Star Trek: Voyager failed for a lot of causes together with Kate Mulgrew’s off-camera points, B’Elanna Torres’s character flaws, and racism round Chakotay.
By Joshua Tyler
The 90s have been an incredible time for science fiction. Each tv channel and movie show was stuffed with explorations of a future past creativeness. However one of many decade’s greatest sci-fi exhibits has, lately, developed a really totally different popularity from the one it had when it was on the air.
It was a present that acquired caught on a tv community, so bizarre that it doesn’t exist anymore. It had main clashes between its leads. It misplaced nearly its complete viewers by the ultimate season. It started with what could be the most excellent premise any Star Trek collection has ever had.
Why Star Trek: Voyager Failed
Star Trek: Voyager was the fourth Star Trek collection to reach on tv. The three that preceded it have been all, in their very own manner, resoundingly profitable. Even Star Trek: Deep House 9, although it by no means fairly acquired the scores of Subsequent Era, proved to be a stable, critically acclaimed, award-winning success. Then got here Voyager.
It’s not that Star Trek: Voyager was a nasty expertise. The present lasted the requisite seven seasons, and amongst these seasons, there have been impressed moments. Voyager didn’t kill Star Trek, but it surely was the start of a development that will ship Star Trek right into a deep coma, a coma it might not awaken from till 2009’s Star Trek reboot.
It was in Voyager that we, the franchise’s followers, all began to sense one thing may be going mistaken with Gene Roddenberry’s imaginative and prescient, and it solely acquired worse after Voyager went off the air. The following Trek collection, Enterprise, was cancelled early in its run. Few of The Subsequent Era motion pictures have been any good, and what’s worse, by the top, few have been exhibiting as much as see them.
Voyager didn’t kill Star Trek, but it surely signified the start of the slide. The issues that quickly stalled the franchise, placing it in a tailspin that resulted within the 2009 reboot, all began there.
Janeway Wanted To Be Extra Kirk And Much less Picard
In a number of interviews because the present’s finish, Kate Mulgrew, who performed Captain Kathryn Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager, has admitted that she by no means actually gave the position her all. It wasn’t that she was disinterested, however her house life was in turmoil, and in response to the actress, she was struggling to discover a stability between elevating a household and having a profession.
Despite these points, Kate Mulgrew wasn’t the issue. It’s the character they got here up with for her to play that by no means fairly labored. In creating Star Trek’s first feminine Captain, it appears clear that Voyager’s producers went out in search of a feminine Picard, when what they need to have achieved is forged a feminine Captain Kirk.
Picard labored brilliantly as a result of he subverted the normal Captain Kirk alpha male stereotype. However a feminine Picard largely performs into stereotypes. What they wanted was a take-charge, dynamic feminine Captain; what they gave us was a moralizing pushover all too keen to throw her crew’s life away for no motive in any respect if it made her appear superior and no less than as eager about prancing round in frilly clothes on the holodeck as she is in main her crew.
Janeway had her moments of loopy toughness, and Mulgrew’s efficiency was satisfactory. Nonetheless, the thought behind the form of Captain Star Trek that Voyager was initially saddled with was wrongheaded. Possibly an actress who was extra engaged and targeted than Mulgrew was on the time may have achieved one thing to make all of the items match collectively.
It’s not Mulgrew’s fault, although; it’s not even many of the writers’ fault. They have been caught with a very unhealthy concept, a nasty concept which was sadly probably the most central character on the present, and nobody ever actually found out a option to erase that beginning premise fully.
B’Elanna Torres Is Meg Griffin
When the Star Trek: Voyager group got here up with B’Elanna Torres, I think about they anticipated her to be the robust, fiery, balls-to-the-wall, take-no-prisoners feminine character Janeway ought to have been persistently. The present is written as if that’s what everybody expects from her. Characters reference her legendary Klingon mood, her unbelievable Klingon toughness, and her intimidating demeanor.
