The Thaw
- FIRST SHOWN (US)
- 29 April 1996
- ON
- UPN
- STARDATE
- None given
- DIRECTED BY
- Marvin V. Rush
- PRODUCTION NO.
- 139
WRITTEN BYTeleplay by Joe Menosky; story by Richard Gadas
Voyager finds five aliens asleep in stasis pods on a world ravaged by solar flares, but when Kim and Torres join their shared virtual world, a sinister clown is waiting.
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSIS
Voyager discovers a planet scorched by solar flares nineteen years earlier. Its survivors went into stasis pods linked to a computer-run virtual world, planning to wake after fifteen years, but they never did. Two have already died of apparent heart failure. Kim and Torres connect to the system and find a dark carnival ruled by the Clown, a gleeful tyrant born from the sleepers' own fears, who punishes anyone who tries to leave. Torres is released to carry his demands to the ship, but Kim and the surviving aliens remain hostage, and any attempt to shut the system down could kill them. The Doctor's intervention and a quiet hint from one prisoner, Viorsa, point to a way out, but the Clown murders Viorsa in revenge. Janeway offers herself in exchange for the hostages, but the captain the Clown receives is only a holographic decoy. As the crew shuts down the system, the Clown fades away and the prisoners are freed.
- 01Director Marvin V. Rush, a cinematographer on “The Next Generation”, drew visual inspiration from Federico Fellini's “8½”.
- 02Michael McKean was offered the Clown without an audition. He had been a Star Trek fan since college.
- 03The opening scene between Kim and Paris was originally filmed for “Death Wish” and reused here.