A Brief Guide to Star Trek

creation. It may have been a series that was simply too complex for episodic television to cope with, and it may have tried to follow too many story strands and too many characters across seven years, but the world of
Star Trek
would be far duller without it. Created in reaction to the Roddenberry utopianism of
The Next Generation
and the ongoing
Star Trek
movie series,
Deep Space Nine
took risks unlike any other
Star Trek
TV show or movie had done before.

Chapter 10

Business as Usual:
Voyager

‘Voyager
had a different dynamic because we were not speaking everyday to Starfleet and we had a female captain. That set this show apart from the others . . . It had the core belief of
Star Trek
in terms of excitement and action and in terms of the provocative ideas that
Star Trek
has always been known to present
.’ Rick Berman

    Just as the creation of
Deep Space Nine
had been a reaction against the successful storytelling traditions of
Star Trek
and
The Next Generation
, so the creation of
Voyager
was both a reaction against
Deep Space Nine
’s more static and darker take on
Star Trek
and to the fear that
The Next Generation
fans and more casual viewers were missing a starship-set
Star Trek
show.
Deep Space Nine
would become increasingly serialised and darker with the Dominion War arc, but the hope at Paramount was that
Voyager
would recapture some of the forward-looking optimism of the 1960s original. The show came amid a slew of late 1990s recreations of 1960s icons, including movies based on old British TV series (
The Avengers
,
The Saint
), a big-budget revamp of
The Wild, Wild West
and a series of films based on
Star Trek
’s old Desilu stablemate,
Mission: Impossible
. Everything old was new again, and so it was with
Star Trek: Voyager
.
    The fourth
Star Trek
television series was the second to be created without the direct involvement of Gene Roddenberry. Despite that,
Voyager
would be (initially at least) an attempt toreturn
Star Trek
to basics, with a diverse crew of a starship exploring the unknown. The show was co-created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor, who would bring much to the creation of
Star Trek
’s first female leading character. It would be Brannon Braga, however, who would emerge as the prime storyteller, driving
Voyager
forward to the past.
    Voyager
– which had various working titles during development, including
Far Voyager
,
Outer Bounds
and
Galaxy’s End
– was an attempt to return
Star Trek
to its traditional mission to ‘boldly go where no man has gone before’. This was achieved in an extreme way, with a Federation starship propelled to the far reaches of the galaxy, and the journey home likely to take longer than a human lifespan. TV shows had adopted this idea before, from
Lost in Space
(the clue is in the title), to
Space: 1999
, but
Voyager
would use it in a unique
Star Trek
context. As well as the survivors of the Federation crew, the ship would be carrying Maquis rebels who would be forced to function as part of the crew if they were all to survive, a sure source of character conflict.
    Unlike
The Next Generation
and
Deep Space Nine
,
Voyager
would not debut in syndication but would help launch the United Paramount Network (UPN), the long-sought dream of a network of independent stations under the Paramount banner, which had dated right back to the mid-1970s development of
Star Trek: Phase II
. Finally, in 1995, that ambition would be achieved and
Voyager
would be the flagship show.
    The Intrepid-class
Voyager
would be a smaller starship than the various incarnations of the
Enterprise
, dedicated primarily to scientific exploration. On a mission to locate a missing Maquis vessel lost in the galactic ‘badlands’,
Voyager
and the Maquis ship are thrown across the galaxy thanks to the intervention of an alien being dubbed the Caretaker. Now seventy-five years’ journey time from home, the two crews join together and attempt to find a way back to the Alpha Quadrant.
    The set-up promised much, not least a degree of
Deep Space Nine
’s trademark conflict among the ship’s surviving crew, due to their diverse origins. However, the show quickly folded theMaquis rebels (including Native American First Officer Chakotay and half-human, half-Klingon chief engineer B’Elanna Torres) into the Federation crew and any differences were smoothed over. The character of Tom Paris, initially a wayward troublemaker, was quickly reformed and fitted back into acceptable