Star Trek: Voyager - 10 Most Anxiety-Inducing Episodes
A run-down of the most intense, most frightening, most perilous Voyager episodes.
If Star Trek Voyager taught us anything, it's that life in the Delta Quadrant is a dangerous place for lonely Federation starships. Throughout it's seven seasons, Voyager gave us many episodes in which we wondered whether Janeway would get her crew home safely.
The Vidiians, Hirogen, Borg and Species 8472 all took their shots at Voyager and were ultimately unsuccessful. Cue an image of Janeway, standing on the bridge, with her hands on her hips and that calm look on her face while the bridge is exploding around her.
It wasn't just alien species that almost ended Voyager's journey for good though, showing the crew of Voyager that it's not just the various alien species of the Delta Quadrant they need to be worried about. Some of the reasons they almost didn't make it home and we were left holding our breath came from actions taken closer to home.
So, let's journey into the Delta Quadrant and identify some of the times when we were left fearing for the lives of the crew and wondering how much more anxiety we could take before we self-destructed.
10. Cathexis
We begin our list with a less-than-favourable encounter with a nebula (and no, it does not involve coffee this time). After Chakotay encounters a nebula and is left brain dead, a mysterious force begins taking over the minds of the Voyager crew.
When taken over by the force, crewmembers begin sabotaging the ship's efforts to go back to the nebula where they believe they will find the cure to Chakotay's condition. The crew becomes convinced it's a malevolent alien preventing them from helping Chakotay. It is not until the last few minutes of the episode they realise the "alien" was in fact Chakotay's spirit trying to warn them about the nebula.
However, before we find out that the force is in fact Chakotay trying to save the crew from the effects of the nebula, we are left to worry where the force is. It can jump from crewmember to crewmember, and no-one knows where it is at any time until the affected crewmember sabotages something.
Adding to the anxiety is that crewmembers have no memory of their actions while under the force's influence and they do things they wouldn't normally do. It's an episode that shows just how vulnerable the crew is in the Delta Quadrant where they have no knowledge of what resides there. Unknown forces are everywhere and no-one is immune to their effects, and that's terrifying.