By Drew Dietsch
| Revealed 1 hour in the past
With all of the destructive Star Trek information followers have been pressured to endure not too long ago, it’s necessary to recollect the great instances.
And one of the best time in Star Trek will without end be our favourite decade.
The 90s!
The Nineteen Nineties had been Star Trek’s golden age, with quite a few profitable Trek motion pictures and three completely different collection.
Operating from 1995 to 2001, Star Trek: Voyager was the final of these collection, and likewise the final Star Trek tv effort to get a full seven seasons.
Regardless of quite a few makes an attempt, no present has completed that since.
Over time Voyager’s status has solely grown to the purpose the place now Captain Janeway is a espresso meme and Seven of 9 is beloved character who followers lobbied to get her personal collection.
Star Trek: Voyager had its ups and downs, however the present’s greatest up occurred in a single particular episode.
The Finest Episode Of Star Trek: Voyager
“Equinox” is the story of what may need been—a haunting glimpse into what Voyager might have turn into had its crew deserted their rules.
Aired because the Season 5 finale and Season 6 premiere in 1999, this two-part cliffhanger gripped audiences in the course of the present’s hiatus in a lot the identical manner Subsequent Era’s “Better of Each Worlds Half 1 and a pair of” had a decade earlier.
5 years earlier than the episode’s occasions, the Federation starship Voyager was stranded in a distant galaxy by the Caretaker, an entity that left them dealing with a 70-year journey house.
Decided to uphold Starfleet values, Voyager’s crew set a course for Earth.
Unbeknownst to them, one other Federation ship, the Equinox, was additionally stranded by the Caretaker.
A Nova-class science vessel with a crew of simply 78, the Equinox had restricted armaments and a prime pace of Warp 8, in comparison with Voyager’s Intrepid-class design, which boasted 141 crew members, superior weapons and a most pace of Warp 9.975.
In contrast to the better-equipped Voyager, the Equinox crew selected a darker path, however that’s not clear at first.
When Voyager encounters the Equinox after 5 years in hostile house, they discover a battered ship beneath assault by mysterious alien forces.
These nucleogenic aliens’ relentless assaults by interdimensional rifts, depicted with groundbreaking CGI, consumed a big chunk of the episode’s funds for his or her ethereal design. The Equinox is a shambles, its crew decimated.
Voyager’s crew searches the wreckage, discovering a survivor buried beneath rubble who gasps, “Inform me if my legs are nonetheless there.” This uncooked line, was totally improvised by actor Rick Worthy as crewman Noah Lessing.
One other crewman leaps from the particles, firing wildly at nonexistent invaders earlier than collapsing, whereas the remaining survivors are practically catatonic from trauma.
The Equinox’s dilapidated inside, impressed by submarine warfare movies like Das Boot, contrasted sharply with Voyager’s pristine Starfleet aesthetic, emphasizing despair.
Janeway and her crew are overjoyed to seek out one other Federation ship within the Delta quadrant, and so they leap to assistance from their fellow Starfleet officers, going to work on repairing their ship and dealing to develop a protection towards their attackers.
The Equinox’s Captain, Rudolph Ransom (performed by John Savage), a once-respected Starfleet officer, claims they don’t know why they’re being focused by these creatures.
The reality is way darker: Ransom’s crew found that interdimensional creatures might be killed and transformed into super-fuel for propulsion.
Abandoning Starfleet’s guidelines and morality, they’ve been slaughtering the aliens to hurry their journey house.
Ransom pleads desperation—hunger, demise, doom—however Voyager’s crew, led by Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), rejects his excuses.
When Janeway tries to arrest them, the Equinox crew escapes, damaging Voyager and leaving them weak to the vengeful aliens.
Janeway’s fury ignites. Over the two-parter, she dangers her crew’s lives to cease Ransom, threatens to kill an Equinox crewman for data, and relieves her first officer, Chakotay, of obligation when he challenges her near-murderous orders.
