By the time Voyager returns home from the Delta Quadrant at the end of its seven-season run, Kathryn Janeway has seen more in her tour of duty than most Starfleet captains see in their lifetimes (even if she and her crew got to skip out on that whole, yâknow, cataclysmic interstellar war thing). So it makes sense that she quickly shoots up Starfleetâs ranks into Admiralty, and is offered a bunch of plush positionsâbut it also makes sense that sheâd insist on returning to her own tough little ship.
One of those plush positions almost became a thing in Star Trek: Prodigyâs second season, which finally begins streaming on Netflix today after a long, strange road to release saw it ushered away from Paramount. In the new season, with Prodigyâs young alien heroes having made their way to Starfleet and helped save the dayâearning their place among the next generation of Academy cadetsâthey are tasked with joining Admiral Janeway on a dangerous rescue mission to find her former first officer and the missing captain of the experimental ship Protostar the kids spent season one racing around in, Chakotay. To do so, Janeway heads out on a newly refitted Voyager-A, but she almost commandeered a far more prestigious vessel in the form of Starfleetâs flagship, the Enterprise.
Prodigy is set around 2384, which means at the time the Enterprise in operation is either the Sovereign-class Enterprise-Eâalthough a ship with its registry is seen in Prodigyâs season 1 finale having been heavily damaged, if not destroyed outrightâor its follow up, the Odyssey-class Enterprise-F. Theyâre both pretty awesome ships, as far as the Enterprise goes, but⊠theyâre no starship Voyager. I may be slightly biased, but hey, so is Kate Mulgrew herself, as she should be: because apparently when told that Janeway could commandeer the Enterprise in Prodigy, the actress behind her flatly refused.
âThere was a moment where we were playing with the idea that [season 2âs ship] could be the Enterprise instead,â Prodigy co-creator Dan Hageman told IGN in a new interview. âWe [asked] Kate, âWhat do you think if youâre the new captain of the Enterprise,â and she was not thrilled. Sheâs like, âIâd rather it be the Voyager.ââ
Putting aside that Voyager is one of the all-time great Star Trek ship designs, giving Janeway a refit of her home-away-from-home in the Delta quadrant on a mission to relocate Chakotay of all people just makes sense, for the sentimentality of it all. Plus, in-universe, the Voyager herself at this point is an admired and beloved ship in its own rights, a champion of Starfleetâs exploratory ideals in having survived the best part of a decade in a far-flung sector of the galaxy with little in the way of Federation support. Itâs only fitting that Janeway get a chance to at last see what Starfleet could do in a souped-up refit of her most beloved ship, rather than just handing her the Enterprise like itâs a prize for passing into Admiralty.
Sure, a vaunted Admiral is âworthyâ of the flagship, but maybe we should be asking: is the Enterprise worthy of Kathryn Janeway?
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