The Timeless Journey of Star Trek – Voyager
Fourth in the series, (actually fifth as there was a cartoon Star Trek series before that), in my opinion the most crowd-pleasing series, both for the plot that unfolds over 7 seasons, and for the innovations and characters that characterise this series.
The plot is intriguing, beginning with a very normal mission to chase a Maquis ship and ending up 70,000 light years away, transported there by an alien entity, which dies before it can send the ship back.
In order to survive so far from home, the two crews have to join forces and face the journey that is estimated to be at least 70 years long. And so, after a not-so-easy start of cooperation, they begin the arduous journey home, meeting new peoples and searching for new technologies that would shorten the time of return.
They thus meet aliens whom they host on their ship and who will become, to all intents and purposes, members of the crew, although the adaptation period was not always easy.
The characters that animate this series are many, and all have contributed to its success. I want to start with the most curious, and also the most humorous character, the Doctor.
He is an artificial intelligence who appears in the form of a hologram and who, over time, develops a real autonomous personality, his own particular character, at times rather grumpy, but who has given many episodes that vein of originality and fun that distinguishes him.
Slowly, as a result of his long activation, he developed his medical and other knowledge, also devoting himself to singing and writing. Over the course of the seven seasons he has not been able to give himself a name; he is simply called Doctor by the entire crew.
Another charismatic character who has certainly given this series an edge is Seven of Nine, the Borg. She is a human who was assimilated by the Borg when she was just a child.
The characteristic of the Borg is that when they are assimilated, they become part of a collective of billions of individuals and lose their uniqueness because the cybernetic components that are implanted enhance their physical and mental abilities, but also nullify their individual will.
The Borg are like a kind of beehive where they are all connected. Disconnecting Seven of Nine, retrieved by Voyager and recognised by the Captain as a human, will prove to be no easy task.
It is Captain Janeway who becomes her mentor and guides her in the search for her humanity, helped in this also by the Doctor who feels attraction for the girl, but realising that he is not reciprocated never goes so far as to declare himself.
Also in this series, as in all the Star Trek series, the equality between people, between alien peoples, even those very distant from the human race, is highlighted by the protagonists, see for example Kess, who belongs to a race originating in the Delta sector, the Ocampa, a race very similar to the human one, but with a very short life span, in fact his race does not exceed 9 years, and Neelix who is a Thalassian, also originating in the Delta quadrant, who offers himself as cook and guide of the quadrant.
The two fall in love although they are very different. Captain of the Maquis ship they had gone to look for in the Badlands, Chakotay becomes the first officer aboard Voyager, prompting his crew to integrate with that of the ship.
Although captain of a rebel crew, he has his own code of honour that fits in well with Captain Janeway's. Another member of his crew becomes an officer and chief engineer on Voyager, a half-human, half-Klingon woman, B'Elanna Torres, who after a not very happy beginning becomes one of the most important characters in the series, and who marries Lieutenant Paris towards the end of the series, a rather unpredictable figure who is at first very wild, but who proves as the years go by to be a completely trustworthy person for the whole crew.
A great friend of Tom Paris is Ensign Harry Kim, a young officer on his first mission in space. We now come to Tuvok the Vulcan, a typical example of a being of his species, on Voyager he holds the position of security officer, and with his stringent logic is a valuable advisor to the captain, who also considers him his friend.
We now come to Captain Kathryn Janeway, who is the first woman to hold the role of Captain on a starship in a television series. Authoritarian and strong-willed, she is, however, very sensitive and sympathetic to her crew, to the point of being almost maternal at times.
She is a lonely character, although she is a reference point for all the members of her crew who have unlimited trust in her and in her ability to solve any situation, even the most dangerous ones.
I think she is one of the most beloved captains in science fiction television series. Like the Star Trek - Voyager series, I think it is the most loved series by lovers of the genre, because of the innovations it brought and because of the story and the characters.