It’s all discuss. Not one of the issues Voyager appears to suppose Torres is, truly, ever grow to be true. As a substitute, what they acquired, thanks no less than partly to persistently horrible performances from Roxann Dawson, was Meg Griffin. Meg Griffin is the worst character on Household Man. She exists primarily as a operating joke, wherein everybody acknowledges how terrible she is. That’s B’Elanna.
Her legendary Klingon mood by no means actually strikes past the realm of “bitchy.” Her legendary Klingon toughness is usually numerous pouting. If her crewmates are intimidated by her, it’s solely as a result of they’re afraid she may begin whining earlier than they will get out of the room.
B’Elanna has the uncanny capability to stroll into any state of affairs and make it miserable. She takes a sledgehammer to any plot she’s concerned in and turns the grins of everybody round her into frowns. Tom Paris is happy a couple of improbable area race? Don’t fear. B’Elanna will pressure her manner into the episode to verify it turns right into a dialogue of their relationship and that none of that enjoyable racing stuff ever occurs.
Everyone seems to be joyful as a result of she’s having a child? Don’t fear, B’Elanna’s not, and it’s solely a matter of time earlier than she begins bitching about how a lot she hates her unborn child. Placing B’Elanna Torres within the engine room was like giving Voyager’s warp core most cancers. It was solely a matter of time earlier than she prompted a core breach.
It’s price noting that since Star Trek: Voyager went off the air, actress Roxann Dawson has grow to be a profitable and extremely proficient tv director. Possibly it was a latent intuition for making attention-grabbing leisure that acquired her the a part of Torres within the first place, and fortunately, Dawson has since found out her talents are a greater match behind the digicam.
Chakotay Is A Racist Character
Chakotay is Star Trek: Voyager’s Native American first officer. I’ve described him that manner as a result of it’s the one factor I learn about him, even after watching all seven seasons a number of occasions. It’s not that they don’t give him display time. The issue is that when the present tries, they solely appear eager about taking part in up the Native American angle.
Tune in to any one of many present’s all-too-rare Chakotay episodes and also you’re positive to listen to the beating of vaguely tribal-sounding Native American drums within the background. Odds are that the episode’s plot will contain some form of imaginative and prescient quest, or an obsession with the sweetness and majesty of some primitive alien species that’s in contact with the land. Possibly you’re pondering that that is nice, this can be a high quality instance of Voyager embracing variety within the Star Trek universe. Isn’t that what Gene Roddenberry wished? Not the way in which Voyager did it.
Whereas the unique Trek included characters based mostly on their share of racial stereotypes, it didn’t fully depend on them. Scotty didn’t put on a kilt within the engine room, and Chekov, regardless of a bent to credit score Russia with each development in human historical past, didn’t wander round making an attempt to persuade everybody to grow to be a communist. Sulu didn’t subsist fully on a weight-reduction plan of sushi, as a substitute, he was actually into the Three Musketeers and Euro-style swashbuckling. And that was within the 60s.
Voyager was on the air in 2001 and contained a personality whose solely motive for present was to wander across the ship, espousing the advantages of utilizing high-tech, digital peyote. We’re fortunate Chakotay didn’t discover a option to convert the shuttle deck right into a on line casino or make his uniform out of buffalo.
All of it is smart whenever you uncover that the character of Chakotay was invented by a person well-known for being a Native American fraud. His title was Jamake Highwater and within the 80s he handed himself off as a Native American in an effort to guide profitable consulting gigs.
However Jamake Highwater wasn’t Native American, and in 1984, an investigative journalist uncovered him. In some way, the producers of Voyager missed this exposé, and practically 10 years later, in 1993, they employed him to assist provide you with the character of Chakotay, believing Highwater truly knew one thing about Native People. It appears what he instructed them is that Native People like smoking peyote.
The Decrease The Rank The Higher The Character
Voyager’s most attention-grabbing characters are those they haven’t put answerable for something. The Captain is a bleeding coronary heart, borderline incompetent, obsessive about espresso (okay, the espresso factor is definitely fairly nice). The primary officer might be excessive, and their chief engineer is a space-faring Debbie Downer.
