Star Trek Voyager... The Documentary You've Been Waiting For!

Space literally it means nothing a vacuum between stars and planets but by the same token it means everything for those of us who've made space our home in 1995 21.3 million homes tuned in to see Star Trek's first female captain on the opening night of a brand new television network Star Trek Voyager would have nearly 6 million more people watch its Premiere than star the Next Generation had but it was the incredible success of the Next Generation that allowed Paramount to create Voyager as the third Star Trek spin-off Series in 8 years airing mostly alongside

its sister series Deep Space 9 Voyager may have sailed high on its Premiere but for Seven Seasons the show and its crew would fight an attrition of viewers while serving as the guinea pig Flagship show of the newly created United Paramount network from its difficulty casting a captain to the writers being able to create Star Trek stories 70,000 light years from home to surviving a cast Edition with historic sex appeal and finally finding a satisfactory way to get Voyager home The cast and the crew of this Star Trek show would end up navigating perilous Lighty

years to steer the series to a successful conclusion and while taking on its fair share of criticism is something less than the shows that came before it Voyager usually lands in the middle of the pack when it comes to ranking Star Trek series But as time has passed many Star Trek fans are beginning to see Voyager as the show that may have embodied the ideals of Starfleet more than any other with characters so beloved fans have cheered their crossover into a new era of the franchise what happened in the mid 1990s that created a legacy

Star Trek fans are still celebrating today what is the true story behind a show that had everything working against it but still managed to have an indominable spirit that blazed a path into Star Trek history well you were about to find out this is the definitive history of Star Trek Voyager and you've never heard it told like this before Mr Paris set a course for home and if you haven't already subscribed to our Channel please do so now and give us a thumbs up if you want more videos like this and stay tuned until later

where we'll Share a cool opportunity from this video sponsor draftking Sportsbook also stay tuned to the end to see how you can support the channel and get these one-of-a-kind collector's edition mugs coffee and apparel designs now back to the show set a new course there's coffee in that nebula before Star Trek Voyager premiered on January 16th 1995 seeds for the show had been planted unknowingly before the watchful eyes of Star Trek fans remember the freedom fighting Maki from Deep Space 9 and the Next Generation Well their inspiration wasn't quite as organic as it seemed it

seems that one disaster after another keeps bringing us back together again but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves we'll get back to that in a moment the initial work on Voyager began in 1993 during the seventh and final season of TNG and the second season of DS9 Paramount Pictures had already decided seven would be the final season for TNG the official word was the studio didn't believe the TV show could succeed if the current crew of the Enterprise were on the big screen but there was also the fact that Patrick Stewart and his

co-stars would be demanding bigger Contracts going into an eighth season you're absolutely right so because the tandem TNG DS9 shows had performed well together the studio wanted to keep that magic going but Paramount also had something else up its sleeve with the tremendous success of both TNG and DS9 as well as Entertainment Tonight the arcenio hall show and other programs the studio wanted to pull the trigger on something they'd been fascinated with since 1978 creating their own television network to compete with the big three ABC CBS and NBC and the successful launch of a fourth

Network FOX in 1986 embolden Paramount even further so just as the 1978 Network launch plan had included having Star Trek phase 2 anchor it the studio wanted its new Star Trek show to be the flagship of its new United Paramount network but at that time no one was making a new Star Trek show without Rick Bur Star Trek's current executive producer had been handpicked as a young Studio vice president by Star Trek Creator Jean Roddenberry himself in early 1987 while he was creating the Next Generation Jean who was known for having an icy relationship with

the studio saw something he Liked in Burman the young man wasn't a trekky and didn't even see his first Star Trek movie until he watched one with Roddenberry which Burman said is one of the reasons Jean liked him he wasn't coming into the temple it was a television series The other thing the Creator loved about him is that Burman was a Hands-On producer just like Jean the young producer had been the director of current programming for Paramount overseeing series such as cheers Family Ties and Webster by the time next Generation launched in the fall of

1987 Roddenberry had made Burman heir to the Star Trek Helm and would tutor him in the ways of the Star Trek universe and Burman was an app student Jean had strict rules about the universe he had created and Rick felt compelled to follow the rotenberry Star Trek Bible even after Jean's passing in 1991 if one of the things you love about the Star Trek franchise across all of its shows and movies is that sense of Hope in the future grounded in the knowledge that the captains we love do the right thing regardless of the cost

to themselves or their crew and that they will always have each other's back that is In large part because of Rick Burman who felt Star Trek would be just Another Science Fiction TV show without the ideals of its creator and that definitely included Star Trek Voyager We're Alone in an Uncharted part of the Galaxy we'll continue to follow our directive to seek out new worlds and explore space just prior to the launch of Deep Space 9 in January 1993 Paramount's research Department had been conducting focus groups around the United States it's something they regularly did

to get a feeling for what Star Trek fans would respond to best in the future and one of the questions they asked was whether they would watch a fourth Star Trek series that ran simultaneously with Deep Space 9 by mid 1993 the studio decided the answer was a yes chairman of Paramount's television group Carrie mcclugage knew how lucky he was to have Star Trek other Studios would have killed to have a franchise that produced multiple hit TV shows while simultaneously earning huge box office revenues mccluggage wasn't about to let the Golden Goose take a break

when he could see the next Golden Egg coming it was with this idea Mccluggage met with Burman about creating a new show that could replace TNG right away Burman who had been running Star Trek on TV for more than 4 years at that point was excited about creating a new show but felt another show would be pushing too much Trek when you considered the feature films in development but mccluggage was adaman so he and Burman had a meeting to discuss a few points that would shape the new series the first was this new show would

be a ship-based show they both agreed that with TNG ending viewers would be left with only a space station show and being out on a ship exploring was the heart and soul of Star Trek track the second thing they both agreed with is that this new show would be contemporary to TNG and DS9 they didn't want it to be set forward or backward in time to ensure the viewers had a sense of familiarity and they could build upon some of the stories and characters they had already created a third issue they discussed was left unresolved

who would sit in the chair DS9 had done so well with Avery Brooks playing Benjamin Cisco and portraying Star Trek's first black Captain in the franchise so Burman thought it was time to Have a woman in the chair easier said than done each Star Trek show is essentially built around the person sitting in the chair and at the time of their conversation there were no female leads in a prime time hourlong action adventure episodic show mccluggage wasn't opposed to a female lead contrary to what a lot of people believe the Studio's hesitation about a female

Captain was not motivated by a male-dominated industry mccluggage was worried about the fan reaction the viewers were mostly men between the ages of 25 and 45 would they accept a woman as a captain in the tradition of Kirk and Bard the studio didn't know and it wasn't sure it wanted to bet the Golden Goose to find out so mccluggage told Burman to keep their options open to anyone regardless of gender he told him to cover all the bases and choose the best Captain whether they were male or female Burman agreed but privately he was convinced

he could find the right woman way starting in July 1993 Burman met in his office with two co-conspirators 4 days a week the meetings were top secret Hush Hush nothing was said to anyone about a new series and these Get togethers were called developmental lunches the notes taken in this meeting were so secret they were put into sealed envelopes and delivered personally by their PAs to the co-conspirators no multiple exchanging of hands the Star Trek family had enough on its plate getting ready for DS9 second season and tg's final it wouldn't help if everyone started

focusing on a new show when they weren't even sure what they wanted to do yet burman's co-conspirators were Michael pillar and Jerry Taylor pill had been his right-hand man showrunning TNG since season 3 and he'd also helped Burman create DS9 and was showrunning that series as well they had just spent an entire year getting a new show off the ground and here they were starting again from scratch so soon with everything going on Burman wanted to bring on a third person to help run Voyager especially a woman to help them develop a female Captain Taylor

had joined TNG in the fourth season as a supervising producer and co-writer before Star Trek she'd written scripts for Little House on the Prairie and the Incredible Hulk Burman thought Taylor would be necessary to help guide A female captain in the chair and promoted her to co-showrunner in the T 's final season while all three co-creators were working on Voyager but before casting anyone in the chair they had to figure out what the show was going to be about the secret meetings went on for about 3 months and lasted 2 or 3 hours a day

as they started building the blueprint for what would become Voyager they already knew they had to create a ship-based story but the problem was how to do that without cloning TNG they knew it had to be a show that embodied the spirit of the Star Trek Experience but it also had to be different pillar brought up old TNG episodes where Q would show up and throw the ship or crew off to a strange part of the universe and by the end of the episode they'd have to get themselves back and that led to a question

that they asked each other what would happen if they couldn't get home that was it they had just spent s years coming up with new stories for TNG so in order to make this new show fresh they decided to cut ties with everything that was familiar no more Starfleet Admirals telling the crew what they could or couldn't do no more romulans or Kling on Are the wonderful array of villains Star Trek fans have come to love and hate the more they discussed it the more excited they became about the possibilities the premise did give them

things to worry about though if the crew were on their way home then story-wise they would rarely be going back to some place they'd already been that would make the writing more difficult but what they were most afraid of was whether fans would like this new idea or whether they would tag it as Star Trek Lost in Space the idea was so intriguing it was worth the risk report we're over 70,000 light years from where we were some of Taylor's early notes during these meetings initially titled the show Star Trek The Journey Home Star Trek

Galaxy's end and Star Trek the return some of the group's first notes included thoughts like we get zaap to the end of the Galaxy and it will take 10 years to get home we explore along the way the Misfits are stuck with us referring to the Maki messages to Starfleet One Way Hollow Mor arti Native American halfbreed a clone or genetic ically engineered being last of a species Man Without a country The birth of an alien that matures rapidly Nick larno and Tasha's sister with an omnipotent being who has lost its powers within the notes

one can definitely see glimpses of what the series would become including the ensemble cast and the story behind the pilot episode Nick larno refers to a character in the first Duty a fifth season episode of TNG larno made a mistake for which he was expelled from Starfleet Academy and ironically or not the actor who guest starred in that role was Robert Duncan mcneel but more on that in a bit the notation about Tasha's sister is in reference to ishara Yar the younger sister of Natasha Yar who was a series regular at the start of TNG

of course they wouldn't end up bringing that character into the story and while they wouldn't include an omnipotent being who lost their powers in the regular cast we would get a great episode where Q's son loses his powers and learns what it means to be human we've temporarily relieved you of your powers the meetings continued for the next few months through September 1993 as the three executive producers gradually sketched out the characters in the Story for the pilot episode new names for the show included the Voyager Return of the Voyager Flight of the Voyager mission

of the Voyager voyager's mission galaxy rim and outer bounds you can see here they were pretty firm on wanting to use Voyager there was also talk of bringing a change link like odo's character into the show they also wanted an older engineer someone they had never seen before perhaps a Black Vulcan who was 170 years old and Embraces that he would be a fountain of wisdom and strength for a young angry assistant engineer they were considering a con officer as a human Klingon combination the female character would want to throw off her Klingon nature finding

it primitive Savage and unattractive of course this would end up being balana and she would go from the con to engineering the executives also fell in love with the idea of having a hollow doctor inspired by tg's second season episodes Elementary dear data and the six season episode ship in a bottle Sherlock Holmes Archen enemy James Mor arti played by the wonderful Daniel Davis becomes a sentient hologram Burman and his team thought they could do The same thing with voyager doctor they initially kicked around the idea of having Dwight Schultz who played Reginal Barkley on

