In April To The Journey: Looking Back at Star Trek: Voyager wrapped up a record-breaking crowdfunding campaign, bringing in over $1 million. This week the documentary started putting some of that money work and director David Zappone gives us an exclusive update on the production.
To The Journey running on the ‘holodeck’
This week To The Journey began its first in-studio production in Los Angeles, kicking off an extensive list of interviews for the documentary looking at Star Trek: Voyager. Filming is being done on the same stage the team used for their DS9 documentary What We Left Behind, but with a brand-new custom-built set themed around a USS Voyager holodeck. One of the first interviews conducted this week was with Martha Hackett, who played Seska on the show. Also interviewed this week were guest actors Alexander Enberg, Scott MacDonald, Jeffrey Combs, and Vaughn Armstrong.
Behind the scenes shot of Martha Hackett interview (To The Journey)
Others interviewed this week include a number of people who worked behind the camera on Voyager, including director David Livingston, Andy Robinson (who also directed an episode of Voyager), writer Lisa Klink, make-up artist Karen Westerfield, composer Dennis McCarthy, and Emmy-winning make-up designer Michael Westmore.
David Livingston (To The Journey)
To The Journey also brought in some notable fans and others tied to the franchise including Discovery actress Mary Chieffo and current Star Trek science consultant Dr. Erin McDonald. And they are just getting started. Director David Zappone tells TrekMovie, “We want to focus on every aspect of producing Voyager, from those in front to those behind the camera.. We are looking for To The Journey to be an all-encompassing documentary so we anticipate that filming will go into 2022.”
Mary Chieffo (To The Journey)
Of the work so far Zappone said:
“Even with just a few days into these one-on-ones, the interviews thus far have been incredibly insightful and honest. Despite being an avid Trek fan since the ’70s, and having done so many of these documentaries, I continue to learn new things about the franchise every day. I’m thrilled that the story of Voyager is shaping up to be as interesting and compelling as that of Deep Space Nine.”
These new in-studio interviews will just be part of the mix as the team already shot a significant amount of footage and interviews during the 2020 Star Trek: The Cruise, which included a reunion of the Voyager cast. They will also be flying to London this fall to shoot more at the Destination: Star Trek convention, which will also include a Voyager reunion.
From the 2020 Voyager reunion on Star Trek: The Cruise (To The Journey)
While work has continued during the pandemic, Zappone tells TrekMovie there won’t be any Zoom remote interviews included in the final doc, saying “Those types of interviews cannot match the intimacy of being in person, and we want this film to match the high production bar we set on What We Left Behind.” However, the team has visited some interview subjects at work or at their homes, including Voyager co-creator Jeri Taylor.
Passing the $1 million mark in crowdfunding allowed for To The Journey to include an “exclusive never before seen Voyager surprise” stretch goal. In an interview earlier this year Zappone told TrekMovie this surprise will be something “new” that involves the Voyager actors. This week he confirmed this special segment is on the production schedule, but it has yet to be filmed.
To The Journey is still on target for a release in the fall of 2022. To learn more visit the official site at voyagerdocumentary.com. You can also keep up with the production on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
I really hope they do fan interviews for this later on at DST, i contributed to the doc and would like to be in it hopefully.
I really hope you get your chance Martin. You must have contributed quite a bit though lol.
A few hundred yeah, got some good perks and merch on the way soon, got a premire ticket when it eventually comes out, and a special thanks credit.
This brought a HUGE smile to my face! :)
I’m watching Voyager as I read this! Literally just started my grand rewatch of the show today finishing Caretaker and watching episode 2 now. As I’m about to begin my own journey back into the Delta Quadrant I am very excited about this documentary. It sounds like they are going to get a lot of Star Trek members just beyond people who directly worked on Voyager to talk about the show. I kind of wish they did that for WWLB.
I love the show more now today than I did 25 years ago! Crazy how that happens.
This doc is just exciting for me as all the upcoming shows! It’s a great time to be a Star Trek fan!
