Thirty years ago today, Star Trek: Voyager he began his journey to the Delta Quadrant with the debut of its pilot“Janitor”. Famously, VoyagerThe production got off to a rocky start: it lost its already groundbreaking female lead, Geneviève Bujold, just days into filming. But Bujold’s loss was Star Trekget with the arrival of Kate Mulgrew slip into VoyagerCaptain’s chair, coffee cup in hand – and what made it perfect for Star Trek was clear from the beginning.
There are many weird and wonderful things about “Caretaker”. There are big, bold ideas, like the stranding of a ship tens of thousands of light years from Federation space, or how the destruction of its crew during the initial crash forced Janeway’s Starfleet officers to confront the new Maki guerrilla allies they were following. There are little things, like how totally awesome Roxann Dawson’s B’Ellane Torres hair is before it unfortunately straightens once she’s back in Starfleet (crime!), or Kate Mulgrew’s expression when she has to react to the line “You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted male anglabosque” (30 years later and we’ve never learned what anglabosque is, so apparently we’re living empty lives).
Much of the fun in “Caretaker” makes it work as a pilot centered around Mulgrew. Her current understanding of who Janeway is—and how the episode itself never descends into a struggle over the idea of the captain leading the show—gives Voyager a momentum and energy that the show itself probably didn’t always manage to tap into over the next seven seasons. She is at times a total stubborn, at others a caring leader; we see her being pushed and pulled through this bizarre scenario she’s been given on a routine mission that turns into a fight for her and her crew’s lives in the face of an unfathomable power, and confronting it with this ever-simmering sense of justice and compassion. It’s almost absurd to think that this Mulgrew wasn’t there from the start: Janeway seems made for her. And yet, despite all that, one of her lines that I read in “Caretaker” has stuck with me since I first saw it.
It is completely absurd, one of many Voyagersignificant quotes. scene: Voyager has just met the Thalaxian merchant Neelix, who offers to help guide them to the strange new region they are in in exchange for a supply of water. But first he takes them to a world where the crew believes several kidnapped Maki and Starfleet officers have been taken, only for Neelix to quickly admit that he’s led them astray: they help him make a deal with a local species, the Kazon. Or more precisely, one of their sub-sects, Kazon-Ogla.
“Kazon-Ogla,” Janeway asks, frowning in the bright light of the desert world they’ve landed on. “Who are the Kazon-Ogla!?”
It’s not a funny sentence. It’s a perfectly normal line. It’s a completely normal reaction when Janeway realizes that Neelix has tricked them. But Mulgrew sells this absurd disbelief in the moment in such a way that I can’t help but laugh every time I watch “Caretaker” throughout my life as Trek fan. The exasperation, the confusion, the rise and fall in her voice as she emphasizes “Kazon-Ogla”. But she doesn’t make fun of the line or having to throw out alien names and technobabble; what appeals is the complete and utter seriousness behind it all, dripping from every syllable of the sentence. Kazon-Ogla? WHO are Kazon-Ogla! I can’t explain why he says that to me in such a particular way, outside of Mulgrew’s conviction as he says it. At that moment, Kazon-Ogla, whoever they are, are the most real thing in the world to her, and she makes you believe it, no matter how strange it may seem.
Janeway and the rest of the crew will have many iconic momentsand many broad, serious, witty, courageous, inspiring speeches and exchanges Voyagerseven seasons. But of all the moments in Voyager beyond that, of all the moments I’ve seen now watching Star Trek for the best part of my life, this is what randomly creeps into my head like a mental tic—that I still think about and laugh about, 30 years later.
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