You can read Ron's list of the top 25 Voyager episodes on Show Snob.
This is Part 1 of the episode transcript.
Ron: Hello and welcome to another Flashback Favourite episode of Stereo Geeks. I’m Ron.
Mon: And I’m Mon.
Ron: Today we’ll be talking about Star Trek: Voyager.
As lifelong Star Trek fans, Voyager was always going to be on our radar. But surprisingly, we didn't really know about it till we came across it.
Mon: Yes, we were flipping channels one fine evening, when we were teenagers, and we came across what looked like a Star Trek show. It turned out to be the last few moments of ‘Demon’, a Season 4 episode. And we were like, ‘okay, we want to get back into the Star Trek universe’.
The next episode was ‘One’. Let's just say that’s one of the most wonky introductions to any show. ‘One’ features two of the more eccentric crew members in the lead, that is Jeri Ryan’ Seven of Nine, and Robert Picardo’s the Doctor. We were a little bit unsure about whether we would return to this world, but then we saw that the Captain was a woman.
And look, as much as we love Star Trek, and at that time when we were teenagers, we had sort of seen most of the shows, and we knew that the women could have done better in that universe. Now we had a woman Captain. No way! We were intrigued.
And so, we sat down, and one episode became two, two episodes became three, and soon Star Trek Voyager was our daily friend.
Ron: Since we came to Voyager quite late, we ended up watching the latter half of the show when most of the crew were pretty settled. But the channel that we were watching it on ended up resetting the whole thing once the show finished, and we got to see everybody from when they first joined the crew.
It was a really fascinating experience, because we were kind of working off the Zeigarnik effect. We already knew what was gonna happen to most of these people. So, it was more about watching their journey throughout this journey.
Mon: And because we knew how they ended up, when we started watching the show we were able to see patterns, and maybe even some foreshadowing, that the writers hadn't even thought of.
Ron: So, what is Voyager about? Voyager is a galaxy class ship that gets pulled into the Delta Quadrant and stranded there when they're hunting a Maquis ship.
Now, the Caretaker array which ostensibly drags them into the Delta Quadrant, ends up having to be destroyed and Voyager has a 75-year journey ahead of them to get back to the Alpha Quadrant.
The thing is Captain Janeway, played by Kate Mulgrew, never really thinks that it's gonna take them 75 years. She knows that there are endless spatial phenomena that can cut off years from their journey. So she believes that this mission of theirs will be completed with this crew intact. And she holds on to that for the entire seven seasons of the show's run.
I love her conviction in her crew, in her ship, and in Starfleet. Captain Janeway really embodies everything that we love about Starfleet Captains and that kind of sold the show to me. She was the first character that really stood out when we started watching it, and I was so fascinated by her that I just wanted to see more of her. It was only after I got more comfortable with Captain Janeway being so awesome that I started realizing that, ‘oh there are all these other characters who are also super cool’.
By the time we finished the last couple of seasons, there was something about every single character that we both completely and utterly loved. And then you start the whole thing again from scratch and you see how they got there, and it's an amazing journey.
These are really fascinating characters who are believable and also nuanced.
Mon: What I love about the Voyager crew is that you can always see some aspect of your own personality reflected back at you in these characters. So, even though some of them can be larger than life or they make decisions that are questionable or against what you would do, at the end of the day, you understand why they made that decision, or you’re able to accept that yes, they're just people, and they can make mistakes. And I think that relatability is what attracted us most to these characters. And it’s one of the reasons why we keep going back to the show, we keep thinking about these characters, and the biggest reason why starting Voyager is a Flashback Favorite.
So, you talked about Captain Janeway, I want to talk about her First Officer, Commander Chakotay. Played by Robert Beltran, he was the Captain of the Maquis ship that Voyager was after.
In the ‘Caretaker' episodes, Chakotay rams his ship into the Caretaker array, thereby destroying the ship and leaving him without a vessel. He and his crew then have to join Captain Janeway on Voyager and they now have to follow Starfleet rules.