TNG take a leave of absence during the show's final season to put the finishing touches on his doctor hologram which was made in his own image thus allowing Schultz to also be a part of the Caston Voyager but as we know they decided to go another route but let's get back to that in a moment I know exactly who I am and what my purpose is are you sure about that the three felt like they'd come up with a great premise for the show but there was only one problem mccluggage didn't like it he thought

catapulting the Starfleet crew off to another sadron of the Galaxy isolated and cut off from home was a bad idea he thought it sounded Bleak and wouldn't be appealing to viewers but Burman and his co-conspirators felt strongly about what they'd come up with so they convinced him that the show did not have to be Bleak if you love Star Trek Voyager because Jane way fought for Starfleet ideals and her crew followed her throughout the series then it's because of this moment Burman compelled mccluggage explaining that the captain Would Inspire her professional crew and that they

would ensure a hopeful tone throughout the show and it almost worked somewhere along this journey we'll find a way back in the end they had to not only promise the inspirational captain and professional crew but also Implement an escape Clause we had an overall mission get home the studio wanted a way to whisk the crew back to the alpha quadrant quickly in the event viewership was poor and this is what led to the creation of an entity that could sling Starships across the Galaxy at their whim you you would know them as the nine or

the caretaker who assumed responsibility for protecting the Oka as well as his mate susperia who would end up being the real break glass in case of low ratings emergency there's another entity like the caretaker out there somewhere who has the ability to get us there a lot faster there was of course many wormholes around and new alien technology or even Q if they were desperate to get the ship back as it would turn out they would never need it with the premise set and pillar getting ready to work on the PIP script it was time

to set the stage Remember earlier when we said seeds for Voyager had been planted unknowingly before the watchful eyes of Star Trek fans when they realized they wanted to create a renegade crew who was forced to merge with the Starfleet personnel and Voyager the Maki were born the idealistic Freedom Fighters that the Federation saw as Outlaws would be featured in four Maki Centric episodes two on TNG and two on DS9 it was important to Burman that their cause while illegal because of the Kardashian Federation peace treaty be seen as Noble as a result the Maki

became a group of federation colonists caught in the newly established demilitarized zone and refused to dispan even though they are now inside the Kardashian Empire Burman was willing to flirt with the potential for conflict among the new crew but infighting between the crew was not the Roddenberry way so they made sure to get the Mak into to Starfleet uniforms quickly and create a captain who had to pull together the diverse group they're not your people you're treating the Maki on this ship like they're still your crew while Maki tension would pop up from time to

time the Dramatic storytelling never reared its ugly head for Long always embracing hopeful Starfleet ideals commander chakote and I have agreed that this should be one crew a star fet crew in the fall of 1993 still nervous about the possible reception of a female Captain the studio decided to piggy back a few pointed questions during some of the ongoing Deep Space 9 focus groups as a result fans figured out a new series was being developed before Paramount made an official announcement and word that a new Star Trek series called Voyager spread quickly throughout the internet

the word may have been out but the studio got the information they needed according to Tom Maza who was Paramount's Executive Vice President of current programs and strategic planning as well as burman's boss at the time the groups were asked in general who the captain should be and 40 to 50% said it should be a female Captain while encouraged but still not not totally convinced it gave the studio a little more confidence in the groundbreaking move they were about to let Burman make up until Voyager Star Trek had been incredibly important to Paramount the Franchise

had made them $2 billion with the Next Generation bringing in 511 million all on its own so the stakes for Burman and his producers to get Voyager right was high so as it had been with every show before it selecting the captain was the most important part of the process and with a mostly male audience between the ages of 18 and 49 who loved and idolized Kirk Bard and now Cisco Rick Burman was about to take a huge Risk by messing with the formula and while the studio was supporting Burma in the decision they did

insist he keep an open mind to cast a man if the right woman didn't come along it's easy to understand the fear behind taking a risk like this considering how much money was invested and there was an initial backlash from some fans who learned a woman was going to be in the captain's chair of the new show only way the audience would accept a female Captain is if we made her as much of a man as possible the new female Captain lead of Star Trek Voyager wouldn't just be making Star Trek history she would be

one of the few female leads ever in a drama series behind shows like Kagney and Lacy Wonder Woman and the bionic woman when Voyager and what would end up being the character of Captain Katherine janway was being planned it had only been 10 years since Sally Ry became the first woman in space and it would still be another 6 years in 1999 before eileene Collins would be the first woman to command a space mission not to mention that year Carly furina would also become the first woman to be the CEO of a fortune 20 company

at huet Packard while Humanity had made strides in women's rights in the early '90s there was still a general sense that women shouldn't be in charge and yes that even included a woman in the captain's chair of a new Star Trek show AOL chat had comments like why oh why would the producers put a woman in charge of Voyager and do they want it to sink what they need is a Kirk type strong ambitious and full of testosterone one fan even said the show will suck if they have a woman Captain a sign of the

times certainly but Burman who made it a point to make Star Trek from the Bible of Roddenberry knew it was something the Creator would have wanted because he'd already done it before female captains had existed since Star Trek 4 the Voyage Home when Mage Sinclair Played the unamed captain on the USS Saratoga and jeene had tried to break boundaries for women in Star Trek's pilot way back in 1964 when he made magel Barrett the executive officer under Captain Christopher Pike but despite taking place far off in a utopian future where both men and women are

equal 1964 didn't seem ready for it with test audiences reportedly responding negatively to the character and there still wasn't any certainty fans would be ready for a woman in command in the mid90s but Burman knew they could make it work if they had the right woman in the role it was June 1994 the names of women who might play the captain had been tossed around since the previous September and with the August 15th production start date staring them in the face a frenzied search for the next Captain began June became July and July was creeping

into August but they had no one according to pillar every available actress was read or spoken with I mean we read hundreds of people literally they just couldn't find anyone they all agreed on the call sheet was looking for a Lindsay Wagner type who was charismatic and in her early 40s she had a warm Thoughtful face and remarkably attentive eyes that suggest a deep awareness of all that is going on around her just how tough was the role to cast Lindsay Wagner herself despite being the name on the call sheet and The Bionic Woman auditioned

and didn't get cast in the role are you kidding you're not kidding neither did karate chopping Charlie's Angel Kate Jackson nor Terminator butt kicker Linda Hamilton Patty Duke Aaron gray and Tracy Scoggin weren't able to lock down the role either after looking at more than 100 actresses and with time running out at the Studio's request the producers did look at male actors for the part and for a moment seriously considered Gary Graham Graham who had been great in Alien Nation was also in the running for Cisco on DS9 he'd eventually make it into Star Trek

as saval the Vulcan ambassador to Earth and Enterprise in the end the male actor who nearly did get the role of Jane way was British actor Nigel havers from Chariots of Fire but he was in England and couldn't get to the states in time for filming but while the studio was wavering on a female Captain with time running out Burman Piller and Taylor Still felt like the right woman was there they would seriously consider anyone that two of the three felt strongly about Burman was specifically smitten with Susan Gibney who you would remember as Jordi

laforge's misunderstood love interest Dr Lee Broms from two episodes of the Next Generation Burman thought she was a marvelous actress with only 5 days until production was planned to start Burman put Gibney in makeup in a Starfleet uniform and filmed her on the bridge in a scene with Tim Russ and roxand Dawson who would play tuac and balana Torres he took the footage to mccluggage and Maza for approval Gibney was good they agreed but they just thought the 32-year-old actress was too young for the role it was now obvious the start date would not be

met so it was moved to September 6th it was about this time that Kate mgre came in and read for the role Catherine Jane Wayne she had submitted a videotape audition but was unhappy with the performance so she came out to read in person a short time later a veteran of both theater film and episodic television she had a reputation for being a hardworking professional easy to get along with and well thought of by Other cast members Kate didn't know she had a connection with Star Trek from birth she was born with a full set

of teeth in 1955 in debuk Iowa only 85 miles from Captain Kirk's future birth place of Riverside the second oldest of eight children mulu fell in love with acting and wanted to get out of the corn fields of Iowa when she was 17 so in 1972 she was accepted to the Stella Adler Conservatory of acting which was a part of New York University supporting herself by working as a waitress she left NYU only one year later her big break came on the soap opera Ryan's Hope in 1975 that turned into an opportunity to play a

rare female lead in the Columbo spin-off Mrs Columbo in 1979 which only lasted 13 episodes she bounced around for years doing an episode here and there for shows like San elsewhere cheers and Murphy Brown and even had a role in the movie Throw Mama From the train but Star Trek meant perhaps s years of consistent work as it would turn out Burman pillar and Taylor liked her but because of the resistance they were getting from the studio on other actresses they decided not to cast her and continue the search Mulgrew walked Away disappointed she needed

the work she was recently separated from her husband her house was up for sale and she was a 39-year-old single mom trying to raise two children disappointed but not ready to give up following the audition she thought well if they don't pick me it's their loss little did she know how right she would be whatever happened to me I mean where am I just as the list of actresses were running thin and the Sands of The Hourglass were running out someone suggested French Canadian actress Genevie bjo she was attractive the right age and she had

recognition at 54 bold would have been a bit older than the role called for but she was a marquee name that would land well with critics and her acting resume was robust the Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner for 1970s and of a thousand days was a catch for Star Trek she worked side by side with Charlton hon Robert Shaw Michael Douglas and Clint Eastwood she certainly had the experience to sit in the captain's chair nearly everyone including the studio was ecstatic over the idea everyone that is except Rick Burman Burman understood the rigors

on actors making Movies versus those making fast-paced episodic television and he had a suspicion that bold might not be up to the task there was a part of me that knew it wasn't going to work but the two out of three rule held up as pillar and Taylor insisted she was the one and with time running out and the studio salivating over having an award-winning actress Burman went with it but while they wanted her she wasn't sure she wanted the job she didn't even want to audition everybody's on my back about this but nearly everyone

is so convinced that she was the one they wav the audition and sweetened the pot with a 26 episode guarantee so without even reading a line bold got the role but little did she know she'd have to get by a veteran Star Trek TNG director before getting comfortable in the captain's chair it's only one of the Mysteries we're dealing with Mr tuac filming for the pilot caretaker began on September 6th 1994 with wirick Colby in the director's chair if anyone understood how to direct a Star Trek show it was Rick he directed 16 episodes of

TNG including the finale all good things which would be awarded a Hugo in 1995 so The German American director was the obvious choice to lead Voyager out of space he knew exactly what type of character Jane way needed to be and he and bold were about to clash over it once she agreed to be Jane way bold had some strong ideas about the character she insisted that the original character name of Elizabeth be changed to Nicole which was also her first name Taylor recalls being concerned that the people would think the name came from Nicole

Brown Simpson who had recently been murdered with OJ Simpson running from the police in his white Ford Bronco well the trial of the century is over but bold was insistent she was also insistent about not meeting with the media and not having photographers on set which was normal for a Star Trek series she had also been insistent about how her character would be portrayed she didn't want to fuss with her hair and makeup she wanted Jane way to be a captain first and a woman second but she also wanted her to be more of a

cerebral scientist as opposed to a forceful captain on the bridge and that is exactly what came through in the very first scene that she shot with nearly 100 people crowding the set at 9:00 a.m. on September 7th bold came on set and handed a single red rose to Rick and to other crew members they started rehearsing the first scene where Janeway enters the bridge for the first time but kby wasn't happy with the way bold moved he wanted her to step on the bridge as if it were her own living room and take over the

energy that says I am the boss he kept urging her to take over the set but nothing really changed after the first take Colby wasn't happy with it and he didn't feel like he was getting through to her they did take after take but he didn't feel like they were getting anywhere the shoot was already getting behind after more than 15 takes Colby decided to just keep going and when they got to the scene where the captain takes the ship out for the first time buold solemnly walked over to the chair sat down folded her

hands in her lap closed her eyes and said in a small voice engage there was stunned silence on the set for a moment no one moved Colby recovered from his astonishment and yelled cut in an interview with cinem Escape in 1995 Colby explained that he wasn't sure why she took the Role in the first place Burman spoke to her on the phone to make sure she understood what would be expected if she took the job he told her step by step what was expected of her and what it would be like he told her that

television shows have brutal schedules that go on day after day for long hours directors will change scripts will come in last minute and it's not easy for the actors yeah it's Commander line line line and then you're fir Commander because of how late they had gone the night before on September 8 Bol didn't come to the set until 11:00 a.m. buold was standoffish and had only memorized a fraction of her lines Star Trek actors frequently have to learn up to seven pages of lines per day which is something she just wasn't used to doing for

movies the first shot of the morning took 20 takes Colby knew knew he had to talk to her so he went to her trailer according to Star Trek voyagers a vision of the future by Steven Edward Poe bold told Colby that she didn't think she was right for the role but even though things hadn't gone well he still insisted she had the strength inside her and he wanted her to bring that out On the bridge but she insisted she just wanted to be a scientist when he told her yes you're a scientist but also the

captain of the ship she told him that she can't be a Starfleet captain because she just didn't have the strength she just wanted to be herself I've got to get them home Captain when he told her what I'm hearing is that you don't really want to do this part she said this Fair well could be burman's instincts had been right and Colby had to let him know if we had been doing a a motion picture she would have been phenomenal Garrett Wang who played in and Harry Kim would later say that bold told him she

didn't feel like she could trust anyone she said the producers had agreed with her on who she wanted Janeway to be and then went back on what they had agreed on if Colby hadn't known exactly who Jan janway needed to be as a direct result of his Star Trek Experience a mousy Bal Janeway may have ended up staying on the show for its whole run but him recognizing that she lacked the quintessential Captain quality of command probably saved Voyager from going down in flames right from the start Burman had been right every Reason bold gave

were the reasons he'd warned her about from the beginning but Burman wished he hadn't been right they were 2 days behind already and now they didn't have a captain for Voyager the cast was concerned after going through so many actresses initially the studio would consider going to a male Captain if they couldn't find the right woman according to Robert picardo this made the cast very nervous because if they chose a male Captain there was a good chance one of the male characters might be switched to female and someone would lose their job yeah no one

else just Kim as it would turn out there was nothing to worry about fear only exists for one purpose to be conquered the three executive producers went back through their lists they had liked Kate mgrid they brought her back in for another look and not only did they love her but the studio did too Nicole Janeway was out but so was Elizabeth janway come to find out Elizabeth Janeway was also the name of a prominent feminist author and it just didn't make it past the name clarence's people just before Kate Mulgrew was picked the character

name was changed to Katherine Janeway which was also on the short list back when they chose Elizabeth it appeared as if the name character and actress were all aligning with the Stars that was confirmed on the morning of September 19th when Kate mgu stepped onto the bridge of USS Voyager and took it over I don't like being addressed as sir I'm sorry ma'am ma'am is acceptable in a crunch but I prefer Captain if bold had been a harsh Aid wind mulu was a Charming Cool Breeze kby watched her as if she'd been on the bridge

her entire adult life Kate delivered her lines with a clear firm voice resonating with the strength and energy of a command we would all become familiar with as Captain janway MRE was warm friendly and accessible to everyone and was a consumate professional Burman would compare her to Patrick Stewart in that she was the head of the cast as well as the actors who played them there wasn't a doubt in anyone's mind that this Captain owned her Bridge engage Tim Russ had one of the most interesting Star Trek Journeys way before he became tuac on Star

Trek Voyager born in 1956 in Washington DC Russ was an Air Force brat who spent his childhood Moving around and living in places like turkey he graduated from New York's Rome Free Academy in 1974 and attended St Edwards a private Catholic University in Austin Texas while there the program director would frequently bring professional actors to the college to do shows with the students one of those actors was William Shatner and another was Leonard nemoy who Russ was lucky enough to act with in a performance of Caligula what nemoy would have thought had he known the

kid who would eventually play the second regular Vulcan on a Star Trek series was on stage with him that day after Russ graduated he made his way out to Los Angeles in 1981 to try and make it in movies and TV with his parents living in Sacramento he knew he could get home to see them on the weekends Tim wouldn't break into the business right away while auditioning for plays he chose to work as a driver during the day so he'd have the flexibility to make phone calls which he couldn't do at other jobs it

would take 4 years before he finally landed an episode of Hunter but from there he would jump from TV show to TV show doing episodes of The Twilight Zone Amazing Stories and Hill Street Blues while doing a play in Los Angeles with Bill Pullman one night Mel Brooks came to the show afterwards he approached him and said I think I have a small part for you in a movie I'm making called Space Balls what about you guys we ain't found yep that was Tim Russ he often complains that he is more famous for space balls

than Star Trek in 1987 Russ would have his first runin With The Star Trek universe when he saw a call sheet looking for someone like him to play the role of Jordy lege on the new Star Trek show called The Next Generation he was barely beat out of the role by Lavar Burton who was known for his role in the movie Roots damn Steve so after nearly getting the part Russ spent the next 3 years chipping away at the Star Trek armor hoping to land a character to take him to the next level but as

close as he'd been to Landing the chief engineer on the Enterprise he couldn't get a call back for anything else Star Trek Creator Jean Roddenberry just didn't see him in any of the parts but there was something about Russ that his assistant Rick Burman liked a whole lot from his acting to his looks and his voice the Future Star Trek boss liked everything about the actor from now on it goes and after Roddenberry passed away and Burman began calling the shots suddenly Russ was cast Rick liked him so much he cast the actor three times

prior to Voyager with no role really fitting Russ as a main character on DS9 Burman cast him in March 1993 for the TNG season 6 episode Starship Mine where he played an alien your star Fleet you won't kill me you're sure the following October Burman had him playing the klling on takar for the DS9 season 2 episode invasive procedures Tim made such a good impression 5 months later he found himself on the bridge of the Enterprise B playing a tactical officer in the Star Trek generations movie led by William Shatner and Patrick Stewart by the

time he got to Voyager Russ would end up tied with Jonathan Frakes for most onscene appearances with Star Trek series captains at 4: during the week Russ was onset filming Generations Burman came up to him not once but twice telling him he wanted Tim to read for a part on this upcoming series they were doing called Voyager Tim took the hint once is something but telling Him twice that's leading so Russ reached out to his agent and said don't book me in anything for the summer of 1994 because I really want to be available to

do this show if I get cast he didn't want commitments to other projects to get in the way it was a real sacrifice and he had to pass up on some opportunities but knowing he'd likely get seven years of work as a regular on Star Trek was worth it but when casting began for tuac Russ didn't immediately get the call then they found out what the problem was tuac voyager's 150-year-old black security officer was going to be played by someone who was 65 Russ who had turned 38 just before filming began he was just too

young for the part something must have changed since Burman approached Russ twice about the role to this day Russ isn't sure who changed the character to be older but we are pretty sure we know what happened remember those secret meetings Burman pillar and Taylor were having trying to come up with an initial story and characters well the character who would end up becoming tuac the Tactical officer and chief of Security started out as the engineer that's Right initially the team was looking for an older human male with the strength and endurance of the younger officers

but also having a reservoir of wisdom and experience by August of 1993 the human had been changed to a Black Vulcan male who was older so when Rick was talking to Russ during the filming of generations he probably thought Tim would be perfect we believe what happened is when casting started a few months later someone Michael pillar likely realized that Spock's father cak died at 161 years old and Spock himself who looked extremely old during the Star Trek TNG unification episodes was 138 years old it is the only logical conclusion someone realized that if tuac

was 150 it couldn't be played by someone as young as Tim Russ so the call sheet went out for a 65-year-old black man one of the people who auditioned for older tuac was Robert guon best known for his 7year stent on the TV show Benson as well as the voice of the wise mandrel Rafiki in The Lion King it is time meanwhile Russ was trying to figure out what his next move was not being able to audition for Voyager was a disappointment but he compared getting roles to standing in line with The theater but being

unable to see how close you were to getting in the trick was never getting out of line because if you get out of line there's no way you can get in to see the movie and it was with this idea that Russ found himself talking to his agent about what was next now that Voyager wasn't going to be a thing as Tim was walking out the door his agent came after him and said it was Paramount on the phone they wanted him to come read for tuac True to his philosophy Russ hadn't gotten out of

line and now he was going to get a chance to see the show So what had changed The Producers didn't like anyone as the older tuac and Burman knew they had Tim Russ still sitting out there it took only one audition in front of five people for Russ to get the part I hope you understand that I have always had the greatest respect for you the one thing you can say for sure about Robert Beltran is that he was never a science fiction fan he's adamant about it and it probably explains why in early 1983

while auditioning for a role in Star Trek 3 The Search for Spock in lard Nemo's home the first words out of his mouth were What's a Klingon and of course he was auditioning to play a Klingon in the movie needless to say he didn't get the role born in Bakersfield California in 1953 Beltran was the seventh of 10 children in a Mexican-American family he graduated from Fresno State College in 1978 with a Theater Arts degree which took 7 years to complete because he said there was always another place to do he got his big break

in 1981 in the movie zoot suit as low rider which led him into a series of roles playing Latino characters including cult classics like 1982's eating Raul and 1984's KN of the Comet for the next 10 years he would bounce around various made for TV movies and TV shows until one day his agent asked him if he was interested in going in to audition for the role of a Native American on a new Star Trek show he didn't know anything about Star Trek but he really liked the script for the first episode of the show

titled Aker and he liked what chakote was doing so while he agreed to go in an audition he was indifferent about the role he did well enough to get invited for a final Studio reading on August 31st about a week before filming was about to begin although he Didn't really care at first when he returned for this reading he really wanted the role of chot two things had happened to change his feelings first he had learned that bold had been cast as the captain and he really wanted to work with her but the second thing

was his surprise to learn how many of his friends were Star Trek fans they were excited for him telling him if you get on the Star Trek you've made it suddenly Beltran was no longer indifferent about the role and he gave the final addition everything he could Burman called him a handsome native americanl looking guy with a square jaw and a great voice the next day his agent called and told him he had the role shortly after he got the role The Producers hosted a luncheon for the new cast to help everyone get acquainted with

each other after the luncheon Beltran had a private meeting with Burman pillar and Taylor to discuss how some people were very sensitive to anyone playing a Native American this was very important for the production team from the beginning the one role everyone had agreed on was that the crew should include a Native American people like whoopy Goldberg had said many times That seeing Uhura on the bridge in the original series gave them real inspiration as children it said we're here in the 23rd century and racially and ethnically we are all doing really well Taylor explained

that it seemed to them Native Americans needed the same kind of role model they wanted young Native American children to connect with their character so during the meeting Beltran explained that he was Mexican and he thinks of himself as Mexican which is a blend of European and Indigenous Central American he explained to them that he felt it was perfectly in his right to play a Native American that was exactly what the producers wanted to hear later Beltran called Taylor and suggested they move Toot's tribal background South of the Border so he could be Mayan Aztec

