TV REVIEW: Star Trek Voyager (UPN, 1995–2001)

Star Trek has been a big part of my life in a world that doesn’t make sense. While the shows have their Heisenberg compensators to make the things its universe make sense, it was far more appealing to me than a world where the things that did make sense to nearly everybody were deeply flawed. Destroying the neighborhood where you live to get back at the people who own it and make decisions about it (surprisingly NOT you), being taught to be like people who would prove to be problematic in the coming decades, open bigotry against those who are different; it all made sense in the saddest way possible. Such a world would drive me to watch nearly every single episode of my favorite Star Trek series — Star Trek Voyager — on its weekly release day for a solid seven years. Lots of people say this show sucks, but I’m here to say otherwise for a very good reason.

NEXT STOP, GAMMA QUADRANT: If they took that left turn at Albuquerque, this show would be VERY different.

The Premise: Sailing out of Starbase Deep Space 9 orbiting Bajor is the USS Voyager, commanded by Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew, Round Numbers [1992], “Mrs. Columbo” [TV-NBC]), as they hunt renegades from the Federation known as the Maquis. She and her crew catch up to the Maquis ship in a plasma-storm choked area called “the Badlands”, but both ships are whisked away by an alien entity called the “Caretaker” to the far-off Delta Quadrant —an area of the Milky Way Galaxy most distant from Earth, roughly 70 light years away. When there, they have to deal with two other alien species — the mujahideen-coded Kazon and the naïve Ocampa — at a crisis point. Though the Caretaker can send both ships and crews home using his space array, he dies before that happens. If the warlike Kazon claim the array, this could upset the power balance in the quadrant! Citing the Prime Directive, Janeway makes the decision to destroy the array, stranding members of the now blended crew — both Starfleet and Maquis — who become indispensable on the incredibly wild and dangerous 70-year journey home:

• Chakotay (Robert Beltran, “Models, Inc.” [TV-FOX]), a Native-American Maquis captain who becomes Janeway’s first officer
• Tuvok (Tim Russ, Spaceballs [1987]), a Black Vulcan tactical officer with over 50 years of Starfleet service
• B’Elana Torres (Roxann Biggs-Dawson, “Nightingales” [TV-NBC]), a half-Klingon human Maquis member who’s a gifted engineer with a chip on her shoulder
• Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeil, Masters of the Universe [1987]), a talented pilot who’s a disgraced son of a Starfleet admiral, and totally not Nick Locarno
• Harry Kim (Garret Wang, Survival Island [2002]), a fresh-faced ensign running the ops station who plays the clarinet and misses his mom
• “The Doctor” (Robert Picardo, “China Beach” [TV-ABC], Total Recall [1990]), an Emergency Medical Holographic program that developed sentience after being left on for too long
• Samantha Wildman (Nancy Hower, Catch and Release [2006], Standing on Fishes [1996]), an ensign who gave us the first Katarian-Human hybrid, her daughter Naomi (Scarlett Pomers, “Reba” [TV-the CW], Erin Brockovich [2000]).
• Seska (Martha Hackett, Never Been Kissed [1999]), a mysterious Bajoran Starfleet officer whose actions reverberate across several seasons of the show.

OUR ENSEMBLE CREW: (top row, l-r) Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), Chakotay (Robert Beltran), Tuvok (Tim Russ), B’Elana Torres (Roxann Dawson), Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill); (bottom row, l-r) Harry Kim (Garret Wang), “The Doctor” (Robert Picardo), Kes (Jennifer Lien), Neelix (Ethan Philips), and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan).

They also pick up strays on the way, adding to the ensemble:

• Neelix (Ethan Phillips, “Benson” [TV-NBC]), a strange Talaxian trader with the gift of gab and a highly developed cooking palate
• Kes (Jennifer Lien, “Phenom” [TV-ABC]), Neelix’s positive-minded and psionically sensitive Ocampan girlfriend that ages 10 years for every 1 year, who looks to be in her early twenties…barely prompting any questions from the other crew members
• Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan, “Boston Public” [TV-FOX]), an astrometrics expert formerly of the Borg Collective, who was brought in for a season 4 “Sweeps Week” in 1997 and never left.

The Show: Breaking the tradition of a Star Trek lead actor that’s both White AND male, Kate Mulgrew in the role of Captain Janeway broke only one of those barriers on Star Trek Voyager when she made history both in-universe and in real life. Janeway led her crew in a lost-in-space style journey across the Delta Quadrant, embodying the “Wagon Train of the Stars” vibe Gene Roddenberry pitched 30 years prior for the original Star Trek without leaning too much on the old storylines of TOS, TNG, and DS9 (aside from the Borg; more on that later). While the show did not get as much heat as CBS’s “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” caught for Benjamin “Emmissary” Sisko — the Black commanding officer who became the Bajoran Messiah on played by Avery Brooks (“Spenser for Hire” [TV-ABC], The Big Hit [1998]), Voyager did not stand the test of time for most Star Trek fans. To this day many people on web forums and in real life still complain about the sensationalized nature of the show that took away from effective storytelling, citing the sexualization of Seven of Nine, repeated dilution of the Borg as an enemy, and the over-dependence on celebrity cameos. The alien trickster called “Q” (John DeLancie, Multiplicity [1996], “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” [TV-Discovery Family]) shows up a lot but the show sometimes went out of its way to put our crew into situations to justify the cameo, like when Seven of Nine was kidnapped to an alien gladiatorial arena to fight Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wearing a rubber forehead…if only to advertise the next installment of “WWE Smackdown” [TV-UPN] following that episode.

HE EVEN DOES THE PEOPLE’S EYEBROW: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the Pendari Champion in the episode “Tsunkatse” [VOY s6e15].

Here’s the thing about all of the criticism of Star Trek Voyager*: *I DON’T CARE.**

Star Trek Voyager fit my niches of the past, present, and future when I watched TV in high school: the past came in the form of *Hercules: the Legendary Journeys and [Xena: Warrior Princess](https://swatson7856.medium.com/tv-review-xena-warrior-princess-1995-2001-d88be204e1bc), my present was “In Living Color” [TV-FOX] and “New York Undercover” [TV-FOX], and my future presented as [Space: Above and Beyond](https://medium.com/@swatson7856/tv-review-space-above-and-beyond-1995-fox-63175b66ce58)*…and this amazing show. The people at Paramount may have needed to do all that wonky stuff to attract viewers who were on the fence, but it was sprinkles on a sundae for someone like me who was blown away by everything the show had to give. Even though Janeway abused the self-destruct sequence so much I memorized the access code I still had fun with Captain Proton, the time-travel shenanigans, violating the Prime Directive, double-crossing the Borg Queen, the Tuvix problem, and all the hologram-related situations. Best of all was the Rock episode, as all my friends were really into wrestling and we all got together to watch both shows back-to-back.

The Verdict: Even after 30 years away I could watch the glamorous space tourism intro with its swelling theme alone and be fulfilled, because it meant that my favorite show was on. Star Trek Voyager filled a longing for space exploration and touched a part of me that cried out for something better for Black people and other people of color than *“Homeboys in Outer Space” [TV-UPN].* I know for a fact I have fallen asleep to the end credits with a smile as those last two tympani drum hits ring out. Such an act might have wired my brain to like this stuff as nostalgia as opposed to a positive critique, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. It was comfort food TV for me at a very rough spot in my life, and I thank the late Jeri Taylor and everyone else responsible for making it.