10 Best Star Trek Cold Opens
6. The Impact Of The Voyager Encounter (Living Witness)
The starship Voyager had travelled a good 15,000 light-years by the time Living Witness aired, so audiences were quite used to seeing the ship as a beacon of the Federation, despite it's Delta Quadrant setting. So, it came as a bit of a shock when Captain Janeway stood in her Ready Room espousing the benefits of violence.
Living Witness is as close as Voyager ever came to a mirror universe episode, showing an alternate history of the crew. Chakotay was almost entirely covered by a tattoo, the Doctor was an android, Kazon were clad in Starfleet uniforms - this was an assault to the senses.
The episode opens with Janeway making a deal that sees whole cities wiped out via biogenic weapons, following, as she calls it, the Starfleet way. Everything about this opening was so wrong that it knocks the audience completely off balance, sucking them in as they wait to find out what exactly is going on. It may not have been the show that they were used to seeing for the previous four seasons, but a show that can't shock is a show that's gone soft.