30 Best Episodes Of Star Trek: Voyager According To IMDb

The third spin-off for the franchise, "Star Trek: Voyager" launched not long after "The Next Generation" left the airwaves. Set aboard the U.S.S. Voyager, its first mission saw Captain Kathryn Janeway in pursuit of a group of renegade Maquis. But when both ships were hurled into the far off Delta Quadrant by a mysterious alien entity, the two crews were forced to join together as they embarked on their long journey back to Earth.

Airing for seven seasons on UPN, "Star Trek: Voyager" may not have been the ratings hit that "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was, but thanks to years of reruns and streaming, its popularity has grown in the years since its conclusion, with many episodes ranking among the franchise's most watched, according to StarTrek.com. During its time on Netflix, in fact, episodes centered on the Borg, and fan-favorite character Seven of Nine proved especially popular — so much so that Paramount+ made sure to include both in the revival series "Star Trek: Picard."

But which "Voyager" episodes rank the best among its entire 172-episode run? According to IMDb, the 30 we've collected here are the ones that top the charts.

In "Worst Case Scenario" B'Ellana discovers an apparent holo-novel that reanacts a disturbing takeover of the ship by its Maquis crewmembers, led by first officer Chakotay. More intrigued than disturbed, she shares it with Paris, then Kim, and before long the narrative becomes the center of ship-wide gossip as officers rush to play the interactive program for themselves. But it's soon revealed that the story was crafted by Tuvok as a training exercise and was abandoned when the Maquis became valued members of the crew.

Sent back in to finish the story for their own amusement, Paris and Tuvok discover that the program was co-opted by former Maquis crew member Seska and turned into a deadly form of payback. Suddenly the pair find themselves in a cat-and-mouse game with Seska's elaborate scenario that's been designed to torture them, while Janeway attempts to help them outside the confines of the holodeck. Racing against time, they'll have to play by Seska's rules if they want to stay alive.

We're seeing double in "Life Line" when The Doctor comes face-to-face with his creator, Dr. Lewis Zimmerman. After his appearance in the "Deep Space Nine" episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume," the famed scientist is diagnosed with a terminal illness, and Voyager selflessly sends their holographic Doctor back to Earth via the Hirogen communication array to make a house call. But meeting his proverbial father isn't the jubilant family reunion that he'd expected as Zimmerman wants nothing to do with his own creation.

As The Doctor works to push past his creator's stubborn streak, Reg Barclay calls on the services of Counselor Deanna Troi to help the two work through their issues. But a problem in The Doctor's matrix forces Zimmerman to step in to save him, and The Doctor finally learns the basis for his father's ill feelings. A memorable episode that featured two long time cast members from "The Next Generation," it was ultimately a tale of an estranged father and son struggling to find common ground.

"Someone To Watch Over Me" sees The Doctor once again trying to help Seven of Nine improve her social skills, this time teaching her the art of dating. When Paris finds out, he makes a wager with The Doctor on whether Seven will be able to successfully find a date for an upcoming diplomatic reception. But as The Doctor spends more time with Seven of Nine, he finds himself developing romantic feelings for her himself.

Ultimately The Doctor asks Seven to the event, and when it comes out that he had made a bet with Paris over her love life, things go predictably wrong. Meanwhile, Neelix is tasked with entertaining Tomin, a Kadi diplomat, and struggles to stop the conservative, monk-like visitor from dangerously overindulging in the ship's leisure facilities. A more light-hearted affair, the episode is another key step in the development of both Seven of Nine and The Doctor and their common goal to learn to become more human.

It's an all-out war with Captain Ransom in the sixth season premiere, "Equinox, Part II." After the renegade Starfleet commander reprograms The Doctor and takes Seven of Nine hostage, he sets off to parts unknown to continue his torture of the alien creatures he needs to power his ship. Back on Voyager, Janeway is determined to get back her crewmen — and to do it she threatens to cross the line between justice and revenge. 

With members of the Equinox left aboard the ship, the captain will do whatever it takes to get them to tell her Ransom's plans. While Ransom's EMH secretly attempts to sabotage Voyager, an unexpected ally surfaces and could be key to stopping the Equinox. But as Janeway's methods continue to become more vicious, first officer Chakotay becomes increasingly uneasy, leading to a confrontation that could change the nature of their relationship forever. 