Now, the thing about Chakotay is that he could have easily been abrasive, indignant, and a pain in the neck for poor Captain Janeway, but he's the complete opposite. From the get go, he's always taking her side; he's always by her side. And whenever the Maquis crew are disgruntled about Captain Janeway, he always tells them, ‘she's got so many responsibilities to take care of us, shut up and sit down’. [laughs] I really like that about him.
And the thing about Chakotay that I really like the most is that in later seasons he definitely finds his footing a little bit more. He's able to question the Captain, he's able to argue and debate with the Captain, they kind of end up on opposite sides from time to time, especially when it comes to the Borg. But one thing is for sure. He never makes her feel like she doesn't have her back. That's what I really love about Chakotay.
Ron: Chakotay is the antithesis of toxic masculinity. He's in a position of power, he's the commander, he has Starfleet training; he never uses any of that against Captain Janeway. He makes sure that the Maquis stays in line, and because they respect him so much they actually listen to him.
And even when he disagrees, he doesn't make a huge show about it. He doesn't start yelling in the conference room. No, he waits, he talks to Captain Janeway when they're alone. He voices his opinions, he asks her why she's doing what she's doing. And they have a debate about it. We really need more male characters like this. And that in the 90s, we had Chakotay, I just keep wondering what happened after that.
Mon: It's the notion of respect. Chakotay always respects the Captain, and she respects him. So, that's what enables them to successfully guide the ship home.
Ron: And the other thing is that, Captain Janeway is very much a Starfleet officer. Chakotay, by dint of having been in the Maquis, he obviously went against Starfleet. But the moment he is back in the fold, it's not like he's forgotten his Starfleet training, he still respects that badge, he still respects that uniform. And if that means having to agree with Starfleet ways, even if that's not how he would have done it, then he does it.
Mon: Yeah, and he reminds his people that there's a reason why they are following Starfleet rules, it’s because they’re on a Starfleet ship. This is the only way they're gonna get home, so they need to respect that. And for the most part they do.
What I like about Voyager is that it's very much an office environment. You're gonna have those crabbity people, you're gonna have those people who keep complaining, you will have that oddball who is very good at their job.
What I like about this show is because these characters—you know we mentioned believable, relatable—but they also feel real, which is the funniest thing to say when you're talking about a show set on a ship in the 24th century, lost in the Delta Quadrant. But this is why we love it. It's the characters.
Ron: So, then we come to my favorite character in all of Star Trek, Roxann Dawson's B'Elanna Torres. B'Elanna Torres is half-human/ half-Klingon. She was raised by her Klingon mother after her father left, because apparently, he could not deal with two Klingons. And she is a very, very angry person.
I really love that we get an angry woman. In Star Trek, up until Voyager, all the ladies were very overtly feminine. They were the loving, nurturing people; the guys got to be angry. In Deep Space Nine, Kira Nerys at least got to be quite angry as well, but her anger was coming from political pain. Whereas with B'Elanna, her anger comes from personal pain.
I really love that about her, and the fact that she gets to be angry through out. Yes, she tries lots of things for anger management, she does meditation, she tries different sports, she tries to be more angry, nothing works. She's always angry. By the end of the show, she's still angry. And you know what, some people just are angry.
But despite that, she makes excellent friends, she is the best at her job, and she has a loving partner. B'Elanna is the entire package when you're looking for a great character. It's really hard to find another that surpasses her.
Mon: I think, B'Elanna, when we were young, she just made so much sense to us. With B'Elanna, she has an actual war going on with the Klingon side and the human side. Anyone who's ever felt like they don't belong in their skin or in the society that they live in, B'Elanna is going to be your character. She embodies that struggle with understanding who you are, and how you fit in.
Throughout the seven seasons, she continues to struggle with her anger. It flares up from time to time, insecurity about who she is flares up from time to time, and she gets to work through that all throughout the seven seasons. She's not magically cured of her anger just because she finds friendship, or she finds love. No, this is a work in progress, and it's going to remain a work in progress, because that's just how people are. That’s what I love about B'Elanna.
