A Look at Caretaker (Voyager)

[@equinoxomega3600]

To paraphrase the Simpsons: "there is the right way, the wrong way, and the Janeway, which is the wrong way but slower and more tedious".

[@MrSaywutnow]

"the Janeway, which is the wrong way but slower and more tedious" ...and morally dubious, if not outright evil.

[@Senkoau]

"The Janeway which is the wrong way but more morally dubious and a higher death count."

[@jessecarozza8134]

Never apologize for that classic Voyager review humor.

[@KertaDrake]

Indeed! Janeway wouldn't apologize, so neither should he!

[@cbhlde]

Agreed! ;)

[@bthsr7113]

The idea of Neelix as a light hearted guide to unfamiliar space is not a bad one. They're lost, so picking up a local to help makes sense. Him being a cook works with him knowing the local foodstuffs and takes strain off of replicators while also possibly talking on the human condition of convenience vs home cooking. Him having worked odd jobs before scavenging can let him have a variety of minor useful skills. All of these things work in theory, and can work together. A seasoned old spacer with a warm heart to help out the crew. Like Dex in Star Wars or Rupert Gardner from Mass Effect 2 (to a lesser degree of what they wanted), but as you've demonstrated, that's now what happened. He's a liability and inserts himself when he's not wanted. SOMEtimes he can help with emotional wisdom or his life experiences, but overall, he fails at his role. It's a shame.

[@noblehelium3794]

I would say the cook thing is stretching credulity because replicators are incredibly overpowered as a technology (second only to transporters, and only because transporters are much more lethal as a weapon). Replicators use energy, yes, but so does cooking, and conventional cooking is probably going to be much less energy efficient than a replicator given that the latter was invented thousands of years ago. But certainly he could have played a role as as bartender-like person for the crew to talk to for purposes of morale. Similar to Guinan in TNG.

[@KnightRaymund]

​@@noblehelium3794 they were trying to save power

[@noblehelium3794]

@@KnightRaymund Yeah and I'm saying cooking would take more power than replicators.

[@mikegates8993]

Honestly, I think they should've killed off most of Voyager's original crew, cut the number of Maquis members down to just the named people, and spent the series filling out the roster of background people with people like Neelix, Kes, and 7 of 9.

[@comentedonakeyboard]

In Theorie Voyager was a good Idea, if only they had used their premise.

[@ChunLo21]

Couldn’t the writers just make Janeway use the array but then *failed* and didn’t get all the way back home? Like “oops turns out it’s right we shouldn’t be using the array because we can’t control it properly without the caretaker, and now we are still stranded in the delta quadrant and have to find our way home”

[@OhShitSeriously]

They could even have it blow up from the failure!

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

Quark WAS one of the highlights of Caretaker wasn't he? Damn I could watch Armin Shimerman read the phone book. He's such a quality character actor.

[@KertaDrake]

A narrated version of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition in children's audio book style with examples of how to take advantage of them would be hilarious!

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

@@KertaDrake ha ha ha brilliant! That would be a fun nerd fan piece.

[@lordmontymord8701]

His appearance makes the pilot actually worse: Showing a good character and then dumping us into a part of space where stupidity rules ... It's especially funny when you consider the episode in season two that brought back the legendary characters Dr. Arridor and Kol - Ferengi from the TNG-era without any of the work DS9 put into their species to make them more than a joke.

[@pauldecker4630]

I've said it before and will say it again: NO character the creators/producers say is going to be the breakout character ARE the breakout character.

[@housemanfury]

I did not realize how much I missed the "Im just a viewer with an opinion" opening.

[@RaThothamun]

Thank you for continuing to update these reviews

[@SageofStars]

I truly feel that the start of Voyager was probably the most apt for showing where the series was going to go with itself. The Ocampa and Kazon are poorly thought out plot points, slotted in in the same way they'd be in any typical episode of any of the series, but since both will become important later, rather than simply being one offs we meet and don't dive too far into, it becomes an issue. The Caretaker 'cares' for the Ocampa, but is his care DOING anything? They're pets in a fish tank, nothing more. They achieve nothing, and can build nothing, because they have no drive, and no skills or abilities. The Kazon seem to be thugs, and bad ones at that. Like the descriptions of Klingons back in the day, just freed from the oppressors from whom they swiped their firsts starships from. Except, where the Klingons of the past realized they'd need to actually understand this tech stuff, and set some of their people to learning it, the Kazon are lucky they know what button to push sometimes to not blow themselves up. How could it have been better? Easy. The Caretaker IS an Ocampa. Like an ancient on Stargate, they moved beyond that body, and use the array as a focusing lens for their great power. They know they're dying, and their people need help they can't supply since they can't kill the encroaching forces of the Kazon due to a pacifism they practice, preventing them from taking violent action. So, they search out 'soft' areas of space for technology beyond even their own, hoping to find something to keep themselves alive with. Thing is, they normally don't bring ships with living crews, they target ships that are damaged or abandoned, but as they've grown older, closer to death, its become harder to sense that, and with it only days or hours away, in one last, desperate ploy, they end up bringing Voyager and the Maquis here. The episode then plays out as it will, with the revelation that the Kazon, like Neelix, have been secretly scavenging the junk field of ships the Caretaker carelessly left behind, and with that, the Kazon have cobbled together a dreadnaught of sorts, threatening the whole sector, and they want the array. The series pilot ends with Janeway making a call. Her crew can survive out here, and even start making their way home, but the Ocampa? They can't, so when the Caretaker offers to send them home, she makes the call. Send his own people back to the alpha quadraunt, with the last of his power, then, with the maquis ship used as bait, they destroy the dreadnaught...or so they think, really it's just damaged, but they don't know that, as they leave the empty system behind, the array useless without the caretaker. This leads into a series where Voyager IS the biggest tech in the area. Most civilizations are warp 1 or at best 2, meaning the distance between stars for them is weeks or months, where voyager can do the same in hours or even minutes if they push themselves hard. They try not to interfere, but need supplies, so they wind up interfering anyway, with the Kazon as a threat that's slowly coming after them, a juggernaut they can't stop directly, but also can't just leave alone, since it's a danger to everyone in the sector. It makes Janeway culpable in stranding them, but turns it into a moral decision that is questionable, but also debatable. Her people CAN survive out here, those people couldn't. Creates a nice rift to explore as the series goes on, while giving us a first arc villain force that is a threat, but only because of one big gun, and not as an organized force, as Voyager can outrun or outfight anything else the Kazon have. Add in the Maquis are torn, since some of them agree with her(After all, wouldn't it have been nice if others cared about them like that?), while some hate her for stranding them, along with the starfleet crew not being sure it was what the Prime Directive would allow. So you have the internal ship conflict too.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

I think you just put in more thought to that short essay than all the writers did for all of Voyager's 7 year run And I actually feel bad for bashing the writers cuz I think most of the blame goes on Berman but... For sake of discussion I'll include them in the hate pile

[@SageofStars]

@@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs I think we can at least say the two species, Ocampa and Kazon, were blamable on the writers. They could have done what I said without the future plot hooks, or even a dozen other things, and had it work better than they did. These were what he referred to with the crystaline entity years ago, rodenberry aliens. Cool ideas, but without the thought put in to make them fit beyond this one story. Problem is, even back then, they knew both would be recurring, so they should have put more thought into it. The hooks I did just give Kes a reason to never think about her people again, since they're on the other side of the galaxy, and the Kazon a reason to be intimidating, which they otherwise never are, as SFDebris noted in his thoughts on Seska, who was basically brought in to make them more palatable as villains.

[@lordmontymord8701]

Amen. Every time the Kazon showed up and we learn more about them and the Ocampa it got worse. No plan at all and nothing like the Bajorans and Cardassians on DS9, who were fleshed out over time with actual good ideas. The worst thing about the Kazon? Making them mysogynists simply for the fact that Janeway is our first female captain and so needs adversaries that have problems with her gender. And of course they are dumber than the Pakleds. They probably piss on the decks of their ships to mark their territory. That was the one thing missing from Gul Dukat: He should have been a racist, stating that he thinks Sisko is inferior because of his skin color. Would have been much better, wouldn't it? Dukat was a complex character who was overly confident because of his ego, but still respectable and clever. Maje Culluh on the other hand was just an idiot and nothing more. Of course Dukat got much more screentime and developement over seven years, but they could have kept Culluh and the Kazon around for the rest of the show and would have probably done nothing more with them.

[@marshallhuffer4713]

The Kazon's creation was based off of L.A. street gangs. According to Jeri Taylor, she, Rick Berman and Michael Piller felt that with the Kazon, they needed to address the tenor of the times and what was happening in cities and recognizing a source of danger and social unrest and wanted to do that metaphorically.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

@@marshallhuffer4713 it was a nice creative thought- I appreciate that they were trying- but I don't think anyone picked up "LA Street gang allegory" from these guys lol.

[@mikegates8993]

Oh hey, I remembered the last part of this was one of the Voyager episodes that wasn't available to watch for a while. Cheers mate, I've been wanting to see how this one ends since I started using the site.

[@Jim4815162342]

The planting for the Nemesis joke. Ah...

[@KertaDrake]

Best payoff ever!

[@Knights_of_the_Nine]

I used to watch the SHIT out of these videos when I was kid! I absolutely LOVED these videos! Can't believe I found them again! Can't wait to binge watch all of these!

