Star Trek: Voyager's take on the Star Trek universe existed on screen for seven seasons,
and along the way, there was a lot more happening behind the scenes than you know. From the
show’s impressive impact to some crazy drama between actors, here’s the untold truth
of Star Trek: Voyager.
Paramount used Star Trek: Voyager to help launch its new mini-network United Paramount
Network, or UPN, in January 1995. UPN only had a few shows when it launched, and only
aired on Monday and Tuesday nights between 8 PM and 10 PM. That same month, Voyager was
joined by the sitcom Pig Sty, comedian Richard Jeni'sPlatypus Man, the Richard Grieco action/drama
Marker, and the sci-fi/Western series Legend.
Voyager's "Caretaker" was UPN's first telecast on January 16, 1995, and 21.3 million viewers
tuned in. Of the network's five launch series, Voyager was the only program to survive its
first year. Yes, believe it or not, even a winner like Platypus Man got the ax.
Voyager went on to outlive other early UPN series like The Sentinel, the sci-fi drama
Nowhere Man, and the hit teen sitcom Moesha. Voyager was also the only early UPN series
to last seven seasons.
When it came time to cast Captain Janeway, Voyager's casting team looked at a lot of
actresses. Among the candidates was Linda Hamilton of the Terminator films, Susan Gibney
who'd played the recurring role of Doctor Leah Brahms on Star Trek: The Next Generation,
and Buck Rogers alum Erin Gray. Despite the competition, the role eventually went to Canadian
actress Geneviève Bujold.
However, Bujold didn't last long, quitting just a day and a half into production. Voyager
co-creator Rick Berman said of Bujold's departure,
"This was a woman who, in no way, was going to be able to deal with the rigors of episodic
television."
Documentaries like What We Left Behind and The Captains include cast and crew talking
about 16-hour work days, so it's tough to blame Bujold too much for abandoning ship.
Kate Mulgrew was then cast in the role she'd keep for the show's run.
"Do you like the Ferengi?"
"I do like it very much."
"Why? The Ferengi!"
"That one?"
"That's a Ferengi!"
Star Trek has helped launch plenty of acting careers, and Voyager gave an early role to
someone known today for blockbuster action flicks. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, still mostly
known as a WWF wrestler in those days, made one of his first non-wrestling television
appearances in the Voyager season six episode "Tsunkatse."
While the rest of the crew is enjoying shore leave, Tim Russ's Tuvok and Jeri Ryan's Seven
of Nine take a shuttle to examine a nearby nebula. On the way, they're attacked and captured
by aliens running a popular fighting arena. Tuvok is badly injured, and the arena's owner
uses the injured Vulcan as leverage to make Seven fight for him. Her first opponent is
the Rock, who plays an unnamed Pendari champion.
In a fun fourth wall-breaking moment, the Rock gives his signature eyebrow raise to
the crowd before defeating Seven in the ring.
Most Trek fans have their own pick for their favorite Trek series. So if a Trek fan ever
tells you that everyone loves or hates one series or other, never believe them. We're
not trying to tell you Voyager is the best Star Trek show, but some numbers have revealed
something interesting about the series' enduring popularity.
In 2017, Netflix reviewed data from over 100 million subscribers in almost 200 countries
to figure which episodes of Star Trek were watched the most. At the time, Netflix carried
all the franchise's series produced between Star Trek: The Original Series and the 2005
finale of Star Trek: Enterprise. Netflix didn't count first or second episodes, because those
generally have more views than others.
Voyager and The Next Generation were the only two series with episodes in the top ten most
watched, and of those ten episodes, six belonged to Voyager. Those six episodes help to prove
the lasting popularity of both the Borg and Voyager season four newcomer, Seven of Nine.
Most of the six episodes are very Seven and Borg-centric. They include the series finale
"Endgame," the two-part "Scorpion" and "Dark Frontiers," and "The Gift," which is the episode
immediately following Seven's first appearance.
