[narrator] By the mid-1990s, Trekkies would have not one
but two Star Trek shows to give them their fix.
[Picard] Good luck, Mr. Sisko.
We were a few seasons into Next Generation when they said,
"Let's get another one going," and that was Deep Space Nine.
So I said, "Man, this is really cool. They're gonna do a whole 'nother series."
One day that's going to be me.
They are chugging out 20-some-odd episodes a year of two different series.
[narrator] And then there was the big screen.
When Next Generation ended, it went right into its first feature film.
They say time is the fire in which we burn.
[narrator] Prophetic warnings aside...
Paramount said simultaneously, "Let's get another show."
[narrator] ...another Star Trek series?
Everything Star Trek is exploding.
[narrator] But would the new series blow up...
Welcome aboard Voyager.
[narrator] ...or be more of a bomb?
So beam aboard and hold on tight
as we boldly go into the depths of Star Trek.
And you can see it all from here
in The Center Seat.
In 1994, development began on a fifth Star Trek show
adding to a growing family.
We were the baby that came along
when Next Generation was seven years old
but Deep Space Nine was only two years old.
We had six stages at Paramount going at one time.
It was basically the Star Trek lot.
[Larry] Walking down Star Trek street at Paramount,
here's Shatner and the entourage out in the alley between the buildings.
He's all decked out in his monster maroon.
Then meanwhile, here's TNG, they're trying to get their thing wrapped.
Across the street you've got the three stages of DS9.
And then, in the offices, you've got the art department,
you've got people who are planning what's gonna be Voyager.
So you really have four Star Trek projects in the works
at one time in this insane summer of 1994.
[narrator] The patriarch of this family
was a man who would come to define the Star Trek of the '90s.
[Tim] Rick Berman, as the executive producer of the shows,
he is to carry the load of all these multiple productions.
[narrator] So much so that the era would become known as The Berman Era.
It's funny, I have heard it referred to me was the Westmore Years.
[narrator] Whatever it was called, there was only one person
who didn't want another show on his hands.
My feeling was, "Let's take a break. We're doing it too quickly."
And their feeling was, "We have ratings, do it."
[narrator] But there was a little more to it
because Paramount's bold plans for Star Trek
were one part of a much riskier project.
Paramount and Chris-Craft United Television stations
joined forces to start the United Paramount Network.
[narrator] Better known as UPN.
And I went to run that.
[narrator] Paramount had explored this territory 20 years earlier
when it tried to launch a fourth network to challenge The Big Three.
But armed with wunderkind executive Luce Salhany
and a new Star Trek show,
Paramount was confident this time would be different.
Perhaps a little too confident.
[Lucie] We had from September until January. The middle of January,
we had promised the stations we would be on the air.
[narrator] And if launching a network in four months
wasn't groundbreaking enough, Voyager would be...
The first time we would see a female captain leading a show.
[narrator] Still a controversial move, it was in fact what Star Trek's creator
had espoused 30 years earlier.
It's another reflection of Gene's whole thing
about humanity encompassing all of its elements.
[narrator] Star Trek was once again ahead of its audience.
But not too far ahead.
The only way the audience would accept a female captain
is if we made her as much of a man as possible.
[narrator] Which sounds like the male idea of what a female should be.
But producers had a plan to avoid that.
Rick said to me, "We're gonna do a series about a female captain.
Do you wanna be a co-creator?"
[narrator] To which Jeri responded...
Yes. Yes.
[Rick] I thought it was important
especially because we wanted to have a female captain
that we had a female executive producer.
Obviously.
[narrator] And, obviously, Jeri had some opinions about the female captain.
I was one who felt very strongly that
she should be allowed to have compassion and sensitivity
and maybe a maternalness,
that she should be a complete human being.
And most importantly, a sense of self.
A real sense of self without apology.
[narrator] But the creators of Voyager knew
that it would take more than a female captain
to set their show apart from the crowded slate,
because as previously established...
Every Star Trek begins with,
"How do we make it exactly like the others except totally different?"
Rick Berman, Michael Pillar, and Jeri Taylor
begin a series of secret meetings.
Now, it was getting very, very difficult
because there had been The Original Series,
there had been Next Gen, there had been Deep Space Nine.
So how do you come up with something that feels fresh?
[narrator] The answer was simply to ask fans what they wanted.
Paramount does focus research,
and they ask fans if they would want another Star Trek show.
And fans say yes, and they prefer a ship-based show.
[narrator] That meant daring to chart an unknown course for Voyager.
[Jeri] It was Michael who came up with the idea
of losing them in deep space.
[narrator] When a displacement wave knocks the Voyager
clear across the galaxy...
[♪ dramatic music]
Report!
We're over 70,000 light-years from where we were.
[narrator] Not much to worry about.
Just 75 years at maximum warp, and they'd be home.
We had an overall mission: Get home.
[Jeri] It was radical enough that it made me a little nervous.
[narrator] And others, a little disappointed.
I mean, come on.
What--where, where is the exploration?
Where is the drive to expand our knowledge?
"No. We just wanna go home."
It's a fine crew, and I've gotta get 'em home.
This is what will make it fresh.
This is what makes it original.
This is what makes it different.
This is what will make it work.