The remainder of the bridge crew isn’t a lot better. Garret Wang’s Ensign Kim finally turns into an attention-grabbing member of the ensemble, however Tom Paris’s receding hairline isn’t very convincing on a devil-may-care unhealthy boy. Plus, Paris is romantically eager about B’Elanna Torres, so one thing is clearly mistaken with this man.
I’m unsure the ship’s safety officer, Tuvok, regardless of the pointed ears, is definitely a Vulcan.
The present’s greatest characters are: a holographic Physician who spends most of his time confined to sickbay and possibly isn’t actual anyway, an alien explorer who they’ve determined to stay behind a range of their kitchen, and a not too long ago liberated, unusually engaging Borg (Jeri Ryan) who spends her time standing round in a cargo bay or sitting in entrance of a map someplace within the bowels of the ship.
In fact, the present shortly realized how nice these characters have been, leading to a gentle weight-reduction plan of episodes centered round The Physician, Neelix, and afterward Seven of 9. However since they aren’t actually answerable for something, it’s laborious to maintain inventing excuses for the ship’s prepare dinner to go on away missions.
Star Trek Voyager’s Squandered Premise
The present’s inconsistent forged of characters is a facet impact of a a lot bigger drawback: they by no means knew what to do with their premise. It’s a very good premise, one that would have revitalized all the Star Trek universe by turning it on its head.
A by-the-numbers Starfleet vessel is stranded so far-off from house that it’ll take them 70 years to get again. They don’t have any sources, they don’t know the place they’re, and when half their crew is killed, they’re pressured to switch them with a bunch of rebellious, borderline area pirates and make them their bunkmates.
How does Voyager reply to this predicament? They determine to faux they’re nonetheless in Starfleet and maintain doing every thing by the guide.
These insurgent marauders, the Maquis? By episode two, they’re just about indistinguishable from each different Starfleet officer on the ship. They placed on the uniform and comply with the principles. Except for the occasional plotline involving the holodeck, the variations between them and the precise Starfleet crew are not often talked about once more.
Essentially the most irritating factor about Voyager is that they used a present a couple of stranded ship in determined circumstances to inform tales that would have been instructed on nearly any previous episode of Star Trek. Moderately than being a staple of the tales they selected to inform, the Voyager crew’s predicament is extra like a sidebar that the present’s writers cease to revisit at any time when they don’t appear to have something higher to do.
Expertise Babble
Among the many record of issues Voyager’s writers would somewhat do than handle the present’s central premise is to spend time on the holodeck. In truth, Voyager spent extra time on the holodeck than nearly every other Star Trek has earlier than or since. Moderately than coping with the true world, most of the present’s episodes contain holographic worlds the place the crew battles B-movie sci-fi villains, engages in Klingon rituals, or sometimes has intercourse with holographic Irish bartenders.
Hey, she could also be a Captain, however Kathryn Janeway remains to be a lady with wants, wants which she meets with a futuristic intercourse doll whereas sporting quite a lot of frilly clothes. The issue isn’t solely the present’s overuse of the holodeck; it’s their overuse of practically each technological marvel they suppose followers may love.
All too typically, Star Trek: Voyager feels extra like fan service than an precise storytelling venue. Replicators are used a lot, they grow to be much less know-how than magic. They’re the moment answer to any drawback, issues which could have been extra attention-grabbing in the event that they couldn’t be solved by pushing a button. Operating out of shuttles? No drawback, we’ll replicate a dozen extra so you’ll be able to blow them up once more. Want one thing to eat? Replicate it! Operating out of alternative components? Replicate them!
Different Trek technological staples get overused, too, whether or not it’s the transporters, the turbolift, the warp engine, or the ship’s sensors. Sooner or later, all that once-marvelous know-how turns into so overused that it loses any and all that means. It stops changing into know-how and turns into a collection of magic MacGuffins the writers use at any time when they get lazy.
The Legacy Of Star Trek Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager’s legacy is the story of final alternative paired with inconsistent execution. Voyager had nice moments, however most of all, it had potential. Plenty of it. It may have been the very best of Star Trek, and as a substitute changed into one thing that by no means fairly was what it deserved to be, and the place the place the franchise began to fracture.