Ron: I think Tom Paris, played by Robert Duncan McNeill, was the most relatable character when we started watching. He was kind of like the everyman. He didn't even want to be on the ship. So, for somebody who got dragged onto this mission, not for his skills but to be an observer, while he was at a penal colony for working with the Maquis—because of course Tom Paris would get caught on his very first mission—seven years on this ship, stranded in the Delta Quadrant, that is not how Tom Paris expected his life to go.
But when you watch this character from beginning to end, my gosh, he has so much growth.
Mon: Tom Paris was obviously written to be the quintessential all-American dude. In the first couple of seasons, you can see that the writers are striving very hard to make him as generic as possible. And yet they somehow failed, and that's a good thing.
Because with Tom, he’s supposed to be the lothario, the playboy, the one who doesn't really follow the rules. Yet he's really good at his job, he's highly respected by the Captain and the only one who can ruffle her feathers without getting into too much trouble.
Also, he is really respectful of the ladies on the ship, even though from time to time the writers try very hard to make him not.
The thing about Tom is, that he loves flying the ship, but he has a lot of hobbies, and they’re fun hobbies. As much as they try to make him really dull, he comes across as the most three-dimensional of characters because there's just so much to him.
Ron: Tom turns out to be the life of the party. Some times, especially in the first couple of seasons, it seems like he's the kind of person you would want to avoid. But then he becomes really good friends with Harry Kim, and you're like, ‘you know, these are just a couple of sweet guys’.
Tom never gets the opportunity to be the jerk character that they tried to make him, he rises above that, and becomes really really sweet person. I can't complain.
Tom Paris is exactly the kind of character that you end up really loving, and that's exactly what happened to us.
Of course, you can't talk about Tom Paris, without talking about Harry Kim.
Harry Kim is he's all of us. He's this bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Ensign on his very first mission, and honestly, he deserves better. Harry Kim is supremely good at his job, and he's constantly learning and growing and getting better. The Captain really relies on him. And despite the fact that he's clearly one of the younger characters, he has a voice.
He does things, he makes things happen. By the end of the seven seasons Harry is still an Ensign, but you can see that had he been back in the Alpha Quadrant, he would have risen up the ranks the way Geordi La Forge did. And you can see that in the few alternate universe versions of the future for Voyager, he does do well. And it's because he's really good.
But Harry is also a bit subversive, in the sense that coming off of TNG, there the female characters tended to have so many romantic plots that you could easily count on one hand, maybe even a couple of fingers, how many times they got to be non-romantic.
Harry Kim, on the other hand, got a lot of romance plots. Yes, he's a very good-looking young man, but it was a bit surprising to see how many love stories were around him. But once he managed to get pulled out of that we got to see a lot more of what Harry's personality was like.
Now he could have easily been the audience stand-in because he was so new; he could have been the one who's asking all the questions, ‘Why is this happening, what's going on there, where are we going?’ No, he doesn't ask any questions, because he is legit Starfleet. He doesn't need to ask any questions; he knows what he's doing.
But the other thing about Harry that I really, really loved, especially in the earlier seasons, he's so full of hope. And when we were first watching it, we were just like that. You're so hopeful, like you build yourself up for that great moment of triumph, and for Harry that moment of triumph is finding a wormhole or finding another method of finding an alien species that will help them get home much faster.
This is a young man, he's got his parents back on Earth, he really wants to get back to them. And those are the moments that really feel relatable, because you're on that ride with him. You want him to get exactly what he wants, and when he's crushed, you're right there with him.
Mon: Yeah, jumping off of that, the senior staff could easily have treated Harry like a young upstart kid. He could have been written as a young upstart kid. Instead, he's highly respected, he's great at his job, he's confident in his abilities. Sometimes he makes mistakes, so do the rest of the crew. That's why I love them so much.
But he also grows, he makes friends with different members of the crew…
Ron: He makes friends with Tom Paris on his very first day on Voyager. Nobody else could do that.
Mon: And you just know that this character is going to be different when his senior officers come and tell him stay away from Tom Paris, and he goes, ‘I can choose my own friends’; winning formula right there.
