A Brief Guide to Star Trek

(presumably traumatised)
Equinox
crew are assimilated into the
Voyager
crew, closing down another potential line of rewarding storylines.
    Failing to learn from
Deep Space Nine
,
Babylon 5
or the on -going narratives of
The X-Files
,
Voyager
regularly employed this plot reset button. Usually by the end of each episode the status quo would be re-established, no matter what had happened. Characters rarely evolved and changed from the opening episode onwards, with the significant exceptions of Seven of Nine and the holographic Doctor, whose whole purpose was to grow and change, to become more human. Very few consequences flowed through the stories from episode to episode.
Voyager
was a return to the 1960s storytelling of the original
Star Trek
, where each episode was more or less self-contained and although the surrounding universe grew through the accumulation of stories (just as it had done in the 1960s), the serialised storytelling and significant character development of
Deep Space Nine
was deliberately avoided, much to the show’s detriment.
    Another problem with
Voyager
was the way it locked itself into telling clichéd
Star Trek
stories – sometimes the same ones over and over again. As the fourth iteration of a franchise stretching from the 1960s to the 1990s,
Voyager
suffered by sticking too closely to the traditional
Star Trek
formula that
Deep Space Nine
had done so much to shatter. The show didn’t boast the sense of wonder that had powered
Star Trek
and
The Next Generation
. Despite Janeway being a scientist–captain, there seemed a distinct lack of curiosity about the unexplored space through which their ship was travelling. The overriding desire of most of the crew was simply to return home to Earth as soon as possible.
    Some of the actors involved – specifically Kate Mulgrew and Robert Beltran, the more senior members of the cast – latercomplained about the inconsistent writing of their characters, while writer–producer Michael Piller had departed the series by the end of the second year, disappointed that the show was not living up to its potential. Jeri Taylor followed at the end of the fifth year, leaving Brannon Braga – a writer obsessed with time warps, spatial anomalies and gimmicky ‘sci-fi’ plots – as the driving force for the series’ final two years.
    Part of the series’ difficulties may have come about due to the forced nature of its initial creation.
Voyager
did not grow organically, it was created in response to a request (or a demand) from Paramount to producer Rick Berman for another
Star Trek
show – any
Star Trek
show. For the studio, it was about creating product to fill airtime and sell advertising (with the addition of guaranteed significant home video revenues by the mid-1990s). The creative team were working within that restriction, rather than coming up with something that had been driven by their need to express themselves and tell new
Star Trek
stories. More than any other series,
Voyager
was just another manufactured instalment in what was now clearly an ongoing franchise, and was recognisably the product of a long-running – perhaps even tired and worn-out – concept.
    One particular second season episode of
Voyager
was notorious both among fans and the production team for being, in the words of teleplay writer Brannon Braga, ‘a royal, steaming stinker’. In ‘Threshold’, Tom Paris investigates whether it is possible to break the warp ten starship speed limit in an attempt to get back home to Earth quicker. As a result, he and Janeway are mutated into lizard-like life forms that then breed.
    The idea for the episode came from a good intention: what if one of Roddenberry’s long-ago imposed limits was changed, even if just for one episode? Jeri Taylor noted: ‘Gene made the determination at the beginning of
The Next Generation
that warp ten would be the limit, and at that point you would occupy all portions of the universe simultaneously – which always seemed like a wonderfully provocative notion. Then the question is “What happens if you do go [to] Warp Ten, how does thataffect you?” We came up with this idea of evolution and thought that it would be far more interesting and less expected that instead of it being the large-brained, glowing person, it would be full circle, back to our origins in the water. [We’re] not saying that we have become less than we are, because those creatures may experience consciousness on such an advanced plane