Twenty-seven years ago today, Star Trek Voyager premiered on the UPN network. Fun fact, Voyager was the UPN network's very first series. Anyway, for my fellow Trekkers out there, you probably all know the basic story behind the series (yes I know the diary’s title doesn’t really match what happened to Voyager, but it sounded good in my head anyways), but for those who may not here goes.
Voyager is a Federation starship that is, through Treknobabble, thrown 70,000 light years across the galaxy into the Delta quadrant, and is led by the first female Captain to lead a Star Trek series, the indomitable Katherine Janeway played ever so well by Kate Mulgrew. So Voyager ends up decade of travel away from any other Federation members or worlds, and in a region of space completely unknown to them. And in the same event that sent them hurtling through space, a ship full of Maquis, a group of anti-Federation rebels/terrorists (that dichotomy comes up a lot in episodes featuring them) ended up in the same place as Voyager. Long story, slightly shorter, the two crews have to band together to try and get back to Federation space in the Alpha quadrant.
So with that basic background, it sounds like the basic thruline for Voyager should be something like a desperate attempt to survive an alien and hostile portion of space having to make whatever allies you could, in constant need of supplies, all the while leaving the two factions of the crew, Starfleet and Maquis, with no choice but to learn to put aside their differences. And on the, very unfortunately, exceedingly rare occasions when Voyager went that route, most notably the two-parters "Year From Hell" and "Equinox", Voyager was great.
Sadly, all too often (read the vast majority of the time) any problems the crew ran into were conveniently resolved by the end of episode and barely mentioned again. Part of that is surely due to the more week to week storytelling common to tv when Voyager aired (1995-2001), but to me it’s especially disappointing when you remember that Deep Space Nine (1993-1999) overlapped Voyager's air dates for four years, and had one of tv's all-time greatest story arcs, the Dominion War. In its week to week approach, Voyager is much more reminiscent of The Original Series and Next Generation.
As an aside, and this is certainly personal preference of course, but I absolutely love serialized storytelling, so to me, Deep Space Nine is the single best Trek series from start to finish. Just watch "In The Pale Moonlight" and tell me otherwise. My mom grew up on The Original Series, so we’ve agreed to disagree on this point.
Having said all of that, Voyager was overall a fun series to watch, and a generally worthy addition to the Star Trek universe. And don’t get me wrong, it had some really bright spots. Seven of Nine and the Doctor are two of my favorite Trek characters. Both Jeri Ryan and Robert Picardo were fantastic in their respective roles, and the arcs of both characters, dealing with such weighty issues as identity, personal autonomy, what it means to be a sentient being, were overall very strong. There's good reason that those two are fan favorite characters. It's also always a blast seeing brand new alien species and groups being introduced in Star Trek, and Voyager certainly had no shortage of those.
While I'm hardly alone in wishing that Voyager had been something even better than it was, I'm also hardly alone in saying the more Star Trek we get the better. And at least its theme song didn't have over the top sappy lyrics (looking at you Enterprise).
So to my fellow Trekkers, and those of you who aren't, let's all keep Gene's vision of a better future for all alive with the intensity of a thousand warp coils.
And may you all live long and prosper.
