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Episodes
Disc One: “Caretaker”, “Parallax”, “Time And Again”
Episodes
Disc Two: “Phage”, “The Cloud”, “Eye Of The Needle”, “Ex Post
Facto”
Episodes
Disc Three: “Emanations”, “Prime Factors”, “State Of Flux”,
“Heroes And Demons”
Episodes
Disc Four: “Cathexis”, “Faces”, “Jetrel”, “Learning Curve”
Stars: Kate Mulgrew, Ethan
Phillips, Robert Picardo, Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Roxanne Dawson,
Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, and Jennifer Lien
Writers: Michael Piller,
Jeri Taylor, Brannon Braga, Jim Trombetta, David Kemper, Skye Dent, Timothy De
Haas, Tom Szollosi, Bill Dial, Evan Carlos Somers, Michael Perricone, Greg
Eliot, David R. George III, Eric Stillwell, Chris Abbott, Paul Robert Coyle,
Naren Shankar, Joe Menosky, Jonathan Glassner, Kenneth Biller, Jack Klein, Karen
Klein, James Thornton, Scott Nimerfro, Ronald Wilkerson, and Jean Louise
Matthias
Directors: Winrich Kolbe, Kim
Friedman, Les Landau, LeVar Burton, Robert Scheerer, Kim Friedman, and David
Livingston
Feature length: 12 hours
Extras: Braving The Unknown: Season One, Voyager Time Capsule:
Kathryn Janeway, The First Captain: Bujold, Cast Reflections: Season One, On
Location With The Kazons, Red Alert: Visual Effects Season One, Launching
Voyager On The Web, Real Science With Andre Bormanis, Photo Gallery
Languages: English Dolby Digital
5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound
Subtitles: English Captions and
Closed Captions
Packaging: Five-Disc Book Style
Digipack Within A See-Through Case
Chapter Stops: 17 Chapter Stops For
“Caretaker”/ 8 Per Episode Thereafter
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Sound and Dolby Surround Sound
Year of Television Broadcast: 1995/DVD
Release: 2004
Home Video Distributor: Paramount
Home Entertainment
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera
A treaty between the Cardassian
Empire and the United Federation Of Planets displaces a number of colonists who
feel betrayed by the Federation because it basically has handed their worlds
over to an openly aggressive government without giving them any say in the
matter other than the opportunity to abandon their homes and lose everything
they worked for. So a resistance that calls itself the “Marquis” has formed
as a result. While these people consider themselves to be freedom fighters and
patriots, to the Federation and the Cardassian Empire, they are branded as
terrorists, vigilantes, and criminals. When a Marquis ship containing a deep
cover Federation operative is lost in a region of space nicknamed “The
Badlands” the Federation Starship Voyager under the command of Captain
Katherine Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) recruits a former Marquis cell member thrown
out of Starfleet (Robert Duncan McNeill) to assist them in locating the lost
ship and retrieving their operative.
While investigating the last
recorded location of the Marquis ship, Voyager is swept up in a
displacement wave that transports the starship approximately 75,000 light-years
across the galaxy to a region of space not yet explored by the Federation known
as the Delta Quadrant. Eventually the surviving crew of Voyager and the
survivors of the Marquis ship discover each other as they learn they have been
abducted by an intergalactic life form that was searching for compatible genetic
materials so that it could procreate because it is in the last stages of it’s
existence and owes a debt to the humanoid race known as the Ocampa. Ages ago the
“Caretaker” as it has come to be called was left behind to watch over the
Ocampa because of actions that blighted their world. Unable to return back to
Federation space without leaving the Ocampa to the mercy of a nomadic and
barbarous humanoid race called the Kazon, Janeway orders the destruction of the
Caretaker’s array after it dies and in the process makes new enemies in an
alien region of space where they are on their own. Accompanying them on their
journey back to the Alpha Quadrant is an Ocampa female named Kes (Jennifer Lien)
and a Talaxian entrepreneur named Neelix (Ethan Phillips), who offer their
services as guides in this region of space in return for accompanying them on
their voyage.
The events of season one of “Star
Trek: Voyager” take place after the events of “Star Trek: Generations” and
the concurrently with the second half of the third season of “Star Trek: Deep
Space Nine.” “Star Trek Voyager” was not only the fulfillment of having a
“Trek” series launch a Paramount television network, which had been under
development all the way back to the mid 1970s before the success of “Star
Wars” prompted the studio to bring “Star Trek” to the big screen,
“Voyager” was also the first live action “Star Trek” TV series to air as
a part of non-cable broadcast network primetime television since the original
“Star Trek” in the 1960s. Both “The Next Generation” and “Deep Space
Nine” were first run syndicated series that aired on various channels in
various states across the country at different times. Like “The Next
Generation” and “Deep Space Nine” before it, “Star Trek: Voyager”
aired for seven seasons. The cast also featured Garrett Wang as Ensign Harry
Kim, Roxanne Dawson as the half Klingon/half human Engineering Officer
B’Elanna Torres, Robert Beltram as the First Officer Chakotay, and Tim Russ as
the Vulcan Security Officer Tuvok. However the standout of the series in my
opinion would be Robert Picardo as the ship’s Holographic Doctor because of
all the characters in the show, I think his character has the clearest arc of
change to follow throughout the seven seasons and even at the very beginning
where the Doctor is rather curt and cold when it comes to both his bedside
manner and interactions with the crew, Picardo still brought something to his
character in the performance that made one feel somewhat sympathetic to him.
