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Star Trek Voy - Season 6 - Episode 10

Star Trek Voy - 6x10 - Pathfinder

Originally Aired: 1999-12-1

Synopsis:
Barclay tries to make contact with Voyager. [DVD]

My Rating - 9

Fan Rating Average - 6.55

Rate episode?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 15 3 7 15 2 4 3 8 10 26 38

Problems
- Voyager has made several major jumps totaling tens of thousands of light years since Starfleet last received an update outlining Voyager's position in the galaxy. There's no way their calculations could have been accurate. This isn't a major problem though. Barclay retransmitted the message several times to different locations. He probably varied the locations by thousands of light years in his frenzy.

Factoids
- Barclay refers to Voyager as "the Voyager" in this episode; another rare line prefixing "Voyager" with "the" unlike on TNG when "the" prefixed "Enterprise" constantly.
- Admiral Paris' picture of Tom Paris on his desk was taken from Robert Duncan McNeill's performance of Locarno from TNG: The First Duty.

Remarkable Scenes
- Seeing Barclay and Troi.
- Barclay's cat, Neelix.
- Barclay: "Has it ever occurred to you that a tachyon beam directed at a class B itinerant pulsar could produce enough gravimetric energy to create an artificial singularity?" Troi: "I can't say it has..."
- Barclay telling his story to Troi.
- Barclay breaking back into the lab.
- Harkins ending Barclay's Voyager simulation by creating a warpcore breach. Awesome. :)
- Seven of Nine insulting Neelix' singing ability.
- Barclay's communication attempt succeeding.

My Review
A supremely impressive episode documenting Starfleet Command's efforts to reestablish communication with Voyager that skillfully weaves in a plot thread dealing with Barclay's personal issues and a Troi cameo. Much like Voy: Distant Origin or Voy: Living Witness, I vastly enjoyed the fact that this episode, which largely dealt with Voyager, didn't actually take place for the most part on Voyager. The only annoying detail was Barclay's Voyager recreations in which he was regarded as some sort of god among the Voyager crew. This was of course a new reference to TNG: Hollow Pursuits, but I think in this case it was a bit over the top. The climax of greatness for this episode is of course the ending; I loved watching Barclay succeed in establishing communication with Voyager. It's amazing how good an episode in which nothing really happens can be with a proper storytelling technique.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From JR on 2012-07-11 at 2:48am:
    I really liked this episode. To me, it seems Seasons 5 and 6, particularly this beginning of season 6, has been the best of Voyager so far.

    I liked seeing Troi again and it is frankly amazing how she keeps looking better with age. I had to grin a couple times though, as I think I heard an accent (Manchester?) slipping out in a few different scenes.
  • From Hugo Ahlenius on 2015-04-21 at 4:42pm:
    A nice episode, great with the TNG cross-over and how it is told from outside Voyager (the ship). I have never been a fan of Barclay though, him being over the top. I guess he is more human and realistic than most other characters though - he has flaws!
  • From Luke on 2022-06-21 at 5:27am:
    What really irritates me about Voyager, which generally is a show I grew up watching and always enjoy, is how they always seem to be travelling at impulse when the external view of the ship is shown.

    WHY?

    Presumably they would be going as fast as possible at all times, why, before anything happens in the episode, would they be at impulse?

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