Year of Hell

This Story: Season 4 Episodes 8 & 9 (production codes 176 & 177)
VOY Overall: Episodes 76 & 77
Trek Overall: Story 504, Episodes 532 & 533
Airdate: 5 – 12 Nov 1997
Written by Brannon Braga & Joe Menosky
Directed by Allan Kroeker (Part I) & Mike Vejar (Part II)

Notes (Part I)

• Running fired torpedo count: 23 / Confirmed crew deaths since pilot: 14 (crew of 140).
• There are NUMEROUS deaths and torpedoes fired, but the events of this episode are all reversed at the end, so I’m not counting them.  :)
• As originally conceived, this story was going to last the entire season.  It was whittled down to a two parter.
• Events in this episode are mentioned in last season’s “Before and After“. It’s unclear if this is supposed to be a proper sequel or not.
• The first episode with the new astrometrics lab – the construction of which was mentioned a couple of episodes ago.
• Kurtwood Smith plays Anorak here.  He alsp played Thrax in DS9’s “Things Past“.  He was also the Federation president in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Finally he voiced the character Clar in the Lower Decks episode “Veritas“.
• The stuck turboshaft is a re-use of footage from TNG’s “Disaster“, where the same thing happened.
• The events of the movie Star Trek: First Contact are superficially talked about (in the form of a trivia game) here.
• Janeway’s birthday is established as 20 May.
• Janeway also gets a new hair style this episode, which remains through the rest of the series.

Notes (Part II)

• Running fired torpedo count: 23 / Confirmed crew deaths since pilot: 14 (crew of 140).
• There are NUMEROUS deaths and torpedoes fired, but the events of this episode are all reversed at the end, so I’m not counting them.  :)
• The first Voyager episode (of twelve) directed by Mike Vejar.
• The bad guy’s name of “Annorax” was well chosen. The word anno in Latin means “year” (year of hell – love that).
• Annorax’s wife wears an outfit previously seen in the episode “Lifesigns“.
• While it happens in a reversed timeline, and ultimately doesn’t count, it’s the only episode of the series where Janeway is relieved of command by the Doctor.
• The second of five times in the series where Voyager is depicted as being destroyed.
• Likewise, the fifth time (of nine) times where we see Janeway die.
• The episode was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1998 for “Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series”.
• Peter Slutsker played a Krenim commander here.  He also played three separate Ferengi in three different TNG episodes – Nibor in “Menage a Troi“, Reyga in “Suspicions“, & Birta in “Bloodlines“.
• In the big battle scene at the end, the weapon ship visually reminded me of the station from Babylon 5 – mostly because of a similar blue/purple accent color both ships had.

Links

[ Wikipedia | Memory Alpha (Part I | Part II) | IMDB (Part I | Part II) | Amazon US DVD | Delta Flyers Podcast (Part I | Part II) ]