The Thaw

The Voyager crew inspects an apparently deserted planet only to receive an automated message from a cryogenic system which was created to hold the planet's last survivors. It is then found that even though the disaster that the survivors were trying to ride out has come to pass they are still in stasis. When the crew realizes this they beam the cryopods to the cargo bay and find that the people are connected together in some sort of program where their brains are reacting with one another. Inside the program the personification of fear torments the survivors with their deepest darkest fears to the point where some die from the stress. It has been one of my personal favorite episodes of Star Trek: Voyager" (1995) since it first aired and raises many questions about fear, and how we react to it.

This looks a great deal like the original series in its visuals and dialogue. I think this is a great throwback to the Original series. The costumes especially remind me of the original. The costumes look as if the wardrobe department shopped at a garage sale for these items.

There are a lot of influences in the Thaw, Various offbeat surreal 1960s television shows including Star Trek.

Then the post 1989 Batman movies. Michael Mckean's Clown is not far from the Joker.

Voyager reaches a planet that was devastated by a solar flare making life uninhabitable.

Some survivors went into suspended animation until the planet recovered.

Only they have not woken up even though their world has now recovered. Something has gone wrong.

An automated message tells them that the survivors entered suspended animation to wait out the disaster. Since the planet began its recovery four years earlier, and readings show two of the five survivors have died while hooked up to the system, it's clear that something has gone wrong.

B'Elanna and Harry are sent to investigate and find that a simulation subroutine has taken control.

It is represented by the Clown who runs this psychological circus and his main weapon is feat which can kill.

The Thaw has a simple premise and both McKean and the director run with it. It is slightly surreal, edgy, malevolent and is one of the better episodes of Voyager.

It's funny, back when this first came out, I disregarded it. I couldn't stand the clown costumes or the behaviour and acting. I remember thinking it was a cheap looking episode made in a quickly designed set in a studio. Well, maybe some of that is still true, but hey, once you overlook that and try the episode out it's actually quite good! Classic sci fi for sure... the Matrix meets a horror show. I felt like our characters took a journey to Hell... a virtual Hell. That plus there was a good use of a "fear" theme throughout the story and how it's sort of symbolic of what we all go through, and how we deal with fear, and overcome it... anyways, this turned out to be a great episode! Funny it took me twenty years to realize it.

Since there are well over 150 episodes of this series, isn't it kind of nice for one of them to be a bit off the path. When people get all ticked off about something tht doesn't follow the same old "us against the aliens" plot, they send out their depth charges. This is far from a perfect episode but it is creative and thought provoking and sort of frightening. And I thought the "Fear" character was a stitch. I mean, you had to hate him. Of course, if you try to apply conventional criticism to this one, you aren't going to be happy. Just be happy that the next installment will probably be what you want.