Mark Watches ‘Voyager’: S04E08 – Year of Hell, Part I

In the eighth episode of the fourth season of Voyager, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek. 

Trigger Warning: For mentions of genocide.

I sat down to write this review, convinced that something about the whole “Year in Hell” thing was familiar, and lo and behold, LOOK WHAT I DID. I had no idea. I HAD NO IDEA THAT “BEFORE AND AFTER” WOULD WORK AS FORESHADOWING FOR AN ACTUAL YEAR OF HELL. Now, I have to admit that this whole premise is rooted in temporal disruptions, so it’s highly probable that the end of this episode will just reset the timeline. But in the meantime? The writers flesh out one of the most horrifying ideas in the whole Star Trek universe and THIS COMES AFTER “SCIENTIFIC METHOD.” Can this ship please just get a break??? Please? Actually, just give me a break, because this hurts.

Time Wars

I’m super into the idea that time is being used as a weapon. It’s not a time travel story that’s common, and it is used to a devastating end in “Year of Hell, Part I.” If that image of Voyager with the damaged hull in “Before and After” made me feel uncomfortable, then here’s an entire arc where I’m made to feel A BILLION TIMES WORSE. Annorax is introduced in a chilling sequence during the cold open of “Year of Hell,” and it sets up a nasty, horrifying journey, one where Voyager is only accidentally embroiled in a bitter war for control. Well, from Voyager’s perspective, that’s all the Krenim want. But the writers complicate matters by hinting at a deeper motivation for Annorax. That clip of hair he has (WHOA, KIND OF CREEPY) suggests that he’s not trying to return the Krenim Imperium to its former power so much as he’s trying to bring back a specific person.

And he does so by constantly eliminating worlds. Entire species. Rewriting time with his weapon and his calculations, all in the hope that someone who he lost will return to the timelines he creates. Through this, though, Voyager is snapped into a world where the Krenim are not a nuisance, as they are when Janeway first encounters them, but an aggressive and oppressive force. It was easy to see how “33” from Battlestar Galactica might have had a root in this episode because Voyager crafts a relentless and exhausting nightmare for its crew.

It’s a year of hell in every literal and metaphorical sense imaginable. The show achieves this through some impressive and admirable means. The lighting, for instance, is perhaps one of my favorite elements of this episode. Gone are the brightly lit corridors and rooms onboard Voyager. Instead, the darkest timeline feels literal in this sense, and the more power that’s drained or lost from the ship, the worst it gets, so much so that sometimes it was difficult to make out what part of the ship I was looking at. That’s how complete these transformations felt! The same goes for the make-up. As the episode progressed, you could see more smudges of dirt and grim on everyone’s faces, implying that one of the privileges people lost was the sonic showers. Chakotay’s stubble becomes more prominent. And much praise must be rained upon this cast, as all of them manage to convey exhaustion, irritation, and dejection perfectly. Kate Mulgrew in particular is just unreal here, but are any of us surprised? She’s such a fantastic actress!

Progress

I also want to talk about the script itself. This story gives us an incredible sense of the passage of time. By the end of part one, seventy-three days have passed, and I absolutely believed it. How do the writers accomplish this? Through a persistent sense of  tragedy and loss, punctuated with brief moments of progress. The Krenim attacks on Voyager are relentless, so much so that even I found myself groaning every time the crew was interrupted by another red alert. They never, ever got to rest in any scene in this episode, at least long enough to accomplish much. Even as Seven of Nine makes progress on the shields to protect the ship from chroniton torpedos, there’s still loss: Tuvok is blinded by a torpedo exploding in the same Jeffries tube as him. (I will say that the writers do that thing where they use disability to represent a darker timeline, which is super common in genre fiction.)

And then, once the crew manages to find a defense against the torpedoes that have torn them apart, their progress is met with another setback: Annorax. I wouldn’t say he’s a sympathetic character. Like, I get that he misses someone he cares about, but dude. Don’t go out and commit genocide just to get them back. Plus, he views Voyager as nothing more than another calculation. You get a sense that he feels a bit sorry that they got wrapped up in this, but in the end, he wants what he wants.

He doesn’t get it, since Voyager escapes, but the cost is RIDICULOUS. Look, I started to get choked up when Janeway was making her speech about the rendezvous outside of Krenim space. HOW COULD THEY EVACUATE VOYAGER. IT WAS AN UTTER TRAGEDY. But Tom and Chakotay got kidnapped, and Annorax is deadset on eliminating them. What was Janeway supposed to do?

I can’t believe I have to wait to see the next episode. This is patently unfair.

The video for “Year of Hell, Part I” can be downloaded here for $0.99.

Mark Links Stuff

– I am now on Patreon! There are various levels of support, from $1 up to whatever you want! You’ll get to read a private blog, extra reviews, and other such rewards. I POST A LOT OF CUTE PHOTOS, OKAY. Think of it like a private Tumblr blog that only SPECIAL PEOPLE get to read.
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