1x01 Caretaker (1)

[6.7/10] Change the uniforms and throw on some film grain, and you might mistake the first hour of Star Trek: Voyager for an episode of The Original Series. It hits so many of the beats Gene Roddenberry and Gene Coon deployed all the time in the show that started it all: the strange god-like being with mysterious purposes, the former Starfleet officer gone rogue, the strange planet of the week that looks like a set they booked because it happened to be open on the Paramount backlot. As the third spin-off in this era of Trek, “Caretaker pt. 1” doesn’t feel terribly original, offering a 1990s take on a set of 1960s tropes.

But what lifts it above the lower lights of TOS is something simple but vital -- Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway.

Both William Shatner and Captain Kirk have their admirers and defenders, but in my book, many of the best episodes of that show worked despite him, with a bevvy of talented performers and creative writers working around their lead’s limitations. The first half of “Caretaker” is the opposite. Voyager struggles out of the gate, with shaky performances, stock standard Starfleet problems, and a sense of “Been there, done that” after almost a decade of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. Yet, the rock that holds the first outing together, the element of the series that feels fully-formed from the jump, is this capable captain and the actor who brings her to life.

It’s a cliche adjective to use, but Captain Janeway is instantly credible and commanding as a leader. She has the poise and presence of a seasoned officer, speaking firmly but not curtly to the likes of Tom Paris and Harry Kim, with just enough wry wit to show she’s a human being and not a jerky Jellico type. Her short conversation with her beau helps humanize her, showing how she has connections outside of her work, and a gentler but no less persuasive way with people who aren’t under her command. Even her interactions with the denizens of the holographic “waiting area” show somebody who stays cool amid the tense and unknown, and her methods of convincing Chakotay to cooperate and show her crew some respect keep her on top of the situation despite its difficulties.

The writing for the character is only matched by the acting. It’s easy to say having not only seen Mulgrew perform the character over seven seasons, but also reprise the role in later Star Trek projects, but it’s hard, if not impossible, to imagine anyone else in the role. The fact that another actor was cast but ultimately left seems like a happy accident, because whatever the original performer’s talents, Mulgrew not only injected so much into the character over the years, but is the only actor in this first hour who’s able to convincingly deliver all the shades of the character that are there on the page.

Were that the same could be said for Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris. I want to go on record here as liking both the character and the performer from their work on Voyager, but both are off, and kind of a chore in the early going before the show figures them out. (See also: Dr. Bashir on DS9.) Star Trek has never been good at pulling off the sly rogue archetype (see also: “The Outrageous Okona”, or don’t), and McNeill is not up to the task of breaking that streak.

Some of that is the awkwardness of the fact that, with McNeill in tow, Tom Paris is a conspicuous reskin of Nicholas Locarno from TNG’s “The First Duty”, with the show regurgitating a suspiciously similar backstory. But even if you can get past the “Wait, this is a different guy?” of it all, Paris comes off as a generic and not terribly likable perspective character for this first hour. The libertine, caddish son of an admiral who’s ostracized for his mistakes and was a mercenary for the rebels feels like a focus-grouped backstory of every tired rendition of this archetype you’ve ever seen. McNeill struggles to inject charm rather than prickliness to the “Starfleet Observer” roped into Janeway’s rescue mission. And given his jerky attitude, the other officers seem right to give him the cold shoulder, even if this is a chicken-and-the-egg situation. The biggest mistake “Caretaker” makes in its first half is channeling most of the story through Paris.

But the second biggest is the fact that this never feels like a terribly big deal. This is the premise of the show! You are introducing the characters who will hopefully fuel the series for the length of its run. Obviously, some throat-clearing and introduction is necessary, but the tone and approach to this episode makes it come off like a random weekly episode of TNG, not the dramatic impetus for a new series. Momentous things happen! Spies reveal hidden allegiances! People die! And somehow, whether because of the professionalism of those involved or the fact that the beats at play were overfamiliar after decades of other Trek, the beginning of “Caretaker” seems like just another day at the office.

That said, Voyager’s opening hour does take a few big swings that mark it as unique. For one, it’s cool that the proceedings start not with Janeway getting the band together, or some other Starfleet threat, but rather with a ragtag Maquis crew escaping from their Cardassian pursuers. That choice capitalizes on one of the more interesting elements from the end of The Next Generation and shows a willingness to focus on those upset with, not a part of, the Federation.

For another, the series premiere pulls the rug out from under the audience in terms of who lives and who dies. Candidly, I don’t remember if the press material made clear who would be a part of the cast and who wouldn’t. But even knowing what happens, it’s interesting seeing the brusque Chief Medical Officer, the plain but present First Officer, and the Betazoid helmswoman who fends off Paris’ advances get a touch of shading in the early going and then perish before the hour is up. It breaks from the semi-standardized introductory rhythms, and promises that, theoretically at least, this is not business as usual.

Still, much of this hour fails to capitalize on that thrill. As mentioned, Janeway’s mission to rescue her Chief of Security from a missing Maquis ship, while her vessel gets blown halfway across the galaxy by a mysterious, body-stealing alien, should seem momentous. Instead, the human-ish setting with a dark mystery, strange energy wave, and need to work with the enemy to deal with a demigod and rescue people missing on both sides plays like the sort of problem Kirk or Picard would resolve on a weekly basis, without the heightened tone or sense of genuine stakes that justifies this as the kick-off to a series that would become storied (if still somewhat maligned) in its own right.

It doesn’t help that the characters beyond Janeway and Paris are big nothings in the early going. Ensign Kim gets the most screen time, and even anchors the DS9 crossover with Quark that briefly unites the two shows that would run side-by-side for five years. But Garrett Wang is stilted and the “naive young ensign” role is another stock type. Chakotay, B’Elanna, Tuvok, and the Emergency Medical Hologram are all present and accounted for, but outside of some principled anger from Chakotay and a bit of unexpected sass from Tuvok, they barely get any shading in the opening hour. Beyond the imaginative thought experiments that spur episodes, Star Trek lives and dies by its characters, and with an uninvolving crisis of the week weighing the proceedings down, the other main players aren’t sketched enough to make the audience want to tune in and see the sparks fly.

Thank the stars, then, for Janeway. The first half of the episode closes with a moment of vulnerability, of regret. One of the few moments that provokes an emotional response in the first half of “Caretaker” is the light horror that comes from the titular being kidnapping his victims, splaying them out on flat planks, and injecting them with giant needles. Harry Kim is an unfortunate victim who gives out a panicked scream when it happens. While Janeway doesn’t see that, she laments that someone so new, so promising, seems to be lost on her watch.

The way she recounts how his mom wanted to send over his clarinet, the way she upbraids herself for not taking enough time to get to know her young officers, the way she resolves to get this right whatever it takes shows the human being beneath the polished officer who seems capable of handling everything with Starfleet precision when we first meet her. There are layers of complexity to her, a performance perfectly calibrated to the different moments she captain is called to, that elevate the material every time she’s on screen. In its maiden journey, Voyager may have been a shaky vessel, starting out with a bumpy ride, but unlike some other series, it had the right captain to lead them on from the beginning.