Harry’s so earnest, but he’s not obsequious. He doesn't get in your way. I love that Harry is so warm. You want to hug him, because you don't want him to feel bad, especially when yet another crushingly sad discovery is made, but you also know that if you knock on his door when you're feeling really bad, he's gonna be right there with you.
Ron: And the thing about somebody like Harry Kim, he could very easily have been boring, but Harry is never boring. That's one of the great things about how these characters are written, they flow against type.
Mon: You don’t even have to remember every single thing they did, or every episode that they starred in. You just know that you came away feeling like you understood them, and you grew with them, and they grew as well in the episode.
There’s this episode where Harry is making a toy for Neelix, and this expression that he makes because Neelix is being very finicky about how the toy looks—I mean it's just moments like that where Harry has taken aside precious moments from his very important work to do something silly like this… It's honestly little things, and with Harry, I think, more often than not, it’s little things that make him a huge warm cuddly whole.
Ron: So, rounding off the bridge crew is Tim Russ's Lieutenant Tuvok. Now, first of all, how exciting was it for us to see a Black Vulcan. This is not something we'd seen before. And I realize now how extraordinary that must have been. But as teenagers, we were just like it’s a Vulcan. It just didn't occur to us how monumental It must have been.
It’s weird sometimes when I think about Star Trek and how Vulcans are sometimes thought of as quite boring, because Spock, when he was introduced in The Original Series was such a shocking experience for people. This stone-cold character who somehow wormed his way into all our hearts, but really was generally quite expressionless and didn't have any nuance to his voice, but we still loved him.
It is interesting that TNG went in the opposite direction and had Vulcans only as guest stars from time to time, because when we saw Voyager, and we saw Tuvok, we were like, ‘Oh, we really missed that Vulcan presence’.
Tuvok’s very Vulcan—he's got his emotions in check, he doesn't like things being out of order, he doesn't enjoy frivolity, but there is still so much to him. The thing is that, yes, he’s Starfleet, yes he wants to protect the ship, but he has a whole family that he's had to leave behind. This wasn't an easy decision for anybody on the ship, but it's particularly hard when you've got so much left back in the Alpha Quadrant.
But Tuvok, despite what he's lost, and the fact that in 75 years he might be alive, and a lot of the crew members may not survive, he never loses hope, which is a funny thing to say about a Vulcan. He keeps trying.
I think Tuvok could easily have been a naysayer, but he's never like that. Yes, he does speak uncomfortable truths, like when they do find a tiny hole from the past, he does have to break it to the crew that unfortunately the person that they managed to contact in the past didn't actually survive. But he doesn't say that because he wants to hurt anybody, he's just saying that because he knows that the people around him are getting hopeful and may be losing their focus, and if they don't know the truth, they're just not going to be able to do what needs to be done next so that they can continue trying to get home.
Mon: What I found about Tuvok is that he's not cold. He's stoic, he's logical, but you can see from the get go, his fierce love for the Captain. They have a friendship that has gone on for years, and the Captain was desperate to get Tuvok out of the Maquis ship and back to safety. Now they're together, and they intend to work together. You can see their friendship, even though Tuvok does not crack a smile, because he's a Vulcan. But it's the fact that they not only respect each other as Starfleet officers, but also as friends, that's what really brings Tuvok to the fore, and that's what brings his personality to the fore.
But Tuvok could have very easily have been the kind of guy who just doesn't care, but he cares very much, because the Captain cares, the rest of the crew cares. So this is important to him.
And I think, you know, as much as people will argue against Tuvok and Neelix’ friendship, there's a lot of growth that comes through Tuvok from barely being able to stand Neelix to actually giving him opportunities, and in one episode telling me exactly how he feels. I am constantly surprised by how much I enjoy this character.
Ron: But I think the reason for that is that Tuvok is very much an actions-speak-louder-than-words kinda guy. Tuvok doesn't need to tell you that he cares about you. He doesn't need to tell his colleagues that he's proud of them. He shows it.
