When a Maquis ship disappears inside a plasma storm in the Badlands, Capt. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) takes the new, Intrepid-class Federation starship Voyager to search for them. It isn't long before Voyager is caught by the same phenomenon that caught the Maquis ship, bringing them to the other side of the galaxy.
The crew barely has time to assess damage and casualties before they are all whisked away to a nearby array, a structure in space that somehow brought them here. There is an intelligence behind the array, and it's looking for something. When it sends most of the crew back, but holds onto a single young ensign (Garrett Wang), as well as a half-Klingon member of the Maquis crew. Janeway is thrust into an uneasy alliance with the Maquis captain, Chakotay (Robert Beltran), to try to recover the missing crew members before starting the long journey home.
CHARACTERS
Capt. Janeway: It's fairly well-known that Kate Mulgrew was cast in a hurry after the first choice, Genevieve Bujold, quit during filming of the pilot. In my opinion, the show caught a lucky break. Mulgrew is a reliable actress, who holds the screen and conveys a certain steely quality that I don't think Bujold would have managed. A potentially interesting character detail is that Janeway comes from a science background. As a former science officer, she observes how unusual the atmosphere of the planet near the array is.
Chakotay: Robert Beltran apparently quickly wanted out of his contract. From the evidence of this pilot, it's not hard to see why. Much is made of Chakotay in the first half. But once he meets up with the Voyager crew, he recedes almost instantly into the background. The idea of having a Maquis captain as second lead, someone with a very different outlook than Janeway, has potential. Based on this pilot, though, Chakotay is effectively an empty suit with an attached facial tattoo. I'd hope for more interesting layers to emerge as the show goes on... but given how quickly Beltran lost interest in the show, I'm guessing the show never did develop any interest in his character.
Paris: Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) gets a fairly strong amount of focus in this pilot movie, and honestly emerges more as the "second lead" than Chakotay does. Paris certainly has the most interesting backstory. McNeill's performance isn't bad, though I would personally prefer an actor with more of an edge to convey Paris' mercenary side.
Tuvok: Doesn't really get very much to do here, though he is established as a confidante for Janeway. The most amusing character beat he receives is in his immediate, highly evident dislike of Neelix. Tim Russ is quite funny in his nonverbal reactions to Neelix, greatly lifting the amusement value of the show's second half.
Neelix: The comedy relief character. Capably played by Ethan Phillips, Neelix works well enough here. He is fairly shrewd, able to think and act quickly to rescue Kes. Also, he is funny not in his own behavior - which isn't particularly amusing - but rather in Tuvok's reactions to him. If Neelix is allowed to maintain a degree of intelligence, and if it is remembered that the humor of Neelix lies in the reactions of those around him, then he might even work. I'm... not optimistic, but will at least give credit to Phillips, a good character actor, for helping Neelix's debut to be fairly strong.
Kes: One of the Ocampa, the citizens of the planet protected by the array, which is known as "The Caretaker." Kes rebelled against the Caretaker's edicts, as interpreted by the Ocampa. She left their underground city and went to the surface - where she was promptly captured by a vicious tribal group. Kes shows the strong moral compass that Neelix lacks, insisting on helping the Voyager crew recover their missing people after they helped Neelix rescue her.
Harry Kim: In his very first scene, Harry Kim (Garrett Wang), an ensign fresh out of the Academy, is on the verge of allowing Quark (an amusing cameo by Armin Shimerman) to bully him into buying some worthless stones. All because he doesn't have the stones to just look Quark in the eye and say, "No." He forms a friendship with Paris, seeming determined to see decency in the disgraced pilot even after he is told about his past. This elicits similar loyalty from Paris. He also shows both judgment and restraint in his scenes with Torres.
Torres: Is half-Klingon, and prone to losing her temper. Pairs with Harry Kim for the second half of the show but gets little of interest to do, leaving Kim to be both the strategist and the voice of reason in their partnership. Roxann Biggs-Dawson gives an adequate performance, though it will take an episode that actually gives her some material for me to able to judge her work to any reasonable degree.
THOUGHTS
Much like when I started reviewing Enterprise a couple years ago, Voyager marks a live-action Star Trek series that I never truly saw. There is a difference, mind you. I watched Enterprise without having previously seen any of it, and with no prior knowledge beyond its reputation as Trek's "franchise killer." Even so, by the time I started viewing it, that show's reputation seemed to have recovered to a point at which it's often regarded as no worse than Voyager, and in many quarters is regarded as a slight improvement. That and an appealing cast gave me some room for optimism as I approached it, particularly after a quite decent pilot.
With Voyager, my negative impressions are actually based on experience. I attempted to watch it when it first premiered, and was quickly chased away by what I found to be cliched stories, cardboard characters, and wooden actors. That handful of Voyager episodes played no small part in driving me away from Trek for years. So while I'll approach the series with an open mind in these reviews, I feel it only fair to give warning that my limited memories are not good ones.
Caretaker isn't bad, though. It's not great. My memories of cardboard characters and wooden acting are too often proved true. There's also just about enough plot here for 70 or so minutes, which means that at more than 90 minutes it feels overstretched. Still, it does its job as a pilot. It establishes all the characters' roles, even if some of the characterization is anemic. It's also a good-looking show, with special effects worthy of the big screen. As the highest-budget Star Trek television episode ever - costing more than The Wrath of Khan did - it's not hard to see why it's so visually arresting. But at the very least, the money shows.
It opens well. The teaser provides an effective hook, efficiently introducing Chakotay, Tuvok, and Torres, and re-introducing the Maquis. I'm very glad I took the advice of one reader of these reviews, and waited until after watching The Maquis 2-parter on Deep Space 9 before beginning this series. The teaser, with the Maquis ship battling the Cardassians, is a near-perfect pickup from that episode.
From there, we cut to a splendid title sequence. The orchestral score is glorious, better than Deep Space 9's - which, though moody, is far too slow and one I usually fast forward through. The visuals are startling, with advances in CGI technology since the early days of TNG really showing as we follow the Voyager through the solar system and even through the rings of Saturn.
I know there's some criticism of Janeway's final decision. I actually think her choice is justified even on pragmatic grounds. After all, Tuvok explicitly says it will take hours to isolate and initiate the program on the array that would send them home. Already coming under heavy fire from the Kazon, and with more Kazon ships on the way, Voyager probably wouldn't survive those hours. That justification is not used by Janeway to justify her decisions - instead, she has to Display Superior Morality (TM) - but it is there, which greatly alleviates problems I may have had with the ending otherwise.
Overall, while I wasn't sorry to see this feature-length premiere come to a close, I did enjoy watching this. Enough threads are there to provide potential for the writers to exploit, and it manages to hold attention for at least most of its run. It may not rank up there with Emissary or The Cage as Trek premieres go... but it's a solid piece overall, and a better introduction than I truly had expected.
Overall Rating: 7/10.
Next Episode: Parallax
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