Star Trek: Voyager—Could Kate Mulgrew return as Captain Janeway?

Just the other day, the cast of Star Trek: Voyager hosted an online 25th-anniversary reunion special. With the show back in the conversation, star Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway) talked to TrekMovie.com about the possibility of returning to Star Trek to reprise her fan-favorite character at some point in the future, much like Sir Patrick Stewart did with Star Trek: Picard.

Mulgrew is currently riding out the coronavirus pandemic at home, but if CBS All Access came calling about Janeway’s return, would she do it? “Only because people are asking me about it all the time, since Picard came on. ‘When are you coming on?’ ‘When are you coming back?’ ‘When will we get Janeway on?’ Blah, blah, blah,” she said. “On the web somebody created an idea of what Janeway would look like, and it was actually quite stunning when I saw it.”

"I think it would be wonderful to explore Janeway’s continued love of adventure and perhaps even, love of power. So, there are any number of things that could be delicious to dip into. But I don’t think it is going to happen. I am not saying that summarily, but time’s a wasting, you know?"

Maybe, but there are an awful lot of new Star Trek shows coming out these days. In addition to Picard, we’ve got the animated show Lower Decks, the third season of Star Trek: Discovery, and a new show about Captain Pike. Who’s to say Voyager couldn’t return in some form?

Or if not her own show, maybe Janeway could guest-star on the second season of Star Trek: Picard, for example? Although that show might not be big enough for two starship captains. “I think this goes for both Patrick Stewart and Bill Shatner too—captains can be quite territorial,” Mulgrew said. “We’re on our ship and we shoot our seven years, or at least Stewart and I shot our seven years. And you become very possessive over those seven years. I haven’t watched it, but I don’t have a good excuse.”

But even though she’s never seen an episode of her own Trek show, Mulgrew speaks about it and her character with great pride. “I would say Voyager, intrepid vessel, was full of passionate scientists. Before she was a captain, Janeway was an ardent scientist. I think that our exploration of the Delta Quadrant… let me just speak for Janeway. Her absolute immersion into what it was like to travel within that quadrant and to discover species and to relate to them, and to communicate with them and sometimes to fight them, was just, for Janeway, the very, very pinnacle of life.”

"It was a wonderful crew. I think that Janeway led with her humanity and therefore each one of them followed. I think having the Maquis on board, that mix was somehow magical. The introduction of Seven of Nine as a half-Borg/half-human was also intriguing. I think the writing was great. I think the intention was sublime. And I think that we captivated, or should I say captured, the universal imagination in what we did in those seven years. That’s the legacy."

If you’ve ever watched an episode of Voyager, then you know Captain Janeway is a strong woman who commanded respect from everyone she came into contact with. She proved a Starfleet captain didn’t need to be a man to be a great leader, which is something Star Trek as a whole does quite well. “One could argue it was more important to men to understand that a woman of childbearing years is capable of that kind of single-minded command, that kind of dedication, and that kind of strength. It was great! But you can imagine it was everything.”

And maybe we could see it for ourselves again with a revival? Or not, just dreaming away here.

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