The Best Star Trek: Voyager Episode Pushed Boundaries In The 90s

By Drew Dietsch
| Published 1 hour ago

With all the negative Star Trek news fans have been forced to endure recently, it’s important to remember the good times.

And the best time in Star Trek will forever be our favorite decade.

The 90s!

The 1990s were Star Trek’s golden age, with numerous successful Trek movies and three different series.

Running from 1995 to 2001, Star Trek: Voyager was the last of those series, and also the last Star Trek television effort to get a full seven seasons.

Despite numerous attempts, no show has accomplished that since.

Over time Voyager’s reputation has only grown to the point where now Captain Janeway is a coffee meme and Seven of Nine is beloved character who fans lobbied to get her own series.

Star Trek: Voyager had its ups and downs, but the show’s biggest up happened in one specific episode.

The Best Episode Of Star Trek: Voyager

“Equinox” is the story of what might have been—a haunting glimpse into what Voyager could have become had its crew abandoned their principles.

Aired as the Season 5 finale and Season 6 premiere in 1999, this two-part cliffhanger gripped audiences during the show’s hiatus in much the same way Next Generation’s “Best of Both Worlds Part 1 and 2” had a decade earlier.

Five years before the episode’s events, the Federation starship Voyager was stranded in a remote galaxy by the Caretaker, an entity that left them facing a 70-year journey home.

Determined to uphold Starfleet values, Voyager’s crew set a course for Earth.

Unbeknownst to them, another Federation ship, the Equinox, was also stranded by the Caretaker.

A Nova-class science vessel with a crew of just 78, the Equinox had limited armaments and a top speed of Warp 8, compared to Voyager’s Intrepid-class design, which boasted 141 crew members, advanced weapons and a maximum speed of Warp 9.975.

Unlike the better-equipped Voyager, the Equinox crew chose a darker path, but that’s not clear at first.

When Voyager encounters the Equinox after five years in hostile space, they find a battered ship under attack by mysterious alien forces.

These nucleogenic aliens’ relentless assaults through interdimensional rifts, depicted with groundbreaking CGI, consumed a significant chunk of the episode’s budget for their ethereal design. The Equinox is a shambles, its crew decimated.

Voyager’s team searches the wreckage, finding a survivor buried under rubble who gasps, “Tell me if my legs are still there.” This raw line, was entirely improvised by actor Rick Worthy as crewman Noah Lessing.

Another crewman leaps from the debris, firing wildly at nonexistent invaders before collapsing, while the remaining survivors are nearly catatonic from trauma.

The Equinox’s dilapidated interior, inspired by submarine warfare films like Das Boot, contrasted sharply with Voyager’s pristine Starfleet aesthetic, emphasizing despair.

Janeway and her crew are overjoyed to find another Federation ship in the Delta quadrant, and they leap to the aid of their fellow Starfleet officers, going to work on repairing their ship and working to develop a defense against their attackers.

The Equinox’s Captain, Rudolph Ransom (played by John Savage), a once-respected Starfleet officer, claims they don’t know why they’re being targeted by these creatures.

The truth is far darker: Ransom’s crew discovered that interdimensional creatures could be killed and converted into super-fuel for propulsion.

Abandoning Starfleet’s rules and morality, they’ve been slaughtering the aliens to speed their journey home.

Ransom pleads desperation—starvation, death, doom—but Voyager’s crew, led by Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), rejects his excuses.

When Janeway tries to arrest them, the Equinox crew escapes, damaging Voyager and leaving them vulnerable to the vengeful aliens.

Janeway’s fury ignites. Over the two-parter, she risks her crew’s lives to stop Ransom, threatens to kill an Equinox crewman for information, and relieves her first officer, Chakotay, of duty when he challenges her near-murderous orders.

This darker Janeway, was at the time a bold departure from her diplomatic norm. Kate Mulgrew makes the most of it, delivering one of her most engaged performances, while the cast thrives on a script that gives everyone a moment.

Mulgrew has admitted in the past that her heart wasn’t always in her Voyager work. She struggled with personal issues throughout much of the show’s production, and there was conflict between her and Jeri Ryan, which often blew up in tension on the set.

But for these episodes, she chewed scenery. Janeway becomes the relentless commander fans craved—a phaser-toting vengeance dealer, evoking Captain Kirk with a chip on his shoulder.

Writers Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky deliberately channeled that Original Series’ energy, grounding it in Voyager’s stakes.

The two-parter’s most haunting subplot involves Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and The Doctor (Robert Picardo), pupil and teacher, held captive on the Equinox.

Ransom rewrites The Doctor’s program, turning the healer into a sadistic scientist. As The Doctor tortures Seven, digging into her brain in a procedure that could kill her, he manipulates her to sing “My Darlin’ Clementine” as a sick duet.

Director David Livingston chose this folk song for its eerie simplicity, a last-minute decision that became iconic. Echoing Deep in the Equinox’s crumbling bowels, the sounds of Seven forced to sing sweet harmony while being murdered by her best friend, are unforgettable.

By the episode’s end, nothing is unscathed. Bulkheads explode, relationships fracture, and not all is forgiven.

It paid off. “Equinox” was a critical and fan success, praised for its intense performances, moral complexity, and cinematic quality.

A 1999 TV Guide review called it “Voyager at its gutsiest,” while fan polls on early 90s internet forums like TrekWeb ranked it among the series’ best.

Its legacy endures, with fans still debating Janeway’s ethics and ranking “Equinox” alongside “Year of Hell” and “Scorpion” as Voyager’s finest hours.

The episode has heavily influenced later Trek shows, with Star Trek: Prodigy’s writers citing its exploration of moral gray areas as inspiration for their 2024 season.

Directed by David Livingston, “Equinox” feels like an epic feature film rather than a TV episode. And that’s part of why it continues to work so well, decades later.

But at the time, the show’s home network, didn’t want to make it. UPN, which would later go on to interfere with, ruin, and cancel Star Trek: Enterprise, insisted they preferred standalone episodes over serialized arcs to attract casual viewers.

However, the previous success of Star Trek Voyager’s season 4 multi-parter, “Year of Hell” gave the writers and Livingston leverage to bargain for a more ambitious, character-driven story.

A Trek veteran with 62 episodes across the franchise, Livingston also pushed for and got a longer-than-usual shooting schedule. He had 10 days to work on each episode, instead of the usual 7 given for each episode’s shoot.

Livingston used handheld cameras and dim lighting, inspired by Das Boot, for a gritty, cinematic feel that would work within his budget and time constraints.

The cast rehearsed extensively to nail the emotional intensity, with Mulgrew and Savage bonding over their shared theater backgrounds to refine their confrontations.

For Kate Mulgrew, the episode was one of her career highlights. In a 2003 Star Trek DVD commentary, she called it “the episode where we all brought our A-game,” Livingston ranks it among his favorite directing experiences, in his career.

“Equinox” isn’t just Voyager’s best episode—it’s a glimpse into what the series could have been like if it had been allowed to push boundaries.

Many cite Season 4’s “Year of Hell” as the series’ peak, but “Year of Hell” marked the start of Voyager’s risk-taking. It signaled a willingness to break from Voyager’s often static formula, a mindset that peaked with “Equinox.”

Equinox captures Voyager at its boldest, exploring what happens when Starfleet’s ideals crumble under pressure.