Captain Janeway Destroyed Star Trek

13/08/2008

Star Trek Captains have a heavy weight to burden; they not only have to carry the responsibility of the welfare of their entire crew, but depending on the week they could be making first contact with a new species, infiltrating secret Cardassian strongholds, or bolstering security back at home. And with all of this, they have the constant awareness that they are being compared against the greats of the past with every action and decision. Luckily, ever since Captain Kathryn Janeway came back from the Delta Quadrant, every Star Fleet Captain has one less burden. Because they’ll never be as bad as Janeway.

I know that sounds like a pithy remark with nothing behind it, but it really isn’t. Every other Star Trek captain in the canon of Star Trek (which excludes the novels thankfully) is better than her. Even that douche that got Kirk stuck in the Nexus in Generations. Even that shitty I’m-so-goddamned-evil captain in the episode of Voyager where the other Starfleet ship lost in the Delta Quadrant shows up and much more worse for the wear.

Now you might think that her ship is in such good condition because she’s managed to avoid conflict and stayed out of interplanetary politics in this backwater ditch of a quadrant. If you thought that, clearly you’ve never seen the show.

Janeway didn’t survive because of her natural leading ability, like Kirk; Janeway didn’t survive because of her subtle politics and ability to empathize with opposing views, like Picard (among other reasons); and Janeway certainly didn’t survive because she had a deep spiritual connection with the plight of those around her and was destined to play a part in shaping the worlds and future before her. Janeway survived because every week, there was a new particle discovered, or existing one exploited for purposes completely unrelated to all previous known usages, that was exactly what her ship needed to get out of the Tight Jam of the Week.

And her ship wasn’t pristine because of the military strategies she employed in her frequent needless battles, but because the budget required exterior shots of the ship to be repeated in new episodes to make the CGI department cost-effective. Every single battle that Voyager went through in those seven years in the Delta Quandrant — always 75 years away from the Alpha Quadrant even though every season they would find at least one shortcut that shaved five to ten years off their journey — was more destructive than anything the Enterprise D suffered but every week the ship was in tip-top shape once again. Even Enterprise made some lame attempts to show that not everything can be repaired without a starbase and some dry dock time with their body-snatching space station episode. But Voyager doesn’t need things like ship repair and shore leave.

Admittedly, some of these complaints are about the show in general, but the fact is the captain is the show. People will prefer The Next Generation if they prefer Picard. But even ignoring the completely unrealistic journey that Voyager took, there are plenty of things wrong with Janeway.

She was a hypocrite of the highest degree. The very first episode of the show, Janeway barters with a tribal species known as the Kazon for some information. What does she barter with? Water, something she can generate unlimited supplies of through Alpha Quadrant replicator technology, but is incredibly rare on the dying desert planet on which those Kazon reside. Eventually Neelix, her tentative ally up until now, destroys all the water they brought just to fuck with the Kazon. Any other captain would have kicked that rat-faced little shit off their ship then and there. But she keeps him around because he knows his way around the Delta Quadrant. If she had seen the rest of the first season already, she would know how little Neelix actually knew about the area, but even without that foresight, trusting someone who acts so duplicitously is an idiotic move.

That’s not completely hypocritical, although her over-the-top reactions to lesser crimes later on in the series show that she has absolutely no memory of past actions; what’s truly mind-bogglingly hypocritical is when she next runs into the Kazon, instead of offering replicator technology and a sincere apology for the actions of one fool under her stead, she claims moral and intellectual superiority by telling the Kazon that they shouldn’t have fucked with Voyager and that she couldn’t give them replicators, or even replicate supplies for them, because it would violate the Prime Directive: noninterference in undeveloped civilizations.

The closest the Prime Directive ever got to noninterference with already space-faring species was when Picard refused to repair the rickety shuttles used by the two planets to deliver the “medicine” for a long-lived plague from one planet to another. Not only was that an exceptional situation where Picard used the Prime Directive to stick it to the planet of smug drug dealers, but it was also exceptional because their ships were actually inferior. The Kazon had warp drives, a massive interstellar pseudo-empire, and could hold their own in battle against virtually every adversary in their midst, Voyager included. That’s hardly an inferior species. No-one would begrudge her for making peace with the Kazon through a cultural and technological exchange.

