Episode Review - Caretaker (Voyager, Season 1, Pilot)

For those who are new to my episode reviews, you can find the post where I establish my point criteria here

Overview – Captain Kathryn Janeway takes command of the USS Voyager, sent on a mission to capture the Maquis leader Chakotay. Recruiting disgraced former Starfleet officer Ton Paris, she and her crew disembark from Deep Space Nine and head towards the Badlands. A mysterious force propels her and her crew to the far reaches of the Delta Quadrant, over 70 000 light years away. The crew find themselves at the mercies of a strange alien life form known only as the Caretaker. The Caretaker has been bringing ships from all over the galaxy in search of a compatible individual who can help restore control of a large array that provides assistance and protection to the Ocampa, a race of short-lived humanoids. In an attempt to get themselves home, Janeway and Chakotay join forces. Assisted by local scavenger Neelix and his Ocampan companion Kes, Janeway is forced to make a choice between returning home and protecting the Ocampa from the Kazon. Thus we begin the 70 year journey of the USS Voyager.

On the Ocampan homeworld

Score: 8/10 – This is arguably one of the strongest Trek series pilots. A solid story that establishes the characters and the main premise of the series. We are introduced to a strong captain, and the first time a woman helms a new series. There is a great balance between humor, action, and mystery. We have some great visual effects and some intriguing new characters. We see a new ship design in Voyager, the Intrepid class vessel. New technologies are introduced that add some new elements to the Trek universe. Most notable among these is the Emergency Medical Hologram, which we will get to know better as, simply, the Doctor. Most interesting in this series is the merging of two different crews. Taking a page from Deep Space Nine’s book, the Maquis and Starfleet crews take the two crews-one ship/station theme to a new level. As the Maquis are largely former Federation citizens that are considered to be traitors to Janeway’s people, this provides the potential of some interesting conflict. There are a few things that could have been better. Some of the dialogue is a bit contrite (I’m thinking mostly of the farm scenes), and as always there are a few of the actors that are still trying to find their legs in their new characters. Still, “Caretaker” is a great episode that starts off the series with strength.

Some of the soon to be replaced Voyager bridge officers

Relevance - 3 points. Let us set aside that this episode sets the stage for the next seven seasons and look at how the pilot episode of Voyager is relevant to the rest of the Trek universe. We have Gul Evek, seen on DS9 and TNG. The Maquis, which were introduced in DS9 and featured in TNG, are part of the backbone of the new crew. In fact, they were created with the intent that they would play an integral role in Voyager. All of the Cardassian/Maquis conflicts helped set up for this “Lost in Space” version of Star Trek. Added to this the introduction to all the main cast members for the next three seasons, plus a fun cameo by Armin Shimmerman as Quark, and Relevance scores all three points.

Quark makes Kim an offer

Continuity - 3 points. Character continuity gets a point here, but that is hardly surprising as the pilot lays the groundwork for the characters. Even the familiar characters (Gul Evek, Quark) are true to themselves. Story continuity works. Trek universe also gets a point here.

Chakotay and Torres avoiding the Cardassians

Character Development – 3 points. Another strength of a pilot episode is laying the ground work for this cast of characters. Janeway, of course, gets the primary focus. Her fierce determination is balanced with compassion. She is a professional officer that has a heart full of curiosity about the unknown. She is dedicated to the principles of Starfleet and the Federation, which is demonstrated as she attempts to broker peace with the Kazon through diplomacy, and then resorts to force to protect the Ocampans when diplomacy fails. Added to this, we learn a lot about Tom Paris, a disgruntled failed officer who is most at home behind the navigation console of a starship. Harry Kim is the eager to please ensign fresh out of the Academy. Tuvok, as is typical for Vulcans, is logical, loyal, and intelligent. Chakotay shows a great mix of freedom fighter courage tempered with Starfleet training. B’Elannna Torres, the half-human half-Klingon Maquis showcases her conflicted personality. Kes is curious and adventurous, eager to explore the universe in her short lifespan. Neelix is quirky and resourceful. The Doctor gets a great start as one of the more unique characters. His dry wit and sarcasm promise us some great moments to come.

