| Episode Information | |
|---|---|
| Season | 1 |
| Episode Number | 9 |
| Title | Emanations |
| Abhijeet's Rating
(out of 5) |
* * * * * |
Quite possibly, the best episode in the first season. Voyager stumbles upon a mass tomb on an asteroid, where the bodies arrive through some sort of subspace portal. Harry Kim is accidentally sucked into the subspace link when a new body arrives while the crew is present. At the other end, he finds himself among the people that use the asteroid as a tomb, only they don't actually know that this is where they end up. The people there believe that when through the subspace links, they are making their way to a higher "emanation" to live their lives out in peace. Harry starts to tell a different tale upon arriving.
This episode tackles some of the questions that almost all humans ask themselves at one point in their life or another - what happens after we die? Is there something after die or are we done we die? Most religions offer up a vision of the afterlife, but no living human has seen made it there and back to tell the tale. It also throws in thoughts about euthanasia. All in all, this is great science fiction - using the sci-fi setting to tackle some profoundly human concerns.
