondness for hokey sci-fi did lead to some of the most TOS-y of the TNG and VOY episodes with stories like Genesis and Macrocosm. If TOS had the make-up or CGI of the later shows, I have no doubt that Roddenberry would have loved to have done those types of shows. For better or for worse.

Darren, I’ve been looking forward to your analysis of “Flashback.” I knew you’d have some interesting observations to offer.

In regards to Brannon Braga not having a background as a Star Trek fan, I had no problem with that. Sometimes it is a huge benefit to have someone come to work on a long-running franchise who can bring a fresh, outsider perspective to it. One need only look at Harve Bennett & Nicholas Meyer on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

I am a fan of several long-running series, be they TV or movie or comic books. Over the decades I’ve often observed the runaway nostalgia among die-hard fans. On a few occasions I’ve even experienced it myself. “Memory is a tricky thing” is absolutely the truth. How appropriate that Ed Azad quotes John Nathan Turner’s famous observation “The memory cheats.” Becoming a Doctor Who fan in the 1980s, I was constantly hearing from older fans how the current stories were absolute rubbish, especially compared to the “brilliant classics” from the 1960s. Mind you, when some of those long-missing episodes were eventually re-discovered, suddenly, with no trace of irony, some of those same fans did a complete 180, declaring that those old shows were crap. It taught me to take everything Who-related with a grain of salt. Watching the revival of Doctor Who since 2005, I’m always aware that it’s a dangerous trap to make a bold statement along the lines of “this isn’t real Doctor Who” or “the old stuff was so much better.”

I like the original Star Trek from the late 1960s. I grew up watching it as reruns. But I will be perfectly honest. Re-watching it as an adult, I have to acknowledge that it was often cringe worthy in its sexism, that it was sometimes racist, that a lot of the plotting was extremely dodgy, and that aside from Kirk, Spock and McCoy, all of the regular characters were very one-dimensional. And, yes, as you often observe in your reviews, much of the canon regarding the Federation and Vulcans and Klingons and Romulans that fans assume was set up there really was not. Or if there *is* stuff along those lines it is extremely contradictory from one episode to the next, because no one involved in making those episodes had any clue that they were creating the foundation for a franchise that would last half a century.

Thanks Ben!

And I worry that I come across as harsh in my discussions of TOS (or even the franchise in general) because I find myself constantly pointing them out. I remember one particularly long and silly argument over the Enterprise episode Extinction, of all things, where it seemed like this one guy refused to accept that Star Trek could possibly be racist and that I obviously hated the franchise that I would call it out like that.

The irony being that I really love the franchise, in all its forms, no matter how questionable some of the storytelling decisions might be. And I have tremendous respect for everybody who worked on it, even Gene Roddenberry, of whom I’ve been very critical. But I think that caring about the franchise means being willing to acknowledge that it isn’t perfect, that there are some mistakes, that there were some questionable decisions.

And funny you should mention Doctor Who. Remember when Enemy of the World turned out to be better than The Web of Fear? There was a shock forty-odd years in the making.

As always great review. A very thoughtful piece.

I’d have loved a ‘Star Trek: Excelsior’ series not so much because I like Sulu (though I do – George Takei is always great) because it would develop one of the most fascinating periods of Trek history – the century between Kirk and Picard that saw a humanity fairly recognisable as 20th Century/21st Century people (with allowances made for the 1960s creation) to the more ‘evolved’ humans of the early seasons of The Next Generation who sometimes like alien beings with alien mindsets that happened to inhabit human forms.

(The other most fascinating era is the century between Archer and Kirk – going from humanity’s stumbling steps into a galaxy to a superpower is like going from the US of Washington to the US of Teddy Roosevelt without explaining what happened in between.)

Regarding fanon I think my exposure to different strands of Trek through RPGs have probably made more flexible about different interpretations. In particular I like the ‘Starfleet Universe’ setting from Amarillo Design Burea which was developed into a full scale alternate Trek – due to the terms of their contract they could only use elements from The Original Series and the Animated Series (which means Kzinti are a big part of the setting.) I think you’d like their take on Romulans and Klingons which are based on The Original Series but further developed.

Is the Amarillo Design Bureau the one that inspired the “Starfleet Command” video games? I remember quite liking those. They were very heavy on the Gorn as I recall? And the Hydra? Or am I getting my non-canon sources confused?

