Cinemablend names Star Trek: Voyager’s greatest villain.
Star Trek: Voyager never had a singular key villain throughout the series. Not like how Star Trek’s The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine did. For both, you could argue that Q and Gal Dukot was the biggest of the badest on the shows. Even if Q wasn’t so much a villain as he was an antagonist.
Even Enterprise had Future Man.
Yet, Voyager never really had one. There was no Future Man, no Q or Dukot. At first, it was Maje Jal Cullah of the Kazon and later Seska, the Cardassian who betrayed Chakotay. Later it was the Borg Queen, but she wasn’t used nearly as often as one would like.
Nor was she exclusive to Voyager, having been a TNG villain, who peaked in her first appearance in First Contact. The show never really had its show-defining villain, though they did come close a few times.
So we can’t necessarily disagree with Cinemablend’s ranking of the villains from the show.
- The Borg Queen
- Annorax
- The Wormhole Creature
- Old Kes
- Icheb’s Parents
- The Clown
- Culluh
- Kashyk
- The Nazi Hirogen
- Angry Tuvok
The Borg Queen was the most obvious choice but not the best choice
We’re going to further dive into the idea of who the series villain should’ve been at a later date, but it’s fair to say that the Borg Queen was merely the most known option among all the options. That’s not to say the series didn’t do her justice, they did.
She was among the best villains the series had, the problem comes down to the fact she wasn’t exactly unique for the franchise. Voyager needed its own villain, someone like Seska, who was unique to their story and could push the action.
We’re seeing just how valuable that show-defining villain can be right now on Star Trek: Prodigy. The Diviner is someone who is a core concept for the growth of many characters on the show, and his involvement gives the show a unique flavor all its own.
That was something Voyager was missing. So even though the Borg Queen was great, it still didn’t have that original Voyager flavor the series needed.