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