Like Renee Auberjonois before him,
Ethan Phillips is also a veteran of the 1970s sitcom “Benson” while Robert
Beltram has the title role in the early 80s dark comedy “Eating Raul.” Kate
Mulgrew was perhaps best known for her title role in the TV series “Mrs.
Colombo” while Tim Russ had appeared in numerous television project before his
role as Tuvok on “Star Trek: Voyager.” He even can be seen as one of the
human crew members aboard the bridge of the Enterprise-B in the prologue
sequence from “Star Trek: Generations.” While Robert Duncan McNeill was not
reprising his guest role as Cadet Nick Locarno in The Next Generation episode
“The First Duty,” his character of Tom Parris on Voyager was inspired
somewhat because of his portrayal of that character. Among the guest stars in
season one to look out for include Armin Shimerman as Quark in the series pilot
“Caretaker” and Vaughn Armstrong, who has a recurring role on “Star Trek:
Enterprise” as an early Starfleet Admiral, appeared in the Voyager episode
“Eye Of The Needle.”
The first 15 episodes or sixteen of
you count “Caretaker” as a two-part series premiere was unintentional
because four additional episodes were held back to be aired at the beginning of
Voyager’s second season. Thus the first season finale (Learning Curve) as it
appears now seems rather lackluster when compared to the rest of the season and
eventual series finale of “Star Trek: Voyager” because it was never intended
to conclude the first season by the series producers. Watching “Star Trek:
Voyager” in hindsight now with a few years space behind me, I can appreciate
the show a bit more than I did while it aired. While “Star Trek Voyager” has
it’s share of memorable episodes, I always felt the writers dropped the ball a
bit when it came to developing certain storylines. Some potential alien menaces
were virtually wasted while others like the Kazon never captured the imagination
of the viewer the way the Klingons and the Romulans did on the original and
subsequent “Star Trek” TV programs. While bringing aboard Jeri Ryan as
“Seven Of Nine” in the later half of the show definitely added some
interest, it never brought Voyager up to the caliber of “Star Trek: The Next
Generation” or “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” in terms of storytelling.
While Kate Mulgrew does deserve recognition as being the first woman to head up
a “Star Trek” TV series as the Captain of a starship, any Trek fan will know
that there have been many women in positions of authority in Starfleet going
back all the way back to the original series pilot “The Cage.”
Noteworthy episodes within this
five-disc set include “Caretaker,” “Time And Again,” “Phage,” “Eye
Of The Needle,” “State Of Flux,” and “Faces.”
All of the episodes from the first
season of “Star Trek: Voyager” look great on DVD and in fact of all of the
Trek series on DVD to date, I’d now say season one of “Star Trek: Voyager”
looks and sounds the best so far. Presented in the original (1.33:1) aspect
ratio of their television broadcast, there are no anomalies to note. The picture
quality is crisp and vibrant. The new English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Soundtrack is also striking with a strong use of the bass to signal the movement
of Voyager on screen. An English Dolby Surround Soundtrack is also
included along with English Captions and Closed Captions for the hearing
impaired as options. The interactive menus feature four different angles of the
starship Voyager moving on screen and all are easy to navigate.
As with previous “Star Trek” TV
series DVD season box sets, the extra value features are all on the final disc
or in this case, the fifth disc. “Bracing The Unknown – Season One”
(10:50) features interviews with the creative team behind “Voyager” as it
illustrates the genesis of the series and it’s place in the greater cannon of
“Star Trek.” “Time Capsule – Katherine Janeway” (15:15) features a
nice candid recently filmed interview with Kate Mulgrew where she discusses how
“Voyager” has changed her life and the process she went through for
auditioning for the role complete with vintage interviews and clips from her
audition reel. This is supported by some footage with Genevieve Bujold (8:41),
who was originally cast as Janeway before Mulgrew. It is difficult to judge
Bujold’s performance in the role that eventually went to Mulgrew with any true
objectivity because the character of Janeway is now so identified with her, that
it is hard for me to imagine anyone else as the character. Some additional
interview clips with other members of the cast are included in the “Cast
Reflections – Season One” featurette (8:42).
There is some on set video footage
from the pilot (5:38) in “On Location With The Kazons” and look at the
special effects for season one (10:34). I personally found the featurettes on
“Launching Voyager On The Web” (6:07) and “Real Science With Andre
Bormanis” to be the most interesting because in the case of the world wide web
short, we get to see how the original “Star Trek: Voyager” website grew from
the theatrical site for “Star Trek: Generations” and the followed with an
alliance with Microsoft to the free site exists today while Andre Bormanis gives
the viewer an idea of how the writers try to keep the series as scientifically
accurate as possible to make the space fantasy more believable.
Like the “Deep Space Nine” DVD
sets, a few Easter eggs can be found by highlighting the various choices around
the image of the starship Voyager and these include vignettes that cover
episodes like “Phage” (1:31), an interview with Vaughn Armstrong on “Eve
Of The Needle” (1:27), and shorts on “Caretaker” (1:43) that includes a
rather humorous anecdote by Michael Piller (: 58) about the cost of producing
the pilot. A short season one still gallery wraps up the extra features in this
DVD set.
“Star Trek: Voyager: The Complete
First Season On DVD” box set is available on DVD-Video now at retailers on and
offline from Paramount Home Entertainment.
© Copyright 2004 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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