Close To Home With Captain Janeway

by Michelle Erica Green

Last year was filled with transitions on Star Trek Voyager - Kes left,
Seven of Nine came aboard, the ship moved more then ten years closer to
the Alpha Quadrant. Off-camera, executive producer Jeri Taylor stepped
down and Brannon Braga, who's been with the Trek franchise since The Next
Generation as writer and producer, moved into her role. It wasn't an easy
year for Captain Janeway or for actress Kate Mulgrew, but she's very happy
with where they've all ended up. 

"I'm very excited about Brannon Braga taking over, I'm having a great
time," said Mulgrew recently from her home in Brentwood - the Los Angeles
neighborhood of which she is honorary mayor. The fifth season of Voyager
began production in June after a two-month hiatus, but Mulgrew barely got
a break: she went to Europe to attend Fedcon in Germany and stayed to film
a movie in Luxembourg, barely getting back in time for her set call at
Paramount. She admitted to being tired, yet sounded upbeat about the
episode she was in the midst of filming. 

"The scripts I think are terrific this season; Brannon is incredibly
smart, and dark and creative and funny in a way that I love," she said.
"It's rather naughty and mischievous, which is just so provocative and
fascinating. He knows Janeway's voice and Mulgrew's voice, and has married
them very nicely." Mulgrew added that she liked the work she did last
season; "Janeway in seasons one, two, and three was a little
goody-two-shoes for my taste, not really who Mulgrew is as Janeway.
Brannon has watched me closely as an actress in the last four years, so he
knows where I can go, and what my strengths are." 

Mulgrew and her co-stars have described last season as a seminal year,
with Braga beginning to take control of daily production duties from
Taylor. "This year Brannon has taken over completely, and it's
galvanizing," said Mulgrew. She explained that she didn't think there
would be more action necessarily, but "a much greater exploration of the
personalities. We've completely neglected the Maquis side of Chakotay and
B'Elanna. I have a feeling Tuvok is going somewhere, he's drier, he's
funnier, he's naughtier than he's ever been before - it's just smarter
language, which seems to fit very well in Tuvok/Tim's mouth." 

What about the captain? "What Brannon has done is to give me a lot of rein
and still stay in charge of the stories." Mulgrew, who often speaks of
Janeway in the first person, has often said at conventions that she wished
for more exploration of the loneliness of command, and of Janeway's
complicated situation as the sole representative of Starfleet in the Delta
Quadrant. It sounds as though she may be getting that chance. 

"Janeway's sort of letting down, which is what Mulgrew is doing - I have
let my hair down, and I have thrown my girdles away," the actress related
with a chuckle. "She's much more relaxed. It's much more real.  Brannon
understands that alchemy very well, so I feel liberated, which is a
wonderful feeling. We're going to explore Janeway's dark side, her angsty
side, her loneliness, her anger ... juxtaposed with her kindness." 

Whenever the subject of Janeway's loneliness comes up, the issue of her
relationship with her first officer is rarely far behind. Though both
Mulgrew and the producers have said repeatedly that they think it would be
inappropriate for Janeway and Chakotay to have a love affair, the pairing
is extremely popular with fans, who flooded Voyager's online site with
complaints about the poorly-rated Chakotay romance "Unforgettable" last
season, and who voted in a UPN poll for Mulgrew and Robert Beltran as the
couple they would most like to see together on Love Boat: The Next Wave. 

"I have begged that Chakotay and Janeway have a deep and intense
relationship, and I have been assured that that will be developed - that
means a friendship, I'm not going to sleep with him," Mulgrew reiterated,
her voice resonating in command mode. "It's too late now;  if it would
have happened, it would have happened before."  The producers ducked a
chance to address this issue directly in last season's episode "Hunters,"
during the course of which Janeway discovered that her fiance Mark Johnson
had married someone else ... though as Chakotay pointed out to her at the
end of that episode, she still has a lot of time to explore relationships
in the Delta Quadrant. 

Will that mean intimacy? "I think before we're finished it will,
certainly," said Mulgrew, who believes the series will be on the air for
three more years, running seven seasons as did The Next Generation and
Deep Space Nine. But she doesn't expect love with Chakotay to blossom
until the very end, if at all. "I want Chakotay as my confidant. That
means that we're going to cross over all kinds of lines together, in the
privacy of my quarters or his. Things will be said between us that nobody
else on the crew will know about. We're going to have secrets, like good
friends do - they don't talk about their relationship to their
acquaintances. That's what we're going to have." 

Though Janeway is in large part the creation of producer Taylor - sharing
her home state of Indiana, her tennis skills, and her affection for gothic
romances - the actress who has portrayed her for the past four years often
speaks about the character in the first person. In Taylor's new novel
Pathways, which traces the backstories of Voyager's senior officers much
as her earlier Mosaic explained Janeway's history, the writer suggests
that Chakotay is in love with Janeway - as have several episodes, notably
"Resolutions," "Coda," and "The Q and the Gray." 

"Brannon has always been one to say that he's not big on romance, it's not
his strong suit, so I'm not holding out for that," Mulgrew admitted. "I
told him, give us time. I think that on any episodic show, they want what
jumps out at the camera. Robert Beltran's sexuality jumps out, so they're
going to use it, and I don't blame them - just like my strength jumps out.
I can't be a sexpot on the show, but I have fought for four years to find
some way to make this relationship work." 

Right now, Mulgrew's focus is less on the erotic tension between Janeway
and Chakotay than the long-postponed Starfleet-Maquis tension.  "If we're
talking about the possibility of getting home, what does that do to
B'Elanna and Chakotay? It's very frightening, and extremely provocative,"
she pointed out. "The Maquis have to settle something with the Federation.
What happens as we approach the Alpha Quadrant?  What does Janeway do, how
does she react? It could be wonderful." 

contiune

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