“Year of Hell” is a good Star Trek: Voyager episode, but I’m glad the show didn’t make its storyline last an entire season. Airing toward the beginning of season 4, “Year of Hell, Parts 1&2” saw Voyager’s cast of characters caught in a brutal, year-long fight with Annorax (Kurtwood Smith) of the Krenim Imperium and his timeline-manipulating weapon. The storyline for “Year of Hell” was first teased in Voyager season 3, episode 21, “Before and After,” and the two-parter is often considered one of the series’ best episodes thanks to the ambitious, action-packed plot and great villain.
Season 4 of Star Trek: Voyager could be considered a turning point for the show, where episodes and characters began to pick up in popularity and momentum. As a long-time Voyager fan and aficionado, I can safely say that this is the case. The introduction of characters like Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), and episodes like “Year of Hell” combined to make Voyager season 4 the point at which the show truly hit its stride. However, season 4 might have been entirely different if the original plan for the “Year of Hell” storyline had come to fruition.
Star Trek: Voyager Not Making “Year Of Hell” Last An Entire Season Was The Right Choice
Season 4 would have suffered if it only focused on the “Year of Hell”
In an interview with TrekMove.com, Voyager writer Bryan Fuller revealed that the show’s creative team wanted to make “Year of Hell” into a season-long storyline, something that would have completely changed season 4, and not for the better. Fuller stated that although Voyager’s creative team was excited about the idea, Executive Producer Rick Berman shot it down, forcing the writers to condense “Year of Hell” into a single two-part arc. While I can sympathize with the writer’s disappointment at losing the chance to create such an intricate storyline, I think Berman’s decision was the right choice.
Voyager season 4 needed room to tell some great stories, and a narrower, more serialized focus to the season would made this impossible.
Don’t get me wrong: “Year of Hell” has a lot going for it. The episodes are nicely suspenseful and put Voyager’s characters into situations that test the limits of their humanity. However, given what season 4 ended up becoming, I can’t imagine the series happening any other way. Things like Seven of Nine joining the crew, the introduction of the Hirogen, or other great episodes like “Mortal Coil” or “One” would never have gotten a fair shot. Voyager season 4 needed room to tell some great stories, and a narrower, more serialized focus to the season would made this impossible.
Star Trek: Voyager Could Still Have Done More Serialized Storylines Like DS9
Voyager still failed by not incorporating more serialization
That’s not to say that Voyager wouldn’t have benefited from more serialization. Fuller also discussed the fact that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had made Rick Berman adverse to serialized storytelling. Time has proven Berman wrong, with modern television using serialization more than ever. Because Berman attempted to make Voyager more like Star Trek: The Next Generation, the show suffered from dropped storylines, stunted character arcs, or the use of the hated “reset button” to close out episodes. “Year of Hell” is a great example of this, with one of the worst reset button endings in show history.
I personally would have loved to see serialized storylines on Star Trek: Voyager during its run. The show developed serialized character arcs in later seasons, and their goal of getting back to Earth from the Delta Quadrant was arguably one long over-arching plot for the show, but more season-long focuses might have helped the character dynamics and likely made the series more popular. This was certainly the case with Deep Space Nine, and although hindsight is 20/20, I believe in this case it has proven that Rick Berman was right about “Year of Hell” but wrong about serialization.