[narrator] And they were right to be apprehensive
because there was a price to pay for sending Star Trek into the unknown...
No Klingons, no Romulans, no Cardassians, no Trill.
[Jeri] The popularity of Star Trek
has a lot to do with the Klingons, the Romulans,
that area of space that we all know and love
and producing such good stories.
[narrator] ...completely breaking with Star Trek tradition.
[Larry] They're setting themselves up with this incredible challenge.
[narrator] And that challenge was...
Is the audience going to accept that?
Are they going to buy it? Are they going to resent us?
[narrator] Let's find out as the premiere script came together.
This trio dared to introduce new alien races,
ranging from the tragic...
She is Ocampa.
Why would you be interested in such worthless creatures?
[narrator] ...to the comic.
[Robert] I must admit, I haven't had access
to a food rebel-- uh, uh, replicator before.
[narrator] Even the very bones of Star Trek were getting a new twist.
[man] Computer, initiate emergency medical holographic program.
[narrator] That is to say, the ship's new doctor was now just an app.
Please state the nature of the medical emergency.
When I read the character description, it said,
"A computer program of a doctor.
Colorless, humorless."
But I had heard they'd seen, like, 900 actors
and they wanted someone funny,
but I didn't think the part was funny on paper.
[narrator] So in his audition, Robert adlibbed a line,
a little something extra to show his chops.
The last scripted line,
the doctor has been left active in sick bay, and he has nothing to do.
Doesn't anyone know how to turn off the program when they leave?
And after that last line, I took a long deadpan look
at the 16 people watching me,
and I said, "I'm a doctor, not a nightlight."
[narrator] Bones couldn't have said it better himself.
I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer.
[narrator] But even a computer-generated doctor
needed a snappy name.
[Larry] The Doctor was going to be named Dr. Zimmerman for the entire first season.
Right before we premiered, they changed my credit
from "Doc Zimmerman, Robert Picardo" to "The Doctor."
[narrator] And suddenly, Star Trek's new doctor
sounded a bit like a certain more famous Doctor from across the pond.
And in that moment, unwittingly,
I ripped off 50 years of British science fiction television.
[narrator] Other new characters had problems much bigger
than what they were named.
Kes, this is a surprise.
Kes, as an Ocampan, has a very short lifespan.
[narrator] Living not much longer than your average pet.
It was a character who gave us an interesting perspective on mortality,
you know, how finite a human lifespan is.
[narrator] Producers found their mayfly in a young actress from Illinois.
Jennifer Lien who played Kes,
a very, a very good actress.
[Roxann] I thought Jennifer Lien was wonderful.
Extremely talented, and I thought excellent choice for that role.
She played it to the hilt.
[narrator] And there were plenty more characters to cast.
We need a Robin McNeill type to play Paris.
I'm already doing a job.
[narrator] It's true.
He'd already played a small part in The Next Generation.
But not to worry.
Fine. He's another character. Okay.
Well, then I guess I'm yours.
[narrator] Another Next Generation veteran was Ethan Phillips,
who would swap spiky teeth for pointy ears and a Mohawk.
Neelix.
[narrator] Eventually.
The initial script suggested something different.
[Ethan] It said he was, um, an android
and, uh, I didn't know what that--
I figured it was a guy who had, like, an "oid" hanging from his ch--
I didn't know what the hell it was.
[narrator] Well, at this point, no one knew what much of anything was
because, without its beloved Klingons,
Star Trek needed a new band of would-be villains.
Hail the Maquis.
[Brannon] One of the ingredients was
this group of rebels called the Maquis.
The renegades that had broken away from the Federation.
They're our antagonists
that we're gonna have to come to some kind of understanding with.
[narrator] And leading these potentially sinister insurgents,
Robert Beltran as Chakotay.
Commander, you and I have the same problem.
I think it makes sense to try and solve it together, don't you?
[narrator] And this rogue faction soon found itself aboard Voyager.
[man] Watch out, Captain. They're armed.
That to me was the most interesting part of the pilot.
We are going to have conflict not only with aliens
and other stuff that we meet out in the universe,
we're gonna have it onboard the ship.
[narrator] And although this could have been the source of a lot of tension...
Didn't go anywhere.
I didn't think this Maquis thing would last. And I was right.
[narrator] In fact, it didn't even survive the first episode.
Permission to speak freely.
I was hoping that they would play with that a little bit longer.
There's conflict embedded in the whole situation.
[narrator] But writers soon realize the conflict scenario didn't make sense.
Now, was it because I didn't wanna deal with it and I ignored it,
or is it because they're stuck on a desert island?
We are not at home.
There is no purpose for them in the wrong quadrant of the galaxy,
and we're on a lifeboat.
What kind of trouble are you gonna make on a lifeboat, man?
[narrator] So instead of conflict, the Maquis brought the opposite.
[Kate] Both crews are going to have to work together
if we're to survive.
[narrator] Diversity in the starship's crew was mirrored
by real diversity in Voyager's cast.
My grandparents are from Mexico.
We are mestizos. We are half-European, half-native.
I'm Puerto Rican.
And as I was growing up, I didn't really see anybody that looked like me on TV.
[narrator] Star Trek's infinite diversity was once again challenging its audience.