Yeah, he can be a bit of a hard taskmaster at times, we see that at the end of season one. But I love the fact that he is as willing to teach other people, as he is to learn from other people. And that's what you see throughout the seven seasons. He isn't a one-way person; he's constantly absorbing from others around him. And he specifically gets a lot of that from his time with Neelix.
So Neelix, played by Ethan Phillips, who was no stranger to the Star Trek universe. He’s played Ferengies and other characters before. People don't like Neelix, and I hate those people. If you have a problem with Neelix, I will fight you. Neelix is a great character. There are some iffy moments, but there are iffy moments for every single Star Trek character ever! I saw so much of myself in Neelix when we were teenagers.
Mon: I think that's why people don't like him. They don't want to relate to the short, furry guy.
Ron: Neelix is the kind of person who you think is annoying because he talks too much; he says strange things. He wheedles his way into everything but you can't be without him. Voyager would have fallen apart in two seconds had it not been for Neelix. At the start of the show, Neelix is kind of like a navigator. He knows this area, he's from there, so he helps Voyager with certain diplomatic situations. He helps them chart through certain areas. And once they go beyond his area of expertise, he just finds new ways of helping Voyager. But he's always doing something to help people. The great thing about Neelix is that he is there for the people of the ship. And I don't understand why people can't see that.
Mon: Honestly, the number of times when one of the characters is really down, really upset, sitting in the mess hall, all by themselves, and Neelix says, ‘lay it on me’. It's my favorite part of the show. It will get me emotional every time. Because, let's be honest, sometimes you just need somebody, you need somebody to listen. And he’s there. Even when B’Elanna has been really mean to him because she's upset about something, or when the Captain's feeling a bit snappy. He's like, tell me what's bothering you? He'll get you coffee and make you banana pancakes. This character is amazing.
Ron: And neelix wears so many hats. He's a navigator, he's a diplomat. He's the mess hall supervisor. He's the chef. He's the counselor; he's the morale officer. He helps with security. What doesn't Neelix do? He's such an integral part of the ship. And even if everybody complains about his leola root stew, they would be dead without it.
Mon: Every time the Captain, or anybody, turns to him with what sounds like a really mundane task, he’s like, yes! He will take it as an honor. There’s an episode where he's literally handing out the mail, but he's like, this is so precious. It's just amazing to watch this character. Ethan Phillips is hidden under tons of makeup and prosthetics, but he gives this sort of energy to Neelix, this vivacity that you can't help but absolutely and utterly love, and you gravitate to. I completely agree with you about people hating Neelix, they just don't get the character, and how important he is. He's not annoying just for annoying’s sake. Yeah, his personality is a bit out there, but then he's a Delta Quadrant guy who just suddenly landed up on this ship. He's gonna be a bit weird. But the way he just enmeshes himself into the crew’s lives, it's phenomenal.
Ron: Of course, we can't talk about Neelix without talking about Kes. Played by Jennifer Lien, Kes is the youngest member of the crew for a while. And Jennifer Lien herself was only 19 when she first joined the show. Kes was probably the only character that I struggled a little bit with because she was very much a Star Trek ingenue. She was very young. She was very sweet. She had slight empathic abilities which kind of reminded me of Deanna Troi a little bit. And Kes and Neelix’s relationship was a little bit weird. I never quite understood why they went for that angle. And I also feel like while they were together, it kind of held both the characters back.
So Neelix, in the first few seasons is a bit too jealous of Tom Paris; is a bit too possessive of Kes. And Kes is always, you know, in between, trying to choose between Neelix and Tom Paris. It doesn't work. On the other hand, when Kes gets to be the Doctor's assistant, then she gets to learn a little bit more. She gets to spread her wings; she gets to grow and understand her powers a little bit more. And those are the moments when Kes felt like a character on her own, instead of being an extension of Neelix.
