The way I figure it, if I’m gonna get serious about these Star Trek videos, I’ve got to
be willing to challenge my own beliefs – including one I’ve held onto for over twenty years.
Kathryn Janeway, commanding officer of the U.S.S.
Voyager, is the worst starship captain ever!
Or at least, that’s what I’ve thought lo these many years.
Could I be wrong about Janeway?
Voyager was never my favorite Star Trek show.
In fact, it’s my least favorite Star Trek show.
But it’s been off the air for sixteen years, so maybe it’s time to give it another chance
– and I’m starting with Captain Janeway, in this video which I’m calling
Is Janeway Actually a Great Captain?
One of the main reasons why I’ve considered Janeway a terrible captain all these years
is my belief that she allowed her ship and crew to be stranded in the galaxy’s remote
Delta Quadrant for very questionable reasons which she then immediately forgot about.
But is that really what happened?
It’s been a long time since I sat down and watched the first episode of Voyager, so I’d
better start there.
[Turns to computer monitor and starts playing first episode of Voyager.]
Okay!
So here’s what happens in Voyager’s pilot, in a nutshell:
It begins with this opening crawl explaining who the Maquis are and setting up the action,
which I thought was cool.
It reminded me of Star Wars.
Though some Star Trek fans tell me I’m not supposed to like it when Star Trek feels like
Star Wars, which is why they don’t like the J.J. Abrams movies.
But if it’s not okay for the movies to remind me of Star Wars, why is it okay for Voyager
to remind me of Star Wars?
Or is that not okay, either?
I don’t know.
And frankly, I don’t want to know.
I’m not here to dick around wrestling with irrelevant nerd questions – I’m here to
determine if Janeway is actually a great captain.
So after the title crawl there’s a teaser where we meet Chakotay, B’Elanna Torres,
Tuvok, and I think that’s Ayala?
Doesn’t matter, he’s not important.
Anyway, they’re all in the Maquis and they’re running from a Cardassian ship.
They attempt to escape by flying into the Badlands, a region of space composed entirely
of really terrible CGI.
They manage to elude the Cardassian ship but then there’s a big Star-Trekky wave that
overtakes them from behind and whoosh!
They’re gone!
After the opening credits we fade in on a Federation penal colony in New Zealand.
And hey, look – it’s Nick Locarno, the leader of Nova Squadron!
Last I heard he’d just been expelled from Starfleet Academy – I wonder what he did
to get thrown in – wait, never mind, here’s Captain Janeway and it turns out he’s not
Nick Locarno, he’s Tom Paris, a person who looks and acts exactly like Nick Locarno.
This was not the last time Voyager did this, by the way.
In season three they introduced Ensign Vorik, a Vulcan who works in Engineering who looks
and sounds exactly like Ensign Taurik, who appeared in the Next Generation episode “Lower
Decks.”
And in perhaps the most egregious example, also in season three they encounter this alien
species that looks a lot like the Borg, and is even called the Borg, but can’t possibly
be the Borg, because the Borg were awesome, formidable, nearly unbeatable antagonists,
and these dipshits can barely fly their ships without blowing themselves up.
And if they’re Borg, why are they using control panels?!
They’re a hive mind, neurally linked to each other and their ship!
Why would they need to push buttons or look at monitors?
The ship thinks and it moves!
WHO DID THIS?!–
So Janeway tells Nick – I mean, Tom – that she has a job for him.
Apparently Tom was part of the Maquis for about five minutes before he was caught and
punished for joining a violent separatist group by being sent to beautiful New Zealand,
and since he has the inside dope on the Maquis, Janeway got permission to take Tom outta the
prison camp so he can help her find the Maquis ship that we saw vanish in the Badlands during
the teaser.
Seems that her Chief of Security was onboard, working undercover.
The deal is this: if Tom helps Janeway find the missing Maquis ship, then when the mission
is over he’s free to go do whatever he wants.
And Tom’s like, “Sure, what else am I gonna do?
Remain here in the splendid earthly paradise of New Zealand?
No thank you, let’s go fly into a plasma storm!”
And after some more table-setting, including a stop-over at Deep Space Nine where Paris
flirts with a woman who’ll be dead soon, re-enacts the reveal of the Enterprise from
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and meets Harry Kim by saving him from getting ripped off
by Quark, that’s exactly what happens!
Voyager flies into the Badlands to look for the Maquis ship, gets swept away by the same
special effect that we saw before, and finds itself on the other side of the galaxy in
the Delta Quadrant, which is unexplored by the Federation.
Oh, and every member of the ship’s senior staff whose name isn’t in the opening credits
is killed, including Janeway’s first officer, who apparently thinks “brace for impact!”
means “stagger around in a blind panic so you die.”
