Caretaker (Star Trek: Voyager)

"Caretaker" is the pilot episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager. This series premiere was first broadcast as one double-length episode on January 16, 1995, as the first telecast of the fledgling UPN network. It was later split into two parts for syndication, but released in the original one-episode format. Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet and Maquis crew of the starship USS Voyager after they were stranded in the Delta Quadrant far from the rest of the Federation.

"Caretaker"
Star Trek: Voyager episode
Episode no.Season 1
Episode 1 & 2 (or 1 pilot)
Directed byWinrich Kolbe
Story byRick Berman
Michael Piller
Jeri Taylor
Teleplay byMichael Piller
Jeri Taylor
Featured musicJay Chattaway
Production code101 & 102
Original air dateJanuary 16, 1995 (1995-01-16)
Guest appearance(s)

The premiere was seen by 21.3 million people in 1995.[1] The debut of "Caretaker" marked the launch of United Paramount Network and also a follow on from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.[2]

Original broadcast and UPN

"Caretaker" aired on the United Paramount Network on January 16, 1995.[3] It aired as a single 90-minute show, although later it was also played as two separate roughly-45-minute episodes.[4] "Caretaker" marked the debut of a then-new Star Trek series launching along with Paramount's new television network, United Paramount Network, or UPN, coming on the heels of previous Star Trek series.[2] The premiere aired between 8-10 p.m. on that Monday; however, the network's content was also aired on affiliate channels that may or may not have delayed the first showing in their television region.[5] In other words, "Caretaker" was also aired on UPN affiliate channels, such as KCOP-TV in Los Angeles and WPWR-TV in Chicago.[5] The way channels worked, an episode played on one channel in a certain order decided by the broadcaster, and viewers would then change "channels" to watch that broadcast in real time.[5] In the case of the ‘’Voyager’’ premiere, in some markets the episode aired in competition with other Star Trek shows, like ’’DS9’’ and ‘’TNG’’ re-runs.

"Caretaker" was the debut episode of the new series Star Trek: Voyager which, while less popular than its predecessors, drew in a consistent set of watchers over seven years of episodes.[6]

Plot

A scrolling text introduces the Cardassian and Federation relationship with the Maquis rebels. The opening scene shows the Cardassians pursuing a smaller Maquis spacecraft ship that escapes into the Badlands, a volatile nebula. The Cardassian vessel is damaged by a plasma storm and the Maquis ship is caught in a displacement wave.

On Earth, Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship USS Voyager recruits Tom Paris, disgraced former Star Fleet officer and now a captured Maquis member, to help find the missing Maquis spacecraft. Janeway is searching for Tuvok, her security officer who was a spy aboard the Maquis ship. Departing Deep Space Nine, Voyager journeys to the Badlands, where it is scanned by a "coherent tetryon beam" before a displacement wave hits and wreaks havoc on the ship.

The crew recovers and find themselves in the Delta Quadrant, over 70,000 light years from Federation space. Fatalities include Voyager's second-in-command, helm officer, chief engineer, and medical staff. The Emergency Medical Hologram is activated to treat the injured. Before determining their bearings, the crew is transported to a holographic simulation aboard a nearby array controlled by a being known as the Caretaker. Seeing through the simulation, the Voyager crew discover the unconscious Maquis crew undergoing strange medical experiments. The Voyager crew are subjected to the same experiments. Later, both crews awaken on their own vessels and find each are missing one crew member: Harry Kim from Voyager, and the Maquis' B'Elanna Torres. Attempts to negotiate with the Caretaker are fruitless as he insists there is "no time". Janeway offers to work with Maquis leader Chakotay, a former Star Fleet officer, to find missing crew and return to the Alpha Quadrant.

The two ships follow energy pulses sent from the array to a nearby planet. En route, they encounter Neelix, a space trader eager to assist them in exchange for water and rescuing his companion, the Ocampa Kes, from the violent Kazon that inhabit the planet's surface. Kes' people live in a subterranean complex, cared for by the Caretaker who supplies them with energy and other essentials. The only expectation is that they tend to any beings sent to them, each suffering an incurable disease. As the crews determine how to rescue Kim and Torres, the Caretaker realigns the array and fires more frequent energy bursts. Vulcan security chief Tuvok deduces that the Caretaker is dying and is ensuring the Ocampa are kept safe by sealing the underground complex, though eventually their resources will be depleted. With time running short, a combined away team penetrates the shields protecting the complex and rescues Kim and Torres.

