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Star Trek: Voyager's pilot took inspiration from little Mayfly - and the Crips and Bloods.
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00:00Hello my friends, Sean Ferry here for Trek Culture and welcome to our video. Just before we get
00:04started I just want to say thank you so much to everyone who has liked, who has shared and who
00:09has subscribed. That helps us grow as a channel and it helps us continue to bring you lists like
00:14this. So with that I am Sean and welcome to 10 behind the scenes secrets about Caretaker.
00:23Number 10, recasting Janeway. Now it's pretty well known at this stage that Genevieve Bourjol
00:29was originally cast to play Janeway. Now she came in and she filmed for about a couple of days on
00:36Caretaker until she quite abruptly said nah and just walked out. That was it. She was done. The
00:43explanation was that she just was not happy with the way it was being filmed, the pace of production
00:49and things like that. Now Garrett Wang actually expanded on this a little bit on a podcast in
00:542019 because he was among the first to be cast in Caretaker and one of the few who actually shared
01:01scenes with Bourjol's Janeway. He recalled that she would come to set, she would film the scenes and
01:07she would leave and there was very little interaction with other actors on set so that he went up to her
01:12at one point and said kind of hello how are you what's going on and she just sort of opened up that
01:19she had been promised all sorts of things but mostly that she would be playing a captain first
01:26and a woman second. However when she got there hair and makeup just spent so much time trying to get to
01:33get her to look a certain way experiment with the hairdo this and that that it began to waste in her
01:39opinion valuable filming time. That then meant they were looking at extremely long days and she had two
01:45very young children at the time and she was concerned that she was just going to miss them growing up if
01:50she stayed with the show. So she made the unorailable decision to just go no that's not what I signed up
01:57for that's not why I'm here and she left. Now thankfully Kate Mulgrew stepped into the breach fairly
02:04quickly and we got the Janeway that we know and love today. Number nine redesigned Voyager. When Voyager
02:10was going into production executive producer Jerry Taylor wrote that she wanted something smaller and
02:16sleeker than the Enterprise D. Now Star Trek The Next Generation had only really just gone off the air
02:22in 1994. The production for Voyager started it could have began in 1993 and of course generations would
02:29come out in 1994 1995 depending on what territories you're in. So that meant that the galaxy class ship
02:35would be fresh in people's minds and she wanted the intrepid class ship to look very very different.
02:40Rick Sternbach was given the job of designing the new hero ship. Now he had worked on The Next
02:45Generation and DS9 before he was in fact the one who designed the runabout for example but it was his
02:51predecessor Andy Probert who had designed the Enterprise D so this was his first big shot at a
02:56hero ship. Taking the brief of smaller and sleeker but also taking inspiration from his own runabout
03:01he designed a ship that had sweeping down nacelles that sort of aimed backwards as well and also then
03:09a much more arrowhead saucer section for want of a better description this ship would be able to
03:16separate and the landing gear was there from the beginning because it was always designed to be able
03:21to land on a planet. This got as far as after some some changes went on they got rid of the pylons for
03:27example that had looked a little bit too close to the runabout. Well a studio model was built of this
03:32version of the ship. Jerry Taylor looked at it and went actually can we go a little bit curvier
03:39and so Sternbach took the brief and again reworked it now was able to go well look Voyager's not going
03:46to separate saucer sections was able to integrate the primary and secondary hulls a little bit closer
03:50together shortened the nacelles which had been not quite discovery long but certainly had been longer
03:56and gave us the Voyager that we all know and love. Number eight it was the result of a cheap lunch or
04:03two. Michael Piller, Rick Berman and Jerry Taylor all came together to write what would become
04:09Caretaker and Voyager as a whole. Brandon Braga who would of course go on to play a huge role in Star
04:14Trek Voyager missed out on these sessions because he had the audacity to go on holiday. The cheek! The
04:20absolute cheek! Michael Piller recalled that what they would do is they would get together over lunch
04:25four days a week between July and September of 1993. Over the course of these lunches which would
04:33last about two and three hours and were in Michael Piller's description very cheap they broke what
04:39would become the story of Caretaker. They were able to kind of build the characters together that way
04:45so that by the time September 93 came around they had what looked like the beginnings of what would
04:52become Caretaker. Number seven it was inspired in part by Q. One of the main selling points of Star
05:00Trek Voyager was that it was going to be away from the rest of Star Trek and an important way to get
05:07that to happen came from the episode Q Who. If you recall in Q Who Q flings the Enterprise D thousands
05:17of light years away from Federation space. Now it's not quite as far because data says it would take
05:22about two years to get back to Federation space. Now while they're there of course they encounter the
05:28Borg it's a fantastic episode go and watch it if you haven't seen it it's amazing. Crucially in Q Who
05:33Q sends them back home again at the end which then begs the question what happens if he didn't? That
05:40effectively was the nugget that led to the creation of Star Trek Voyager. You know what happens if
05:46they're sent so far away that they're cut off from everything and they can't get back really really
05:52quickly? It introduced just a whole bunch of challenges that would become again part of the
05:58crux of Voyager. What happens if you can't just send a message to Starfleet? What happens if Starfleet
06:03don't know if you're alive or dead? What happens? What happens? What happens? That is how the birth
06:10of Star Trek Voyager took place. Number six. The mistakes of Emissary led to Caretaker. Emissary directly
06:19influenced Caretaker but not quite in the way that say Q Who influenced the events of Caretaker.
