10 Times Star Trek Dared To Be Different

4. By Factor Of Janeway

2025 marks the 30th anniversary of Star Trek: Voyager's debut. 30 years — albeit with a few gaps — is equally about how long it took Star Trek to get its first female series lead. Trek had shown women in high-level command positions before. Captain Janeway, firmly in the chair on a course for home in Caretaker, was nothing short of "television history," as Kate Mulgrew herself recalled in 'Captain's Chat' ahead of Star Trek: The Cruise this year.

"It took a lot of courage for them to hire a woman. I think that right up until the end they were very dubious about it," Mulgrew had also noted to Metrosource back in 2002. To break the 'boys' club,' in the 1990s in particular, did sadly require a good deal of daring.

Behind the scenes, Voyager also challenged the male-dominated status quo, hiring the brilliant Jeri Taylor as co-creator and executive producer. "We'll have a female point of view in the room, and it won't be the two guys being the creative forces behind the first female captain," fellow exec. Michael Piller explained in The Fifty Year Mission: The Next 25 Years.

Captain, and Admiral, Janeway would become a role model for women, and plenty of men alike, most notably in the sciences. "Of everything that it's changed, my little influence on women in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] has been the single most gratifying," concluded Mulgrew in 'Captain's Chat'. That is the stuff that statues are made on!