Jeffrey Rewrites Voyager: Caretaker

How do you handle a two hour pilot? You have to showcase all your ensemble cast, have a gripping story that sets your series apart from its fellows, and seed a lot of stories for the future.

To be fair, Caretaker, the two-hour pilot of Star Trek: Voyager, does a decent job of this. Decent... but far from excellent. And the conclusion is just... ugh. And since this column is all about armchair quarterbacking anyway, let's go ahead and rewrite the pilot from a mediocre story, to a great Star Trek tale.

I am going to be jumping around a bit and discussing my rewrite thematically, rather than chronologically, so if you do not still carry the scars of Voyager permanently in your mind, you might want to brush up on the synopsis of Caretaker over at the Memory Alpha Wiki.
So what caused a pretty good setup to stall and fail toward the end?

Captain, I detect banjos. Recommend emergency evac.

The primary problem of this episode is its focus. It spends so much time focusing on the Caretaker, when really the Caretaker is a gimmick. The Caretaker is what gets them to the Delta Quadrant, and because there's another Caretaker out there somewhere it gives Voyager an immediate goal. That can be dealt with in about half the scenes actually allotted to it, most of which do absolutely nothing. Like the plantation.

Why the hell is there a plantation? What Starfleet file did the Caretaker go through to come up with an antebellum southern plantation? Who in the crew had dreams of living in an antebellum southern plantation? At least all of the minorities (except for Harry) are over on the Maquis ship, so there are no unfortunate implications. Which in itself has unfortunate implications, but nevermind.

All your nightmares. Forever.

The plantation scene is just the writers' attempt to screw with the viewers' head, and to give Tom a chance to establish himself as a horndog by making a pass at the holographic southern belle. Well, Tom doesn't need to establish himself as a horndog, he's already got enough great character development and other episodes will make his womanizing obvious. And as for screwing with the viewers' heads... why not go straight to the horrific nightmare fuel scene with the biopsy needles?

That's how you freak out the viewers right there. In later scenes where the Voyager crew talk to the Caretaker, he can still be an old man until the very end, but go ahead and put him in his own futuristic habitat. Only his form as an old human is holographic, because it actually makes sense that he would want to appear as the dominant race he was speaking with. And because all the plantation nonsense is gone, we get a few extra precious minutes of screen time. So what do we use those minutes for?

The growing schism within the Ocampa.

This is the really fascinating part of the episode to me, and it is barely touched on. The Caretaker's arrival turned the Ocampan homeworld into a desert. Since that time, out of a sense of obligation, the Caretaker has been providing the Ocampans with an underground paradise where all their needs are met. But as a result of this, the short-lived Ocampans have become entirely dependent on the Caretaker. Their mental powers have atrophied, and once the Caretaker's energy runs out, they will almost certainly die.

But there is a faction. A blasphemous faction who says the Caretaker is not a benevolent god, but that he has imprisoned them within a gilded cage. They believe the Ocampans must rediscover self-sufficiency. They have made their way to the surface, and grow food. More distressing, they have rediscovered the art of violence, and speak of creating weapons to fend off the attacks of the Kazon-Ogla.

Oh yes, you didn't think I'd forgotten about our foam-haired friends, did you? The Kazon are gang clans who divy up unwanted turf between the more terrifying empires of the Delta Quadrant. Ocampa, being a desert world, is one such unwanted planet, and the Kazon-Ogla have claimed it as their turf. While the Ocampans were underground they were safe, ignored by the Kazon-Ogla, but those who have come to the surface find themselves outgunned. Although the idea is terrible to them, they believe they must manufacture weapons and ships to defend themselves.

This is the face of a leader, not an abused child.

And who is their leader? Kes. No longer a shy, weak girl who needs saving, Kes is a young revolutionary. Naive perhaps, but fiercely determined to protect her people.

Note that she is not harsh or cruel. She is still the same loving, empathetic character that Voyager made her. She is young, and still has much to learn about leadership, which gives her a lot of room for development later on. But it also gives her a core of steel behind that adorableness. Her endless love and optimism is no longer purely naivete, it is now a determined effort of her goodness winning out over the devastation all around her.

