Summary

• Star Trek: Voyager's 2-part episodes raised stakes for Janeway & crew, challenging identity and time travel.
• Featuring notable villains and exploring moral quandaries, Voyager's 2-part episodes set a high standard.
• Crafted like movies, these ambitious episodes reflect the quality Voyager achieved with risks in storytelling.

Star Trek: Voyager's 2-part episodes regularly raised the stakes for Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and the USS Voyager's crew on its journey homeward through the Delta Quadrant, making them some of Voyager's best episodes. Each of Voyager's seven seasons incorporated at least one 2-part episode, with many of Voyager's 2-part episodes following the tradition established by Star Trek: The Next Generation that aired the first part as a season finale cliffhanger before resolving the story lines in the second part as next season's premiere episode.

The 2-part episodes of Star Trek: Voyager were ambitious, compared to Voyager's usual episodic fare. Several 2-part episodes were spotlight features for some of Voyager's most notable villains: the predatory Hirogen, who saw others as prey to be dominated; and the infamous Borg Collective, the cybernetic hive mind led by the eerie Borg Queen (Susannah Thompson, Alice Krige). Other Star Trek: Voyager 2-parters challenged Voyager's main characters with questions of identity, considered the dangers of time-travel, or posed another potential way home, but all of them had something to say.

12 "Basics"

Star Trek: Voyager Season 2, Episode 26 & Season 3, Episode 1

Star Trek: Voyager closes its second season with another chapter of the story arc featuring Seska (Martha Hackett), a Cardassian spy who had been posing as a Bajoran among the Maquis crew. Allied with the Kazon-Nistrim, Seska takes over the USS Voyager and leaves the crew stranded on an inhospitable planet. Watching the Voyager crew come together to survive is what the first few seasons are all about, but the resolution to the cliffhanger is muddied with plot points that reverse important elements from the far more entertaining first half, like the paternity of Seska's baby and the potential redemption of Ensign Lon Suder (Brad Dourif).

11 "Unimatrix Zero"

Star Trek: Voyager Season 6, Episode 26 & Season 7, Episode 1

Through Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), Star Trek: Voyager did a lot to expand the lore behind the Borg after Star Trek: First established the Borg Queen as the central figure of the Collective. "Unimatrix Zero" introduces the concept of an eponymous virtual world that drones enter in dreams, where they can recover pre-assimilation memories and live out lives as individuals. The existence of Unimatrix Zero is a threat to the Collective that the Queen wants to stamp out and Janeway wants to exploit. It's a weird premise that undermines Seven's character a bit, but it builds on the ongoing battle between Janeway and the Borg with some solid action scenes.

10 "Workforce"

Star Trek: Voyager Season 7, Episodes 16 & 17

On the planet Quarra, a labor shortage forces corporations to abduct ersby and reconfigure their memories, so they have no knowledge of their lives before coming to work at Quarra's massive power plants and factories. "Workforce" has something unusually prescient to say about the dangers of corporations with too much power, and how they're too willing to use red tape and jargon to obfuscate exactly how workers are exploited, but Star Trek: Voyager season 7's 2-parter borrows heavily from Voyager season 4's "The Killing Game", which handled the USS Voyager crew's amnesia far better, and with higher stakes.

9 "Flesh and Blood"

Star Trek: Voyager season 7, episodes 9 & 10

A follow-up to "The Killing Game", "Flesh and Blood" explores the ramifications of Captain Janeway gifting the Hirogen with Federation hologram technology. Instead of providing the Hirogen with a means to engage in their ceremonial hunt bloodlessly, the Hirogen's tampering inadvertently grants the holograms sentience. Led by Bajoran hologram Iden (Jeff Yagher) and ed by the Doctor, the rebellion against the Hirogen is a pivotal part of the Doctor's crusade for the rights of photonic beings. It's a Star Trek: Voyager episode with true continuity, reaching both backwards and forwards, that also raises questions of what it means to be sentient, and what people truly deserve.

