This Week’s Poll: Star Trek’s Captains

This week we ask you to choose your favourite Star Trek captain and as ever we’ve provided a handy little article to help you choose. So will you be voting for the original, Captain James T Kirk, or does Captain Kathryn Janeway tick your boxes?

James T Kirk [William Shatner]

Captain of the Enterprise for many James T Kirk IS the only Star Trek captain worthy of that title – the main character of the original series and subsequent films. James T Kirk was something of a womaniser always catching the eye of females on whatever planet he arrived at and going through various romances, perhaps that’s why he was so popular with audiences. His friendship with science officer Spock and Doctor ‘Bones’ was also another popular fixture of the original series and the films. Never one to stay out of trouble many a time Kirk would get into stick situations and have to be rescued by his crew. In the film Generations he is supposedly killed off but fans hope he’ll reappear at some point.

Jean-Luc Picard [Patrick Stewart]

After Kirk the other most famous of the Star Trek captains is Jean-Luc Picard, the Captain of the Enterprise D and later E. Picard followed in the footsteps of Kirk by seeking out new life and making first contact with aliens species; including the Borg. It was Picard’s encounters with the Borg that briefly led him to be assimilated by the collective. Although he was later rescued this brief period inside the Borg deeply affected him but also gave him valuable inside knowledge of the collective which later helped him to defeat a cube that was heading towards Earth.

Ben Sisko [Avery Brooks]

Ben Sisko was a different kind of Star Trek captain; the reluctant one. He was assigned to Deep Space Nine following the Cardassian withdrawal with the Bajor system. However, with a young son in tow the volatile Bajor system – which was likely to be reinvaded by the Cardassians at any point – did not seem like the ideal placing for Sisko. The friction between him and Picard, who had been sent to assist the Federation takeover of Deep Space Nine, also hampered things. However, Sisko quickly settled in and changed his mind about his assignment. The Bajors hailed Sisko as a spiritual leader which he was, to begin with, uncomfortable with but later came to accept. He was an important part in the Dominion War which followed and seemed to be playing a larger role in events than he realised. At the conclusion of the brutal Dominion war he “disappeared”.

Kathryn Janeway [Kate Melgrew]

The first lead female character in Star Trek and the first regular female Captain in the series – Janeway was again another type of Captain from what we had seen before. Those who went before her always had the comfort of Starfleet and the Federation to fall back on when things got tough but Janeway and her ship Voyager was flung across the space and cut off from Earth and the homeworlds. Janeway was forced to join up with the rebel marquis and forge one ship in an un-chartered and hostile area of space. For seven years Janeway encountered a whole series of new species and came into frequent contact with the Borg; Janeway perhaps had more experience of the collective than Jean-Luc before her.

Jonathan Archer [Scott Bakula]

The original captain of the Enterprise as revealed in the prequel series; Enterprise. Archer and his crew were early pioneers of space travel exploring the galaxy long before Kirk and his crew. In Archer’s time there was no federation and the Vulcans, supposedly allies, were keen to keep humans confined within their own system. Archer ventured further into the galaxy than anyone before him and made contact with new aliens such as the Klingons.