Inca or even alch these were all cultures known to be highly advanced in science and astronomy Taylor eventually agreed and the change was gradually added to the series Bible hundreds of other tribes down there that uh developed U great Advanced cultures since he wasn't included in some of the early scenes Beltran would spend the first week of shooting With legendary Emmy award-winning Star Trek makeup artist Michael Westmore trying dozens of different facial tattoo designs before Burman finally approved a style he thought was just right for the character is it the tattoo because mine's bigger everyone

was so concerned about making sure they got chicote's character right that they also hired what they believed was a nationally recognized Native American Authority who wrote books and produced TV series about his Heritage going by the name of jamake highwater he was eventually exposed as a fraud his real name was Jackie Marx and he was of Eastern European descent and had no ties to the Cherokee people as he had long claimed Jackie Mark's fingerprints on the chakote character early in its development would be criticized as shallow and stereotypical lacking detail or authenticity and Ham streaming

the character before the show ever aired despite some of the backlash this controversy created it's important to note that Beltran and the production team went into the process with only the best intentions it's about right and wrong and I'm warning you I won't let you cross that line Again the oldest member of the Star Trek Voyager cast was Robert picardo who at the time production began was 40 years old and only a month older than Belin Looking Back Now it's impossible to imagine anyone else playing the doctor certainly Dwight Schultz would have brought his own

style but fans of Lieutenant Barkley becoming voyagers Alpha quadrant cheerleader say thank you you're quite a catch well before we explain how picardo got the role it's important to note where the idea of a holographic sentient doctor came from back during the secret meetings there was a lot of talk about how each Star Trek show has a character that can comment on human beings as an outsider in the original series it was Spock on TNG it was data and for DS9 it was Odo the creation of the doctor follows that tradition in another unique way

early notes from the production staff have the character written down as Hollow Mor arti which is inspired by the TNG episodes Elementary dear data and ship in a bottle where Sherlock Holmes Archen enemy Professor James Mori becomes a sentient hologram aware of his existence that that's exactly the sort of interesting character They wanted on their new ship but who could pull off the part born in 1953 Robert alons picardo who was born and grew up in Philadelphia would ironically go to Yale as a Premed major aiming at a career to become a doctor but after

getting bit by the acting bug while performing in several University Productions he would graduate with a ba in drama in 1975 he made his Broadway and television debuts in 1977 appearing in the play Gemini as well as an episode of Cojack his feature film debut was in 1981 as a serial killer werewolf in the howling throughout the 80s and early 90s picardo would have roles in memorable shows like alive The Golden Girls China Beach The Wonder Years and Home Improvement if you thought the Johnny Cab in the 1990 movie Total Recall looked a little like

him you'd be right both the looks and voice of the cabbie was picardo hello I'm Johnny Cat where can I take you tonight in Late July of 1994 picardo was getting ready to open a play at the Mark Tapper Forum in Los Angeles he'd been waiting 14 years for the opportunity and was ironically playing a doctor with a bad bedside manner he was also heavily involved in several Other projects and the last thing he had on his mind was auditioning for more work then he got the Voyager pilot script from his agent who suggested he

read for the Doctor picardo Who told his agent he didn't have time to audition was cajoled into going on his lunch break when he told his agent he couldn't take the part even if he got it his agent told him to lie and that's exactly what he did picardo went to the audition and lied about being able to do it but he didn't want to read for the doctor because he thought the part was boring he liked the part of neix and asked to read for that one they let him and picardo felt like he'd

done a good job but he didn't get the role The Producers were looking for someone a little shorter and perhaps stockier bardo's agent told him they'd like you to reconsider coming back for the part of the doctor he didn't understand the role they wanted the doctor to be funny but picardo described him as colorless humorless with hardly any lines but he was impressed with the script so after speaking to friends who had been involved with Star Trek before who said good things about what a nice family they were to Work for he decided to give

it a try what Robert didn't know at that time is that the producers had already seen 900 actors for the role and when he came in to read his lines again he did something Star Trek doesn't like at all he ad libed a line after saying I believe someone has failed to terminate my program on his own he added I'm a doctor not a nightlight not realizing he had just perfectly delivered a Deus Kelly doctor joke from the original series he got a huge laugh from the 14 people watching his audition he was hired that

day don't worry doc you're not dreaming picardo would later admit to feeling Unsure how to manage the character because of his limited participation in caretaker he was afraid he'd be compared to data from TNG but favorably because the Android was so lovable and childlike in his role and the doctor was not a very cuddly character there little did picardo know at that time the doctor would undergo a character Arc to rival datas as well as become an eventual fan favorite please State the nature of the medical emergency why do you always have to say that

More than a year before most casting would be completed for Voyager one of the secret meeting notes said the L Carno character is a definite go for inclusion in the cast of characters Nicholas larno was a memorable Starfleet Cadet from the tg's fifth season episode the first Duty in the episode larno is the leader for Wesley crusher's team and fabricates a lie after the death of a teammate the interesting aspect of the character is that he ends up taking responsibility for pressuring the team to cover up the facts the character a good goodl looking young

man with mega Starfleet potential suddenly has a Redemption Arc you know one of the extras came up to me and said oh congratulations that's great you're playing Kirk's son this is what they wanted for the character of Tom Paris on Voyager interestingly enough the actor who portrayed larno was one Robert Duncan mcneel and when the casting sheets went out they went as far as to say they were looking for a Robert Duncan mcneel type the obvious next question was well what is Robert Duncan mcneel up to born in Raley nor North Carolina in 1964 mcneel

grew up in Atlanta Georgia One day his mom came home with a flyer for a children's theater who needed 100 kids to play munchkins in Wizard of Oz represent lollipop mcneel who was 12 loved the idea of meeting a bunch of new kids and said yes he became friends with another young actor named John Schneider who would eventually become a TV star on The Dukes of Hazard mcneel would eventually make his way to New York and get cast in his first audition for a musical this led him to getting into juliard um didn't graduate which

opened up movie audition opportunities he'd never had before after doing a few small roles on camera including an episode of The Twilight Zone in 1985 two years later while at juliard he was offered a role on the soap opera All My Children during his run on the soap he acted opposite Dolph lungren In The Movie Masters of the Universe for the next several years mcneel would act both on stage and in TV shows like Quantum Leap and La law but in 199 to he would have his first runin with Star Trek and the character of

Nicholas larno as luck would have it the director who had done his Twilight Zone episode was now directing an episode of Star Trek and McNeil got the impression he had pushed for him to guest on the show he ended up loving the experience and leaving an impression on producers after his experience on TNG things didn't go well for McNeil nothing seemed to be working out after starting a family and now with a second child he found himself unemployed he did land a play in New York but he was only making $300 a week he was

totally broke and it was the summer of 1994 for the first time he considered leaving acting to get a regular job so he could support his family at the end of June his agent called and said he needed to go to a casting office in New York and get videotaped for a possible role on Star Trek the call sheet for the role he was reading literally said looking for a Robbie Duncan mcneel type and here he was his videotape performance was good and got him an audition in front of producers in California the only problem

was he was committed to this $300 a week play and there was no understudy to take his place for the performances he would have to miss to go to the audition if he left the play the play would have to close and no one would get paid Mcneel asked if the audition date could be changed but the answer was no he discussed it with his wife and his fellow actors in the play and it was very difficult for him to do but he told his agent to let the studio know he could not make the

date because he was committed to the play he couldn't leave the play in the lurch like that it just wasn't who he was well mcneel was fortunate The Producers agreed to reschedule the test for the day his play closed 2 weeks later when he arrived in Los Angeles he got nervous realizing how badly he needed this job he had nothing presentable to wear and had to Max his credit card figuring he could return the clothes if he didn't get the part but when he got to the studio he was surprised to learn he was the

only one testing this had never happened to him before mcneel went in to warm up with Burman pillar and Taylor and he still had a short beard he was wearing for the play Burman asked him if he could shave the beard so they could picture how he would look for the part mcneel was willing but didn't have a razor during the read he kept looking at the script he knew the lines but he was so nervous he went outside Thinking they didn't like him with a beard and he just blew the scene pillar came out

into the hall and offered for mcneel to use the razor in his office clean shaven and with his nervous energy released mcneel realized he was okay when he went in to read from a cluggy in moza he had a great time and felt like he nailed it several hours later he got a call saying the role of Tom Paris was his this was exactly what he and his family needed Not only would he get to keep his new clothes but he would get to keep acting so looks like you're feeling [Music] better roxan Dawson like

many actors before her didn't watch Star Trek and really had no idea what it was about but growing up she was a lot closer to it than she realized and that's because she grew up living right behind William Shatner Captain Kirk himself born in 1958 in Los Angeles as a young girl she would play with Shatner's daughters Melanie and Leslie little did she know someday she'd be a part of the same Star Trek royalty as Bill himself you're Really stepping into something that already has a reputation it has um Integrity it is respected and you

step on board knowing that you your role is not only to create but to continue to continue the Legacy a graduate of UC Berkeley in 1980 Dawson's first professional acting job was in 1985 in a Broadway production of A Chorus Line she also did a short stint on the soap opera another world shortly thereafter she married Casey bigs who would end up playing the Kardashian Demar on Deep Space 9 from 1987 to 1994 she would pick up guest appearances on a variety of movies and shows including Baywatch Matt lock and jacen the fat man but

in 1994 when an audition for the role of half Kling on bong Torres came up on a Star Trek show she decided she wanted it she knew getting the part would be good for her because it was shot in LA and it would be nice to stay home and have a life and see her dogs and husband so the night before her test for the part she started watching Star Trek and she became a fan immediately she had thought Star Trek wasn't rooted in anything real but after watching was amazed at the subject matter covered

in the episodes she couldn't Believe she lived her whole life on the planet oblivious to what Star Trek was doing for her the casting process C was easy one audition and two callbacks she was the first member of the cast selected which is appropriate since her character was one of the first the secret meeting had produced Jerry Taylor remembered wanting to create a person at war with herself to represent those of us who have some aspect of our personalities that we don't like balana as half Klingon and half human would spend the series coming to

terms with her Kling on half which she hated and in rockand Dawson they thought they found the perfect actor to demonstrate that complex human emotion after my parents called me and my mother got on the phone and she said well you were good but the girl that played that klling on was really great and that's when I realized I'd done my job when Garrett Wang first met Tim Russ he told him you know if you replace the V and two vo with a p you would be too Pock there was a long pause as Tim

said with a straight face rap music is responsible for the decline of Western Civilization need I Remind you Inon actually Tac no you needn't remind me those who have had the pleasure to get to know both of these men would say this is an excellent example of their personalities Wang would be born in Riverside California to the parents of Taiwanese immigrants as a toddler Wang's parents moved the family to the Bahamas where Garrett started first grade at the age of 3 and A2 his early entry into school would result in Wang starting College at UCLA

at the young age of 16 in 1984 over the next 3 years Wang would change his major five times the day he walked into the East Asian studies department to get information on the requirements for his new major the receptionist asked him a strange question she said hey I have a note here from a casting director from Hollywood looking for people to audition for a TV movie do you have time to audition confused but not one to pass up on an opportunity he said yes the story was about a Mainland Chinese graduate student having an

affair with his American female Professor who was played by Melissa Gilbert from Little House on the Prairie he was too young for the role but wayang Got the acting bug he immediately started taking acting classes at UCLA shortly after Wang decided he wanted a career in acting the only problem was his parents didn't support him his mother asked him to name one Chinese actor that had made it he said Bruce Lee and she said he's dead give me another and she had a point there were very few non-stereo typical Asian actors at that time but

Wang wouldn't be deterred for the next 5 years he would attend local Hollywood acting classes while fighting with his parents over his choice you sure you can't go to law school just act on the side you know as your hobby I go no I can't do that finally at the age of 23 during a family reunion two of Wang's Progressive aunts convinced his parents that Garrett was cut out for acting and that they should support him afterwards his parents came to him and told him they were going to support him and asked him what he

needed G asked them for 2 years of unconditional financial support and told them if he couldn't make it he would do something else that was in 1993 he went in for his first Voyager audition July 1st 1994 a year and a half later the high and low he Would feel that day was like none other while on the set of Paramount waiting to read for Harry Kim Wayne got a call that he had received a part in a movie he just auditioned for a movie called Glory Days starring Ben Affleck Matthew mccon Sam Rockwell and