Before we talk about the climax of the show, let's talk about character development. They do a good job with Tom and Harry throughout the show, establishing their friendship. I have my own opinion on why Tom is the bad boy, but that's something for future episodes to explore. This one does its job of establishing him as someone who makes bad decisions, and has more than a little bit of self-loathing. Meanwhile Harry is so by-the-book that even his principles are by-the-book. Why is Harry so awkward and insistent as he claims that he chooses his own friends? Because Harry suspects Tom is a bad guy, but Starfleet principles claim that no one is bad, and that all criminals save the insane can be rehabilitated (see The Original Series: Dagger of the Mind).

You did your best, Quark. You did your best.

About the only thing I would change is the scene where Tom shuttles to DS9 with the soon-to-be-dead Stadi. This scene does nothing but establish that Tom is a horndog. And what don't we need? We don't need any more scenes of Tom as a horndog. Instead, have her shuttling Harry over to DS9, and his naivete, by-the-book nature, and wonder at seeing Voyager would make the moment far more memorable.

But keep the scene in Quark's just the way it is. That is great.

Unlike many of his later appearances, Neelix is actually rather charming in this episode. He shows off his fierce loyalty to Kes (which will gradually be transferred to the crew), and his quick thinking and competence in the Delta Quadrant.

What's her secret? She's always angry.

B'Elanna and the Doctor are only minor characters in this episode, which is fine. They are established with a few scenes each, B'Elanna's temper being shown off, and the Doctor's agitated humor being shown off. These are their key traits, which makes it fine as long as they are developed in later episodes (which is true for the Doctor. B'Elanna... well... we'll talk about B'Elanna.)

Janeway, of course, is very well developed. She gets to show off her softer side, as well as her strict disciplinarian side. If Neelix will become the nurturing, loving parent of the crew, Janeway will become the strict, disciplinarian parent of the crew. Of course, as long as she is doing it because she loves them, that is fine. The reality may be somewhat different, but we will get into that in later episodes.

And then there's Chakotay. Geeze, from the very start Robert Beltran couldn't catch any breaks. Horribly under-utilized, never given nearly enough development, and relegated from episode one to being Janeway's lap dog.

That is terrible. Let's fix it.

Because an Indian might have strong views on being forced
off of ancestral land. Just saying.

So we start at the very beginning of the episode. Nix the opening title crawl and blatant Star Wars ripoff shot. Instead, we open on the Maquis ship, taking fire from the Cardassians. But wait! What about those new viewers who have no idea what Maquis or Cardassians or anything like that are?

Chakotay tells them. How does he tell them? Through an inspiring speech to his crew. Because that is who Chakotay is. Chakotay is the inspiring one. He is the one who gave up a promising Starfleet career based purely on principle. He is the idealist to Janeway's pragmatist. If Janeway is the authority figure that keeps the crew working together, Chakotay is the fiery heart of the crew that keeps them motivated.

After all, what else is a first officer for? He is there to allow the Captain to focus on running the ship, while he handles issues with the crew. And Chakotay could be so good at that, if only the writers would let him!

So we start at the very beginning by showing Chakotay give an impassioned speech to his Maquis ship that, incidentally, also recaps the situation for any new viewers. Then, throughout the episode, rather than submissively bowing to whatever Janeway says, he meets her as her equal. She is more clever and more tactically-minded, but he is the principled, passionate one. When they are questioning the Caretaker, his single line about not leaving anyone behind becomes a whole speech about the bonds of brotherhood that keeps them from leaving.

And then there's the climax. So what... the Kazon are suddenly attacking the Caretaker's Array for... reasons? Sure, I know there can be reasons, but they're not really explicitly stated. And then Janeway decides to blow up the array because she's worried that it might be used for evil, but she never thinks about, say, setting some photonic warheads with a timed detonation to activate after they leave?

No, the ending is far too forced and ridiculous. This is how I do it.

After rescuing Kes and pissing off the Kazon-Ogla, the crew travel with Kes to the small band of Ocampa that she leads. They are in squalor, barely subsistence farming, having to remain hidden lest the Kazon-Ogla find them. This is where we use those extra minutes to set up the conflict between the Ocampa. We meet Kes's second in command, a harder, less principled Ocampa, perhaps a bit older than Kes, who is in charge of their weapons program... and they have managed to cobble together enough Kazon salvage to build their own short-range starship. He wants to bomb the Kazon-Ogla off the planet, but Kes forbids it, saying they must focus on defense, and that if they become violent they are no better than the Kazon.

Probably not from the original draft script.

