Misc. Observations, part 1

The 1998-1999 production year (comprising of Deep Space Nine's final season, Voyager's fifth season, and TNG's third feature, Insurrection) was an exciting one for costumes; that year came many additions to the Starfleet uniform family, including the DS9/NEM formal uniforms, the DS9/NEM desert robes/field uniforms, the VOY "female hero undershirt," the DS9/VOY "hero T-shirts," the DS9/VOY "hero tank tops," a new round of uniforms for some of the crew members on all three productions, and, of course, the VOY jackets. 

Interestingly, the jacket was almost exclusively used that production year (Voyager's fifth season), and rather scarcely at that; basically, not everybody got to wear it, and Captain Janeway was the only character to ever get to wear it more than once!

VOY, 5x1 "Night"

The VOY jacket made its first appearance right off the bat that production year in Voyager's fifth season premiere, "Night," on Captain Janeway:

The VOY jacket made its next appearance toward the middle of Voyager's fifth season, although it was only draped across a chair in the background while Janeway sported her new "female her undershirt":

VOY, 5x10 "Counterpart"

We next saw the jackets a few episodes later on Tom Paris and Tuvok (who were also wearing their "magic undershirts" that episode): 

VOY, 5x13 "Gravity"

VOY, 5x13 "Gravity"

VOY, 5x17 "Dark Frontier"

A few episodes later, during Voyager's feature-length episode, "Dark Frontier," Janeway again wore her VOY jacket, albeit briefly: 

The very next episode, Harry Kim got to wear the VOY jacket for a few scenes:

VOY, 5x17 "The Disease"

VOY, 5x18 "Course: Oblivion"

And the next episode, B'Elanna (well, B'Elanna's dichromate-cloned counterpart) got to briefly wear the VOY jacket: 

VOY, 5x25 "Warhead"

Near the end of the season, Chakotay got to briefly wear the VOY jacket:

After that, though, we only ever saw the VOY jacket three more times: twice on Captain Janeway (well, once on her and once with her jacket draped on a chair) and once briefly on Tuvok:

VOY, 6x19 "The Voyager Conspiracy"

VOY, 6x25 "The Haunting of Deck Twelve"

VOY, 7x4 "Repression"

The final on-screen appearance of the VOY jacket was early in Voyager's seventh and final season: 

We're not sure why the VOY jacket was so seldom seen after it was introduced; they were only seen a fraction of the time as the DS9/NEM jackets (even excluding the Sisko's "captain jacket"), and one would assume they would be easy to re-use once they were already made ... 

Perhaps only a small number of VOY jackets were initially made, and that number was prohibitively small for consistent production shooting (as each actor would need multiple jackets, as would stand-ins, stunt doubles, etc., to say nothing of the occasional need for intentionally-distressed jackets). 

Of course, if that were the case, then why more weren't made becomes the mystery; perhaps the production budget or time didn't allow for additional jackets, perhaps it was an experiment that never really caught on (such as the DS9/NEM "Sisko variant" jacket), or perhaps it had nothing to do with the VOY jacket itself (maybe it had to do with the pants and/or undershirts instead).




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