John Reese Davies it was the sort of break he'd been waiting for when it was his turn to read he pulled out his sides to read for casting director Nan Dutton the high Wang was writing on was about to be popped she took him to task for not having his lines memorized she sent him away until he learned them he returned for his next reading prepared no baby but he returned for another run away another it's your choice and another I had six auditions but on August 6th Garrett Wang finally got the role of enen

Harry Kim and I see the way your pupils dilate when you look at my body I don't know what you're talking about then you wish to copulate no I'm flipping through does does he does he does he change his mind no it doesn't even happen I'm and I just I threw the scri on the wall I was like this is ridiculous Voyager would need some friends in the Delta quadrant and their first would end up being A quirky little txian it would turn out to be difficult for producers to find the right actor until they

saw Ethan Phillips born in New York in 1955 Phillips received a bachelor's degree in English literature from Boston University and a masters of Fine Arts from Cornell Phillips began his career on stage performing Off Broadway as early is 1977 and in the 16 years before he found himself auditioning for Voyager Phillips had already achieved an impressive career besides being in dozens of stage performances and TV guest appearances Ethan had also done five seasons on the the hit show Benson and played memorable roles in movies like Lean on Me glory and wagons East but probably most

importantly leading up to his audition for Voyager he had played a fangi henchman for the season 3 TNG episode minaga Troy why have you removed all clothing females do not deserve the honor of clothing when Phillips got the call from his agent about the Voyager audition he was living in New York it was pretty standard fair for Phillips he'd pick up his portion of the script go over it the night before and then read for the camera in a New York casting office the Next day it was the same for his audition for neix Phillips

joked about not remembering the number of times he's read for a series in New York and nothing would come of it it was an old actor's joke that the tape always disappeared somewhere on the way to Los Angeles about a week later the casting office called and asked Phillips to read for the part of the doctor on tape shortly after his agent called from LA and said the producers wanted him to fly to California to test for the role of neix recognizing that there was now serious interest in him Phillips put extra effort into studying

for the audition he flew to LA and hired an acting coach to go over the scenes with him it wasn't until he was sitting outside waiting to read that he found out the character he was auditioning for had Prosthetics he was comfortable with makeup and that was probably also a plus since creating neix would end up requiring nearly 3 hours in the chair before Phillips could even start filming each day when the reading was over Phillips was sent home but one of the other guys was asked to stay he felt at that moment he wasn't

going to get The roll and went back to New York the next night his agent called and said they want to see you again before saying oh wait never mind talk about adding insult to injury to too hard was not too hard the studio has 5 days to pick up an option on a character they've tested so on the fifth day Phillips called his agent and wanted to know what was going on his agent told him he was still in the game and it was between him and Robert picardo for the role of neix he

didn't realize picardo was reading for the part they had gone up against each other for jobs for 20 years with each beating each other out from time to time they were friends but Phillips felt that picardo had a little more cache in the industry and he wasn't sure he'd get the role later that day he found out that he did get the role it was August 9th Phillips remembers thinking it was really great because sometimes you work so hard to get something and it doesn't happen well in this case it did and Now Voyager had

its Delta quadrant guide you are a peculiar creature neix thanks I think the secret meetings produced a character very different from any that had been a recurring Role on Star Trek before inspired by a rapid Growing Child in TG season 2 premere episode titled the child this new Voyager character was initially called the mayfly because like the insect of the same name this character would have a short lifespan The Producers also discussed giving the character one or more forms of psychic abilities and had Taylor's production assistant do parapsychological research going as far as to enlist

a consulting firm with experience in the field what does it all mean I don't know and that's what makes it so exciting they would end up Slow Rolling K's Powers throughout the show choosing first to focus on her extremely short 9-year lifespan the mayfly would eventually become an okoma and producers would find themselves looking for an actress who was a woman but seem somewhat childlike and fragile they were immediately intrigued by Jennifer lean who ended up being an early cast selection and also its youngest member lean the youngest of three children she had grown up

amidst drugs and violence on the south side of Chicago but at the age of 13 she would find solace in the Drama club her teacher immediately recognized her talent and suggested acting classes and an agent Jennifer's Talent was obvious a thrill to work with after standing out in Productions of Shakespeare's The Tempest and aell among others at the Illinois theater center her first TV appearance was in 1990 as a twin on a double mint Gum commercial she was then chosen to play opposite Oprah Winfrey in an episode of Brewers place which was filmed in Chicago

that got the attention of casting directors and an interview with the soap opera another world the same Dawson had been on although at a different time at 16 lean moved to New York and was cast as Hannah Moore on the soap a couple years later when it came to Star Trek the 5'2 and 1/2 in actress nailed her audition with Taylor commenting she had a wonderful elf in quality and projected both vulnerability and strength while the role was leans Jennifer Gaddy was considered a runner up for Kess and would later guest star in the Harry

Kim Centric season 2 episode non seater where the young ensen finds himself stranded back on Earth with Lean earning the role producers were confident they had found one of their two Delta quadrant regulars at least for now one of my parents has to massage my feet until my tongue begins to swear with the actors in place the only main character left to cast was the ship itself a little home away from home for the crew The Producers were looking for something different for USS Voyager Jerry Taylor had suggested a smaller sleeker ship than the Galaxy

class Enterprise Rick sternbach was tasked with coming up with the design and began creating sketches for the producers to approve the production team would say if the Enterprise was a battleship then Voyager is more like a destroyer Swift good killing power and with more updated technology sternbach reasoned that Voyager was part of a class of starships that was built 10 years after the Enterprise D so that it would benefit from a number of system improvements with this the Intrepid class was born and sternbach would create a 15 deck ship with a crew complement of 160

that could sustain warp factor 9.97 5 complete with new technology that included Biion neural circuitry that contain gel packs with Bion neural cells that would be the launching pad for numerous episode story ideas graphic designer Michael Auda suggested giving Voyager the ability to land on a planet surface Auda also suggested story elements that included putting a restriction on the use of the ship's replicators in order to conserve power and setting up the need for the crew to rely on fresh food he would also suggest sending the Voyager out to this new area area of space

called the Delta quadrant and comment that perhaps they could meet the Borg out there since that is where they're from Mr Auda fans say thank you producers would ultimately decide on a Sleek fast looking smaller ship that included the Nel's turning upward 45° when going to warp the Voyager Bridge was built on the same spot as tg's Enterprise D only this new bridge would have three levels instead of two and would be the biggest Star Trek bridge built to date no ship had been better prepared to be stranded in the Delta [Music] quadrant filming for

season 1 began on September 6th 1994 thanks to the recasting of mulu as Captain Janeway the production was already behind schedule and the production had to move quickly to catch up for the most part things went smoothly thanks in large part to the casting of Mulgrew Colby had told her that Bridge as your living room and she had taken it to heart she immediately took a leadership role setting the rest of the cast at ease and taking complete Command of every scene she was in Colby the rest of the cast and the crew couldn't be

more pleased she quickly became known as a team player while still somehow remaining in charge of the cast members on and off the set a sort of mother hen she was warm friendly and accessible to everyone she was usually the first on the set for a scene always on time and always knew her lines but despite all of those positives there was a negative and to the studio heads it was huge it was her hair Taylor explained the problem during the first few days of filming Mulgrew had worn her hair down so that it naturally

fell to her shoulders but because her hair was fine when she moved her head you could sort of see through her hair that quickly adjusted to the hair being up on her head and Executives Fell in love with it they fell in love with it so much they wanted all the scene shot with her hair down in the pilot caretaker to be shot with it up no one thought they'd actually reshoot it when they saw the cause though I can honestly say this is probably the only Star Trek pilot in which the hair dressing cost

more than the special effects locations would have to be rented and sets rebuilt the cost would end up being $23 million for the pilot Tom Maza and Carrie mccluggage said do it it would become the most expensive pilot in television history up to that point for comparison Star Trek generations with Captain Kirk and Bard had just cost $35 million to make to be clear it really wasn't about hair it was about the fear that 25-year-old guys wouldn't like Jane way they were so worried about a female Captain not working and not only ruining a new

Star Trek series but as a result destroy the launch of a brand new network and we'll be talking about that shortly they didn't know how good mgu was going to be but they could control how she looked to be fair the hair up does look better and more professional than the hair down but during that first season Muru had to deal with the constant obsession with her hair as well as the executives watching her while she filmed and she believed they were waiting for her to fail it took more than a year but when they

were filming the season 2 episode Death Wish Mulgrew went to Burman to talk about the writing and being respected Burman told her you obviously have a handle on the character so you go for it and we'll back you from here on out after that everything would fall into place for Mulgrew Jane way and [Music] Voyager in the beginning mulu may have had a lot of pressure and issues getting comfortable in the captain's chair but at least she didn't have to wear prosthetic makeup every day Star Trek's Emmy and Academy award-winning makeup artist Michael Westmore was

responsible for coming up with the looks of Star Trek voyagers alien characters Westmore said it was important to Roddenberry that you see a little piece of humanity in Star Trek aliens that's why they always found a little piece of the person in the makeup but for roxand Dawson's balana Torres the initial shock of seeing herself as a Klingon brought her to tears as a result westore Removes some of the harsher klling on elements and emphasized the human side of her character he also eliminated the fierce looking teeth the result was a character of strong cling

on Heritage but attractively human at the same time while Dawson would eventually become comfortable she was never a fan of wearing the Prosthetics it' be nice if I was just a little bit attractive they had it was just you know I don't have to be a beauty queen but you know maybe without the teeth Ethan Phillips had to show up as early as 3:30 in the morning to become neix he spent more than 4 hours in the chair every day to put on and remove the makeup his days were frequently as long as 18 hours

crew call per call sheet 7:00 see everybody tomorrow typical day 15 hours exhausted I got another hour and a half of this stuff to come off then I'm done as as difficult as it was for him he liked the opportunity to hide inside the character westmore's inspiration for neix came from the Animal Kingdom the mutton chops are from a warthog the eyebrows are of a mischievous mircat and the custommade contact lenses are patterned after a lemur eyes 16 to 20 hour Work days were not uncommon for the production team who was able to complete principal

filming for the pilot caretaker in about 6 weeks damn it I'm going to stick around anyway and do my best on October 20th of 1994 the other 14 episodes of season 1 as well as four episodes of season 2 that were supposed to be a part of season 1 started production we'll get back to why that happened in just a moment when Star Trek Voyager was being created it had been only 3 years since Terminator 2 Judgment Day became the first film to create an entirely CGI character with realistic human movements and up until Voyager

