User:EMH

Voyager was produced to launch UPN, a television network planned by Paramount. (Paramount considered launching a network on its own in 1977, which would have been anchored by the TV series Star Trek: Phase II.) Planning started in 1993, and seeds for the show's backstory, including the development of the Maquis, were placed in several Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes. Voyager was shot on the same stages The Next Generation had used. The pilot, "Caretaker," was shot in October, 1994. Around that time, Paramount was sold to Viacom - in fact, Voyager was the first Star Trek TV series to premiere after the sale had concluded.

Voyager was the first aired UPN program at 8:00 p.m. on January 16, 1995. Voyager was also the first Star Trek TV show to use Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) exclusively, and eliminate the use of models for exterior space shots. Other television shows such as seaQuest, Space: Above and Beyond, and Babylon 5 had exclusively-used CGI to avoid the huge expense of models, but the Star Trek television department continued using models, because they felt models provided better realism. Amblin Imaging won an Emmy for the opening title visuals, but the weekly episode exteriors were still captured using in-house-built miniatures of the Voyager, shuttlecraft, and other ships, the same method used for The Next Generation.

That changed when Star Trek: Voyager became Paramount's first television property to go fully CGI in mid-season 3 (late 1996).[2] Paramount obtained an exclusive contract with Foundation Imaging which had done the effects for Babylon 5's first three seasons. With Voyager's season 3 episode "The Swarm" began using Foundation's effects exclusively. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine started using Foundation Imaging exclusively one year later (season 6), after Voyager had successfully proven that CGI could look as realistic as models. Foundation Imaging also worked on the first season of Enterprise.