Press Pay Tribute To Star Trek: Voyager

With the series finale of Star Trek: Voyager airing this Wednesday, tributes to the fourth Trek series have been published in many newspapers.

• An extensive article in the LA Times focused on the major problems of the show's seven year run and featured quotations from many of the cast.

  "We struggled a lot with the premise on this show," said co-executive producer Kenneth Biller. "We were in a situation that drew the characters closer together but precluded serialisation and recurring guest characters. The biggest challenge was coming up with fresh stories."

  Another factor that made Voyager stand apart was its significant focus on female characters. "It was a situation where Seven and Janeway kind of consumed the show in the latter seasons, and that's not something you see every day on a male-skewed action show," commented former executive producer Brannon Braga. "The women were very secondary on Next Generation, and in Kirk's series, the females were basically relegated to babes in miniskirts."

  Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine) agreed. "Given Seven's physical appearance, it would have been very easy to have her in bed with every male member of the crew and every alien we encountered," she said. "Instead, the writers showed restraint and kept her an outsider."

  The full article, including comments from Beltran, Russ, Mulgrew and Wang, can be found here at the LA Times web site.

• In the Boston Herald the actress at the helm of the series spoke about the way in which she planned to say goodbye to the show.

  "After we wrap for the last time, I'll have some second unit work to do, so I'll be at the studio for a few days after the others," said Kate Mulgrew (Kathryn Janeway). "Once that is done, I'm going to go to Stage 8 in my uniform, walk onto the darkened bridge and just sit in the captain's chair for a while, collect my thoughts and my memories. I plan to have a very quiet moment with Janeway on the bridge. That's how I intend to say goodbye to her, and to Voyager."

  The full article is available in the Boston Herald or at their web site for a fee.

• Voyager co-creator and executive producer Rick Berman compared the feeling at the end of the show to his oldest son leaving home, in the Chicago Tribune.

  "Having a son who I lived with for 18 years and loved and spent tremendous amount of time with suddenly leave home, knowing that I was never going to see him with the same frequency again, it's a hard thing," he said. "But you learn to deal with it, because that's what life is all about. And I think to a lesser degree, it's true with the actors. There are actors with Deep Space Nine - Rene Auberjonis, Colm Meaney, [Alexander] Siddig, Nana Visitor - who I'm still close with. And Michael Dorn, who I see on a regular basis. And there are others who I don't see."

  On the other hand, Kate Mulgrew was looking forward to seeing more of certain people. "I can see who I love when I want to see them," she said. "I've missed [out on some of my life] in this mad rush to honour my schedule for the last seven years. Which I've done, and now I don't have to. So I can have a liverwurst sandwich in bed, can't I, with impunity."

  The full article, which also looks at the series finales of Walker, Texas Ranger and Third Rock From the Sun can be found by following this link to the Chicago Tribune site.

• "The lights went out on the bridge, and that was it," Kate Mulgrew told the Washington Post of her final moments on set.

  The actress felt her character needed to be important in her own right, not as a symbol or part of a greater vision. When asked how she coped with the expectations of Trek's traditional young male audience about a woman in the Captain's chair, she claimed she had tried to be "as little like a mother as possible and as much like a captain as possible."

  "I have a mixed reaction to the end of the series," she said. "It's an emotional thing. Seven years is a long time, and a very significant chapter in my life. Because it was such rigourous and urgent work - and that's the word I would use, urgent - I wasn't allowed time to assimilate my emotions. Now they're catching up with me."

  Her full comments can be enjoyed at the Washington Post site.

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