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Thirty years ago today, Star Trek: Voyager began its journey to the Delta Quadrant and his debut“The caretaker.” Famous, VoyagerThe production got off to a bad start: they lost their first female lead, Geneviève Bujold, just days into filming. But Bujold’s loss was Star Trekthe benefit is arrival of Kate Mulgrew entrance VoyagerCaptain’s chair, cup of coffee in hand – that’s what made him good Star Trek it was obvious to begin with.
There are many wonderful and wonderful things in “The Caretaker”. There are big, bold ideas, such as the evacuation of thousands of ships from Federation space, or how the destruction of the crew during the first accident required Janeway’s Starfleet officers to brush shoulders with new rebel allies from the Maquis who follow. There are small details, like the way Roxann Dawson’s B’Ellana Torres’s hair is so beautiful before it is tragically straightened again to become part of Starfleet again (blame!), or the look on Kate Mulgrew’s face when she has to do something on the line. “You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted a man’s angla’bosque” (30 years on and we never learned what Angla’bosque was, so we have to live with nothing).
Which makes the “Caretaker” work as a pilot around Mulgrew. Her understanding of who Janeway is — and how the episode doesn’t shrink from struggling with the idea of having a female captain leading the show — is delivering. Voyager a rise and power that arguably the show did not consistently achieve over the next seven years. At times he is difficult, at others he is a careful leader; we see him being pushed and going through these extraordinary situations that he has been given in a routine task turned into a battle for his life and his team in the face of unknown forces, and facing them with justice and infinite mercy. It’s absurd to think that Mulgrew doesn’t exist from the beginning: it seems like Janeway made him. And yet despite all this, one line read by him in “The Caretaker” has burned into my mind since I saw it.
It’s completely ridiculous, one of many in the middle Voyager‘s known quotables. Events: Voyager he has just met the Talaxian merchant Neelix, who is offering to help a new alien region that can be found in exchange for water. But first, he leads them to the world where the crew believes a number of kidnapped Maquis and Starfleet officers have been taken, only for Neelix to quickly admit that he’s leading them astray: he’s helping him form alliances with local races. Kazon. Or more specifically, one of their divisions, Kazon-Ogla.
“Kazon-Ogla,” Janeway asks, squinting at the light of the desert world where she shined. “Who is Kazon-Ogla!?”
It’s not a funny line. It’s a completely normal line. It is clear to Janeway to realize that Neelix has played them. But Mulgrew sells this absurd disbelief in such a way that I can’t help but laugh every time I watch “The Caretaker” for the rest of my life. A journey fan. Anger, confusion, rise and fall in his voice as he emphasizes “Kazon-Ogla.” He’s not insulting the line or calling out strange names and technobabble, though; what nails it is the sheer and utter persistence behind it all, dripping from every syllable of the sentence. Kazon-Ogla? WHO and Kazon-Ogla! I can’t explain why he speaks to me in a certain way, beyond Mulgrew’s conviction in the way he says it. At that time, Kazon-Ogla, whoever they are, is the real thing in the world for him, and he makes you believe, no matter how strange it seems.
Janeway and the rest of the crew are gone often well knownit’s eloquent, honest, funny, bold, inspiring and interactive Voyagerseven seasons. But in all times Voyager beyond that, of all the moments I’ve seen now that I’m watching Star Trek for the better part of my life, it’s this one that keeps popping into my head like a tic tic – that I still think about, and laugh about, 30 years later.
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