YMMV / Star Trek: Voyager S4 E8: "Year of Hell"

• Fridge Brilliance:
  • Perhaps Annorax could never restore the timeline completely because his ship was in and of itself a paradox? In the altered timeline, his colony didn't exist, and thus neither did his life as he knew it. He never invented his timeship in any timeline after it was used, and may not have even existed. Yet, the original was kept alive by the ship's shielding, thus twisting time into a confounded, nonfunctional snarl (case in point, the timeline has become so convoluted that "Before And After" is no longer accurate). This goes nicely with the solution that had eluded him for so long (if he erases his ship and prevents it from being invented, then he erases every action it took, including the one that caused the whole mess in the first place).
  • A more specific bit of realization: not only are Annorax and everyone else on the ship preserved outside of the timeline, but so is his wife's lock of hair. Meaning, as long as that lock of hair is kept trapped inside the stasis pyramid, nothing he does can ever restore her and the colony they lived on, because the time-bubble is preventing it from being eliminated to allow for a reset/time change. The fact it vanishes as soon as the crystal is broken, and Annorax smiles, suggests he has realized this (though obviously, getting rid of the ship itself is what makes undoing everything possible).
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Kate Mulgrew and Kurtwood Smith each eventually played characters called "Red". Mulgrew playing Galina "Red" Reznikov on Orange Is the New Black and Smith playing Reginald "Red" Forman on That '70s Show and That '90s Show. For added hilarity, all three shows co-starred Laura Prepon, and That '90s Show is set in 1995, the same year Voyager premiered.
• Moment of Awesome: This episode cements Janeway as one of the biggest Determinators in the franchise. Nothing stops a pissed-off Kathryn Janeway. Nothing.

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