The crew figure out a way to use the probe as a communication device and manage to contact the people on the other side, who claim to be a Romulan cargo vessel in the Alpha Quadrant. They don't buy Janeway's story and cut off communications. Janeway suspects that they're actually a science vessel on a secret mission, which is why they're even more paranoid than normal.
Meanwhile, the Doctor is tutoring Kes as his new nurse, and she's a quick study. However, she grows increasingly irritated by the way their patients disrespect him because he's a hologram. She complains to Janeway, who doesn't believe that the Doctor is sentient, but Kes insists that he is and urges her to act. Janeway visits the Doctor and asks if there's anything he needs. He complains about patients shutting him on and off on a whim, so Janeway offers to look into giving him control over when he's on and off. The Doctor is surprised and uncharacteristically appreciative.
The Romulans call back, having confirmed that Janeway's signal indeed originates in the Delta Quadrant. Janeway urges the Romulan captain to relay messages back to the crew's families. He agrees to send her request along to the authorities. To foster more trust between the two ships, they use a signal amplifier to add a visual feed to their communcations, and the two ships are able to see each other. The Romulan captain notes that Voyager looks different than from Federation ships he's seen. Janeway plays on his feelings of homesickness to convince him to ask his government to make a decision on the matter of the crew's messages before the probe is destroyed.
Torres hatches an idea to use the probe as a relay to transport objects between the two ships. If they can make it work, they could beam the whole crew through and go home. Kes delivers the good news to the Doctor, but he reveals that his program is too integrated into the ship's computers to ever leave. Facing eternal solitude on an empty ship, he asks that someone turn his program off before they all go. The crew try beaming a test cylinder onto the Romulan ship, which works. The Romulans are impressed by Starfleet's advanced technology.
Now it's time for people. Unwilling to allow any Starfleet crew aboard his ship, the Romulan captain volunteers to beam aboard Voyager, which also works. After stiff greetings, Tuvok suddenly asks the Romulan what year he thinks it is. Puzzled, the Romulan answers 2351, twenty years earlier than it actually is. The wormhole is not only a portal through space, but time. Janeway decides that it would cause too many problems with the timeline if they went back to the Alpha Quadrant 20 years in the past. The Romulan captain gives his name as Telek R'Mor and promises to give the crew's messages to the Federation in 20 years' time. But after Telek leaves, Tuvok reveals that Starfleet records show that he died several years before the ship vanished, so they can only hope that he gave their messages to someone else beforehand.
Meanwhile, the Doctor asserts himself to a rude patient and earns his respect. After the patient leaves, the Doctor gives Kes a list of things he needs. At the top of the list is a name.
This episode contains the following tropes:
- Armor-Piercing Question: From Kes to Janeway, after the former sees a patient treat the Doctor (her new mentor) like a non-entity.Kes: So because he's a hologram...he doesn't have to treated with respect, or any consideration at all?
- Book Ends: The Doctor's examination of Baxter. At first he treats his rudeness as normal. The second examination has the Doctor finally asserting his authority.
- Deadpan Snarker:
- The Doctor is in typical form:
Baxter: If I had to get treatment for something serious, if I needed surgery for instance, would he be performing it?EMH: Of course, and quite expertly too.Baxter: I don't know. I'd have to think twice about that.EMH: Fine. And if you were lucky you wouldn't die on the table while you were making up your mind.- Telek R'Mor doesn't recognise Voyager's design. Janeway points out that it's not classified, and surely the famous Romulan intelligence service already has all the details.
- Defrosting Ice King: Telek R'Mor starts off as a typically paranoid Romulan Jerkass but warms up to Janeway as the episode progresses.
- Downer Ending: Tuvok reveals Telek R'Mor died four years before he could have sent their messages to Starfleet, and they've no way of knowing if he made other arrangements.
- Dr. Jerk: When Kes complains about the way the crew treat the Doctor, Janeway notes that crew has made numerous complaints about they way he treats them.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The episode ends with the Doctor asking Kes to help him choose a name.
- Failure Is the Only Option: It's really no secret that the show isn't going to resolve its series-defining goal after only six episodes.
- Fanservice: Kate Mulgrew with her hair down, wearing a pink nightie.
- Foreshadowing
- The phase variance in the wormhole that keeps getting mentioned.
