Launch of Star Trek: Voyager is a documentary which was broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel in the US on 12 January 1995. It was hosted and narrated by Majel Barrett Roddenberry. The documentary also features some clips from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
The first minutes mention that it's the first time a female captain was cast on a Star Trek series and that the first actress cast in this role left the production early citing an aversion for long shoot days. The search for the captain was compared to the search for Scarlett O'Hara but finally Mulgrew was found and she felt like home on set immediatly.
Barrett Roddenberry mentions that she is the only actor who was part of every Star Trek television series and called Robert Picardo's The Doctor by his first "production name" – "Doc Zimmerman". Roxann Biggs-Dawson mentions that she had no idea what a Klingon was until she saw some footage of the series including Worf and thought "Oh my god … what am I doing?".
The documentary features a short clip of the makeup process applying Tim Russ' Vulcan ears done by Mark Shostrom. Russ also cites the direct connection to Star Trek: The Original Series because of a Vulcan main character. Russ previously performed with Leonard Nimoy in a stage version of Caligula.
According to Michael Westmore, the character Neelix was the last one of the main cast he designed the makeup for. Important for every alien species Westmore created was Gene Roddenberry's wish for Humanity and as said by Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Westmore "does a fantastic job".
Also seen is a short behind the scenes moment of LeVar Burton directing a bridge scene for the episode "Ex Post Facto".
Interviewees[]
- In order of appearance: