It’s time for another episode in our Why Star Trek Works series. This week we’re looking at Voyager. 

Technically Deep Space 9 came out before Voyager. But we’ll be talking about that next week. Both shows aired at roughly the same time, so it didn’t matter which one you watched first.

Voyager was, of course, far different than the original series or Next Generation. For starters, it’s not set on the Enterprise. 

Duh, I know. But think about what that means. Enterprise is the flagship of the Federation. The people who work on the Enterprise are the best of the best. Everybody from Captain Picard to the dude cleaning the toilets is the best there is at what they do.

That’s not to say that the Voyager crew is bad. But they’re not the flagship. They’re not the best of the best. They’re not getting the best of the best, either. There’s no posh bar run by an eternal psychic here. There’s a crew doing the best they can to survive a hell of a situation.

If you don’t know the premise of the show, let me break it down for you. Captain Janeway and her crew are tasked with tracking down a group of rebels called the Maquis. While trying to catch up with them, both ships are transported somewhere in space they’ve never seen. Over seventy years’ worth of travel stand between them and their families. While Captain Janeway is still dedicated to the mission of seeking out new life, her main mission is clear. To get her people home.

Now, let’s talk about why the show does and doesn’t work. Because while it’s great overall, sometimes we learn lessons from other people’s screw-ups.

Make your own rules, and stick to them. 

There’s a rather infamous episode of Voyager that messes up the math for warp speed for every other show in this cinematic universe. That was pretty extreme, but it’s by far not the only example of this show just not sticking to its own damned rules.

Take the Captain, for instance. Sometimes she’s a badass no-nonsense queen. Sometimes she wants to be everyone’s mom. And no one bats an eye at this. Look, I get that people change and grow. But if you’re going through a switch like that, someone’s going to notice.

Let your characters grow.

Alright, all that being said. There is a great amount of character growth in Voyager. And I love that. The premise of the show, that they’re lightyears away from home and might never get back, is going to force growth. No one’s the same person they are by the end of this. Which, if I’m being honest, is something that was lacking in the other Star Trek shows. Picard is Picard, from the start of Next Generation to the end. The same can be said for almost everyone. And that’s just not realistic. I’m not the same person I was seven years ago. Why should any of these characters be?

Have a clear goal that not everyone shares

Here, though, is the biggest reason Voyager works. Right from the start, there’s a clear goal, get home. But, and this is the important part, not everyone necessarily shares this goal.

There are a couple of characters who might be way better off on the other side of the universe. People who were in prison or maybe heading to prison. People who might be just as happy to make their way home, or their way in a new universe.

This sets up the immediate conflict for the whole series. There’s no writer’s block here because you always have something for your characters to be working towards and against. It also sets a finish line.

Over the last few years, never-ending shows have gone out of fashion. There’s an end to most stories, after all. A moment to pause. While life may go on for the characters, one tale doesn’t go on with them. Think of your own life. Has it all been one battle? Or has it been a thousand different battles? Giving a story an ending doesn’t just prevent you from jumping the shark. It’s also infinitely more satisfying.

So that’s it for Voyager. I’ll see you next week when we’ll talk about Deep Space 9. 

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I grew up watching Star Trek, Next Generation with my grandma. It’s pretty mainstream now, but back then Star Trek was a niche show. A nerd show. 

But being a nerd is cool now, so screw that. And now Star Trek’s got so much love it can’t handle it. I could be a bitter hipster about that. I mean, I liked Star Trek before it was cool. Or, I could just appreciate that everyone loves Star Trek. 

Third option. I could revisit Star Trek as a writer and see why it works. I like option three. 

Of course, I couldn’t possibly talk about all things Star Trek in one post. So over the next few weeks, we’re going to look at all of the different Star Trek shows, starting with the original series and ending with Picard.

Today, we’re starting with the original series. Why does it work?

Let’s start with the fact that it probably shouldn’t work. I mean, it was kind of a mess. The budget was garbage, the special effects were terrible, the costumes looked tragic.

But it does work. The series ran from September of 1966 to June of 1969. This means that the whole series started and finished seventeen years before I was born. And yet I can tell you Kirk’s last words.

Oh my. 

No, not the way Sulu says it. 

We’re going to break this down, but I can sum up in three words why Star Trek worked so well. Why it has survived well into the 21st century and will hopefully be around for a lot longer.

It was fearless.

Okay, it could get away with being fearless. No one expected the show to succeed. So it was working with little to no budget and a bunch of actors no one had ever heard of before. So, it could get away with anything. 

There’s a great quote by Lorne Michaels that I live my life by. The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready. It goes on because it’s 11:30. 

Well, someone must have told Roddenberry that quote. Because let me tell you, Star Trek went on because it was 11:30. This lead to some hilarious moments. Like the tribble incident. 

On the off chance you don’t know this story, man are you in for a treat.

In the iconic episode, Trouble with Tribbles, there’s a scene where Kirk opens a hatch and is just showered with the fuzzy little things. If you look closely, or hell not that closely, you can see the shadow of a stagehand shoveling the tribbles through the hatch. 

Okay, so what is there to learn from this? Who wants to go into the world with their shirt untucked, so to speak? Why would you want to put work out there when it’s not ready?

Well, is it not ready? Or do you just feel not ready? 

Let me tell you something, from my heart to yours. You are never, ever going to feel ready. Your book, tv show, podcast, movie script, is never going to feel ready. It’s never going to match up with the flawless project in your head because how could anything ever be that perfect?

So, because we have to assume that nothing will ever be ready, we have to go on because it’s time. Because it’s 11:30, or we’ve revised the damn thing so much we’re sick of looking at it, or we’ve had it sitting on our desk for years. Does that mean sometimes we’re going to see hands throwing tribbles out of the hatch? Yeah, of course. But the alternative is never sending anything out. Pick one.

Here’s the other way Star Trek was fearless. And it’s arguably a bigger deal. Star Trek wasn’t afraid of doing things that were taboo at the time. Like having a Russian man and an Asian man as officers. Like having a black woman as an officer. 

Like having the first interracial kiss in American history on television. 

In an episode called Plato’s Stepchildren, Kirk and Uhura share a passionate kiss. Funny story about this kiss, aside from it being the first one of its kind in America. The producers were worried about it, so they wanted to film the scene a few ways. Shatner agreed but then proceeded to intentionally fuck up every single take that didn’t include the kiss until they’d run out of time and had to use the scene as it was written.

That’s right. Shatner decided to be a dick to force social change. Good use of bad behavior. 

Not all the episodes worked, that’s for sure. The ones that missed, missed hard. But the episodes that work, work amazingly well. They work so well that they’re still working to this day. 

See you next week when we’ll be talking about Next Generation.

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