I’ve discovered myself, even on this impending flood of extra new Star Trek than ever, returning to Voyager not too long ago. No matter what number of instances I’ve seen the present in its entirety, it nonetheless surprises me simply how a lot of its first season instantly dives into the effectively of the titular ship’s crew seemingly discovering a method to resolve the present’s total premise: a sudden method to warp the 70,000 lightyear distance that plonked Voyager within the Delta Quadrant and get again house now, as an alternative of in 70 years’ time.

It’s sort of daring for the present to, not simply as soon as, however repeatedly, dangle this unsolvable concept that Voyager can’t and gained’t do only a handful of episodes in. You’re doomed to the inevitability of watching the crew optimistically work towards making an attempt this Hail Mary try to get house, figuring out it’s not going to pan out. It makes for a bizarre 40-odd minutes of TV to expertise, and Voyager asks you to do that a number of instances in season one, someinstances in fast succession. One such instance of this type of episode nonetheless, “Prime Factors,” brushes up towards that dread inevitability in a fairly fascinating method.

The episode—solely the ninth within the season—largely offers with Voyager encountering a extremely superior, pleasure-driven society often called the Sikarians. The crew quickly uncover that the Sikarians have extremely superior space-folding teleportation expertise that lets them journey upwards of 40,000 mild years straight away, which may assist shave generations off Voyager’s good distance house. When the Sikarians’ strict coverage of not sharing their expertise with outsiders places a cease to that hope fairly shortly, the remainder of “Prime Factors” turns into an fascinating Star Trek twist on the morality play, asking which officers among the many bridge crew is likely to be prepared to push again towards the concept of being on the receiving finish of one other society’s equal to Starfleet’s most valued rule: the Prime Directive, the precept that forestalls the Federation from intervening with a less-technologically superior society.

At first, the moral division is drawn alongside the unsurprising traces between Starfleet members of Voyagers crew, and the ex-Maquis—the guerrilla resistance fighter group rebelling towards the Cardiassian empire’s encroachment on Federation border colonies launched in Deep Space Nine—who had been compelled to hitch within the sequence’ pilot. Of course the prim-and-proper rule followers like Captain Janeway wish to comply with protocol, as a lot because it hurts them to have a chance to ease their voyage house dangled out of attain. Of course, the rebellious former dissidents, like B’Elanna Torres and Seska, wish to surreptitiously work round Sikarian guidelines to get entry to the expertise that would get them again to the Alpha Quadrant sooner. But fairly shortly “Prime Factors” complicates issues, when the underhanded deal Torres and her allies within the Engineering division make with a Sikarian black market dealer finds an unlikely supporter in Voyager’s safety chief Tuvok.

Naturally although, that is nonetheless a type of inevitable conclusion episodes. Tuvok will get Torres the trajector expertise with out Captain Janeway’s authority, however it could actually by no means work, as a result of that is season certainly one of Voyager and the present isn’t simply going to finish or severely shorten its lifespan simply 9 episodes in. The trajector not solely doesn’t work, its surprising incompatibility with Starfleet programs renders it ineffective, practically taking Voyager with it, and leaving Janeway extremely pissed, resulting in “Prime Factors” concluding with a really exceptional last scene. Instead of ending on the frustration that the tech failed and Voyager’s crew has to maneuver on of their journey house, it ends on one thing far darker. Janeway calls Torres and Tuvok in to take the autumn when she discovers they went behind her again.

At first, she’s filled with fury, berating B’Elanna for letting her down. But on the subject of addressing Tuvok’s function within the duplicity, issues flip softer, and sadder. Even this early on in Voyager one of many key issues we all know in regards to the major crew is that Janeway and Tuvok are extremely shut buddies, the echoes of relationships like Kirk and Spock, Sisko and Dax, or Picard and Riker. So as an alternative, the anger offers method to heartbreak, because the boundaries between Janeway’s skilled face as a captain and her private facet break down, giving method to one buddy deeply harm and mourning the actions of one other. The episode doesn’t finish with issues resolved both, however with Janeway and Tuvok on uncertain floor—prepared to maneuver forward with reprimand as captain and tactical officer, however unwilling to query what this betrayal of confidence truly means for his or her friendship.

It’s fascinating, but additionally irritating. Voyager’s construction as a extremely episodic sequence implies that this unimaginable denouement begins and ends with conclusion of “Prime Factors.” The harm to Tuvok and Janeway’s friendship is straight away dropped. As heartbreaking as it’s to see within the second—anchored in an excellent efficiency by Kate Mulgrew and Tim Russ, one achingly emotional and the opposite constrained by Vulcan logic—their dialog has no consequence, logistically or emotionally. Voyager merely strikes on, the occasions of the episode by no means to be introduced up once more. But you can not assist however surprise what may need been if the present was not so solely confined by Trek’s episodic bread and butter, if all these relationships and their ups and downs had been allowed to sit down and linger past the occasions of specific episodes. Especially a present like Voyager, the place private and structural occasions ought to have a a lot bigger feeling of consequence, contemplating the ship is all of the crew have stranded removed from the remainder of the Federation.

Alas, that may solely ever be a thought experiment—as inevitably doomed to fail because the Voyager crew’s probabilities of discovering a method house are this early on within the present. And but, it’s a second that also hits all these years later, one of many first true indicators of Voyager’s dramatic potential… even when it finally doesn’t fairly stay as much as all of it.

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