One episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine proved that Kenneth Biller was wrong about the challenges of Star Trek: Voyager‘s season 3 prison episode. Voyager and DS9 were sister shows in the Star Trek timeline, running concurrently with each other for several seasons. Although there was a lot of similarity between the two show’s creative teams, producer and writer Ken Biller only worked on Voyager during the 1990s era of the Star Trek franchise.

One early Voyager episode that Biller worked on was season 3, episode 3, “The Chute,” a dark story revolving around Tom Paris’ (Robert Duncan McNeill) and Harry Kim’s (Garrett Wang) time in a brutal alien prison. After being falsely accused of a terrorist attack, Kim and Paris were held in the prison while the USS Voyager’s crew worked on a way to save them. Biller found writing the episode a challenge for one specific reason, but could have looked to a similar DS9 episode for the blueprint of how to make the story work.

DS9 Proved That Ken Biller Was Wrong About Star Trek: Voyager’s Kim And Paris Prison Episode

DS9 did a similar episode that pulled off what Biller found challenging

Biller thought Tom and Harry’s mental deterioration in prison wasn’t believable given the short length of time they were incarcerated, but DS9 and the character of Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) proved that severe mental degradation was possible thanks to a particular sci-fi concept. Perhaps because Biller wasn’t the original creator of “The Chute,” he found the story challenging to pull off and discussed his ups and downs during the writing process with Cinefantastique shortly after the episode aired. Read Biller’s full quote about “The Chute” below:

“It was sort of a left-over story from the Michael Piller era, and I struggled with it because it was a prison picture essentially. Michael wanted this to be an episode about Kim’s humanity being tested. I thought it was basically an impossible task, because every single prison movie that has ever been successful that I can think of depends on one thing in particular, which is the passage of time. All take place over years, if not decades. Given the fact it would be impossible given the restrictions of our show to strand Paris and Kim for more than several days, it seemed therefore impossible to bring Kim to the brink.”

On the surface, Biller’s frustrations with “The Chute” are understandable. However, DS9 aired season 4, episode 19, “Hard Time,” earlier that same year, which followed Miles O’Brien’s recovery from his memories of a 20-year prison sentence. Rather than actually serving 20 years, O’Brien’s memories had been implanted and altered to make the passage of time feel longer. O’Brien’s incarceration and circumstances were extremely similar to Kim and Paris, and Biller could have used “Hard Time” as an example of how to make their mental states believable in “The Chute’s” condensed time frame.

How Star Trek: Voyager’s “The Chute” Still Managed To Make Kim And Paris’ Mental Deterioration Believable

“The Chute” made its plot work with a different story device

As it was, Biller ended up using a different device to make Kim and Paris lose their minds, in the form of alien technology that was specifically designed to make prisoners more aggressive and paranoid. This had the desired effect and was perhaps even a good choice for the episode, given that copying DS9 so soon after “Hard Time’s” release could have felt repetitive. However, Biller’s frustration with “The Chute’s” contrivances wasn’t warranted, and a quick look at other shows beyond Star Trek: Voyager could have alleviated some of his concerns.