10 Greatest Star Trek Feel Good Moments

In an episode of Star Trek: Voyager's season six that also settles the dog/cat debate more definitively than that 2019 musical movie adaptation – Neelix, stop licking the ice cream (!) – Lieutenant Reginald Barclay returns to our screens and, with a good deal of help from Counsellor Troi, makes two-way contact with the stranded starship for the first time.

Initially, in the episode Pathfinder, it seemed that Everyman, and perennial underdog, Barclay was suffering a relapse of his addiction to holographic environments. Working for the ep Starfleet project, he was using a simulation of Voyager to refine his plan to create a wormhole as a conduit for a message to the Delta Quadrant by way of the Mutara Interdimensional Deep Space Array System (MIDAS). Quickly becoming "obsessed," he started to spend most of his off (and on) hours at Pathfinder in the holodeck with recreations of the crew of Voyager, and few, if any, believed in his singular plan.

This is half the reason why, therefore, that the episode's climax is such a joyous moment. After an epic game of hide-and-seek with Starfleet Security and Commander Harkins on the holodeck, and a distinctly perplexed look on holo-Janeway's face as Barclay is forced to end the program before the simulated warp core simulates itself into simulated smithereens, the systems at Pathfinder start to bleep – it's a message, from Voyager!

Captain Janeway (the real one this time) struggles to hold back her tears as she speaks directly to Starfleet for the first time in about six years. Then, as the micro-wormhole begins to collapse, comes the cherry on the icing on the top of the emotional cake. Barclay passes the interstellar call over to Admiral Paris, who has a message of hope for the marooned crew, and one for his son, Tom Paris: "Tell him I miss him!"

"Keep a docking bay open for us. We hope to see you…" are Captain Janeway's last words before the wormhole finally does collapse. What's the emoji for 'I'm crying so hard I've forgotten my own name'?