Give it a chance, it'll Mulgrow on you.*

*Sorry. Even for me that's...anyway, I'm jazzed about the news that Kate Mulgrew will be reprising her role as Captain Janeway. And yes, we're going to talk about Star Trek again. Bail out now if you want, but I mean, I did say jazzed, so what more could you want?

Pictured: this.

Above: a young Alanis Morissette
getting slimed is possibly the
80's-est thing to ever 80's.

Like I was saying, Captain Janeway is going to be on Star Trek: Prodigy, the new animated Star Trek series that's-yeah, no not Lower Decks, this is a completely different animated show. It's aimed at a younger audience because it's going to be on Nickelodeon which I don't think I've watched since You Can't do that on Television. Because I'm an old. But one of the perks of being an old is that you don't care what other people think, so yeah, this grown ass adult is going to watch the new Star Trek kids show.

Nothing against Scott Bakula as an actor,
but there may be an objective answer to
who the worst Star Trek Captain is...

But Janeway! Among Omega-level Star Trek fans such as myself, a surprising amount of time is spent contemplating which captain is the best captain and while there's no objective answer, Janeway is oft overlooked. I don't know why, exactly. Maybe it's because at the time, The Next Generation had just ended a seven year run and Voyager was going concurrently with both Deep Space Nine and the TNG films and maybe just people were a little Treked out back then. Of course, it's nothing in comparison to the glut were experiencing now.

I say that's a lot, but look up the Tommy
Westfall Universe theory sometime.

For those counting, Prodigy will probably be running alongside Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds along with Short Treks, that Michelle Yeoh Section 31 show and whatever movie or movies end up getting made. That's seven Star Trek-uh...things. Seven! For whatever reason, shared narrative universes are in in a way I guess they weren't in the 90's when people got fed up after just one or two spin-offs. On the one hand it's an embarrassment of riches if you're a fan, on the other, we could be headed for Trek fatigue.

Remarkably, the TNG episode with the 
boozy Irish stereotypes is only that
series' second most racist installment.

Anyway, Voyager is often regarded as the least fondly remembered series, and I don't think that's fair. The lost in space decades from home premise felt like a fresh take on the old formula. The stories were fun, and the characters were interesting, I mean, what's not to love? Well ok, the episode where Janeway and Paris go faster than warp 10, mutate into salamanders and then mate. But all of these shows had their share of clunkers. May I remind you of DS9's Profit and Lace or TNG's Up the Long Ladder? Voyager was easily the equal of its peers, so why it always gets the short shrift is anybody's-

-hang on, you don't suppose misogyny may have played a role in Voyager's reputation as the weak link of the franchise? I'm not an expert on gender studies and sci-fi, but if the inarguably superior Star Wars movie, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (come at me), has taught us anything, it's that there is still a segment of any fandom that cries in their Misogyn-O's® whenever a woman is the lead in a genre historically dominated by male characters. 

"With nine essential vitamins and minerals, Misogynos® is a part of a completely
inequitable breakfast. You can taste the patriarchy in every bite!"™

What? Like you don't devote hours to
concocting elaborate fan theories about
tv shows you watch...oh...you don't?

And that sucks, because Voyager was great. And I think the love it's been getting recently speaks to that point. Star Trek: Picard has Seven of Nine as a recurring character and makes use of a ton of Borg lore from Voyager. Also, Rios' holograms are clearly an homage to the EMH. And I even have a crackpot theory that the (spoiler!) event mentioned in the Disco season 3 trailer that leaves the Federation in shambles in the distant future was caused by the omega molecules from The Omega Directive. Yeah, I know, it sounds like a diet rich in fatty acids, but trust me, everything links back to Voyager. 

Anyway, the takeaway here is that hers was an under-appreciated series and I'm jazzed to see Kate Mulgrew's Captain-actually Admiral now, Janeway return to a series even if it is in animated form. And I'm not saying you should work your way through Voyager if you haven't seen it, but what I am saying is that this is a pandemic and there's a decent chance that you've got nothing better to do in your down time, so...

Oh, and did I mention it's super topical?
Here's a gif of Janeway stabbing a macro virus.