Re-Watching VOY

[Lord Garth]

I don't normally post in the VOY Forum, so I'll be moving into quasi-new territory. I've been a member of TrekBBS since 1999, and I joined just two days before my 20th birthday, which makes when I first joined easy to remember! So, my first two years on the board were Voyager's last two years on the air. I avoided the forum like the plague because you know how forums are with Star Trek series that are new, or at least new-ish. Especially back then. If you know, you know. It was a warzone.

Flash forward to two decades later. Picard was coming on the air, and I decided to re-watch every episode of TNG before it. Along with every key Seven of Nine episode of VOY. Then, after Picard ended, I decided to pick up where I left off with my re-watches. I decided to re-watch DS9 and VOY in their entirety. But I did it in a very weird order. I started with VOY S4-S7. If Legacy were to ever be greenlit, I thought it made sense to start with the seasons Seven of Nine was in. Then I went back to VOY S1-S3. Then, as I was getting to the end of my first complete re-watch of VOY, I mentioned that I was going to start a re-watch of DS9. Then, that fateful day when I announced this, @Farscape One asked me if I'd post my take on DS9. I thought about it and agreed. While I was doing it, I figured since I was re-watching and posting about DS9, I might as well throw in Babylon 5 too. I'd never seen it before, and -- after 30+ years -- I wanted to finally have my own take on the DS9 vs. B5 Debate. So, for the past seven months, I've had a thread going on in the DS9 Forum called the DS9 Re-Watch, but I've been alternating between DS9 and B5. What does this have to do with VOY? Well, I've now hit the point in DS9's run where VOY began. And I figured: You know what, I've been posting my takes on DS9 episodes, so I might as well post my takes on VOY as well, since I didn't do it last time.

Link to my Re-Watching DS9 Thread.

So technically this isn't a re-watch, it's a re-re-watch, but "Re-Re-Watching VOY" makes for a silly looking thread title. Only need one "Re-"

A little bit more about my history with Star Trek. I've been a fan for 35 years. I started with the TOS Movies, then TNG, then TOS itself, then DS9 and VOY, I skipped ENT, then I re-discovered Star Trek with Disco. And, obviously, as I said, I'm a fan of Picard. But don't hold all that against me! I'm here to talk about VOY!

I have a projector, so I'm able to watch things up against an entire wall in my living room. Or my bedroom. Wherever I put the projector. I'm watching these episodes on DVD. I prefer the quality of the DVDs over the streaming on Paramount+. I'll be alternating between DS9, B5, and VOY. Between the three shows, I'll be doing one or two episodes per week of each.

"Caretaker" (1st Half)

Where do I begin? Might as well begin at the beginning! I was super-excited for this particular Star Trek series. The idea of it being set on a starship stranded so far away from Earth it would take them 75 years to get home sparked the imagination.

The Badlands looked impressive back in 1995. This was state-of-the-art CGI for TV at the time. It still looks good today. Then when the credits appeared, I was blown away when I first saw them. The TOS, TNG, and DS9 intros were all very plain and very basic. VOY was the first time they went all out with the visuals for an intro. And the opening theme sounds majestic. Other than the intro music for the first season of PIC, VOY's intro music is my favorite.

I liked that the episode's focus actually started not on the Captain, but on Tom Paris. He seems stand-offish but he still comes off as a good person who made a terrible mistake. Two terrible mistakes actually. The shuttle accident, then joining the Maquis and getting caught. It's nice to see Harry Kim open-minded and willing to give him a chance. Unlike some other people. I thought it was funny that all the people who didn't like Paris died! Cavit, Stadi, and Dr. Asshole. Cavit did nothing for me, the Asshole Doctor did nothing for me either. Stadi seemed okay and it's too bad they killed her off. But moving along.

Kate Mulgrew is fantastic as Captain Janeway. She has a screen presence that's undeniable. I've seen the footage with Genevive Bujold and I'm so glad -- as I know everyone else is -- that they re-cast her after only two days instead of waiting. Just imagine if it had been like with Back to the Future where they shot most of the movie with Eric Stoltz before realizing he wasn't working out. That would've been horrible!

