Voyager would be at least a little hard to understand without this pilot movie, which introduces our main characters, gives us some background information and sets up the general concept for the show. The survivors of the Federation Starship Voyager team with the surviving crew of a rebel Maquie ship, after they are both sucked to the otherside of the galaxy by a sporositian life form known as 'The 'Caretaker', who is trying to cross breed in order to provide a replacement to his self appointed role as a kind of God/provider figure to a race known as the Ocampa, after his people accidentally make the surfice of their planet uninhabitable, forcing them to live underground.
The Caretaker is unable to succeed at his mission, leaves the underground Ocampa with a 5 year energy supply and dies. The Alpha Quandrant crews team up and sacrifice the Maquis ship in order to destroy the Caretaker's orbital array (which might have gotten them home), to prevent a Kazan sect (vaugly Klingon like Indian/street gangs surrogate aliens) from using it to genocide the Ocampa. Voyager then begins its trip home from the Delta Quadrant, which would take an estimated 70 years to accomplish. Along the way they will continue to explore the galaxy and search for a means to get them home faster. This pilot is mid tier, but does a good job with the necessary set up.
Main Characters
Captin Kathryn Janeway - Captian of the Federation Starship Voyager. From a Starfleet family, native of Indiana.
Commander Chakotay - Former captain of the Maquis ship; Native American, former Starfleet officer, he takes the position of the ships first officer after the death of Commder Cabot.
Belanna Torres - Half Klingon, half Latina, second year Starfleet Academy drop out, fmr Maquis. Takes over as chief engineer after the death of her predecessor.
Tom Paris - Lt, fmr Starfleet (from a Starfleet family, who was courtmarshled for a covert up, joined the Maquis, was captured on his first mission, and was on Voyager to earn a sentence reduction by helping Voyager find the missing Maquis ship. Takes over as ships main pilot after the death of his predecessor.
Harry Kim - Koren/American operations officer, recent academy graduate on his first assignment. Grew up in South Carolina, kind of a Boy Scout, plays the clarinet.
Lt Tuvok - A black Vulcan, cheif of security, very proper and by the book, confidant of Janeway, he had been undercover for Starfleet on the Maquis ship.
'The Doctor' - Emergency Medical Holographic Program, intended for short term use, he must take over the position as the ships doctor after the death of his predecessor. Confined by his holographic projectors to the ships sick bay.
Neelix - Talaxin trader, native of the Delta Quadrant who joins Voyager as a guide owning to his knowledge of this area of space and his outgoing demeanor. He will also become the ships cook and self appointed moral officer.
Kes - Young Ocampa woman in a romantic relationship with Neelix (for some reason). She will train as a nurse under the ships doctor, and will assist with hydroponic farming on the ship as she grew up working in that field on the Ocampa home world. Mildly telepathic. Ocampa only live about nine human years, at the start of the series she is about two.
Episode 3 'Parallax'
Various adjustment pains as the crews integrate. Belanna becomes chief engineer after impressing the Captian in handling the threat possed by a quantum singularly. Kes is put in charge of setting up the ships hydronic gardens, Paris becomes the Doctors assistant, and Kes gets the Doctor to thinking how he might adjust to long term useage/start thinking of himself as a person. Introduction of Seska, a Bajoran Maquis who is hidding a big secret that will be explored over the next two seasons.
Episode 4 'Tme and Again'
This is a time paradox episode, feels rather NextGen. A roughly 21st century level civilization is messing around with an unstable power source which causes the destruction of their world; only maybe it wasn't them, maybe it was Voyager attempting to rescue Janeway and Paris when they are slung back in time about 36 hrs after visiting the now uninhabited planet to investigate what happed to it? Kes's extrasensory perception start to manifest in this episode, a hold over from her ancestors 500 generations back. By the end of the episode the time paradox is resolved, the alien civilization saved, and Kes is the only member of the crew to retain some sense of what happend. Here they seem to be preparing Kes to serve in something similar to Deanna Troi's role on NextGen, though if memory serves this use of Kes's character is largely abandoned, leaving Kes the most underused character on Voyager.
Episode 5 "Phage"
Neelix takes it upon himself to start being the ships cook, he also insists on being part of an away mission searching for dilithium on a small planetiod. Turns out the diilthaum signature was a trap from a race called the Vidiian's, who will be a recurring species over the first few seasons. The Vidiians where once a noble race, whose species has been plauged by a highly adaptive virus called the "Phage". Think leprosy, it breaks down the organs so periodically they need to be replaced, they try to harvest from corpses where they can but are not above stealing from living beings. They steal Neelix's lungs, the doctor creates a set of holographic lungs as temporary solution, but ineffect it's an Iron lung situation which keeps Neelix immobile in sick bay (much to the Doctor's annoyance, he's a terrible patient). Voyager tracks down the Vidiian's who have already altered and implanted the lungs into one of their own. With their suppior medical technology the Vidiian's are able to adapt a lung donaited by Kes as a replacement for Neelix's.
Episode 6 "The Cloud"
Voyager encounters what they first think to be a nebula, but it turns out to be a space organism as big as a solar system. They accidentally injure it, but they are successful in repairing the damage. The crew continue to adjust to their isolation, and their limited power supplies. introduction to the Chez Sandrine holodeck program, a recreation of a bar in Marseilles, France that Lt. Paris used to hang out in; this becomes in the early seasons a communal gathering place for the crew during off hours. Chakotay starts teaching Janeway about American Indian spirituality and she meets her spirit guide, a salamander (Voyager is an odd show).
Episode 7 "Eye of the Needle"
Voyager discovers a small, collapsing wormhole just big enough to transport through and it leads to the Alpha Quandrant. That's good. However, the other end of the wormhole is in Romulan space and 20 years in the past, during the Romulans isolationist period. That's bad. Voyager does make contact with a noble spirited Romulan scientist who agress to transmit messages from the crew to Starfleet 20 years hence. That's good. However a consultation with ships records show that said scientist died 4 years before Voyager got sucked to the Delta Quadrant. That's bad. Subplot involves The Doctor providing Kes medical training and deciding he wants a name. The Doctor's search for a name becomes a continuing storyline in the early part of the shows run.
Episode 8 "Ex Post Facto"
This is a murder mystery episode. Tom Paris is accused and convicted of the murder of a Banean scientist who was assisting Voyager with enhancing their navigation systems. He was apparently having an affair with the man's trophy wife. The Banean punishment for such offenses is implanting the victims final memories in the perpetrator who is then forced to relive them every 14 hours. Tuvok investigates through interviews and mind meld, he discovers that the memory engrams where alternated to make Tom look like the murderer and encoded with the doctors research; the plan being to have the Numiri (with whom the Baneans are at war) abduct Paris and steal said research. Tuvok is able to use the trophy wife's stranger hating little dog, to prove that the doctor who implanted the memories was the Banean traitor. Said false memories are removed from Paris and Voyager goes on its way.
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