[@clwho4652]

The thing about the destruction of the array is they could have justified it by saying "If the Kazon get a hold of it they could be a threat to the entire galaxy". There was a rational there the writers were so shit they didn't use it, they used a dumb one instead.

[@comentedonakeyboard]

Like both Picard and Sisko destroyed those Iconian gateways.

[@lordmontymord8701]

@@comentedonakeyboard Which could have fallen into the hands of the Romulans or the Dominion/the rogue Jem'Hadar. Those powers are a little bit different than the Kazon, who don't even know how to get water ... I'm not saying that the Kazon couldn't have one day figured out how to operate the Phalanx, but i believe the first ship they caught would have probably been a Borg Cube or a Dominion ship and the whole operation would have been over. The Kazons are not exactly on my "The 10 biggest threads to the galaxy"-list, even if they had an Iconian gateway. One succesful raid and there would have been a civil war ...

[@bthsr7113]

@@lordmontymord8701 And them getting a Borg Cube pulled to the array would have been catastrophic. Imagine the Borg adding this array to their mobility options and reverse engineering or co-opting the power supply. This thing can pluck shielded star ships from across the galaxy and send them back. Imagine abducting ships and assimilating their crews before sending them back to spread like infections. Or just spamming cubes into orbit over Vulcan, Kronos, Romulus, Earth, and more. Or what if the Dominion got a hold of it? Then there's possibility that this device which is basically a galactic range and ship scale transporter could cause horrific results if they used it wrong/inventively. Imagine them using this to rip away entire lakes or even oceans. Or missing and transporting large chunks of cities.

[@clwho4652]

@@lordmontymord8701 Though at the time they didn't know much about the Kazon, for all they knew the Kazon had the intelligence to use the array. It was later that the shear stupidity of the Kazon became apparent.

[@comentedonakeyboard]

@@lordmontymord8701 sure, however the Kazon could have lost the tech. Just imagine the Borg or the Dominion or even just the Viidians capturing a Kazon vessel, with data revealing the location and potential of the caretaker Array.

[@MyPisceanNature]

Hell, the writers could have had Voyager use the array and said it was only partially effective and got them 10 years or so towards Earth.

[@ShenLong991]

Heck... it would be enough if they figured it out and set up bombs inside with a timed fuse. But it fails and the fling got the, only back to the occampa planet wiht the kazon ship presumably on arrival. Or they try to understand it. Kazon is arriving and therefor gave Voyager difficulties. and in battle one of them crash into the array destroying almost everything. Anything than "I'm the captain and this show is irrelevant if not"

[@KiltedCritic]

Outside of having someone stay behind to blow the station up, do they not have these things call fuses in the 24th century? There’s been referrals to “chemical backups” when it comes to bombs in other episodes, so that’s a third option. Or they could have side-stepped it all and have the station blow up due to the collision damage. But no, “choosing to stay” is much more “dramatic”.

[@comentedonakeyboard]

Someone should have asked Seska for suggestions.

[@lordmontymord8701]

@@comentedonakeyboard Or the Maquis ... i'm sure their skills to improvise could have solved the situation too ... well ok, these people aren't really the best and brightest from the Maquis. Ro Laren and Eddington with their tactical training and quick thinking could have done something, but Chakotay isn't exactly on their level. And B'Elanna of course doesn't know anything about tech ...

[@Swiftbow]

They used a time bomb in TOS, so... yeah. I think, ultimately, this had to be chalked up to the WRITERS not thinking of it. Which accounts for a good chunk of the problems with Voyager.

[@therealdankclank]

You miss the point SF. Janeway choose to strand them all in the Delta Quadrant so that she can torture the crew for 7 long years.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

😂 it was right in front of our faces the whole time!

[@KertaDrake]

That seems a bit pedestrian for her... I bet she did it to torture them, the Borg, and the entire galaxy. She forces her crew into horrible situation after horrible situation, charges into Borg space, saves the Borg from destruction from an outside party and enabling them to continue slowly assimilating the galaxy, then spends the next few years being so crazy that the Borg cannot stop her while she goes all space pirate on them to keep stealing their fancy toys and drones!

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

She's on a mission to GET THEM, her pretties!

[@therealdankclank]

@@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs And their little Tuvix too!!

[@lordmontymord8701]

@@KertaDrake I love that scene in Endgame when the Borg Queen basicly begs Janeway to leave them alone. Thats how far we have come: The Borg are begging for mercy from the Empress of the galaxy ... No wonder she become a vice-admiral that easily - the other admirals were terrified when they read her logs.

[@NeilBlumengarten]

A friend said he started watching Discovery and complained about the captain's voice annoying him to the point he turned it off. I told him he wouldn't have to worry about it due long, but secretly I couldn't fathom not liking Michelle Yeoh. As we continued, it became clear he was talking about Voyager, not Discovery. I told him about the mix-up and how Janeway wasn't going anywhere, so if it bothered him, he was better off but watching any more.

[@kw7378a1]

It's so interesting how different people are! I've always found Janeway's voice sexy. But I'm a lesbian with an interest in butch women so maybe it's that? 🤷‍♀️ Different strokes for different folks

[@hariman7727]

As a friend of mine puts it: "When you're in command you need to project authority and command your crew, and there Janeway is, giving another impassioned speech instead."

[@lordmontymord8701]

She went probably to the Archer school of command ...

[@MrSaywutnow]

Too bad she never listened to any of Picard's speeches...

[@bthsr7113]

@@MrSaywutnow Eh, he could act more and talk less.

[@Beaut2013]

Dukes of Hazzard wasn't a documentary?

[@andrewklang809]

It had narration and everything!

[@Robizoid]

So, here is where the idiocy that is Voyager begins. 6 and a half years of Janeway being a Mary Sue to her unlucky crew. Oh well, all I can say is "Poor DUMB Harry!'

[@ultimateelderscrolls6837]

I dont think anyone thought it was reality, but Voyager's production team using whatever set they could find.

[@vladdeklitrez]

I think they could have sorted this by trying to use the array, set some bombs, and then get flung somewhere else because they didn't have enough time to fully analyze the technology. Or maybe the array just malfunctions and self-destructs because of the damage and throws them off course.

[@mikegates8993]

Heck, they would've just said it was a one-way trip. And if you want it to be a choice Janeway makes, say the Caretaker could send them back, but since he's dying, he would have to decide between doing that or doing something to protect the people on the planet long term when he's gone.

[@Jim-pq9pm]

It would undermine the theme of sacrificing convenience for the greater good. It they had hammered home the threat a little more, perhaps the Kazon had been demonstrated to have a good understanding on how to use the technology, and its destruction became necessary, and they only thing that could assure it was direct fire from Voyager, showing that they didn't have time to rig a torpedo with a time delay

[@ravenwilder4099]

Hope this manages to stay up for a while this time. All other videos that reference Janeway getting them all stranded, they lose something without Chuck's analysis of the act itself.

[@Vanessinha91Pucca]

I remember thinking why she never rig it after they left, or stay behind in shuttle to explode it after her crew go when i first see the pilot

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

I mean right??? Simple simple commonsense questions

[@myriadmediamusings]

I of course wasn't there when Voyager started so I can't even imagine what it must've been like when it first started. But of all the Trek introductions, Voyager's has gotta be the most awkward not only because it's the first episode, but also because of how it is just so disconnected and far apart from where it would end up and be most known for. TNG, TAS, TNG, DS9, ENT, DIS, PIC, LD, SNW and PRO have a variety of their elements from their introductions that made lasting impact on the rest of their shows and later down the line? But VOY? By the time it reaches its final season, there are no more Kazon, stranding in the Delta Quadrant + Maquis integration has become little more than background, no Seven of Nine, absolutely jack squat of Tom and Chakotay's relationship, and Neelix has been significantly reduced and even off the ship.

[@hariman7727]

I watched most of Voyager as it came out. It was okay, but very uneven.

[@lordmontymord8701]

I was there and i was pretty disappointed. DS9 had some stinkers in the first two seasons too, but also some great episodes and like you said, it followed up many of the things introduced in the pilot. Voyager on the other hand throw so many ideas like Starfleet/Maquis-conflicts and replaced it with technobabble as the one and only god. If it wasn't for the fact that i was desperate getting as much Star Trek-content as i could - even if it's boring - i would have stopped watching. And i was also young and naive enough to convince myself this is good, even when i was bored. Later when ENT showed up i wasn't as forgiving, and seven years of VOY certainly didn't help ...

[@boobah5643]

@@lordmontymord8701 I gave up on _Voyager_ during the first season, around the second or third time a negative space wedgie of great danger was inflicted on the ship, the crew was too incompetent to deal with it, and the writing staff pushed the reset button amid rising danger music.

[@lordmontymord8701]

@@boobah5643 Who doesn't love stories like this? My favourite is the one where Voyager is split and Samantha Wildman goes through the horror of seeing her baby die, just to get the Naomi from the other ship, where everybody was killed by the Vidiians. Just as if nothing has happened ... but it did and i'm sure Ensign Wildman needed a lot of therapy after the ship returned home. Oh yes, Harry died too and was replaced by "Other Harry", but who cares ...

