Star Trek: Voyager (TV Series) Time and Again (1995) User Reviews

Good character moments and premise, but that's about it

[snoozejonc · 6/10 · 30 April 2022]

Voyager investigates the aftermath of an explosion on an M class planet.

This is an okay episode with a strong premise and decent character development.

I like the Prime Directive issue that Paris and Janeway have to deal with and the sci-fi concept used to frame it is a good idea. Unfortunately the plot unfolds mainly using characters explaining what is going on with plenty of technobabble. Plus it suffers from the presence of an irritating child, which is not the young actor's fault, he was given annoying character traits by the writers.

The characterisations of Janeway, Paris, Kes, and the Doctor are established well, particularly Janeway. Katie Mulgrew gives a strong lead performance, whilst Robert Picardo and Jennifer Lien also do well in their scenes. Robert Duncan McNeill is entertaining but his emotions feel slightly forced at times.

Visually there are obvious budget constraints on the production as there is very little effort made to distinguish the setting as anywhere other than California populated by humans in brightly coloured clothes.

For me the timing of this as a temporal story following the previous episode is somewhat questionable.

The first "normal" Voyager episode

[quaz4 · 8/10 · 21 July 2022]

If you've been around Star Trek for a while you'll notice that the show loves a a good time travel episode, I'm looking at you Enterprise. They can be a little hit or miss in my experience. In this case, I think it's more hit than miss.

This being just the third episode of Voyager, the show is still in it's infancy, with this being the first episode after the show was setup in the opening two parter. This is really the first "normal" episode. At this early stage of the the show, characters are still at the beginning of their arcs, we don't know all that much about them, other than some basics like Janeway is good at science, Kes is young, Paris was in prison etc.

This episode begins to establish the relationship between Janeway and Paris. We see Janeway still sticking to her Federation morals that got the crew stranded and we see Tom come across as quite a fun character, making jokes and scaring off the kid. Ultimately we see a softer side of Tom when he thinks they're all going to die and he feel's bad for the poor kid who got them caught.

As for the story as a whole it's pretty good. The writers subvert our expectations by making us believe that the accident is a as a result of the protesters but is really the Voyager crews rescue attempt, going on the validate the Federations viewpoint that time travel is risky and to be avoided.

The opening and final scene help to introduce some intrigue about Kes' character, teasing her abilities just a little.

So overall it's a good entry and first real step into the show, it tackles issues of morality and is typically Star Trek.

"It seems I've found myself on the voyage of the damned."

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 12 July 2023]

The Voyager crew investigate a catastrophic explosion on an M class planet, and as the landing party look around, Janeway & Paris find themselves subjected to a "fracture" in time. This transports them back to a time before the explosion. Although the Prime Directive would indicate that the Voyager crew have no call to interfere in the fate of this planet, Janeway realizes that she & Paris will ultimately have no choice but to see if they can prevent this explosion from happening.

'Time and Again' is a solid early 'Voyager' episode that explores an idea previously visited on the original 'Trek' and in films like "The Final Countdown": if you had knowledge of horrible events to come, would you let nature take its course, or would you DO something about it? While this viewer can't help but feel that this yarn might not hold up to a lot of scrutiny, it IS entertaining, with plenty of moments for the cast to shine, and it has an effectively ironic twist. The best scenes are those of the landing party looking around amid the devastation; however, the script does get pretty bogged down in technical jargon that can easily fly over some heads. One plot point involves the development of Kes' mental abilities; she has some sort of psychic vision of impending doom.

Good fun in general, with effective guest star performances by Nicolas Surovy ("Bang the Drum Slowly") and Joel Polis (John Carpenters' "The Thing"). The kid character is kind of annoying, but Brady Bluhm ("Dumb & Dumber") dutifully plays the role as written.

In the end, I would have to agree that the viewer has to wonder if calamity has been avoided or merely delayed. The ending is just not that satisfying.

Seven out of 10.

