In the future, Voyager is found encased in ice at the site of its crash landing years earlier. An embittered Harry Kim holds himself responsible for the mistakes in the propulsion experiment that led to this and killed the crew. But he has a plan to send a message back in time to rewrite history.
The character of Harry Kim only took center stage in one, maybe two, episodes in each season of Voyager, and this is by far the most substantial and interesting of those so far. Perhaps inspired by the "cranky Kim" portrayed by Garrett Wang in the previous season, this episode shows the character sapped of all youthful exuberance by time and trauma. He's a blunt, rude criminal who understandably cares nothing for himself or anyone else; he intends to erase all that from existence.
It's rare that a TV series regular is colored this far "outside the lines," and so its fitting that helping guide this performance as director was a Star Trek veteran, LeVar Burton. He feels like a real "actors' director" here, not only getting a good performance from Wang, but some great comedy (Jeri Ryan is superb as "drunk Seven of Nine"), and helping you overlook the weirdness of Chakotay's girlfriend (eager to erase her boyfriend from her life). He also gives a good performance himself, reprising the role of Geordi LaForge. (It helps that it's well written; LaForge has sympathy for the wild, time-meddling antics, even though he is bound to try to stop them.)
The production crew also steps up to make this 100th episode look spectacular. There are elements that show their age (the snow, both blowing on the ice planet and piled up on the set, looks fake), but the bulk of it is great. The frost on the frozen Voyager's walls, the eerie prop of Seven's Borg head implant, the envelope-pushing (for the time) CG crash of the ship... all that and more really make this episode a feast for the eyes.
But underneath all this is my least favorite structure for a time travel story: "if we succeed, nothing you're watching will have ever happened." That put a cap on my enthusiasm for the fan-favorite "Year of Hell" two-parter, and it dampens my ability to fully invest in the action here. In "Timeless," at least, a message is sent back into the "true timeline," and Harry Kim gets to hear about what his future, alternate self did. But this is literally the last scene; there's no time for an emotional reckoning of how present Harry feels about this. At least there's the lasting effect here of Voyager shaving 10 years off the trip home.
Other observations:
- Cleaning up the sets after this episode must have been a nightmare -- not only all the snow and frost, but the confetti used for the party in the engine room. (Clever writing to put your party for your 100th episode in the episode, though.)
- Speaking of the party, there's a well-executed "one-r" that tracks through three different conversations between characters without a single cut.
- How did the snow get inside Voyager when it was encased several meters below an ice shelf?
- Chakotay refers to programming a replicator as "cooking." Is that accurate? Does anyone today think they're "cooking" when they heat up a microwave dinner?
- The writers are really just openly messing with fans who want Janeway
and Chakotay together as a couple. Exhibit A: the candlelit dinner scene.
- This future is actually around 10 years in the past relative to the current season of Star Trek: Picard.
- Trying to track "how many years Voyager has shaved off its journey home" is probably about as fruitful as trying to count the photon torpedoes and shuttlecraft they expend along the way. But for what it's worth, between this episode, "The Gift" from Kes, and a few odd shortcuts, I think they're now down some 20-25 years from their original expected trip.
I suppose that production values and good performances mostly get me over the hump of my disliking "it never happened" time travel stories. Ultimately, I'll give "Timeless" a B+.
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