Mon: Yeah. The problem with us watching the second half of Voyager and then starting from the beginning, is that we were used to Seven of Nine, and now we were watching Kes. Seven of Nine is so different, and Kes is so conventional. It was very hard to get invested in her. Despite that, you know, Jennifer Lien did a great job with whatever she was given. But the writers were definitely trying their level-best to be as safe with this character as possible. Because Voyager was hardly a decade after TNG, which was anyway a little bit more conventional with their female characters, except for Tasha Yar, who lasted one season.
Let's just say, it was baby steps.
What I like about Kes is that she's a very kind character. And her relationship with the Doctor, how much she molds the rest of the crew’s understanding of him as being beyond photons and forcefields, I appreciated that.
Ron: That's a good point. Because I don't think the Doctor that we ended up getting would have been possible, had it not been for Kes. Because Robert Picardo brings so much personality to the Doctor, and all that would have been lost had Kes not been pushing for him to be a little more of an individual.
Mon: There is an episode where Kes point blank asks the Captain, ‘if there's a crew member who's suffering, would you help them?’. And she's talking about the Doctor.
Ron: When we went back to the beginning of Voyager, Kes’ point of view was so unique. Because she's an Ocampan, she's a native of the Delta Quadrant. Starfleet and human beings are very different to her. She's also extremely young, so she asks the questions that other people just kind of brush off. And that's what makes everybody thing. And it’s not just about the Doctor. She pushes Tuvok to think in different ways. She pushes Tom Paris to think in different ways. Even the Captain, Chakotay. She ends up touching everybody's lives in some way or the other. So, when she leaves, it is quite a loss.
Mon: Yeah. And the way she leaves, giving Voyager a gift, continues to be one of the more emotional moments of the entire series.
Ron: Absolutely. I mean it's such a Kes thing to do, right? Like, of course, the moment she gets superpowers, she's gonna do something for her ship.
So the Doctor. Apparently, Robert Picardo’s Doctor was not supposed to be a huge part of Voyager. I can't even imagine what they were thinking. You can't see Voyager and not see the Doctor. Basically, he’s the emergency medical hologram and he's supposed to be used for short stints of time, to help in particularly triage situations. But because the actual doctor for the shop gets killed in the Caretaker incident, the poor Doc ends up being the doctor.
And because of that, he grows so much, he literally has to be on way more than he was ever meant to be. And by dint of that, his program starts expanding massively. The engineering crew have to add algorithms and more data space because he has to be on so much and because he has to learn more, and because he has to absorb more. They’re in a whole new area of space, they've got aliens! The first time the Doctor has to check Neelix and Kes, he's like, ‘there is a problem, you’re not on file!’.
Mon: The thing about the Doctor is that he's got the worst bedside manner, ever, but he's so funny. And you can tell that he grates against most of the crew, because he's a lot better than all of them, but he's a hologram, and so they have abilities that he doesn't, It adds to this comedic element, which seamlessly fits in with the rest of the story.
Ron: By the time that we had started watching, the Doctor already had his mobile emitter; he was able to move around wherever he wanted to go. But when we reset to the start, for a fair few seasons, he's confined to sickbay. The most he can hope to do is get to the holodeck, and even that is like a long process to get done. Despite the limitation of areas that he can visit, he has some amazing episodes.
Mon: Yeah, again, it's about character growth, and the Doctor proves that you don't have to be able to wander around the entire ship to develop your character, to find who you are, to examine your humanity.
Ron: The thing about the Doctor is that he ends up having these powerful bonds with the rest of the crew. He spends so much time chafing against them that they become his family and he becomes their family. I mean let's not forget it, by the end of the show, B’Elanna has asked the Doctor to be her child's godfather. That's how much the Doctor means to these people. Even Tom Paris, the two of them don’t get along initially. But then they become really close friends.
Mon: I'm just remembering all the hilariously mean comments that the Doctor used to make against Tom Paris. And it’s just… I’m laughing just thinking about them. He is understandably irritated with Tom because Tom is just being Tom Paris. Those are my favorite parts of the episodes every time it happens. But Tom ends up being the Doc’s medic. I am surprised anybody survived with those two. But yeah, they are always there for each other.
