10 Best Star Trek Villains In Only One Episode
2. The Clown - Voyager, The Thaw
Michael McKean is superb as the evil clown in this second season entry from Voyager. His glee and enjoyment of the pain of others is evident in every scene that he is in, feeding into the delirium that is this episode.
The Starfleet officers try to play it neutral around him, steadfast in their belief that they will be rescued. The trapped colonists have no such belief and give in to their fear easily. He brutalises them, over and over, simply because he can. He feeds off of this anguish, offering no sympathy whatsoever. He simply exists to exist, evil without question.
His downfall at the hands of the Voyager crew is one of the stranger moments of triumph in the series. In what should be a punch the air, cheering moment, Janeway manages to trick the clown into releasing all of the hostages. Instead, she will stay with him. Though, that was never going to happen and she calmly informs him of the ruse.
He begins to feel cold. The room around them begins to dim. This embodiment of fear slowly comes to realise the very feeling that he had been instilling in the hearts of his victims. His final words are that he is afraid. There is no rumination on this, no sympathy. The lights go out and the credits roll.
It is one of the most brutal victories over evil that Star Trek has yet offered, one that elicits a tiny amount of sympathy for the villain, though leaves them haunting the minds of the audiences still.