But that’s all semantics and law interpretation, right? We know now that Janeway has a very strict interpretation of the Prime Directive, so everything’s good. Right? Well, it is until the Hirogen show up and beat the living snot out of Voyager (another instance of the reset button enacting miraculous repairs) and after two episodes of pointless World War 2 holodeck simulations with the Hirogens as the Nazis (why they wouldn’t chose to be the allies is left unclear) Janeway gives them holodeck technology and databases of pre-existing holodeck programs to give them a head start! But at least she’s consistent. Within an episode. (And even that isn’t a guarantee, I just don’t have the time to do more than vaguely recall the idiocy of this show.)

I recall when a lot of people would get angry at disliking Janeway because she was a female captain, so she’d have to be a little tougher. First of all, Star Trek is supposed to be a colour-blind, gender-blind, species-blind co-operative of planets, so why exactly would the sexism of our society be relevant to her? Second of all, she wasn’t a little tougher, and she wasn’t just being an assertive woman. Her character changed depending on the episode, for the sake of a plot. One episode she’d be a tough-as-nails take-no-prisoners hardass, and the next episode she’d be a soft demure lady-in-waiting who had fallen for the Brave Man of the Week. It’s not that people can’t be both those things, or that people can’t change and grow over time, it’s that these disparate aspects of her personality don’t complement each other and they don’t mesh together naturally.

When we see Picard get stabbed by a Nausicaan as a rebellious youth, it’s not a sudden jarring discontinuity in the character, it informs the character we’ve come to know and love. Picard was a complete character, as was Sisko, but Janeway is woefully outgunned here, both by the calibre of the acting but also by the writing and characterizations. Again it’s not that her characteristics couldn’t work together, or couldn’t work together in a female character; Voyager could have been the best Trek up until that time if done properly, but it wasn’t so we’re left with the piece of shit that unfortunately stinks up the rest of Star Trek canon.

I could go on for much longer (I really really could) ranting and foaming at the mouth about all the things that Voyager did wrong and why Janeway is at the heart of most of these problems, but I don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t know of anyone who genuinely enjoys all or most of Star Trek — that is, not just Voyager — and doesn’t dislike Voyager, and Janeway herself, to a certain degree. And it’s not hard to see why. She was an egocentric and fickle, yet stubborn, captain who, despite years of efforts on the writers’ parts, never became a sympathetic or respected character.

It was Voyager and Janeway (and we’ll never forget the horror that was Seven of Nine) that degraded the image of Star Trek to the world. Deep Space Nine was never as popular as The Next Generation or Voyager, but it was consistently better than the latter and was at least as good as the former. With each new year Voyager got worse, and DS9 got better. But when Deep Space Nine left the airwaves, Voyager had to stand for all of Star Trek on its own. It took only a year, but without the credibility of Deep Space Nine to bolster the weaker Voyager, Star Trek was soon tarnished and that scar remained for Enterprise’s entire run. Enterprise didn’t do much to repair Trek’s image until its later years but it was still better than Voyager on its worst days.

I sometimes wonder what the landscape of Star Trek would be like right now if Voyager and to a lesser degree Enterprise hadn’t failed their progenitors so horribly. Would we still have a relaunch movie coming out next year? Or would Enterprise be closing off its seven year run with a Deep Space Nine movie coming out and a new series exploring the troubled lives of intergalactic starfleet explorers as they journey to our nearest neighbour galaxy. Who knows what wonders they would have found in that deep void. And what terrors.

There are 11 comments in this article:

3/04/2009Jill Draycott say:

I agree that Captain Janeway was the worst most inconsitent captain out of all the Star Trek captains. An angry egocentric woman does not do any favours to women in today’s world, and in a time with no sexism, i cannot understand why the writers chose to play her that way.

The writing was poor in comparison to generations, we could not empathise with the voyager crew as we could with picard, data or worf. Who cares if Paris wants to fly the delta flyer..the character growth was so limited. Even seven’s character did not grow too much beyond the box!