[@AntonyCannon]

Since Janeway could both get her crew home _and_ destroy the array, there was no reason for her to strand her people unless it can be argued that she was forced. This is key, because in such a scenario, Janeway did not make a principled choice -as the writers seemed intent to convey. ... Most likely they simply didn't think up the idea of using a fuse.

[@comentedonakeyboard]

A fuse, backed up by a pick up Trigger. I'm sure Seska would know everything that is to know about the subject.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

And yet the very first question that is going to get asked is why didn't they just use a delayed time explosive? And the writers didn't think "well maybe we should at least provide a throwaway explanation for this". 😐 😑

[@deimosmasque885]

I actually remember that TV Guide. The things that were also wrong in that book. The Doctor was called Doctor Zimmerman and Kes's species of lived for hundreds of years.

[@rogue265]

The only query i have is around the replicators. In DS9 - we note the Sisko and the Federation are moving / giving industrial replicators to Cardassia - It actually kinda makes it seem like that replicators aren't that common - and Starfleet is just decadent to have them etc...

[@lordmontymord8701]

Would make sense, but there is the little fact that DS9 - or Terok Nor - has a replicator in nearly every room, just like a Starfleet ship (exept of course in the quarters of the Bajoran slaves, they don't need something like that ...). The Cardassians needed those industrial replicators after the Klingon invasion, when a lot of their own industry was destroyed. We can assume those kinds of replicators are the eqivalent of big factories - their output is a little bit bigger than the one of a small replicator. Of course if you want to be really pedantic - which i am - you could argue, that it should only take a few days to produce those industrial replicators yourself if you have still access to smaller ones and enough energy (von Neumann would have a lot of fun with the things the Federation and others CANNOT do according to the writers, even if they have access to this kind of tech 😉)

[@petrus4]

If Chuck goes to Trek conventions, I really hope that one day he goes to one where Ethan Philips is present, and also gives him a big hug. Chuck's hatred of Neelix never fails to make me laugh; in my own mind, at least, it's almost as legendary in opposite terms, as Romeo and Juliet.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

As usual the auto captions on this are a trip 😂 highly recommend

[@bradwolf07]

Janeway of Borg, here we are at the start of her reign of tyranny and already doing the stupid action that would hamper the mission

[@captianmorgan7627]

I was excited by Voyager. I remember telling my parents that I wanted to watch it. And it was one of the few channels we actually got. But I was outside playing that day and lost track of time. So by the time my parents called me in I came in on the Quark scene. I was sad but never actually went back to watch it, as I just didn't care enough to try and catch a rerun.

[@CraigEdwards19]

What's sad is that "Caretaker" is the most interesting episode of the series.

[@john1701q]

I also remember the Voyager premiere. And all of the buildup, I read all the magazines and news stories I could find. Then I watched it, and wept. It was a mess. And the show never recovered. The Starfleet/Maquis angle was dropped and only mentioned if it was a plot point. Chakotay became a lapdog to Insaneway. The science was beyond stupid. The plots were so contrived. The Kazons were so stupid that they would not even be able to threaten a Pakled. How many times did they find a "piece of home?" The best character was a computer program. I would say only 4-5 eps of each season were good. The worst part is the show could have been good. Just needed good writers and needed to be consistent.

[@cbhlde]

I am really pleased. Keep on uploading; shoulderspider may spare you. :)

[@fredrikcarlstedt393]

The day that the Delta Quadrant learned whom the true Fear is .

[@MKDumas1981]

4:52 - The ship was still at Utopia Planitia, which is far closer to Earth than it is to DS9. We see this later, in _"Relativity"._

[@beav1962]

Why, exactly, would two new crew members check in with the ships doctor instead of the Captain or 1st Officer? I never got that. Also, Janeway took an inmate on furlow and made him a LT instead of an active ensign? The demasculation of Harry Kim begins.

[@mikegates8993]

Oh wow, I just noticed that a former convict who didn't finish the academy outranked Harry on his first day. Poor dumb Harry.

[@bethanyhait6880]

They check in with the doctor because they’re told when they arrive that the captain Isn’t onboard, and Paris figures the doctor is the next highest rank.

[@beav1962]

@@bethanyhait6880 - I don't know......the 1st Officer wasn't around? Also, they were both in the Captain's office soon after, seemed like the same day.

[@bethanyhait6880]

@@beav1962 yes, when they report to sick bay, the doctor tells them that the captain had come on board and was expecting them. But when they first come on board, they ask about the captain, and aren’t sure where she is.

[@ztyran]

Janeway's first question to Tom Paris: Have you ever been told you look like that idiot Nick Locarno? Tom's answer: All the time, but I don't see it.

[@dominicsmith5588]

For me where the ending really, REALLY misses the mark is Janeway's absolutely terrible diplomatic skills in dealing with the Kazon that leads to the deaths of possibly several hundred of them in the battle at the end. Janeway is a Starfleet Captain and the values of both Starfleet and the Federation is to avoid conflict where possible because they believe in the sanctity of life. So where did Janeway mess up? At the end the Kazon leader says he can't allow them board the Array due to his fear that, given their advanced technology they may use it to threaten his people. Janeway for her part displays no diplomatic skills in recognising his perspective, recognising that it was perfectly reasonable for him not to trust them, why? Look at their past interactions, they have shown to be in league with Nelix who, putting aside jokes for them moment, we know form the episode he owes the Kazon and were complicit in him taking their leader hostage and sabotaging the water that was offered as payment for information. Now before anyone goes, ah, but Janeway did not know he was going to do this, sure, but what did she do AFTERWARDS? Did she immediately message the Kazon and apologize for what happened, explain Nelix acted on his own without their prior knowable, that they do not approve of what he did and reimbue them? No of course not because this would have been the sound thing to do tactically when you are stranded in alien space. Had Janeway done this it would have gone a long way towards building trust between them and maybe the Kazon leader would not have been so hostile towards them boarding the Array. But lets go out on a limb here and say even if Janeway had done that the Kazon would still have reacted with hostility and fear to them boarding the Array, the way Janeway handed the situation was appalling, rather than showing empathy and understanding, her response was, I insist you blindly trust me, even though our only interaction so far has been us conspiring with someone you have an antagonistic relationship with and enabling him when he threatened you and screwed you out of some water. How should Janeway have handed the situation? She should in my view have said she recognised their fears and made a compromise, something like this. "I understand your concerns, your looking out for your people and we've given you no reason to trust us, if I was in your position I might well say the same thing." This first line would help to diffuse the situation, calm things down, she could have then continued. "My people, humans, alongside the other species that make up the United Federation of Planets, believe that any disagreement or conflict, no matter serious, can be solved though civilized discussion, if both parties are willing, without resorting to violence." This would further pacify the Kazon, showing their willingness to talk and not take action to initiate conflict that the Kazon have made clear would come if they try to board the Array. The Kazon leader (sorry I can't be bothered to look up his name) would then either have simply restated his unilateral terms defensively. "There is nothing to discuss, if you try to board the Array we will consider this a hostile act and open fire." Or shown an openness to negotiation. "What do you propose?" Regardless of their answer, Janeway should then have proposed a compromise. "If I may make a suggestion? If you are concerned about our intentions to use the Array against you rather than only to get home, what if we board the Array together? We can use our transporter technology to beam over ourselves and an equal number of each others crew?" Honestly, with the Kazon obviously wanting access to the Array and being there to watch over them, I think they would have excepted the offer. Now, I think the reason they did not do this is because it would have massively complicated the ending they wanted, Janeway destroying the Array to keep it out of the hands of the 'evil Kazon' which would have been undermined and complicated but I'm not here to cater to thee writers plot demands but to point out their terrible writing in just how badly they fumbled the ball with Janeway and how she was not written to be remotely competent.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

Man that's a great analysis, I'm inclined to agree. I want to cut these writers some slack because I think that they are reasonably competent I just think that they didn't either care enough or Berman's toxic effect muddled their little brains. Either way what you suggest would have been vastly superior than what was shown. I mean they really could have had a pretty superlative hour or two of drama if they simply hadn't rushed this thing to a simple tidy ending. What if they had given this just a little bit more time to develop, maybe another full episode before it reached it's full conclusion??? That Berman guy he was a real asshole, a real ignorant loser. God I wouldn't work with him on any goddamn thing if my life depended on it. He had this bizarre obsession with not wanting stories to develop. Everything had to be superficially and neatly resolved by the 45 min mark. What an absolute sub-amateur. I guess when you're forced into a straitjacket there's only so much you can actually write. By demanding a quick simple and easy resolution by the end of every episode or in this case the second episode, the writers know thet have to keep it relatively shallow. You can only flush out a story and make it more complicated if you have more time, and Berman in his absolute mediocrity and unworthiness for whatever reason, didn't want to give that to the writers and they accepted it. I wouldn't have. No way. That would have been a deal-breaker and I would have walked under those conditions. Quality and posterity matter a lot more to me than a steady paycheck. Edit: the main reason I'm so negative on Berman is because what I've read about him biases me against him. He seems to have been a real jerk who had way too high an opinion of himself. I could be wrong but he doesn't seem to have had any genuine respect for artistic quality, the show's audience, or even the cast and crew of the show. He seems to be arrogant and selfish and wanted everything his way. If any of that's true, that's not somebody I would have been willing to take final orders from, esp if I felt he was significantly compromising the quality of the work I wanted to put out.