Ron: And what a lovely little subversion. Kes being the medic makes complete sense, it flows from what he saw in TNG. But when she leaves, they don't just find another random female character to help out in Sickbay. Seven of Nine doesn't help out in Sickbay; that's just not her thing. But Tom has field medic experience, so he gets promoted to this role.
Mon: And in lieu of Tom, if he's ever injured, it's Neelix. See, this is why I like Neelix! There's nothing he is not asked to do, and nothing he won’t take on and take it seriously.
Ron: Now speaking of Seven. I think Seven of Nine is a lot of people's favorite character. If Seven of Nine is your favorite character because you think she's hot, then you're wrong. Seven of Nine is an amazing character, but not just because she looks good. She's so smart, not because the Borg made her smart, but because she's so willing to learn, and because she's so curious. She asks questions about everything, and no answer is good enough for her. She's constantly willing to learn. Sometimes she learns too much and she frazzles her brain. But she's gonna try and learn anyway.
And Seven of Nine is willing to grow. When she joins the crew of Voyager, she hates it. She even tells the Captain that she will betray them. You know what, she thinks she does, but she never does. Seven of Nine actually doesn't think much of herself because she always believes that she is Borg first and human second. Part of her is, and that's never gonna change. Most of her life has been with the Borg, but she still strives to fit in.
The thing about Seven is that she never gives up. She's such an aspirational character, because she keeps trying, no matter what happens. Even if it means screwing up endless social occasions, trying to make friends and failing at it, trying relationships and failing at it, trying new experiments in Astrometrics and failing at it, it doesn't matter. She's going to keep trying. And that's what makes Seven such an amazing character.
Mon: Seven could easily have been introduced just as a love rival for everyone. She and Tom Paris have great chemistry. In fact, they do spend a few scenes together, but there's no romance ever involved in there. She and B’Elanna Torres can't stand each other, but it's not because of some love rivalry, it's because the two of them are exactly the same. [Laughs]
Ron: Professionally these two don't get along.
Mon: Personally, they don't get along either. But later on they do. The thing about Seven is she's strong, but she's always striving for something that isn't quite attainable, which is the Borg ideal of perfection. Seven is also in a very unique circumstance. She grew up as a Borg. She's always had voices in her head. She's always been part of a collective. Now she is alone; she is trying to reintegrate into society, that too, not a conventional society but the society aboard Voyager. This is a whole new experience.
And of course, she is going to make mistakes, and she's going to come across as abrasive and mean, and just a misfit. But despite it all. She's always trying to save Voyager. She has Voyager’s best interest at heart. Even when she thinks she's being selfish, like running off to be with the Borg, because the Borg got in her head, she's doing it for the best of Voyager. Honestly, there is so much to love about this character. Every time she's on screen, you have to follow what she's doing. There's really no character like her.
Ron: Seven’s relationship with the Captain? I absolutely love it. It’s kind of familial, but also a friendly kind of vibe between them. A bit like a mentor and a mentee. The Captain is so fiercely protective of Seven. ‘Endgame’ happens primarily because the Captain learns that she's going to lose Seven, and she is ready to break every single rule in Starfleet’s book if it means she can save Seven.
Mon: And before the introduction of Seven, the Captain and Chakotay didn't argue or fallout that much. She definitely caused a little bit of strife between them.
Ron: And noticeably Captain Janeway was more on the side of the Borg, and more understanding of the Borg, because of Seven?
Mon: I think there was such fear in the Captain and the rest of the crew when they realized that they were in the Delta Quadrant and they were coming up on Borg territory. But through Seven, I think, the Captain was able to exorcise some of the fears? But she was also able to bring the Borg down from that pinnacle of horror to a beatable enemy.
Ron: And they do beat the Borg, and not just because Seven was an inside man, but because the crew, as a whole, worked together to understand their enemy. Talking about the Borg, they’re like a whole character in this series. We first meet the Borg in TNG and even now, when I rewatch those episodes, they are terrifying.
