There is a cynicism about [Star Trek: Voyager] that truly troubles me. We loved DEEP SPACE NINE. We loved the show. We loved all the characters. There are actors that always give you trouble, and there are always times when the producers and actors are sometimes at each other, because, ‘You don’t understand my character.’ ‘No, you don’t understand the character I am writing.’ That’s fair game. On VOYAGER, there are characters they have given up on. They will just say that to you, flat out. I started asking questions about B’Elanna, who she is. I was saying, ‘I’m having a little trouble watching episodes and getting a handle on her, and what she is about.’ The response was, ‘We don’t have an idea. The past doesn’t matter. Just do whatever you want.’ What are you talking about? How can you give up on your own show? How do you give up on your characters? There is such a cynicism about the show within the people that do the show. I’m not just talking about the writing staff. It permeates the production.
I’d like to add that in the time since this interview Moore has considerably softened his opinion on the Voyager production, but I still think what he says here is relevant as someone who had the experience of being in both writing rooms.
Voyager is amazing because of the cast and their acting. The writers I just feel like they hated the show. Like they wanted to do just so they could say look we tried a female captain look how progressive we are but then they actually had to put the work in and didn’t bother.
Ron Moore said that he thought the VOY cast was the best of all the Treks. Great chemistry, right from the start. But they didn’t do anything with them. Writers knew that if you were pitching a story to DS9, you had to explain how it would affect the characters. With VOY, they just didn’t care about that. They wanted something high concept.
I can kind of understand it. DS9 was seen as a failure back then. Because its ratings were so low compared to TNG’s. The prime directive for VOY was to be “not like DS9.” And UPN desperately wanted male viewers under age 25. Braga decided that lots of action and Seven in a painted-on catsuit was the solution. (It wasn’t. VOY’s ratings continued to fall steadily, though the writers and UPN tried to claim otherwise.)
And yes, the writers were pretty open in their disdain for some of the characters. They said they left Harry Kim out of the holodeck games in “The Killing Game” because they thought he was “boring.” (And were surprised at how interesting he was when the episode ran short and they were forced to write some extra scenes for him.) According to Ron Moore, they didn’t like Tom/B’Elanna; they compared it to Neelix/Kes. (So why did they keep the relationship, when Robbie McNeill was pleading for them to end it? Likely because by the rules of ‘90s TV, Tom having a girlfriend/wife allowed him to hang out with Harry all the time without looking too gay. Just like Bashir/O’Brien and Keiko.)
VOY was very daring in its casting for the time…and that may be one reason why the characterization and relationships ended up lacking. There was a woman in command, and 4 out of 9 regulars were POC. I think that’s more than any Trek until PIC. This at a time when La Raza and the NAACP were threatening boycotts because non-whites were so under-represented on screen.
But they ended up using mostly the white characters. Perhaps because the writers were mostly white guys, and they just weren’t very good at writing for other demographics. They tended to fall into stereotypes. Harry Kim ended up a nerd, when he wasn’t at first. B’Elanna was a Fiery Latina, only we’re supposed to blame it on her Klingon half. And don’t even get me started on Chakotay.
Plus, race and gender ended up something of a minefield. Janeway and Tuvok were supposed to be like Kirk and Spock, but a relationship that close between a man and a woman would be seen as romantic, and they ended up shying away from it. Black man/white woman was (and still is, kinda) the third rail. Kate Mulgrew ended up nixing Janeway/Chakotay, because she felt Janeway had to set an example, and having a relationship with a subordinate was unacceptable. Tuvok and Chakotay should have been the Spock and McCoy of Voyager, but that kind of conflict might have been seen as sexual jealousy over Janeway.
It might not be all on the writers. Studios at the time ran focus groups, and found that white viewers would change the channel if they saw too many brown faces on their screens. So maybe some of it came from the studio. Whatever the reason, the non-white characters ended up shoved in the background, and I think that really hurt the show.