After Voyager reaches the Badlands and gets whisked away into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker, they end up on a farm. Being on a farm, listening to man playing banjo and a woman offering them corn-on-the-cob is not what I think of when I think of Star Trek, but I liked them doing something different. It felt so weird and weird was what they were going for. Then when they end up in that strange laboratory, all lined up, and needles are about to go into them, it all looks so eerie! Those visuals also blew me away in 1995. Not something I was used to seeing in Star Trek. Visually, between the intro and these sequences, I thought VOY looked visually more advanced, from a production standpoint, than TNG and DS9.

When everyone is returned to Voyager except for Kim, and they make contact with the Maquis ship, I loved it when Chakotay and Tuvok beamed over, Tuvok revealed he was really Janeway's Security Chief, and then Chakotay isn't necessarily angry with that, he's angry at the sight of Tom Paris! He understands and processes Tuvok was just doing his duty pretty fast. So, it's easy to be able to tell Chakotay is ex-Starfleet. But Paris, Chakotay views him as a lowlife and isn't afraid to show it. I like that Chakotay has some real fire here. He really does come across as someone who's pursuing a righteous goal of fighting for the Maquis.

One of the highlights of the series is Janeway and Tuvok's friendship. You can see it shine through clearly even in the first episode. Kate Mulgrew and Tim Russ have great on-screen chemistry.

A couple of things about the ship. I thought the bio-neural gel packs made the ship sound way more advanced. And I love how Engineering and the Transporter Room look similiar to their respective sets on the Enterprise in TMP. The Refit Enterprise is my favorite Starfleet ship. So, anything that reminds me of the Refit (and the Enterprise-A) is a good thing.

I like the detail that most races in the Delta Quadrant have inferior technology to Voyager's. Retrospectively, I think the races with equal or more advanced technology were probably assimilated by the Borg. So, I think Voyager is really just running into the leftovers who were deemed "unworthy of assimilation". One small nitpick I have is that water seems to be rarer in the Delta Quadrant. It's certainly made a big deal of here. Isn't water one of the basics for maintaining life? But I'll go along with it.

It's getting late, so I'll stop here, but I just wanted to get the ball rolling! I'll pick up with my thoughts about the second half tomorrow. VOY wasn't my favorite Star Trek series, but I always did see the potential in it.

 

[Lord Garth]

"Caretaker" (2nd Half)

I had some thoughts since yesterday about the water situation. I've heard about this elsewhere before, and according to the Izaak Walton League of America, we might run out of fresh water by 2040. Not a typo. There had to be concerns about this going back to at least the '90s, if not before, so maybe these worlds in the Delta Quadrant have also run out of fresh water and have difficulty converting salt water to fresh water, making fresh water a premium commodity. If Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor, and Rick Berman had this in mind at all, it was a nice low-key way to integrate a science-fiction element into the plot that doesn't look like science-fiction on the surface.

When Voyager first encounters Neelix, and he tells them about the Caretaker and the Ocampa, he seems much like someone who tries to rely on his charm to get him through dealing with others. Trying to be charming, I can subsequently see how that would make him good with kids, as we'll later see.

When Tuvok and Neelix first meet, you can tell right away that Tuvok can't stand him and is just barely able to repress it. Love the scene with Neelix using water so gluttonously once he's on Voyager. You can just see in Tuvok's eyes, he's thinking the Vulcan version of "What did I do to deserve this?"

On Ocampa, where Kim and Torres are, the contrast is immediately made clear between them as well. Kim wants to be cool and collected. Kim wants to be the model Starfleet Officer. Torres is the hot-headed half-Klingon who prefers her Human half. That makes her just like K'Eylar. I bet the writers felt really bad about killing K'Eylar off, so Torres is like their second chance with this type of character.