This darker Janeway, was on the time a daring departure from her diplomatic norm. Kate Mulgrew makes essentially the most of it, delivering one in every of her most engaged performances, whereas the forged thrives on a script that provides everybody a second.
Mulgrew has admitted prior to now that her coronary heart wasn’t all the time in her Voyager work. She struggled with private points all through a lot of the present’s manufacturing, and there was battle between her and Jeri Ryan, which regularly blew up in stress on the set.
However for these episodes, she chewed surroundings. Janeway turns into the relentless commander followers craved—a phaser-toting vengeance seller, evoking Captain Kirk with a chip on his shoulder.
Writers Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky intentionally channeled that Unique Collection’ power, grounding it in Voyager’s stakes.
The 2-parter’s most haunting subplot entails Seven of 9 (Jeri Ryan) and The Physician (Robert Picardo), pupil and instructor, held captive on the Equinox.
Ransom rewrites The Physician’s program, turning the healer right into a sadistic scientist. As The Physician tortures Seven, digging into her mind in a process that might kill her, he manipulates her to sing “My Darlin’ Clementine” as a sick duet.
Director David Livingston selected this folks tune for its eerie simplicity, a last-minute choice that turned iconic. Echoing Deep within the Equinox’s crumbling bowels, the sounds of Seven pressured to sing candy concord whereas being murdered by her finest good friend, are unforgettable.
By the episode’s finish, nothing is unscathed. Bulkheads explode, relationships fracture, and never all is forgiven.
It paid off. “Equinox” was a essential and fan success, praised for its intense performances, ethical complexity, and cinematic high quality.
A 1999 TV Information assessment known as it “Voyager at its gutsiest,” whereas fan polls on early 90s web boards like TrekWeb ranked it among the many collection’ finest.
Its legacy endures, with followers nonetheless debating Janeway’s ethics and rating “Equinox” alongside “Yr of Hell” and “Scorpion” as Voyager’s most interesting hours.
The episode has closely influenced later Trek reveals, with Star Trek: Prodigy’s writers citing its exploration of ethical grey areas as inspiration for his or her 2024 season.
Directed by David Livingston, “Equinox” appears like an epic characteristic movie moderately than a TV episode. And that’s a part of why it continues to work so nicely, a long time later.
However on the time, the present’s house community, didn’t need to make it. UPN, which might later go on to intrude with, smash, and cancel Star Trek: Enterprise, insisted they most popular standalone episodes over serialized arcs to draw informal viewers.
Nonetheless, the earlier success of Star Trek Voyager’s season 4 multi-parter, “Yr of Hell” gave the writers and Livingston leverage to cut price for a extra formidable, character-driven story.
A Trek veteran with 62 episodes throughout the franchise, Livingston additionally pushed for and obtained a longer-than-usual capturing schedule. He had 10 days to work on every episode, as an alternative of the same old 7 given for every episode’s shoot.
Livingston used handheld cameras and dim lighting, impressed by Das Boot, for a gritty, cinematic really feel that may work inside his funds and time constraints.
The forged rehearsed extensively to nail the emotional depth, with Mulgrew and Savage bonding over their shared theater backgrounds to refine their confrontations.
For Kate Mulgrew, the episode was one in every of her profession highlights. In a 2003 Star Trek DVD commentary, she known as it “the episode the place all of us introduced our A-game,” Livingston ranks it amongst his favourite directing experiences, in his profession.
“Equinox” isn’t simply Voyager’s finest episode—it’s a glimpse into what the collection might have been like if it had been allowed to push boundaries.
Many cite Season 4’s “Yr of Hell” because the collection’ peak, however “Yr of Hell” marked the beginning of Voyager’s risk-taking. It signaled a willingness to interrupt from Voyager’s typically static components, a mindset that peaked with “Equinox.”
Equinox captures Voyager at its boldest, exploring what occurs when Starfleet’s beliefs crumble beneath stress.