I just finished playing this and it’s a fun little romp, but it’s interesting how straightforward it is for something that is so lauded. I feel like many of these older games are remarkable for what they accomplish in their time and place but coming at them from a modern sensibility just means they don’t hit the same way.
the depth to chakotay and tuvok’s relationship that is completely accidental is insane. given that dates are murky and made up (obviously) if you choose to read that tuvok and chakotay first met back when the former was an ensign on the excelsior and the latter a fifteen year old who was petitioning sulu for a letter of recommendation to enable his early enlistment in the fleet…. it just throws everything into such a different light. chakotay knowing tuvok, even if it was only vaguely, prior to defection would give him a reason to welcome tuvok into the maquis– it would have even been comforting to have another former officer in his cell because it would be reinforcing that he made the correct decision. it would also make the betrayal so much worse during the events of caretaker. it throws the contempt and hatred that he had for tuvok into a more stark light because it’s not just politics or profession, it’s personal
literally like. imagine you are a bright and precocious young man who is desperate to escape life on your home planet. you live on the edge of a warzone– or a place that is a breath away from becoming a warzone at any given moment– and if that isn’t enough you’re feeling stifled by your family, by the culture you’re expected to embrace and take part in. you see a future stretching out ahead that, to you, is full of violence and tradition being enacted on you by others, a life outside of your control the opposite of what you want. you want exploration. expansion. challenge and adventure and peace.
so when a starfleet captain visits your planet for the first (and for all you know the last) time you don’t miss your chance. you work to impress him and his crew and beg him to give you a recommendation letter to starfleet academy so that you can leave as soon as possible to begin your studies there. call it luck or provenience or whatever, but it works. there’s a man, tall and dark and stoic who observes you coolly as you fight to keep your composure as you thank the captain for his help.
fast forward a few decades, and nothing is the way you thought it would be. it turns out “peace in the name of progress” really just equates to “turning a blind eye to atrocities when it suits in order to maintain the status quo” and now your father is dead. your father is dead and the home he died protecting is burning and you’ve spent decades away from a family and culture that are irrevocably marred by everything that’s happened while you’ve been running away pursuing your dreams. it feels like the universe should stop spinning, but instead things move faster. the fight is still going and this time, you join it.
you hand in your resignation to the palace of ideals that failed to protect your home and with an anger and bloodlust that you’ve never experienced before, you strike out on your own. you join a resistance cell, you work your way up. you use everything you learned in the fleet to better how you fight here and now where it really matters. it doesn’t surprise you that you’re good at this. you move up the ranks fast– that doesn’t surprise you either, the people here care for the cause (for the most part, anyway), but they lack discipline, tactical experience, military knowledge.
that’s why it’s a pleasant surprise when that tall, stoic alien from a lifetime ago slips into your life. a fellow fleeter, a fellow deserter– someone completely unlike you but also more similar to you than anyone else under your command. he doesn’t have your reasons to fight, but he understands why you went into the service and even moreso why you left. you can discuss tactics and strike patterns quickly, in a shorthand you’re both fluent in (even if you’re virtually strangers). you don’t have time to admit it, even to yourself, but his presence here could make you weep with relief (if this vulcan, this paragon of logic and reason, abandoned starfleet and its principles to fight for the rights of these colonies then you aren’t mad with grief and anger. he has no dog in this fight and yet he’s here. if he’s here, you aren’t irrational, aren’t swept up in vengeance, you haven’t made any rash decisions or lost your sense of self. if he’s here, you’re justified in being here too).
then the unimaginable– the truly unimaginable– happens and you are suddenly 70,000 light years from everyone you know and love. from a warzone that you know will immediately be impacted by its loss of your leadership. you have no choice but to board a federation ship and when you turn to look at the man who has followed you out of starfleet and into a warzone he looks back and points his weapon at you. “I must inform you,” he says, stepping around to stand beside the starfleet captain, a small woman with a large bearing. “That I was assigned to infiltrate your crew,
sir.”
and though you can’t show it, especially not now, it all comes tumbling down.
it’s really funny that even after she dies seska keeps popping up to cause problems completely unfazed by being a hologram/caught in a temporal paradox/whatever. she’s completely devoted to being a fucking menace and she just does not care about the how