Kes helps Voyager find a hole in the Caretaker's shield to get into the Ocampa underground settlement, and she goes along with the Voyager crew to rescue Harry and B'Elanna. That scene plays out essentially like it was in the episode... except Paris does not make quite so many ridiculous quips about Indians, because come on, Tom, do you have to be such an asshole?

So they get back to the surface and beam aboard Voyager, only to get a transmission... from the Ocampa starship Kes's second in command has built. The Kazon-Ogla attacked their settlement. Why? Because they were tracking Kes, seeking vengeance for her escape. They promised to spare her people if they just turned her over, but they refused, and they paid the price. Kes tells her second that he is not to attack the Kazon-Ogla, but he laughs and says he has no intention of attacking the Kazon.

"What are they? Just a symptom of our weakness. If the Ocampa were strong, we would not need to fear the Kazon. No. I shall destroy the one who made us weak. I shall destroy the caretaker! The Ocampa will be forced to come to the surface then! Our people will become strong once more!"

Janeway orders Voyager to intercept the Ocampa ship, to keep it from destroying their chance at getting back home, but they are intercepted by a battle group of Kazon-Ogla ships. The final space battle begins. And at that moment, the crew detects that the Caretaker's Array has entered a self destruct mode.

B'Elanna and Kim, being the ones who the Caretaker took before, beam over to the array to try and reason with him. Chakotay takes command of the Maquis ship, while Janeway takes command of Voyager. We get lots of awesome starship fighting. The Kazon-Ogla tell Janeway to surrender Kes, and they will withdraw, otherwise Voyager will be destroyed. Janeway, in her typical "I'm the badass here" stubbornness, tells them there's no way that is happening.

On the Array, it is B'Elanna and Kim who talk with the Caretaker, and try to talk him out of his self-destruct. He dies in front of them. They radio back to Voyager what is going on, and Janeway tells them to stop the self-destruct at all costs. The two brilliant engineers get to work, B'Elanna taking the lead.

In the end the Kazon are defeated when the Maquis ship rams their main ship, with the Mahj giving his great "You have made an enemy today" line. The Ocampan ship is caught in a tractor beam right before ramming the array, much to the frustration of Kes's second in command. Kes points out that the array is very powerful, and her people cannot yet defend against it.

At first Janeway is unsympathetic, citing her duty to get her crew home. It is Chakotay, the idealist, the heart of the team, that tells her they cannot sacrifice a civilization to save themselves. Janeway reluctantly agrees, and talks to Kim and B'Elanna, who have stopped the self-destruct. She asks them if they can rig it to re-activate once Voyager and the Maquis ship are home. B'Elanna notes that this is all alien technology, but she can try. Janeway and Chakotay approve, and Janeway talks about appealing to Starfleet on the Maquis' behalf given their heroism in this mission. She says goodbye to Kes, and prepares to transport her down.

In my head, Janeway is a good captain.

And that is when Kes's second in command ejects his ship's nuclear power core (not warp core, because this is a short-range ship) by hand, killing himself in the process, and sending the core hurtling toward the Caretaker's Array. Janeway barely has time to beam Kim and B'Elanna back before the entire array goes up in a fiery nuclear explosion. A look of horror dawns over the faces of those in Starfleet and the Maquis.

At that point, there is just the wrap-up. Kes's surface dwellers are all but destroyed, the last survivors scrabbling back underground to rejoin the main Ocampan civilization. But the Ocampans have only seven or eight years of power left. In that time they must learn to fend for themselves, and they are in no shape to do so. Kes requests to go along with Voyager, hoping to find technology and knowledge in the Delta Quadrant to help her people, and perhaps also rediscover the Ocampan latent psychic powers. In addition, the Kazon-Ogla are still after her for revenge, and without the Caretaker she fears that if she stays with her people she will bring the Kazon down on them. Neelix goes along with Kes, and just like in the episode explains that Voyager needs someone like him along, who knows the territory.

The Maquis join the crew, but NOT as Starfleet. Instead, they are a mixed fleet, most in starfleet uniforms, some in Maquis fatigues. Chakotay is made second-in-command because otherwise the Maquis would refuse to remain. Tom Paris is given a field commission, since he is rejoining starfleet. Kim and B'Elanna heard tell of another Caretaker, one who might get them home. And so Voyager goes off to seek her... where no one has gone before.

And that is how you do a pilot.

If you didn't want to deal with crew tensions... why bother with having half the crew be Maquis?