Voyager – My Favorite!

I’m going to take a lot of flack for this: Star Trek: Voyager is my favorite Star Trek series. There, I said it.

For the woefully ignorant, Voyager follows a starship of the same name. Her crew, through an unfortunate encounter, end up a very long way from home. They’ve got no quick way back, and are stuck with no support, no allies, and no coffee.

Growing up, I admired the ship’s captain. Kathryn Janeway isn’t merely an exemplary Starfleet officer; she shows herself to be a gutsy, caring, critically thinking role model. She goes out of her way to show her crew that she can make tough choices with their best interests in mind and has the cojones to back them up. She meets challenges head on, then takes time to reflect on the outcome.

The supporting cast is rich and varied. From the gregarious Neelix to the stoic Tuvok, we come to intimately know and love them all.

The show is heavy with themes of transformation. Each character becomes a better version of themselves as time goes on. The greatest examples of this are in the personas of the ship’s holographic doctor and the former Borg, Seven of Nine. Both characters shed their basic, programmed behavior and discover where their humanity lies. While Seven of Nine overcomes her violation at the hands of the Borg and truly starts living a very human existence, the Doctor transcends what his programming was intended to do and becomes a being capable of complex emotion and love.

At the end of the day, the series isn’t perfect. I recognize the faults in the writing that I missed as a child. These characters and their stories remain dear to my heart. Voyager will always be my favorite Star Trek series.

By Jen Randall, USS Tiburon Command Staff At-Large Member