The Untold Truth Of Star Trek: Voyager

Part of the problem with exploring the final frontier? There's just so much of it. That's the challenge the crew of the USS Voyager had to contend with in Star Trek: Voyager's two-part premiere "Caretaker," when the ship was tossed so deep into the distant Delta Quadrant that the crew believed it would take them the better part of a century to get home. Cut off from Starfleet and the Federation, Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) — the first female captain to lead a Trek series — struggled to get her crew home while at the same time upholding the Federation's values and even using the opportunity to expand their knowledge of unexplored space.

Voyager followed the adventures of its crew for seven seasons until they finally made their way home in the two-part finale "Endgame." And through all the space battles, the romance, and the debates between Voyager's principled officers, there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than you know. Resentments ran high between certain cast members, some characters were created to pay tribute to fallen heroes, and other characters were revealed to have surprising connections to other series. Voyager also helped to launch the blockbuster career of one actor while proving a singular triumph for a young network. 

To learn about all these things and more, keep reading for the untold truth of Star Trek: Voyager.

When it came time to cast Janeway, Voyager's casting team looked at a lot of actresses. Among the candidates was Linda Hamilton of the Terminator films, Susan Gibney who'd played the recurring role of Dr. Leah Brahms on Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), and the Buck Rogers alum Erin Gray. Of course, as we all know, eventually Kate Mulgrew auditioned for the role, and the part went to ... Canadian actress Geneviève Bujold.

That's right. In her 2015 memoir Born with Teeth, Mulgrew wrote that her first audition for the role went so poorly that she actually apologized for her subpar performance. She explained that she was distracted by having just fallen in love with a man — Tim Hagan, who she married in 1999 — and that she was meeting him later. Instead of Mulgrew, Bujold was cast in the role of the character who was then named Elizabeth Janeway. 

However, Bujold didn't last much of the voyage. She quit after a day and a half of filming. Voyager co-creator Rick Berman said of Bujold's departure, "This was a woman who, in no way, was going to be able to deal with the rigors of episodic television." Considering Star Trek documentaries like What We Left Behind and The Captains include cast and crew talking about 16-hour work days, it's tough to blame Bujold too much for leaving the crew to deal with the Delta Quadrant without her.

Most Trek fans have their own pick for their favorite Trek series. So if a Trek fan ever tells you "everyone hates this series" or "everyone loves this one," never believe them. For every fan who loves Deep Space Nine, there are plenty who can't stand it. For every Trekkie who wishes Discovery had never been made, there are old school fans and new who love it. So we're not trying to tell you Voyager is the best Star Trek show, but some numbers have revealed something interesting about the series' 21st-century popularity. 

In 2017, Netflix reviewed data (via Business Insider) from over 100 million subscribers in close to 200 countries to figure which episodes of Star Trek were watched more than any others. At the time, Netflix carried all the franchise's series produced between Star Trek: The Original Series and the 2005 finale of Star Trek: Enterprise. And during its research, Netflix didn't count first or second episodes of series, because those generally have more views than others. 

Voyager and The Next Generation were the only two series with episodes in the top ten most watched, and of those ten episodes, six belong to Voyager. Those six episodes help to prove the enduring popularity of both the Borg and Voyager's season four newcomer, Seven of Nine. Most of the six episodes are very Seven and Borg-centric. They include the series finale "Endgame," the two-parters "Scorpion" and "Dark Frontiers," and "The Gift," which is the episode immediately following Seven's first appearance.

One of the more prominent recurring characters on Voyager was Ensign Samantha Wildman (Nancy Hower). Voyager's unexpected journey to the Delta Quadrant separated the pregnant Ensign Wildman from her husband by about 70,000 light years. But on the bright side, her half-alien daughter, Naomi, eventually turned into another favorite recurring figure on Voyager, becoming close friends with Neelix (Ethan Phillips) and even the usually socially resistant Seven of Nine. 

Interestingly, Samantha Wildman's name has a special meaning. Wildman first appeared in the second season episode "Elogium," co-written by Jimmy Diggs. The same year he sold the script, Diggs' wife almost died. A kidney transplant saved her life, and Diggs learned the donor was a seven-year-old girl. He wrote a letter to Voyager's producers, asking them to name the episode's new character "Samantha" after the little girl whose kidney saved his wife. "The ancient Greeks believed the gods would reward heroic mortals by placing them in the stars," Diggs wrote. "By honoring the memory of this child, the producers of Star Trek will accomplish the same thing." Because the young girl adored animals, Ensign Wildman was not only given her name but made part of the ship's xenobiology department. 

Tim Russ actually had a few Trek one-off gigs before landing the role of Security Chief Tuvok on Voyager. On DS9, he was a Klingon mercenary who helps take the station hostage in "Invasive Procedures," and in TNG's "Starship Mine," he's one of a group of criminals trying to steal trilithium resin from the Enterprise. In 1994's Star Trek: Generations, Russ plays a lieutenant on the bridge of the Enterprise-B in the film's opening. 

But before he did any of that work, he auditioned for the part of Geordi La Forge on TNG. Speaking to TrekMovie.com in 2018, Russ said he was ultimately relieved to have lost the Geordi role to Levar Burton. Why? The dialogue. "The role [of Tuvok] was somewhat more organic and much easier in terms of dialogue," Russ said. "I am glad I didn't get stuck with all that engineering tech talk. ... That kind of dialogue doesn't do anything for me."

Russ also had the distinction of getting to appear in one of the few episodes in which Voyager characters could cross over into other series. Tuvok shows up in the DS9 season three episode "Through the Looking Glass," though it's not quite the same Tuvok. The episode takes place in the mirror universe first made famous by Star Trek: The Original Series' "Mirror, Mirror." That universe's version of Tuvok appears as a member of the Terran resistance fighting against the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance.

As Voyager's first officer, Commander Chakotay is often forced to tell Captain Janeway things she doesn't want to hear. Fittingly, actor Robert Beltran is known for speaking his mind on what he likes and doesn't like about Voyager, regardless of the consequences, even when the show was still on the air. By 2000, Beltran had aired enough dirty laundry in public that producer Kenneth Biller told SFX Magazine (via TrekToday) that he thought the actor "should stop whining and do his job."

Speaking to StarTrek.com in 2012, Beltran talked about not feeling fulfilled on Voyager. "You're doing the same thing every week, with a new variation," the actor said, later adding, "I didn't like some of the things that were going towards the last three years, and I risked being fired because I wasn't happy creatively." According to Beltran, Chakotay didn't have a lot of interesting relationships after the departure of Seska (Martha Hackett), his former lover who's eventually revealed to be a Cardassian. "After Seska left, it was only that relationship with the captain that had depth to it. ... Chakotay and the other characters, there wasn't much of a relationship there."

And Beltran has one problem with Trek a lot of fans may consider downright sacrilegious. Beltran hates the Prime Directive. In 2016, he told CNET, "The idea of leaving any species to die in its own filth when you have the ability to help them ... it's a bunch of fascist crap."