10 Greatest Star Trek Cliffhanger Episodes

Kes did warn of the annus horribilis to come in that Voyager season three before-and-after-the-doctor's-hair episode. However, she presumably either forgot to mention (and The Doctor deleted it from his memory files) the exact temporal variance of the chroniton torpedoes in her report (1.47 microseconds by the way) or that detail of her encounter with the Krenim was rapidly retconned under the bridge carpet. Might have saved Seven and Tuvok a lot of time and injury!

In any event, the season four two-parter is undeniably one of Voyager and Star Trek's greatest, with a cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers. First slated to end season three, before it was decided to give Kes the boot and bring Seven of Nine on board, the writers also considered making the year of hell extend the length of season four. That might have made for an exciting watch, but it's probably for the best that an entire season never technically happened.

The climax to Year of Hell, Part I is as suspenseful as it gets. Voyager has sustained extensive damage due to repeated Krenim attacks; over half the ship has been destroyed, life-support is failing, and the vast majority of the crew will simply no longer be able to survive on board. As Captain Janeway puts it to them in an emotional, and masterfully delivered, speech, "Asking you to stay would be asking you to die". The last we see over the "To Be Continued… " is the escape pods being launched, as everyone but the senior staff is forced to abandon ship into hostile space.

The audience is left wondering whether Voyager will ever recover from the damage, and if we will ever see most of the crew again. Luckily, Year of Hell, Part II aired just a week later on 12th November 1997 in the US, so there wasn't an infernal wait to find out.