Star Trek Voy - Season 3 - Episode 21
Star Trek Voy - 3x21 - Before and After
Originally Aired: 1997-4-9
Synopsis:
Kes begins moving backward in time. [DVD]
Problems
None
Factoids
- This episode is ridiculously prophetic. Many of the events of this alternate future that we see do come true in one form or another, such as the meeting of the Krenim and the ensuing Year of Hell, as well as Joe Carey's death, and Tom's relationship with Torres. Additionally, this episode predicts that Voyager will encounter the Krenim between 6 and 11 months from now.
Remarkable Scenes
- Doctor "Van Gogh", complete with hair.
- Captain Chakotay.
- Kes married to Tom.
- Harry married to Tom's daughter...
- Neelix: "It's good to see that old lung is still working, Kessie."
- Neelix as a security officer.
- Neelix: "You keep working on that sense of humor, Commander Vulcan. You'll get it one of these days."
- Tom describing the Krenim and the Year of Hell. Janeway, Torres, and Carey all died in the Year of Hell.
- Tom regarding the chronoton torpedos: "They were able to penetrate our shields because their torpedos were in a constant state of temporal flux."
- Harry: "So how does it feel to be a grandfather?" Tom: "A lot better than it does to have you as a son in law."
- Tom: "Doctor Van Gogh? I thought you settled on Mozart?"
- Kes giving birth to her daughter.
- Chakotay: "I don't understand how these torpedos are ripping right through our shields!"
- Kes: "These torpedos are chronoton based. They're passing through our shields because they're in a state of temporal flux."
- Kes discovering the temporal variance of the chronoton torpedo.
- Kes jumping back to the end of Voy: Caretaker.
- Kes' birth.
- Kes' mother: "I think one day she'll see the sun."
- The doctor asking what kind of medical breakthroughs he's going to make, and the crew asking about other future events.
My Review
This episode is much like TNG: Future Imperfect, TNG: Cause and Effect, and TNG: Parallels all combined. And I must say, a fantastic combination. There is one episode which uses the Kes character better than any other, it is this one. There are numerous repercussions of this episode. One interesting, though perhaps trivial change, is that Kes now has long hair. This perhaps signifies that the time period Kes woke up in as the "present" is in fact quite a bit later than the time period of the previous episode. Besides this, Kes has given Janeway foreknowledge of the Krenim, a race which they will encounter later. Additionally, this episode predicts that Tom and Torres will form a relationship, as well as Lt. Carey's death. I hate putting mass spoilers in a review, but this is the most prophetic episode of Star Trek ever done. I'll be referencing it several times in later Voyager episodes.
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
Why was Janeaway so eager to hear about the Krenim from future Kes? Uhhhhh...Prime Directive anyone?
At Pete.
This has nothing to do with prime directive. Maybe Temporal prime directive.
Kes as a new-born baby has human ears. Not terribly plausible that the Ocampa develop their distinctive physiology later in life.
The only good thing about this episode is that Torres dies. It was awesome! I laughed, I cried, I ate salami. Then, after I thought I had found paradise, it was ripped away from me. Torres died in an alternate time-line. Now I know how Harry feels...
This all seems to be about Kes's hair in the end. A contrived way to get her to have long hair. If not then why didn't the episode reset at a time when she had short hair? And we're also left with the feeling we've missed out on a chunk of Voyager life with the jump from short to long hair. The long hair makes her look like a librarian instead of an alien. No wonder she fell out of favour.