So far, our guides to the unmissable episodes of each entry in the Star Trek franchise have dealt with lauded icons of the series. The esteemed original. The beloved Next Generation. The revered, dark Deep Space Nine. And now, we’re at Star Trek: Voyager, a show which is...well, not loved as much as those (but very much loved). Rest assured, we can certainly still guide you through its highest highs.
As part of our ongoing efforts to give you things to distract yourself in the moment of history in which we live, io9 is offering up weekly guides to the very best that each Star Trek show has to offer. So if you’re about to follow our advice and help yourself to all the Star Trek, here are at least some highlights you can look forward to as you boldly go absolutely nowhere outside.
Season 1
Caretaker, Parts 1 and 2 (Episodes 1 and 2)—On a routine mission to root out some Maquis fighters in the Badlands, Captain Janeway suddenly finds herself thrown into the crucible when a mysterious presence catapults Voyager and the Maquis into the Delta Quadrant...70 years away from Earth.
Phage (Episode 5)—On an away mission, Neelix finds his lungs stolen right out of his chest by the Vidiians, a race that resorted to literal body part pillaging while combatting a horrifyingly lethal plague.
Eye of the Needle (Episode 7)—A small wormhole gives the crew a chance to try and send a message to the Alpha Quadrant...only to find that there’s a Romulan agent on the other end.
State of Flux (Episode 11)—Voyager is betrayed by one of its own when it’s discovered the Kazon have stolen some of their replicator technology.
Faces (Episode 14)—Harangued by the Vidiians again, Torres is captured and literally split between her Klingon and human selves as part of an experiment.
Learning Curve (Episode 16)—Struggling to bring the Maquis survivors up to Starfleet standard, Tuvok tries to whip some of them into shape. Cheese is taken to sickbay.
Season 2
Projections (Episode 3)—The Doctor finds himself alone on Voyager, only to discover that he’s apparently his actual creator running a fictional holoprogram, and not stranded in the Delta Quadrant.
Maneuvers (Episode 11)—Seska the Cardassian turncoat is back with her new Kazon friends, stealing transporter tech from Voyager that sets Chakotay on a personal vendetta.
Resistance (Episode 12)—Captured on an away mission, Janeway recruits the help of an old man who’s convinced she’s actually his daughter.
Prototype (Episode 13)—A race of sentient androids kidnaps Torres and forces her to help them find a way to...procreate, essentially?
Alliances (Episode 14)—As Seska and the Kazon’s alliance needles at Voyager’s defenses, Janeway decides to try and team up with some locals to take the fight to the Kazon.
Meld (Episode 16)—Wow, you watched this run of episodes in order, and then suddenly episode 15 never happened! What a funny thing. Anyway, after a crewman is murdered aboard Voyager, Tuvok quickly finds the perpetrator—and is desperate to find out why they did it.
Deadlock (Episode 21)—A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day happens aboard the Voyager. Until suddenly...another Janeway shows up?
Resolutions (Episode 25)—Infected with a seemingly incurable disease, Chakotay and Janeway are forced to be left behind together on an uninhabited planet. The birth of a million Janeway/Chakotay fics ensues.
Basics, Part 1 (Episode 26)—Seska lures Voyager into a trap, leaving the ship in the hands of the Kazon.
Season 3
Basics, Part 2 (Episode 1)—Left on a harsh world by the Kazon, the Voyager crew has to find a way to get the ship back...if they can survive long enough.
Flashback (Episode 2)—Tuvok has a mental breakdown, and the only way to help rectify it sees Janeway mind-meld back into his memories of his time serving under Captain Hikaru Sulu. Oh my.
Macrocosm (Episode 12)—When giant viruses incapacitate the crew while she’s on an away mission, Janeway returns and immediately gets her Alien on.
Unity (Episode 17)—Injured in a shuttlecraft accident, Chakotay finds himself recuperating on a world inhabited by former Borg drones severed from the collective.
Distant Origin (Episode 23)—An alien scientist believes he’s found proof tying the evolution of his species to Earth, and must battle dogma and his peers alongside Voyager to reveal the truth to his people.
