A bad choice in casting. Mulgrew made captain Janeway extremely unlikeable. I would say Janeway is the most unlikeable character in Star Trek. Not sure if she was written to be that way or the character took on the persona of the actress. The entire premise of the show sucked, and most of the scripts were pretty bad (all the crappy time travel episodes), but Mulgrew made the show nearly unwatchable. And that voice...talk about unlikeable.
I must admit that in early seasons, in some scenes Janeway's voice seemed a bit grating, but less so in later seasons. Not sure what changed, and it could also simply be a mistaken impression of mine. In general though I didn't have any problems with her voice.
I always loved captain Janeway. A lot has been made on her contradictory and inconsistent actions, but for me she felt like a real person. She could get seriouslly pissed and god forbid you were on her wrong side. Her reactions depended on the context of the situation. Yes sometimes she would do "the right thing", but a lot of times she was willing to do what was necessary. It wasn't like she was a sanatized saintly version of a Starfleet Captain.
Voygers not my favourite by any stretch. But I liked Janeway, better than Picard,kirk and Archer though prefer sisko. Being a women should be a non issue. Problem is the Alt right will always make a fuss due to feeling threatened and being bigots and the far left will use a "first" to indulge in self righthous virtue signaling both making a non issues a issue. You then have people like me in the middle who really don't give a shit and just want good TV, not caring what gender or race a character is.
I think there's a big element of that but I also think Taylor and maybe Piller tended to really idealize most of the Starfleet crew characters they were depicting and to embrace and increase the tendency to no-internal conflict. It does feel quite a bit weirder with someone like Chakotay, who you would think would be less deferential, but those writers seem to love Starfleet a lot and thus view character growth & improvement as becoming more Starfleet-y and thus compliant and loyal crewmembers. Taylor did seem to want Janeway to be very idealized & role model-y and maybe even view her as her alter ego but OTOH she seemed more interesting and more willing to do controversial acts, or have the acts be acknowledged as controversial, in season 3 where Taylor was EP and Piller wasn't, than before. Janeway did seem, from the scripts more than the actress (though the writers were maybe influenced by her), pretty intolerant of disagreement, often acting shocked and disgusted when Chakotay even mildly suggested he didn't complete agree with her, to me that was pretty unlikeable.
She became more 3 dimensional and likeable as time went on. There was a little bit of a "forced" aspect at first.. maybe they were a bit unsure what to do to make her as forceful as a man would be... The tight bun, the stance with hands on hips, the general image was a little alienating. The image then become unforced and natural, and to those who want gender not to be an issue, I think you got exactly what you wanted, and didn't realize it. It's a minor miracle to find a naturally, credibly commanding woman character like her on TV.
It's that harsh Katharine Hepburn voice. I just can't stand it. It grates on my ears and nerves like extra coarse sandpaper.
I see your point and I agree to some of it. There were times when Janeway's authority should have been questioned more, especially by Chakotay. And sometimes her authority became rather silly, like iat the end of the otherwise very good episode "Alliances" when she holds the speech about "the ideas and princeples of the federations, which are the best allies you can have". But in most cases, it had more to do with bad writing in common than just Janeway, even if "the woman Captain" concept did over-shadow some episodes. I can agree with the comments about Chakotay and Torres. Chakotay should have stood up more to Janeway than he did and Torres became tame too quickly, it should have taken at least 4-5 episodes before she became the perfect Starfleet Ensign. But once again, I blame it more on bad writing in common. As for Sisko I also agree. But I must say that it surprised me that the "black Captain thing" was brought up. I mean, we have a series which takes place more than 400 years after Martin Luther King and the struggle for justice and equality for the black people and in one episode Sisko starts arguing about Vic Fontaine's program taking place in 1962 "when the black were discriminated". I mean, that was more than 400 years ago and the problems had been settled since then so a black captain shouldn't be no issue at all in Starfleet in the 24th century. if I should start arguing about not being able to read some classic book from some country because "we were at war with them 400 years ago", my sanity would be questioned. Otherwise I find Sisko an excellent captain and Avery Brooks was splendid in that role. In my opinion, Voyager had great characters. It was bad writing which ruined some of them, not the characters themselves. As for Nechayev, I did find her very ruthless. Sort of "If I give tou an order to execute 5000 pepole, then you do it!" I strongly disagree here. I think that Mulgrew was excellent as Janeway and I have no problem with her voice. There were a lot of silly propaganda from those in charge of the show that "Seven saved the show". I would like to state that Janeway saved the show. Without her, the show would have been cancelled after two or three seasons. I don't want to put Bujold down because the only thing I've seen of her is those deleted scenes with her as Janeway, she might be an excellent actress otherwise. But if I should judge "Nicole Janeway" from those scenes, then Voyager would have run into serious trouble very early on.
"I think that Mulgrew was excellent as Janeway and I have no problem with her voice." I certainly agree, despite her voice, that she's a fine actress. Anyone who has seen her in Orange is the New Black, as Red, would be hard-pressed to dismiss her acting chops.
None of the above. Captain Janeway continues to do her job. If they had chosen to go this route (and they were wise not to), it would not have been difficult. Just have it happen in "Resolutions".
Yes. She had the chops for it. If we could have seen "Year of Hell" Janeway for most episodes she'd be most people's favorite captain. But that's not what we saw.
Yes, I've watched the episodes of Coolumbo and Dallas she participated in. Mrs. Columbo was an ancestor of Janeway and so was Garnet McGee.
I blame the writing, the actor can only generally work with what is in the script, their gender is besides the point. The premise of the show didn't suck, the execution of the premise was the issue.
One time, as a joke (I really do like Kathryn Janeway), I posted a blurb on "5 reasons why Chakotay would have been a better captain". One reason was that his pleasant baritone would have made the weekly captain's log much easier listening.