Like many temporal episodes, this one is rather weak.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 3 February 2015]

After having seen hundreds of Star Trek series episodes, I noticed that many of the shows about time distortions are awfully weak. Sure, there are some exceptions (such as "Star Trek: City on the Edge of Forever") but many of these shows just seem too cerebral and you wonder how many times they can beat this plot half to death...and this certainly is true with "Time and Again".

The Voyager comes upon an M-class planet that SHOULD support life. However, the entire planet is 100% dead--bereft of all life. How could this be?! So, a landing party goes down to explore--and soon a couple crew members disappear--sucked into the planet's past just a day earlier. However, NOW the planet is full of people! It seems that somehow the arrival of the Voyager led to a chain of events that wiped out everything living. So, it's up to Janeway to try to figure out how to prevent this.

This is an okay episode but the resolution was the biggest problem. It just seemed contrived and the ending was not especially memorable.

Adventure through a time fracture

[Paularoc · 6/10 · 12 July 2012]

This episode revolves around the fascinating concept of impacting and/or changing the past. A Voyager away team is exploring a planet whose entire civilization has been wiped out by a polaric explosion. Janeway and Paris slip through a time fissure and go back to the day before the polaric explosion occurred. They are captured by activists who strongly oppose the use of polaric energy (quite rightly as it turns out) and believe that Paris and Janeway are government spies. The best thing about this episode is the concept – the whole issue of "can the past be changed?" is an ever-interesting one. The execution of this concept is pretty good even though also somewhat unsatisfying – has history been changed or only postponed? Interesting. The worse thing about the episode was the costumes. One reviewer said it reminded him of costumes from the sixties for the original Star Trek show. So true. And clothes/costumes from the sixties were so ugly. This is an enjoyable adventure episode but not much in the way of character development.

The science!

[wxryycb · 6/10 · 24 October 2023]

I'm totally new to Voyager, having not watched it when it aired and only really becoming a fan of Star Trek later in life, and I've been curious to get into it. It's interesting to see the ways in which they are trying to differentiate it from TNG and DS9, and maybe this will improve stuff time, but I'm struck by how into time travel and loops and "it was all a dream" storytelling the show already is. It's not bad stories or character moments, but floating time shards and the psychic helping to locate people in the past which is also the present starts to really lean away the things I enjoy about the Star Trek franchise and into the things I struggle with more.

Still, this was an enjoyable episode. And I assume that this show hits its stride in season 3, like all new Star Trek shows.

An early paradox

[Tweekums · 9/10 · 9 June 2010]

The first episode of this series introduced the characters, the second showed the two crews starting to integrate and this one is the first to fully concentrate on an adventure. Passing through a star system Voyager detects a wave caused by a polaric explosion. When they investigate they discover a completely dead planet, its population completely eliminated by the explosion. As the wave hits Voyager Kes wakes as if from a nightmare, deeply effected by the deaths on the planet. On the surface Tom suddenly sees the city as it was before with everybody alive. Realising that the area is full of time fractures the away team attempt to beam back to the ship; Tom and the captain don't go back though, instead they find themselves on a crowded city street a day before the deadly explosion. Not wanting to break the prime directive they must find away to contact Voyager but can't tell the locals what is about to happen... that is until they believe their presence may have caused it when a group of protesters decide to move the time of their action against the plant because they think Janeway and Tom are government agents. This suggests their presence may have had some effect on the tragedy. Meanwhile back on Voyager the crew are trying to find a way to open one of the fractures to perform a rescue.

This was a great early episode where the captain is left with a dilemma as to whether or not she should interfere to save a civilisation, ironically it turns out the disaster wouldn't have happened if the two Voyager crew members hadn't needed rescuing. This episode also sees the first use of the "Voyager reset button" where crew actions mean that nothing we've seen actually happens and the ship carries on as if nothing happened.

A Great Early Episode

[calibanplayer · 10/10 · 31 March 2007]

This is a great early episode of Voyager. Several elements made me think of the original Star Trek with the Captain leading the away team and a Vulcan officer leading the rescue team. Some of the clothes worn on the planet look like they came from the 60's as well. There is also some Next Generation influence with the empathic female Kes discovering her expanded mental abilities.