When I first discovered Star Trek, I thought I was like Spock. He was half-Vulcan, half-Human. I'm half-Iranian, half-American. But really, in fact, I'm like B'Elanna Torres. I can have extreme temper, some of you have probably even seen it, but I also prefer to think of myself as American instead of Iranian. Whenever I meet people who are Persian or Middle-Eastern and they start asking me all kinds of questions about me, there's the undercurrent of they think I'm not like them and they try to make me feel bad about it. I am what I am, and I'm not going to be what they insist I have to be. The joys of being part of two cultures. But, anyway...

I love how Kim and Torres' friendship defines itself immediately. Kim is the goody two-shoes to Torres' not-so-goody two-shoes. Just like Kim's friendship with Paris. In this sense, I can see how Torres and Paris end up together later on in the series. They're similar types of characters. They didn't make it in Starfleet initially, people doubt them, they have attitude problems if you get on their bad sides, they're a perfect match.

The Kazon are just a bunch of rough, brutish people, who only care about getting Voyager's technology. Some people have said they're VOY's version of the Klingons, but I don't agree. I don't think the Kazon have a code of honor, and I don't think they're warriors. I think they just like to prove how tough they are. And you can see how the Kazon have physically beaten on Kes, when the Mage of the Kazon-Ogla says he's used every method of persuasion he knows of to try to get Kes to talk, when they wanted to find more water.

No wonder Neelix wanted to rescue Kes from there. But I have to wonder: when would Neelix have had a chance to meet her? Was it when he was dealing with the Kazon-Ogla on Ocampa? Is that another reason why Neelix is trying to stay as far away from the Caretaker Array as possible? Maybe he doesn't just want to stay away from the Caretaker, maybe he wants to stay away from the Kazon! Then Voyager arrived and gave him the perfect opportunity to finally be able to save Kes.

I have to say something about Neelix's relationship with Kes. Kind of interesting that we have this middle-aged guy with this "barely legal" woman. I was never too crazy about that, but whatever. Kes is Neelix's moral compass. He wants to cut loose as soon as Kes is rescued, but she thinks it would be wrong not to help the Voyager crew to rescue Kim and Torres.

Down underground, on Ocampa, one of the Ocampan representatives tells Kim and Torres that the food isn't as exotic as what some of younger Ocampans want. I have to wonder if the Carekater bringing different crews over during the last several months is what's somehow been exposing them to different types of foods?

One of the Ocampa youths points Kim and Torres in the direction of how to get to the surface. The Voyager crew looking for them eventually find them. Paris and Chakotay have a chance to work out their differences during the mission, when Paris has to save him from a collapsing bridge. Janeway and Tuvok find the Caretaker who tells them they have save the Ocampa from the Kazon. The Kazon attack, Janeway has to destroy to Caretaker Array to keep it from falling into Kazon hands... and it's all a lot of plot mechanics, but we see the Voyager crew, the Maquis crew, and Kes & Neelix come together and unite as one crew, while stopping the Kazon and saving the Ocampa from them, but sacrificing their way home in the process.

Janeway gives a rousing speech at the end about their new mission to find a way back home, and it really makes you want to say, "Here's to the journey!"

Several years later, Ron Moore would point out that it was a mistake to put all the Maquis into Starfleet Uniforms but, looking at it now, I disagree. I think the only way they can function is as one crew, not two.

I haven't mentioned The Doctor yet. When I look at him here, he seems very much like what we'll see of Dr. Lewis Zimmerman later on. I didn't pick up on this until watching today. The Doctor doesn't really have his own personality yet. It's Dr. ZImmerman's personality, that he slowly begins to move away from over time.

The other thing I want to mention is that it seems like such a Big Moment when Janeway tells Paris to take the conn when earlier she wouldn't let him at all. And then he's made a Lieutenant. See what he can do when he's given a chance and not constantly judged?

My favorite characters at this point are Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres.

The sets were top-notch. From the Ocampan settlement underground, the caves outside of it, the surface of their home world, and with all the location shooting. They put a little extra in the music too.