They asked me, "Well, how could there be an African-American Vulcan?"
Well, I think the phrase is
"infinite diversity and infinite combinations," isn't it?
[narrator] And for the true pedants out there,
it's worth pointing out that the planet Vulcan has multiple suns.
Meaning it's hot.
So what is the temperature gonna be like on the equator of that planet?
[narrator] But the producers had left
their toughest casting decision until last.
And for the captain, even getting the name right was a challenge.
First name was Elizabeth.
It turns out there is a real-life Elizabeth Janeway of high repute.
She is the wife of economist Eliot Janeway.
So, oh, no, we can't use a real person's name.
So then it becomes Kathryn.
And then 20 years later, Jeri Taylor has a chance to interact
with the real-life Elizabeth Janeway,
and she says, "You know, we almost named her for you
but we couldn't name--"
and Elizabeth Janeway says, "Oh, my God.
I would have been thrilled if you'd named her Elizabeth."
[narrator] Instead, Elizabeth was now a Kathryn,
but who best to embody this new matriarch?
They had to find this middle ground
of someone who could show a heart
and be kind of, in many respects,
a mother to her crew but also be in charge.
We struggled to find an actress to do that.
I mean, we read hundreds of people, literally.
[narrator] Leaving no stone unturned in their search for a captain,
producers considered nearly every established TV heroine ever.
Erin Grey from Buck Rogers.
Attention, alien spacecraft. Do you read?
Linda Hamilton.
- There's Susan Gibney. - We made a good team.
Lindsay Wagner, the Bionic Woman.
[narrator] But this catalogue of kickass lead to nothing.
They brought in an actress who had obviously had some success
with Mrs. Columbo, good working actress, Kate Mulgrew.
[narrator] And I know what you're thinking, but she didn't get the job,
at least not yet.
We weren't all that taken,
and so didn't even offer her a second reading.
[narrator] But then a big name put her hat in the ring,
albeit a hat that no one saw coming.
It was made known to us that Genevieve Bujold was interested in this.
[narrator] Genevieve Bujold was an Academy Award-nominated actress.
She was a name. She was more associated with art films.
Brother, I must fight. I must.
Everybody was excited beyond belief.
I pushed hard for Genevieve Bujold
because I was a huge fan of hers.
We asked her to read, and she didn't wanna do that.
I think she felt it was demeaning to her
that an actress of her stature and caliber
to be asked to read a part.
[narrator] Not wanting to offend the Oscar-nominated actress...
[Jeri] We made the decision not to ask her to read
but to give her the part, convinced that it would be wonderful.
[narrator] But not everyone shared the hunch.
[Rick] And I remember very, very clearly
telling both Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor,
who were enamored with her,
that I didn't think it was gonna work.
[narrator] Star Trek: Voyager had landed a genuine marquee star
to be its first female captain.
People know Genevieve Bujold is a marketable name.
[narrator] But not everyone was quite so excited.
There was a part of me that knew it wasn't gonna work.
[narrator] And with a very expensive pilot on the line,
Voyager needed to hit the bull's eye.
Voyager absolutely was, was our premier show.
[narrator] Luckily, they had an A-list cast.
The Cardassians claim they forced the Maquis ship into a plasma storm
where it was destroyed,
but our probes haven't picked up any debris.
After one day's shooting, we were a little dismayed.
She was very passive.
And I literally can't hear what she's saying.
That was the first sign.
Excuse me, Captain. Is that--do we--now? You mean now?
We might be able to disperse it with a graviton particle field.
Do it. Red alert.
I think this was a very conscious choice on her part,
that she didn't need to be strong
or imperious or controlling.
Dramatically, this did not translate well.
It created the effect that she didn't care if she was there or not.
[narrator] The film actress also struggled to fit her big screen expectations
into small screen realities.
This was a woman who had just done feature films.
She had never done television.
She was used to doing one page a day. We do seven.
You know, with dialogue changing every 10 minutes.
[narrator] Day one of shooting had become a slow motion train wreck.
And we talked to the director and said, you know,
"We need to have a little more substance from this woman."
And he said, "I know.
And I have tried, and it's not happening."
[narrator] Perhaps things would be better on day two.
It was exactly the same.
[narrator] Genevieve had gone down a rabbit hole,
and she decided to stay there.
She basically went into her trailer and wouldn't come out.
Then our shooting schedule went to hell.
The studio got incredibly upset.
[narrator] This was starting to cost Paramount serious money.
The problem is if you fire her, you have to pay her for the whole season.
It's a lot of money, even for Star Trek.
[narrator] But before push came to shove, Genevieve offered an olive branch.
She summoned the three of us, Rick, Michael, and I,
to her trailer and said she just didn't feel she could go on with this.
This was not the right choice for her. It was not the right part.
[narrator] And while sympathetic, the producers were more than anything...
Deeply relieved.
[narrator] A move that instantly saved Paramount money
but landed the production in choppy waters.
Our Academy Award-winning actress is going.
Scandal. Scandal. This is the doom ship.
This is the ship of the dead,
the Star Trek that will never get off the ground.
[narrator] It was back to square one, and with time against them...
They go back through the files and say,
"Maybe we should give a second read to some people."