[@KertaDrake]

The fun thing is if she had just slapped Neelix and transported down some more water, the Kazon probably would have left them alone or been at least somewhat civil towards them.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

@@KertaDrake right?? It would have been so easy to give the Kazon a bone and to get a positive or at least a civil outcome from them. Why antagonize or make an enemy if it's unnecessary?? Esp since Voy is all on their own. Well we know the reason, plot, which is lame. Unfortunately I wish the writing justified it as well.

[@boobah5643]

@@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs Wrapping everything neatly up (without consequences) every episode may not have been Berman's choice; serial storytelling for this sort of show was in its infancy, and its not crazy talk to think the executive suite made that call.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

@@boobah5643 I don't buy the infancy argument but you're right it could have come from above him. So I'll grant that. You may wonder why I'm so critical of him but I've read some things that really really bias me against him. I just read another thing about this jerk the other day (I periodically get phone notification updates about my interests). I want to be fair but he seems to have been an arrogant jerkwad. He didn't seem to have a lot of respect for the cast and crew of Voyager. But I'll be happy to change my opinion someday if I come across any different information Christopher L Bennett.... That's not you is it????

[@therwfer]

9:40 weird, seems to me like perfectly "normal" behaviour, people running around eyes glued to their respective devices, and i wouldve been sure it was like that in 2011

[@bthsr7113]

We are communicating impersonally or consuming media. The Federation officers are welded to their portable sensor arrays.

[@All2Meme]

@@bthsr7113 Are you sure? They may have been playing Pokemon GO on their tricorders.

[@ImperatorPenguin]

Yeah... there are all sorts of things we wanted to love. At best we just learned to like them later, and at worst we made internet review shows about how disappointed we were with the finished product.

[@henkman00]

9:49 Kim: ''Captain my tricorder is detecting some kind of scan'' Paris: ''I'm getting that too, it's like we're being scanned with signals similar to our own tricorders!'' Janeway: ''my god, they're all around us!''

[@wangbot47]

You can at least feel good about the fact that the youtube algorythm would not stop recommending this to me first on everything I watched for days

[@CaptainSovereign]

Just leave a bomb behind....bruh..

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

Ssshhhh! Take that common sense and gtfo bruh

[@KertaDrake]

But you can't use the timers for a good cause! You gotta save them for when you're trying to distract the real heroes from your dastardly plan to take over the galaxy! Also, just fire up the array at the Kazon without bothering with all the fancy settings. Wherever they end up, if they aren't scattered across a few thousand light years, they won't be a problem after that!

[@lordmontymord8701]

@@KertaDrake Its so great that they later used a timer, when they beamed a photon torpedo on the Borg ship in Dark Frontier. Surely no way the Borg could disarm the bomb, but the Kazon of course have far superior technological knowledge ...

[@jasonbourneistreadstone]

"Banjo Man".

[@MrRobot1984]

My head cannon is that the water world seen in “Thirty Days” is all the oceans taken from Ocompa by the Caretakers and they couldn’t figure out how to get it back.

[@lordmontymord8701]

And thats where we meet Suspiria for the first time, stuck in the generator station at the center of the ocean ...

[@MrRobot1984]

@@lordmontymord8701 if she was ever coming back that would have been the time for it

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

LOL... So that's where it all went..

[@RichardWatt]

To me, the "everyone walking around with their tricorders" scene foretold everyone walking around with their phones in hand.

[@Thraim.]

Caretaker? What year is it? Oh right, it says that right on the first frame, my bad.

[@wdcain1]

I really don't see anyway Janeway could have gotten Voyager home. She doesn't have Picard's diplomacy and silver tongue. Even Sisko would have gotten stuck there.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

I don't mind the "Lost In Space" setup, that could have been a slam dunk, I just wish it was handled more artfully.

[@lordmontymord8701]

But Sisko could have pulled one of his questionable yet successful plans ...

[@mikegates8993]

The thing is, I kind of feel like Sisko wouldn't have gotten into the situation in the first place. He might've at least been a little less openly trusting of Neelix or might've made an attempt to smooth things over with the Kazon after Neelix's stupidity caused the mess. Honestly, given how stupid the Kazon are, he might've been able to outsmart them without needing to blow the array up.

[@lordmontymord8701]

@@mikegates8993 He would have beamed Neelix back to the planet so the Kazon could have a talk with him ...

[@mikegates8993]

@@lordmontymord8701 And nothing of value would be lost.

[@NOTHEOTHERGUY]

I'm still amazed that Kate Mulgrew's hair is different shades in some scenes. You can tell the scenes they filmed on the same days.

[@steelcladgamer6578]

I missed this episode when I first watched Voyager. I had no idea Chacotay was a terrorist and not a starfleet officer.

[@markuscriticus8278]

Ah, nostalgia.

[@katherinealvarez9216]

Production and marketing never should predict who the breakout character will be.

[@cullysloy2705]

Imagine if Janeway took a vote to go home or to keep exploring the delta quadrant even further. In the opposite direction.

[@kommodore6691]

I just realized how dumb it is to have less technologically advanced races that have FTL spaceships with energy weapons and artificial gravity still but they cant make water.

[@urgon6321]

The reason they couldn't use the array is because there would be no more plot if they did. Because screenwriters were morons. The simple solution is: Janeway uses the array, possibly selecting a crew member to blow it up afterwards, but Tuvok made a mistake and they either end up stranded after few thousands of lightyears, or they end up in another alternative universe and have to figure out, how to get back. Side bonus would be that both Janeway and Tuvok will feel guilty later. But this to work requires some decent writing skills... On related note, my first exposure to Voyager was on uncoded segment of Canal+ (an hour a day). It was fully dubbed into my native language (Polish), but someone screwed up hard, and Chakotay was called by everyone "Chico-tei". Seriously, the worst case of misspelling of a name...

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

I would have really liked that. That's a fine idea. I'm not trying to just mindlessly bag on Voyager I really truly believe in almost all cases the writers chose or forced to choose the dumbest and least interesting of all possible options. It's frustrating

[@wdcain1]

I would of had the array being destroyed with Janeway and the Maquis fighting over it. It would show the crew starting out divided since both sides blame the other.

[@boobah5643]

@@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs I wanted to say it wasn't _the_ least interesting option, and then the reply after yours (along with five or six other options in the comments) all seem better than what they actually went with, so...

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

@@wdcain1 that would have been interesting... Lays the ground for lots of conflict for the first season... Lots of insurity and potential to work with It's possible the writers wanted to do more.... But there was a big wall of Extremely Stupid they kept running up against however and it's name was one we all know all too well - Who else? berman (That's what I've heard and I can gather at least idk I wasn't there but that's sure how it appears)

[@BaconMinion]

Having no option in the matter wouldn't make Janeway look weak or immoral. If they wanted her to project morality and strength, they could have done it in so many other ways in the story itself, not with her stranding something like 150 people over 70 years away from safety. Really, it would have made her look better and stronger as a commander if she had to suck it up and make the best of the fact that they're now stuck there. Her resolving to get all of these people home, regardless of if they were her enemy or not just days prior, would have been the ultimate showing of her character. But instead, she shows weakness and tries to pass it off as a strength. She immorally destroys the lives of everybody else to show her moral she is for the sake of some alien species.

[@lordmontymord8701]

The funny thing is that at least when it came to the Ocampa this was just a temporary solution anyway. What did they say? The Caretaker gave them enough energy for seven years or so? Which means they had to leave their bunker and be enslaved by the Kazon or die the same year Voyager returned home ... If Janeway wanted to make a moral solution she should have offered to take over the station and defend/supply the Ocampa after the Caretakers death. Him needing to produce an offspring because only this being would be able to take over his role is stupid on his part anyway. Just find someone who is willing to take over his duties and give that person or group the control over the station. We know that others can control his tech because Tuvok said he could bring them home. Come to think of it: That should have been the story: He brings ships to the station to find a worthy successor, which is pure desperation on his part, because no one in the region seems qualified or has the moral standards (and he sees the Ocampa as children who are unable to do it themselves). Janeway is willing to do it and wants to send the rest of the crew home, but the Kazon use the weakness of the Caretaker for an attack and damage the station, so that the transportation device is damaged. Janeway still wants to help the Ocampa, but there is simply no way and they are forced to destroy the station. Voyager also can't stay because the Kazon want to board the ship, so they have to flee ...

[@BaconMinion]

@@lordmontymord8701 I don't even think it's mentioned or implied that he even told the Ocampa that they wouldn't be getting anymore power, so one day, around the time Voyager gets home, or is at least so far away that they're a distant memory, their entire way of life will just end. They'll be stuck underground on a dead planet in a sector of space full of unwashed biker thugs looking to steal anything they can. Janeway only postponed the inevitable end of the Ocampa as a species. I wonder if any of the Voyager novels has Suspiria and her bunch of Ocampa returning to the planet to protect them after this. Would be a better plot use of her than the show ever had.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

Yep!

[@marshallhuffer4713]

Robert Duncan McNeill has said in a 1997 interview that while Tom and Locarno may seem similar, they were actually quite different. He remarked, "Locarno seemed like a nice guy, but deep down he was a bad guy. Tom Paris is an opposite premise in a way. Deep down he's a good guy. He's just made some mistakes." Having had almost a quarter of a century to think about it, McNeill stood by his assessment when he reiterated in 2020, "I think Locarno was a bad guy who pretended to be a good guy. Deep down inside, he was rotten. In contrast, inside Tom was a good guy who pretended to be a bad guy. He sort of wanted everybody to think he didn't give a damn and that he was a lone wolf, but deep down he wasn't like that."