Season 3's "Future's End" is another classic "Star Trek" time travel adventure that sees the crew of the starship Voyager hurled back in time to the then-present day of 1996. It all happens when the Timeship Aeon emerges from the 29th century and its captain, a man called Braxton, claims that Voyager is responsible for a disaster in his time that will annihilate Earth's solar system. His attempts to destroy Voyager fail, and the two ships are instead sent through a spatial rift, nearly 400 years into the past. 

Arriving in 1990s Los Angeles, Janeway is disturbed to discover that Braxton has been trapped there for 30 years already, and the technology aboard his ship has fallen into the hands of a Steve Jobs-like industrialist named Henry Starling (Ed Begley, Jr.) who is using it to amass his fortune. Realizing that it was future technology that was responsible for the '90s tech-boom, Janeway must find a way to retrieve Braxton's ship and get back to the 24th century, all while Starling hopes to collect Voyager's technology for himself.

Another sci-fi time-bender, the Season 7 episode "Shattered" sees the ship pass through a temporal distortion field that fractures the ship into different time periods. Awakening in sickbay more than four years in the past, Chakotay is given a newly developed chroniton serum by The Doctor that allows him to pass through the various time shifts aboard the ship. To bring Voyager back into temporal sync he'll need to spread the serum throughout the ship's own circuitry, but he can't do it alone.

Traveling to the bridge, he finds a version of Captain Janeway from before they met, and he must somehow gain her trust to recruit her to execute his plan. But it's easier said than done with they discover the villainous Seska and her Kazon allies are in control of engineering, during the events of the Season 2 episode "Basics." A nostalgic look back at Voyager's seven-season run, "Shattered" sees the return of several former heroes and villains from past episodes.

 "Latent Image" begins with The Doctor finding evidence of a surgical procedure on Ensign Kim that seems to have no explanation. What starts out as an investigation into a minor mystery leads to the disturbing realization that it was he who performed the surgery, but he has no recollection of it. Soon he learns that someone has been tampering with his program, erasing his memory — and perhaps the memories of the entire crew. But with the help of Seven of Nine, he discovers that the problem is even bigger than he feared, and everyone on the ship may be lying to him.

An episode that explores the problems that come with the holographic Doctor's existence as a growing sentient being, the story shows the crew slowly discovering that he has become more than just a program. It's also an intriguing allegory for how society often treats mental illness, and gives actor Robert Picardo some of his best work in his role as the ship's resident artificial surgeon.

In a surprising episode set almost entirely off of Voyager, "Pathfinder" follows "TNG" standout Reginald Barclay as he seeks help from his old friend, Counselor Troi. Now working at Starfleet HQ, he's part of the Pathfinder Project, which hopes to find a way to communicate with Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. Certain that he can use an itinerant pulsar to open a fissure that would allow two-way communication, he uses holodeck simulations to test his theories. But Barclay hit a wall when his superiors didn't believe in the potential of his ideas. 

After his boss, Commander Harkins, discovered that Barclay was living inside a simulation of Voyager and grows concerned for his mental stability, he was kicked off the project. Barclay approached Admiral Paris — who was running the project — about a second chance, but didn't get the response he was looking for. After speaking to Troi, Barclay breaks into the lab to put his plan into action before the pulsar moves out of range.

The epic feature length series finale "Endgame" opens in the future on Earth, with an older Admiral Janeway unhappy with how history has turned out. She did get Voyager home, but it took more than 20 years and cost them the lives of several crewmen, including Seven of Nine. But when she finds a way to travel back in time to visit her past self, she devises a plan to change history and get Voyager home much sooner.

Visited by the older, more cynical Admiral Janeway, Voyager's Captain Janeway finds her future self's story hard to believe, but the plan she proposes makes sense: sneak into the heart of a Borg Uni-complex and use one of their transwarp hubs to travel back to Earth in an instant. The plan hits a snag, however, when the younger Janeway instead wants to use the opportunity to deal the Borg a crippling blow. Now the two Janeways find themselves at odds over the choice between defeating a mortal enemy or getting Voyager home.

A transporter accident fuses Borg nano-probes from Seven of Nine with the 29th century technology of The Doctor's mobile emitter in the fifth season episode "Drone."  Using the emitter, the nanoprobes steal genetic material from a passing crew member to create an advanced, 29th century Borg drone unlike anything that had been seen before. Unconnected from the Borg hive mind, the newly born Borg — who takes the name One — is a blank slate, and Janeway wants Seven of Nine to be his teacher and guide to humanity.

