YMMV / Star Trek Voyager S 5 E 1 Night

• Broken Base: Janeway discussing her guilt and depression to Chakotay (not to mention the climactic scene with her Senseless Sacrifice being refused) gets this. Depending on how you feel about Janeway's actions that got them stuck in the Delta Quadrant to begin with, you may find Janeway having a low point for her mental state sympathetic, or perhaps not.
• Complete Monster: Controller Emck is a freighter captain for the Malon, an alien species that has technology comparable to the Federation, but also produces a large amount of toxic waste. While other Malon Controllers dump their toxic waste in uninhabited areas of space, Emck has found a vortex that leads to the void, a patch of space with no stars far away from Malon Prime. When Emck begins to release toxic gas into the void, the Night Aliens, who are native to the void, beg him to stop, but Emck refuses, caring more about his profit margins than the innocent beings he is killing. Emck's superior technology is too much for the Night Aliens to defeat, and Emck plans to continue to use their space as a dumping ground as long he can, not caring if all the Night Aliens die in the process. When the Night Aliens ask for Voyager to help, Voyager offers to give Emck tech that will get rid of the Malon's toxic waste by-product, but Emck refuses to accept it, saying it would put him out of business.
• Fridge Logic: Back in "One" we had a ton of stasis pods, enough for the whole crew, so why aren't they used in this episode to alleviate some of the inertia (or existential dread, in Neelix's case)? Perhaps it's too long and/or too much power for this particular situation.
  • Power seems like the most likely explanation, given the inability to refuel for such a long time.
  • While we're on the subject, why didn't Emck jump at the chance to demand exclusive rights to the clean-energy technology Janeway was offering him? Even if his business is an extremely profitable one, it's hard to believe that being a jumped-up garbageman would earn him more money - not to mention more prestige - than being the entrepreneur who sold his civilization a huge environmental and technological benefit.
  • Not to mention, the byproducts could be used themselves. Why doesn't he use that to recoup his losses (or even increase his profit margins)?
• Nightmare Fuel: Doesn't get much creepier than two years of a black, empty void.
• Values Resonance:
  • 22 years after its original airing, this episode became relevant in 2020, due to several socio-political events, including the COVID-19/Coronavirus global pandemic, most of all. The crew, much like populations all over the world, are forced to contend with waiting out a phenomenon that would take many months to see to completion; unfortunately, for Voyager's crew, they are already on-edge two months into the journey because of the repetitive tedium and loss of interesting or important maintenance activities.
  • Not to mention, of course, that the issue of wealthy polluters refusing to investigate/implement viable green alternatives due to being interested only in their profit margins is only getting more depressingly relevant.

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