Timeless (Star Trek: Voyager)
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| Star Trek: VOY episode | |
| "Timeless" | |
 Voyager crashed here long ago |
|
| Episode no. | 100 |
|---|---|
| Prod. code | 201 |
| Airdate | November 18, 1998 |
| Writer(s) | Rick Berman Brannon Braga Joe Menosky |
| Director | LeVar Burton |
| Guest star(s) | LeVar Burton as Captain Geordi La Forge Christine Harnos as Tessa Omond |
| Year | 2375 |
| Stardate | 52143.6 |
| Episode chronology | |
| Previous | "Once Upon a Time" |
| Next | "Infinite Regress" |
"Timeless", the sixth episode of the fifth season of Star Trek: Voyager, was also the series' 100th episode. The episode was directed by LeVar Burton who also featured in a cameo appearance as his Star Trek: The Next Generation character Geordi La Forge, along with complete restoration of his eyesight.
The episode begins, literally, with a "cold opening" on a frigid windswept planet. Two figures wearing survival gear beam onto the scene and search until they discover what they are looking for: Voyager, buried beneath the ice.
The episode also marks an important turning point among the series when Janeway notes in her personal log the changing perspective of their journey home: it's no longer "if" the crew will ever return to Earth, but "when."
The episode received an 8.7/10 rating on imdb.com.
[edit] Plot
The Voyager crew is about to experiment with a new form of faster-than-light drive: the quantum slipstream. If successful, the trip back to home space would be accomplished in hours, rather than years. However, simulations show that the slipstream is unstable and would tear Voyager apart. As many of the components of the slipstream are perishable, waiting is no longer an option. It is decided that the Delta Flyer, flown by Chakotay and Kim, would fly ahead of Voyager in the slipstream and send course corrections back to the ship. The slipstream experiment fails; Kim and Chakotay are propelled to Earth in the Flyer, but Voyager, presumably unable to maintain the burst due to its greater mass, crash-lands on an ice planet just a few parsecs from the Alpha Quadrant, killing everyone onboard instantly.
In the future, Kim and Chakotay become obsessed with finding a way to change the timeline so that the crew can live. After resigning from StarFleet and stealing the Delta Flyer from a Federation shipyard with Tess' help, they finally find the planet where Voyager crashed and enter the long-frozen starship. They succeed in reactivating the Doctor and track down Seven of Nine's body, intending to use her Borg implants to send a signal to the past. However, they are intercepted by the USS Challenger, a Galaxy class starship commanded by Captain Geordi La Forge. Starfleet officials realize what Kim and Chakotay are trying to do, and the Challenger has been sent to stop them from altering the timeline. They quickly attempt to alter the slipstream to allow Voyager to make it through, but fail. The future Kim reasons that the new course corrections must not have worked, as they're still trying to evade USS Challenger. The temporal beacon they established begins losing power, so the Doctor gives up his mobile emitter as it has a power source of its own, and Seven of the past is sent instructions ("corrections") from the future which intentionally shut down the slipstream, altering the timeline to one in which the experiment fails and the crew survives. However in attempting to escape the Challenger, the warp core of the Delta Flyer is breached and explodes.
Captain Janeway is frustrated with the attempt, and though she's slightly disappointed that the trip didn't work as planned, she does not make Harry feel that his attempt to get them home was as disastrous as he thinks it is. In talking to him, she also reveals that when Seven of Nine accessed her internal sensors to ascertain the nature of the transmission she received, she discovered a personal message which contained a StarFleet id. Kim's. Captain Janeway hands Harry a viewscreen and tells him that the message itself is to Harry Kim....from, Harry Kim.
In the present, Kim watches a recording which the future Kim left for him. Moreover, in their aborted slipstream hop, ten years are taken off Voyager's journey to the Alpha Quadrant. Future Harry's actions have placed his timeline in a closed loop. It happened, yet the events that prompted the timeline have now been prevented. This causal "protection" could be called a Law of Temporal Conservation; in a future episode, "Relativity", Starfleet officers from the 29th century, dedicated to protecting the flow of time, are said to have been left to clean up the "mess" caused by future Harry's message to his past self (they refer to it as 'the temporal inversion in the Takara sector').
[edit] Fan Reaction
"Timeless" is generally highly regarded by Voyager fans[1]. The episode has an average rating of 4.7/5 on the official Star Trek website (as of August 2nd, 2007). Many fans liked seeing a more mature Harry Kim, and seeing him talking to his younger self.[2]
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[edit] External links
- "Timeless" article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
- Episode synopsis from Startrek.com
