2-10. Cold Fire.

Kes explores her dark side.

THE PLOT

The remains of the Ocampa Caretaker begin giving off signs of life, a response to a similar lifeform nearby. Remembering that the dying Caretaker had spoken of a mate, Janeway realizes that they are close to that second life form. She sees a chance to make contact with a being that could send them home, and uses the readings to bring Voyager to an array very similar to the Caretaker's.

This Array is also home to Ocampa, but the beings here are very different from Kes' people. Tanis (Gary Graham), the Ocampan leader, makes contact and agrees to lead them to the point in space where they can meet Suspiria - the name of the Caretaker's mate. But his apparent benevolence masks a hidden agenda. He is intrigued by Kes, and begins working with her to develop her mental powers, all as part of a plan to tempt her away from Voyager. As for the meeting? Suspiria believes that the Voyager crew killed the Caretaker, and the meeting is a ruse designed to take revenge!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Excited by the prospect of making contact with Suspiria, but cautious enough to accept Tuvok's advice to prepare countermeasures against the entity. She encourages Kes to be cautious in her dealings with Tanis, but does not try to stop her from having personal contact or chide her for her excitement. Her quiet support is a striking contrast to Tanis' intense overtures.

Kes: The show opens with Kes exploring her mental powers with Tuvok, who reprimands her lack of emotional control when she so much as giggles.  In fairness to Tuvok, Kes does show a lack of self-discipline at several points.  She is late to her duties in Sick Bay after her lesson, something that the Doctor observes has become a pattern. Like a teen, she gets absorbed in one activity and loses track of her other obligations. And like a teen, she is easy prey for a confident, smooth-talking older man like Tanis.  Kes revels in Tanis' attentions, revels in the destructiveness of the exercise he takes her through in the aeroponics bay. But she retains loyalty to the Voyager crew at all times.  She is devastated when a test of her skills harms Tuvok, and it is her loyalty which lets her see Tanis for what he is by the end.

Tuvok: Learning Curve appears to have taught Tuvok nothing, as he still is unable to take emotion into account when dealing with others. He chides Kes for her "emotional outbursts" when she giggles at the inanities in Neelix's mind, and again when she talks of being both excited and afraid at dealing with Tanis. Still, he shows her quite a bit of genuine support. After the accident, he directly states that he wants to remain her teacher. At the end, when Kes just wants to bury the darkness she glimpsed in herself when she burned the plants, Tuvok calmly but earnestly tells her that she shouldn't "fear (her) negative thoughts. They are part of you... To pretend (the darkness) does not exist is to create an opportunity for it to escape."

Neelix: Seeing another man taking an interest in Kes, I braced myself for another round of Neelix being insufferably jealous. Thankfully, the writers seem to have learned their lesson. Neelix is wary of Tanis, and with good reason. But other than watching (discreetly, for Neelix) Tanis' interactions with her, he doesn't make a spectacle of himself. He even expresses pride in Kes and states that if she chooses to stay with Ocampa on Suspiria's array, he will stay with her. For all that, when Tuvok says that it is hardly surprising that Kes can read Neelix's thoughts, I half-expected him to add that everyone can tell what Neelix is thinking - It's not like there's much of a filter between brain and mouth.

Tanis: Gary Graham is genuinely creepy as Tanis, the Svengali-like Ocampan who takes an interest in Kes. There is something of the sexual predator in his dealings with her. He offers this much younger girl the lure of new experiences beyond her imagination, all under his practiced and experience guidance. He tries to separate her from her support system, first promising that he can do more to develop her gifts than they can, then casting her as a threat to them. He encourages her to embrace sensation and abandon morality. Healing or killing are equally irrelevant, Tanis tells her, urging her to just "bring the fire." He is very cold, however, and his manipulations don't take into account Kes' loyalty to her friends. Much like Tuvok, he just can't take emotion into account, which proves to be his undoing.


THOUGHTS

Another good episode, which makes three Voyager episodes in a row that I've enjoyed. After a dreadful start, the season appears to be on the upswing.

One detail that I liked a lot, and one which has potential for future episodes, is Tanis's revelation that Voyager is regarded as "a ship of death," that most of the Delta Quadrant believes that she has attacked other races and that she destroyed the Caretaker. It is possible that this reputation is exaggerated. This is what Suspiria believes, after all, so Tanis may simply be echoing her. Still, Janeway hasn't exactly cultivated a lot of positive interactions with other races. I think The 37's represents the only time Janeway has left a planet on entirely good terms with its inhabitants. It also is a revelation that has a lot of potential to be used in future episodes.

The contact with Suspiria initially appears to be the episode's main plot. This doesn't last long, though. The Kes/Tanis scenes quickly claim the episode's focus, turning what at first appeared to be a big arc episode into a character episode. This is to the good, as the scenes between Jennifer Lien and Gary Graham are the episode's strongest, I'd say some of the best character scenes we've seen in the series to date. "Character writer" is not usually something I'd list among Brannon Braga's strengths, but his script provides terrific character material for both Kes and Tuvok, and solid supporting roles for Janeway and Neelix, all while keeping everybody entirely in-character.

The direction by Cliff Bole makes these scenes as strong visually as they are in terms of writing and performance. There's a steadily growing sensuality in the two characters' interactions, which simmers in the "tea cup" scene before coming to full boil in the scene in the aeroponics bay. When Kes "brings the fire," her expressions as the flames envelop her and her body language as she collapses afterward are intense and even sexual, making more explicit Tanis' predatory vibe.

In contrast, the Suspiria plot seems to exist entirely to set up future episodes. It takes most of the episode for Voyager to make contact with Suspiria. This provides a reasonable, if rushed, horror climax, but Janeway's interactions with Suspiria are perfunctory. She releases Suspiria far too quickly, and the entity delivers only one line and then disappears thereafter. Janeway remains determined to find her again, which will hopefully result in a more memorable interaction down the road. But within the context of this episode, the contact with Suspiria is a "B" plot, competently-handled but mainly a distraction from the excellent character material surrounding it.

This being Voyager, it all ends with a reset, as we are told that Kes hasn't retained any of the powers she explored with Tanis. Why did she lose them all? No explanation given, save that the writers would then need to deal with them. But even with this and other minor annoyances, the episode remains strongly above-average for Voyager.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

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1-01, 1-02. Caretaker.

THE PLOT

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.


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