8 "Caretaker"

Star Trek: Voyager Season 1, Episodes 1 & 2

The 2-hour premiere of Star Trek: Voyager has its ups and downs, but on the whole, "Caretaker" does a great job of establishing Voyager's cast of characters, their motives, and their morals, by putting them in a classic Star Trek moral quandary. The introduction to the Ocampa is interesting, and they could have been a more important Star Trek species if Voyager had been able to deliver on what "Caretaker" promised. Janeway's decision reveals exactly what she values, despite stranding the USS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, and the clear contrast to Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran) and his Maquis crew sets up the challenges to come on Voyager's long trek home.

7 "Dark Frontier"

Star Trek: Voyager, season 5, episodes 15 & 16

Dark Frontier" attempts to put Star Trek: Voyager on a level with Star Trek: First by bringing back the Borg Queen (Susanna Thompson) and stretching the tension over its 2 hours. Captain Janeway's plan to steal a Borg transwarp conduit from a not-so-dead cube backfires, as the Queen attempts to lure Seven of Nine back to the Collective. The focus is heavily on Seven, between Seven's inner battle for the life she once knew vs. newfound individuality, and the memories of Seven's pre-assimilation life that are revealed. "Dark Frontier" is a must-watch for fans of Seven of Nine, despite the rest of Voyager's cast taking a backseat.

"Dark Frontier" maintains the elements of Seven of Nine's backstory introduced in Star Trek: Voyager season 4, episode 6, "The Raven".

6 "Future’s End"

Star Trek: Voyager Season 3, Episodes 8 & 9

After evading 29th-century temporal officer Captain Braxton (Allan G. Royal), the USS Voyager is finally back on Earth ... but a few centuries too early. Although the temporal prime directive prevents Voyager from staying in the Alpha Quadrant, "Future's End" takes Voyager's crew through twists and turns of motives and outcomes, tracking down Braxton and then tech mogul Henry Starling (Ed Begley, Jr.) before Starling launches Braxton's stolen time ship into the future. The time-travel conceit creates humor aplenty, as Voyager's crew encounters the 90s in all the decade's glory, particularly when Lt. Tuvok (Tim Russ) and Lt. Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) befriend Gen X astrophysicist Rain Robinson (Sarah Silverman).

The Doctor (Robert Picardo) receives his mobile emitter in "Future's End", which allows the Doctor to finally leave sickbay.

5 "Equinox"

Star Trek: Voyager Season 5, Episode 26 & Season 6, Episode 1

The lengths that Captain Janeway will go to are tested in "Equinox", in which the USS Voyager encounters another Starfleet vessel in the Delta Quadrant. The USS Equinox is commanded by Captain Rudolph Ransom (John Savage), who took a much darker path after the Caretaker pulled the Equinox across the galaxy. Ransom represents everything Janeway could have been if she'd made more selfish choices, with the same tendency to dig in when confronted, and nearly drags Janeway down with him. "Equinox" is the coup de grâce on Star Trek: Voyager season 5's exploration of holding onto one's core values in trying times, and sets the stage for Voyager season 6's themes of stories and reputation.

4 "The Killing Game"

Star Trek: Voyager Season 4, Episodes 18 & 19

The Hirogen take over Voyager's holodecks to create sprawling hunting grounds, focusing on a World War II reenactment casting the Hirogen as Nazis. The crew believe they really are the characters they're playing, to make them better prey, while disabled safety protocols mean the Doctor must keep reviving losers in the Hirogen's new game. "The Killing Game" is a high concept that's executed well, and Voyager's cast are clearly having fun in this one, especially Janeway as a rebel and Chakotay as a military officer in a neat reversal of their actual roles, and Seven of Nine as a nightclub singer who may or may not be a spy.

3 "Endgame"

Star Trek: Voyager, season 7, episodes 25 & 26

Star Trek: Voyager goes out firing on all cylinders, with Kathryn Janeway's devotion to the USS Voyager crew at its heart. An older iral Janeway finds a way to bring the USS Voyager home sooner, while also avoiding heavy losses, and recruits a present-day Captain Janeway to help her do it. Even if the Temporal Prime Directive is addressed, it's nothing compared to Janeway fulfilling Janeway's promise to the crew to bring Voyager home at all costs. The result is a high-energy, action-filled finale that spans two timelines, with the ultimate payoff of the USS Voyager's long-promised return to the Alpha Quadrant, and the end of Janeway's vendetta against the Borg.