Star Trek: Voyager writer Kenneth Biller wanted a surprising twist in a Janeway/Chakotay-centric episode reminiscent of TNG’s “The Inner Light.”
Summary
- Star Trek: Voyager writer/producer Ken Biller wanted to mimic TNG’s “The Inner Light” for Janeway and Chakotay.
- Biller proposed a plot for “Resolutions” where Voyager left Janeway and Chakotay behind to age 40 years.
- Implementing the Janeway/Chakotay romance would have dramatically altered the series’ premise.
Star Trek: Voyager almost incorporated a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode premise for one of Captain Janeway’s (Kate Mulgrew) and Commander Chakotay’s (Robert Beltran) most romantic episodes, but abandoned the idea before it aired. TNG was the blueprint for the other 1990s-era Star Trek series, meaning that Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine often borrowed heavily from it for story ideas. It isn’t at all surprising then that Voyager would be interested in copying one of TNG‘s most popular episodes, “The Inner Light,” for an important episode at the end of season 2 involving Janeway and Chakotay.
Season 2, episode 25, “Resolutions” saw Janeway and Chakotay stranded on an alien planet after contracting a virus that the planet’s atmosphere shielded them from. During their time on the planet, Janeway and Chakotay became very close, nearly becoming romantically involved before Voyager‘s crew returned with a cure for the virus. Nothing explicitly happened between Janeway and Chakotay during “Resolutions,” but if writer/producer Kenneth Biller had had his way with the episode, a lot more would have taken place.
Star Trek: Voyager Writer Wanted Janeway/Chakotay Episode To Be More Like TNG’s “The Inner Light”
Kenneth Biller has an “Inner Light” twist in mind for “Resolutions”
In an interview with Cinefantastique around the time the episode aired, Ken Biller explained that his original story idea for “Resolutions” was much more expansive. Biller wanted “Resolutions” to cover Janeway and Chakotay living a whole life together on the planet while the USS Voyager left them to get home. This premise would have been similar to the hallucinatory life lived by Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in TNG‘s “The Inner Light.” Read Biller’s full quote about his initial idea for “Resolutions” below:
“I had a hand in ‘Resolutions’ in the sense that I wanted to do a story about Janeway and Chakotay stranded on a planet, but I wanted to do a more sci-fi twist on it where they get stranded and Voyager literally left through a time eddy to get home. When they come back Chakotay and Janeway have aged 40 years and have a whole family. Jeri Taylor felt it was too reminiscent of [Star Trek: The Next Generation episode] ‘Inner Light’. That was kind of the twist I wanted to do on it.”
Although the two premises would not have been exactly the same, Biller’s plan for “Resolutions” would likely have been heavily compared to “The Inner Light” had the original story been greenlit. Captain Picard’s life in “The Inner Light,” complete with a wife and family on an alien planet, would have looked very similar to the life that Voyager‘s creative team would likely have come up with for Janeway and Chakotay. However, as interesting as the TNG premise is, doing the same thing on Voyager would have irrevocably changed the series.
Why Voyager Would Have Never Been The Same If Janeway & Chakotay Romance Happened
Biller’s version of “Resolutions” would have changed the course of the whole show
Janeway and Chakotay would never have been able to return to normal life as Voyager ‘s command team if Biller’s original premise had played out.
Explicitly depicting Janeway and Chakotay in such a long-term relationship would have meant that Voyager would not be able to backtrack or hit their infamous “reset button” when “Resolutions” was over. The reason that Captain Picard was able to return to his normal life after “The Inner Light” was because the whole experience was a hallucination brought on by an alien probe. However, Biller’s proposal for “Resolutions” makes it sound like Janeway and Chakotay’s experience would have been real, albeit with some time travel thrown into the mix.
Unless the whole experience was wiped from their minds, Janeway and Chakotay would never have been able to return to normal life as Voyager‘s command team if Biller’s original premise had played out. Likewise, having the ship use a “time eddy” to return to the Alpha Quadrant would have invalidated Star Trek: Voyager‘s entire premise as the series where the crew is lost on the other side of the galaxy. Ultimately, although “Resolutions” could have been a much larger-scale episode, it’s a good thing that Biller’s idea wasn’t greenlit.