The actors have settled into their characters after the pilot and the story is well-written. The crew finds a planet that has recently destroyed itself due to a huge energy explosion. When visiting the surface Captain Janeway and Lt. Paris end up trapped 2 days in the planets past, just before the explosion. Should they try and stop the incident that leads to the explosion, and can the Voyager crew find a way to rescue them? The classic Star Trek Time Travel Parradox.

A great example of this series potential.

When a planet blows up, don't visit it the day before

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 16 May 2015]

I hear a lot of complaints about time stories. I'm tired of seeing them actually, cos lots of shows have dealt with aspects of time. Quantum Leap, Time Trax, Time Tunnel, Voyagers. But Trek is the proper place to have stores about time.

But this episode is more or less about an aspect of Kes' abilities. To tell us about it, there has to be a story "that never happened". This is probably the first Voyager episode where the whole crew is acting like a crew.

As far as the conundrum used, it surprised me. This is also one of the first Voyager Planet Based Eps, and Tom Paris and Janeway get caught up in a planet's politics.

Some new energy source was created by Andre Bormanis, with brand new backward-flowing Time Radiation. So that's how this story is told. How to get the Principles into the Past? We've seen all kinds of gimmicks in Trek, a malfunctioning Romulan Cloaking Device, a Neutron Star, a Regular Star, a bad Injector on a Runabout Nacelle, and even a good Ole Bajoran "Orb of Time" But here, we basically have holes in the continuum, which Paris gets sucked into. The thing we get shown is that Tom Paris, faulty as he is, is good with Children, even one he scares the Bejesus out of by "appearing out of nowhere"- And he is not above risking himself to save someone. And we get reminded that Janeway is a scientist. Picard was the Diplomat, Kirk used Fisticuffs, The Sisko had The Prophets. Here, we have Janeway's scientific Method, and probably the best 1st Season example of it in action.

The question is, how to get what Janeway figures out 24 hours into the Future? If it can't be done, it's "Future's End" once again.

This was my favorite 1st Season Voyager Offering. It is a cyclic episode, exploring Time's circular Arrow. As O'Brien would say: "I Hate Temporal Mechanics!" Here, we have Kes in the Future working with Janeway in the past to find the solution, and the payoff is, they do not have to get vaporized, and Voyager gets to continue on hiding from the Kazon Nistrum and Oogla and Viidians until season 3 or so.

Star Trek: Voyager - Time and Again

[Scarecrow-88 · 5/10 · 7 January 2017]

Responding to a shockwave caused by a detonation on a planet near where the Voyager currently travels, Janeway and company discover it absent life. This detonation derived from some time of polaric energy explosion…but what exactly caused it? Investigating the incident (life readings indicate no sign of existence on the planet), Janeway and her away team transport to the sight of the accident. Inexplicably, Thomas Paris and Janeway find themselves one day backward in time, due to a type of "time fracture". Paris and Janeway actually are "relocated" to the exact spot one day before, eventually involved in a plot by saboteurs protesting the use of polaric energy. Subspace fractures, com badges indicating positions, polaric explosion possibly triggered by a rescue attempt inadvertently, and the chance to change the outcome of an annihilated race: the time travel plot Star Trek is famous for gets the Voyager treatment this go-around. Star Trek, in all of its various series, almost always gets this kind of plot right.

Of course, if you start to scrutinize the plot, it leaves open the usual time travel questions. Okay, so Janeway and Paris getting transported back a day in time due to a subspace fracture caused by a polaric explosion that occurred *before* the Voyager arrived to the planet could be the actual catalyst in all the annihilation of a planet of people? Yet, Janeway could actually realize that the rescue attempt using a generator to locate the fracture and her coordinates and through her phaser stop them, halting the explosion as the device used to find her would have impacted with the "polaric conduit". The explosion draws the Voyager to the planet. The Voyager goes to the planet to see why. And yet they are responsible for the explosion? This episode might require not contemplating too deeply about the particulars of the plot. To take a page from the screenplay: the fractures might show. But I dug how the episode alternates in past and present as Janeway and Paris exist elsewhere while Chakotay, Torres, Tuvok, Kim, and Kes try to place their coordinates in order to rescue them. I especially enjoyed the use of Kes in the episode, as there's emphasis on her perceptive abilities to sense presence, experience what others cannot, and see events as they (might/could/possibly) happen. But in this episode, Kes' "mind power" doesn't even have its surface scratched quite yet.