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

Interesting. My take is different. I didn't see Locarno as a bad guy just one who is immature and still had to develop as a human being. He did put himself on the line for his team at the very end let's not forget. He just needed more life experience and to learn to put others before himself.

[@susanmontgomery7121]

@27:30 Have Neelix and Kes (one of them should be able to figure it out) destroy the array.

[@kradeiz]

It’s funny that Torres is the one to ask who Janeway is to make the decision to strand them when a season later she’ll ask who the ill-fated Hogan is to be questioning Janeway.

[@bthsr7113]

Nothing hurts in the same way as disappointment. The greater the hope, the bigger the let down. Getting hyped for a show to faceplant hurts. Whether out of the gate in a worrying tradition or at the tail end of the series making you lament the writing or loss of action while being too invested to leave. Edit: And wasting genuine potential makes it all the worse. Ideas, scenes, actors, etc that shine but for their context and surrounding material.

[@DaRealKakarroto]

I think Janeways decision to stay and not go home had some logic behind it, it just never was the reason she'd officially state. I mean, the Voyager wasn't the first federation ship that got pulled into the Delta Quadrant, the federation administration must have known what is going on. Also, sending an Intrepid class ship after a decades, if not centuries, outdated Marquis ship is just overkill. No, I'm pretty sure the Voyager, and at least certain high ranking officers of it's crew knew why, was sent there for a totally other reason; to officially contact the entity on the other side and set up a spear head in the Delta Quadrant. Though it was only a special section of the federation administration, one that operates stealthy and behind official orders. Most likely this part of the administration also worked together with a comparable part of another great power, most likely the Obsidian Order due to the vicinity of the Badlands to their territory. It's pretty likely that in a secret meeting, both organisations pulled their knowledge and resources together to establish said spear head. I'm pretty sure that Cardassian ships and/or operatives will come into play in the future too. I'm also very confident that at least Tuvok was part of said informed officers. Janeways orders and Tuvoks actions at times look very suspicious, like the explosion device that was used to detonate the array err space station; a Tricobalt torpedo. This is not only unusual to be on board of the standard federation vehicle, it also is able to create a tear in subspace on a higher yield setting. We also know that the Obsidian Order worked together with the Tal Shiar, the Romulan intelligence agency, and got their hands on stealth technology. Such a stealthed ship, probably send in weeks before the Voyager was pulled through, could've been waiting in the vicinity and use such a tear in subspace to tractor beam out advanced technology, such as the translocation technology or the energy reactor technology of the Caretaker. With this secured, the now 'stranded' ship(s) have an easy way to get back home after their mission is fulfilled. What mission you might ask? To gain detailed knowledge and information from the people, civilizations and geography of the Delta Quadrant, securing unknown technology and establishing a presence and diplomacy towards the local population. Most likely this is also why Neelix, after losing his home planet(/moon) and family, was part of said sublime plot, and the local contact man Janeway was given; that is also why Neelix behaved in a way to minimalize social contact (or at least interest in him), so that nobody might consider him a secret agent of the Federation/Obsidian Order. That's why, whatever he does, Janeway doesn't bother to replace him. Anyway, most likely it will be that at a later point, after enough diplomacy/scouting, the Voyager crew will come across an array (or space station) which will be able to send them home; Janeway will then most likely use it to come much closer to home without destroying said array (or space station) so that the stealthed ship of the Obsidian Order, which in the meantime followed them with enough distance to not be noticed and working on other missions in the meantime, will use said array (or space station) to transform it into a waypoint for the Federation/Obsidian Order scheme. How far the continued work together will go, I'm not sure, and in the future we might see a fall out between the two factions, but this Janeway-Tuvok-Neelix combination is very clearly working for said goal. Probably it was a much larger group from the officers, but the rough arrival probably hindered a more open execution of the plan. Most likely we will see Neelix staying back at some point, after the mission is finished, at some ideal paradise world where he enjoys the payment from the Federation/Obsidian Order or some unexpected colony of his people, probably on an abandoned world or moon without any vegetation so you can't tell how long that colony was there (and most likely only was established to convincingly get Neelix off board). But this explains how Tuvok, as a logical Vulcan, is such close 'friend' with a chaotic and irresponsible leader like Janeway (though probably some of this might just be an act to convince the crew about her bad decision to stay in the Delta Quadrant) and Neelix still staying on board with all his luxury demands despite bringing the crew into such a bad situation.

[@TheWoblinGoblin]

"Neelix is just a shithead" thank you sir

[@ultra6671]

To be fair on the whole "everyone has tricorders while on the array" scene, it kind of makes sense considering that their ship was flung across the galaxy, so they'd naturally want to know where the hell they are.

[@MadScientist512]

What nobody ever points out is that the Caretakers' array is bristling with weapons that can easily overpower the Kazon, perhaps he should've shown them how to use those weapons to deter the Kazon like he did for ages.

[@zardox78]

Yeah, imagine if Voyager had the chance to go back but they lingered to save the Maqui (who'd just helped them out) and missed their chance. Or it could've been just as interesting if it was the other way around. Might've helped if there was some sort of ticking clock written in. The writers had the end goal of stranding Voyager far away, and they didn't care enough about the how or why of it all. It all comes down to laziness. This series set-up feels like it was given the same thought and weight as some random TNG episode from season 6 or 7. Except TNG usually did a much better job of getting us to care about the players and/or factions involved, even if their whole species was just a one-off.

[@nicolamarchbank1846]

Ah Voyager, I enjoy it as a guilty if incredibly frustrating pleasure, if I turn my brain off, but it never quite fulfilled it's potential. Yes, there are a few absolute bangers in there, ‘Scorpion’, ‘Dark Frontier’, ‘Equinox’ and more guilty pleasures and camp delights than I care to admit. It’s just frustrating, it should have been AMAZING! Voyager has the best premise for a Trek show hands down. The idea of stranding a Starfleet ship out way past the frontier without backup and allies and then filling it with rivals and enemies is just superb. But that’s not what we got and that’s clearly not what either or both Paramount and UPN actually wanted. If they wanted that do you think they would have interfered as much as they did? Stuck the Maquis in uniforms at the end of the Pilot? Let Berman, Piller and Taylor do what they like and decide “Janeway is always right”? Yes, the Trio created the show, but they were the wrong people to run Trek at this point, they were too establishment by now. Berman is clearly a capable production manager but has limited feel for fiction and has issues with personnel management. The late Michael Piller was too enthused with the Roddenberry Box as a storytelling conceit, as Star Trek:Insurrection proved to the film's great detriment and Jeri Taylor was clearly on some kind of feminist kick at the expense of creating a character who, to me, had ANY business being a Starship Captain. What they needed is to take a ‘Wrath of Khan’ type approach and start fresh bringing in a new generation of leaders from the outside. They needed Berman, Piller and Taylor to realise that their best Trek was mostly behind them and act as elder statesmen whose focus was to protect a young, ambitious team from Network interference and protect their budgets. They needed a younger Head Writer with a point to make leading a similarly ambitious Writer’s Room with the space to deconstruct Star Trek storytelling taking a hard look at lore and realism. They needed a fresh and energetic Head of Production to update the cinematography, lighting, sound design, music and lead a team of directors willing to actually try new things. Aside from that a smattering of old hands like David Livingston and the Okudas to give the ship and the Starfleet elements of the show that Star Trek sheen, but a good idea would have been to operate a second, Voyager only design team focused on alien design for Delta Quadrant societies to make them actually look alien and different. Voyager had to my mind four basic flaws that prevented it from being as good as it should have been: 1) A disinterest in consequence. The Piller approach to story resolution ensured that very few major events in the show actually matter. Arguably only them getting stranded in the first place thus destabilising the geopolitics of the Delta Quadrant at the end of ‘Caretaker’, the War with 8472 which saves the Borg and introduces Seven in ‘Scorpion’ and the destruction of part of the Collective in ‘Endgame’ actually matter - and the last two only really pay off in Season 3 Picard. Imagine how that plays out without Seven’s involvement, quite possibly with the fall of the Federation… And given what we now know about the treatment of Synths in the Federation, I am not sure the Doctor’s evolution as a sapient AI can be counted as a long-term consequence of Voyager shows either. In comparison, DS9 had the Dominion War which is setting changing. Aside from that we have the Wormhole and the Dominion itself, the Federation-Klingon-Romulan detente, the destruction of Cardassia, the resolution of the War between the Prophets-Pah Wraiths, a new course for the Ferengi Alliance under Grand Nagus Rom and his Consort Leeta (but let's face it, Leeta's gonna be running Feringinar), a weakened Breen, Odo's potential or otherwise impact on the Founders within the Great Link and in the future, the likely accession of Bajor to the Federation and a possible change in the tembre of relations between Bajor and Cardassia as Cardassia now needs rebuilding, Bajor is relatively strong in-comparison and a Bajoran helped orchestrate the Cardassian Resistance. That's A LOT more. 2) A disinterest in character. They did not have a plan for any of their characters. They clearly did not sit down and say: "for Season 1 - we will do A and B with Chakotay, C and D with Tuvok" etc and write accordingly. They did not really understand how to use Neelix at all as @bthsr7113 correctly suggests. They had not fully thought through the Ocampa and how that was going affect Kes as a character. They had no real clue about what to do with Harry pretty early on except to be Tom and to a lesser extent B'Elanna's sidekick. They did not even have the cast fully nailed down until Mulgrew joined after production had already started, so the usual tone issues with early scripts inconsistencies become amplified and didn't bother to have much characterisation except 'Scientist Who Cannot Delegate' and 'Woman Captain'. They were not particularly interested in developing characters but instead, using characters as tools and human-shaped plot-points and to give us an 8th Season of TNG. Try instead an alternate Season 1 - using episode B and C-plots to show characters such as Torres and Harry settling into their new roles as very young people suddenly with a LOT of responsibility on their shoulders, introduce and develop a pool of recurring characters such as the Maquis from ‘Learning Curve’ to show why they were being singled out later on, introduce Samantha Wildman early on so we care about her when we learn she is pregnant and can therefore get invested in that story, and develop a longer-term threat, let the fans in on the fact that Seska is a bad ‘un whilst the crew do not know so we can understand her motivations and those of Michael Jonas a bit better and you've set up the beginnings of Season 2 storylines ahead of time. As an example, imagine following Torres as she goes from Academy drop out to Chief Engineer overnight. Show her building a relationship with Joe Carey, them both struggling to relate to each other, her learning how to lead and to discipline subordinates as required. Use that as a way to set up the Seska and Michael Jonas arcs and to develop Carey. Later on, legitimately, Carey as a father should recognise that Seven is basically a teenage girl and counsel Torres that she needs to take a different tack, intervening when he thinks its affecting performance. He should be holding the Chief to a higher standard paralleling the way that Chakotay was supposed to hold Janeway to the mark and taking pride, almost like a big brother in watching B’Elanna come into her own as a person, getting married, starting a family, and lead the Engineers in cornering Tom one day in the Cargo Bay to threaten his life if he screws up because they have to deal with their enraged Chief in the aftermath…. Imagine how much it would affect Torres and in a different way, Seven if he still died late in Season 7? The guy who had been there for B’Elanna when she was just learning her job despite how she got it, shared with her a deep friendship built on comradeship and respect for each other’s expertise despite being opposite personalities and have her finally embrace the Klingon side of her because her comrade fell and she’s telling Heaven a freaking excellent Engineer is coming so they best sit up and take notice? The Chief struggling to write a letter to his widow in the Alpha Quadrant to make sense of what has happened. Imagine how upsetting that would be for the fans? And it works for Seven too - he’s a father absent from his children dealing with a woman who has survived the unthinkable and is without a childhood so he could have been helpful to her, at least to guide her in how to interact with his boss (and her's) and his insight into how to look after children wouldn’t be unwelcome either. MUCH better. Harry could showcase the reality of being stranded. We don’t need the blatancy of high functioning depression, but an exploration of the effects of social isolation on someone so green, gullible, such an overachiever who is suddenly under so much pressure from nowhere with no prospect of relief. That either builds character or it breaks them, the perfect Starfleet officer breaking would be more interesting because it would be different. I think something akin to the longer journey taken by John Carter in ER which was airing at roughly the same time is plausible.

