IT’S BEEN FIVE YEARS since the Starship Voyager was assigned on a rescue mission to the Badlands to investigate the disappearance of a Maquis ship. Hurled into the Delta Quadrant, far away from home, Captain Janeway was faced with a desperate situation: to maintain the morale of her crew while joining forces with the renegade terrorists. They’ve faced ruthless warriors, invaders, psychopaths and killers, and yet through it all Janeway has demonstrated her considerable leadership skills and humanity. She’s the ship’s matriarch – desperately attempting to keep together her eclectic ‘family’ against all odds, while leading them back home to the Alpha Quadrant – and Earth.

“A lot of her is me,” Kate Mulgrew tells TV Zone. “I’ve had this broad under my belt for five years. I own her – and nobody can tell me that I don’t own her.”

Mulgrew joined the series under the most difficult and trying circumstances. Genevieve Bujold, who had originally been cast in the role, walked out of the studios at Paramount during the shooting of the pilot. The producers were under pressure to ensure that her replacement was a talented actress, who could take up the baton carried by William Shatner, Patrick Stewart and Avery Brooks, and carry the franchise forward into the next millennium.

Delivering the Goods

“It took me a long time to get my sea legs,” she admits, “because of the pressure that I felt I was under: ‘Can I get this command thing to the point where everybody will be satisfied and comfortable?’ You’ve no idea the scrutiny I was under. I had suits just staring at me every day – can she deliver? Does she have any natural authority? I spent the first two seasons establishing command, and I think I sacrificed what is very becoming to me as a person, and as an actress, which is my humour, my humanity, my levity, my depth.”

In hindsight, does she feel the process would have been easier if the show had not carried the history of Star Trek?

“It’s almost a moot point,” she responds. “It’s almost like saying, ‘If you could go back in Time would you change anything?’ The reality is we can’t go back in Time. I think it was to my advantage that so much success had preceded my entrance into this franchise. I certainly knew there was a security well already in place – that’s very freeing. I don’t quarrel with that.”

Kate Mulgrew talks about the the fifth season and reaching saturation point. She also discusses her thoughts on leaving the series and her new found love – All in TV Zone #112