Oh, yet another "void". That's hardly new material. I wonder how many voids, thick clouds or pockets of spacetime Voyager and Enterprise were trapped in (or cages, or behemoths space beings, you name it). And another pirate ship. Not exactly new either. It's not as bad as you might expect knowing this premise. It ups the stakes in a believable way hereby creating tension and excitement. Janeway's strategy to build a mini Federation is intriguing. And for once her approach is impeccable: cooperative, ethical and according to Star Fleet guidelines. (Feel) Good finale. It's a pity that this alliance won't continue for the rest of the show.
PS: I like the Teenage Engineering calculator approach to communication. As silly as this (literally) sounds, I'm actually mesmerized.
What a positive episode coming out of something like The Void! Really enjoyed this one too.
Not only is the void concept remarkably similar to several other voyager episodes but the victimized native species is basically the same thing as in Night
Another void hardly seems original. And I feel like i just watched the whole six seasons of Voyager in the span of that episode. I get the message: we need to share to survive.
It seems the author wanted to make sure that even the last one understands that Janeways is always right in her actions and is not to be questioned. Something that had been done to this show from day one. Of course in the end all plays out and the "vermin" saves them all.
So, why do I feel patronized?
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2024-09-15T22:44:46Z
[8.5/10] There’s the occasional episode of Voyager that is both satisfying and frustrating: satisfying because it’s always a boon when the series is living up to its potential, and frustrating because it makes me ask, “Why isn’t the whole show like this?”
I don’t just mean in terms of quality. “The Void” sees Janeway and company sucked into the titular pocket of space, where they are trapped, starved for resources, and forced to fend off raiders from the minute they arrive. (Shades of “The Time Trap” from The Animated Series.) Their new circumstances force the Captain to make hard choices about who to trust, whether to bend the rules and seize opportunities wherever they find them amid this desperate situation or stick to their principles even if it could cost the crew their lives. Savvy watchers know our heroes will find their way out of this, but trapped in the Void, things feel genuinely desperate for once.
The results are glorious. The ship has to conserve resources at every turn, with deft choices to use low lighting to signify the way power is being rationed. The law of the jungle takes hold, with scavengers and brigands stealing Voyager’s supplies without provocation. And there is a genuine push-and-pull aboard the ship over whether they should forsake some of their Starfleet strictures in the name of necessity in a lawless and dangerous corner of space.
That's all well and good, and the show has great success in both setting the atmosphere (with veteran series director Mike Vejar doing stellar work as always) and in creating decision points large and small that elucidate the twin battles for survival and for the soul of Voyager taking place at the same time.
My only disappointment is that, as we embark on the series’ home stretch, I’m given to wonder why wasn’t this Voyager the whole time? Being stranded in the Delta Quadrant isn’t much different than being stranded in the Void. Janeway and company are still lacking in allies with plenty of risk that various local powers could try to rob or otherwise take advantage of the. Why we see a fairly comfortable, seedy journey as they make their way through this region of space, rather than being forced to consider the kind of practical compromises and pragmatic struggles presented here, is beyond me.
Still, I’m grateful for what we do get in “The Void”! The episode has the quality of a zombie movie, obviously not in the sense of having to fend off the undead (though the scavengers have a little of that vibe), and more in the sense of exploring how different groups respond when the rules for normal society have fallen away. Janeway’s balance of wanting to be smart and crafty in a realm where everyone seems to be out for themselves, while not tossing aside Federation values, leads to heaps of interesting interactions and tough calls that make for one of the character’s finest hours.
I don’t say that lightly. The Captain can be frustrating here. Much of “The Void” feels of a piece with early pre-Borg truce installments of Voyager, where Janeway could be maddeningly rigid about not disturbing so much as a blade of grass in the Delta Quadrant if it might violate the Prime Directive. Outings like “Alliances” from season 2 would see her start to relax that policy, only to affirm her strict devotion to the Federation’s founding ideals and Starfleet protocols, no matter what.
What I like about “The Void”, though, is that it’s not about blind fealty to rules or principles when you’re so far removed from the environment in which they were forged and make sense. It is, instead, the exact opposite -- a story about how those principles are, in many ways, their own kind of movable feast. And rather than that sense of idealism and trust being Voyager’s downfall, it is instead their salvation.
There’s something endlessly heartening about the idea that even thirty thousand lightyears from the Federation, what ultimately protects Voyager and gives it the resources and knowhow necessary to escape this godforsaken region of space, turns out to be building a miniature version of the Federation. Hewing to the ideals that make the UFP, and Star Trek, stand out -- tolerance, generosity, mutual cooperation -- are what preserve our heroes; not giving into lawless opportunism. You can't be a Trekkie for this long and not appreciate that at least a little.