The crews again ask the Caretaker to return them to the Alpha Quadrant. He reveals that he was part of an ancient alien race whose technology accidentally destroyed the Ocampan planet's atmosphere, leaving it lifeless. In recompense, he and another of his race have cared for the Ocampa ever since. His companion having long moved on, he experiments on species from distant galactic sectors hoping to find a compatible match so that he could reproduce and pass the responsibility to his offspring. Nearing death, the Caretaker initiates the array's self-destruct sequence to prevent the technology from falling to the Kazon. As the Caretaker dies, the ships are attacked by a Kazon fleet. Janeway and Chakotay coordinate a counterattack to protect the array; Chakotay sacrifices his vessel to destroy a Kazon ship, but the damaged array disables the self-destruct sequence. Janeway opts to respect the Caretaker's wishes and orders the array destroyed, despite it being their only chance at returning home. With the array destroyed, the Kazon disengage. Their leader informs Janeway she has made an enemy.

As Voyager begins a 75-year journey back to the Alpha Quadrant, Janeway integrates the Maquis into the Starfleet crew, with Chakotay as her second-in-command. Janeway re-instates Paris as a Starfleet officer holding the rank of Lieutenant and assigns him as helmsman. Neelix and Kes join the crew as guides.

Casting

Due to the nature of the plot, the rest of series has a different set of crew starting with the next (third) episode:

Main bridge characters in "Caretaker" of Voyager[7]

  1. Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), who commands the starship USS Voyager
  2. Lt. Commander Cavit (Scott Jaeck),[8] her first officer when they set out from Deep Space Nine
  3. Lieutenant Stadi (Alicia Coppola),[9] the Betazoid Helm Officer
  4. Ensign Harry Kim (Garrett Wang), the Operations Officer
  5. Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill), Observer/Maquis consultant
  6. Lt. Tuvok (Tim Russ), he is the Security/Tactical officer of Voyager but is working as a spy on Maquis ship Val Jean

Production

Filming began on September 6, 1994, with the scenes set on Deep Space Nine.[10] Scenes with Geneviève Bujold, the first actress chosen to play Captain Nicole Janeway, were filmed with her over September 7 and 8.[10] Bujold and the director Winrich Kolbe reportedly disagreed over Bujold's performance: Bujold insisted on playing the role in a more restrained way than Kolbe wanted.[10] She quit on her second day of filming and production was suspended until September 12, when filming of scenes without Janeway recommenced.[10] Actresses reported as possible replacements for Bujold included Joanna Cassidy, Susan Gibney, Elizabeth Dennehy, Tracy Scoggins, and Lindsay Crouse.[11] Kate Mulgrew was cast as Captain Kathryn Janeway, from among four actresses recalled from the original round of auditions, and shooting of her scenes began on September 19.[10] Several of Bujold's scenes can be seen on the Season One DVD extras.[12]

"Caretaker" took 31 days to shoot, and was filmed at multiple locations.[13] The production of the pilot episode remains one of the most expensive in television history, reportedly costing an unprecedented $23 million.[11][14]

The pilot has similarities to Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, which also features a hologram, a starship transported by an anomaly into a new alien landscape and the deaths of bridge officers and their replacement with a misfit crew.[10] The scenes of medical experiments on the array appear to pay homage to Bujold's 1978 film Coma,[10] and the opening sequence of the episode—a text crawl followed by a small spaceship being chased by a larger one—mirrors the opening of Star Wars.[4]

The art department for Voyager was based out of the Dreier building at Paramount studios.[15]

Sets

Many of the main sets for the series were located at Stage 8 and Stage 9 at Paramount Studios.[16]

An example of the complexity of some of the sets is the bridge of Voyager spacecraft.[17] The bridge had 11 different monitors of three different sizes, that had custom graphics displayed depending on what was being shot for each scene.[17] For example, for a scene with the "red alert" setting, the appropriate video graphics would have to be displayed on cue.[17] These graphics were created a by a team of people, with a need for both static and video graphics.[17] The videos were recorded to videocassette to be played at the right time, such as when an actor is looking at a monitor.[17] For "Caretaker" due to changes, and re-shoots there was some very difficult deadlines on having graphics ready for shots, and often involved discussions between staff.[18]

Reception

In 2012, Den of Geek ranked "Caretaker" the seventh best episode of the series retrospectively.[19]

The Hollywood Reporter ranked "Caretaker" among the 100 best episodes in the Star Trek franchise, and noted its similarity to the Next Generation universe, where the Enterprise was often transported to a distant location from which the crew were expected to escape.[13] Two examples of this are "Where No One Has Gone Before" and "The Price", in the latter of which a spacecraft is stranded in the Delta Quadrant, just like Voyager. Voyager encounters the characters from "The Price" in the third-season episode "False Profits".