Behind the scenes, Mulgrew resented the addition of Seven of Nine, whose good looks helped
boost Voyager's ratings. On 2013's Girl on Guy podcast, Ryan talked about feeling physically
ill at the thought of doing scenes with a particular Voyager co-star. She didn't name
Mulgrew, but she mentioned details making it clear it could be none other.
While researching his book The Fifty-Year Mission, co-writer Ed Gross looked into the
feud and got more answers than he expected. One unnamed cast member claimed Mulgrew tried
to enforce a rule that Ryan wouldn't be allowed to use the bathroom during work because it
took too long to get her in and out of costume.
Harry Kim actor Garrett Wang said Mulgrew's anger wasn't initially directed toward Ryan,
but once it was, the effect on set was awful. Chakotay actor Robert Beltran told Gross,
"If it was me being insulted and Kate was a man, I probably would have taken a swipe
at the guy."
To her credit, the Voyager captain owned up her behavior toward Ryan. Mulgrew told Gross,
"This is on me, not Jeri Ryan. I'd hoped against hope that Janeway would be sufficient. That
we didn't have to bring a beautiful, sexy girl in."
One of the more prominent recurring characters on Voyager was Ensign Samantha Wildman, played
by Nancy Hower. Voyager's unexpected journey to the Delta Quadrant separated the pregnant
Ensign Wildman from her husband by about 70,000 light years. On the bright side, her half-alien
daughter, Naomi, eventually turned into another Voyager fan favorite, becoming close friends
with Ethan Phillips' Neelix, and even the emotionally aloof Seven of Nine.
Interestingly, Samantha Wildman's name has a special meaning. Wildman first appeared
in the second season episode "Elogium," co-written by Jimmy Diggs. The same year he sold the
script, Diggs' wife almost died. A kidney transplant saved her life, and Diggs learned
the donor was a seven-year-old girl named Samantha.
He wrote a letter to Voyager's producers, asking them to name the episode's new character
"Samantha".
"Congratulations, Samantha."
Diggs wrote,
"The ancient Greeks believed the gods would reward heroic mortals by placing them in the
stars. By honoring the memory of this child, the producers of Star Trek will accomplish
the same thing."
One of the more popular characters on Voyager was also its best source of comic relief:
The Doctor played by Robert Picardo. The Doctor is an Emergency Medical Hologram meant only
for short-term use, but his job gets much more involved when Voyager's human doctor
dies after the ship is thrown into the Delta Quadrant.
Speaking to startrek.com in January 2020, Picardo explained a special spontaneous moment
from his audition. After reading the last scripted line,
"I believe someone has failed to terminate my program,"
Picardo improvised with,
"I'm a doctor, not a nightlight."
Picardo said the line yielded big laughs on set. What makes the ad-libbed line funny is
its similarity to lines from Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, from Star Trek's original run. Actor
DeForest Kelley frequently delivered variations of "I'm a doctor, not a-", but Picardo apparently
had no idea. He said,
"I faked my way through the audition and ad-libbed a DeForest Kelley joke without knowing it
was a DeForest Kelley joke."
"I am a doctor, not a voyeur!"
Tim Russ actually had a few Trek one-off gigs before landing the role of Security Chief
Tuvok on Voyager. On Deep Space Nine, he's a Klingon mercenary who helps take the station
hostage in the episode "Invasive Procedures". In The Next Generation's "Starship Mine,"
he's one of a group of criminals trying to steal trilithium resin from the Enterprise.
In 1994's Star Trek: Generations, Russ plays a lieutenant on the bridge of the Enterprise-B
in the film's opening.
But before he did any of that work, he auditioned for the part of Geordi La Forge on The Next
Generation. Speaking to Trek Movie Dot Com in 2018, Russ said he was ultimately relieved
to have lost the Geordi role to Levar Burton. Why? The dialogue. Russ explained,
"The role [of Tuvok] was somewhat more organic and much easier in terms of dialogue. I am
glad I didn't get stuck with all that engineering tech talk. That kind of dialogue doesn't do
anything for me."
