Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager is an American science fiction television series created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Jeri Taylor. It originally aired from January 16, 1995, to May 23, 2001, on UPN, lasting for 172 episodes over seven seasons. It is the fifth series in the "Star Trek" franchise. Set in the 24th century, when Earth is part of a United Federation of Planets, it follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS "Voyager" as it attempts to return home to the Alpha Quadrant after being stranded in the Delta Quadrant on the far side of the  Milky Way galaxy. Paramount Pictures commissioned the series following the termination of "" to accompany the ongoing "". They wanted it to help launch UPN, their newly established network. Berman, Piller, and Taylor devised the series to chronologically overlap with "Deep Space Nine" and to maintain thematic continuity with elements that had been introduced in "The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine." The complex relationship between Starfleet and ex-Federation colonists known as the Maquis was one such element and a persistent central theme. "Voyager" was the first "Star Trek" series to feature a female commanding officer, Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew ), as the lead character. Berman served as head executive producer in charge of the overall production, assisted by a series of executive producers: Piller, Taylor, Brannon Braga, and Kenneth Biller. Set in a different part of the galaxy from preceding "Star Trek" shows, "Voyager" gave the series' writers space to introduce new alien species as recurring characters, namely the Kazon, Vidiians, Hirogen, and Species 8472. During the later seasons, the Borg—a species created for "The Next Generation"—were introduced as the main antagonists. During "Voyager"'s run, various episode novelisations and tie-in video games were produced; after it ended , various novels continued the series narrative. Production. Development. As "" ended, Paramount Pictures wanted to continue to have a second "Star Trek" TV series to accompany "". The studio also planned to start a new television network, and wanted the new series to help it succeed. This was reminiscent of Paramount's earlier plans to launch its own network by showcasing "" in 1977. Initial work on "Star Trek: Voyager" began in 1993, when the seventh and final season of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and the second season of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" were in production. Seeds for "Voyager"s backstory, including  the development of the Maquis, were placed in several "The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine" episodes. "Voyager" was shot on the stages "The Next Generation" had used, and where the "Voyager" pilot "" was shot in September 1994. Costume designer Robert Blackman decided that the uniforms of "Voyager"s crew would be the same as those on "Deep Space Nine". "Star Trek: Voyager" was the first "Star Trek" series to use computer-generated imagery (CGI), rather than models, for exterior space shots. "Babylon 5" and "seaQuest DSV" had previously used CGI to avoid the expense of models, but the "Star Trek  television department continued using models because they felt they were more realistic. Amblin Imaging won an Emmy for Voyager"s opening CGI title visuals, but the weekly episode exteriors were captured with hand-built miniatures of "Voyager", its shuttlecraft, and other ships. This changed when "Voyager" went fully CGI for certain types of shots midway through season three (late 1996). Foundation Imaging was the studio responsible for special effects during "Babylon 5"s first three seasons. Season three's "" was the first episode to use Foundation's effects exclusively. "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" began using Foundation Imaging in conjunction with Digital  Muse in season six. In its later seasons, "Voyager" featured visual effects from Foundation Imaging and Digital Muse. The digital effects were produced at standard television resolution and some have speculated that it cannot be re-released in HD format without re-creating the special effects. However, "Enterprise" has been released in HD, but the special effects were rendered in 480p and upscaled. Music. Unlike "The Next Generation", where composer Jerry Goldsmith's theme from "" was reused, Goldsmith composed and conducted an entirely new main theme for "Voyager". As done with "The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine", a  soundtrack album of the series' pilot episode "Caretaker" and a CD single containing three