Why oh why? That's how I often feel at various times for various reasons watching Star Trek: Voyager. It's just a show that has never in my mind quite lived up to its inherent potential. It is partly hampered by being stuck with an outmoded plot device. Voyager tells the story of the Starship Voyager, lost in deep space and destined to stay lost until the last few moments of the show's run because, in the tradition of every sci-fi show made before the eighties, you must stick to your premise and not alter it under threat of death.

   Why? Well because the thought is that the audience thinks of the show in terms of the premise. "Oh, that's the one about the ship lost in deep space." The fear is that if you alter the basic premise you'll confuse and lose the viewers. While it makes sense that if the cast of Lost In Space found their way home it would screw things up, that's not the case with a show named Voyager. On top of that, the current trend is that people don't like static plot points that will never be resolved. We live in a time where Lois Lane now knows Clark Kent is Superman and has married him. Even on little kid TV's Sesame Street they finally have let everyone see that Mr. Snuffalupagus is real and not in Big Bird's imagination. But no, Star Trek feels the need to make sure Voyager stays lost and far from home.

   "What," you're asking, "does this have to do with Voyager/Deep Space Nine crossovers?"

   It has everything to do with it. So desperate were the producer's to keep Voyager lost and its fate unknown to those back home that it rendered real crossovers impossible. Nearly every crossover Voyager ever had with Deep Space Nine is a pseudo crossover.

   The one exception is the pilot episode of Voyager. This episode found the Starship Voyager pursuing members of a rebel group called the Maquis, a group which figured prominently in Deep Space Nine plots. The episode even found Voyager starting out its mission leaving from Deep Space Nine and does feature an appearance by DS9's resident Ferengi bartender Quark. The plot though soon throws Voyager, its crew and a ship full of Maquis into the far reaches of space. There they join forces to survive and make their way back to Earth, never to have a full and valid crossover again!

   On the Deep Space Nine episode "Through The Looking Glass" the crew of Deep Space Nine once again went into the parallel universe first seen in the classic Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror". The mirror universe is a dimension which has the same people in it as in our universe only cast in different roles. In the mirror universe, heroes of the regular universe can be villains, friends are instead enemies and near crossovers are possible. In this particular episode, the crew of DS9 encounters the mirror universe duplicate of Voyager's Vulcan Security Chief Tuvok. So it isn't really a crossover... but its close.

   Similarly, the Deep Space Nine Episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" guest starred Voyager actor Robert Picardo. On Voyager he plays the ship's holographic doctor. In the pilot episode of Voyager the ship's doctor was killed. The crew activated the ship's short term emergency holographic doctor and, being desperate for a doctor, they left him on. The doctor's growth into a fully realized being is one of Voyager's better running plots. On Deep Space Nine, Robert Picardo appeared as Dr. Louis Zimmerman, the man who programmed the emergency holographic doctor program (phew... that's a mouthful!). Dr. Zimmerman based the doctor's look on himself. That is where the similarity ends. While Voyager's doctor is a sort of pure spirit trying to grow as a thinking being, Zimmerman is a lecherous pig. He came to Deep Space Nine because he intended to design a new long term holographic doctor program and wanted to base it on Deep Space Nine's Doctor Bashir. There was also an episode of Voyager where, having problems with the doctor program, the crew brings up a holographic simulation of Doctor Zimmerman to help fix the doctor. So in both cases there is no actual characters moving between the shows, just amazing simulations of crossovers.

Other Star Trek: Voyager Crossover Links
Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise
Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek
Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: The Next Generation

Other Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Crossover Links
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Enterprise
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: The Next Generation

Links To Star Trek Related Web Sites
Cynics Corner (Star Trek Episode Reviews)
The Official Star Trek Web Site

Click here to return to main Crossover List

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