10 Most Important Mental Health Awareness Episodes In Star Trek
3. Extreme Risk
Extreme Risk makes its message on mental health as clear as possible from the beginning. In the teaser, we see B'Elanna in a shuttle on the holodeck in orbital skydiving gear. She orders the pilot to climb higher and higher despite the dangers. Before jumping, B'Elanna deactivates the safety protocols. The computer replies with a warning: "Extreme risk of injury."
As we discussed in our article on B'Elanna Torres, it was Roxann Dawson who proposed the idea for the episode during a dinner with producers. In Star Trek: Voyager: A Celebration, Dawson noted that she wanted to examine B'Elanna's "emotional and psychological aspects," going on to add that,
I talked to them about B'Elanna getting to a point where she felt so disjointed about how she fit into the world that she became numb, and she started to take risks that were meant to make her feel something.
On the whole, Extreme Risk handles its discussion of depression, grief, and self-harm with great care, underscored by Dawson's nuanced performance. Whilst, by the end of the episode, B'Elanna's mental health was improving, this was also no linear progression. Later episodes, such as Lineage, would return to the subject, notably of B'Elanna's childhood trauma. From a personal standpoint, I know — mental health is something to keep working on.