Forgotten Star Trek: Voyager Episode Almost Tied To Original Series
Star Trek: Voyager is a show that has relatively few ties to The Original Series, and for good reason: because the title ship is stuck on the other side of the galaxy, they were never destined to encounter any of the aliens (friends and foes) that Kirk and Crew encountered. That made the show feel very different from spinoffs like The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, which arguably had more robust connections to that classic show. However, Voyager almost had its own Kirk connection in the episode “Prime Factors.”
Prime Factors
Before we talk about The Original Series connection that almost was, we need to recap the finished “Prime Factors” episode. In this story, Voyager visited a planet with amazing technology that allowed them to transport themselves 40,000 lightyears away.
Considering that Janeway and her crew were stranded over 70,000 lightyears from home, they are very interested in the technology, but these aliens have strict laws against sharing their toys with outsiders.
Assignment: Earth
Sadly, the aired “Prime Factors” episode didn’t have any connections to The Original Series, but the original idea was to have a very explicit connection. Before the script was written, the original story for this episode was going to have Voyager encounter the aliens who had sent Gary Seven to Earth in the classic episode “Assignment: Earth.”
In that early adventure, the Enterprise encounters an energy beam from at least a thousand lightyears away while they are visiting 1968 for historical research (as you do).
Gary Seven
The person inside the beam is Gary Seven, a guy with a fancy suit, a cute cat, and a mission: he is a supervisor sent through time and space on behalf of an unnamed organization to check on some missing agents.
While visiting the past, he ends up detonating a missile, an action he insists averted World War III. We never find out more about who Gary Seven works for, mostly because this was meant to be a backdoor pilot for a new series that never materialized.
Wesley Was Gary’s Co-Worker
“Prime Factors” was originally going to answer that question by having Captain Janeway and crew discover the planet that sends Gary Seven and others out into the universe on faraway missions.
Early on, producers decided to remove the connection to The Original Series, but that’s for the best: decades later, the second season of Picard would reveal that Gary Seven and those like him work on behalf of the Travelers.
Wesley Crusher, now a Traveler himself, explains that his group sends supervisors (also known as Watchers) to historically fraught time periods in order to ensure the survival of various species in danger of extinction.
Voyager And Enterprise
Honestly, the return of Wesley Crusher and the belated answer about who Gary Seven worked for was probably the best part of Picard’s otherwise dismal second season. Still, it would have been cool if “Prime Factors” had kept its original connection to the adventures of Captain Kirk.
Later on, fans of Kirk’s adventure would have to settle for Voyager giving us a George Takei cameo in “Flashback,” and Janeway later made an amusing admission that even though the wild Enterprise crew “would be booted out of Starfleet today…I have to admit: I would have loved to ride shotgun at least once with a group of officers like that.”
Same, girl. Same.
You must log in to post a comment