Neelix comes aboard for the first time

Social Commentary – 2 points. I think the biggest topic addressed here is the idea of when to sacrifice your own needs for the greater good of someone else. Janeway could have left the Ocampans to their fate in order to get her crew back to the Alpha Quadrant. It was a great sacrifice to destroy the Caretaker’s array that would ultimately come with a steep price, one that grew with each passing casualty. While Janeway has received much criticism for her choice over the years, she was ultimately staying true to herself and her sense of morality.

The Caretaker's true form

Cool Stuff – 3 points. One point for the Caretaker, which is an intriguing lifeform. Another point scored for the EMH. What a brilliant idea to turn a temporary holographic character to be used as the vessel used to explore the human condition. Finally, a point scored for Scott MacDonald, who appears as his only human character out of five memorable characters (so far) in the Trek franchise. If that is not enough, the entire Quark’s sequence is a lot of fun, and is one of the best pilot episode cameos.

The crew being screened for compatability

Rank – Admiral (22 points). Of course this is a must see episode. Not only is it the pilot, it is very well made. More than any other pilot in the Trek series, this made me the most excited for the show that was to come.

Voyager and the Caretaker Array

Why I Love Voyager

Celebrating the five full decades of Star Trek should be a yearlong event, so I thought I would spread the love of all things Trek. Previously in this series I wrote about why I love the Original Series, then why I loved the Next Generation, and most recently with why I loved Deep Space Nine. Next up, Captain Kathryn Janeway and the combined crew of Star Trek: Voyager.

The year was 1995. Picard and company were fresh off of their first major motion picture, Star Trek: Generations. Sisko and crew were well into their third season on Deep Space Nine. Paramount had started a new network, UPN, and wanted a new Star Trek show to be the flagship (not sure if the pun is intended). Along came Voyager. Created by Trek veterans Michael Piller, Rick Berman, and Jeri Taylor (finally, a woman at the helm!), Star Trek: Voyager was the story of a new class of Federation starship that is thrown halfway across the galaxy into the far reaches of the Delta Quadrant. To further complicate things, the crew is made up of a significant number of renegade Federation citizens, the Maquis (introduced in Deep Space Nine), as well as some more unconventional crew members who were there as much as necessity as anything else. Their story was to be more akin to “Lost in Space” as opposed to the usual comforts of previous Trek incarnations.

With a fresh crew, new surroundings, and endless possibilities, fans were excited about this new show. Most of the buzz was originally around the new female captain, especially after the original actress hired for the show, Genevieve Bujold, was released from her contract (on mutual terms, as the story goes), and the formidable Kate Mulgrew came in almost last minute. There were familiar trappings (Tim Russ in his fourth and most famous Trek role, Vulcan security officer Lt. Tuvok), some new aliens (Talaxians, Ocampans, Kazon, and Vidians), and some returning fan favorites (Q, the Borg, and Reginald Barclay). Voyager had a lot of promise at the beginning, and it was great to have a second Trek series on the air again.

I had mentioned previously that Deep Space Nine was the black sheep of the Trek family, but Voyager seems to be the series where a lot of fans started to openly criticize the show. Perhaps it was the movement of the internet into mainstream society, perhaps fans were suffering a bit of Trek fatigue, but there were a fair number of vocal critics, and Voyager’s ratings were getting lower. Still, it had enough to keep it going for the full seven seasons, and there were some wonderful episodes, stories, characters, and moments that helped Voyager earn its well-deserved place among Trek lore. Here are my Top Five Reasons for why I love Star Trek: Voyager.

