Voyager 5x26 "Equinox, Part 1"

rating: ****

the story: The crew come across another displaced Starfleet ship, which has made far different ethical decisions along the way...

what it's all about: "Equinox" is basically Voyager's last word on its critics who argue that the series was too soft in its premise.  Far more than "Year of Hell," which predicted the look of the BattleStar Galactica reboot, "Equinox" predicted its spirit.  Moral compromise is no stranger to this franchise (watch Deep Space Nine's "In the Pale Moonlight"), but it's the idealism Gene Roddenberry first envisioned that should always be at its heart. That's what Voyager was about from the very beginning, a series about a crew that might've compromised its idealism but chose at every opportunity not to.  Well, there apparently was another ship that went the other way.

The true impact of "Equinox" became crystalized in the second part, the sixth season premiere that launched a whole new volley of criticism against the series that endured the whole season, once Janeway chose a response to her counterpart, Captain Ransom.  That's another episode, though. 

This one is merely the setup, in which the crew once again makes an unlikely season-ending discovery (in the spirit of "Hope and Fear" a season earlier, with that fake Starfleet supership that was going to get them home near-instantly), not just awareness of another crew but the crew itself.  That crew has a lot of famous faces in it (yet another cause for complaints, because we never do see any of them again past the second part), as you'll see in the guest-star listing.  Titus Welliver, in particular, would go on to greater exposure after appearing here, including Lost, a series that endlessly reinvented itself with basically the same premise as Voyager: being stranded in the middle of nowhere.  Just imagine if Star Trek had totally broken its model to follow a formula like that!  And ironically, Lost co-creator JJ Abrams would later initiate the big screen revamp...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Challenges fans to consider what Star Trek is really all about.
• series - Gives the crew a stark look in the mirror.
• character - Janeway's biggest challenge, and most personal.
• essential - Simply put, required viewing.

notable guest-stars:
John Savage (Ransom)
Titus Welliver
Rick Worthy
Scarlett Pomers (Naomi)

Voyager Season 6x1 "Equinox, Part 2"

****

The sixth season of the series was not exactly its most beloved.  Okay, so it's the least popular season.  Okay, so in some circles it was pretty much despised.  Perhaps some of that necessarily stems from the way it opened.  "Equinox, Part 2" concludes the story of Janeway's ideological clash with Captain Ransom, another Starfleet officer trying to make the long journey home to the Alpha Quadrant.  Ransom seems to have made pretty much all the opposite decisions Janeway did, except for that one similarity, and this irks her in a moral sense.

The problem is, she ends up in a moral quandary once it becomes clear to her that she cannot sit by and let him continue.  Like other Star Trek captains before and after her, Janeway develops an intense need to bring this nemesis to justice, but she seems to push it too far, threatening torture and execution in order to reach her goal. Even Chakotay is abhorred by this behavior, and usually there isn't a more dependable voice of agreement in her crew.

So the challenge is to watch this episode and judge for yourself, with or without a greater awareness of how Janeway has conducted herself.  This makes it a key episode for the series and for Janeway herself, no matter your conclusions.  (It may or may not be worth noting that the loose arc for the character during the rest of the season is one of redemption.)

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
John Savage
Titus Welliver
Rick Worthy

Memory Alpha summary.