06:27It was more the style that became very very important particularly in Michael Piller's mind because
06:34he recalled that Emissary tonally went away from Next Generation. It was a more ethereal particularly
06:41in the parts with the Prophets a more contemplative pilot. It was about it was heavy on character and
06:48story. It's not that they didn't want to do character and story with Caretaker but absolutely
06:54Piller said we're just going to dial up the action adventure element here and that's exactly what they did.
07:00Now a good example would be look at the cold opens of both Emissary and Caretaker okay and you might
07:06be thinking well hang on Emissary opens with the Battle of Wolf 359. That's about as action-packed as you can get
07:13is it? So we do get that fantastic scene of the Saratoga engaging the cube and being
07:19roundly destroyed and then it gets quiet and it cuts and then we get it's short but a little scene of
07:26Cisco talking to Jake on the holodeck and we get that nice quiet reveal with the theme tune of the
07:33station of Deep Space Nine. Okay now let's look at Star Trek Voyager the cold open here. So again we
07:39open up with a little bit of action we have the Valjean being hunted by Gullivec and the Cardassian
07:45ship. Now we're firing torpedoes we're firing phasers we have the usual you know consoles made of rocks
07:50exploding all around us we end up in the Badlands both ships take a beating the Cardassian ship
07:56is hit by one of those plasma storms in an effect that would be used again and again and again. Then
08:02you have the Valjean they see that the big massive displacement wave is coming up behind them and slam
08:08there is no lull there is no kind of breath here it was just let's go let's go let's go and that
08:14continues more or less throughout Caretaker. Of course there are quiet moments but in much more
08:21so than Emissary we have a lot more action adventure in Caretaker than we do in the opening of Deep Space
08:26Nine. Number five Michael Piller lost an argument and the Maquis gained Starfleet uniforms. In Caretaker
08:32the Maquis are of course an entirely separate crew that have been infiltrated by Tuvok and are then
08:38forced to work alongside the Starfleet officers as the episode goes on. Michael Piller was very very
08:45set on having the Maquis remain Maquis for the duration of Voyager. Rick Berman was dead set against
08:54this. As Ronald D Moore recounted this was an argument Michael Piller lost. Rick Berman had Star
09:01Trek Deep Space Nine in his mind during the writing of this episode and what I mean by that is that
09:07he was very convinced that the perceived failing ratings of DS9 meant that he did not want Voyager
09:15to be very reliant on the style of DS9. He wanted it to go back to next generation and have that more
09:22optimistic view of the future and in fairness pretty much that's what they did and therefore at the end
09:30of Caretaker you have one crew and they are all Starfleet crew in Starfleet uniforms. That was Rick
09:39Berman going I am not sitting down to commit to one two three however many seasons of two crews on the
09:46one ship. That's too much diversity and it's too much conflict. Now the ghost of Roddenberry was very
09:54much in his ear at this point. Rick Berman himself did say that yes once we didn't have to do those rules
09:59anymore things did get a little bit easier but definitely you can see that in Caretaker specifically
10:05there was absolute nope we are not having a ship full of people who are at each other's throats the
10:11whole time. Number four Nick Locarno. Robert Duncan McNeil had of course already appeared in Star Trek in
10:18The Next Generation. He appears in the episode The First Duty which is an absolutely fabulous episode
10:23as cadet Nick Locarno. He's the ringleader of the group that effectively served as the template for
10:30what Red Squad would become. They do the Cold War Starburst, Wesley gets pulled up in it and Nick
10:35Locarno is kicked out of Starfleet Academy. Robert Duncan McNeil then gets invited to audition for this
10:42new part. Now he doesn't know this but it's initially called Nick Locarno. Jerry Taylor said we're
10:47going to get a Nick Locarno type character. So they just used his name throughout. We've all said
10:53across the way oh it was legal issues legal issues legal issues and to be fair that is a massive part
10:58of why Nick Locarno became Tom Paris. But they did do a name change but they didn't change anything else
11:03because Robert Duncan McNeil himself said that when he got the script he was like
11:09this is Nick. He didn't realize that he was auditioning for a new series. He thought they were bringing
11:15the character of Nick Locarno back into what he thought was the then approaching Star Trek The
11:20Next Generation movie. Generations. He knew that was coming so he thought oh okay well weird that
11:25they're going to bring Locarno back for that but all right grand. He then of course discovered that
11:29no that was not the plan it was for Star Trek Voyager. Locarno and Tom Paris are the same character
11:37and there's a couple of things that have changed they've kind of had to change along the way
11:42but from the beginning there wasn't it wasn't an accident how similar these two characters were.