[@BelieveIt1051]

It's true. I said it from the beginning that Janeway was stupid to not just set detpacks on the array and use it to get them home, having the array destroyed afterward. That became the unintentional premise of the show, that Janeway stranded her crew in the Delta Quadrant for no reason. The obvious fix for this would have been to have the array become damaged in the fight with the Kazon so that it couldn't be used. At least not without being repaired first. But the threat of reinforcements from the Kazon was too great for her to risk her sending repair crews over to fix an array they barely understood. Leaving her with the only option of destroying the array, after having her crew take everything they could from the array first to study later. Voyager should have been more like its successful video game spin-off, Elite Force. Where the crew gains new technology along the way and keeps advancing the ship in numerous ways, showing off new technologies and abilities every few episodes. Also, the tricorder nitpick isn't warranted. They need those to analyze the environments they're in. When they arrive at the farm, they know it does not naturally exist, so they use the tricorders to find out what it is. They also use them to find what they're looking for, namely the lost crewmen. Then in the escape shaft up to the surface, Harry needs the tricorder to check the structural integrity of the stairs to make sure they're safe to climb. As we see, they weren't that safe for Tom and Chakotay.

[@andrewklang809]

I've been following Chuck for about a decade, but with all the takedowns and blips and such, the memory's a little fuzzy. Was this the first-ever SFDebris Trek video review?

[@Justhatguy1]

I love the way you portray evil Janeway. Mwahahaha 😮😂

[@Philistine47]

What gets me is the sheer pointlessness of... Well, okay, *EVERYTHING.* It's VOY, after all. But in this case I specifically want to mention the Maquis thing. There's no reason for it! There will (practically) never be any consequences from it! What should have been a constant source of intra-ship tension, as Maquis and Starfleet personnel repeatedly clash (and the Maquis really should refuse to wear Starfleet uniforms, *especially* the ones who are ex-Starfleet) over different approaches to problem-solving aggravated by their long-standing grievances, instead is a great big nothing by the start of the first regular-series episode. They could have achieved functionally the same results simply by having the Maquis crew members - an identity which will (almost) never be important again! - simply be junior Starfleet officers already aboard _Voyager,_ forced to take on additional, unfamiliar, responsibilities after several senior officers are killed. But instead the showrunners chose the dumbest of all possible worlds, which, it turned out, would be the most VOY thing ever.

[@lordmontymord8701]

It's so funny that the Maquis was introduced just for Voyager and in the end DS9 did a lot more and better things with the concept. Hell, even the one Maquis-episode on TNG was better than anything Voyager ever did with them. Can you imagine people like Eddington and Ro Laren having a meeting with Chuckles? They are not exactly on the same level.

[@boobah5643]

@@lordmontymord8701 Really? I'd just assumed that the Maquis were an organic outgrowth of the Cardassian troubles we were introduced to when they debuted the Cardassians themselves.

[@lordmontymord8701]

@@boobah5643 No, this is true, as Ronald D. Moore and several other people from both the DS9 and VOY-staff said. Journey's End and Preemptive strike on TNG and The Maquis on DS9 were originally not meant to be more than an introduction for a group of renegades, so VOY could have it's Starfleet and renegades-crew-plot. So thanks to the VOY-producers for the Maquis-idea, even if they themselves soon forgot about it (well at least we got Rebellion Alpha, which is one of my favourite episodes of VOY).

[@Mate397]

I think the Hungarian dub did a lot of positive for my viewing, granted looking back through his reviews I do agree with his points. However the voices definitely did some heavy lifting to make you not notice the plot issue so much.

[@catholicactionbibleonlyist1813]

was dreaming about star trek last night and i may was in a Barn

[@fightthepowerman]

Great video

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

I was always disappointed that so much happened so fast in the premiere. All of these great secondary characters we only got to know for all of five minutes and then they were gone. I'd always thought that Voyager's main crew could stand to be a little bit bigger. Having a few extra adult personalities would have made the show more interesting. In particular the original intended human Doctor who was killed off quickly I thought was a loss. Sure, the EMH was played brilliantly by what's his name, but couldn't there somehow have been both or some alternative?? Always having a computer program doctor gave a lot of plot potential but by the same token deprived us of a relationship between the crew and a human being. On Voy the doctor's character got tons of development, which was great, in contrast to TNG where unfortunately Crusher (or Pulaski) never got that much. It would have been interesting to see that kind of character development with a human character. As much as the EMH was played brilliantly by his actor (I forget his name), there was always that thought in the back of my mind of "how much of this emotion can I take as genuine when after all, this is just a highly sophisticated computer program??" I know holograms in the future are perceived as sentient but are they? Well I have a hard time seeing them that way- I mean they have no soul no organic matter so... It's hard for me to believe that any artificial life-form could have true sentience. I accepted it on TNG as part of my suspension of disbelief with Data but, yeah. Likewise it would have been interesting to see how that female betazed character developed over the seasons. Idk, it just seems like they threw a lot of their potential away right out of the gate. I know the plot required a shipwise accident but perhaps they could have retained those two characters or some alternative could have been considered.

[@noblehelium3794]

The Doctor is the only definitely sentient hologram in Star Trek. The other ones such as Moriarty are debatable. Data was not a hologram, although if you actually mean sentient program rather than hologram, then Data would be included.