1.     Captain Janeway – Yes, it was finally time to have a woman in the captain’s chair on a Trek show, but Janeway being a woman is not the reason why I love this captain so much. She had likely the biggest burden of all captains up to this point. Kirk, Picard, and Sisko all had the support of Starfleet. For most of the run of Voyager, she was on her own. As was mentioned in an early episode, there wasn’t a lot of Captains and Admirals around for her to associate with. Janeway had to make some tough decisions, and they were not always the right ones, but she was in a tough situation. She took a ragtag bunch of Starfleet officers, disgruntled Maquis, and the rejects of the Delta quadrant, and made them a family. She had an almost perfect balance of toughness and compassion. She valued the members of her crew because they were literally irreplaceable. Even though her first officer was Maquis, she welcomed and valued his insight. No matter how close they were, however, she often felt alone in command. That earned my respect.

2.     Back to the basics – Star Trek was often considered to be about exploring, but by the end of TNG there was little left to explore. While DS9 got around that with a wormhole to another part of the galaxy, they still had old familiar faces to fall back on. Not so with Voyager. Everything was new. New quadrant, new species, and new worlds to discover. Thanks to advances in technology, we were able to bring about species in new ways (looking at you, Species 8472). Not everything was a home run, but there were so many cool things that came about due to Voyager being stuck in the Delta Quadrant. It was a great to see so many new and different things, and we were allowed to have some great stories that came out of it.

3.     The Doctor – When the media releases for the new show started to emerge, there was one character that had me gravely concerned: the EMH. To hear that the new CMO was going to be a hologram made me nervous. How are they going to have a character in the sickbay all the time and be able to develop him adequately? I had seen a few hologram characters before, and I must say that they disappointed me greatly. Then I actually watched the show. It was wonderful to see this character grow from a simple program into a fully developed and realized member of the crew. His episodes are among my favorites, and Robert Picardo was able to bring such a light to his character’s eye in his brilliant performances. I loved the comedy and soul that the Doctor often brought to the show. I enjoyed how he developed a conscience and wrestled with many dilemmas that we find ourselves facing daily as human beings. Once he got his mobile emitter, the sky was the limit with him. I only wished that they had settled on a name with him sooner.

4.     The ultimate betrayer – In the first season there were a handful of Maquis crewmen who showed a lot of promise. The best, in my opinion, turned out to be a secret Cardassian agent who showed that she would stop at nothing to get home, even if it meant aligning with the Kazon. Seska was brilliantly played by Martha Hackett and stole every scene she was in. Her story seemed so well executed, an excellent example in how to develop a secondary character. I am not sure if the plan had always been to make her a spy, but it was set up brilliantly. Like all great villains, Seska eventually had her day of reckoning, but being killed off did not mean the end for her. She returned in some great ways, just to wreck a little more havoc on the crew.

5.     Building on a legacy – Voyager was able to do a lot with what had previously been established, given the setting of the show. While Q made an appearance on Deep Space Nine in the first season, he really didn’t click with the crew. On Voyager, he was able to bring things to a whole new level. Since Picard and his crew were off making movies, our omnipotent adversary turned to the Delta quadrant and traded barbs with Janeway. I actually thought that Q and Janeway had a wonderful adversarial relationship, due largely to the delightful chemistry between Kate Mulgrew and John de Lancie. Because of this, we received the wonderful episode “Death Wish”. Another favorite character of the past that was able to grow more fully was Reginald Barclay. Voyager gave our obsessive engineer a chance to shine in a new role in ways that he just couldn’t on the Next Generation. Finally, there was the Borg. While Picard and company were able to deal with the Borg on every encounter, Voyager was able to stick it to them on multiple occasions. The Borg as a collective grew more with Voyager, and we can thank Seven of Nine for that. Played the beautifully talented Jeri Ryan, we learned much more about the Borg, and it gave us a wonderful opportunity to study the life of one who was seeking to regain her lost humanity. Voyager had its flaws, but not building on the legacy of important characters, races, and aspects of the past was not one of them.