[narrator] And thanks to a little detective work,
they discovered Ms. Columbo, again.
And so Kate came in and read.
[narrator] For a second time.
But that didn't mean she was doubly prepared.
I didn't watch any Star Trek.
In fact, somebody once said, "Oh, Patrick Stewart is here."
I was at a party, and I said, "Who's Patrick Stewart?"
And they all gasped.
[narrator] Well, in any case, at the second audition...
I was free in the audition room.
I was able to give my take on Kathryn Janeway.
[narrator] It was less gasping and more sighs of relief.
And it was such a profound difference
between what Genevieve had done and what Kate was doing.
And I remember as I left the room,
if I didn't do it literally, I felt that I was winking at Rick Berman.
[narrator] So there's no surprise that...
My first choice and all of our first choice was Kate.
[narrator] But Kate had little time to get accustomed to the chair.
I think I had about a weekend to pull myself together,
but it felt like I was being shot out of a cannon.
It was... so intense.
[narrator] And if learning her part overnight wasn't enough...
She was under a tremendous amount of scrutiny.
[narrator] With jittery studio suits hovering,
Kate had inherited the toughest of tough crowds.
I only remember coming onto the bridge
and having to perform that initial monologue.
We're alone...
in an uncharted part of the galaxy.
With a lot of men in suits standing at the lip of the bridge,
arms folded, "Is she gonna do this?
Because we've got a wonderful actor in the wings."
[narrator] Kate was not only the producer's last chance,
she was turning into the sisterhood's last stand.
There were all these rumors that if we didn't find
the right woman to play Captain Janeway
that the studio might make it a male after all.
[narrator] Suddenly Kate wasn't the only cast member getting nervous.
[Robert] If Janeway were now a man, then one of the other characters
that was presently a man might be turned into a woman.
So we were all a little nervous about losing our jobs.
[narrator] With the fate of a new network
and the entire Star Trek franchise on her shoulder,
Kate Mulgrew dug deep.
And when that kind of attention is on you,
it's very hard to relax and inhabit the character
with a kind of grace and confidence that only comes over time.
So I had to really act.
Let's see what happens.
[Kate] I had to pull myself together, and I thought,
"Well, this is what it's going to be like. It's going to be tough."
Kate came on set, we were filming in the corridors,
and everybody burst into applause.
Oh, my gosh. We can get back to work now.
Kate Mulgrew came in and just took charge of that role from the beginning.
And she was clearly the captain. She was in charge.
And you could totally buy a ship full of people following her orders.
It just felt right.
[narrator] But there were still plenty of other things they could get wrong,
like the entire plot for the two-part premier episode, called "Caretaker."
They're supposed to be an advanced race, but they can't find any water?
[narrator] The Kazon were no substitute for the Klingons.
You know, you've got, like, warp-capable spacecraft, but you're thirsty?
I mean, it just seemed kind of silly.
[narrator] And, incidentally, it wasn't just the Kazon who were thirsty.
And it was, you know, a hundred degrees, and I was in that makeup.
[Neelix] They all trade, and they all kill each other for it.
[Ethan] Everybody was bitching.
Finally, I just got so sick of listening to the bitching, I said,
"Listen, guys, I got a mattress glued to my head,
you guys should shut the... up."
My friends, it's good to see you again.
Oh.
[narrator] Well, the script wasn't quite holding water for Brannon Braga, either.
My only contribution to the pilot, I think, was that I thought
the initial drafts were missing some kind of weirdness.
[narrator] Well, not for long.
[Aunt Adah] Come up here.
I have a pitcher of lemonade and some sugar cookies.
You're being catapulted to the Delta Quadrant.
We need a little Twilight Zone-ness going on,
and I think their answer to that was this banjo man thing.
[narrator] But not just your regular banjo man.
He turns out to be a super powerful dying alien.
[narrator] Who really looks like this
and was responsible for the wellbeing of the subterranean Ocampas.
We had no idea that our technology
would be so destructive to their atmosphere.
[narrator] But aside from a cool banjo,
The Caretaker also has a very powerful array
that could send Voyager home.
But in doing so, it would fall into the hands of the Kazon
who would use it to steal the Ocampas' water...
And they won't be able to survive.
[narrator] ...leaving Captain Janeway with a tough choice:
either use The Caretaker's array to get home
or destroy it and save the Ocampa.
But it means being stranded.
I'm aware everyone has families
and loved ones and homes they wanna get back to.
So do I.
But I'm not willing to trade the lives of the Ocampa for our convenience.
We'll have to find another way home.
And she carries that burden with her for the entire series.
But it was very brave to cut all the moorings loose.
[Tim] We're like castaways out there.
We are on our own, and we are in unexplored space.
They've taken away the safety net.
There is no Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian to fall back on.
What you hope is that by going into a completely fresh area of space,
you have enough potential material
that you don't have to have a favorite enemy.
[narrator] Furthermore, since they're still on a one-way trip home,
that meant there would be no doubling back.
Even if we encountered, you know,
a really interesting species like the Vidiians,
you know, as soon as we were past somebody in space,
we wouldn't be coming back and seeing them again.
In a way, it was a little bit of a drawback.
The fact that Voyager was constantly moving under--
on a trajectory to get home was not a drawback
in terms of encountering species a second time,
because a species like the Vidiians, they could be far-spread.
They can live on other worlds. They have warp ships too.
Like--and so what, by the way?
It forces you to come up with new stuff.
[narrator] Producers were confident this "lost in space" Star Trek
would find an audience...
We'll find a way back.
[narrator] ...even if they couldn't find home.
And they were right.
And, of course, Voyager premieres in January 1995
to extraordinary viewership.
[narrator] 21.3 million viewers.
We're the second highest-rated network.
And it was big for UPN.
[narrator] But unlike the Kazon, this audience wasn't thirsty for more.
You never know what an audience is going to do.
[narrator] Soon after the premiere...
The numbers diminished, and that was distressing,
and we weren't certain why.
[narrator] And neither was UPN, but they forged ahead.
They had really left themselves with no other option.
And depending on one show to launch an entire network,
is--it, it seemed to be--well, I guess they know what they're doing.
[narrator] There was at least one place where they could find out
what the audience really thought of Voyager and Captain Janeway.
In March of 1995,
there is the first Star Trek convention since the show came out.
And they opened it up for a question-and-answer time.
So this middle-aged man gets up and he says,
"The jury is still out on you as captain of Voyager,
as a woman leading a Star Trek series, and as you as an actress."
And you could have heard a pin drop in that room.
If memory serves she responded,
"Well, I'm sorry you think that way."
How many Star Trek fans does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Four.
One to screw it in, and then three to argue
about how much better they did it on The Original Series.
[narrator] Within a few episodes, Voyager's voyage appeared doomed.
[Jeri] If you don't have viewers,
then you don't have a show that's going to continue.
[narrator] For now, Paramount had a show,
but they barely had a network to run it on.
We called ourselves a network, but we only had a few nights.
We only had six hours.
We weren't a legitimate network at that time.
[narrator] United Paramount Network had a credibility issue.
And it was, you know, universally called the "U Pretend" Network.
Let's pretend we're a network! Okay.
[narrator] And the other science fiction on it
wasn't looking terribly legitimate either.
Give us one good reason why we be in business with you again?
That's two good reasons.
There was no sense of what the brand was.
Voyager's the biggest thing there, and they all have high hopes
that it's gonna bust UPN into the stratosphere.
[narrator] Well, it hadn't.
But UPN doubled down.
The feeling was that something needed to give some oomph to the show.
[narrator] And it's not like they could rely
on Captain Janeway's love life to spice things up.
They were extremely mindful of writing for a woman.
There was a little less of the bravado of Kirk
or the derring-do of Picard,
and a little more of the humanity and warmth
that we so often think in this culture belongs to the female gender.
[narrator] It may have been a noble approach,
but it left the writers backed into a corner
when it came to adding a little bit of onscreen sizzle.
I had given up any hope of a marriage,
any hope of having a child of my own.
Well, I guess that's what we get for having a woman in the captain's seat.
[narrator] ...because what really unnerved the producers
was the prospect of a female captain with desires.
Get out.
They were so concerned that the audience might think
that Janeway has a thing for Q
that they took that kind of color off of our palette.
[narrator] But so she wouldn't be completely sexless,
they designed a safe romantic companion for her.
An interesting and intriguing man...
[speaking in foreign language]
...who could challenge her and yet be compassionate with her.
[narrator] There was only one man who fit the bill.
And I loved all the Leonardo De Vinci stuff.
Welcome.
[narrator] That's right. The 16th-century Italian Renaissance man,
or at least a holographic projection of him.
There was a group of very sort of strident women
who were infuriated
that we would have her
have a relationship with a mock person
rather than a real person.
That somehow that lessened her or denigrated her.
This is Leonardo De Vinci we're talking about.
Simulation or not,
he's one of the greatest creative minds in Earth's history.
In my mind, it was the perfect solution
because it was a place she could go when she needed to talk about something
and have a friend who would talk about it with her.
[narrator] But during the years adrift in space,
other relationships had blossomed.
The Doctor had a very unique relationship with Kes
because ostensibly he was mentoring her as his medical assistant.
What are the bones of the middle ear?
Malleus, incus, and stapes.
But she really was mentoring him in his developing sense of entitlement
as a--as an artificial intelligence.
Doctor, did you notice how rudely that officer treated you?
No more so than most.
[narrator] Kes and The Doctor were doing their part
to keep Voyager on the air.
She was an extraordinary actor.
Um, absolutely unedited and present.
[narrator] Despite some gripping performances,
it became clear the actress was in the grip of something else.
She began to become distracted, inattentive.
There was just something off.
When you say hello, "Hey, Jenny, how are you doing,"
she--you don't--you're not sure what kind of response
you're gonna get back from her.
Jennifer was extremely quiet and private.
Really monosyllabic.
We don't know what was going on in her life,
but whatever it was,
it didn't allow her to perform her duties on set.
[narrator] The previously focused actress was turning into a multi-take factory.
[man] One more time, please.
And you'd have to do take two, take three, take four.
[Jeri] I asked her to come into my office and probed gently
to see if there was something going on in her life,
if there's anything I could help her with,
and she simply wouldn't speak at all.
She completely shut down.