Variety found "Caretaker" to be a worthy launch of a Star Trek series, calling it "impressive" and praising the design of the Intrepid-class Voyager spaceship.[20]

On the other hand, "Caretaker" marked a reduction in viewers from the last episode of The Next Generation, which had over 30 million viewers when it concluded the previous year in early 1994.[21] Voyager was not able to maintain the viewership achieved with "Caretaker" (21.3 million), but did achieve average ratings and seven seasons of production.[1] As with Deep Space Nine, it had consistently lower ratings than The Next Generation but managed to be successful in expanding the Star Trek franchise and fill the popular appetite for Star Trek shows that had grown to a frenzy in the 1990s.[21] Although "Caretaker" successfully established the characters and their predicament, reviewers complain that the integration of the two disparate crews so quickly is unconvincing,[10][22] and too many plot points are left unexplained, such as how Neelix and Kes met[22] and how Kim and Torres were cured.[10]

The cross-over to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has been noted, such as the scene where actor Armin Shimerman playing the character Quark talks to Harry and Paris.[23]

In 2015, a Star Trek: Voyager binge-watching guide by W.I.R.E.D. suggested this episode could not be skipped.[24]

In 2017, Den of Geek rated "Caretaker" among top fifty episodes of all Star Trek, noting that it launched a new television series and was a "landmark".[25] The very diverse set of characters and for the first time, a woman captain as a main character.[25][26] This paid homage to Roddenberry's egalitarian vision of the future, when he included the female Number One character as second-in command of the Enterprise in the original 1965 pilot of Star Trek ("The Cage").[27] The actress that played that character, Majel Barret also has the role of a voice-actor for the starship Voyager's computer in "Caretaker".[28] In 2017, GameSpot ranked this as the 3rd best pilot episode of a Star Trek series.[29]

Alicia Coppola, the actress who played Lieutenant Stadi in the pilot, remarked that the role was "a great part".[9]

In 2016, SyFy ranked "Caretaker" as the fourth best out of 6 main Star Trek TV show pilots made up to that time.[30] They felt that the "..first act does a fine job of building both characters and tension" and was overall very ambitious.[30] Despite these strengths they did note a number of issues ranging from questions about the plot, science fiction technology, and characters.[30]

In July 2019, Screen Rant ranked "Caretaker" as one of the top five episodes of the series.[31]

In 2020, Tor.com rated "Caretaker" five out of ten, noting that while it was good introduction to the series they felt they had "fudged details".[32]

In 2020, SyFy ranked this the 15th best episode of Star Trek: Voyager.[33]

Releases

Caretaker was released multiple times on VHS in various markets after its showing in 1995.[34][35] The first VHS release in the United Kingdom was in June 1995 by the company CIC.[34] By the 2010s, it was noted as a struggle to record VHS history, with some universities trying to save libraries of the cassettes.[36] "Caretaker" was released as various sets, for example in the VHS set The Four Beginnings, which included pilots from TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager.

Caretaker was released on VHS tapes on April 4, 2000,[35] and on DVD in 2004 and 2017 as part of the Season 1 Voyager DVD set when the whole Voyager series was released.[37]

The soundtrack, with works by Jay Chattaway and Jerry Goldsmith was released on compact disc on October 17, 1995.[38] The release also includes a text pamphlet with various facts about the composers in regards to the "Caretaker" soundtrack.[38]

Novel

A novelization of "Caretaker" was released as a 278-page novel, and also as an audiobook in 1995 by Simon & Schuster.[39] The novelized version of the story was written by L.A. Graf.[40]

  • In the first season of "Voyager" it is estimated the return journey will take 75 years. In the last episode "EndGame" the teaser shows that "Voyager" returned home after 23 years; with changes Chokotay is dead after his wife Seven of Nine was killed on a away mission and Tuvok is falling victim to a disease that is breaking his mind; on the 10th anniversary of Voyager return Admiral Janeway goes back in time to the seventh year of Voyager exhile and sacrifices herself so the Borg Transwrap gateway and the Borg Queen are destroyed while Voyager gets home to Earth.
gollark: Strictly speaking, yes...
gollark: I cannot.
gollark: ++tel status
gollark: Hmm.
gollark: ++tel hangup