It is, in many ways, Janeway’s biggest gamble yet. She shares food and medical supplies. She offers the moral strictures of Starfleet as the table stakes for participation in her mini-Federation; she opens her ship up to strangers who could just as easily take advantage of her. In short, she takes chances on compassion and trust, and it pays off.
Much as in “The Time Trap”, there’s a thrill from seeing representatives of various Delta Quadrant species united and working together given how they’ve all been thrown into this peculiar predicament. The common defense pact between Janeway and Captain Garon, the way the pooling of knowledge leads to efficient replicator use that helps them feed everyone, even the Hierarchy aliens using their spy tech to snoop on the alliance’s enemy are all encouraging displays of what this approach can do, even divorced from the Alpha Quadrant circumstances that birthed it.
I also appreciate the fact that not everything is hunky dory here. The Captain is decisive and commanding, in a way that makes you want to run through a wall for her, but there’s also dissent and doubt among the crew in ways we’ve rarely seen before. The antagonistic General Valen is unrepentant about nabbing Voyager’s supplies and isn’t afraid to kick our heroes when they’re down. Even the fact that he’s willing to make his own kinds of alliance to wreck Voyager and steal the mini-Federation’s resources shows how these good and noble ideas can be perverted for bad ends.
What I like most, though, is the fact that it’s not as though Janeway’s alliance is one big song of kumbaya, even once they get past its rocky early stages. (And the time jumps between commercial breaks helps cover for that, some.) Her one regret in all of this isn’t a failure to be more ruthless or pragmatic; it’s letting a group of bigots into the tent because she thought they might be useful, to where she ultimately has to kick them out for attacking and stealing rather than adhering to the alliance’s code to only trade and partner, no matter what helpful tech they might have. As much as the idea of the mini-Federation lifts Voyager, it also comes at a cost, which is as it should be.
The choice to protect the vulnerable and excommunicate the bigots comes with a certain poetic irony. The Doctor forges a bond with Fantome, a local alien played with expressive physicality by Hugh himself, Jonathan del Arco. It is a tribute to Janeway and the Doctor’s altruism that they take in these reviled denizens of the Void, give them food and learn to communicate with them. It speaks the exponential returns on compassion when the scavengers use their unique physiology to help Voyager escape their attackers.
And it is poetic that these “vermin” that brutes like General Valen and Captain Bosaal underestimate and revile, who have a language and a community deeper and more profound than their doubters would countenance, turn out to be the ones that provide for the baddies’ defeat and their good samaritans’ escape.
Of course, Janeway and her allies do eventually escape. The script smartly gives us a failed attempt in the early going to help make the later attempt seem that much more desperate and cathartic. The ticking clock of depleted resources and enemies at the gates adds to the thrill factor. And seeing our heroes finally make it into normal space, with their new comrades in tow, is rousing as all hell. Their success is a vindication of Janeway’s high-minded principles and the ingenuity of her approach.
One of the Star Trek lines that has stuck with me the longest is Deep Space Nine’s admonition that, “It’s easy to be a saint in paradise.” That series reached incredible narrative and thematic heights by exploring the ways in which Federation values don’t always travel. They may not mean much to those without the prodigious resources at Starfleet’s disposal. And the idea that even the leaders of the noble Federation bend the rules or sacrifice their ethics or turn a blind eye to the dirty work of civilization in the face of existential threats added a layer of complexity to the franchise and its exploration of humanity’s future that remains unmatched in Star Trek.
Yet, I love “The Void” as a representation of the opposite idea -- that those hopeful Federation values of altruism and tolerance and mutual aid can be the foundation of something greater in any scenario or setting. Captain Janeway has been rewarded a hundred-fold for forging similar “alliances” with a Talaxian trader, an Ocompan naif, a former Borg, and even a group of rebels from the Federation. She has made compromises but also drawn lines in the name of not forgetting who they are no matter how far from home they may be. And the results of that optimism and devotion is a ship that's already halfway home, and a crew that has forged the bonds needed to see them through the journey.
There is room within Star Trek for all of these perspectives. I continue to adore the deconstruction represented by Deep Space Nine’s larger project, but I will always have a place in my heart for the optimism at the core of Star Trek’s own founding principles. And I’m inspired by the idea that even if we’re not saints, with those ideals in tow, sometimes we can still make our own paradise.