At the risk of sounding too much like a quotation from Oscar Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol – in which he said “each man kills the thing he loves” – fandom can sometimes be its own worst enemy, and the sniping over some of the current Trek shows can risk becoming damaging, like the furore in some circles over Starfleet Academy being too ‘woke’ (with those same folk evidently seeming to forget the boldness of the original series by featuring a diverse cast and crew which pushed against the conventions of both television itself and society at the time of its broadcast).
Of course, another irony is Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a future where people could strive to live and work together in harmony, would be undercut not only by all the internecine battles amongst the fan base, but also the tales of behind-the-scenes turmoil which would emerge over the decades. For example, it no doubt came as a huge shock when it came out in the wake of the 1993 publication of William Shatner’s Star Trek Memories that the actor discovered discord some amongst his co-stars, many of whom had a long-held dislike of him for various reasons.
With scales falling from people’s eyes and the bubble having been burst, various tales of production chaos, bruised egos and personality clashes off camera would come to light and be chronicled in various ways. The troubled inception of Star Trek: The Next Generation – the first ever spin-off from the original series – would be the subject matter of Chaos On The Bridge. For the franchise’s 55th anniversary, an eleven-part documentary – The Center Seat (with a second season being scheduled to drop for the 60th anniversary) – charted controversies from Trek’s creation and going right up to Star Trek: Enterprise.
During its stint on our screens, Deep Space Nine proved to be particularly contentious for some fans, who would accuse it of boldly going nowhere and being the very antithesis of Star Trek’s exploring strange new worlds, by dint of it being set on a space station. It also suffered unfairly by comparison with Babylon 5, to which it bore some similarities, and which launched around the same time. The whole story – including the backlash from die-hard Trekkers – was told in a raw and uncompromising fashion by 455 Films’ 2019 documentary feature What We Left Behind – Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Production of What We Left Behind had been crowdfunded via the platform Indiegogo, and was considered successful enough for a follow-up documentary to be produced, this time focusing upon the show which came after Deep Space Nine – Star Trek: Voyager. Based around the intrepid crew of the USS Voyager, who – thrown together with a group of freedom fighters who had formed a resistance against the Cardassians – found themselves thrown more than 70,000 light years from home, Voyager centred around their efforts to try and get back to Earth, whilst still upholding the ideals of the United Federation of Planets in their encounters with new life and new civilisations.
Voyager was to be the lynchpin programme on a brand new channel being launched in the USA – the United Paramount Network, or UPN – as a contender to the established ABC, NBC, CBS and the more recent Fox. Strangely enough, there had originally been a plan by Paramount in the late 1970s to use a revival of the original Star Trek with most of the same cast returning as the centrepiece of a mooted Paramount Television Service; however, the numbers failed to add up for the network to be viable, and the proposed Star Trek: Phase II ultimately morphed into Star Trek: The Motion Picture, as studio execs wanted a rival to Star Wars. It seems a curious twist of fate that the franchise would also end up playing a similar role in the 21st Century, with it being a focal point for the Paramount+ streaming service.
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With Voyager being the first show in the Trek canon to have a woman in the Captain’s chair, there was some pushback on that idea, despite the franchise having a progressive outlook, which demonstrates that almost 30 years after Star Trek began, there was still a long way for society to go, boldly or otherwise. The project hit the rocks only a few days after commencing production after the actress originally cast as Captain Kathryn Janeway – Geneviève Bujold – walked out, deciding she would not be up to the rigours of the television turnaround schedule. It would be the first – but certainly not the last – issue to arise, with To The Journey: Looking Back At Star Trek: Voyager charting a course through each one of these in turn.
Like its predecessor What We Left Behind, To The Journey tackles head-on the contentious and problematic matters which occurred during Voyager’s time on our screens, and does so in a manner which is frank and candid without ever tipping over into muckraking, or being salacious or gossipy. Due credit goes to 455 Films for being able to get input from virtually all of the main cast, with the notable exception of Kes actress Jennifer Lien – her absence, whilst keenly felt, is understandable given the discussion of the reasons behind her departure from the series in its fourth season, and you can tell how much it impacted all of the interviewees when broaching the subject.
Some of the backstage wranglings and difficulties appear to be less well known than others, particularly when it comes to the production team, with attention being given to what was happening on both sides of the camera. Given the many light years that have passed since Voyager ended in 2001, it does appear that many bridges have now been rebuilt, old wounds have healed, with many of the interviewees having arrived at a more sanguine overview. Rifts – like the one between Kate Mulgrew and Jeri Ryan, following the latter’s introduction to Voyager mid-series as ex-Borg Seven of Nine – have been patched up during recent times, and a real sense comes over of there being a mutual respect and camaraderie between all the cast, with any differences long-since settled.
Perhaps the only real oddity throughout the documentary comes in the form of occasional cutaways to Garrett Wang – Ensign Harry Kim – getting to take a ride on the infamous ‘Vomit Comet’, an aircraft which simulates weightlessness for short periods by flying parabolas. While the whole thing is a bit of a lark, its relevance to the programme seems a bit tenuous at best, seeing as how all of the Federation vessels have artificial gravity, so ‘zero-g’ was never really a feature. However, given how heavy some of the discussions either side get at times, perhaps a bit of a pause for a breather and some light relief is welcoming in breaking things up, giving us some much-needed respite.
In the now quarter of a century since the USS Voyager finally made it back to Sector 001, Star Trek: Voyager looks to have undergone something of a reappraisal, and maybe gotten to have its due at long last. Captain Janeway got a promotion to Admiral by the time of her cameo in Star Trek: Nemesis, and went on to appear in the animated series Star Trek: Prodigy alongside Chakotay and the ship’s holographic Doctor, with the latter also appearing as a legacy character in Starfleet Academy. Actors Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill also went on to host a weekly podcast – The Delta Flyers – which took the duo on a tour of each Voyager episode from first through to last, with their eager listeners being caught in the slipstream.
To The Journey’s timing feels absolutely spot-on, not only because it helps with the ongoing rehabilitation of Star Trek: Voyager’s unfairly tarnished reputation, but also as it arrives at a point when the whole of the Star Trek franchise appears to be once more at a crossroads, with no shows in production at present, and an uncertain future. As such, To The Journey is a reminder to us all of the triumph of hope over adversity, no matter how grim the odds may appear to be, and that the journey is more important than the destination.
To The Journey: Looking Back At Star Trek: Voyager is available to order on the documentary’s BackerKit page.