References
  1. Nowalk, Brandon (May 28, 2013). "Star Trek: Voyager accidentally presided over the franchise's decline". AV Club. Onion Inc.
  2. Sims, David (November 2, 2015). "'Star Trek' Is Coming Back to TV at the Best Possible Time". The Atlantic. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  3. Carlson, Ashley Lynn (April 4, 2018). Women in STEM on Television: Critical Essays. McFarland. ISBN 9781476632803.
  4. Harrisson, Juliette (July 24, 2012). "Star Trek Voyager: Caretaker". Doux Reviews.
  5. "FRONTED: UPN Bows Big Behind 'Voyager' HOLLYWOOD (Variety 1/17/95)". www.vidiot.com. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  6. Seibold, Witney. "UPN's Lying Promos to 'Star Trek: Voyager'". Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  7. "TV Guide - October 8-14, 1994 STAR TREK SPECIAL Voyager - A 'Star Trek' is Born". www.vidiot.com. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  8. Okuda, Michael; Okuda, Denise; Mirek, Debbie (May 17, 2011). The Star Trek Encyclopedia. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781451646887.
  9. "Alicia Coppola - SouthJersey.com". www.southjersey.com. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  10. Jones, Mark; Parkin, Lance (2003). Beyond the Final Frontier: An Unauthorised Review of the Trek Universe on Television and Film. London: Contender Books. pp. 273–274. ISBN 978-1-84357-080-6.
  11. Kim, Albert (September 23, 1994). "Genevieve Bujold Abandons 'Star Trek: Voyager'". Entertainment Weekly. Time Inc.
  12. Star Trek: Voyager Season 1 DVD Collection, Disc 5
  13. Couch, Aaron; McMillan, Graeme (September 8, 2016). "'Star Trek': 100 Greatest Episodes". The Hollywood Reporter.
  14. Franklin, Garth (October 4, 2016). "A Closer Look At The 'Westworld' Budget". Dark Horizons. Dark Futures Pty.
  15. Poe, Stephen Edward (1998). A Vision of the Future. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780671534813. (on Page 60)
  16. Poe, Stephen Edward (April 1998). A Vision of the Future. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780671534813. (Section The Stages Page 73-)
  17. Poe, Stephen Edward (1998). A Vision of the Future. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780671534813. (Section The Lot on page 35)
  18. Poe, Stephen Edward (April 1998). A Vision of the Future. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780671534813.
  19. "Top 10 Star Trek: Voyager episodes". Den of Geek. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
  20. Lowe, Kinsey (January 15, 1995). "Review: 'Star Trek: Voyager the Caretaker'". Variety.
  21. Schmuckler, Eric (July 24, 1994). "TELEVISION: Profits, Reruns and the End of 'Next Generation'". The New York Times.
  22. Hoffman, Jordan (January 16, 2013). "One Trek Mind #58: Revisiting 'Caretaker'". StarTrek.com. CBS Studios.
  23. Elroy, Mighty (April 1, 2017). "Addicted to Star Trek: Episode Review – Caretaker (Voyager, Season 1, Pilot)". Retrieved July 7, 2017.
  24. McMillan, Graeme (May 27, 2015). "WIRED Binge-Watching Guide: Star Trek: Voyager". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved July 23, 2019.
  25. "Star Trek: 50 Best Episodes". Den of Geek. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  26. "WHERE NO WOMAN HAS GONE BEFORE TV Guide - October 8-14, 1994". www.vidiot.com. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  27. McLellan, By Dennis. "Majel B. Roddenberry, wife of 'Star Trek' creator, dies". latimes.com. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  28. Pot, Justin (September 6, 2016). "Star Trek's iconic computer voice is back for new show, and your phone". The Next Web. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  29. Complex, Valerie (October 20, 2017). "Every Star Trek Pilot Episode, Ranked From Worst To Best". GameSpot. Retrieved June 8, 2019.
  30. Roth, Dany (January 15, 2016). "First Contact: Every Star Trek pilot, ranked". SYFY WIRE. Retrieved June 30, 2019.
  31. "Star Trek: The 5 Best Episodes Of Voyager (& The 5 Worst)". ScreenRant. July 11, 2019. Retrieved July 15, 2019.
  32. DeCandido, Keith R. A. (January 23, 2020). "Star Trek: Voyager Rewatch: "Caretaker"". Tor.com. Retrieved January 27, 2020.
  33. Pirrello, Phil (January 16, 2020). "The 15 greatest Star Trek: Voyager episodes, ranked". SYFY WIRE. Retrieved February 15, 2020.
  34. "Star Trek: Voyager 1.1 – Caretaker (1995)on CIC Video (United Kingdom VHS videotape)". www.videocollector.co.uk. Retrieved July 7, 2017.
  35. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on July 19, 2015. Retrieved March 29, 2017.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  36. "Is VHS making a comeback?". Retrieved July 7, 2017.
  37. "Star Trek: Voyager DVD news: Re-Release for The Complete Series - TVShowsOnDVD.com". www.tvshowsondvd.com. Archived from the original on May 14, 2017. Retrieved July 7, 2017.
  38. "Star Trek Voyager: The Caretaker [Original TV Soundtrack] – Jay Chattaway, Jerry Goldsmith – Songs, Reviews, Credits – AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved July 7, 2017.
  39. Graf, L. A. (February 1995). Caretaker. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780671521424.
  40. DeCandido, Keith R. A. (January 23, 2020). "Star Trek: Voyager Rewatch: "Caretaker"". Tor.com. Retrieved January 27, 2020.
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