The Thaw

Click here to check the episode index.

“The Thaw” is an episode I first saw as a child, and it’s the kind that sticks with you for a while. After all, the crew deals with the manifestation of fear itself, a heavy topic for any child to think about. Returning to it, though, I realized it was more than creepy; the storytelling is admirable.

While Kim is playing his Clarinet, Voyager finds a planet, which was affected by a solar flare nineteen years ago, with a few comatose lifesigns just below the surface. The teaser ends with a hail from the lifesigns, who reveal they went into stasis when the planet was to be hit by the flares, and that they would be resuscitated in fifteen years. The crew beams the stasis pods to the cargo bay to investigate further and find that the hostages are bonded to a collective-unconsciousness and that two of the five individuals have died.

Kim and Torres enter the stasis pods and encounter the sleepers’ “dreamworld;” a circus-like environment where the aliens are being held hostage by the manifestation of their fears and anxieties. The leader of the nightmares is a black-and-grey clown-like being. The rest of the episode comprises of negotiations with the clown to release the hostages. One of them, the same person who made the initial hail, ends up dying, which causes Janeway to think of a way to trick Fear-the-clown. After all, she surmises, fear wants to end – no one would enjoy a roller coaster ride if it went on forever. Fear wants to be conquered, and so she does such by tricking Fear with an artificial brain.

This episode is absolutely iconic. They really nail the horror elements, such as the ending of Act 2, with Fear saying, “We’ll disappear.” That gives me shivers – fear is afraid – imagine that! Other horrific images were Kim on a stretcher – that sort of thing always gets me.

Besides horror, though, I really appreciated seeing Kim and Torres be the besties that they are. Even though the Doctor plays a huge role in this episode, Kes takes over for the medical duties because the Doctor can’t be in the cargo bay which has no holo-emitters. I really like seeing her be so competent on her own without him.

Finally, I’m not too confident to call the reference, but when Viorsa is beheaded, it reminded me of Jesus’ crucifixion scene in Jesus Christ Superstar. There’s a lot of commotion coming from the crowd, and the camera shot angles are just so similar. What do you think?

This was originally posted on Dec 8, 2020. Transported to neocities on Mar 25, 2026.