The cast of Star Trek: Voyager remembers the series, 25 years later

The cast of Star Trek: Voyager recently gathered online for the show’s 25-year anniversary reunion special. Led by Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway), cast members Garrett Wang (Harry Kim), Roxann Dawson (Chief Engineer B’Elanna Torres), Robert Duncan McNeil (Tom Paris),  Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Robert Beltran (First Officer Chakotay), Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), and Ethan Phillips (Neelix) fondly recalled memories from their seven-year run on UPN (1995-2001). A good time was had by all. What fun facts did we learn?

Mulgrew played the first female captain in the Star Trek universe, and for many fans, she’s irreplaceable. But as it ends up, she wasn’t the first choice to play Captain Janeway. As SyFy Wire points out, Academy Award Geneviève Bujold held that honor, but quit after the second day of filming the show’s pilot. “I had about four days to collect myself and then I started Monday morning,” Mulgrew remembered. “It was a formidable undertaking but once I got my sea legs it was great.”

Robert Duncan McNeil chimed in with more of this story. “There was a lot of uncertainty when Geneviève left…and the moment you said the first line on the bridge, personally I said this show is gonna work. We were gonna make it.”

Of course, once Mulgrew had the role, it meant that her life was going to change, and not always in a good way. “I think the most favorite [part] is obvious because I was the captain and what could be more gratifying than that? Not much. But my least favorite was the conflict that I still say today that exists for all women in a leading role who are raising children by themselves.”

"That was a very difficult conflict… but it was ongoing for seven years because those were their formative years. They were 10 and 11… and to this day they have not seen [Voyager]. Kids are tough. They want their mother… and they did not understand it, especially with two boys."

On Voyager, Robert Picardo played an Emergency Medical Hologram, but beyond being called The Doctor, his character didn’t have a name until the series finale. “I think the joke over the seven years was that once my character was given the freedom to select his name, he couldn’t make up his mind,” Picardo said. “The fact that they gave me Joe was a personal joke to me cause every male in my family was named Joe. Joe is the most popular name in my family. So it tickled me.”

The breakout character from Voyager may have been Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), a former Borg drone who recently appeared on Star Trek: Picard, giving you an idea of her popularity. Ryan she has “resiliency and guts…she’s trying and struggling… she’s just awesome.” She even gave a hint about when shooting on Picard season 2 might begin. “They’re hoping we can start shooting in the fall.”

So now that they’re looking back a quarter of a century on, would any of the cast have done things differently if given the chance? “I would certainly go back and redo the first season and endow that language which was diabolical with real meaning,” said Mulgrew. “[T]hose were terribly long days and I didn’t know what I was doing. Had I had the guts to endow her more completely with knowledge of what she was saying, I would have felt steadier on my feet.”

Hey, since Star Trek: Picard is so fond of bringing back The Next Generation-era characters, perhaps we’ll get the chance to see Mulgrew don her Starfleet uniform once more. Make it so, CBS.

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