- The Romulan scientist doesn't recognise Voyager's design, and is surprised at their level of technology.
- Hope Spot: It's just one after another for Voyager today. They've discovered a wormhole! But it's too small to fly through. But they establish contact with someone! In the Alpha Quadrant! But it's a Romulan, and he doesn't believe Janeway telling him that Voyager is in the Delta Quadrant. But she does convince him that she's telling the truth, and then they discover that they can beam through the wormhole back to the AQ! Except that the wormhole leads back through time, and they won't mess up the timeline. Well, at least the Romulan can tell Starfleet about Voyager after they get stuck in the DQ, so that The Federation will at least know. Except...he died four years before Voyager's launch. Well, maybe he made some arrangements for that possibility...
- I'm Standing Right Here: Baxter talks to Kes about the Doctor as if he's not standing right next to him. Unhappy about it, Kes does not respond and lets the Doctor speak for himself.
- Last Kiss: The Doctor is told that Voyager's crew may be leaving through the wormhole, leaving him behind. Kes spontaneously kisses him on the cheek, to his surprise.
- Last Request: The Doctor's request to Kes is that if everyone is transported off Voyager, could she please ensure he's been turned off.
- Message in a Bottle: The crew leave their messages to Telek R'Mor, who promises to forward them to Starfleet twenty years on.
- The Milky Way Is the Only Way: Janeway says that the wormhole has a one in four chance of getting them to the Alpha Quadrant, implying it can only lead to a point within their galaxy.
- Namesake Gag: Tom suggests they petition Starfleet to name it the Harry Kim wormhole, as he's the one who found it. Harry looks suitably abashed.
- Our Wormholes Are Different: The wormhole is too small for Voyager to pass through. They send a probe but it's caught in a tangle of subspace eddies; it turns out the wormhole is very old and is collapsing. Then they find out the wormhole travels not only through space, but time.
- Photographic Memory: The Doctor believes Kes has an eidetic memory when she remembers details about her medical studies easily. This must be how the Ocampa survive with such a short life span.
- Recycled Premise: This episode shares a lot with the Deep Space Nine episode "The Sound of Her Voice," in which the crew spend most of the episode talking to someone far away who turns out to be from the past and already dead.
- A Shared Suffering: Janeway gets the Romulan scientist to help by getting him to talk about his family, whom he won't see until his three-year mission is over.
- Stiff Upper Lip: Janeway visibly struggles with her emotions on being told everything they did may have been futile."Then let's move on. We've got a long way to go."
- Subspace Ansible: Voyager finds a means to contact the Alpha Quadrant.
- Team Mum: Although Janeway has trouble thinking of the Doctor as a member of her crew, she does go to Sickbay to listen to his concerns. It's this visit that inspires the Doctor to stand up for himself with Baxter.
- Temporal Mutability: The crew can't go through the wormhole because it will alter the timeline. The Romulan captain offers to warn Starfleet in twenty years not to send Voyager on its mission. Chakotay shoots down the idea as they've already had an effect on the Delta Quadrant.
- Time Travel: Turns out the Romulan is from twenty years in the past.
- The Time Traveller's Dilemma
- What Is This Feeling?: The Doctor underplays the scene where Janeway offers him autonomous control of his on/off switch. This is a man whose needs have never been up for discussion, and he doesn’t quite know how to respond to the offer.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The start of the Doctor's stand on his rights, an ongoing theme with his Character Development. At this stage, he doesn't even realise that he has them, and it takes Kes to point out that his opinion matters as well.
- What Year Is This?: The Wham Line is when Tuvok asks this question of Telek R'Mor after scanning him. He replies that it's 2351 of course. But to Voyager's crew, it's 2371.
- Write Back to the Future: The Voyager crew give Telek messages to keep for their families. Sadly, historical records show that he dies before he has a chance to pass them on.
- You Can't Go Home Again: B'Elanna has a Disappeared Dad, is estranged from her Klingon mother, and most of her friends are on Voyager.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Voyager is able to make contact with the commander of a Romulan vessel on a classified scientific mission, who doesn't believe their story about being on the other side of the galaxy and cuts off transmission. After some persistence, Janeway is able to make contact again and convince him they are telling the truth.