variations of the main theme were released by Crescendo Records in 1995 between seasons one and two. In 1996, the theme was also released as piano solo songbook. In 2017, La-La Land Records issued "Star Trek: Voyager Collection, Volume 1", a four-disc limited-edition release containing Goldsmith's theme music and tracks from Jay Chattaway's "Rise", "Night", the two-parter "Equinox", "Pathfinder", "Spirit Folk", "The Haunting of Deck Twelve", "Shattered", "The Void", and the two-parter "Scorpion"; Dennis McCarthy's "The 37's , the two-parter Basics", "The Q and the Gray", "Concerning Flight", "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy", and the two-parters "Workforce" and "Year of Hell", David Bell's "Dark Frontier", and Paul Baillargeon's "Lifesigns". In 2020, "Newsweek" magazine said that the "Voyager" theme by Goldsmith, was the best of all "Star Trek" television series' themes. The article elaborates, "..."Voyager" recaptures some of the spacey ethereality of Courage's original vocal melody, while adding a deep space resonance that evoked the series' lost explorers, far from home among uncharted stars." Behind the scenes. In August 2015, the main cast members (except  Jennifer Lien, who retired from acting in 2002) appeared together onstage in Las Vegas for the 20th anniversary of "Star Trek: Voyager" at the 2015 Las Vegas "Star Trek" convention. Robert Duncan McNeill (Paris) and Roxann Dawson (Torres) went on to direct episodes of "Star Trek: Enterprise", while Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, and Andrew Robinson (Garak of "Deep Space Nine") all directed episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager". "Star Trek" actors directing has been popular in this franchise, pioneered by Leonard Nimoy (famous for playing Spock in the first Star Trek), who got into directing and had this job for the  third and fourth "Star Trek" theatrical films. The sets used for USS "Voyager" were reused for the "Deep Space Nine" episode "" for her sister ship USS "Bellerophon" (NCC-74705), both of which are "Intrepid"-class starships. The sickbay set of USS "Voyager" was also used as the "Enterprise"-E sickbay in the films "" and "". Additionally, the "Voyager" ready room and the engineering set were also used as rooms aboard the "Enterprise-"E in "Insurrection". Production of episodes ran from June/July to March/April each year, with one episode typically taking about 7 days to shoot. Shooting started at 7 am each weekday and  continued until finished for the day. The pilot (first) episode, "Caretaker" took 31 days to shoot and was one of the most expensive TV Pilots shot at the time. Plot overview. In the pilot episode, "", departs the Deep Space Nine space station on a mission into the treacherous Badlands. They are searching for a missing ship piloted by a team of Maquis rebels, which "Voyager"s security officer, the Vulcan Lieutenant Tuvok, has secretly infiltrated. While in the Badlands, "Voyager" is enveloped by a powerful energy wave that kills several of its crew, damages the ship, and strands it in the  galaxy's Delta Quadrant, more than 70,000 light-years from Earth. The wave was not a natural phenomenon. In fact, it was used by an alien entity known as the Caretaker to pull "Voyager" into the Delta Quadrant. The Caretaker is responsible for the continued care of the Ocampa, a race of aliens native to the Delta Quadrant, and has been abducting other species from around the galaxy in an effort to find a successor. The Maquis ship was also pulled into the Delta Quadrant, and eventually the two crews reluctantly agree to join forces after the Caretaker space station  is destroyed in a pitched space battle with another local alien species, the Kazon. Chakotay, leader of the Maquis group, becomes "Voyager"s first officer. B'Elanna Torres, a half-human/half-Klingon Maquis, becomes chief engineer. Tom Paris, whom Janeway released from a Federation prison to help find the Maquis ship, is made "Voyager"s helm officer. Due to the deaths of the ship's entire medical staff, the Doctor, an emergency medical hologram designed only for short-term use, is employed as the ship's full-time chief medical officer. Delta Quadrant natives Neelix, a Talaxian scavenger, and Kes, a young  Ocampa, are welcomed aboard as the ship's chef/morale officer and the Doctor's medical assistant, respectively. Due to its great distance from Federation space, the Delta Quadrant is unexplored by Starfleet, and "Voyager" is truly going where no human has gone before. As they set out on their projected 75-year journey home, the crew passes through regions belonging to various species: the barbaric and belligerent Kazon; the