Star Trek’s Kate Mulgrew Shares Janeway’s Advice for Handling the Coronavirus Pandemic

Star Trek: Voyager star Kate Mulgrew reunited with her former crewmates on the latest Star Trek cruise. Now she’s channeling her inner Captain Janeway to offer some advice for handling the coronavirus pandemic. Mulgrew took to twitter to share a message along with a photo of Janeway: “Some advice during a troubling time: Trust science, sense, and compassion to see us through. #keepcalmandcarryon” Using Janeway to spread the message is particularly apt in this situation. Janeway was first and foremost a scientist and Voyager a science vessel. And if any of Star Trek‘s captains know how to lead a crew through troubling time then it’s the one that saw her crew through the years-long journey home from the Delta Quadrant.

Mulgrew was the first woman to lead a Star Trek series (though she was the second actress cast as Janeway). With Jeri Ryan’s return as Voyager’s Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Picard, fans have been calling for Mulgrew to return as Janeway, be it a cameo in Picard or in another series. Mulgrew has said before that “I did it on Voyager. I played at the admiral, I did it. I think I did it.” She’s not sure that she’d want to return to that well again.

“I don’t know,” she said in an interview. “It surprised me when Patrick [Stewart] came out on the stage—I was there that day—and announced it. It surprised me that he wanted to. But I think he knows it will probably have a shot at being quite a hit. And there’s no one who likes to work as much as Patrick Stewart. And for him, it will probably be very successful. Picard was beloved. Yeah, it’ll be interesting. I don’t know what to say about Janeway. Seven years is a long time to play a character. I’m not sure that she would enjoy resuscitation. She was a very, very vibrant person, while she was. I would have to cross that bridge when I got there. It’s nothing that I have entertained.”

At the Star Trek: Destination Birmingham convention in 2018, Mulgrew did reveal one pitch that would get her back into the role of Janeway. “[William] Shatner, Stewart and myself in some sort of movie – I’d love to do that,” she said when a fan asked if she’d ever suit back up in her Starfleet uniform. “So the answer is yes.”