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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
03:27for example that had looked a little bit too close to the runabout. Well a studio model was built of
03:32this version 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
03:56Voyager and gave us the Voyager that we all know and love. Number eight it was the result of a cheap
04:03lunch or two. 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 absolute
04:21cheek! Michael Piller recalled that what they would do is they would get together over lunch four days a
04:26week between July and September of 1993. Over the course of these lunches which would last about two
04:33and three hours and were in Michael Piller's description very cheap they broke what would
04:39become the story of Caretaker. They were able to kind of build the characters together that way so that
04:45by the time September 93 came around they had what looked like the beginnings of what would become
04:52Caretaker. Number seven it was inspired in part by Q. One of the main selling points of Star Trek Voyager
05:01was that it was going to be away from the rest of Star Trek and an important way to get that to happen
05:08came from the episode Q Who. If you recall in Q Who Q flings the Enterprise D thousands of light
05:17years away from Federation space. Now it's not quite as far because data says it would take about two
05:23years to get back to Federation space. Now while they're there of course they encounter the Borg it's
05:28a fantastic episode go and watch it if you haven't seen it it's amazing. Crucially in Q Who Q sends them
05:34back home again at the end which then begged the question what happens if he didn't. That effectively
05:41was the nugget that led to the creation of Star Trek Voyager. You know what happens if they're sent so
05:47far away that they're cut off from everything and they can't get back really really quickly. It
05:53introduced just a whole bunch of challenges that would become again part of the crux of Voyager. What
05:59happens if you can't just send a message to Starfleet? What happens if Starfleet don't know if you're alive
06:04or dead? What happens? What happens? What happens? That is how the birth of Star Trek Voyager took
06:11place. Number six. The mistakes of Emissary led to Caretaker. Emissary directly influenced Caretaker
06:20but not quite in the way that say Q Who influenced the events of Caretaker. It was more the style
06:29that became very very important particularly in Michael Piller's mind because he recalled that Emissary
06:37tonally went away from Next Generation. It was a more ethereal particularly in the parts with the
06:42Prophets a more contemplative pilot. It was about it was heavy on character and story. It's not that they
06:49didn't want to do character and story with Caretaker but absolutely Piller said we're just going to dial up
06:56the action adventure element here and that's exactly what they did. Now a good example would be look at
07:02the cold opens of both Emissary and Caretaker okay and you might be thinking well hang on Emissary opens
07:08with the Battle of Wolf 359. That's about as action-packed as you can get. Is it? So we do get that fantastic
07:15scene of the Saratoga engaging the cube and being roundly destroyed and then it gets quiet and it cuts
07:22and then we get it's short but a little scene of Cisco talking to Jake on the holodeck and we get
07:29that nice quiet reveal with the theme tune of the station of Deep Space Nine. Okay now let's look at
07:36Star Trek Voyager the cold open here. So again we open up with a little bit of action we have the Valjean
07:42being hunted by Gullivek and the Cardassian ship. Now we're firing torpedoes, we're firing phasers,
07:48we have the usual you know consoles made of rocks exploding all around us. We end up in the Badlands,
07:53both ships take a beating. The Cardassian ship is hit by one of those plasma storms in an effect
07:59that would be used again and again and again. Then you have the Valjean, they see that the big massive
08:04displacement wave is coming up behind them and slam! There is no lull, there is no kind of breath
08:11here it was just let's go let's go let's go and that continues more or less throughout Caretaker.
08:18Of course there are quiet moments but in much more so than Emissary we have a lot more action
08:23adventure in Caretaker than we do in the opening of Deep Space Nine. Number five, Michael Piller lost an
08:28argument and the Maquis gained Starfleet uniforms. In Caretaker the Maquis are of course an entirely
08:34separate crew that have been infiltrated by Tuvok and are then forced to work alongside the Starfleet
08:40officers as the episode goes on. Michael Piller was very very set on having the Maquis remain
08:48Maquis for the duration of Voyager. Rick Berman was dead set against this. As Ronald D Moore recounted
08:56this was an argument Michael Piller lost. Rick Berman had Star Trek Deep Space Nine in his mind during
09:03the writing of this episode and what I mean by that is that he was very convinced that the perceived
09:10failing ratings of DS9 meant that he did not want Voyager to be very reliant on the style of DS9.
