10 Most Chilling Star Trek Moments
4. Fear Is Afraid
In Star Trek, there are a few constants. The hero usually comes home. Death tends to be meaningless for most. The villains may get a great monologue, but they fail in the end. The Thaw is no stranger to all three of these tropes, but the manner in which it joins them is one of the most jarring endings in Voyager's history.
Fear, the clown played to perfection by Michael McKean, believes he has won the day by acquiring Janeway for his entertainment, releasing several prisoners to do so. Janeway, the audience knows, has already demonstrated herself to be a master negotiator so, with only minutes left in the episode, the audience expects her to argue her way to freedom.
The reveal is like ice. This Janeway is in fact a hologram, which means that everything that Fear needs to continue living is absent. The world around them begins to fade into the darkness. Despite Fear's protestations that none of this is fair, this Hologram Janeway seems to take a quiet pleasure at his discomfort. This grows, as the world fades even more, until Fear finally admits in a small voice that he is afraid.
'I know,' whispers Hologram Janeway as the scene fades to black - and the credits roll. This was the polar opposite from most episode endings that, for a moment, it was hard to believe what was actually happening. Then, of course, the next week, Fear isn't mentioned again.