And there you go. The little show that could. I loved Star Trek Voyager for many more reasons, but these are the Top 5. Did I miss any? Please comment on what you loved about the show.

  

Episode Review - Dark Frontier (Voyager Season 5)

For those who are new to my episode reviews, you can find the post where I establish my point criteria here

Episode Overview: While attempting to obtain a transwarp coil from a Borg vessel, Seven of Nine finds herself torn between two collectives: the one she knew as a drone and the one she finds on Voyager.

Episode Score - 9/10. This is a big budget two-hour story that brings the Borg back into Voyager’s story big-time. For a Voyager episode, there are some pretty intense action sequences and a lot of great story-telling. We get to see a lot of development in Seven of Nine’s backstory and history. We get to see aspects of the Borg that we have never before seen, and dig deeper into their mythos. Solid performances by many of the cast, especially Kate Mulgrew and Jeri Ryan.

Relevance - 3 points. References to the past attempts of the Borg to assimilate Earth, the Hansen’s ship “Raven” and their attempts to study the Borg. Sets up future Borg episodes (Unimatrix Zero, Endgame). Refers to the Hansens, and shows the fate of Magnus Hansen (Seven’s father).

Continuity - 2 points. Trek Universe gets a point for showing a development of the Borg that is consistent with what has been previously established. Character continuity scores here as everybody acts as they would. An example of this is B’Elanna Torres who has always been suspicious of Seven’s loyalties telling Janeway that when Seven chose to stay behind on the Borg sphere she showed she was never really “one of us”, and Janeway refusing to give up on Seven despite that. Where this episode loses a point is story continuity. The episode suggests that the Borg were rumored to exist as a known entity for at least a decade before this episode, and before the episode “Q Who” on TNG. It is difficult to believe that a Captain such as Jean-Luc Picard could have ever been unaware of these rumors. As well as this the Borg Queen states a couple of inconsistent historical facts. First, that the Borg of attempted to assimilate humans once before. That, I would assume, is referring to “The Best of Both Worlds”. In truth, the events of the motion picture “First Contact” would count as a second attempt. Second mistake was stating that Seven of Nine was the first drone to regain individuality. I guess Hugh from “I Borg” and all the drones that followed Lore did not count.

Character Development - 2 points. Major development for Seven of Nine, having her first interaction with the Borg since leaving the collective and becoming an individual. For the first time Seven refers to Voyager as being her new “collective”, which I would assume is on a similar level as family. She states that she cares for the crew deeply. She also has great conflict in her leaving the crew to rejoin the Borg. She shows that she has not forgotten her lessons on Voyager by helping members of Species 10026 escape assimilation on two occaissions. Janeway and Naomi Wildman have some minor development as well. Everyone else seems to be their usual selves.

Societal Commentary - 1 point. This has been a hard one for me to nail down. The story is great, but what does it say about society in general? I’m not too sure. There is a theme of serving two masters or being torn between two cultures that can resonate with viewers. Because of this, I can only give it a single point.

Cool Stuff - 3 points. Much of the cool stuff in this episode is courtesy of the Borg. We get to see the Borg Unicomplex, which is one of the most impressive designs yet. We see two new ships in the Borg fleet: the Borg interceptor (a scout-type vessel) and the Borg Diamond (used by the Queen). We see the Borg Queen for the first time on television, and played for the first time by actress Susanna Thompson (her fourth character on Star Trek), and to be honest the way her body was formed was amazing. We see the Hansen family again. We learn a lot about the different species designations (humans are Species 5618, Ktarians are Species 6961, etc.). All of these more than make up the necessary requirements for the full three points.

Rank: Captain (20 points). This was a great episode with wonderful effects, a compelling story, and a great focus on Seven of Nine. It was great seeing the Borg again. I’m not the biggest Seven of Nine fan, but I did think this episode was great and did her character justice.