Overall, I really liked this pilot episode. I give it a 9.

 

[Lord Garth]

Have to break the ice! What were your favorite parts about "Caretaker" and what did you think had the most potential?

 

[Farscape One]

"CARETAKER" is neck and neck with DS9 as the best pilot in the franchise. (And if the Temporal Cold War was not part of "BROKEN BOW", I'd pretty much call it a three way tie.)

This also had an advantage that most other pilots didn't have... the Maquis. Their story and background were established at the back end of two shows (DS9 and TNG), which gave this pilot more time to focus on the main story. Having more time to focus on the Delta Quadrant helped make it a tighter pilot.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I'd actually argue the opposite. By relying on the other shows to tell the backstory, Caretaker does a really bad job of introducing who the Maquis are and what they're fighting for. This wouldn't have been a bad thing necessarily if it was supposed to be a mystery that would be revealed over time, like how the 2005 Doctor Who reboot slowly reintroduced the lore to a new audience, but it wasn't. Chakotay's just some guy who was fighting for 'a cause' and then stands behind Janeway for the rest of the episode doing nothing.

 

[Lord Garth]

Only because of what happens next in "Parallax", I'm giving Chakotay the benefit of the doubt for now. With the immediate situation in front of them with the Caretaker, everything else was secondary in the thick of what was going on.

The only part where I think they were putting Chakotay on Janeway's side too much and too fast was when Torres was asking about Janeway, "Who is she to be making these decisions for us?" and Chakotay says, "She's the Captain." He hasn't agreed to be part of Voyager's crew yet. He should've said something about how they have to save the Ocampans from the Kazon just like the Maquis have to save those in the DMZ from the Cardassians. Maybe less wordy than the way I just put it, but Chakotay should've explained it to Torres in a way she'd understand besides just, "[Janeway]'s the Captain!" Which comes across as, "Because she said so!" Given what Torres is like, that would've made her think even worse of what Janeway was doing.

 

[Lord Garth]

I feel like putting on another one! Want to keep the momentum going! And I want to line up VOY S1 and DS9 S3 so I have 13 episodes left in each. Then I won't have to think about it anymore, once they're in sync.

"Parallax"

What I love about this episode is that it follows up on things that "Caretaker" didn't have time for. The integration of the Maquis into Voyager's crew went nowhere near as smooth as the end of "Caretaker" would've had you think. The Maquis feel like they're being treated like second-class citizens on Voyager, telling Chakotay they'd back him if he ever wanted to take over the ship. Chakotay shuts down that type of talk as quickly and as firmly as he can. The way the Maquis are talking, I can see this is being around the exact time Tuvok would start his Insurrection: Alpha Training Program and I see why he'd want to go to such a measure.

Torres breaks Carey's nose and does neither herself nor Chakotay any favors. Janeway can't believe it when he recommends Torres to be Chief Engineer. Then they have an argument because Chakotay thinks the Maquis should be given more responsibility, Janeway only wants to advance people who she believes are qualified, and Chakotay says he won't be her Token Maquis.

This is how I interpret Chakotay: At his core, even though he sided with the Maquis, he's still a Starfleet Officer at heart. That makes him able to speak both languages, as it were. He understands there's a chain of command, but he'll still fight for what he thinks is right. I think that sums him up. He's willing to follow Janeway, but he'll also tell her when he thinks she's wrong. Most of the time in the series, he'll agree with Janeway because most of the time she'll be right, so the times he'd disagree would be the exception. Like we'll see in episodes like "Scorpion" or especially "Equinox", but those are for later.

Janeway's in favor of Carey being Chief Engineer but actually makes the effort to get to know Torres before making a final decision. And the character aspect of the episode has my interest, but the technobabble part loses me. I don't understand technobabble and I'm not going to pretend to. It's not my strong suit. But what I do understand is that Torres is a lot better than Carey at solving the problem of Voyager encountering a mirror image of itself and what to do.