[@lordmontymord8701]

@@noblehelium3794 Well in case of Vic Fontaine we can only hope he isn't really sentient, otherwise his creator would be a monster putting in this event that erases his memories if the participants aren't able to help Vic getting his club back ... 😉

[@lordmontymord8701]

The original first officer and doctor of VOY always annoyed me. All we see from them is their hatred for Paris, which is actually pretty understandable after what he did, but since they are just antagonistic we as the audience are not really supposed to feel anything when they die. Why put more work into them since they are supposed to die anyway? Understandable from the writers point of view but really cheap. I agree, would have been more interesting if they stayed more than half an hour. Imagine the XO survived: Janeway wants to unite the crews because she thinks its the best solution and so comes up with the idea to make Chuckles her first officer (or at least the second) - whatever his name was would oppose and perhaps try to rally people for his cause, fracturing the Starfleet-crew. They could have had more than the already underused tensions between Starfleet and Maquis, having people on both sides who disagree with their respective leader. When it comes to the Doctor i always disliked the whole hologram-thing anyway. The writers wanted someone like Data, who was fighting for his rights as an artificial being, but the way they constructed him never worked. If he was so complex that the ship needet a seperate computer module just for him, it would make sense that he can't be copied or they couldn't have more than one instance of the Doctor at the same time. At the same time his program was transfered to other ships and locations multiple time, yet you can't duplicate his program ... what kind of computer magic is that? I like the Doctor but i think i would have enjoyed him even more if he was just a grumpy human, who didn't want to be a medical officer, because he is only interested in research and his social skills aren't the best, but he was simply forced to replace the ship's actual doctor for this short mission that would certainly not take more than a few days ...

[@CanuckWolfman]

It's weird, watching this episode start with something other than Harleys and Indians.

[@WDC_OSA]

I'm gay and some of the arguments you make here lead me to believe the series would've been much better off if they unambiguously showed Janeway screwing up while trying to get Voyager home. It's totally understandable that she would, given the extremely strange circumstances she's in, and it would play into the tension between Starfleet and Maquis that they went absolutely nowhere with.

[@lordmontymord8701]

But we can't have characters who make wrong decisions. Also we cannot have moral ambiguity. Starfleet officers must always be correct. *He says with a smile because his favourite captain is Sisko, a man who crossed the line more than once because of the circumstances. A fact that makes Sisko more human than any other captain 😁*

[@bthsr7113]

@@lordmontymord8701 He didn't just cross the lines, the show knew that he did and clearly communicated that.

[@lordmontymord8701]

@@bthsr7113 Yes, and that of course is the main difference. It's so frustrating that many, many decisions Janeway and Archer made were not only without alternatives, according to their own words, but the writers framed this as the right thing to do (even if their actions weren't even questionable from a moral viewpoint but also pretty stupid). There are times when the space-time continuum bends around Janeway to make sure she's right (like when she decides not to help the holograms in Flesh and Blood, and then suddenly their leader Iden goes from reasonable protector to lunatic, so that Janeway can once again say "told you so!"). In the Pale Moonlight on the other hand is a great tale about a man deciding to act against his own moral code because he deemed his actions necessary for the greater good and the consequences of said decision. And nobody tells the viewer what to think about this, this is up to you.

[@Zyklon_B_still_and_know_God]

Why did you start this comment with "I'm gay" 😂

[@lordmontymord8701]

One thing i just noticed now, after watching Caretaker at least four times and the review three times: The Caretaker has advanced holodeck-technology at least on par with the Federation - but the Ocampa only get a few big screens. The Caretaker and his people were really cheap when constructing the Ocampa-vault. And i know the Caretaker sees the Ocampa as innocent children, but is he really that blinded he doesn't see the easiest solution? Train some of them as his replacements. They are quick learners (they have to be considering their life-span) and so after a short time they can protect themselves in the future. Also, coming back to the holodeck - they can have interactive manuals teaching how to do the maintenance. But instead he goes for the most time-consuming plan: Find someone who is compatable with him to produce an offspring. Because only his kid would be able to do the job ... idiot. He could have also looked for other people who were willing to take over his duty, if he doesn't want the Ocampa to do it. He scans the databases of the ships he catches, so he should know who would be willing to help, like the Federation. They would honor a deal that says "you get access to the station and can sent your ships back and forth, but you have to protect the Ocampa". I'm sure a lot of species or individuals would.

[@lilbits1053]

I saw the debut, a huge 13yo tng/ds9 fan. Not loving it, not hating it, but left with the feeling star trek was about to start getting 'worse' from here. I wanted Voyager to be better than DS9 and take everything that came before to do something new and intriguing and even cerebral but it kept folding back on tired trek tropes and the reset button. I stuck with it because some of the seeds seemed interesting, like Kes is the child of a mushroom-light being who lives 7 years(the average number of seasons for a ST show) and Voyagers biological components seeming to have no effect on the plot at all other then to sound like cool new tech. I honestly thought they were setting up for Kes to slowly merge with the ship and explore a new biological level of reality, maybe find a new organic level of subspace that brings them home, but then they fired Jennifer Lien and the show became the borg fan service hour and I was done. The Borg basically served as the Daleks in coming in to suck me back to watch an otherwise mediocre season but the show is just.. nothing. Just so much wasted potential.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

Ha haha Nicely put.

[@nicolamarchbank1846]

Part 2, sorry about the length, turns out I had things to say: 3) A disinterest in setting. I am not even meaning a disinterest in making believable alien species we haven’t seen before given the failure that the Kazon were. I am talking about the ever-replenishing Shuttlecraft, the eternal supply of torpedoes, then glaring need for a more consistent take on the power and supply issues and not making the answer to the energy challenge something as abundant as deuterium. Basic stuff to make the setting and the ship feel more believable. More than that, show a ship-board community emerging beyond the Brahman class of the Senior Staff. Janeway is the Captain, but in some ways Chakotay is almost the Mayor, responsible as he is for the people. BSG demonstrated that there is plenty of potential for character drama and tension between a military leader and the leader of the community in these sort of circumstances. There are going to be societies and clubs forming, annual events, birthdays, more than just Naomi and the Borg kids arriving. Show us them! I would have really liked them not shoving Mr Entitled Nepo Baby into every job possible to make him look great and using other supporting characters who would genuinely be more qualified like actual Biochemists as Nurses instead. Sorry, the tone they used when they introduced Paris spoiled him for me. He killed people due to his negligence, got rightfully kicked out of Starfleet and then joined a terrorist outfit as an act of anti-paternal rebellion, that's not a good enough reason, you DO NOT get to play the victim. I'm British, we have had an ongoing problem with terrorism since at least 1969 and I can't tell you how much that offended me even as a teenager. The Maquis, Kira, they had a cause they believed in deeply, he believed in nothing whatsoever and acted like the universe owed him something. Rescuing him from the prison he belonged in because, terrorist, simply because he is the son of her mentor also made me think less of Janeway. Chakotay and B'Elanna get a little bit of leeway because they actually believed in their cause, right or wrong, even if Chakotay became boring as a block of wood and the Doctor gets a pass because he's an AI who doesn't know how to be a person early on. But we have a sociopathic, micromanaging, control-freak as Captain, an unlikeable galley creature, an underwritten noob and Paris. NOT a likeable main cast to root for. Seven at least recognised she'd been used to enact a great wrong whilst seeking redemption and the opportunity to use her Borg enhancements for good. She OWNS her past, no matter how she feels about it. Tom Paris NEVER showed that self-awareness, instead having everything he wanted handed to him on a plate and getting the happy ending despite the fact that he is a CRAP boyfriend. Sorry, NOT fine with that. 4) Take a more sensible approach to Janeway. She was basically just “female Captain” who steadily became less and less stable and more hypocritical and inconsistent overtime. I agree with the poster before @dominicsmith5588 analyses Janeway’s odd decision-making through ‘Caretaker’ and its consequences. I don’t like Janeway, I find her smug, self-righteous, irritating, hypocritical and I often disagree with her position. I didn't think she was especially qualified to be a Captain and it felt as if she was the eventual end of the line for the so-called 'Golden Age' of the Federation, Starfleet officers who talked a good game but didn't know how to actually defend the Federation and assumed everyone automatically thought like they did so couldn't cope well when they did not. I don’t feel any need to see more of her and her presence is enough to dissuade me from having anything to do with Star Trek:Prodigy. Thinking about it, KZbinr Lorerunner in his speculations about Voyager may be right. Janeway should have started as the First Officer promoted far too quickly due to circumstances. A bright, eager, recently promoted Chief Science Officer who is desperate to impress as Voyager's new XO and comes up with a scheme to help an anti-terrorism operation mission she is as an ex-CSO is not actually qualified to lead and get into the good books of her mentor Admiral Paris by rescuing his son from prison at the same time. She then ends up way in over her head in the way that Dominic describes below. Add in that she has the guilt of stranding the crew due to her own faulty decision-making and inexperience (which this version of Janeway is self-aware enough to realise even if she can only admit it to a personal log) and has to deal with proven leader Chakotay, who now is more qualified for the Captain’s position than she is, questioning her all the time, as is both his job and when he is correct. There’s automatic grounds for drama as they disagree on approach, there’s space for growth as she is just learning how to be a Captain and therefore her mistakes can be viewed in those terms, as well as struggling because she leans too hard into what her Command School training taught her and not what her non-existent experience would normally had to guide her, so she inconsistently applies regulations, the Prime Directive etc and mishandles diplomacy, leading to Chakotay having mixed opinions and even considering relieving her from time to time - and getting some screen-time and development. This also means they get to try something different with the Captain in a Trek show as well, long before Discovery happened, maybe waiting until the end of the Pilot for Captain X to perish trying and failing to preserve the Array long enough to get them home so its not actually her fault they are all stuck there. Naturally this means that she would be younger, so that probably removes Mulgrew from the picture, which is ironic given that she was the second choice for the part anyway. They would have avoided the Bujold situation as well, casting someone probably 5 to 10 years younger as the green-horn commander not ready for the mission of a lifetime and having to step up regardless. Not a lot actually needs to change - just the lens through which we view her. Voyager then becomes her voyage to personal potential as well as other people. If they had done better with even ONE of those four factors, Voyager would go from being a decent, entertaining enough show to an actually good one instantly.