Star Trek had mostly stayed away from the graphic technology outside of a few instances from Deep Space 9 it had just been too expensive by 199 94 advances in hardware and software brought the technology monetarily into reach a model had already been made of USS Voyager but the production team wanted more options for visual effects involving the ship luckily Santa Barbara Studios agreed to create CGI footage of Voyager at a reasonable price the problem with the model is that you always need a mount holding it from the top bottom or back Which limits camera movements

and the things you can do with CGI they can literally be inside the ship and zoom out through window for Infinity they didn't have a lot of money to put into CGI but it was important to have a stunning opening flyby of the ship as the main title sequence for every episode so that's exactly what they did the Voyager opening sequence with legendary Star Trek composer Jerry Goldsmith's uplifting original score that truly sounds like lost explorers far from home among Uncharted stars is truly one of the best openings of Star Trek ever in 2020 Newsweek

magazine said the Voyager Theme by Goldsmith was the best of all the Star Trek television series themes amlin Imaging would end up winning an Emmy for voyager's opening CGI title [Music] visuals Star Trek Voyager caretaker Premiere aired as a single 90minut show at 8:00 p.m. eastern time January 16th 1995 it would be a Monday night to remember as the brand new United Paramount Network's Flagship show would help them win the night with more than 21 million viewers And a 14.2% share of the National Market on their first night as a national broadcast network they were

number one it was a special achievement after Decades of Paramount Pictures trying to launch their own network in the late 1940s and early 1950s Paramount was a partner in the failed Dumont television network which was trying to compete with the big three of ABC CBS and NBC when that project failed in the mid1 1950s United Paramount Theaters partnered with ABC when it nearly went bankrupt so in a way Paramount is responsible for ABC's status as one of the big three networks still chasing their dream in 1977 there were plans for a Paramount Television service to

compete as a fourth national network a new Star Trek series known as Phase 2 was intended to be the flagship of the new network those plans fell apart though and Phase 2 ultimately became Star Trek the motion picture now we don't want to go too far into the woods here but let's just say television used to be a mess in order to be one of the big national broadcasting networks you would need to have affiliate stations in cities across the country that could air your shows locally but It was an expensive Venture and there were

a lot of hours of programming to fill so most of these affiliate stations might primarily air say NBC but also have a secondary Network like ABC or CBS to have enough programming to fill all of its airtime if you're old old enough you might remember when stations would play the national anthem and go off the air late at night so in the late 1960s the original Star Trek series first aired on NBC and its affiliate stations across the country but unless you're pushing 60 you probably saw Star Trek the Original Series while it was in

syndication once a show was done with its run because of all these affiliate stations needing more programming the Production Studio would sell the previously run shows directly to the Affiliates for a nice fee this term became known as a rerun As Americans seem to have an appetite for more television in the 1980s the FCC under President Ronald Reagan authorized licenses for lots of independent TV stations that needed a lot of programming when Paramount created Star Trek the Next Generation they thought they would find a network to air it just like the original Series but none

of them were interested not even NBC who had run the original series thinking the show was dead before it could even be born Lucy salhani president of Paramount domestic television came up with the idea to sell the Next Generation directly to affiliate stations like they did the original series for syndication and they would call these episodes first run syndications and it worked instead of launching it as a network program like toos on NBC they gambled and it was a huge success in 1987 170 affiliate stations were airing TNG covering 94% of American television households they

would end up doing the same thing with deep space Bas 9 that model was working fine but Paramount was determined to be a national broadcast network but they needed to own their own Affiliates in all the major metropolitan areas which isn't cheap and this is where Criss craft Industries Enders the story there is no UPN without Chris Craft who was actually the largest manufacturer of small boats on the planet and Incredibly popular from the 1920s through the ' 50s in 1959 Chris Craft went into the broadcasting business and by 1960 it owned two affiliate stations

in Portland Oregon and Los Angeles as the years went by the boat company switched its focus to broadcasting and owned eight local affiliates by 1993 that is exactly what Paramount needed to finally launch its own network on October 27th 1993 3 months after the Voyager secret meetings began Paramount and Chris Craft announced the formation of UPN day compression in 25 seconds while UPN had a huge opening night with its Flagship show Voyager it was be pretty much downhill from there for the network initially only airing Mondays and Tuesdays for only 2 hours each night it

was essentially Voyager or bust for UPN the other four shows they initially created to air with the Star Trek show were awful and didn't survive until the next fall final frontier has some boundaries that shouldn't be crossed Voyager may not have been able to eclipse the viewership of TNG or Deep Space 9 but it also didn't have the suppor of programming to hand off to viewers to the newest episode there was no UPN musse TV on Monday nights to help Voyager while UPN would eventually be combined with the WB and then fused into The CW

the network would operate for 11 years giving us both Voyager and Enterprise Star Trek series filming for season 1 wrapped on May 12th 1995 and four season 1 episodes would end up being held over for season 2 it was a programming Choice by UPN and totally out of control of the production team Sani who had been responsible for TNG being sold as first-run syndications was now upn's president and Chief Operating Officer while meeting with the television critics Association in Los Angeles in August 1995 she was brutally honest saying we took those shows off because they

weren't good this was reported in an August 28th 1995 edition of the Virginia pilot the episodes she was referring to were the 37s projections elogium and twisted which aired as the first third fourth and sixth episodes of the second season perhaps she was right when they were initially created as Robert picardo confirmed years later that there were extensive rewrites prior to shooting his least favorite episode Twisted in the episode the ship becomes stuck in a strange energy field during a surprise birthday party on the holck for K's second Birthday picardo said there were rumors that

it was just so bad it would never air salhani would later adjust the story in Captain's Log supplement and unauthorized Guide to the new Trek voyages by saying the episodes were held back so they could launch season 2 sooner and beat the other networks out of the gate perhaps the truth is a little of both the one thing that the scheduled change did do is affect the season 1 finale fans had been used to huge Cliffhanger Seasons during TNG so learning curve the episode where tuac tries to shape up a few Maki crew members is

pretty weak in comparison the 37s which end up being the season 2 opener where Jane way meets Amelia heart was supposed to be the season 1 finale and probably would have been a better ending Jerry Taylor would later share that they and Paramount didn't agree with holding the episodes back but it was ultimately upn's right to do so Stranger Than That was the poultry 15 episode season trekkies were used to the standard 26 episode Seasons with TNG and DS9 at the time fans thought it was very unusual and many Star Trek faithful were concerned Voyager

might have significantly fewer Episodes than TNG or Deep Space 9 because of UPN the reality was it was a mid-season show on a new network and not only did they get a late start in production but their pilot episode was a huge episode with re-shoot I preferred if you didn't tell neelix about this it'll be our secret from season 2 onward fans would get their normal 26 episode Seasons regardless Voyager season 1 was a success at times it even rivaled the viewing numbers of Deep Space 9 which was a little more controversial of a show

than Voyager most fans accepted the space station series but felt that being out in a spaceship exploring was an integral part of the Star Trek Experience during the second season of The Show the cast and crew were still trying to get in stride but one thing was clear the actors thanks in large part to Mulgrew were building a strong bond they may not equal the legendary shenanigans that the TNG cast got away with but they were a fun goofy bunch of people professional when needed but also not afraid to cut up and lighten the tension

from time to time your voice says go away but your heart wants me to make you smile please go away Robert Beltran would often put his lines on the bottom of coffee cups and other places eliciting laughter from his castmates Tim doesn't even take off his ears anymore when he goes home he thinks he's a voken Ethan Phillips took great pleasure teasing the more serious Tim Russ while he was delivering lines when Russ was giving a twok monologue at his station on the bridge Phillips would sneak to the other side of his console and say

you're not a Vulcan you're an actor and then sneak back out he would dance uh out of nowhere on the bridge he would just sit up and start tap dancing all over the place um out of the clear blue Russ's friends would say there is a lot of tuac in him so you can imagine how much Tim enjoyed those pranks from now on it goes Voyager season 2's story arc features the much maligned kison gangs one of Michael westmore's least liked alien races most of the cast have since made fun of the Kon and how

ridiculous they looked even Westmore admits it's not his best work Tim Russ once commented how can they be a spacebase race and not have water we are wondering the same thing Tim season 2 included the Traitorous Kardashian Maki cesa played by the wonderful Martha hacket her Vendetta against Janeway and feelings for chakote bring Voyager to the brink of Destruction more than once during the season some notable episodes in this season include deadlock where we get the birth of Naomi Wildman her mother Samantha play by actress Nancy Hower was initially named Karen Wildman but the name

was changed by season 2 episode 4 co-writer Jimmy Diggs Samantha was the name of a little girl who died in an accident and whose organs were then donated to his wife when Samantha's parents told Diggs that their little girl liked animals he not only named the character after her but he made her a xenobiologist one of the worst and also one of the most controversial episodes of Star Trek Voyager take place in season 2 the 15th episode threshold where Jane way and Paris turn into lizards and make babies is nearly universally considered the worst episode

of the series I don't know how I'm going to enter this into the log I look forward to reading it Michael Duca who cut his teeth writing on horror before Voyager sure scared fans with the implications Of the captain and her pilot creating Offspring in any form Duca would hang on to his writing and eventually receive Best Picture Oscar nominations as a producer for the Social Network Moneyball and Captain Phillips so Thresh hold probably doesn't keep him awake at night of course one of the most controversial episodes of Voyager was did Captain Janeway commit murder

where a transporter accident spli together neix and tuac to create tuix played by The Talented Tom Wright while some fans still argue Jane way did murder tuix Mulgrew explained later that because tuac andix couldn't decide for themselves she needed to look out for each of their best interest the debate continues on today security to the bridge Commander you going to stand by and do nothing while she commits murder Mr Ayala Paris you doesn't anyone see that this is wrong one of the most important things season 2 did was close the door on any romance between

Janeway and chakote during the 25th episode resolutions Janeway and chakote are left behind on a planet after Voyager is unable to find a cure for a terminal illness if they stay on board the ship Kate Mulgrew said at a convention in 2003 that she didn't feel as if she could have a love affair with a second command because she had to get these people home she got them lost and she really couldn't be doing things like that in the ready room it closed the door on the relationship hope for fans and really allowed us to

focus on the path of growth for Captain Janeway moving forward the start of season 3 would Mark a huge change in the Voyager production Michael pillar would leave the show after 7 years of working on Star Trek Trek and not just working on Star Trek but really being the number two right behind Burman Piller would be responsible for coming up with many of the critical stories elements and decisions that led to the success of TNG Deep Space 9 and Voyager when pillar first sat down to meet Jee Roddenberry and Burman he told them he doesn't

know a lot about science fiction but what he does know is character development pillar would end up becoming the showrunner for TNG season 3 and building a strong writing room which was something that had been lacking the first two seasons when pillar took over he also moved the Focus away from Alien of the week or situation of the week stories to ones that developed the main characters in their relationships some people will say rker growing his beard was the turning point in TNG in season 2 but looking back it was really getting to know Captain

Bard rker data and the rest of the crew that made the show beloved by generations of fans and pillar would take this concept with him as he co-created Deep Space 9 and Voyager as well as elevating these shows with his high standards of writing like Burman you can thank pillar for helping maintain the Integrity of roddenberry's vision when a script started going out of Jean's boundary he would say nobody is speaking for Roddenberry in this scene or there's no morality in this scene and I am not comfortable putting out this message pillar championed Star Trek's

intellectual approach to problem solving and helped guide stories in that direction while pillar was leaving the day-to-day business of Star Trek he did stay on as a consultant for the rest of the show and even wrote and co-produced the 1998 movie Star Trek insurrection sadly he passed away in 2005 losing A battle with head neet cancer at the age of 57 Jerry Taylor was the showrunner of season 3 which broadcast at the same time as deep space 9's fifth season and the movie Star Trek first Contact in the fall of 1996 first Contact would feature

the Borg an idea from the movie's co-writer Brandon Braga who just so happened to be also writing on Voyager if you recall earlier Michael Auda had suggested sending Voyager to the Delta quadrant where the Borg were from which would make some interesting storylines for the show little did he know that one suggestion would eventually result in 23 Borg Centric episodes the most in any Star Trek show saying goodbye to the week Kon season 3 would begin to capitalize on the success of first Contact by having two Borg Centric episodes unity and the season ending Cliffhanger