I’ve only watched the series all the way through twice: once circa 2004 (I missed it on initial release due to not having UPN in my area and am still angry about it) and once last year. Loved it the first time; loved it even more the second.
I’m so happy with the Voyager love. It was so derided (still is in some quarters) for a long time, such a nice turnaround for a great show.
it could have been so much better….
Go watch Battlestar Galactica ;)
it had an interesting set up that it diluted and lacked courage to develop over time.
it wouldn’t have lost that ‘trek’ feel if they made good on the premise.
and don’t get me started about the lack of character development and the ‘re set’ button.
Is what it is.
Personally I’m not a fan of Caretaker.
It’s not terrible episode, but it just seems to have aged quite badly, for me.
Encounter at Farpoint is weirdly more rewatchable to me mainly because of how campy and sometimes fun it is, whereas Caretaker has that mid-90s blandness about it.
S1-3 is hit and miss but there are a fair few standout episodes and Voyager is really quite good in S4 and S5 before becoming a little more uneven S6-7.
It needs a HD upgrade, which perhaps may improve the rewatch experience because the SD ages the show and contributes to stale look of the picture.
Actually I agree about Caretaker. It has aged rather badly. I remember when I first watched it, I was so excited about the show after that. It felt really fun and adventurous. In fact I liked it a lot more than Emissary which I liked BUT was too slow at the time. Now 20+ years later, I LOVE Emissary and have seen that one the most out of all the Trek pilots. It easily holds up the best. Caretaker does feel a lot more bland now. I still like it, but not on the level as I did when I first watched it when it first aired.
I watched Encounter at Farpoint back in April, another I haven’t watched in well over a decade and yeah its NOT as bad as I remembered, but still pretty meh for me.
But that’s why I’m really enjoying watching everything again, you really do get a different perspective on all of it although so far I have to say I have enjoyed more than I hated easily and most of the shows has been fun to watch. Discovery was probably the hardest for me thus far but OK.
Very excited to see how I will feel about Voyager since this will be my first true rewatch of the show, from beginning to end, in probably 15 years.
I rewatched the Emissary at the weekend after 12 years (or 5 years when I only rewatched the episodes crucial to the Dominion plot?) and it wasn’t that bad as I remembered (well, the picture quality was). I perceive it different now.
Maybe you can relate more to Sisko when you are older.
It seems that the writers wanted to create a character which is the opposite of Picard, starting with Sisko being a father.
I really would love to watch the Show in HD and 16:9.
I’m also doing a “grand rewatch” and just finished “Dark Frontier” S5, Episodes 15 & 16. I also appreciate this show more than I did in it’s original run, which while I always enjoyed, I didn’t realise how brilliant Janeway was a leader. Mulgrew is superb in the role and I find the character incredibly inspirational. Not only is Janeway a great Captain but she is also a top scientist in her own right, which makes her a very powerful leader of both ship and crew. Mulgrew also brings a subtle vulnerability to the role which is a joy to watch when it occasionally surfaces. Really looking forward to the documentary..
I rewatched Dark Frontier a little before Picard premiered as I did a lot of Seven episodes at that time because she was going to be on that show. I really love that story and one of my favorites in Voyager. It still really good. And everything you say about Janeway is a huge reason why I love the show. The same reason I love TOS and TNG, because of the captains and how they set the tone for their shows. Janeway I loved right out of the gate. In fact, she was the first captain I loved from the start since Captain Kirk. It took awhile to really like Picard and Sisko (love them both now) but Janeway just had a very pleasing quality from the start. She’s probably the most intelligent Captain out of all of them because she is also a scientist but also warm and charming. People use to call her the male version of Picard, but they are really the opposite in so many ways, especially in the beginning. Janeway is very social and almost motherly to her crew, although she can be stoic when she had to be.
