It’s Valentine’s Day and that means talking about love and Star Trek.
It’s Valentine’s Day and for us Star Trek fans, that means talking about all that the franchise has to offer in the world of love. The good, the bad, and the stuff we wished we forgot. Well, technically we’re going to have three, articles today; the couples we loved, the couples we didn’t, and the couples we wish would’ve gotten together.
In this article, we’re looking at the couples we wished we would’ve gotten. Star Trek is a franchise that is constantly not giving fans what they want and actively setting up ideas to never pay them off. No more is that evident than with the number on selection on this list.
Just so everyone knows, this isn’t in any order. It’s merely the three selections we thought made the most sense to add to the list. That said we do have some honorable mentions that just missed the cut.
Honorable Mentions
Star Trek: Voyager – Seven of Nine and The Doctor
– They were perfect, a romance made from technology. Seven of Nine, the Borg-human hybrid who is as much technological as she is biological, and The Doctor, a computer program who had evolution subroutines put into his code so that he could grow and develop as a human would. Bound by their shared limitations and inability to connect in an authentic way that anyone else would be able to, their love would’ve been fascinating to see blossom.
Star Trek: Voyager – Harry Kim and anyone
Harry Kim’s best romance was arguable with Linnis Paris, an Ocampan and Human hybrid, and the daughter of Harry’s best friend Tom Paris. See, Tom and Kes end up getting together in an alternate timeline and have Linnis. Because Linnis is an Ocampan hybrid, she ages faster than other normal aliens, so when she finally “came of age” and matured, she was probably around five years old by the time she and Harry got together.
The Ocampans were a weird race.
Harry deserved a better romance story. One that didn’t involve an alien who was just five years old, and worse yet, erased from the history of existence by Kes. No one got screwed harder than Kim, which is ironic.
Star Trek: Enterprise – Jonathan Archer and T’Pol
Like with Linnis and Harry, Jonathan Archer and T’Pol never actually got together, though they did have some stories that would suggest their feelings with one another and hint at a potential future together. In the brilliant Enterprise episode, “Twilight”, the eight-episode of the third season, Archer is wounded saving T’Pol from shockwaves caused by some sort of anomalies. That’s Trek for “we didn’t think of anything cool enough”.
When Archer saved T’Pol, part of the shockwaves energy was lodged in Archer’s brain, prohibiting him from developing new memories. Due to this, every day he has to wake up, thinking it’s the same day until someone tells him what has happened. The worst part is that Archer doesn’t even get a full day before his memories reset.
T’Pol, feeling guilty for Archer being in the place he is, tends to him and their latent emotions come to the surface. The couple has been looking for a cure for years, and finally, have the potential of obtaining one, but the subsequent cure not only costs everyone their lives but it also sends Archer back to the fateful day where he gets wounded.
Only this time he has just a mild concussion, and T’Pol ends up with the less impressive Charles “Trip” Tucker.
Curses.
Star Trek: The Next Generation – Jean-Luc Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher
Like with Archer and T’pol, Jean-Luc Picard and Beverly Crusher do eventually get together, only to be unraveled by the events of Picard’s time travel. Can Enterprise captains just stop crewing up their own love life?
The Picard and Crusher story is one of constant misery. Picard was best friends with Crusher’s late-husband Jack, whose death is tied to Picard but while he wasn’t responsible for his friend Jack’s death, he bears the blame nonetheless. Picard had feelings for Beverly even when Jack was alive but after his death, they became more apparent.
Beverly kept Jean-Luc away, denying his advances but throughout the show, their bond was intense and obvious. Even to the point where they do end up getting married/ended up getting married/ in a future that no longer exists.
Which is to say it never happened.
The apparent chemistry between the two was so evident that even little ol me, who would only watch The Next Generation intermittently as a child, had no idea the history these two had and I still thought they were married. I even thought Wesley was Picard’s son.
Cut me some slack, I was four.
That’s all to say that even if you never watched the show before, had no clue about the history between the couple, and had no idea there was a prior husband, even you would believe the two were clearly meant for each other.
Star Trek: Voyager – Kathryn Janeway and Chakotay
While these are in no particular order, this one specifically hurts me. The two of them were so perfect for each other. They were both calm, compassionate, smart leaders who believed in what was right so much that they’d be willing to fight and die for it.
For Chakotay, it was him taking up allegiance against the Federation by joining the Maquis and for Janeway, it was, well a number of things. Destroying the Caretaker’s Array, fighting another Starfleet captain for his use of aliens as fuel sources, her quest to reset the timeline on like a dozen different occurrences.
They were both dedicated to doing the right thing. It didn’t help that both were constantly the subject of dropped romantic subplots. Maybe, the most obvious was in the 25th episode of the second season episode “Resolutions”, where Chakotay and Janeway get infected with an illness, and the only way they can survive is if they go to a specific planet that, for some reason, doesn’t trigger the illness.
They’ll live long lives, but only as long as they don’t leave the planet. During this episode, we see Chakotay turn into Sam from Holes, only without the “I can fix that” catchphrase. The two are so clearly in love during their time on the planet but that dang Tuvok is able to find a cure for their deadly disease, ending their time together in isolation. Drat.
Despite being rescued, the “will they, won’t they” never truly goes away. Yes, Janeway had a boyfriend at the start of the mission, by this point he’s long-accepted her dead and has moved on. It’s like Castaway. No one blames Helen Hunt’s character for getting married. She thought Tom Hanks was dead after all.
So why not let Janeway find love in the Delta Quadrant with the one man who has literally sworn his loyalty and fidelity to her?