Scorpion part one the big bads of Star Trek were here to stay we are the Bor you will be assimilated resistance is futile season 3 would also give us the first hints of a budding romance between Tom and balana speaking of Tom this is the first season the cast would get to start directing episodes Robert Duncan mcneel would direct the sth episode Sacred ground and the 17th Borg Centric episode Unity Robert picardo would also double as the doctor and a director taking the helm on episode 14 Alter Ego while Voyager had started out very successfully

after after three seasons viewership had dropped by nearly 2 million per episode Braga who had been taking a bigger role in the writer room recalls the show needing a kick in the ass creatively Captain Janeway was great but she didn't have her Spock or data really the doctor was great but he wasn't really a foil to Janeway the captain needed someone to play off Burman also thought Voyager needed to add some Pizzazz to season 4 he was really interested in the character of data a machine that wants to be human but decided to adjust the

formula and take a human that was a machine and have them find their humanity and a borg would be perfect and with that seven of 9 was born named for the Android character Roa from the 1964 science fiction sitcom my living doll roa's designation was EF 709 which became seven of n Burman thought the fans would love it but you know what would really make ratings go up even more to quote Brandon brog a buxom Borg babe enter 1989's Miss Illinois who would finish his third runner up in the Miss America 1990 pageant Jerry Lynn

Ryan who would graduate that same year with a bachelor's degree in theater from Northwestern got her first role in an episode of who's The Boss opposite Tony Danza after grinding it out on TV shows and TV movies for the next several years Ryan land ended a series regular role on the series Dark Skies but it was cancelled after one season as luck would have it Ryan was in the right place at the right time and exactly what Star Trek Executives were looking for everyone except Burman who once again was trying to get Susan Gibney on

the show previously thinking she should play Janeway now he thought she would make a perfect seven of nine but the studio once again told him no and later Burman would say that was probably the right call the other actresses up for the role were Babylon five-star Claudia Christian and Xena Warrior princesses Hudson leak it would come down to these two actresses and Ryan Braga would later say of these three Ryan was the clear favorite her audition consisted of two readings for the Producers before she was asked to talk through the part with Taylor Burman and

Braga she then tested for the network and was offered the role but when she found out what they were planning for her to wear Ryan didn't like it in fact she turned down the role four times before Taylor was able to convince her to join the cast Ryan didn't want to be seen only for her physical attributes and to clear up a misconception a lot of fans have Ryan wasn't hired for her looks according to Taylor of all the actresses that auditioned she read the best but Ryan needed convincing and only after Taylor promised she

would contribute more to the show than just her outward Beauty she finally agreed to take the part and contribute to the show she would while she would go on to become one of the most important characters during the final four seasons of the show her C costume alone would create an unprecedented media circus before an episode with her in it even aired 2 weeks after IID gotten cast in the world we had even started shooting yet I had my own web page all of a sudden when Billboards and the TV Guide showed Ryan in her

seven of n costume A Sleek silvery catsuit that accentuated well everything the entire entertainment world was suddenly talking about Star Trek Voyager and the upcoming season and while most people would gossip that it was only a ploy to increase ratings which it definitely did fans who checked in to see the new sexy bombshell Borg were sticking around because there was more to this Borg than her costume I believe that you are punishing me because I do not think the way that you [Music] do the problem with adding a new cast member when you have a

large ensemble cast on a television show is you might have to make room for them many of the Voyager characters were already seeing limited screen time and that would only get worse verus 7even of n became more popular Garrett Wang thought he was the one going he didn't think Burman liked him since his request to direct an episode had been denied Wang believed an off- thee reccord comment he made to a TV Guide reporter that got printed anyway was the reason Wang told the reporter that he believed burman's rule that human characters should show less

emotion was ridiculous and he thought that the producers Of Voyager didn't take risks to make the show as good as possible shortly thereafter Wang requested to direct and was denied he asked a couple more times in later Seasons as well and was turned down then as well to this day Wang has strong feelings about Burman and how Voyager was made so going into season 4 who was going to leave the show to make room for seven for years the rumor was that Wang was saved by being selected as the 26th most beautiful person of people's

1997 50 most beautiful people in the world magazine the production crew couldn't cut him after being recognized by People magazine so instead they cut Jennifer lean because her character just wasn't working out while that was the rumor for more than 20 years recently we've learned the truth Garrett Wang shared in 2021 during his and mcneel's Delta Flyers podcast that the People magazine story wasn't true he was never at risk of being written off the show also in 2021 the truth about why Jennifer lean was let go from the show finally came out during the Amazon

television series The Center seat 55 years of Star Trek in the seventh episode Jerry Taylor shared what really happened She said it was a mystery to everyone Jennifer was a very good actor and the relationship between her and neelix was working wonderfully but she started to become distracted inattentive and there was something off she would require multiple takes to get scenes right Taylor asked her to come into her office so she could see if there was something going on in her life that she could help her with Taylor shared that no one could speak to

her including her agent more light on what happened to lean was shed in the 2020 behind the scenes book Star Trek Voyager a celebration the authors of the book spoke to each of the main cast members who said lean was a talented actress who was able to access a deep well of emotions and that well that seemed to be filled with dark Waters if you recall when we talked about lean earlier she grew up on the streets of South Chicago and witnessed or participated in many traumatic events just to survive could those events have been

her dark Waters it became apparent to her co-stars and the producers that she was struggling with mental health issues and possibly addiction they then said it started impacting her ability to really Show up for her performances unable to get through to lean her contract was terminated and she was written off the show UPN Executives wanted Kess cut from Voyager offscreen without explanation but Taylor insisted the character get a proper farewell lean's last appearance as a full-time cast member was in the gift which was supposed to be the fifth episode of the four season but would

be moved to the second episode after the decision to remove lean from the show Kess would return one more time in the 23rd episode of the six season of the episode titled Fury but that would be the last time lean was on the show in 2002 she gave birth to a son and shortly thereafter would retire from acting altogether all was quiet about the actress until 2012 when she was arrested for domestic violence in 2015 she made headlines again when she was arrested in two separate incidents in April she was charged with evading and resisting

arrest reckless endangerment and aggravated assault with police saying she rammed into a cruiser then 4 months later in August she was charged with indecent exposure according to variety lean had a confrontation with a neighbor In Tennessee during which she revealed her rear and breasts while children were present in October lean was court ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation a little more than a year later all charges against lean were dropped after she paid more than $2,000 in restitution and had no further incidents she was ordered to continue complying with her mental health treatment then

in March 2018 lean was arrested for driving after losing her license she'd been arrested a week prior for the same charge and she'd lost her license after a previous DUI in December 2017 where she was driving erratically and admitted she was drunk and spat on the arresting officer since her last incident she has remained out of the public eye thanks to the addition of seven of n in the Borg season 4 did get a huge boost in ratings more than 60% in fact but the good news and the new addition didn't necessarily translate into good

feelings among the cast Kate Mulgrew the first female Captain was used to getting most of the attention but when seven of nine was added all the Press started to go to Ryan Paramount publicity went into overdrive thinking they could Use seven of nine to break Star Trek into the mainstream media and they succeeded according to Burman things were tense between both of them from the start Kate was sort of the queen of Star Trek at that point she hung out with the astronauts she hung out with Hillary Clinton and she was the spokeswoman for women

in leadership role all of a sudden this busty gorgeous blonde babe appears who took away everyone's breath I literally once remember some press being on the stage and just sort of pushing by Kate to get to Jerry so there was a little antagonism that existed right through to the end of the show with those two ladies it's not hard to see why mgu might have grown jealous the overt sexualization of Ryan was hard on her she felt like it was a slap in the face to everything she had gone through with Janeway on top of

everything else seven of nine became the focus of a larm of stories mulu wasn't the only one not happy with seven of nine Tim Russ felt like the Borg sounded like he did and felt like his character would have a hard time meshing with hers so some of the on-screen drama we see between seven of N and Janeway in that fourth season had An element of reality because of the tension that happened off screen as a result the set of Voyager became a much more difficult place to work according to Wang initially mulu wasn't angry

with Ryan it was directed toward her character but when the production wouldn't get rid of her that's when she turned her anger toward Ryan and that's when things became horrible Mulgrew demanded the same number of close-ups as Ryan she also went to the line producer and told them Jerry Ryan is not allowed to use the bathroom unless she uses it before work or after work Ryan who was already in discomfort from the severe corset in her costume that caused breathing problems had already been holding her bathroom throughout the day not wanting to slow down production

it took about 20 minutes to get her back into her suit and someone had to dress her and undress her as as a result she wouldn't drink or eat anything on set which wasn't healthy The Producers didn't honor mre's request to not let her use the restroom but it had already affected Ryan and the whole situation had become very difficult for her Not only was she the new person in the cast but she Was trying to be a professional and give her best performances but she had mornings where she was nauseous just at the thought

of going to work because she was so stressed especially on days when she knew she had a lot of scenes with Mulgrew Ryan shared a story about how Mulgrew would get hair makeup and wardrobe touch-ups but then would say about Ryan she's fine let's go going as far as to keep the hair and makeup people off the set she also shared that during some of her close-ups Mulgrew would half-hazard say her lines to Ryan off camera while picking her nails and thumbing through a book The Bad Blood would continue for a couple years until Ryan

started dating the boss she sure did and we'll get to that shortly knowing all of this information gives a whole new insight to those season 4 episodes where Jane way and seven n are totally at odds molu in recent years would take total and complete ownership of what happened this is what Kate had to say about it let's be very straight about something this is on me not Jerry she came in and did what she was asked to do no question about that and she did it very well it's on me because I'd hoped Against

hope that Jane way would be sufficient that we didn't have to bring a beautiful sexy girl in that somehow the power of my command the vicissitudes of my talent would be sufficient unto the day day because this would really change Television right that's what dug me the hardest that to pick up the numbers they did that that was my interpretation of it and that hurt me I found it sort of insulting and of course she embodied the part this beautiful girl but we certainly were utterly professional I had been nothing short of completely professional and

she did her job very well it was a very good idea that she was half bored but it's on me I'm sorry it has to be part of this Legacy and I should have probably comported myself better I should have been more philosophical about it but in the moment it was difficult season 4 could be described as the seven of n Season they were heavy with episodes centering solely on developing the new character and also developing all the other characters relationships with her writers had given Voyager six opportunities to return to the alpha quadrant however

there was none of that in season 4 until The finale hope and fear where an alien tempts the crew with a quick return home while all the while trying to get them as assimilated by the Borg as Revenge as the series continued there were less attempts to get home quickly and more of a focus on making larger jumps closer to Earth the first being at the start of season 4 when Kess gives the crew a gift knocking 10,000 Lighty years and 10 years off their Journey as well as placing them outside of Borg space I

give to [Music] you Braga who now had an elevated rle in Voyager after pillar left the show was responsible for what is arguably the best episode of the entire series during season 4 the two-part episode year of Hell which aired 7eventh and eth that season featured a krenim military temporal scientist who is obsessed with restoring the kenam Imperium at all costs as a result he creates a change in history that all but destroys Voyager the episode was inspired by a scene from the season 3 episode before and after where Kess travels into her future aboard

