PARTURITION: Birth of [Star Trek Voyager]

This subsection deals with starting the Star Trek fourth series from scratch, the preference for a ship-based show contemporaneous with [DS9], and reasons.

The decision to start a new series, eventually called [Star Trek Voyager], was discussed at length by Rick Berman and Kerry McCluggage, Chairman of Paramount's Television Group. While their meeting focussed on the concept of a new Star Trek series, each man was aware of larger issues underlying the discussion, and of the enormity of the project - it meant starting from scratch, just as Rick Berman and Michael Piller had done when the decision was made to create [DS9]. Tom Mazza would oversee the development from the Paramount side, and would be Berman's primary interface with the studio. Fortunately both men know each other well - it was the same role Mazza had played in the development of [DS9], and earlier with the growth in popularity of [TNG]. Among all the Studio executives, Tom Mazza probably knows and understands the Star Trek universe better than anyone else. By the end of the conversation both McCluggage and Berman were in agreement on two points essential in shaping the new series.

1. The first of these was that the new spin-off would be a ship-based show. Both Berman and McCluggage believed a ship-based show not only was needed, but lay at the very soul of Star Trek's beginnings. With [TNG] finishing production and moving into features, viewers would be left with a show that was only focussed around a space station (Deep Space 9). Paramount's research indicated there was room for a ship-based show as well.
   • In retrospect, [DS9] could never have been a ship-based show, because it was for some time running concurrently with the ship-based show of [TNG] and, just as importantly, [DS9] was set in the same time period as [TNG].
   • The contemporaneous aspect would also allow for a symbolic passing of the Star Trek baton from one series to the next, as done in the Sisko-Picard scene in the [DS9] opening story [DS9: Emissary]. This was also done for [Star Trek Voyager], in the Kim-Quark scene in [#1 and #2 Caretaker]. Both the new series have a scene in a familiar venue i.e. one from the old series.

     USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D at Deep Space 9 [DS9: Emissary]	Sisko and Picard in the USS Enterprise conference lounge [DS9: Emissary]
     first sight of USS Voyager, docked at Deep Space 9, as seen through a shuttlecraft's forward windows [#1 Caretaker, Part One]	Morn (with back to us), Quark and Paris in Quark's Bar on Deep Space 9 [#1 Caretaker, Part One]
     Kim, Paris (just about in picture) and Quark in Quark's Bar [#1 Caretaker, Part One]	USS Voyager sets off from Deep Space 9; in launching, Voyager crew Cavit and Stadi both mention the station's Operations centre (Ops) [#1 Caretaker, Part One]

      

   • I believe Star Trek realised, however, as ratings and feedback showed, that in [DS9] fans were missing the ship-based exploration and pioneering aspect that is fundamental to Star Trek, and so the USS Defiant was introduced, with more and more stories featuring this popular small and sleek starship. I also believe that Star Trek learned from that experience hence the decision to 'go back to Star Trek basics' with [Enterprise] - a ship-based show, and cashing in on the starship name Enterprise with its powerful emotional resonance (as of course in [TOS] and [TNG] the hero starship is called Enterprise); the Studio went with a ship-based show even though fan focus groups at one stage came out strongly in favour of a Starfleet Academy-based show, and some interest was also shown in a series based in the far future. (A book series of fan-fiction based on Starfleet Academy is available.) It is greatly to Star Trek's credit that it listens to its fans e.g. many (myself included) were unsettled by the dropping of "Star Trek" from the title of the fifth series which was called simply [Enterprise] and so, perhaps with struggling ratings as an incentive, for the later seasons the name was reinstated so that it is now called [Star Trek: Enterprise]. (However, on this site I still call it [Enterprise] to maintain consistency.)
2. Because [Star Trek Voyager] would not be set forward or backward in time as regards Star Trek chronology, it would give viewers a greater sense of familiarity, which is an important foundation block in the Star Trek edifice.