Season 5, Episode 11 “Timeless" (VOY) with Fred Love

Break out the ice picks because we’re diving into “Timeless”!

Writer and musician Fred Love joins the show this week to discuss an episode of Star Trek: Voyager that finds Harry Kim at a crossroads. Ensign Kim has helped design a quantum slipstream drive that could shave decades off of Voyager’s journey. But when the drive destroys Voyager and her crew, an older and more embittered Harry enacts a plan to sacrifice himself and 15 years of history for a chance to erase his biggest mistake!

Harry Kim doesn’t get enough credit (or promotions). He was an instrumental part in the success of Starfleet’s most amazing mission: crossing our entire galaxy. But Harry Kim would never think to complain, or be ungrateful, or argue that the universe owes him something. He just wants to be the best Starfleet officer he can be, not just for the good of the Federation, but to satisfy the expectations he’s lived with all his life. Prodigies enjoy successes, but it’s the failures they can’t let go of. On this episode, we talk about the psychology of Harry Kim, the way tragedy can transform you into someone you don’t recognize, the 5th season’s attempts to flesh out the show’s under-served characters, the ethics of erasing a timeline, the shape of Trek storytelling in the late ’90s, and the unknowing arrogance of being a perfectionist.

We also discuss the Garrett’s raw deal, breaking Harry to explore Harry, the various types of time travel narratives, loving your boyfriend to (your) death, white Borg wasted, “Yes, mom,” Harry the Redditor, being saved by your sexiness, a “Timerider” scenario, SEVEN’S SKULL, a little Picard talk, Fred wants “cerebral Star Wars”, and Kal’s got an X-Men reference!

Temporal Prime Directive shemporal shrime shmirective!