The Roku on my TV allows me to access Pluto TV. Pluto TV has two channels that show Star Trek reruns of The Original Series, Next Generation, Deep Space 9, and Voyager. I enjoy all the Treks, but my favorite is Star Trek: Voyager. For many weeks, I have enjoyed watching the reruns 25-ish years since I first saw them.

I saw most of these episodes when I was a teenager. The episodes land differently now that I am in my 40s.

For instance, the first 5 seasons aired between 1995 and 1999, when I lived at home and spent most of my Saturday nights watching it on KRCG Channel 13. Seasons 6 and 7 aired during my first 2 years of college. I only saw these episodes when I came home during the semester. I also watched and re-watched the first 5 seasons but not the last 2. My social life had changed, and so had I. I didn’t escape into Voyager during the final 2 seasons like I had the first 5. During my early years of high school, I had no real, true friends at my school, so I survived by losing myself in the shows and subsequent books. As I developed friendships during my junior and senior years, I needed to escape less into the Voyager universe. When I got to college, I found a group of people I connected with, so I spent more time socializing and less time watching reruns.

Additionally, Voyager wasn’t available through our cable plan, so I could only watch it when I returned home to visit family. My mom would record the episodes on VHS for me to watch. I would spend my visits binging the episodes I missed.

Twenty-five years of life experience also provides a different lens for me to view the stories of the Voyager crew. The props look just like props, not “real equipment” on a starship. Today’s laptops, tablets, and cell phones exacerbate the dinkiness of the PADS, Tricorders, and lit panels on Voyager. I also see more complicated characters than when I first watched the episodes. I see the Voyager characters in the people I encounter every day. While the show is fictional, the characters are no different from real life, minus the heavy make-up, weird clothing, and cranial ridges. I never realized this at 15. 18, or 21 because I didn’t have the perspective.

For example, in the early seasons of Voyager, the Kazon is a major antagonizing species. They try multiple times to steal Voyager’s technology and kill the crew. While recently watching Basics, Part 1 (the season 2 finale cliffhanger), I realized the Kazon are the stereotypical toxic masculine society. They treat women as their property and servants. They use brute force to take anything they desire. They think they are more competent and more skilled than anyone else. This arrogance is often their downfall. I am interested to know if the Kazon was explicitly created to mimic toxic masculinity or if it was an accident. We learn in a later season that even the Borg wouldn’t assimilate the Kazon because it would detract from perfection. I found this information extra humorous and more fitting due to recent societal changes. I don’t know if I would have made this connection if it hadn’t been for the #MeToo movement and discussions on sexism and misogyny.

It’s an incredible gift to remember who you were in your youth. The last several weeks of watching Voyager reruns have allowed me to get reacquainted with the teenager who fell in love with the saga of Captain Janeway and her crew. I’ve also reflected on how far I have come since I was that girl and how I arrived at where I am now. Life experience changes how we see things and interpret the world. Our worldview can widen or narrow as a result. Sometimes, we love things in our youth and can’t stand them later in life. Other times, we appreciate things more as we age. Voyager has stayed the same, but I haven’t. Watching those reruns is like getting to know an old friend all over again and finding we have more in common than we realized.

While I don’t get lost in the stories of the Voyager crew like I once did, I appreciate the complexity and depth of the characters and stories more than ever before. They provide me with a new understanding of the world and how it is reflected in art. They have also acted as a measuring stick, reminding me of my teenage self and showing me how much I have grown to become who I am now.