VOY: “Timeless”

Date: December 11, 2020

Season 5, Episode 6

Musical Accompaniment: In remembrance of my favorite concert at Madison Square Garden, which was this day last year, I’m listening to Billy Joel all evening.

Interstellar News: It’s the eleventh day of by birthday month and my birthday is tomorrow!

TL;DR: Kim and Chakotay traverse through the snow and ice to find Voyager and change the timeline. 15 years in their past, Voyager put together the quantum slipstream drive as we saw in “Hope and Fear” but there was an issue so Chakotay and Kim were ahead in a shuttle to help guide Voyager. Unfortunately Kim made a mistake and while he and Chakotay got back to the AQ, Voyager was lost and crashed. The story unfolds that they both are on the run from the Federation (who had given up the search) and they stole a Borg component so they can send a message to Seven in the past and avoid the accident. They restore the EMH so he can help with Seven’s autopsy but Kim’s calculation doesn’t work. Kim realizes, at the very last second, he needs to dissipate the slipstream… and it works. The shuttle and Voyager come out of the slipstream, but Kim of the past is confused because he didn’t send anything to Seven. Kim of the future sent a video explaining his actions, they dismantle the drive, and they are at least 10 years closer to home.

Favorite Quotes:

Doctor’s Orders: “Obviously the Borg can’t hold their liquor.”

Tuvok: Mr. Neelix, you are an unending source of astonishment.

Neelix: Why, thank you, Mister Vulcan.

Tuvok being super sassy and sarcastic and Neelix thinking it’s a compliment.

Janeway’s Jam: “My advice in making sense of temporal paradoxes is simple. Don’t even try.”

“To aid an honorable thief, or to spend eternity in cybernetic oblivion? Let’s tempt fate.”: For a time travel episode, I actually enjoyed this. We get future Kim who is super cynical and he’s just trying to undo the biggest mistake of his life. He was so eager to get home that he thought he had the answer for everything and spent 15 years trying to rectify his mistake. Chakotay had moved on in some ways, I mean he did find love again, but ultimately he was always trying to be there for the crew even when they were long gone. This episode did a great job of being in the future and then showing the flashbacks of what happened before the fateful trip. I love drunk Seven… a lot, distraught Paris, and the Doctor in both the past and future. It absolutely makes sense that Kim’s first goal was to simply get Voyager home without crashing but he finally understood that there were no short cuts and he was just going to have them drop out of the slipstream no matter where it put them. It was better to be alive and in the DQ, together, than only two of them alive in the AQ. Let this be a lesson to everyone that you really have to be sure. It’s better to be right and alive than to cut corners. 8 promotions for Kim, who was totally confused by the message from his future self.

TA Out!