09:18He wanted it to go back to next generation and have that more kind of optimistic view of the future
09:25and in fairness pretty much that's what they did and therefore at the end of Caretaker you have one
09:33crew and they are all Starfleet crew in Starfleet uniforms. That was Rick Berman going I am not
09:40sitting down to commit to one two three however many seasons of two crews on the one ship. That's
09:47too much diversity and it's too much conflict. Now the ghost of Roddenberry was very much in his ear at
09:55this point. Rick Berman himself did say that yes once we didn't have to do those rules anymore things did get
10:00a little bit easier but definitely you can see that in Caretaker specifically there was absolute
10:07nope we are not having a ship full of people who are at each other's throats the whole time.
10:12Number four Nick Locarno. Robert Duncan McNeil had of course already appeared in Star Trek in the
10:18next 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 culvert 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
10:42this new 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 they're
11:25going to bring Locarno back for that but all right grand. He then of course discovered that no that was
11:30not the plan it was for Star Trek Voyager. Locarno and Tom Paris are the same character and there's a
11:38couple of things that have changed they've kind of had to change along the way but from the beginning
11:43there wasn't it wasn't an accident how similar these two characters were. Number three. Crips and
11:49Bloods. The poor Al Kazon have been referred to in many circles including my own as discount knockoff
11:58Klingons and I'm not gonna lie I don't feel particularly guilty for that statement because
12:03they never really got a chance to become anything more than thugs. That's all they really basically they
12:10are thugs there you go enjoy your new villain and that is one of the reasons they were written out
12:15of the show relatively early but in Caretaker they serve as roving gangs in space and they took
12:23inspiration from the Crips in America. In the earliest notes there was literally written in and
12:29the Crips will do this and the Crips will do that. The Crips were formed in 1969 and they are
12:35one 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
13:00violence and this is replicated in a way in Caretaker. Now we don't see drug dealing going
13:06on but we do certainly see acts of violence and of course the oppression of the Ocampa as well. Once
13:12Voyager effectively 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
13:34fugitive. Suspiria was the caretaker's mate. Now we wouldn't get the name Suspiria for a few episodes
13:39we just hear that there's another one out there so the female caretaker if you like. Now at the end of
13:46Caretaker the caretaker dies. With him goes the technology to send Voyager home. That of course is
13:54what strands them in the Delta Quadrant Janeway's decision to destroy the array. However Rick Berman
14:01recalled that Paramount were like this is a great idea this is a great idea you need to give us an
14:06out. It was the nerves of having this lost in space style show going on that couldn't cross over with
14:14Deep Space Nine and it couldn't cross over with the Star Trek movies because it was so physically far away
14:20from them. So Berman looked to the old series and its recent movie adaptation The Fugitive as a way of
14:27solving this problem. He looked at the character of the one-armed man. Now basically there's something
14:32else out there now we might not see it and we might not know where it is but it's out there don't worry
14:37it's out 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 that
14:59they could do a hard reset if they had to if it looked like the audience just was not reacting well
15:07to the idea of a Starfleet ship out in the back pocket of the arsehole of nowhere. Number one it was
15:15heartless and no one cared about Neelix from the beginning. Michael Piller recalled that Caretaker
15:21by the time it was finished and put on air was it was very good there was a lot of action going on
15:26so it was quite an enjoyable romp but what it didn't have was heart. He recalled that Tom Paris gets an arc
15:35in Caretaker you know he goes from I'm the bad boy in the penal colony to basically yeah he's actually a good
15:42guy pilot of Voyager by the end of it there is an arc there but in Piller's view that was it all of the
15:49other characters it wasn't so much that they were ill-defined but it's rather than the action depending
15:57on them they depended on the action. This he felt was a frustrating element of Caretaker because it let
16:05down the story overall. Now they were able to jig a few things around to give people slight character
16:11moments that really helped them along the way but the one character that Piller felt just did not come
16:19out of Caretaker well was Neelix. He thought we have a problem here because if you think about Caretaker
16:26his first scene is you know he's in the junkyard and it's a bit like okay grand this could go any which
16:32way and how many different person in junkyard's character have we seen so there's nothing really
16:38stand out about it. Now by the end of the episode he is standing on the bridge with Kes ready to join
16:43the crew but not an awful lot really between that. You have the scene in the bath which is funny
16:49sure and then you have him betraying the Starfleet crew once he gets to Ocomba and gets Kes.
16:56Caretaker Neelix is not a massively likeable character. Now as time went on it's flip a coin.
17:04He's become Marmite in that respect. Now Ethan Phillips by all accounts is like the nicest man who
17:09has ever worked on Star Trek which is a massive shame that poor old Neelix is hated by a large
17:15portion of the fan base but particularly behind the scenes in Caretaker the one character that they
17:21all felt just didn't work. With poor old Neelix.
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