Hip to Be Janeway So many light-years left to go, so few episodes to do it in.  But CAN SHE? Six years ago, Voyager's steadfast scientist Captain stranded her crew in the Delta Quadrant in an act of compassion that would leave many Prime Directive purists shaking their head.  In the first season, Janeway often had to fight back tears ("Phage", "Prime Factors", "Eye of the Needle") while making command decisions necessitated by the unique reality of her ship's situation. In the ensuing journey home, Janeway has matured considerably in her command, becoming the kind of captain she probably thought she would never be

In "Caretaker", Janeway was a captain who confessed that she had never really taken the time to get to know her crew.  In "The Cloud", she wrestled with the fact that a captain has to give an aura of confidence, leadership and distance-- in her situation, leaving her more or less companionless.  Janeway gradually became more maternal-- fiercely protective of her brood in general, and others, like Ensign Kim ("Emanations", "The Disease") in particular.  By "11:59", her crew was a group of people that she considered to be family, and by "Good Shepherd" Janeway actively made an effort to reach out to her more withdrawn crew members.

The core to the character has always been, however, her decision to strand her crew in the Delta Quadrant.  When she said to the Doctor, after threatening to shut down his program in an obsessive moment in "Year of Hell, Part Two" 'I did not think before I spoke.  I have been running on adrenaline for so long...' it was inevitable that the long, quiet contemplation of the Void in "Night" would provide a sober moment of self-reckoning.  Since that episode, Janeway has been consciously guilt ridden about her decision to strand the crew.  It has never really been resolved-- she was buoyed by her crew coming together in support of her, but her 'primary mission' since then has taken on a new sense of urgency.  And witness the results: The risky use of the flawed slipstream-technology in "Timeless", the daring raid of a Borg ship in "Dark Frontier" as a means of cutting galactic corners.  By letting her single minded determination take over in certain occasions, such as "Equinox" and "Year of Hell"-- it's clear that Kathryn Janeway is a woman who has changed a lot through her journey.  Initially naive in the way that most squeaky clean Starfleet officers are, she's become hardened by the cold realities of space, both in terms of the difficulties of travelling through it and in encountering its duplicitous denizens.

All the while, her samaritan nature has taken on new dimension.  Determined to help any good, moral cause she happens upon, Janeway has had to weigh the safety of her crew against her convictions, such as in "Night" and most recently "Unimatrix Zero".  In both episodes she showed a complete ease in her willingness to put her own life in peril-- whatever the end of the season has in store for her, this kind of self-sacrifice will probably be invovled.

Says Kate Mulgrew of the prospects of the second hald of the season, "Ultimately we are going to see who Janeway is without her raison d'etre -- who is this woman as she must say goodbye?"

In Their Own Words

Executive Producer Kenneth Biller: "You'll see Captain Janeway's ongoing and single-minded quest to get her crew home. I'm not going to tell you whether or not she is going to accomplish that just yet, but it's something that has been her single purpose from the beginning, and it will get exacerbated this season to the point that she is really feeling the pressure. She'll have to decide just how far she is willing to go to succeed."

"She'll become very single-minded about getting home. She'll be forced to ask herself exactly how far she's willing to go to get home. She must face the possibility the crew really may never get home because in the second half of the season, Voyager gets in worse and worse shape. It may not be capable of getting them home."

"People generally know this is our last year, and of course, Voyager is about a lost ship and a captain trying to get her crew home. Naturally, there is an expectation that they will succeed. And if we don't take the ship home, we have to ask ourselves exactly this question -- have we disappointed people that have invested emotionally for years in seeing this crew succeed with that objective? Without answering the question exactly, I will say it's a good question, and that it's a question we continue to struggle with,  although we think we have ways to resolve it which will satisfy and surprise you."

Playing the Odds
We may have no experience, but watch us play oddsmaker anyway!

There's a lot to consider here: chief amongst them Kate Mulgrew's personal desire that Janeway's final moment in the series really be her final moment.  On the other hand, Voyager is Trek's best chance for a post-TNG movie franchise and it's hard to believe that the producers-- or Paramount, for that matter-- would want to close off all the options by definitively ending Kathryn Janeway's life.  Kenneth Biller intimated that this was something that they were keeping under consideration however, and bringing closure to the Janeway character in some way is one of the few ways to resolve her seven year consuming obsession.  For creative reasons, there's a strong chance that Janeway could meet her end in the series finale.  But for reasons of commerce, at the very least such an end would have to have some ambiguity to it.  For these reasons, we feel that Janeway has slightly better than a 50% chance of surviving the end of the journey.

It would be the shocker: Voyager doesn't get home but remains stranded.  It seems impossible: how can the series, which has been all about getting the crew home, NOT end with the realization of this goal?  The other sub-thread that has been running throughout the course of the series is the debate around Janeway's initial decision.  It's not impossible that Voyager could end in a final affirmation of this decision that leaves the crew hopelessly stranded in favor of carrying out some humanitarian act.  But still, this seems risky and unlikely.

Oh, we all know they shouldn't get together, Chakotay's so boring no one would want to  subject even their worst enemy to a "romantic" relationship with him.  The writers and Kate Mulgrew herself have all said that the ship for this has passed.  But for something that ended back where it started in "Resolutions", the issue just hasn't gone away.  What makes us really give the chances of this a 50-50 split is the "All Good Things..." factor.  Remember the shoe-horned Picard-Crusher romance?  In Voyager's series finale, Janeway and Chakotay might realize that they really are MORE than good friends.  This might mean they will explore a relationship (offscreen!), or it might not go any further than their admission of mutual love.  Who knows?  Trek has a weird idea of love, and of long-term relationships in particular.  On that note...

Idiosyncracy Guide