They were yes. They started out in board games (which are still their flagship product I think) and branched out into computer games and an rpg set in their setting (‘Prime Directive’ – I have the Klingon and Romulan sourcebooks!)

One of the things they assumed was that the Klingons and the Romulans weren’t just the only significant forces in space so the Gorns, Tholians and Kznti became major powers in their own right. They made up a few races too like the Hydrans (three legged, three armed beings at war with the Klingons).

The Romulans are depicted as isolationists and imperialists partly because their region of space is largely barren of other sentient beings, so they simply don’t have the practice of easily dealing with other peoples. This also means they are the least populous of the major powers even if their territory is of similar size.

The Klingon Empire on the other hand is home to half a dozen major ‘subject races’. They are not full class citizens but they are treated better than the Bajorans were by the Cardassians and they contribute troops and starship crews – the closest analogy might be India and the Indian Army under British rule.

I remember playing those games and quite enjoying them. Frontload the shields!

Flashback (not Flashpoint Darren) is not in the same league as Trials and Tribble-ations because once the memory virus becomes an angle, the whole anniversary aspect gets sidelined. Flashback could have been another Back to the Future II, with a whole other story tucked away within the margins of Star Trek VI (like TAT and The Trouble With Tribbles) but it settles for being a sub par episode of Quantum Leap with Tuvok as Sam Beckett and Janeway as Al.

The Keethara is surely the Vulcan equivalent of Tuvok building a house of cards; since many Brannon Braga scripts often seem like he’s building one that could collapse any second, it’s apt we should see the Keethara in an episode penned by him.

“It aired only three days after the fiftieth anniversary”; not the thirtieth Darren? Robert Picardo also played Dr Zimmerman in Doctor Bashir, I Presume. The terrorists in Starship Mine weren’t trying to steal the Enterprise but trilithium resin from the ship’s engines. Tim Russ is a nexus for the Trek universe, and he was in Generations. Is that a joke Darren? “See you for the fiftieth”. Shouldn’t that be the fortieth? Is Flashback VGR’s A Matter of Perspective or Violations? You use the same quote from the EMH twice Darren. Trek does seem oversaturated now with so many conflicting franchises and films at the same time.

Those should be corrected now.

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Star Trek: Voyager

Cast & Crew

Grace Lee Whitney

Cmdr. Janice Rand

Jeremy Roberts

Lt. Dimitri Valtane

Boris Krutonog

Helmsman Lojur

Michael Ansara

George Takei

Capt. Hikaru Sulu

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Flashback (Q5457585)

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enwiki Flashback (Star Trek: Voyager)
mrwiki फ्लॅशबॅक (स्टार ट्रेक:व्हॉयेजर मालिका)
rowiki Amintire (Star Trek: Voyager)
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Among her other Star Trek novels are the original series books Star Trek: First Frontier , Starfleet Academy , the Starfleet Academy novel Cadet Kirk , the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Ghost Ship , and the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novelization of the two-part episode "The Way of the Warrior."

Star Trek: Voyager

Star Trek: Voyager consists of 15 total books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.

Main series Star Trek Related series Star Trek: Voyager: Starfleet Academy Related series Star Trek: Voyager (numbered novels) Related series Star Trek: Voyager: Homecoming Related series Star Trek: Voyager: Spirit Walk Related series Star Trek: Voyager: String Theory

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2.1 Nit Central
2.3 Ex Astris Scientia

Summary [ ]

Voyager is about to enter a nebula when Tuvok suddenly experiences dizziness and then a flashback of a girl falling from a precipice. The Doctor does not know how to treat the apparent repressed memory in a Vulcan brain. So Tuvok performs a mind-meld with Janeway, with the goal that she, as an observer of his memories, can help him repair the damage. After establishing the link, Tuvok and Janeway are surprised that they don't find themselves on the precipice but on the bridge of the USS Excelsior during the Praxis Crisis on Stardate 9521, 80 years ago. In the course of Captain Sulu's attempt to save Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy, the Excelsior traverses a nebula that looks much like the one in the Delta Quadrant, so the latter may have been the trigger for the memory to resurface. Still, the origin of the memory remains unknown.