Bring back a new enterprise with a real captain please!!!!!
15/05/2009Sam say:

All of this is rubbish to be fair Janeway is one of the best captains in star trek if you could look past your stereotypical 1950’s view of how it should work out and stop picking the show to pieces before someone picks the others apart for there many flaws, if you dont like it, dont watch it. simple.
15/05/2009blair say:

How exactly is expecting Janeway not to vacillate and be incredibly hypocritical at all times a 1950’s view? If anything, Voyager’s constant reset button mentality is much more reminiscent of 1950’s when the world of television was reset each week.

I also don’t deny that the other Star Trek shows had flaws. All TV shows, all movies, all entertainment media, has its flaws. But Voyager was vastly more flawed that TNG or DS9, and a lot of those flaws stem from the way Janeway was written. That is, inconsistently and hypocritically.
13/06/2009kabutar say:

Er… to be honest, I’m a bit boggled by this entire post.

Sure, she wasn’t always consistent – a couple eps in particular pop to mind – but it certainly seems like you’re leaving half the story out when you complain about the Kazon. Giving them water is not a violation of the Prime Directive. And they (the Kazon) tried to double-cross first!

As for the Hirogen… what would you have had her do? The only reason the Hirogen agreed to a truce was because she gave them the tech. If they hadn’t, either they’d all have died fighting on Voyager or the Hirogen hunting parties would have come after them again.

Besides, she didn’t destroy Trek – Enterprise went on 4 years after it. It’s just not cool enough for anyone to care about it – note the complete dumbing down of the new movie for mainstream appeal.
13/06/2009blair say:

It’s interesting how long-lived, and inciting of comments, this post is, but I appreciate any feedback.

I take your remarks about the Hirogen, but to be fair it is still hypocrisy. In the first episode, she destroyed the caretaker’s array rather than use it to leave and let the Kazon take the technology on board. She essentially abandoned her crew 75 years away from their families, friends, and homes because she didn’t want the Kazon to get new technology. If she’d been consistent, she should’ve let herself and her crew die before she gave the Hirogen their holodeck technology.

As for the Kazon, the Kazon did not betray them first. I said in a later post that I’m going through the old episodes and I’ve already begun. In the premiere, the Kazon say they’d like the replicator technology, Janeway says “that would be difficult” and then Neelix holds their Maje at phaser point, then destroys the water Voyager’s crew brought to the Kazon in the first place. It was absolutely Voyager and Neelix who started it with the Kazon.

And when I say she destroyed Trek, obviously I don’t mean that there was no Trek after that, but rather that she was the beginning of the end. She was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria if the end of Star Trek was the beginning of World War 1.

Finally, your remark about the new Trek movie being “dumbed-down” seems rather ignorant of history. Every Trek movie, except perhaps the first one which I enjoyed but was far too masturbatory, has simplified and watered down Trek. Star Trek was destined for television, that’s where it does its thing best. The new movie merely followed in the footsteps of all the other Trek movies.
13/06/2009kabutar say:

Hah! Honestly, I have no clue how I got here. Something popped up on Twitter, I think.

With all due respect, she didn’t destroy the Caretaker’s array because she didn’t want the Kazon to get the tech – she did it because if they had taken the tech, they would have destroyed the Ocampa. To be honest, this is a common thread through the series (see her guilt in Night (S5 premiere) over saving another species over her crew) – which technically, you should know if you’ve watched the series

Picard disobeyed the Prime Directive in… Insurrection, I think it was for a very similar reason? It can’t always apply. Sure, she can follow it and not blow up the array and be directly responsible for the extermination of a species just so she could get her crew back home… I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t live with that.

Also, if you watch ‘Shattered’ (S7), none of the crew – past the initial few months – are particularly sad about being stranded. Actually a better example of this is 11:59 (S5) when Janeway has another guilt session and B’Elanna basically tells her none of them would ever have gotten to know each other. After all, had she gone back home, Paris would have been back to New Zealand and B’Elanna and the other Maquis would have been off in jail.

And yes… perhaps every Trek has been dumbed down successively, but this movie is a HUGE leap away from Nemesis in style, glam, everything. It’s pretty obvious – to me at least – considering the amount of people who can’t stand Trek (including any of the previous movies) but will go see this.
13/06/2009blair say:

I am wowed by the depth of your knowledge of Voyager; much of this is faint recollection at this point for me, so bear with me.