organ-harvesting, disease-ravaged Vidiians; the nomadic hunter race the Hirogen; the fearsome Species 8472 from fluidic space; and most notably the Borg, whose home is the Delta Quadrant, so  that "Voyager" has to move through large areas of Borg-controlled space in later seasons. They also encounter perilous natural phenomena, a nebulous area called the Nekrit Expanse ("", third season), a large area of empty space called the Void ("", fifth season), wormholes, dangerous nebulae and other anomalies. "Voyager" is the third "Star Trek" series to feature Q, an omnipotent alien—and the second on a recurring basis, as Q made only one appearance on "". Starfleet Command learns of "Voyager"s survival when the crew discovers an ancient interstellar communications network, claimed by the Hirogen, into which they can tap. This relay  network is later disabled, but due to the efforts of Earth-based Lieutenant Reginald Barclay, Starfleet eventually establishes regular contact in the season-six episode "", using a communications array and micro-wormhole technology. In the first two episodes of the show's fourth season, Kes leaves the ship in the wake of an extreme transformation of her mental abilities, while Seven of Nine (known colloquially as Seven), a Borg drone who was assimilated as a six-year-old human girl, is liberated from the collective and joins the "Voyager" crew. As the series progresses, Seven begins to regain her humanity  with the ongoing help of Captain Janeway, who shows her that emotions, friendship, love, and caring are more important than the sterile "perfection" the Borg espouse. The Doctor also becomes more human-like, due in part to a mobile holo-emitter the crew obtains in the third season which allows the Doctor to leave the confines of sickbay. He discovers his love of music and art, which he demonstrates in the episode "". In the sixth season, the crew discovers a group of adolescent aliens assimilated by the Borg, but prematurely released from their maturation chambers due to a malfunction on  their Borg cube. As he did with Seven of Nine, the Doctor rehumanizes the children; , three of them eventually find a new adoptive home while the fourth, , chooses to stay aboard "Voyager." Life for the "Voyager" crew evolves during their long journey. Traitors and are uncovered in the early months ("", ""); loyal crew members are lost late in the journey; and other wayward Starfleet officers are integrated into the crew. In the second season, the first child is born aboard the ship to Ensign Samantha Wildman; as she grows up, Naomi Wildman becomes great friends with her godfather, Neelix, and develops  an unexpected and close relationship with Seven of Nine. Early in the seventh season, Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres marry after a long courtship, and Torres gives birth to their child, , in the series finale. Late in the seventh season, the crew finds a colony of Talaxians on a makeshift settlement in an asteroid field, and Neelix chooses to bid "Voyager" farewell and live once again among his people. Over the course of the series, the "Voyager" crew finds various ways to reduce their 75-year journey by up to five decades (baring any other delays they may encounter): shortcuts , in the episodes "Year of Hell", "" and ""; technology boosts in "", "Dark Frontier", "" and "Hope and Fear"; a subspace corridor in ""; and a mind-powered push from a powerful former shipmate in "". Several other trip-shortening attempts are unsuccessful, as seen in the episodes "", "", "Future's End", "", and "". After traveling for seven years, a current (yet returning) shipmate helps instigate a series of complex efforts which shortens the remainder of the journey to a few minutes in the series finale, "". Notable guest appearances. Actors. Source material: Connections with other "Star Trek" incarnations. Characters and races. As with other "Star Trek" series , the original "Star Trek"s Vulcans, Klingons, and Romulans appear in "Star Trek: Voyager". "Voyager" had appearances by several other races who initially appear in "The Next Generation": the Q, the Borg, Cardassians, Bajorans, Betazoids, and Ferengi, along with "Deep Space Nine"s Jem'Hadar (via hologram), as well as the Maquis resistance movement, previously established in episodes of "The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine". One notable connection between "Voyager" and "The Next Generation" appears regarding a wormhole and the Ferengi. In "The Next Generation" season-three episode "", bidding takes place for rights to a wormhole. The Ferengi send a delegation to  the bidding. When the "Enterprise" and Ferengi vessel each send shuttles into the wormhole, they