11:48Number three. Crips and Bloods. The poor Al Kazon have been referred to in many circles including my own
11:56as discount knockoff Klingons and I'm not gonna lie I don't feel particularly guilty for that statement
12:03because they never really got a chance to become anything more than thugs. That's all they really
12:09basically they are thugs there you go enjoy your new villain and that is one of the reasons they
12:14were written out of the show relatively early but in Caretaker they serve as roving gangs in space and
12:23they took inspiration from the Crips in America. In the earliest notes there was literally written in
12:29and the Crips will do this and the Crips will do that. The Crips were formed in 1969 and they are
12:34one big organization but they are also comprised of lots and lots of subsets which is that's basically
12:42what the Kazon are they are sects. In Caretaker we get the Kazon Ogla and of course we know we would
12:47go on to see the Kazon Nistrum they would become the bigger group if you like. Now in real life
12:54these street gangs they engaged in drug dealing they engage in murders they engage in all sorts of violence
13:00and this is replicated in a way in Caretaker. Now we don't see drug dealing going on but we do
13:06certainly see acts of violence and of course the oppression of the Ocampa as well. Once Voyager
13:13effectively stands up to them and only really wins because of superior technology they say
13:20yeah our buddies are going to come after you and that was again directly inspired by how a lot of this
13:26would happen in real life. Number two Suspiria was a get out of jail free card inspired by the fugitive.
13:34Suspiria was the Caretaker's mate. Now we wouldn't get the name Suspiria for a few episodes we just hear
13:40that there's another one out there so the female Caretaker if you like. Now at the end of Caretaker
13:47the Caretaker dies. With him goes the technology to send Voyager home. That of course is what strands them
13:55in the Delta Quadrant Janeway's decision to destroy the array. However Rick Berman recalled that Paramount
14:02were like this is a great idea this is a great idea you need to give us an out. It was the nerves of
14:08having this lost in space style show going on that couldn't cross over with Deep Space Nine and it
14:15couldn't cross over with the Star Trek movies because it was so physically far away from them. So Berman
14:22looked to the old series and its recent movie adaptation The Fugitive as a way of solving this
14:28problem. He looked at the character of the one-armed man. Now basically there's something else out there
14:32now we might not see it and we might not know where it is but it's out there don't worry it's
14:37out there it's out there. I mean it took four seasons for the one-armed man to really become a
14:41character in The Fugitive and it took two seasons for Suspiria to become a character in Star Trek Voyager.
14:47By the time that happened Paramount were a bit like yeah listen you're okay now you can continue doing
14:53what you're doing but in the beginning that entire inclusion of the female caretaker was purely so
14:59that they could do a hard reset if they had to if it looked like the audience just was not reacting
15:06well to the idea of a Starfleet ship out in the back pocket of the arsehole of nowhere. Number one
15:15it was heartless and no one cared about Neelix from the beginning. Michael Piller recalled that
15:20Caretaker by the time it was finished and put on air was it was very good there was a lot of action
15:26going on so it was quite an enjoyable romp but what it didn't have was heart. He recalled that Tom
15:34Paris gets an arc in Caretaker you know he goes from I'm the bad boy in the penal colony to basically
15:40yeah he was actually a good guy pilot of Voyager by the end of it. There is an arc there but in
15:46Piller's view that was it. All of the other characters it wasn't so much that they were ill-defined
15:53but it's rather than the action depending on them they depended on the action. This he felt was
16:02a frustrating element of Caretaker because it let down the story overall. Now they were able to jig a
16:08few things around to give people slight character moments that really helped them along the way but
16:14the one character that Piller felt just did not come out of Caretaker well was Neelix. He thought
16:23we have a problem here because if you think about Caretaker his first scene is you know he's in the
16:29junkyard and it's a bit like okay grand this could go any which way and how many different person in
16:35Junkyard's character have we seen so there's nothing really stand out about it. And by the end
16:40of the episode he is standing on the bridge with Kes ready to join the crew but not an awful lot
16:46really between that. You have the scene in the bath which is funny sure and then you have him betraying
16:53the Starfleet crew once he gets to Ocomba and gets Kes. Caretaker Neelix is not a massively
16:58likeable character. Now as time went on it's flip a coin. He's become Marmite in that respect. Now
17:06Ethan Phillips by all accounts is like the nicest man who has ever worked on Star Trek which is a
17:11massive shame that poor old Neelix is hated by a large portion of the fan base. But particularly
17:17behind the scenes in Caretaker the one character that they all felt just didn't work was poor old Neelix.
17:25So
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