It’s true that none of the (living) characters regret their long journey, but that says nothing for the people of Voyager’s crew who died lightyears from their families. Had Voyager left initially, the injured could have been returned to their families, the dead could have been mourned, the living could have lived the rest of their lives away from the troubles of the Delta Quadrant. If anything, that shows that the crew of Voyager are selfish and prefer their freedom over the lives of others. (Besides, in a few years the Cardassians would have been at war with the Federation and the Maquis probably wouldn’t be considered such a dangerous threat to galactic stability.) Additionally, the reason they don’t really regret the journey is because it wasn’t really all that hard. If they had had the (more realistic IMO) travails of the Equinox, they certainly wouldn’t have wished to do it all over again. The reset-button mentality employed in TNG simply doesn’t cut it in a journey like what Voyager endured.

And regarding Insurrection, Picard actually didn’t disobey the prime directive, because he was fighting to ensure an advanced race (specifically a prospective member of the Federation) wouldn’t contaminate and subjugate an inferior race. He did violate it slightly in order to defend that latter race, but it was less of an infraction than had he not interfered. Also, I kind of though Insurrection sucked.

Also, I thought the new movie was much much better than Nemesis or Insurrection. It had lots of fun geeky stuff while still appealing to a larger audience. And the characters felt right, while each successive TNG movie was more about amping up the action rather than treating the characters properly (why for example did Picard have a romance with that woman in Insurrection when the show was leaning towards a Picard Crusher romance for years?). But to each his/her/their own.
18/09/2009Ick say:

I thought it was widely regarded that the one writer dude put in charge of the series destroyed Star Trek. I don’t recall his name but I remember this photo of the guy with a Riker style beard. What was his name?
21/09/2009blair say:

It’s been discussed that the Brannon Braga/Rick Berman team is what brought Star Trek down, and that seems very reasonable to me, given how they were the two men in charge of both Voyager and Enterprise, but had little creative control over TNG or DS9. I don’t know how widely regarded that is, especially in light of the love Janeway receives from the online Star Trek community, but it’s certainly my opinion on the matter.

Related to this, I believe it was Brannon Braga who was dating Jeri Ryan at the time they introduced Seven of Nine, a character who I thought brought Voyager down in quality, despite its increase in cup size. So I think it’s more than fair to blame Voyager’s weaknesses on Braga.
23/02/2010DJ Demure say:

Unless one can write, direct and produce what Star Trek fans have loved for over 40 years. You should keep your mouth shut. Majority rules in television always.

Sam is correct, if you dislike it so much don’t watch it. Get something better to do then find things to make you mad.
23/02/2010blair say:

Unless you can write, proof, and submit a sentence that follows the grammar of the English language, maybe you should keep your mouth shut. Ignoring your gross injustices to the English language, your points are all wrong and irrelevant.

First, you know absolutely nothing about me, so don’t assume I haven’t written a television script. And even if you know I haven’t, your argument is still invalid because just because I haven’t written something doesn’t mean I couldn’t write it.

Second, critics have absolutely no requirement to be producers of art, they are merely discerning consumers willing to produce an opinion on the record.

Third, I am an avid fan of Star Trek, TNG and DS9 in particular, so to claim that because I dislike Voyager, I am somehow not a legitimate fan of Star Trek is ridiculous.

Fourth, Voyager’s ratings weren’t as good as DS9’s, and they were much worse than TNG’s. So, if “majority rules” it seems clear that Voyager was a failure.

Fifth, “majority rules” has no bearing on my opinion of a show. If everybody in the world but me loved something, that doesn’t mean I have to.

Sixth, just as I have no obligation to write about Voyager, you have no obligation to read my opinion nor do you have any obligation to comment here to tell me why I’m wrong about Voyager.

Seventh, I can watch whatever I want, even if it’s something I’m watching merely to criticise. That is, in fact, the job description of a critic. I might not be a professional critic, but that doesn’t mean I need to shut up.

All that said, come back anytime. I love dissenting opinions; that is, when they’re more persuasive than demands that I shut up.

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Captain Janeway Destroyed Star Trek

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