Star Trek continue to dole out footage from October's New York Comic Con and while that's not really news, one of their recent ones for Prodigy is noteworthy.

Prodigy co-stars gush about Kate Mulgrew, with one describing her as "like royalty".

Kate played a great captain and as first female captain, that was especially important.

Reportedly this was under less than ideal working conditions and her response to those conditions is also controversial.

In this interview Kate describes Paramount execs on set for the first six months, glaring at her during filming. As if daring her to fail.

After the original but unseen Janeway, Genevieve Bujold didn't work out and had to be quickly replaced early in shooting for Voyager, Kate was receptive but had a condition:

There's no sex. I mean, I'm the captain. I'm not going to do it when there are 165 people whose lives I have to protect. There's no time to jump into the sack. Plus, I don't want girls to see Capt. Janeway drop her knickers.

Janeway got to keep her knickers on but after a few years it was out with Kes and in with the much bustier Seven.

Ratings improved and according to showrunner Rick Berman, Kate lost the limelight to her new co-star:

Kate was sort of the Queen of Star Trek at that point. She hung out with astronauts, she hung out with Hillary Clinton, and she was the spokesman for women in leadership roles, and for a lot of things. All of a sudden, this busty, gorgeous, blond babe appears who took away everybody’s breath. I literally once remember some press being on the stage and just sort of pushing by Kate to get to Jeri. So there was a little antagonism that existed right through to the end of the show with those two ladies.

Queen? Again with the royalty. Maybe it's her posh accent.

It is now widely known and also openly ackowledged by Kate that she abused Jeri on set, who has also spoken about it:

But yeah, it was unnecessarily unpleasant for a couple of years — basically, until I started dating [showrunner Brannon Braga]. Once I was dating the boss, funny how things suddenly cleaned up!

Even trying to deny her the ability to urinate:

“At one point, Kate pulled the line producer aside and said, ‘Jeri Ryan is not allowed to use the bathroom unless she uses it before work or after work, but not during work,” another castmate added. “It takes too much time to get her in and out of that suit. It’s wasting time.’ Okay, so you’re trying to tell another human being that they’re not allowed to urinate? She’s just got to hold it? Are you kidding me? Obviously it didn’t happen; they didn’t honor that request.”

Co-star Robert Beltran had this to say:

“The crew was uncomfortable, the actors were uncomfortable, and there was no reason for it. During filming it could go very beyond what I would have tolerated. If it had been the other way where it was me being insulted and Kate was a man, I probably would have taken a swipe at the guy. But that’s me.”

Even if we put aside the showrunner's characteriszation of Kate's abuse being rooted in jealousy, by today's standards, Jeri by all accounts had been innocent and professional. Dating the boss could be seen as a bit tragic but she implies that she may have had had to escape Kate's abuse.

What Would Picard Do?

In show The Next Generation advice from Will Riker, this question is often posed by Trekkies in response to moral dilemmas.

Because famously, Captain Picard's morals are very shiny. For that matter so are Janeway's, though under difficult circumstances she sometimes coloured a bit outside the lines.

And in a sense maybe that's what happened here.

She made an agreement, albeit unwritten, about the tone of the show she agreed to star in. That it not be sexual.

That agreement was broken.

Also that agreement wasn't purely selfish. Star Trek has prominent and clear values which were arguably compromised here.

Would Picard ever counsel vengeance?

No. Kate's behaviour here is more Klingon. An agreement was dishonoured and she held them to account the only way she could.

Would Worf ever counsel vengeance inflicted through an innocent third party?

Probably not. That sounds more Romulan.

What would you do?

[ Main Image: Kate Mulgrew. Credit: Paramount via Twitter. ]

References

Behrens, Lee (September 28, 1997). She was trying so hard to make... Chicago Tribune. 

Boudinot, Jennifer (January 17, 2020). Captain Janeway and Seven of Nine's Relationship was a True Gift. StarTrek.com.

Entertainment Weekly (August 1). Kate Mulgrew On The Sexism She Faced From Star Trek: Voyager Execs | PeopleTV | Entertainment Weekly. YouTube.

Gross, Ed (January 17, 2018). My Lunch With Kate Mulgrew: Owning the Chaos She Created On the ‘Star Trek’ Set. Closer Weekly.https://www.closerweekly.com/posts/kate-mulgrew-star-trek-151582/

Lovett, Jamie (February 10, 2019). Jeri Ryan Opens Up About Star Trek: Voyager On-Set Feud. ComicBook.com.

StarTrek.com (November 1, 2021). WATCH: Bringing Back Janeway.