I don't think anyone knows what was going on,
but clearly there was something emotionally... upset.
And I think all of us were kind of getting the...
the feeling that Jennifer maybe really didn't wanna be there.
I think maybe the grind was starting to get to her.
[narrator] Sadly, the producers never got to the bottom
of whatever was troubling the actress.
She would not open up about it.
She would not consider getting any help for it.
It was more powerful than she was,
and she was simply unable to continue.
[narrator] With one of the most popular characters in trouble
and ratings still sliding,
by the end of season three, it was obvious...
You have a network that's demanding changes.
[narrator] ...and resistance was futile.
[narrator] Due to actress Jennifer Lien's personal crisis,
Star Trek: Voyager was set to lose a crewmember in season four.
Jeri Taylor fought the network
who wanted to just cut things off, you know?
"Oh, she's gone." And Jeri's like, "No,
she deserves the dignity of a farewell as a character."
[narrator] So Kes got a glowing goodbye.
The way that we wrote her out was kind of like killing her off
in that she sort of evolved into a greater form of energy.
[narrator] With the departure of a popular character
and ratings in a downward spiral,
Voyager would live or die by season four,
and so producers came up with the plan,
best summed up in four words:
Bring Back The Borg.
My God.
Everybody was really excited to be able to use the Borg.
[narrator] Star Trek was returning to the tried and true.
The Borg, a villainous alien species from The Next Generation,
would be imported as a way to introduce some danger.
The Borg are gonna be our Klingons in the Delta Quadrant.
They're gonna be our recurring villain.
Because, you know, obviously it had been established in The Next Generation
that Borg was in the Delta Quadrant, and here we were in the Delta Quadrant.
Their space appears to be vast.
It includes thousands of solar systems, all Borg.
[narrator] But the return of the Borg was only half the story.
We had the first all-digital villain,
I believe, in all of Star Trek, which I called 90210.
- 1234. Yeah. Yes. - Yeah. 675309.
[narrator] It's actually...
Species 8472.
Species 8472 was designed to be like the scariest aliens
that we had encountered yet.
[narrator] With a scary price tag.
This is in the early days of CG,
and having a CG character was expensive and, and difficult.
You know, we only were able to see that creature
15, 18 seconds worth of film, maybe.
[narrator] But not even the power of 1990's computing
could outmatch what they had planned next.
What if there was a Borg crew member?
[narrator] The answer to that question became a character
that would pose all sorts of challenges for the Voyager crew.
[Maria] Her original name was Phira in the meetings that they had,
but they always knew that her name was gonna be a number.
Seven of Nine.
[narrator] Numbers destined to become the bane of Captain Janeway's life.
And this is Janeway, who's about to take the biggest risk
a captain has ever taken,
where Janeway wants to make a deal with the Borg.
The present situation requires that we consider your plan.
[Lisa] We had treated the Borg just as this...as this mass, you know?
That they specifically did not have individuality,
and yet we had to develop this individual character
who had been, you know, assimilated when she was a child
and so had not grown up as an individual herself.
And so, once we kind of freed her from the Collective,
you know, against her will,
then it was like she almost had to,
to go back to being a child again in a way,
to, to find her own personality and her own voice.
Seven of Nine gave us the opportunity to show the struggle
of somebody who's...you know,
as badly broken as a human can be
and watch her journey back to humanity.
And that's not something that had been done before.
[narrator] The inspiration for casting was to move
as far away from the traditionally Borg as possible.
And maybe it's a very statuesque...you know,
we talked about kind of a Grace Kelly, cool demeanor.
[narrator] Or put another way...
A babe.
[narrator] ...a Borg babe.
We had lots of casting sessions
because we needed a, a, a good actor.
[narrator] Producers considered a number of actors.
All right.
[narrator] But in the end...
[Rick] Michael, Jeri, and I all agreed on Ms. Ryan.
[narrator] That's Jeri Ryan.
It truly was not Jeri Ryan's appearance that got her the job.
She read it the best of anyone.
I wanted Seven of Nine to come on and freshen up each and every character
and have her own relationship with each character.
[narrator] This was a case of being careful what you wish for.
[Rick] All of a sudden a new woman arrives who is part alien
and who is stunning,
and the press put a lot of focus onto her.
[narrator] Which was music to UPN's ears.
She became very popular.
Please welcome the lovely Jeri Ryan.
[narrator] Which was exactly what producers had wanted.
I think people that weren't in the Star Trek world or fans of Star Trek
were made aware of this, this new character coming on.
I mean, there was a huge amount of publicity,
so we had a lot of new eyes on, on Voyager that we didn't have before.
[narrator] However...
It upset the cast.
Some people were really bothered by this.
The issue that I had with Seven of Nine's character
is that she sounded a lot like I did, which is redundant.
You are erratic, conflicted, disorganized.
Every decision is debated.
Every action questioned.
If you have a diverse cast, and every cast member plays off the other,
if you have two characters that are too similar,
then you don't get that dynamic.
[narrator] So onscreen conflict was mirrored by off-screen tension.
I'd, uh...
prefer not to discuss Seven of Nine.
And I think that I was startled by, uh, her presence.
And I think the tension and the electricity
between us was quite palpable.
