Star Trek: Voyager originally had a plan that would get the crew out of the Delta Quadrant a lot quicker, but ended up scrapping the plan in season 2.

Star Trek: Voyager originally had a “Get out of the Delta Quadrant” plan, but scrapped it at the beginning of season 2. While Voyager‘s sister show, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, expanded the franchise as far as the Gamma Quadrant, Voyager took things a step further when the ship was thrown 70,000 lightyears across space to the uncharted Delta Quadrant. After a plan to have the entity that brought them there send them home failed, Voyager‘s cast of characters was stuck on the other side of the galaxy with a long journey and no way to contact Starfleet.

Voyager was the first series in the Star Trek franchise to make the “lost in space” concept their entire premise. Cutting the show off from everything familiar in the franchise was a risk, but one that ultimately paid off as Voyager‘s crew explored the Delta Quadrant and expanded the Star Trek timeline mythos. However, there was no guarantee that the series’ premise would be a success with audiences, which was why Voyager worked to include a guaranteed way for the ship to return home if it needed to as early as the pilot episode, “Caretaker.”

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Star Trek: Voyager Had A Plan To Leave The Delta Quadrant But Didn’t Use It

Voyager baked a plan to leave the Delta Quadrant into its premise when the show established that there was another entity like the Caretaker (Basil Langton). From the start, it was understood that part of Voyager’s mission in the Delta Quadrant was to look for any way to return home, including trying to find the Caretaker’s mate, Suspiria (Lindsay Ridgeway). Having another entity like the one that had brought them to the Delta Quadrant should have been a guaranteed ticket home, and it would have made sense for Voyager to turn the crew’s search for Suspiria into a season-long journey.

However, Voyager’s crew ended up encountering Suspiria early, in season 2, episode 10, “Cold Fire.” Not only that, but Suspiria proved hostile and unwilling to help them, taking her off the table entirely as a means to return home. It’s unclear why Voyager chose to remove Suspiria as an option instead of just forgetting about or not using her. This could have been because the show was no longer worried about the popularity of its premise with audiences, but that idea is contradicted by the fact that “Cold Fire” was another unpopular episode in a string of season 2’s worst.

Season 2 Is Star Trek: Voyager’s Worst Season

Season 2 is empirically Star Trek: Voyager‘s worst season, with more misses than hits in terms of episodes. Although there were some decent additions to the season, it also contained some of the worst-reviewed episodes of the show, including “Threshold” which has become possibly the most divisive episode of Star Trek ever made. Star Trek shows tend to have a hard time finding their feet until season 3 or 4, especially the 1990s-era cadre of series, and Voyager was no exception to this rule.

It’s interesting then that Voyager chose to scrap their “get out of jail free” card in season 2 when there was no guarantee that the show would continue uphill. As it turned out, the crew didn’t need Suspiria, but there was no way to know that in season 2. However, getting rid of her opened the door for Star Trek: Voyager to embrace more well-established parts of the franchise, namely the Borg, as a means to get home. Ultimately, this paid off and introduced more interesting storylines to later seasons than a prolonged search for Suspiria ever could have.