The Prime Directive once again goes under the knife, with its capacity to prevent catastrophic results due to the hindrance in developmental growth in the ongoing evolution of species once again under review thanks in part to how interference might in fact help not hurt this pre-warp world the Voyager encounters while traveling through the cursed quadrant. Paris and a boy, that sees him and Janeway just appear due to the fracture in time, have a chance to bond after a shaky start, but I thought it was the weakest aspect of the episode...it doesn't quite work due to the boy's antics, as he persists in causing nothing but trouble. Paris saving him should have been of greater dramatic impact but seems lacking.

I Thought It Was a Clean Use the Implications of Time

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 9 August 2018]

I'm sure we can destroy every vestige of reality by thinking too much. The fact of the matter is that going back in time has only one ultimate result. It will have to be erased or the results are catastrophic. I do appreciate the efforts of the Star Trek writers to delve into this. In "Time and Again," the crew discovers a planet that has been scorched and all life ended. While investigating, Paris and Janeway enter the planet the day before the moment of final destruction. Unfortunately they become complicit in the destruction. I thought it was well conceived and carried out, even though impossibilities present themselves.

Whoops, i did it again.

[thevacinstaller · 8/10 · 25 March 2020]

This hits the right spots in terms of a good star trek mystery episode and the viewer gets a small reveal that there is more to Kes then meets the eye.

The horror of being unknowingly responsible for the destruction of an entire planet is a fascinating reveal and I went in believing that it was the protester who caused this catastrophe to happen ---- so, good job show! You got me. Captain Janeway figures out that the beam actually caused the explosion and ultimately saves the day. None of the crew remembers what happened except for Kes and we are left with that dangling fruit to think about.

There was good stuff in this one. I enjoyed the Mom/Son relationship of Janeway and Tom Paris. Paris also comes off as quite likeable in this one and Janeway further strengthens her unyielding adherence to star fleet ideals and protocol.

It would have been very interesting if this society that was saved would have had an impact in future episodes or seasons. I'm going to make a moral judgement call and say that saving a pre-warp society from destruction was the right call but I think it would be interesting if they ended up being villians or if there is was some calamity that resulted from this decision in later seasons --- maybe even a positive consequence?

We get more Doctor development. No respect for holograms in early Voyager --- well, except for Kes of course.

The Prime Directive in Time

[MCoop1 · 8/10 · 20 February 2021]

Excellent episode and still stands up today. Very Interesting to see the beginning of the evolution of Tom Paris's character as he protected the child from the bullet.

Time and Again

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 4 March 2023]

The Voyager crew beam down an M class planet after an event occurred that wiped out all lifeforms. Kes had an eerie experience about the people living in the planet being destroyed.

The planet is full of temporal fissures. Janeway and Paris slip through it and relive the planets final day with its inhabitants.

The planet was wiped out by a polaric energy explosion, something that was unstable.

Meanwhile the rest of the Voyager crew work to get Janeway and Paris back. Only for Captain Janeway to figure that the rescue attempt will start a chain of events that will lead to the explosion.

It is a very contrived story with an annoying kid. There is an even more annoying rebel group that are against polaric energy.

The studio set design of the planet is very bland and beige. The costume seem to have been inspired by the 1960s Star Trek era.

Good early episode

[whatch-17931 · 8/10 · 30 January 2021]

This is pretty good high concept Voyager. Though, were they shooting on a really tight budget this early on? The veritable ghost town the characters walk through in the third act and the power station have a glaring lack of background people.

Just a Terrible Episode

[mehfre · 2/10 · 11 November 2021]

The writers of this show obviously wrote themselves into a corner, so their solution was to pretend none of it ever happened and send the characters back to the beginning of the episode without any sort of explanation--even a half-assed one. The episode wasn't helped by Kate Mulgrew's lack of acting talent which is on full display here more than in other episodes.