To come in and, and, and do all this work
and carry the show as the lead character
and then to have to, to take a backseat...
[narrator] Producers had introduced a breath of fresh air,
only to find the core cast gasping for oxygen.
[narrator] Seven of Nine had made a splash with viewers
but now found herself navigating troubled waters
on an increasingly rancorous set.
Voyager becomes a more unpleasant place to work.
I get so many close-ups. If she gets a close-up, I get a close-up.
There was times where one wouldn't come out of the trailer
until the other one came out of the trailer.
[David] I remember one day, I was coming onto the set in the morning.
Kate comes storming up to me and she said,
"Why do you shoot her that way?"
And I said, "What--what are you talking about?"
She said, "Well, you do these shots along her body,
and, and you do this and you do that."
I didn't know what to tell her, because it was true that I was doing that.
But, also, it's because you can't help but show her physicality.
I felt she was objectified a bit.
Because you have to remember, Voyager went on the air
as a, as a feminist statement.
Yeah, we really embraced her looks.
We did. I mean, that outfit was, was something else.
[narrator] And for the show's star, it seemed like the arrival
of Jeri Ryan wasn't exactly welcomed.
I can definitely see Kate being threatened.
Kate is human. I've worked with her a lot.
But that's something actors are taught.
"No, you've gotta fight for yourself. You gotta fight for your lines.
You gotta fight for your scenes. You gotta fight for your publicity.
All you have is your name."
It's this fear. All that comes from fear.
[narrator] The battle lines had been drawn,
and cast members found themselves having to choose a side.
I stepped away. I stepped back and just allowed things to settle.
I felt terrible for Kate
because it was, I think, very difficult for her.
Jeri was just, uh, trying to do her job.
Why screw it up with these stupid, uh, ego things?
[narrator] But whatever friction was going on behind the scenes,
it was somehow creating real electricity on-screen.
In the end, that relationship between Janeway and Seven of Nine
was not only classic but essential,
I think, to the growth and the movement of Voyager.
It only served the relationship.
And Jeri Ryan did a wonderful job.
There was depth to the character.
The wild child coming in and discovering humanity
turned out to be really the heart of the show.
You're experiencing difficult emotions.
Guilt.
Shame. Remorse.
Then you haven't lost your humanity.
And it ends up being a completely effective addition to the cast
and also her performance was extraordinary.
Jeri is... was incredibly talented.
And for any lingering thoughts of, "Oh, they've just hired a bimbo here,"
I mean, that was quickly put to rest.
Just the person I was looking for.
She brought that miraculous nuance.
She's both kind of invulnerable and vulnerable at the same time.
[Rick] She just got better and better,
so we, we, we kind of hit a home run with her.
[narrator] As real-life traumas reduced cast morale to a new low,
the show reached a new high.
[Mark] The introduction of Jeri Ryan briefly did help the ratings.
People won't give up on us so soon.
[narrator] But even with Seven of Nine and a spike in ratings,
you might start wondering whether the problem wasn't Voyager at all.
We were at a disadvantage in terms of outreach.
Some regions didn't carry UPN, plain and simple.
In a lot of cases, were some bad UHF channels.
UPN, you can get with a pair of, you know, rabbit ears on a TV.
It was like the worst situation you wanna be in,
the flagship show for UPN.
God help them.
[narrator] With the producers doing everything right,
UPN just couldn't attract viewers.
But it got even worse.
I had made the decision before season four started
that I was going to retire at the end of it.
And, uh, it was time. I was ready.
[narrator] Into the void stepped Brannon Braga
as co-executive producer and showrunner.
Brannon was the person who had sort of risen
and the one who seemed like he had the chops.
I was completely caught off guard by it, but got excited at the idea.
[narrator] Braga's involvement in the show was about
to go much deeper than his predecessors might have liked.
Jeri Ryan and I became involved in season five.
And they started living together.
[narrator] The furor of Seven of Nine's arrival and unexpected rise
had only just started to die down.
I'm sure that actually just added fuel to the fire.
How is it ever fair?
You're dating somebody who you have the ear of all the time.
You know, you write for your girlfriend,
and it was a very difficult situation for everybody.
I remember the day I had to go to Kate Mulgrew's trailer
to tell her 'cause I knew I...that Jeri and I were becoming more serious.
And I told Kate,
and she was absolutely wonderful,
and she said, "Are you in love?"
I said yes, and she said, "I'm happy for you."
Kate was amazing.
But I like to think it didn't affect my job,
being the boss at that point.
[narrator] Robert Beltran decided to test that.
Jeri and I were sitting in the makeup table,
getting ready, and I said, "You know, Jeri,
I would like to have a scene where, where Chakotay kisses you,
but it'll never happen because Brannon would get jealous."
Uh...
And she laughs, "Oh, my God,
I'm gonna tell him what you said.
That is so funny."
And I said, "Yeah, tell him that I don't think
he has the balls to write a scene like that."
[narrator] Oh, Brannon had the balls, all right.
Remain still.
[narrator] And he was juggling them.
A lot of balls, actually.
As the season goes on, it is like running as fast as you can
to keep up with production.
We were all really, really fatigued.