appear in the Delta Quadrant, where the Ferengi shuttle becomes trapped. In the "Voyager" season-three episode "False Profits", the Ferengi who were trapped have since landed on a nearby planet, and begun exploiting the inhabitants for profit. Actors from other "Star Trek" incarnations appearing on "Voyager". In some cases, the actors play the same character as elsewhere, such as Dwight Schultz who plays Reginald Barclay. In other cases, the same actors play different characters. List of episodes. The series consists of 172 episodes, all  45 minutes in length, excluding advertisement breaks. Four episodes, "Caretaker", "Dark Frontier", "Flesh and Blood" and "Endgame" originally aired as 90 minute episodes (excluding advertisement breaks). In syndication these four episodes are each split into two episodes (45 minutes in length). Tie-in media. Novels. A total of 26 numbered books were released during the series' original run from 1995 to 2001. They include novelizations of the first episode, "Caretaker", "The Escape", "Violations", "Ragnarok", and novelizations of the episodes "Flashback", "Day of Honor", "Equinox" and "Endgame". Also, "unnumbered books", which are still part of the series, were released, though not  part of the official release. These novels consist of episode novelizations except for "Caretaker", "Mosaic" (a biography of Kathryn Janeway), "Pathways" (a novel in which the biography of various crew members, including all of the senior staff, is given); and "The Nanotech War", a novel released in 2002, one year after the series' finale. Book relaunch. A series of novels focusing on the continuing adventures of "Voyager" following the television series finale was implemented in 2003, much as Pocket Books did with the novel series, which features stories placed after the finale of that show. In the relaunch, several characters  are reassigned while others are promoted but stay aboard "Voyager". These changes include Janeway's promotion to admiral, Chakotay becoming captain of "Voyager" and breaking up with Seven of Nine, Tuvok leaving the ship to serve as tactical officer under William Riker, and Tom Paris's promotion to first officer on the "Voyager". The series also introduces several new characters. The series began with "Homecoming" and "The Farther Shore" in 2003, a direct sequel to the series' finale, "Endgame". These were followed in 2004 by "Spirit Walk: Old Wounds" and "Spirit Walk: Enemy of My Enemy". Under the direction of  a new author, 2009 brought forth two more additions to the series: "Full Circle" and "Unworthy". In 2011, another book by the same author called "Children of the Storm" was released. Other novels—some set during the relaunch period, others during the show's broadcast run—have been published. Video games. Three video games based specifically on "Voyager" were released: "" for PC (2000) and PS2 (2001), the arcade game "" (2002) and "" (2003), a sequel to "Elite Force". The PS2 game "" (2006) also features the ship and characters from the show. "Voyager" was a graphic adventure video game developed by Looking  Glass Technologies but it was cancelled in 1997. "Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force" drew revenues of $15 million and sold roughly 300,000 units worldwide by 2003. Reception. Broadcast history. "Star Trek: Voyager" launched on UPN with repeats entering into syndication. The two hour long debut "" was seen by 21.3 million people in January 1995. <onlyinclude> </onlyinclude> The series is available, Sunday through Friday evenings, on the broadcast network Heroes and Icons (handitv.com). It is also available for streaming in the United States on Paramount+, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Netflix. Critical response. In 2016, in  a listing that included each "Star Trek" film and TV series separately, Voyager was ranked 6th by the "L.A. Times". In 2017, Vulture ranked "Star Trek: Voyager" the 4th best live-action "Star Trek" television show, prior to "". In 2019, Nerdist ranked this show the 5th best Star Trek series, in between "Enterprise" and "Star Trek: Discovery". Also in 2019, MovieFone ranked it the fifth best live-action Star Trek series. In 2019, CBR ranked Season 5 the 4th best season of a "Star Trek" show, and Season 4, the 8th best. In 2019, Popular Mechanics ranked "Star Trek: Voyager  the 36th best science fiction television show ever. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the show a rating of 77% overall of the seven seasons based on 49 reviews. Metacritic gives Star Trek: Voyager" a score of 66 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". In 2021, Variety ranked it the fourth best installment of "Star Trek", counting series and movies together, placing it ahead of all television series to-date except the original. Cultural influence. "Voyager" is notable for being the most gender-balanced "Star Trek" series with the first female lead character and strong female  supporting characters, with a review of the different series giving "Voyager" the highest Bechdel test rating. In an article about "Voyager", Ian Grey wrote: "It was a rare heavy-hardware science fiction fantasy not built around a strong man, and more audaciously, it didn't seem to trouble itself over how fans would receive this. On "Voyager", female authority was assumed and unquestioned; women conveyed sexual power without shame and anger without guilt. Even more so than "Buffy", which debuted two years later, it was the most feminist show in American TV history." About her years on "Voyager", Kate Mulgrew  said: "The best thing was simply the privilege and the challenge of being able to take a shot at the first female captain, transcending stereotypes that I was very familiar with. I was able to do that in front of millions of viewers. That was a remarkable experience—and it continues to resonate." In 2015, astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti tweeted the line from the Voyager TV show about coffee, from the International Space Station. The station was getting a shipment of supplies which triggered a chance to say how coffee really was in the incoming spacecraft (a Dragon cargo spacecraft). The  spacecraft was carrying the ISSpresso machine which really would allow coffee beverages to be made aboard the real-life Space Station. The popular tweet was accompanied by her wearing a Star Trek uniform also. Home media. The series was released on DVD in 2004 and again in 2017. In addition to the episodes, the DVDs also include some extra videos related to the show. There was an extra bonus video with the DVD set from the store Best Buy in 2004. "Voyager" had releases of episodes on VHS format, such as a collectors set with a special display box for  the tapes. By the 2010s, the episodes were made available on various streaming services including the owners CBS All Access In 2016 Netflix made an agreement with CBS for worldwide distribution of all then existing 727 "Star Trek" episodes (including Voyager). "Voyager" has 172 episodes and has been reviewed as a binge watch, with the whole series taking about three months, as rate of two episodes per day on weekdays and three episodes per day on weekends. As of 2015 services known to carry the series include Netflix, Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, and CBS.com. "Star Trek: Voyager" has not  been remastered in high definition and there are no plans to do so, due to the costs of reassembling each episode from the film negatives and recreating visual effects. Awards and nominations. "Voyager" won 20 different awards and was nominated for 70. In 1995 for example, Jerry Goldsmith won an Emmy award for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Main Title Theme Music" and the series also won an Emmy for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Special Visual Effects." The following episodes won Emmy awards, "Caretaker", "Threshold", "Fair Trade", "Dark Frontier", and "Endgame". Cast Reunion. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in  May 2020, the cast of "Voyager" reunited for a live virtual event. The reunion broke the "Stars in the House" single-episode fundraising record, drawing donations totaling $19,225 for The Actors Fund's efforts to assist entertainment professionals in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. The previous "Stars in the House" record was set by a "Glee" reunion episode that raised $13,910. Documentary. In 2021, plans for a "Star Trek: Voyager" documentary made news when it raised over $638,000 in the first two weeks of its Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. The film is being produced by 455 Films which  also produced the 2018 reunion documentary "What We Left Behind" about "," as well as other documentaries. Production of the film started in 2020 and included cast member interviews prior to kicking off crowdfunding to take the film to full production. By the end of March 2021 they had raised over $1.2 million from over 11 thousand donators to make it the most funded crowdfunded documentary ever, and announced the name "To The Journey: Looking Back At Star Trek: Voyager" for the documentary, which will include HD remastered footage (pending approval from ViacomCBS). The fundraising campaign was noted for getting  support from Nana Visitor, Kate Mulgrew, William Shatner, Jonathan Frakes, and others.