Displaced (Episode 24)—The crew finds themselves disappearing one by one...only for each missing crewmember to be replaced by an alien as confused as they are.
Scorpion, Part 1 (Episode 26)—Voyager hits Borg space, only to be beset by a threat even more powerful.
Season 4
Scorpion, Part 2 (Episode 1)—As her uneasy alliance with the Borg to stop Species 8472 crumbles, Janeway finds herself between a rock, a hard place, and Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One.
The Gift (Episode 2)—Now severed from the Borg Collective, Seven of Nine tries to acclimate to becoming an individual and part of Voyager’s crew. Oh, also Kes has headaches, turns into a space cloud, and buggers off. Bye Kes!
Day of Honor (Episode 3)—On the Klingon spirtual holiday marking the day of Honor, Torres has an extremely bad day.
The Raven (Episode 6)—An unexpected find on an away mission leads to Seven of Nine uncovering a crucial part of her life before the Borg.
Scientific Method (Episode 7)—Everyone on Voyager is in a hell of a mood with each other, but as it turns out, it’s because of invisible alien experiments and not having spent four years trapped on one spaceship with each other.
Year of Hell, Parts 1 and 2 (Episodes 8 and 9)—A time-manipulating scientist of the Krennim Imperium warps the timeline to give Voyager a...well, a year of hell.
Message in a Bottle (Episode 14)—When Seven finds a subspace beacon she can ping a message to the Alpha Quadrant with, the crew decides to send the Doctor’s holoprogram instead...only for him to find himself in the middle of the heist of an experimental Starfleet ship.
Hunters (Episode 15)—Trying to recover a response to the message relayed by the Doctor last episode, the crew encounters a deadly new threat: the Not-Predators the Hirogen.
The Killing Game, Parts 1 and 2 (Episodes 18 and 19)—The Not Predators Hirogen capture Voyager, and decide that the ultimate game is to in fact use the holodeck to turn the ship into World War II-era France and pit themselves as the Nazis against the crew’s French Resistance.
The Omega Directive (Episode 21)—Seven uncovers a mysterious particle with profoundly dangerous ramifications for warp travel, only for Janeway to engage a mysterious, ultra-secret Starfleet protocol.
Living Witness (Episode 23)—Reactivated seemingly after seven centuries offline, the Doctor finds himself on an alien world with a history recalling a very different version of Voyager.
Hope and Fear (Episode 26)—When a seeming response to Voyager’s attempts to communicate with Starfleet leads to a swanky Federation vessel landing in their laps, the crew finds themselves daring to hope.
Season 5
Night (Episode 1)—Navigating a dark void of space with no stars or star systems, Janeway and the rest of the crew develop a bit of existential cabin fever.
Drone (Episode 2)—A transporter malfunction merges Seven’s borg nanoprobes with the Doctor’s mobile holoemitter, creating a new kind of drone. Significantly better than Voyager’s last “Transporter Fusion Accident” episode.
Extreme Risk (Episode 3)—Increasing stress leads B’Elanna to get trapped in an almost deadly game of pushing herself to the limit.
Timeless (Episode 6)—Fifteen years after an attempt to catapult themselves home leads to most of the Voyager crew perishing, haunted survivors Harry and Chakotay attempt to change the past.
Counterpoint (Episode 10)—Janeway establishes a dangerous relationship with a Devore commander as she tries to help smuggle telepathic refugees through their space.
Latent Image (Episode 11)—The Doctor’s new holophotgraphy habit leads to him discovering a crew member who’s not in his memory banks.
Bride of Chaotica! (Episode 12)—Everyone takes a break and vamps it all the way up inside Tom Paris’ Captain Proton holonovel, an extremely camp take on ‘50s sci-fi serials.
Dark Frontier, Parts 1 and 2 (Episodes 15 and 16)—A plan to swipe a transwarp coil from the Borg leads to the Borg Queen capturing Seven of Nine and offering her a futile choice: Rejoin the collective, or Voyager gets assimilated.