I know she is a divided character for some, but NEVER for me. I’ve always loved Janeway and holds my attention every second on screen. Mulgrew just did an amazing job with her and a big reason so many are excited to see her return in Prodigy. And unlike the character Picard who is almost night and day version between TNG and the show Picard, I think this version of Janeway will be pretty close to Voyager’s version since Prodigy will emulate the Captain Janeway we know and love.
At first I really couldn’t stand Janeway. I felt she was a know-it-all and was too often the one finding the solution when her crew were the ones that should have the specialized engineering or scientific skills to do so. As captain she should be a generalist and depend more on her crew for specific tasks. I think I missed half the original run of the series because of this. Then I re watched the series. I love Janeway. I finally understood that she is also an accomplished scientist and being also brilliant, this explains her varied competencies. I also think Mulgrew is an excellent actress. I still dislike some characters, but all in all Voyager was a great series and Janeway one of my favorite captains.
I remember enjoying Voyager to an extent while it was on air, but the amazingness of DS9 definitely clouded my view of Voyager. DS9 did some fantastic things with serialized story telling that VOY just wasn’t interested in, which constantly frustrated me at the time. In the first year+ of the show, the writers made it a point to mention the dwindling number of photon torpedoes, having to conserve power, etc. But somewhere in mid-season 2 or so, they just kind of gave up. The most egregious was Deadlock in season 2 – where Voyager is duplicated, and the two Voyager’s exist on top of each other but slightly out of phase, and the Voyager that “survives” is just beat up as well, only to be in perfect condition the next episode. Beyond that, Voyager had some truly horrendous episodes (I’m looking at you Threshold!), honestly some of the worst in all of Star Trek. Not to mention the Kazon… which the writer’s never did figure out were not really good adversaries (unlike how the writer’s of TNG figured out relatively quickly that the Ferengi were horrible, horrible adversaries).
With that being said, looking back at things in retrospect, there were some fantastic individual episodes and some really fun mind-bending sci-fi stories. I would place some of these episodes in the top tier of all Star Trek episodes. In addition, once Seven of Nine was brought on board, the writer’s really started to find a groove.
Ultimately, I think Voyager has aged incredibly well, especially when compared to season 1 of TNG, which well, has been and will always remain pretty awfully (hilariously so at times). I really do need to do a full rewatch at some point…
how many shuttles did they lose?
So, so many, But you can just replicate more, right? ;p
Using up precious resources.
But the writers didn’t seem bothered by that.
Even the delta flyer got rebuilt after it was destroyed.
There are some guys on youtube who really counted that.
Are you surprised? Practically everything in the franchise has been catalogued and analyzed to within an inch of its life. There’s probably someone out there somewhere with a definitive list of every Starfleet officer throughout Trek history whose name begins with the letter “R”.
flawed but watchable ‘trek’ tv.
agreed
“Passing the $1 million mark in crowdfunding allowed for To The Journey to include an “exclusive never before seen Voyager surprise” stretch goal. In an interview earlier this year Zappone told TrekMovie this surprise will be something “new” that involves the Voyager actors. This week he confirmed this special segment is on the production schedule, but it has yet to be filmed.”
This screams new sequences with the actors back in their Voyager characters?
Voyager needed an epilogue. It would have been touching to see everyone reunited with friends and family… it would have equally been a banter if there was a spontaneous warp core breach as Voyager almost got home!
Could also be a Captain Proton segment. Proton might be cheaper to produce but I think that actually bringing the actors back as their main characters would be more satisfying for fans.
Agreed, I think this seems more likely and remember Robert Duncan McNeill was pitching this idea several months ago.
It’s nice to see Voyager getting the recognition its deserves.
I have always loved Voyager (its my favourite Star Trek series in the franchise).
I hope they try to interview Jennifer Lien, even if it’s only a a short phone interview or something. Could be challenging but you never know!
Any absence of Jennifer Lien in this documentary would be a disgrace – worse case there’s got to be archival interviews and/or convention footage that could be used – As I recall, E! did an hour documentary early on on ST:Voyager and there’s studio material (Publicity and “Entertainment Tonight”) as well.