In the sixth episode of the fifth season of Voyager, THIS SHOULDN’T WORK AND THAT IT DOES IS AN AMAZING FEAT. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.Â
I LOVE THIS EPISODE AND EVERYTHING IT CHOOSES TO BE. Why?
- HARRY KIM IS AT THE CENTER OF IT. And frankly, the man needed an episode centered on his character. WHAT A STORY TO GIVE HIM. Garrett Wang kills it here, and I’m so pleased that he was given such a rich, complicated story to act with. Harry is perfect for “Timeless” because we needed a story about dedication. About an obsessive loyalty. About a desperate need to correct a horrible, horrible wrong. I can not imagine a more perfect character for that than Harry Kim, the most Hufflepuff to ever puff in Star Trek history. FIGHT ME, YOU KNOW I’M RIGHT.
- TIME TRAVEL THAT TOTALLY RULES. Look, a lot of time travel is garbage, and despite my love of the genre and its themes, I know it’s all a mess. There’s both a silliness to some of it here in “Timeless,” but there’s also a persistent urgency that works incredibly well. With just Chakotay, Harry, and the Doctor in the future, we’re treated to a haunting and disturbing alternate timeline: everyone – and the show truly means everyone – died because of a calculating error made by Harry during a test of the new slipstream technology. WE LITERALLY SEE THE DEAD BODIES OF JANEWAY AND SEVEN AND IT’S AWFUL. While there’s not much of a change in Chakotay aside from his graying hair and Tessa, Harry is a glimpse into a future that’s hellish and scary. Gone is Harry’s optimism and playful attitude; he’s bitter, determined, and cynical. Not only that, but when he tells the Doctor of what his return to home was like… GOOD LORD, I WASN’T READY.
- VISUAL HORROR. As disturbing as it was, I appreciated the set design in “Timeless.” That ice looked real, y’all! And it had to be convincing so that we’d understand the pure awful of this future timeline. BURIED IN ICE. (Now I have Metallica’s “Trapped Under Ice” stuck in my head. OH WELL.)
- THE STORY MATTERS. This is my most important analysis of this episode, though. Once I figured out what “Timeless” was doing, I knew that Harry would have to succeed. There was a 0% chance that he’d fail and we’d be stuck with a show of just Harry and Chakotay, set 15 years ahead in a future where they were both outlaws. (I… I am just realizing I would watch that show, too.) If he succeeded and I knew that as the viewer, then why did any of this matter? Why care about the struggle to get there? On one level, the script is so tight and effective that the tension created by this scenario made it entertaining at the very least. But in a lovely twist at the end, Harry and those on Voyager discover that HARRY SAVED THEM IN THE FUTURE. Why is this important? Because it validates his work; it shows the crew that Harry is so dependable that he sought to restore their timeline, even if it meant that he would die/disappear while doing so. Time loop episodes are so very Next Generation, in the sense that they can rely so heavily on the reset button that the viewer doesn’t get much satisfaction out of the story itself. However, “Timeless” doesn’t feel that way at all. Harry knows what he did, and he gets to WATCH A VIDEO LOG ABOUT IT. Oh my god, I’m so emotional just thinking about it.
Bravo, Voyager. This episode ruled.
The video for “Timeless” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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