I really love the Borg design in Voyager. I think it's cleaner, but also more menacing. There's a darker green in the Borg cubes and the Borg cybernetics that makes it stand out and look even more menacing than it did in TNG. And you also get the Borg Queen, played in different episodes by Susanna Thompson and Alice Krige. And what I love about the way the Borg work in this series is that you have Captain Janeway on one side and the Borg Queen on the other side, and they’re both fighting over Seven. It's kinda queer!
Mon: The thing about the Borg in Voyager is that they are menacing. They have the end goal of assimilating humanity, but the fight is personal. One of the things about the Borg, which has been established with the Locutus thing, and the way the Queen was treating Data, let's be honest, they want to pretend like they’re this hive mind, but the Queen has her own agenda. And in Voyager, it's very apparent that she does not like to lose! And because Seven was probably working pretty closely to the Queen and the Captain took Seven away, and that's it, this is war. So, I really like that. It's a bit of a subversion. Okay, Voyager is probably the least queer of all the Star Trek shows. That being said, with subtext or no subtext, you can really enjoy this rivalry between the Queen and Captain Janeway over proprietary rights on Seven of Nine.
Ron: Because from the time that the Borg enter this series, it really does become less about Starfleet versus the Borg and really more about, you've got my daughter, so, I'm gonna find you.
Mon: Yeah, and it just continues like that. They keep innovating, how the Captain deals with the Borg, and how the Queen deals with Voyager.
Ron: In TNG the Borg are a new threat. What they do to Captain Picard, it leaves such an indelible mark on him. I’ve always loved that subversion, that Captain Picard can have PTSD from those experiences. Captain Janeway is completely the reverse. She's so dogged in her fight against the Queen; it's something that we're used to seeing in male characters, but it's in Captain Janeway, and I really love that.
Mon: Yeah, our first introduction to the Borg, they are actually a couple of corpses in an episode which is our favorite and we will come to it later. But from that time, they just crank up the fear factor. And I like that. They work on the audience's knowledge of what an impact the Borg can make, and they imbue that in the characters.
Voyager didn't always have the best villains. A lot of people hated the Kazons. They looked like Klingon knock-offs. We get it; no show is perfect. But when it came to the Borg, for the most part, they did different things. They humanized the Borg, not only through Seven, but also through Icheb and the other kids. And they made them an ally; an uncomfortable, untrustworthy ally, but an ally all the same.
This show was constantly trying to innovate. Okay, you can always talk about how this episode is exactly like TNG or it sounds like Deep Space Nine. Every show is like that. But with Voyager, because of the circumstances they were able to put the ship in, they had to innovate and rethink how these officers are going to survive in a whole new quadrant of space, and an unexplored, undiscovered area
Ron: And the thing about Voyager is that unlike the other ships that we followed, they didn't have Starfleet to fall back on. They had their principles, yes, but Voyager was literally the only ship there. So, if something went wrong, they would be dead, and nobody would know about it.
In fact, by the time Voyager actually makes contact with Earth, people have declared them dead because they've been gone for that long. And that means that most of the crew, and we get to know this through the Captain, kind of lose their families.
That was a bit of a downer.
Mon: [Laughs] No, but that's what we love about Voyager. It’s about a lost ship and the consequences of being so far away, so out of touch with your home. I think it has an impact. Again, this comes back to why we love this show so much. It's the characters. It's because they're suffering, they're going through hardships, and they're still working on reaching home. They're working together, they're becoming their own family. Seven calls Voyager her collective, and well, anybody watching Voyager does become their collective.
Ron: And that becomes most obvious in the Season Seven episode ‘Shattered’ where different parts of the ship end up in different temporal periods. So, we see Captain Janeway from the first episode before Voyager has even left dock. We see Icheb and Naomi Wildman from the future. We see B’Elanna from soon after Voyager was stranded in the Delta Quadrant. And Chakotay and Captain Janeway from before the show starts have to go through all these time periods and Chakotay says that all these people are going to be our family. And it's astounding, because it's such a reminder of how far all these characters have come.
But that's exactly what the show was about. You don't know what a person is going through to make them the way they are. But that doesn't mean that you can't have some connection with them.
Read Part 2 of the episode transcript here.