Russ also had the distinction of getting to appear in one of the few episodes in which
Voyager characters could cross over into other series. Tuvok shows up in the Deep Space Nine
episode "Through the Looking Glass," though it's not quite the same Tuvok. The episode
takes place in the mirror universe first made famous by Star Trek: The Original Series'
"Mirror, Mirror." This Tuvok appears as a member of the Terran resistance fighting against
the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance.
One of Voyager's recurring characters was Ensign Vorik, played by Alexander Enberg.
Vorik is a Vulcan engineer who often worked closely with B'Elanna Torres, played by Roxann
Dawson. Vorik develops a romantic interest in B'Elanna with violent consequences.
In perhaps Vorik's most memorable appearance, the season three episode "Blood Fever", Vorik
experiences the Vulcan mating period and chooses B'Elanna as his mate. He forms a telepathic
connection with B'Elanna, causing her violent Klingon mating instincts to emerge. The situation
ends in a duel between B'Elanna and Vorik, which both thankfully survive.
Between 1997 and 2001, Enberg appeared in nine episodes of Voyager as Vorik, but it
wasn't the first time he appeared in a Trek show or even the first time he appeared as
a Vulcan. Enberg was cast as a Vulcan named Taurik in "The Lower Decks," an episode in
the middle of The Next Generation's final season focusing on the Enterprise's rank and
file.
With Enberg not only playing Vulcans on both shows, but with both characters sharing rhyming
names, some fans have wondered if there could be a connection between Vorik and Taurik.
According to Voyager co-creator Jeri Taylor, who also happens to be Enberg's mother, there
could be. In the 2012 book Star Trek: The Next Generation Three-Sixty-Five, Taylor implies
Taurik and Vorik may very well be twin brothers. And since she's their mother, we guess she
would know.
As Voyager's first officer, Commander Chakotay is often forced to tell Captain Janeway things
she doesn't want to hear. Fittingly, actor Robert Beltran was known for speaking his
mind on what he likes and doesn't like about Voyager, regardless of the consequences. By
2000, Beltran had aired enough dirty laundry in public that producer Kenneth Biller told
SFX Magazine that he thought the actor, quote, "should stop whining and do his job."
Speaking to startrek.com in 2012, Beltran talked about not feeling fulfilled on Voyager.
He complained,
"You're doing the same thing every week, with a new variation. I didn't like some of the
things that were going towards the last three years, and I risked being fired because I
wasn't happy creatively."
According to Beltran, Chakotay didn't have a lot of interesting relationships after the
departure of Martha Hackett's Seska, his former lover who's eventually revealed to be a Cardassian.
Beltran revealed,
"After Seska left, it was only that relationship with the captain that had depth to it. Chakotay
and the other characters, there wasn't much of a relationship there."
And Beltran has one problem with Trek that a lot of fans might consider downright heresy.
Beltran hates the Prime Directive, the Starfleet principle that forbids interference in alien
civilizations for any reason. In 2016, he told CNET,
"The idea of leaving any species to die in its own filth when you have the ability to
help them, it's a bunch of fascist crap."
Years after the series' run, it can be easy to forget how important it was in 1995 for
a woman to be leading a Star Trek series. Today we're growing accustomed to female-led
action films and series, including Star Wars epics and superhero blockbusters. But in the
mid-90's, it was still a big deal, especially in science fiction. Mulgrew left an important
mark on our culture, and it's felt far beyond the world of television.
Speaking to Trek Movie in 2019 about the 25th anniversary of Voyager, Mulgrew was asked
about highly visible female politicians like Stacey Abrams and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
who'd named Captain Janeway as an early influence.
Mulgrew said she made a surprise appearance at one of Ocasio-Cortez's rallies, and that
when they announced Mulgrew,
"[Ocasio-Cortez] gasped, she turned. And when I approached her, I think she kind of fell."
Mulgrew said Ocasio-Cortez related stories of watching Voyager as a child and that "when
they lost their screen — they had bad reception in their house, and often the television was
just black and white — she'd listen to it, like a radio show."
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