Star Trek: Voyager's Year of Hell could've worked as a season if they did one thing

When we talk about the best elements of Star Trek: Voyager, namely the better episodes, there are many examples we can pull from. Yet, one of the best seems to be their two-part episode from season four, "Year of Hell". It's an episode that sees the crew of the Voyager go through a year of traumatizing events while on the run from a man named Annorax.

Annorax, played by Kurtwood Smith of That Seven's Show, is a scientist of the former Krenim Imperium. The empire he once served is in shambles and he's trying to reset the timeline to bring it back, or so we think. In reality, he's trying to bring his family back from the dead by resetting the timeline and erasing the events that led to their demise. To do so, he has to destroy the USS Voyager.

It was a concept that worked well as a two-parter, as you could kill off scores of characters and just bring them back with the resolution of the episodes; which is what happened. Yet, many wonder what it would have been like to see the season play out against the backdrop of the concept. That was one idea, make most of season four, if not all of it, into an extended Year of Hell concept.

Rick Berman shot that idea down though.

An idea, we wish he didn't. The concept of putting Voyager through a year of hell could've worked. In theory. You'd have to thread the needle to pull it off, but with the right writing and the right ideas, it could've been done. The only question is how do you resolve it?

Well, in the original telling of the story, Captain Kathryn Janeway rammed the Voyager through Annorax's ship, destroying both vessels and causing the time manipulation that Annorax was able to achieve to fall in on itself. It caused the events to reset, with Annorax returning to his time, and Voyager going back to the start of the year, this time without issue.

Along the way just about every major character dies, resulting in a need to reboot the story. Yet, if you hold off on any real major deaths (maybe one if you're so inclined), and avoid resetting the story, the idea could work. You can't reset the story, however, no matter what you do. If you told a season's worth of stories and just reset them at the end of season four, then an entire year of people's lives would have gone into a story that no longer matters.

It's a slap in the face as a story-teller. Now, you can reset things, but not reset them all the way. A few key characters could remain dead, the Voyager crew could remember the year, and they could be closer to Earth than ever before. To erase all that, especially any progress to return to Earth would severely hamper the series.

Especially when you realize that's the core point of the show; to get home.