10 things you might not know about Star Trek: Voyager

Star Trek: Voyager is easily one of the best shows of the franchise.

Star Trek: Voyager had a lot of firsts, including a female captain, a Klingon Chief Engineer, and a pilot who’d been booted out of Starfleet and sent to a penal colony. Then there was the whole Starfleet crew forced to work with Maquis criminals that was supposed to add more intensity than it actually did. Still, Voyager came out of the gate strong and remained strong throughout its seven seasons. That’s why it continues to gain new viewers, many of whom don’t know some of the behind-the-scenes tidbits about the series.

Many of these aren’t earth-shattering, and they probably won’t make you think differently about the show. But they may give you a “hey, that’s cool” or an “I didn’t know that” moment. And for a show that debuted in 1995, that’s cool.

Star Trek: Voyager — Ten things that you may or may not want to know

1. A Tellarite only appeared on the show one time, during the episode “Non Sequitur, and that was only because the series reused footage of Starfleet Headquarters from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
2. The series was restricted by union rules to only use locations within a radius of 37 miles from Paramount studios which was why Vasquez Rocks was a popular filming location.
3. Robert Picard is one of two regular castmembers of a Star Trek series to have a writing credit on a live-action series for the episode “Life Line.” The other one was Majel Barrett Roddenberry for “The Muse” on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
4. Originally, Tuvok was going to be 160 years old when the series started, but there were problems finding an established, older actor who had the physicality to play the part. So Tuvok’s age kept getting reduced.
5. Susan Gibney, who portrayed Leah Brahms on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was the number two frontrunner for Captain Janeway, but there was a challenge seeing her as a captain because she didn’t appear to have the kind of experience a captain would have.
6. Kate Mulgrew had to have special four-and-a-half inch heels made in Italy because she was so much shorter than everyone else.
7. Ensign Samantha Wildman was introduced in the episode “Elogium,” and she was named after a little girl who died in a tragic accident. That little girl’s organs were donated to save the life of the wife of episode writer Jimmy Diggs.
8. The Astrometrics Lab displayed images on the wall monitors that were actual images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Cat’s Eye Nebula and “Pillars of Creation” from the Eagle Nebula can be seen in several episodes.
9. Garrett Wang was not a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation because the first episode he saw was “Code of Honor.” Every time he tried to watch the series, it was a rerun of that same episode. When he was cast in Voyager, he was given several episodes of The Next Generation to watch, the first of which was “Code of Honor.”
10. Patrick Stewart gave Kate Mulgrew a piece of advice that helped her when she was wondering how she was going to survive playing Captain Janeway. He said, “Take a watch. You see that bridge? Just own that bridge. Come for seven years. Do your work. Do it to the best of your ability. Make them follow you. Make them bloody proud.”

[Sources: Star Trek Voyager: A Celebration, The Fifty-Year Mission The Next 25 Years From The Next Generation to J.J. Abrams, and Internet Movie Database]