Year of Hell: Part 2 (12 Nov. 1997)

A year after Voyager encounters the Krenim time ship, a badly damaged Voyager with a skeleton crew leads an armada of interplanetary ships against them.

Director:

Michael Vejar

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry, Rick Berman (creator),

Stars:

Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, Roxann Dawson

Cast

Episode credited cast:
Kate Mulgrew	...	Captain Kathryn Janeway
Robert Beltran	...	Chakotay
Roxann Dawson	...	B'Elanna Torres
Robert Duncan McNeill	...	Tom Paris
Ethan Phillips	...	Neelix
Robert Picardo	...	The Doctor
Tim Russ	...	Tuvok
Jeri Ryan	...	Seven of Nine
Garrett Wang	...	Harry Kim
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
John Loprieno	...	Obrist
Peter Marx	...	Krenim Commandant (as Peter Slutsker)
Lise Simms	...	Annorax's Wife
Kurtwood Smith	...	Annorax

Storyline

A year into the battle with the Krenim, a stripped down and barely functioning Voyager with a skeleton crew is leading an armada of various species' ships against the timeship before more damage is done. Meanwhile, as "guests" of the Krenim captain, Chakotay and Paris individually pursue solutions to the crisis from the other end.

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Plot Keywords:

24th century

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

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Details

Language:

English

Release Date:

12 November 1997 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Network Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The events take place between July 27th and November 29th, 2374, resetting to March 16th in the final scene.

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Quotes

Tom Paris: He's lost his family. Okay, that's a terrible thing. But so has everyone else on this ship. And frankly, so have we!

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Connections

References Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

User Reviews

This is not "Voyager"

This review applies to both episodes of this 2-parter Who wrote this two-part episode and why? A gritty and compelling story with a slight minimum of technobabble, a genuine sense of loss in that it's not just nameless goldshirts who can die or be seriously wounded, and an antagonist who is not a typical "bad guy" but actually a well-rounded, fully fleshed out person whose motives are driven solely by a desire to bring back his family, friends, and his people from mishaps he was responsible for, while being flawed enough to sacrifice entire races in order to do so? This is not typical "Voyager", but no worries; the show soon returns to the formula of mediocrity and stupidity it's so well known for. But for two weeks, we get a story that lives up to its title as it flashes forward from "Day 1" to "Day 4", "Day 39", "Day 70", "Day 180", etcetera in chronicling a *SHOCK!* REALISTIC depiction of a spaceship pursuing another through space and waging a bloody guerrilla-style war that sees Voyager slowly come apart, characters die or be maimed, and personalities clash.

There's still moments of stupidity, such as Tuvok claiming that there is an accepted addage amongst the Federation that "The Captain is always right", but for the most part, everything comes across wholly real, and very much as though Voyager were a small town under siege by an enemy, with the once pristine hallways and decks becoming smoldering shades of dark gray and blue as power fluctuates, decks are destroyed piecemeal, and places like the mess hall become medical facilities, and a big-ass piece of debris is stuck through the bridge.

The antagonist, meanwhile, is of the Krenim race. Spoilers abounding.

It starts with the Krenim attacking and threatening Voyager for intruding into their space, while Annorax (Kurtwood Smith) commands a gigantic ship with the ability to use time travel technobabble to alter aspects of things from molecules to planets in terms of time. So he uses this to eliminate an entire species on a planet, then observes how the timeline is affected, while he and his ship is protected from these changes.

Turns out, the Krenim were involved in a hideously violent war against a superior species that it was losing. Annorax then invented this time ship and used it to wipe out this species. The timeline then sets itself so that the Krenim are suddenly a superpower... and people begin dying by the millions from a disease that this other species had cured for the Krenim generations earlier.

So he attempts more and more time incursions to mess with the timeline, and as a result, accidentally wipes out the vast majority of the Krenim nation, as well as his own wife and children. He spends 200 years constantly attempting to change time enough to set things back the way they were, or possibly better.

They take aboard Chakotay and Tom Paris, and begin working together to try to undo the damage, and set Voyager fine as it was in before the Krenim met them.

Of course, the "Magic Reset Button" must come into effect for a show like "Voyager", and everything ends up reset the way it was at "Day 1", but the difference becoming that the Krenim do not attack Voyager outright, but acknowledge them, and politely tell them to avoid their space.

The only problem I saw is that Annorax was apparently still alive, at his home, working on the time ship. But in the prior episode, it was said he had spent 200 years messing with the timeline. So was this a flashback or a continuity error? Either way, an odd change of pace from typical Voyager stupidity, and even though the Magic Reset Button came into effect, it wasn't done as stupidly as it could have been.