Course: Oblivion (Episode 18)—The crew begins succumbing to a mysterious, fatal disease, only to uncover some shocking revelations about themselves in the process.
Someone to Watch Over Me (Episode 22)—Experimenting with her humanity, Seven of Nine allows the Doctor to teach her the ways of romance. Heartbreak ensues, naturally.
Relativity (Episode 24)—As temporal fluctuations wreak havoc on Voyager, Seven finds herself working with the Starfleet of the 29th Century to save the ship from certain doom.
Equinox, Part 1 (Episode 26)—The crew find another Starfleet ship that’s been trapped in the Delta Quadrant for years, only this one...did not cope as well as they did.
Season 6
Equinox, Part 2 (Episode 1)—Attempting to bring Ransom and the Equinox to some kind of Starfleet justice, Janeway finds herself crossing some lines too.
Barge of the Dead (Episode 3)—Torres dies in a shuttlecraft accident—as one does—only to find herself on the way to Klingon Hell with her mom’s soul—as one does.
Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy (Episode 4)—The Doctor crafts himself a subroutine which allows him to daydream that he’s become a backup Command Hologram in case of emergencies. Which is bad news when a spying Malon vessel picks up his daydreams and assumes they’re real.
Pathfinder (Episode 10)—Good news: Voyager finds a way to communicate with home. Bad (?) news: Loveable holo addict dope Reg Barclay from TNG is the one trying to get it to work.
Tsunkatse (Episode 15)—This is not a good episode of television. But it does feature Dwayne “The Rock Johnson” space-kung-fu-ing with Jeri Ryan, so actually, it is?
Collective (Episode 16)—Voyager finds a Borg Cube, only to find it operated by child drones who’ve been severed from the collective.
Child’s Play (Episode 19)—Encountering the species of one of the liberated Borg kids they recovered, Seven’s maternal instincts kick in when she believes something is up.
Fury (Episode 23)—Kes is back! Oh no. Kes is pissed. Oh no.
Life Line (Episode 24)—The Doctor is sent back to the Alpha Quadrant on a personal and professional mission: cure his dying creator, Louis Zimmerman.
Unimatrix Zero, Part 1 (Episode 26)—Discovering a secret virtual haven Borg can tap into while regenerating, Janeway sees a way to deliver a decisive blow to the collective.
Season 7
Unimatrix Zero, Part 2 (Episode 1)—Playing a gambit that sees her, Tuvok, and Torres assimilated, Janeway plots to release a virus that could allow the drone minds of Unimatrix Zero to fight back against the Borg Queen’s rule.
Imperfection (Episode 2)—When three of the Borg children the crew picked up last season decide to return home, Seven finds herself overwhelmed with emotion...which would be understandable, if this wasn’t Seven of Nine.
Repression (Episode 4)—When former Maquis are targeted by mysterious assaults aboard the ship, Tuvok goes on an investigation.
Body and Soul (Episode 7)—Captured on an away mission by aliens who despise holographic beings, the Doctor is forced to hide his program inside Seven of Nine’s implants. Jeri Ryan gets to act the hell out of this scenario.
Lineage (Episode 12)—Torres and Paris discover they’re having a child, which leads the former down an emotionally traumatic path as she tries to deal with her own upbringing as a half-Klingon.
The Void (Episode 15)—Trapped in a region of space with no stars, planets, or seemingly any kind of energy, Janeway must navigate pirates and her own morals to try and find a way out.
Author, Author (Episode 20)—Voyager takes on a not-as-effective version of TNG’s “Measure of a Man,” when the Doctor tries to fight for the right to get a controversial holonovel pulled after it’s published without his consent in the Alpha Quadrant.
Homestead (Episode 23)—When the crew finds a Talaxian settlement in need of its help, Neelix finds himself torn between his people and his family aboard Voyager.
Endgame, Parts 1 and 2 (Episodes 25 and 26)—Reflecting on the years lost by the Voyager crew in its long journey home, the Admiral Janeway of 2404 hatches an audacious plan to bring her ship home a good few years earlier than it did.
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