In a second mind-meld, Tuvok relives the death of his bunkmate Dmitri Valtane, who is killed in a Klingon attack after leaving that nebula. The Doctor and Kes are alarmed as brain damage to Tuvok and Janeway is imminent and they find no way to terminate the mind-meld. In the mind-meld, Tuvok's memory of the past gets distorted, and Janeway becomes an active participant. The two go back to a time before Valtane's death to get another chance to investigate what happened at that moment. It turns out that a viral parasite that inhabited Valtane transferred itself to Tuvok when Valtane died. It camouflaged itself as a traumatic memory in order not to be attacked by the body's immune system. The Doctor too notices what is going on and kills the virus with thoron radiation.

Errors and Explanations [ ]

Nit central [ ].

Cableface on Sunday, February 21, 1999 - 10:24 pm: For the most part, they recreate the events from ST6 fairly well. But somewhere along the line, the Helm guy acquires a thick Russian accent that wasn't there in the film. Seniram 12:49, January 15, 2018 (UTC) The change of accent is likely a symptom of the false memory.
Tuvok wastes a lot of time telling Valtane why he should get out of the way instead of just running over and shoving him out of his chair. Mike Konczewski on Monday, February 01, 1999 - 9:44 am: I think Tuvok is struggling between his duty to his friend and his duty to remain at his station.
cableface on Saturday, September 04, 1999 - 3:24 pm: If I remember correctly, Tuvok mentions that two days after the Praxis explosion, Kirk and McCoy were arrested. But at the meeting where Kirk is given the assignment, Spock mentions that the explosion happened two months ago. Although, I think I may be wrong about one of these facts. Chris Booton (Cbooton) on Sunday, June 11, 2000 - 11:10 pm: I recently rewatched ST6 and It was indeed two months after the praxis explosion that Kirk was given the assignment. dotter31 on Thursday, June 22, 2006 - 6:09 am: I noticed that one too. It would seem that the creators messed up and should have had Tim Russ say "months" not "days". The only non-reality explanation I can think of is that the amount of time was distorted due to his weakened brain.
The Undesirable Element on Friday, October 13, 2000 - 1:30 pm: Rand mentions at one point that Tuvok has only had 3 months of actual experience in space. But in Star Trek 6, the Excelsior is on it's way home after a 3 YEAR mission of cataloging gaseous anomalies. When did Tuvok get the chance to come on board. Seniram 12:49, January 15, 2018 (UTC) Perhaps she actually said 3 years, and it got altered to 3 months as a side effect of the parasite.
Sulu says that they will enter into Klingon space by passing through a nebula that prevents the Klingons from detecting them. Presumably, this nebula would be partially on the Klingon side and partially on the Federation side. In other words, this nebula is like a secret passage into Klingon space. Unfortunately, nebulas are no secret. They're big and they don't move so why don't the Klingons have about 2 dozen ships guarding their side of the nebula? Surely they know that the Feds could send ships through undetected. They may not, under normal circumstances, consider it worthwhile guarding the nebula.
When Janeway stole Rand's clothes, what did they do with Rand? Did they just leave her in the crew quarters naked? Seniram 12:49, January 15, 2018 (UTC) IIRC, Janeway only ‘borrowed’ Rand’s service jacket., with the pair leaving her hidden on a bunk.
Firesnowe on August 30, 2019 - 05:18 Janeway says the Praxis incident "led to the first Federation-Klingon peace treaty". In " Day of the Dove ", Kang says "For three years, the Federation and the Klingon Empire have been at peace. A treaty we have honored to the letter. " Even if we ignore any peace treaties in the semi-separate DIS timeline, there was an earlier peace treaty. (Possibly two treaties if the Organians forced a separate peace in " Errand of Mercy ".) SeniramUK 16:47, August 30, 2019 (UTC) Janeway is referring to the post Praxis treaty as the first, because is was the first treaty to be freely negotiated by both sides - the Organian treaty was imposed on both parties about three years before Day of the Dove , and therefore may not truly qualify!

Ex Astris Scientia [ ]

Did the whole crew on Voyager just forget about the magical sirillium inside the nebula? Neelix, Tuvok and B'Elanna all discuss its potential uses, and there's no mention of any retrieval during or at the end of the episode? Maybe they decided the risks of collecting it were greater than the benefits.
1 Assignment: Earth
3 Caretaker

Screen Rant

Star trek: ds9 foreshadowed voyager’s fate a year earlier.

