elements of the episode had been completed with the exception of the soundtrack, the recording for which began on May 5. The recording was light-hearted, with McCarthy working some jokes into the titles of the musical pieces, such as The War of the Buttons and a reference to the end of the season, with a piece entitled An Ode to Summer. In two of the pieces, McCarthy worked in Jerry Goldsmith's Voyager theme, both at the end of the episode and several bars of it as the ship engages the Dauntless in the slipstream. Reception Ratings "Hope and Fear" was first broadcast on May 20, 1998, on UPN at 9pm Eastern Standard Time. According to Nielsen Media Research, it received ratings of 4.1/7 percent. This meant that it was watched by 4.1 percent of all televisions in the United States, and 7 percent of those watching television at the time. This placed it in 76th place overall for the week, higher than all other programmes on UPN and The WB with the exception of Dawson's Creek. It was an increase of 0.2 percent from the previous episode, "One", and was the highest rated episode since the second part of "The Killing Game" on March 4. But it saw a decrease from the season three finale, the first part of "Scorpion", of 1.5 percent. It also saw a decline in viewers since the opening episode of season four, the second half of "Scorpion", which was watched by 6.5/10 percent of viewers. Critical reception Jamahl Epsicokhan, at his website Jammer's Reviews, gave "Hope and Fear" two out of four. Prior to airing, he considered the possibility that the crew might actually return home and thus the series would go in a different direction. This was based on the involvement of Berman in the writing, the length of time for the crew returning home matching the summer hiatus and the possibility that the fifth series would cover the crew's reintegration into Federation society. After watching "Hope and Fear", he said "At its fundamental core, a story like "Hope and Fear" strikes me as almost completely pointless." He said that once again, the status quo of the series was maintained and nothing of note changes. He called the score "wonderous", the sets "impressive" and the direction of the episode "stellar", but said that the plot was "cobbled together out of unlikely coincidences and prior