Star Trek: 10 Times Voyager Could Have Got Home

10. Caretaker - Using The Array To Get Home

This is of course the most obvious entry on this list - using the Caretaker's Array to get home in the very first episode. The decision to return back at that stage would, of course, have negated the need for a show at all - perhaps it may have suited a Long Trek - but had Janeway chosen anything else, there simply would have been no Star Trek: Voyager.

It was never truly discussed the damage that a return journey would do, either. Voyager's summons to the Delta Quadrant resulted in the death of the first officer, the chief engineer, the chief medical officer, and the pilot, to say the least. Would the return journey be just as deadly? Or, with advance knowledge, could the ship have prepared against any such damage?

After all, as Voyager would go on to discover, the ship did have a magical ability to repair itself between episodes. The idea then of the Female Caretaker was dropped in as a get-out-of-jail-free card, should the show slide in the ratings. Though we would meet her in the second season episode Cold Fire, by that stage we had come to know the ship and crew, making us all quite glad that Janeway chose as she did.