One thing that's a nice change of pace to see is a Captain with a science background. She's able to keep up with everything Torres throws at her and can come up with science-y solutions herself. The science background makes her really different from Kirk, Picard, and Sisko in that respect.

When they're able to solve the Problem of the Week, I think it shows why Torres should be the Chief Engineer and not Carey. Carey graciously accepts that Torres was made Chief Engineer over him.

Hot Take: I think Carey takes Torres being promoted over him a lot better than Tuvok takes Chakotay being promoted to First Officer over him. Tuvok will hide it, but you can tell he doesn't like that Chakotay can overrule him. You can see that toward the beginning of the episode when Tuvok wanted to put Torres in the brig and Chakotay pulled rank.

The Doctor. Not only do they not help him when he starts shrinking, and not only is it played for laughs, but they're also calling him "it" instead of "him". They're still not seeing him as a person yet.

I'm here for the characterization. The technobabble plot I don't entirely get but it didn't bother me either. I like seeing two Voyagers where one is just an image. And I like seeing how Janeway and Torres figure things out. Starfleet/Maquis tensions are also always a plus. And the first appearance of Seska! I give this episode an 8.

EDITED TO ADD: Very minor detail. Chakotay and Paris have now pointed their sideburns. So I guess it's a Starfleet style rather than a general 23rd/24th Century style. I tried pointing my sideburns once, but I messed it up so bad I decided, "Never again!"

 

[Farscape One]

I like that Janeway has a strong science background, too. And given how VOY was essentially 'anomaly of the week' quite often, it makes sense.

This goes to what I have said about how the captain of a series is basically a living representative of what the series is really about or going for.


Picard: very much the diplomat, high ethical standards, and talking through most scenarios. TNG probably spent more than half of their episode times in the Observation Lounge or Ready Room talking about how to solve the current moral dilemma.

Sisko: a builder. Not just of ships due to his strong engineering background, but as a father and his role in helping Bajor recover from the Occupation. DS9 was very much about building relationships and lives.

Janeway: a scientist. Science and technobabble were definitely turned up to 11 for VOY.



I do like this quality for the shows because it does help define what each one will be... even if the technobabble can be too much at times.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

The Doctor. Not only do they not help him when he starts shrinking, and not only is it played for laughs, but they're also calling him "it" instead of "him". They're still not seeing him as a person yet.

Honestly, I was on Janeway's side on that. Kes starts the Doctor on the road to becoming a person, but right now he's a robot with ChatGPT interaction skills... because the alternative is that Starfleet mass produces people without rights and enslaves them to their ships and that's too horrifying to contemplate.

 

[Lord Garth]

This might be a hot take, but I think Tim Russ' portrayal of a full Vulcan might be my favorite. Not a slight to Leonard Nimoy because he played a half-Vulcan. There's a war going on in Spock's mind that isn't going on in Tuvok's, and yet you can still tell exactly what he's thinking underneath his Vulcan exterior.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I always got the impression that all the Vulcans are struggling against emotion in their own way, and Spock's torment comes from the social consequences of being half-human rather than anything physical. The main difference between the two is that Tuvok's comfortable in his skin and has nothing to prove.

And yeah, Tim Russ nailed it. I'm sure a lot of the Trek actors spoke up when they felt like their characters weren't acting right, but I haven't heard of anyone who did as much to keep his character on track as Russ. He really got what a Vulcan was.

 

[Oddish]

When they're able to solve the Problem of the Week, I think it shows why Torres should be the Chief Engineer and not Carey. Carey graciously accepts that Torres was made Chief Engineer over him.

The chief problem is that the Torres who clobbered Carey should not have been made Chief Engineer, but that Torres just vanishes mid-show. Effectively, this obliterates half her potential character development in only one episode.

 

[maneth]

I liked Caretaker, but IMO they should've spent the whole first season integrating the Maquis fully into the crew. The first season could've ended with a devastating disaster that really forced them to stick together against all comers. Sure, there were some differences of opinion, but I think that the integration was so smooth it lacked credibility. I'm not saying that there should've been constant fights between the factions, but a bit more friction would've been nice.

