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Magazine: Dreamwatch
Issue: February 1995
Title: Voyager
FROM DREAMWATCH ISSUE 6 (FEBRUARY 1995)
Made at an estimated cost of $9-10 million, the two-hour opening
episode of Star Trek: Voyager - Caretaker - unveiled a new theme
commissioned from noted film composer Jerry Goldsmith and state of
the art CGI in the opening credits as the new ship makes its way
through solar flares, nebulas, ionised gases and orbiting ice fields.
This Intrepid class ship has two new features, the most eye-
catching of which are movable nacelles. They fold down flat at
impulse and rise into a V-formation for warp drive. It is also said to
have "bio-neural" circuitry for greater efficiency in organising data.
No doubt the implications of this will be explored. It can be said that
for now the ship's computer most certainly speaks with the voice of
Majel Barrett Roddenberry, observing what has become something of
a tradition.
Pilot episodes are notoriously bogged down with the need to
establish a good deal of information, and we are obligingly informed
early on that Voyager has a top cruising speed of warp 9.75, contains
15 decks and carries a crew of 141. To be ready for future trivia
questions, make note that it is NCC 74656. The interior is more
utilitarian looking than the good old Enterprise D, leaning heavily to
chrome and black colour schemes in all the sets. On the other hand,
the Captain's Ready Room is surprisingly large for a small ship and
the bridge is shallow but occupies a large horizontal sweep. In place
of Ten Forward there is a mess hall set that will serve much the
same function.
The Captain still says "engage", but instead of tugging at her
tunic, Captain Janeway has a noticeable habit of standing with hands-
on-hips in what looks like a (young) Katherine Hepburn
impersonation. Kate Mulgrew's voice has been the source of some
complaint, being raspy or gravelly depending on how annoying one
finds it - certainly no-one in the cast will compete with the sonorous
tones of Patrick Stewart. She also keeps her hair tied up into a tight
bun which is uncomfortably reminiscent of Deanna Troi's first season
hairdo. Male viewers who are resistant to the idea of a female
captain have, of course, dubbed her "Wrongway", but they are
certainly a minority opinion at this time. Overall, reviewers have at a
minimum declared her to be far superior to Benjamin Sisko as
leadership material.
Caretaker, penned by Michael Piller and Jerri Taylor from a
story developed by Piller, Taylor and Rick Berman, chiefly served to
get the basic predicament established and then focused on no more
that three of the new characters in any detail. Both a ship manned by
Maquis rebels and the Starfleet vessel Voyager are, in effect,
kidnapped by an alien technology and snatched 70,000 light years
away to the Delta Quadrant. But, having been brought to a huge
"array" in space, the occupant of that device soon seems to have no
further interest in them because "you don't have what I need," nor
does it have time to waste on sending this "minor bipedal species"
back where they came from.
The connection between the array and a nearby planet with a
ravaged ecosystem is fairly predictable, but leads to a confrontation
with a new species of enemy - the Gazon - who appear unpleasant
but deceptively low-tech, until they realise that the creature in the
array is weakening and will soon no longer be able to protect a race
of underground dwellers called the Ocampa and their subterranean
water supplies. When the Gazons show up with ships to capture the
technology of the Array and Janeway must choose between getting
home but abandoning the Ocampa or blowing up the array, anyone
who doubts how she will choose has not been watching Star Trek...
Make-up maestro Michael Westmore has created another major
achievement with Neelix, who is more expressive than Quark and
looks more realistic from all angles that the Ferengi head. Neelix will
be a predictable early favourite because he adds great humour to the
brew while acting like an action hero rather than a cowardly
munchkin when the chips are down. As played by Ethan Philips, he
scores heavily in his featured moments. Robert Picardo's Doc
Zimmerman gets smaller character moments and will probably spend
most of the first season acquiring some personality beyond his
original ATM-with-a-hypospray persona. Tim Russ was good enough
to cause most of the shock/consternation/cynicism about creating a
black Vulcan to subside, but one did rather long for him to arch an
eyebrow and say "fascinating", which he never did. He also seems far
less inclined to natter on about logic than any Vulcan of recent
memory. His biggest problem may be that the whole idea of a Vulcan
security chief is a bit bizarre, and Captain Janeway did seem inclined
to treat him more like a science officer as the evening wore on -
indeed, there does not seem to be a designated science officer on the
bridge.
Janeway herself was previously a science officer when serving
with Tom Paris' father, so she will probably be handling more of
those chores herself. Mulgrew, who likes to think of herself as being
beyond the need for an aggressively feminist attitude, believes that
her character is totally accepted as the authority figure on the ship
by the rest of the crew and does not need to deny her femininity.
Perhaps one small sign of this is insisting that the crew not observe
Starfleet tradition by calling her "Sir". Nevertheless, she has no
difficulty making decisions to issue threats or commit her crew to
finding another alternative to a 75 year journey to get back home.
In many ways, however, the focal point among the characters
was Tom Paris, played by Robert Duncan Mc'Neill as a rebel who
professes to no longer care what anyone in Starfleet thinks about
him - yet he is delighted when Janeway rewards him with a field
promotion to a responsible position on the bridge despite a
chequered past that had seen him kicked out of Starfleet for trying
to cover up an error which had caused fatalities. If that sounds
remarkably similar to the plot of the TNG episode set at Starfleet
Academy called The First Duty, that is no accident. Wesley's
overzealous flight leader, Nick Locarno, was played by the same
actor. The producers decided that Locarno was a bit too shady to be
an acceptable Star Trek crew member, but brought back much the
same person under a different name!
In this incarnation, McNeill is also the - apparently mandatory
- vestigial Kirk of Voyager. His character is described early on as
always coming at women at warp speed, which will no doubt enliven
those long evenings in the Voyager mess hall. If O'Neill appears a bit
undernourished and bland to give Brad Pitt a run for his money,
well, many of us have never understood Captain Kirk's legendary
success with the female of all species either!
For the rest, Garrett Wong manages to make Harry Kim, the
wide-eyed innocent, far more appealing than anyone would have
expected. It is safe to predict that he will not engage the attentions of
the Wesley/Bashir bashers of fandom. Chakotay had virtually
nothing to do in this episode and so registered hardly at all, except
with women who need an alternative to Tom Paris. Torres and Kes
are probably going to have difficulty getting material written for
them as ensemble casts are never truly equal.
So, off to a grand start and wrapped in a formidable cloak of
good will purchased, largely, at the expense of DS9, Voyager will - in
the words of Robert (Chakotay) Beltran - "really have to suck to fail".
Production values are very strong, combining the usual top talent
from previous Treks such as Dan Curry and photographer Marvin
Rush with effects work from CIS and Amblin. Whether the disparate
talents of Jerri Taylor and Brannon Braga can keep the ball rolling
will make for a most interesting spectacle.
REPORT BY KATHLEEN TOTH