Oh, Star Trek. How I love you. I've been a fan for a fairly long time, but my loyalty lies to Voyager. It was the first series I really got into. A friend lent me some videos and then it was a long, long wait for it to come back onto South African TV. No such things as catching up online, so I sent some blank videos to my aunt in the UK and she taped the episodes and sent them back. I watched them until they pretty much fell apart.
My favourite character was always Chakotay. I know, I know, solid hair, staid exterior. But I'm a sucker for a wilderness tattoo and an unrequited love for the captain. I didn't like Captain Janeway at all as a teenager. I found her so hard, and single-minded, and often unsympathetic.
But I'm now coming back to watching Voyager after a long Star Trek sabbatical, and I suddenly find myself just loving her. Admiring her character, enjoying her prickliness, appreciating her dilemmas.
I guess it's because I'm older. My views aren't as black and white, and Janeway's character always inhabited the greys. I don't feel as extremely opposed to her positions anymore, because I don't feel as extreme anymore.
Or maybe I just feel sorry for her character, because the bastards killed her off in a post-series book.
5 comments:
Boldy going, you say?
I don't know what you're talking about :)
I loved Janeway when I was a teenager (still do!), but I remember getting fed up with the series as a whole after a while, because it seemed like they were more and more casting her as the Unreasonable Authority Figure to Paris's OMG!Rebellious Hero. Which was kind of a shitty thing to do to both a complex character and the first female captain to head up a Star Trek series - sideline her in favour of a more straightforward male hotshot as protagonist.
It's possible I'm being unfair, and gave up watching too early. At any rate, there are definitely episodes of Voyager I'd love to see again (though I was always more of a DS9 girl - yes, perversely, I like my Star TREK to stay in one place :)). For one thing, I'd be curious to see if I relate differently to it now, too.
As a weird side note, I read this post while I also happened to be watching one of my favourite comic book reviewers review a Voyager tie-in comic (techically, a tie-in comic to a Voyager videogame). http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/27504-stvef
Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something?
... Like that I'm going to be stranded in the Delta Quadrant soon?
Ohhh, I enjoyed that!
I think certain parallels can be drawn between VSOing and the Delta Quadrant...
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