There was the Picard maneuver. Then Riker straddling every chair on the Enterprise gave birth to the Riker maneuver. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to The Janeway maneuver.
Over seven years, Kate Mulgrew gave us some of the finest Star Trek reaction gifs the cosmos could offer in her role as Captain Kathryn Janeway. A smirk here, an “if looks could kill this would be a barrage of about 40 photon torpedoes right at your face” there. But my absolute favorite is what I dub “The Janeway Maneuver”—a tight angle on Mulgrew’s face as she stares into the distance off-camera, eyes wide open, mouth slightly agape. The Janeway maneuver was typically reserved for the moments just before an ad break—hence the need for a prolonged, singular reaction—but that never stopped Mulgrew from flashing a startled, open-mouthed look across the bridge whenever she damn well wanted to.
I recently binge-watched all of Voyager on Netflix, and once I noticed this specific reaction, I couldn’t stop seeing it everywhere. I can’t share them all—there’s 172 episodes of Voyager, and if I put every example of the Janeway maneuver in here your browser might explode. But here, in celebration of one of the finest captains in Star Trek and 50 years of the franchise, are 50 of the best of them.
Season One
Season Two
Season Three
Season Four
Season Five
Season Six
Season Seven
With huge thanks to the fine folks at Trek Core—without their screenshot archive of every Star Trek episode, this very silly blog post wouldn’t have been possible.