Star Trek: Voyager - Production

Production

Star Trek: Voyager was produced to launch UPN, a television network planned by Paramount. Paramount had formed Paramount Stations Group when it purchased the TVX Group, which owned several independent stations in major markets. This was not unlike of the purchase of the Metromedia stations by News Corporation 10 years earlier, which were used as the nuclei for Fox. In another parallel, 20th Century Fox, like Paramount, had long been a powerhouse in television syndication. All indicators suggested that Paramount was about to launch a network of its own. In late 1994, Paramount announced formation of the United Paramount Network. The new network was a joint venture between Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries. The "U" in UPN came from United Television, a Chris-Craft subsidiary. Both companies owned independent stations in several large cities in the United States. The new network launched on January 16, 1995; less than a year earlier, Paramount had been bought by Viacom. This was the second time that Paramount had considered launching a network anchored by a Star Trek show: the studio planned to launch a network showcasing Star Trek: Phase II in 1977.

Initial work on Star Trek: Voyager started in 1993, and seeds for the show's backstory, including the development of the Maquis, were placed in several Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes. Voyager was shot on the stages The Next Generation had used and the pilot, "Caretaker", was shot in September 1994. Around that time, Paramount was sold to Viacom, making Voyager the first Star Trek TV series to premiere after the sale concluded.

Star Trek: Voyager was also the first Star Trek TV show to eliminate the use of models for exterior space shots and exclusively use computer-generated imagery (CGI) instead. Other television shows such as seaQuest DSV and Babylon 5 had previously used CGI exclusively to avoid the huge expense of models, but the Star Trek television department continued using models, because they felt models provided better realism. Amblin Imaging won an Emmy for the opening CGI title visuals, but the weekly episode exteriors were captured using hand-built miniatures of the Voyager, shuttlecraft, and other ships. That changed when Star Trek: Voyager went fully CGI for certain types of shots midway through Season 3 (late 1996). Paramount obtained an exclusive contract with Foundation Imaging, the studio responsible for special effects during Babylon 5's first three seasons. Season 3's "The Swarm" was the first episode to use Foundation's effects exclusively. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine started using Foundation Imaging in conjunction with Digital Muse one year later (season 6). In its later seasons, Star Trek: Voyager featured visual effects from Foundation and Digital Muse.