Introducing Star Trek Voyager

Star Trek: Voyager has finally come to Netflix. In Canada that is.


And, while I really have no intention of doing a disciplined, episode by episode discussion of the show on this blog, I will jot down some of my thoughts and observations as I work my way through the seven seasons. While I did watch many of the Voyager episodes when they aired originally, my attention to the series was spotty at best so I expect to encounter any number of shows that I have never seen.


From what I can see, Voyager began under the executive guidance of Rick Berman, with Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor originally there to help. The fateful pairing of Rick Berman with Brannan Braga as the leaders of the creative team did not take place until later, with results that shouldn't surprise anyone.


The premier episode, "Caretaker", a two-parter, came across to me as reminiscent of "The Cage", the original pilot for Star Trek. Thoughtful and fairly cerebral, with a slower pace and a great deal of character introduction and introspection, "Caretaker" is full of plot holes, to be honest, and the CGI effects seem dated to the 2016 viewer, but it does have its strengths as well.


First, Voyager introduces the first continuing female captain, Catherine Janeway, played by Kate Mulgrew. Yes, there have been female captains in the past, starting with the Romulan Commander in Star Trek's "Enterprise Incident" and hitting a real high point with Captain Rachel Garrett in TNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise", but Janeway is the first to be placed at the helm not just of a ship but of an entire Star Trek series.


And Mulgrew is the perfect choice to play her: strong and commanding, yet capable of capturing the more human moments that usually got William Shatner and Patrick Stewart into trouble.


Tim Russ is excellent as the franchise's first (?) black Vulcan character. Tuvok. Like Leonard Nimoy before him, Russ manages to convey in a very effective and convincing fashion a rational, controlled character with elements of personality peeking through at just the right moments in just the right quantities.


I can't say I love Robert Beltran nor the Chakotay character he portrays. Beltran is altogether too earnest and his character is, in my opinion at least, much too willing to fall in line with Janeway and the Star Fleet way. This may change in future episodes but, in "Caretaker" at least, the tension between the Maquis and Star Fleet is smoothed over altogether too easily.


Of course, Roxann Dawson's B'Ellana Torres adds more than enough tension into every scene in which she appears. I have to admit, I love the Torres character and Dawson's portrayal of her and I am particularly enamoured of the way the writers wrote the slow thawing of the relationship between Torres and Janeway, two strong women with strong convictions and even stronger contributions to make.


If there is an emerging star in this first episode it is Garrett Wang, in the role of Harry Kim, the young officer on his first assignment. Wang is exceptional in this premier and, to be frank, saves several scenes that Robert Duncan McNeill, playing Tom Paris, seems determined reduce to B-movie smarminess.


McNeill is apparently a very good actor but someone must have told him to ham it up a bit, to play the emotionally complex lost soul Paris as a preening little punk who thinks he's charming. Paris is irritating throughout this episode and at times unbearable. Of all the characters in "Caretaker", Paris seems most like an omen of things to come when Berman and Braga eventually team up for the last couple of seasons of Voyager and the disaster that was Enterprise.


Paris smirks, flirts/harasses and preens his way through the episode and works very quickly to attempt to enlist Kim as the Robin to his Batman. Berman seems to love his boyish pairs and this is the first one. It's awful, to be honest.


And someone help me understand that late scene where Neelix and Kes try to convince Janeway to take them along on Voyager's long flight home: the male, Neelix, is permitted to list all the ways he might bring value to the crew while Kes... well, Kes, basically presents herself as the pretty, quiet little woman who will stand by his side. Yuck. Give me a break. Take a moment to permit Kes to outline her qualifications and abilities as well.