In 1994, Star Trek began laying the groundwork for Voyager's 1995 premiere with a stark warning from Sisko about both the Maquis and the Badlands.

DS9 set the stage for Voyager's fate, including the introduction of the Maquis and the crucial Badlands location.
Commander Sisko's pursuit of the Maquis in DS9 foreshadowed Voyager's disappearance in the Badlands.
The Badlands played a significant role in Voyager's pilot episode, setting the stage for the crew's journey to the Delta Quadrant.

The fate of the USS Voyager was foreshadowed by Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2. With Star Trek: Voyager slated to premiere in January 1995, DS9 season 2 and Star Trek: The Next Generation season 7 laid some of the groundwork for the new show. The biggest way that DS9 and TNG set up Voyager was the introduction of the Maquis, the terrorist organization that would provide the rogue element in Voyager 's cast of characters. The TNG episode "Journey's End" set up the political situation from which they originated, while DS9 's two-parter "The Maquis" formally introduced them to the Star Trek universe .

Several Maquis members, including Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran) and Lt. B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) would later be forced to join the crew of the USS Voyager. However, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Maquis two-parter set up the plot of Star Trek: Voyager in other ways, too . Halfway through "The Maquis", Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) is captured by terrorists, forcing Sisko to give pursuit. Tracking the Maquis freighter, Sisko, Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor), and Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) enters the Badlands, a region of space that would play a crucial role in Voyager 's pilot episode, "Caretaker".

Star Trek: Voyager & DS9 Crossed Over In The Mirror Universe

Ds9 foreshadowed uss voyager's disappearance in the badlands, the maquis' use of the badlands as a hiding place and strategic location was seeded through ds9 seasons 2 and 3..

Briefing Dr. Julian Bashir, Kira reveals that the Badlands is beset by plasma storms, making it an incredibly dangerous region of space. To which Sisko adds that " a few ships have been lost there over the past year or two ", foreshadowing the loss of the USS Voyager a year later. DS9 would also later establish that the Badlands was a key strategic location for the Maquis in their resistance efforts against Cardassian occupation , further setting up the Star Trek: Voyager pilot. Not only was the Badlands a crucial hiding place for the Maquis, the region was also used as a staging ground for larger military operations.

The Badlands were likened to the Bermuda Triangle in an early outline of Star Trek: Voyager dated 17th August 1993.

In DS9 season 3, episode 9, "Defiant", Thomas Riker (Jonathan Frakes) hijacked the USS Defiant and took it into the Badlands to rendezvous with a fleet of Maquis raiders. "Defiant" aired a few months before Star Trek: Voyager 's pilot, in which Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and the crew of the USS Voyager departed from Deep Space Nine to track down a missing Maquis ship in the Badlands . It was a fateful mission that ultimately resulted in the Intrepid-class Voyager being stranded thousands of lightyears from home, another starship " lost over there " in the Badlands.

While devising Star Trek: Voyager in August 1993, Jeri Taylor wrote that the Badlands were " a turbulent area of space where some ships have been lost (some of them might crop up during the series) "

Other Star Trek Starships Lost In The Badlands

"a few ships have been lost over there..." - commander sisko.

The USS Voyager was initially sent to track down the missing Maquis freighter, the Val Jean, aboard which Lt. Tuvok (Tim Russ) was undercover for Starfleet. The Val Jean was lost in the Badlands after being pursued by Gul Evek (Richard Poe), who was overseer of the Demilitarized Zone in place between the Cardassian and Federation territories. However, rather than being destroyed by the plasma storms that plagued the region, the Val Jean was actually captured by the Caretaker's coherent tetryon beam and brought to the Delta Quadrant . The Caretaker had also taken a Cardassian Galor-class warship, and a Cardassian Dreadnought missile.

In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "The Voyager Conspiracy" it is suggested that it was Gul Evek's ship that was captured by the Caretaker, however this is later debunked.

The most notable starship taken by the Caretaker was the USS Equinox, which was encountered by Captain Janeway and the crew in Star Trek: Voyager 's season 5 finale . However, given that the Equinox was stranded in a different region of space, it seems that they weren't lost in the Badlands like Voyager was. The Badlands continued to be a key position during the Dominion War in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , until the Maquis were rooted out by the combined forces of the Cardassians and the Jem'Hadar, a devastating loss for Voyager's Maquis crew members.

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

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

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