But when the Borg Collective discovers his existence they come to assimilate him, putting the ship, crew, and entire galaxy in jeopardy as they fear the Borg getting access to even more advanced technology. As the drone begins to question her about the Borg, Janeway fears he may want to join them, forcing Seven of Nine to finally answer the question of where she belongs.

When The Doctor starts experimenting with a daydreaming program in "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy" things go wrong, and he finds himself unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy. But when a low-ranking alien agent unwittingly taps into his daydreams, he believes The Doctor is actually the captain of the ship, and devises a plan to invade and conquer Voyager. 

After the bumbling alien spy realizes that he's gotten things wrong, he tries to call off the attack but it's too late to convince his superiors. As The Doctor's fantasy's are spinning out of control, the alien makes contact in the hopes of averting an embarrassing incident. To avoid confrontation, The Doctor must convince Janeway to let him take command. A more playful episode, it successfully mixes the kind of light-hearted comedy that works well with The Doctor, with the best adventure elements the show has to offer. 

In the closest thing "Voyager" got to a Mirror Universe episode, the fifth season episode "Living Witness" saw The Doctor's program activated by an alien civilization some 700 years in the future. There, two neighboring species have been arguing over who started their centuries-old war, and believe that Voyager may have played a part in sparking it. Now with The Doctor active, one historian believes that he could hold the key to discovering just what happened.

Through the use of a holodeck of sorts we view the historical account of how they believed the crew of Voyager started the war. In the recreation, a tyrannical Captain Janeway brutally attacks the Kyrian people with biogenic weapons developed by The Doctor, wiping out entire populations. Now it's up to The Doctor to set the record straight, and if he can't convince them of what really happened, he may be put on trial for the crimes that Voyager is thought to have committed against their people. 

Opening on the stunning visual of the starship Voyager buried beneath the surface of a mysterious ice planet in "Timeless," we meet a small group of explorers trying to excavate it. Breaking into the ship we learn that the space-bound archeologists are none other than Chakotay and Harry Kim, 15 years into the future. Finding The Doctor's mobile emitter, they've come back to the site of a disaster that destroyed the ship, with the hopes of changing history.

Flashing back to the "present" we see that Ensign Kim has spearheaded a project to retrofit Voyager with the same slipstream technology they were introduced to in "Hope And Fear." To use it, Chakotay and Kim man a shuttle ahead of the ship, to guide Voyager through the slipstream. But a miscalculation sends Voyager off-course and while the shuttle made it safely to Earth, Voyager was doomed. With the help of Borg technology from Seven of Nine's corpse, an older and remorseful Kim must evade Captain Geordi La Forge and the U.S.S. Challenger if he hopes to succeed in his quest for redemption.

In "Year Of Hell" Voyager encounters the Krenim Imperium, a powerful empire that rules a region of space they are attempting to pass through. But little do they know that the key to the Krenim's power is a man named Annorax (guest star Kurtwood Smith), a scientist who has developed a devastating weapon capable of altering history. Annorax has been using the weapon to alter the past in the hopes of restoring his people's empire to their former glory and resurrect his long-dead wife.

While Janeway and the crew are helpless against the Krenim's weapons, they go on the run, mercilessly attacked by the Imperium wherever they try to hide. But when Annorax continues annihilating entire planets in his quest, his calculations are thrown off by Voyager's anomalous presence and they suddenly find themselves his newest target. With the ship falling apart, and time running out, Janeway may have to abandon Voyager if they are to survive. 

In Season 6's "Blink Of An Eye" Voyager encounters a strange planet where time passes at an increased rate where one second for Voyager is nearly a day on the planet. Approaching to take a closer look, Voyager is pulled into its orbit and trapped there, disrupting the planet's natural energy field, and causing frequent seismic disruptions on the surface. Below, the people who live on the planet are in awe at the shining new star in their night's sky, not realizing that it's Voyager. 

Over the next thousand years, the planet's civilization evolves, while just days pass aboard the ship, and Voyager — which they called "the sky ship" slowly becomes part of their society's mythology. But when a brave astronaut from the planet comes to visit (guest star Daniel Dae Kim), he's suddenly confronted with the reality that his childhood heroes aren't at all what he imagined.