 

[Lord Garth]

I never thought about this until now, but the only other Maquis Senior Officer on Voyager besides Chakotay is Torres. It's like he got his one win and decided, "That's good enough for me."

Strange as this might sound, I think the Maquis might've been better off without Chakotay. At least as far as their cause, if not their lives. If you take out Cardassia joining the Dominion and wiping the Maquis out, which they couldn't have known would happen, if the Maquis were ever able to somehow negotiate with the Federation, Chakotay would've probably taken their first offer after some haggling. I think they would've surrendered long before DS9-S5/VOY-S3.

But that's getting ahead of myself.

 

[Enterpriserules]

I’m excited to be rewatching Voyager for the 30th Anniversary on TFM! Join our journey!

I have to say, so far, the first couple episodes have been a surprise how much I liked them. I’ve not seen the whole show on a rewatch since 2005.

 

[Lord Garth]

Sorry for the delay. This past week, I re-watched every episode of Babylon 5 Season 1 in a binge before I did the Season Review for it. I felt like I had to watch every episode at least twice, since I'm not as familiar with B5 as I am with DS9 and VOY. Back to Voyager!

"Time and Again"

It killed some time. To begin with, Paris is taking to life on Voyager a lot better than Kim. To quote Ro, "It's better than prison." Although, unlike Ro with the Enterprise in "Ensign Ro", Paris actually wants to be on Voyager. He sees it as a fresh start, and he's already looking for who he can romantically pair up with. He falls for one of the Delaney Sisters and they come as a pair, so he wants him and Kim to go on a double-date with them. But Kim won't do it. He wants to stay faithful to his fiancé. Paris says, "She's not going to wait for you!" Kim hopes she will and he hopes they'll get back soon. A great way to look at Paris and Kim's two totally polar-opposite points-of-view here.

Then there's the rest of the episode. This is the point where my godbrother called Voyager "The Temporal Anomaly Show" and stopped watching. The only Star Trek series he likes are TOS and TNG. Period. As far as what I think of the episode, like I said, it killed some time. Then it ends with a reset.

Janeway and Paris end up a day back in time on a pre-warp planet with 21st Century level technology where an accident will destroy the planet shortly and they have to stop it since they caused it. Insert technobabble here. They figure out what happened, Paris makes friends with a 10-year-old boy who's a news reporter at his school, the mystery gets solved, and everything resets itself. The End.

I get a kick out of the Doctor being the last person to be told anything. He didn't know about Kes and Neelix joining the crew. He didn't know they were in the Delta Quadrant. But he does say he's on the "Voyage of the Damned" when he finds out what's going on. I love his line about drinking plenty of fluids and calling him in the morning, since he doesn't know anything about Ocampans and gives the most generic advice possible that anyone could've said!

Kes' psychic abilities and being able to sense if something's wrong with space/time makes her kind of like the Guinan of this episode, but "Yesterday's Enterprise" it isn't.

Overall, it wasn't bad, and there are worse ways to spend your time if it's a slow day, but if I spent more time talking about a Sickbay scene and a Bridge scene, neither of which have to do with main plot, that tells you something right there. I give it a 6.

 

[Farscape One]

Yeah, "TIME AND AGAIN" was a mediocre episode, and it did cement the series as dealing with time way too often. (The first two episodes of the series after the pilot deal with a time delayed reflection and time travel with a full reset, here.)

I give it a 5.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

There should have been a DTI episode. "Trials and Tribble-ations" was made a couple years after Voyager began.

 

[Farscape One]

There should have been a DTI episode. "Trials and Tribble-ations" was made a couple years after Voyager began.

In a sense, they did. "RELATIVITY" fits the bill.

 

[Oddish]

I actually sort of liked "Time and Again", it's good for a 7 from me. I liked the unique fashions, the slightly different horology, and that this society still used projectile weapons. The doc was funny, we started to see Tom's bad boy with a heart of gold nature, and Janeway's toughness.