I debated doing this post, because no one seems to be here for Trek, and I sort of don’t blame you. The last Star Trek movie “Into Darkness” was kind of terrible, and a Trek series hasn’t been in production in for ten years. But at the end of the day, I couldn’t let my favorite Trek spin off turn 20 and not post about it, especially since others are reminiscing about it too. Now, Voyager always catches hell in Trekkie circles because of certain ethical quandaries, various inconsistencies, and some added sexism.
Voyager may not have been the best written Trek series (that honor goes to Deep Space Nine), but IMO, it was the most endearing. For the uninitiated, the USS Voyager is from the alpha quadrant of space and gets marooned in the delta quadrant, tens of thousands of light years away from home. So, the show is about how they make it home and what they encounter along the way.
I couldn’t fully get into it when I was little, but looking back on it as an adult woman, I’ve come to appreciate what Captain Janeway endured as a woman and a high level executive. She faces misogynist pricks that have contempt for her because she’s female (the Kazon). She gets harassed by Q in ways that she wouldn’t, if she were a man. She’s got to deal with pirates and ethical decisions. She’s whip smart and not just a red shirt (commander) but also an extremely accomplished scientist. She’s lonely and wonders aloud if she’ll ever have children but is reluctant to bed any of her subordinates, which is unfortunate because the chemistry between Janeway and her fine ass Ex-O, Chakotay, was off the meter.
However, she’s not infallible. There’s the infamous "Tuvix" episode (that she gets dragged for to this very day), where she ordered the murder of one of her crew to save the lives of two other crew members, and she seemed to bend the Federation Prime Directive almost as many times as she invoked it. I don’t think there ever was a captain as preachy as Kathryn Janeway.
Then you had, chief engineer, B’elanna Torres. Her character was this allegorical symbol for biracial identity. She doesn’t completely fit in anywhere because she’s neither fully human or Klingon, and unlike Spock, who at the end of the day is a white male, B’elanna is a biracial, woman of color spending most of her life surrounded by a human majority. Voyager explores her struggle both on screen and in print. Lord knows I got out the tissues when pregnant B’elanna found out that her baby was going to have Klingon forehead ridges, and she tried to erase the baby’s Klingon gene sequences so the child would look completely human (normal).
Ironically, what initially drew me to the show wasn’t Janeway. I thought the idea of a black Vulcan was the coolest thing. And Tim Russ as Tuvok did not disappoint. He was arrogant and condescending and wise and honorable, and above the petty, emotional concerns of the human children and the annoying Talaxian who served under him. Russ killed it, in every single way.
The most memorable villain on the show wasn’t the Borg. It was a surgically altered, Cardassian spy named Seska, who masqueraded as a Bajoran woman to infiltrate a rebel group. Not only was she a brilliant tactician, who almost singlehandedly orchestrated the siege of Voyager, she frequently used sex to curry favor with powerful assets and informants. Seska had like two or three different men thinking that one of them was the father of her baby (one of which was Chakotay), and they were all doing summersaults for this broad. I mean, what else can you say? Seska got that good good! For all her scheming, Seska wound up backing the wrong horse, and it proved to be her undoing, but not before causing all kinds of trouble.
There were other memorable characters like Ensign Vorik, the young Vulcan with the bedroom voice and an ill-timed case of Pon Farr. . .bumbling Ensign Harry Kim and the often corny, running gag about how he could never find the right woman . . . Seven of Nine, the reformed Borg drone, exploring her humanity in a skin tight cat-suit . . . fly-boy, lothario, ex-con snitch, Tom Paris . . . Neelix, the Talaxian who everyone loved to hate . . . And who could forget the singing, Emergency Medical Hologram, aka, the Doctor who blurred the lines between man and machine, making everyone question who was and was not deserving of civil rights.
One of my favorite episodes was “Author, Author,” where the Doctor writes this messy novel satirizing the Voyager crew and portrays himself as an oppressed minority. The Doctor later has remorse about how he did his friends dirty in the story and tries to retract it before it’s distributed, but his publisher, back in the alpha quadrant is greedy and, knowing that he had a blockbuster on his hands, published the original draft without the Doctor’s consent. The publisher figured that he didn’t need the Doctor’s permission because the Doctor was just a hologram and thus had no rights. So, the case went to trial to determine what if any rights or ownership the Doctor had over his work.
Voyager was a happy, underrated mess! The cast was crazy diverse. The episodes had some really biting commentaries on topics like death, rape, human rights, capital punishment, and even health care, and the show was character driven more so than story driven. The Voyager book series, currently written by Kirsten Beyer is pretty good, and they come out with a regular frequency to keep the fandom alive. 20 years young, and the show still slays in syndication! So, Happy Birthday, Star Trek: Voyager! You are sorely missed!