We used to get our revisions and sides at 12:00 at night
for the next day, so we would be in the makeup chair
trying to learn whatever the revisions were for that day,
and those days were typically really long.
They averaged 15 hours, 16 hours.
[narrator] And the schedule was overwhelming.
Not least for the showrunner himself.
I remember one day in my backyard, thinking about a story,
and I remember, it was like walking into a brick wall.
And I went, "Oh, I think I'm done.
I think I have to move on from the show." Like, I was getting burned out.
[narrator] Brannon stayed with Star Trek, but beamed over to a new series,
Enterprise, leaving Kenneth Biller in charge
of Voyager's climactic final season.
A lot of people wanted to see us come home.
And that would have been the story that, you know,
everybody expected them to write.
I had always envisioned the last shot of the series
with Voyager landing,
and the families all being there,
and the crew getting off of the ship and their home.
- Then Janeway's dog runs up. - And, and, yes, Janeway's dog runs up.
And, in fact, I tell everybody that they're not gonna do
what you expect them to do.
[narrator] But for the series finale, Voyager suddenly came home,
which indeed took fans by surprise...
Yeah.
[narrator] ...slyly jumping 26 years into the future.
[Janeway] Computer, end display.
[Tim] We only did a flash of it in the episode.
You could see the Voyager coming through.
There was just a, a, a newsreel playback or something she's watching.
I was not satisfied with the way it ended.
I, I really... I really... didn't like it.
[narrator] After seven long seasons,
Voyager had completed its mission, but at grave cost.
I'm your friend.
Kathryn Janeway, remember?
[narrator] Lieutenant Tuvok lost his mind...
You're an impostor.
[narrator] ...and with Chakotay and Seven of Nine dead,
it was up to Voyager's captain,
now an admiral, to right her wrongs.
But when I'm through, things might be better for all of us.
[narrator] Because it could all be fixed with a little time travel.
I thought it was a great showcase for Kate Mulgrew
because she had to play two different versions of herself.
Am I the only one experiencing déjà vu here?
It was the captain's responsibility to get us back home,
and that's why they wrote it the way they did
and they focused it on Kate; it's Kate's story.
[narrator] In a tour-de-force performance, Kate Mulgrew does it all.
Kate filled that role in every way imaginable.
Now, Mr. Tuvok.
[narrator] As Admiral Janeway sacrifices herself, defeating the Borg,
while Captain Janeway brings the crew home, safe and sound...
You did it.
[narrator] ...the last episode ended with a bang.
But on set, the bang was more of a whimper.
They were taking the briefing room set apart.
The moment we uttered the last line, the walls were coming down
so that they could build the new Enterprise set in its place.
That kind of bothered me.
You're just watching... literally watching the show
disintegrate in front of your eyes.
We were all a little bit upset, the fact that there wasn't more thought
about making the last day perhaps a group scene
that we could all be together.
And I know Rick Berman didn't come down to the set
to say thank you and goodbye or anything like that.
I think our cast had the, uh,
"don't let the door hit you in the ass" feeling.
The goodbye wasn't ever really a goodbye.
There are some series that quit when they're ahead,
and you feel like they could have gone on for a little longer.
Uh, I have the feeling that Voyager
was done when it was done.
There was not anything left to mine in it.
[narrator] UPN would limp on for a few more years
before also going quietly off the air.
Despite all of Voyager's struggles, you cannot deny the fact that...
Seven years is a good run for a, for a show.
[narrator] And that's where this story might well have ended.
[Larry] But years after it's got first run,
I am thrilled and amazed that streaming has been so kind to Voyager.
[narrator] It's enabled a whole generation of young fans
to discover and appreciate Captain Janeway.
I saw what it meant to these young women...
[woman] Admiral?
[Kate] ...to have a woman in command.
And I'll never forget one girl.
She said, "You know, my father and I watched Janeway."
And these were in the early days of my education
when I really thought I was going to go into research.
And by the end of the first season, I turned to my father and I said,
"I'm not going to stay in an office. I wanna go up."
[Larry] You've had this whole generation of fans,
especially the girls--
I call 'em the Janeway's Army--
that have taken to heart everything about Voyager.
What an extraordinary opportunity as an actress to drive this forward.
And because I was the first, there's a kind of terrific pride in this,
so I hope that they take from that pride
their own sense of pride.
Find out who you are,
have the courage to be who you are, and own it.
[narrator] Voyager has proven to be as popular as it has been inspirational.
I think it's amazing that, of the top ten streaming shows
of all the Star Treks, six of them, of the top ten, are from Voyager.
[narrator] No small feat given the competition
from well over half a century of science fiction.
If you stand back and look at the entire franchise
from the original to today, it's huge.
It's just unbelievable.
[narrator] To be precise, seventy-nine Original Series episodes,
twenty-two animated episodes, six original cast movies,
four Next Generation movies, seven seasons of The Next Generation,
seven more of Deep Space Nine, seven of Voyager,
four of Star Trek: Enterprise,
four seasons of Discovery, two of Picard,
along with Lower Decks, not to mention the movies
from the Kelvin timeline, and much more to come,
including the return of Captain Janeway
in Star Trek: Prodigy.
That's what I mean about Star Trek.
It's just the reverberations are, are endless.
[voice echoes]
[theme music playing]