Voyager there she is in a relationship with Tom Paris who talks about a race called the krenim that used a chroniton torpedo That began the year of Hell Braga loved the phrase and he loved the idea of destroying Voyager he initially pitched the idea to Burman as the ship being under constant attack for the entire season but Burman rejected the idea of serializing Voyager and limited the year of Hell to a two-part episode to many the episode is considered the most thrilling and engaging story of Voyager Seven Seasons also in season 4 roxan Dawson was

pregnant and many of her scenes were shot with her wearing a lab coat to hide her stomach Tim Russ also directed his one and only episode of the show living witness which was the 23rd season 4 which had seen the most change and upheaval of any season would come to an end with one more huge change for the show at the end of season 4 another show leader would call it quits Voyager co-creator Jerry Taylor who had now been with Star Trek since the fourth season of TNG had made up her mind at the beginning

of of voyager's fourth season that she was tired and would retire at the end so going into season five responsibility for Voyager fell to the new showrunner Brandon bragga bragga had joined TNG as an intern in 1990 working his way Up in the writing room and earning the support of Burman along the way in braga's hands season 5 took on a darker more brooding atmosphere than previous Seasons with several of the principal characters facing extremely dark moments in their development no episode was darker than the season premiere night which sees Vo attempting to Traverse a

dark region of space devoid of all matter and energy season 5 was also when some of the principal actors began dissenting calling Voyager the seven of n Jane Way doctor show none more than Beltran who admitted to just wanting to come in and do his work he felt like there was usually only one good scene per episode for him as a result Beltran started to become more vocal about his dissatisfaction Beltran always felt like pillar and Taylor listened to him but once Braga took over the focus changed to of N and he didn't feel like

anyone was listening to him anymore so he had no problem complaining loudly about what he was unhappy about and while his fellow actors loved him he was really frustrating some of the writers including his new boss Braga Braga would later admit that He had an issue with Beltran as an actor he felt like he was phoning in his performance he admitted that when that happened he didn't write much for him which made Beltran more angry and it became a vicious Loop Beltran defended himself saying he didn't didn't feel like they wrote anything for him to

be enthusiastic about so he didn't put anything extra in because he didn't feel like the team behind the show was putting in anything extra either so during the fifth season Beltran was done with the show and he wanted to leave he was done with the tension between Mulgrew and Ryan and his limited role and he just wanted out a rumor from what culture said that Beltran continued to ask for raises in hopes of being let go but Paramount continued to pay him so he stayed on the show whatever the truth is neither Bel nor anyone

associated with the show have confirmed or denied these rumors something that wasn't a rumor was that Braga and Ryan started seeing each other outside of Star Trek during season 5 they moved in with each other and it didn't take a Star Trek scientist to figure out this was going to become a problem the drama between Mulgrew and Ryan had Just started dying down and now she was living with her boss the perceived unfairness would be unavoidable the relationship started to become serious enough that Braga felt like he had to go to mgr's trailer to tell

tell her what was going on brona wasn't sure what to expect but Mulgrew appreciating Brandon's gesture set aside her feelings about Ryan and asked her showrunner if he was in love and when he said yes she said she was happy for him during the season mcneel made it back into the director's chair for sumone to Watch Over Me season 5 also marked a change that is best signified in voyager's 100th episode Timeless which was the sixth episode of the season in that episode Jane way remarks it no longer seems a case of if we get

home but when if I sent a message from the future and changed the past then that future would no longer exist right Star Trek Voyager season 6 would be the first to be televised without running side by side with Deep Space 9 during the season Starfleet would finally establish communication with voyager thanks to an obsessed Reginal Barkley halfway through The season a significant development was added to the show as Voyager crew grew by four with the introduction of children of the Borg and ichib played by Manu interi seven would end up becoming a surrogate mother

to ichib further developing both of their characters other notable episodes included providing Janeway a love interest in the form of holidc character Michael Sullivan during the episodes Fair Haven and spirit folk mgar said when she read Fair Haven she went right over to Rick burman's office and said what are you smoking I mean how Desperado is this brao Dawson had her directing debut with the sixth episode of the Season riddles and picardo completed his Star Trek directing career with the episode one small step Voyager can also claim they once had one of the biggest box

office Sensations ever on the show that's right Dwayne The Rock Johnson played a pandari fighter in the 15th episode of the Season titled sunat the episode had originally been called Arena and Tim Russ called it a clever marketing Ploy as a crossover between Voyager and the UPN wrestling show w WF Smackdown it would end up being the highest rated episode of The Season as a small footnote in the sixth season we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that Terry metalis started working on Voyager as a production associate after Voyager he would continue with Enterprise as

an assistant to Braga and a rider in 2023 he would become the showrunner for the third season of Star Trek Bard which is arguably the most popular season of Star Trek since Voyager ended the six season ends with Captain Janeway tuac and Torres being a similar after the crew goes head-to-head with the boor Queen setting up a climatic final season of the [Music] show brag was burn out by the end of season 6 and turned the showrunner Reigns over to fellow riter Kenneth biller Braga didn't leave Star Trek but was instead convinced to launch the

next Star Trek series Enterprise with Burman biller had joined the series in the first season as a story editor coming over from Beverly Hills 90210 during season 2 he became a co-producer he was named a producer in season 4 and a supervising producer at the start of season 5 but he was fired from the show by Burman to make room for Ronald D Moore who had been riding for DS9 Moore and Braga had been Longtime collaborators writing Star Trek first Contact together but after a falling out more left the show biller was brought back to

the show with a promotion to co-executive producer the point here is that biller was very familiar with the show show and was capable of bringing the series home the final season of Voyager was bringing with it a continued decline in viewership despite the popularity of Ryan who had created a character who was somehow both invulnerable and vulnerable at the same time the show was finding it difficult to maintain viewership and the biggest reason is UPN the show was at a disadvantage when it came to outreach with many regions of the United States not even carrying

the network at all it was just the worst situation a flagship show could be in UPN just couldn't attract viewers I had no choice oh just following orders I've heard that before 2 years after Voyager was over UPN would finally reach only 85% of all us households despite that Voyager would hold its own averaging between 3 and a half and 4 million viewers for most of its final season we get Tom and bana's wedding during season 7 balana Paris as well as one last look at The queue as he introduces his son to Aunt Cathy

this is my son cute and if you've ever wondered why chakote and seven of n are suddenly thrust into a relationship no one wanted to see you can thank Eternal prankster Robert Beltran for that he was sitting in the makeup chair next to Jerry Ryan one day when he told her I'd like to have a scene where chakote kisses you but it will never happen because Brandon is too jealous Ryan laughed and told him I'm going to tell Brandon that Beltran said tell him he doesn't have the balls to do it as it would turn

out Braga did have the balls while he was working on Enterprise he still had a lot of pull on Voyager and he answered the challenge by co-writing the teleplay for episode 18 human error in this episode seven explores holck relationships with people on the ship including a romantic one with chakote that storyline would continue through the finale leaving most fans scratching their heads with a decision it's complicated how do you mean my personal life is none of your concern McNeil and Dawson would each get a couple more episodes to direct with body and soul and

Workforce part two Respectively with time winding down the production team knew they had to bring Voyager home but just how would they do it Burman and Braga would come back together and work with biller on the two-part finale endgame but how were they going to bring the new crew home their primary goal was to create a story that would be epic in scope Burman felt like they had big shoes to fill as TNG and DS9 finales had a sweeping heroic quality to them and they wanted the same to be true for the last episode of

Voyager Braga explained that they tried to create an episode that Taps into the core emotions that have been at play since the first episode in terms of the crew getting home and how much that meant to them they knew they needed a great villain they knew also that the Borg would have something to do with the season finale because they had been the Nemesis the entire season and notably Alice C who played the Borg Queen in Star Trek first Contact would reprise her role in the finale it was Burman that came up with the idea

for time travel it was Mulgrew herself who came up with the idea of Janeway going down with the ship an early idea had Janeway boldly surrending to the Borg allowing them to assimilate a battle damaged Voyager and its crew the doctor would then activate a reverse assimilation virus while using the Borg transwarp conduit to escape home the ultimate decision to have Admiral Janeway who is unable to live with the fact that she did not bring home her entire crew go back in time and sacrifice herself to get everyone home Rings true for her character it

was keeping a promise she'd made way back in the first episode of the show set a course for home the finale was watched by 8.8 million viewers the highest ratings for the show since seven of n was introduced in the fourth season premiere after 172 episodes and seven seasons the cast still couldn't believe it was over but Star Trek Productions wait for No One while filming the final scenes of the final episode characters last lines were literally followed by the falling of walls and sets to make room for the new Enterprise show it was upsetting

for the entire cast who felt like there was no real goodbye after 7 years even Burman didn't come down to the set on the final day to give the crew a proper goodbye as he Was already working on Enterprise Mulgrew was kept for an additional 5 days of close-ups and pickups and literally the moment they wrapped a guy came over with a screwdriver and began dismantling her captain's chair no one came she was all alone then someone in the darkness said well Kate that was a great seven years mgur started crying when she you saw

that the silhouette in the door was Robert picardo he said come here Captain give me a hug and let's go have a drink face the camera [Music] smile after more than two decades after it ended the cast of Star Trek Voyager is still best known for their time on the show mgu would go on to continue acting including being nominated for her first prime time Emmy Award in 2014 for her role in Orange as the New Black wow after years of appearing at Star Trek conventions Mulgrew found herself back with Jane way this time in

Voice only as she played training hologram Janeway and the real vice admiral Jane way in the Animated Series Star Trek prodigy after Voyager Jerry Ryan joined the cast of Boston public and appeared in various movies and TV shows over the years I need you to stop staring at me like that marry me I beg your pardon your 15 minutes are almost up mine has lasted a lifetime then in 2020 she found herself reprising her role of seven of nine in Star Trek Bard for three seasons should Star Trek Executives ever decide to revisit her character

in a show called say Star Trek Legacy seven of nine would be the new captain of the USS Enterprise G we'll keep our fingers crossed both Robert Duncan mcneel and roxand Dawson would both continue pursuing careers as directors first with Star Trek Enterprise and then with other shows like House of Cards Agents of Shield Supernatural and the Orville good morning Commander hi ISAC I wish to become intimate with you pretty good how are you mcneel and Garrett Wang would start a podcast called the Delta flyers in May 2020 to discuss episodes of Voyager Robert belr

stayed the opinionated unwavering man he's always been Doing a variety of projects over the years in 2022 he came back as the voice of chot for Star Trek Prodigy once again teaming up with Mulgrew what are you doing in our airspace and the guy behind him go yeah what are you doing here I never could figure out why all the alien bad guys had English accents you know always wanted one to be at least one to be like Latino you know hey what you doing in our aace Tim Russ would go on to direct and

star in the fan series Star Trek gods of men he then later directed and co-starred in Star Trek Renegades and has lent his voice to various Star Trek projects in 2023 he was brought back to play a changeling impersonating tuac as well as tuac himself during Star Trek Bard season 3 Ethan Phillips who had already performed a liftime of work before Voyager didn't stop grinding after the show besides playing a fangi on an episode episode of Enterprise he has been in over 100 roles in TV shows and movies including once again the voice of neix

in 2023 for Star Trek's very short tracks Robert picardo like Phillips would work non-stop after Voyager he would also continue his popularity in the science fiction Community by Playing Richard woy on Stargate Atlantis in 2023 he returned to the Star Trek universe to voice the doctor once again for Star Trek Prodigy the doctor will also play a recurring role starring picardo in the Star Trek series Starfleet Academy in 2025 Voyager significance to the Star Trek franchise can't be understated after the show ended a series of novels begun in 2003 which continues the story of Voyager

following the events of endgame three video games based on Voyager were released Star Trek Voyager Star Trek Voyager Elite Force and Star Trek Encounters in 2015 astronaut Samantha Christopher edti tweeted a Janeway quote from the sixth episode of the first season called the cloud there's coffee in that nebula she said from the International Space Station which was receiving a shipment of supplies including a machine which would allow coffee beverages to be made aboard the actual space station streaming managed to bring whole new audiences to Star Trek Voyager in recent years in September 2023 we compiled

a definitive ranking of All Star Trek shows and concluded that fans liked Voyager fourth best of all 11 series you can check out that video here if You're interested but but what do you think where does Voyager rank amongst your all-time Star Trek shows and do you have a different opinion today than you did when the show first aired share with us your favorite moments and stories from the show in the comments below we'd love to talk to you about it is this really necessary you promised very well live long and prosper also thank you

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