Year of Hell, Part I and Year of Hell, Part II might just be the perfect episodes of Star Trek: Voyager.
Taken together, these episodes perfectly demonstrate the raw potential and strength of the third Star Trek spin-off. They are a boldly ambitious story of a ship that finds itself in hostile territory surrounded by a hostile force with superior firepower, all while playing into the recurring themes and fascinations of the wider series. Year of Hell, Part I and Year of Hell, Part II are effectively a story that finds history itself under threat, while emphasising Brannon Braga’s interpretation of Janeway by setting her against a similarly obsessive opponent.
The result is one of the most thrilling and engaging stories of Voyager‘s seven-season run, among the most satisfying of the series’ impressive “blockbuster” two-parters. Although the show is still being broadcast in the standard nineties 4:3 aspect ratio, it feels like a widescreen story. Part of that is due to the fact that the two-parter unfolds over three quarters of an entire year, part of that is the expanded room for storytelling, part of that is the fact that history itself hangs in the balance, part of that is the fact that Voyager itself feels at stake.
Year of Hell, Part I and Year of Hell, Part II do an excellent job capturing the essence of Voyager.
Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: annorax, Brannon Braga, collectivism, continuity, janeway, joe mensoky, Kurtwood Smith, Television, time, voyager, year of hell | 13 Comments »