Captain Janeway

[ThePurpleOctopus]

Just a thread in praise of this character who I feel has strongly influenced me.

I remember watching her when Voyager was live on TV when I was younger, and liking her so much - I wouldn't be watching Star Trek if not for her, she was my way into it.

But my Mum didn't really like her, called her 'strident', 'bossy', and didn't like her voice. I don't blame my Mum at all - we all have our own internal misogyny we battle with. But her feelings made me hide my love of Janeway for a while.

Then in my 20s I rewatched it all and appreciated Janeway even more, particularly as a young professional trying to be taken seriously - and having been called 'bossy' and 'aggressive' by older men when I truly believe I was nothing more than assertive.

Now in my thirties and re-watching it from the start on Netflix. I think my appreciation for Janeway has gone up again!

Just me?

I rewatched voyager last year, loved it, especially after Kes left 🤣

You need to go back to Picard.

Poor old Kes, bless her; she was a bit bland.

Neelix should have been more of a father figure, i think.

And lest we forget, one of the greatest jokes ever written was in Voyager.

Seven of Nine: Ah, Naomi Wildman. Sub-unit of Ensign Samantha Wildman.

😂😂😂

I'm a bit shameless about losing patience and just reading Wikipedia episode synopses to get me past stuff DH is willing to sit through, then I jump in and rejoin.

The first 2 series of Picard were interminable, though. There was far too much navel gazing, for my liking.

I only watched the odd episode here and there; and i got the gist.

Seven is great in Picard. However, I'm still a little bit annoyed as to how her hair always looks perfectly blow dried.

Well, assuming she still sleeps standing up like a borg, that would help :)

I always felt that Voyager it treated the whole idea of being away for years with no idea of when they'd get home very well - Janeway isolating herself, the rest of the crew slowly coupling up etc. It felt very thought through, rather than the very idealistic style of TNG

I didn't really like Major Kira - I don't think she'd be someone I would get along with in real life, and I thought DS9 was a bit up itself sometimes (quite often), although the storylines were good - meeting the female ferengi, Quark's mother especially and Quark himself becoming a rounded person rather than the Ferengi stereotype was very well done.

I've not enjoyed Discovery at all - too preachy.

Worf is, and will always be my favourite Star Trek character though - he gets fantastic lines, his character development and their commitment to his character traits is amazing.

Major Kira was brought into DS9 because Michelle Forbes didn't want to reprise Ensign Ro at the time. They needed / wanted a strong female Bajoran character so Nana Visitor was cast (which always sounds like an elderly relative coming to stay).

There's a crew member on Seinfeld called Skip Collector.

Babylon 5 was the best Sci-Fi show of that era by a country mile. Amazing story and some brilliant characters.

It is only thanks to B5 that DS9 was allowed to have story arcs that lasted more than 2 episodes.

Torres was always my favourite.

I gave up on Picard because the “androids are human and if you don’t accept them, you’re a bigot” had too many parallels with gender for me.

@LoobyDop oh definitely watch series/season 3 of Picard! If it's not a metaphor for the youngsters these days being brainwashed by ideology, then I don't know what is!

I'm not a trekkie, (only through osmosis from my husband and sister) but I loved series 3.

Apparently this last series was written by a different team to the other two so that would account for the difference.

Worf shows up having fallen down an Instagram wellness wormhole. It's definitely taking the piss out of wokerati. The middle aged crew all manage to display more personality in 6 episodes of Picard than they do in the entire of TNG

I’m with your mum on her voice as I found it grating but I love how bolshy she was. All the women on Voyager were great, pretty much.

re the amphibian episode - the think that disturbed me most about that was that they left Janeway and Paris’s weird amphibian babies behind.

re the amphibian episode - the think that disturbed me most about that was that they left Janeway and Paris’s weird amphibian babies behind

Yeah, but the babies were never human, they were born from the salamander DNA, so whilst they could miraculously restore Paris and Janeway to their original form, they couldn't do that with the offspring.

They would've had to be kept in a tank like pets which would've been even weirder.

What annoys me is that it only took 3 days for Voyager to find the planet they were on. It would've taken at least 2 days to 'evolve' then one day to mate, gestate babies and for said babies to grow big enough to to leave? Ridiculous.

There's only one way... Janeway.

I think it was a huge mistake sticking Jeri Ryan in that catsuit in Voyager, as men drooling over her, taking away from the awesome plot of a starship captained by a strong female, is what drove a wedge between Kate Mulgrew and her.

Both Mulgrew and Ryan are great actresses, and they both did a fantastic job in Voyager. It's such a shame they didn't get on personally, and it's a huge credit to both of them that the mentorship between Janeway and Seven is so believable when they hated each other whilst filming.

And actually, Ryan is even better in Picard - not wearing skintight clothing. She's a brilliant actress and never needed the clothing gimmick. Still, it was a different time, and the male gaze was all important...

If you've watched Voyager and The Next Generation, you can jump to season 3 of Picard and enjoy it without watching seasons 1 and 2. It's odd how standalone they were written.

Season 3 of Picard was wonderfully self-indulgent. Especially some of Worf's lines, and Riker's responses.

Ameanstreakamilewide, there were a few good jokes in Voyager. My favourite was
Intercom: “Icheb to the doctor. Report to cargo bay 2”
Seven of Nine: “He’s persistent”
The Doctor: “Don’t worry - I’ll tell him persistence is futile!”
(For non ST fans, the Borg, including 7 of 9 , were always chanting their mantra of “Resistance is futile!”)

That's excellent! 😂

That's how I felt too. Also I think we're slowly moving towards "conscious" robots and I feel so strongly that is wrong. Terminator was not meant to be an instruction manual!

Janeway was always one of my favourite characters in all the Treks. J Dax was a favourite too, they should not have killed her off to replace with Ezri. And I really liked the character of Picard, but really struggled to get into the Picard series.

For other Janeway fans, did you know there is a Janeway autobiography audiobook? I really enjoyed it, it's read by Kate Mulgrew in first person character.

Hate to break it to you both, but Star Trek has always been supportive of different gender identities.

See The Outcast - it's a TNG episode from 1992. Effectively, Riker falls for a person who is part of a non-binary race who wants to identify as female, and who is then put through conversion therapy to identify as non-binary again.

Breaking out of gender stereotypes is one of the reasons I like Star Trek. But that is gender not sex. What’s that saying, ‘I’m oppressed because of my sex and gender stereotypes are the means of my oppression ‘

I agree with you OP.

I didn't like Voyager at first, not because of the Janeway character who I liked well enough, but because the silliness of the plots each episode was just too much (and I have been a trek fan since the 80s so I am used to some silliness)

But my cousin persuaded me to give it another go, and sang the praises of how good it was to have Janeway in command, and I was won over.

Hate to break it to you both, but Star Trek has always been supportive of different gender identities.

I thought it was more exploring the ideas of other species which didn't have 2 dimorphic sexes ('Enterprise' had a species with 3 sexes - male, female and a third one needed to reproduce but not allowed proper education etc).

In other words, science fiction - quite a different thing than 'gender identities'. The bits in 'Discovery' where they make a meal of calling a NB character 'they' in that special twinkly way is pure 2020s Earth.