[@mikegates8993]

What Chuck said about him going into Voyager reminds me of how I felt about the WoW expansion Battle for Azeroth. I wanted to like it, especially after how bad everything involving Illidan was during Legion and given how much I love all the troll's lore. But...basically from the get-go the expansion showed how bad it would be with the stuff in Teldrassil and Undercity.

[@bthsr7113]

Jaina was a highlight from what I heard, but even in Voyager, there were good parts to be picked away from the rest. Didn't make the whole show good, just not as a bad overall while setting up a character that other writers might be able to set up with good surrounding stories.

[@mikegates8993]

@@bthsr7113 Jaina being a highlight basically depends on if you like the direction they've taken her character since the end of Cataclysm. Which I very much don't.

[@bthsr7113]

@@mikegates8993 I'm not a WoW expert, so I can't be sure if it was a good idea, but from the clips I saw, the emotions were clearly conveyed and especially Daughter of the Sea telling how much pain she carried.

[@mikegates8993]

@@bthsr7113 As someone whose been playing for a while, it's hard for me to detach scenes with Jaina from the stupidity of what they've done with her in recent years. Even looking at her modern character model is enough given that her hair changed as a part of that story.

[@JerryListener]

Someone said they could hear my eyes rolling from down the hall.

[@accidentalmadness1708]

Im only on s2 but I kinda like Neelix. That episode about the scientist that created a weapon that was used to destroy Neelix’s home in particular was a solid episode for him.

[@ryang2573]

I can't help but wonder if, when the writers of this show put 'nucleogenic particles' they were actually trying to say 'condensation nuclei'. It'd still be gibberish, of course. A desert planet would certainly have no shortage of dust in the air for precipitation to condense around. But I cannot fathom why they would use technobabble when they could have used real life meteorological terminology.

[@Jim-pq9pm]

I think a work around for this fundamental issue of why Janeway stranded Voyager would involve a reworking of the first scene with the Kazon. Instead of depicting them as less advanced, depict them as xenophobes who hate the Okampa who are relatively advanced. Then, in the scene where they retrieve Kes from the Kazon, have Janeway make the mistake of trading seemingly innocuous technology with them out of desperation. Later, the Caretaker is angry because of this, as this tech will give the Kazon the ability to make use of the array after he dies, not only making the Kazon a threat to the Okampa, and the entire galaxy, but making Janeway(and by extension Starfleet) responsible for it, thus necessitating the destruction of the array. Put a time limit on it with the arriving Kazon cruisers, and explain they don't have time to rig a time delay explosive, or explain that only direct fire is powerful enough to destroy it.

[@fluffskunk]

Chakotay could have stayed on the array to set off the bomb in exchange for amnesty for his crew? Eh... the Federation penal system is less restrictive than an evangelical college, so wouldn't be worth it.

[@Jokie155]

Apparently it really wasn't the royalties after all, relating to Locarno. They just felt he wasn't redeemable, and so Tom Paris was effectively a 'lighter' version of Locarno that could be redeemed eventually. And hey, I think the Lower Decks follow-up on Locarno works out for the best anyway in that regard. Tom Paris turned his life around. Locarno doubled down on blaming everyone but himself, and paid the price for that arrogance.

[@SamuelBlack84]

If the Caretaker wanted someone to replace him in caring g for the Oconpa, why didn't he clone himself?

[@cthulhupthagn5771]

I didnt like Voyager until season 3. Thats when Mulgrew insisted she be written more like Kirk, and they pulled in the Borg...completely ignoring the first two seasons. The Maquis was such a non-thing it was annoying, the Kazon looked like rock crystal candy and if the Klingons were written by Simpsons writers. Kess made Neelix worse somehow. And the concept that every episode had a way home they couldnt use for some reason got annoying fast. Some didnt like the change either. 7 of 9 was accused of being pure eye candy (nevermind her and the Doctor were breakout characters) and the Borg were thought as overused. But some of the best episodes were then, like Year of Hell.

[@mechanomics2649]

0:40 I don't disagree with you but the Midwest is very different from the South East, and especially from Appalachia. So while you didn't experience those things in the Midwest, I don't think that translates to what goes on in the South.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

A repost of one of my replies that seems like it would stand well on its own: I really liked the character of Seska. They didn't give her nearly enough screentime in my opinion. She expertly manipulated the hot-headed egoists at the top of the Kazon power structure to secure herself a strong position- that was amusing to watch. I would have liked seeing a lot more of the planning and behind the scenes with her. Only thing Voyager had as a real nemesis for JW, and she wasn't even that wrong, her POV was very understandable. She was more nakedly self-serving than your average SF crewperson but she had as much right to want to get home as anyone and she wasn't wrong about JW. Nothing personal against JT but I blame Jeri & Berman for ALL of the bad calls on Voy and my jeez there were many. By refusing to tell extended stories Voyager wasn't really about anything other than the problem or lesson of the week and that's just not enough. I'm not here to watch a "Voyager: a collection of random short stories", I'm here to watch a saga unfold with the added bonus of an immediate event to take part every week. You can't tell a whole saga in 45 minutes, you do it periodically over the course of a season or seasons. You show long-term problems and gracefully unfolding developments. You do this concurrent with your issue of the week. To NOT do this is the height of mediocrity and amateurville. Idiots. It worked on TNG because the writing was so much better on average and plus the ship didn't have an overarching problem to overcome. The saga WAS the daily adventure. Writers are imaginative. It should be the job of project bosses to make sure they have the freedom to have full creative control and opportunity showcase their talents.

[@oliversmith9200]

We don't come here to entirely suspend disbelief if the cognitively dissonant plot is necessary to the series premise, but, we do see what they did, and, we appreciate it. It takes guts to walk into a wall and act like you're fine with it. ;)

[@robertpearson5410]

Well, if you don't like the actor who plays Janeway, that might spoil some things.... This initial episode seemed like it was rushed and could have used a lot more of whatever makes TV episodes better.

[@matthewjordan9043]

I'm sad you didn't like ST:V. It was my fave series, with TNG, and DS9, and TOS (whatever order).

[@lordmontymord8701]

Pilots are mostly not very good because they have to manage so many things: Introduce all the characters and the setting and make people interested for the future, so they have a hard time to also deliver a good story. So i don't mind Caretaker not being very engaging. What i do mind is the fact that this pilot sets up important story elements like the problems between the Starfleet crew and the Maquis, which will surely play a big role for the next seven years, also the tensions between Tom and Chuckles ... Well at least some Characters show their biggest feats: Janeway displays great thinking and so dooms a lot of people, Chuckles is boring and the most Indian Indian of all times (i'm using the term instead of Native American or member of the First Nations for a good reason, knowing who worked out the character), B'Ellana is angry (at least this time there is a good reason) and Neelix is a piece of sh**, who makes a situation way worse than it has to be. So at least in this way the pilot is very successful. One thing i also don't mind is the stupid midwest-simulation: After other things we saw on Trek - like the colony Beverly's grandma lived with her ghost lover, where humans and aliens role-play as Irish people in the 19th century or Tom's simulation of the French bistro, which is supposed to be like the real place - this simulation is probably also based on a real Federation colony the Caretaker found in the files from Voyager. It's a colony with a lot of Banjo players ...

[@JerryListener]

Which reminds me: new pitchfork.

[@comentedonakeyboard]

Locarno is a city in Italy, while Paris is a city in France. See clear difference😂

[@lordmontymord8701]

But Locarno is not the capital of Italy, so they didn't want to be too obvious with their choice 😉

[@andrewklang809]

Tom loves cars and is written to be the most-lazily competent dude in the quadrant, so name him: Tom Le Mans.

[@comentedonakeyboard]

@@lordmontymord8701 obviously👍

[@andrewshearsby8125]

Honestly I feel like the minority on Neelix he's not that bad. Rather be stuck with him than poor dumb Harry, at least I'll live with him.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

Lol I liked neelix too. They just forced him to be way too stupid and silly at times which got old fast but the times he could be serious or sincere Ethan really sold it for me.

[@andrewshearsby8125]

@@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs true his actor is a delight to meet.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

God forbid a billion-dollar corporation pay modest royalties to past writers. It would have been an interesting minor tie-in with TNG if this was Locarno, not Tom Paris... Altho Locarno was just kicked out, not sent to future prison ..... But that's easily updated or accounted for. RDM did a great turn in that episode and TFD was a highlight TNG episode imo. Mm that corpo greed and corner cutting. Ya just find it everywhere don't you? God forbid they pay other people besides their top brass. They just hate doing that don't they?? They certainly do and that's why strikes are still happening. Everyone wish our comrades in SAG-AFTRA good luck! Solidarity with ALL Labor! 💪 Labor Equality/ Labor Power now! Enough is enough! For more cassh me elsewhere comrades.....

[@bthsr7113]

Unions are our shield!

[@boobah5643]

I take it you haven't actually seen what they're demanding?

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

@@boobah5643 no please enlighten me

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

@@bthsr7113 damn right c'mon workers - from PhD to entry level - we need to stand together!

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

@@boobah5643 CLB??