Long story short, the ship was brought to this part of the galaxy by a super powerful
alien called the Caretaker, who is dying and has been grabbing people from different parts
of the galaxy hoping to find someone genetically compatible so he could sire offspring who
could take over for him after he’s gone and protect this species, the Ocampa, who
live in an artificial biosphere beneath the surface of a nearby planet.
A bunch of other stuff happens: they turn on the holographic doctor to replace the dead
human one, the Voyager crew finds the Maquis crew, they both have missing people so they
team up to find ‘em, they meet Neelix and Kes, they run into the Kazon, who are basically
Klingons struggling to make it on low incomes.
I have to say, having just watched it for the first time in a loooooong time, it’s
a pretty good episode, especially for a pilot.
But this isn’t a review of the episode, this is an evaluation of Janeway’s competency
as a captain, and her moment of truth comes near the end of the episode, right after the
Caretaker dies.
Tuvok is like, “Hey, I found the thing he used to bring us here and I think I can use
it to send us home.”
But Janeway’s like, “Yeah, but if we leave then the Kazon will just take control of this
technology and use it to attack the Ocampa, and that’s exactly what the Caretaker was
trying to prevent.
So I think we should destroy the Caretaker’s array and stay here instead.”
And Tuvok says, “Oh, okay, hey, I’m relieving you of command, because based on what you
just said you’re obviously not fit to be in charge right now.”
Okay, okay.
Tuvok doesn’t say that.
What he actually says is,
“Instead of shooting the array with torpedoes and stranding ourselves on the other side
of the galaxy, why won’t we plant timeombs on the array, so we can destroy it and still
use it to send ourselves home?”
And Janeway says, “Tuvok, that is a great idea, why didn’t I think of that myself–”
Just kidding, she blows it up and traps the ship in the Delta Quadrant.
But she was making a noble sacrifice, though, right?
She was choosing to destroy the array and stay behind in the Delta Quadrant to protect
the Ocampa, who were gonna run out of energy in five years and be forced to the surface,
where they’d be easy prey for the ruthless and desperate Kazon.
Which is why Janeway remains in orbit around the planet and guards the Ocampa against any
Kazon threats while she and her crew help them to build up their defenses and gradually
prepare to expand their society beyond the underground habitat, so that when their power
reserves are exhausted they’ll be able to–
Wait, never mind, she immediately sets a course for home and abandons the Ocampa never to
return.
See, that’s how I remembered it.
I went into this hoping that there was something I had forgotten, or something my 15-year-old
self had missed the first time around, something that enabled me to view Captain Janeway as
something other than a reckless fuck-up who stranded her entire crew 70,000 light-years
from Federation space for no good reason.
But there’s nothing.
Janeway blows up the Caretaker array because she wants to protect the Ocampa from the Kazon.
And then she just leaves!
She doesn’t even go back to the planet to say, “Oh, hey, by the way, the Caretaker’s
dead and we blew up his technology, so maybe start conserving energy?
And preparing to defend yourselves against the Kazon?
Just a friendly heads-up, okay, bye!”
I mean, okay, she blows up the array so the Kazon can’t use it to harm the Ocampa, but
the Kazon have still got, you know, guns.
And ships.
And so the balance shifts!
We rendezvous with Rochambeau, consolidate their gifts!
We can end this war in Yorktown, cut them off at sea, but for this to succeed there’s
someone else we need!
I know.
Hamilton!
The point is, Janeway undercuts her own reason for stranding the ship in the Delta Quadrant
within a few hours of doing it.
And as a critic, I know this is the result of bad writing – the creators of Voyager
wanted the show to be about a ship lost on the other side of the galaxy looking for a
way home, not a ship lost on the other side of the galaxy protecting a helpless species
from the Klingons of the Ozarks – but it reflects poorly on Janeway nevertheless.
Instead of a captain placed in an impossible situation who makes a decision to sacrifice
her only way home for the good of a people in need, she comes across as someone who shoots
tricobalt devices first and asks questions later.
And that’s a shame, because in other ways this and subsequent episodes do a good job
of establishing Janeway as intelligent, capable, courageous, compassionate – everything Star
Trek fans have come to expect in our captains.
And for as flawed as it is, the decision to destroy the Caretaker array rather than use
it to get home does show us that Janeway isn’t willing to sacrifice innocent lives for her
own convenience.
Or at least, that’s her intention.
And as intentions go, that’s pretty admirable.
I don’t think anyone would want to serve aboard a starship commanded by someone who
was willing to let innocent people die just to get to their preferred outcome.
We see this trait surface again in another first season episode, “Phage,” where aliens
steal Neelix’s lungs and Janeway decides not to steal them back because they’ve already
been given to someone else who needed them, and she’s not willing take them back because
that would mean killing the recipient.
She’s not willing to take one life in order to save another, even if the other is her
friend and crewmate.
Whether you agree or disagree with her decision, you have to admire her for remaining true
to her principles and–
Shit, but later on she kills Tuvix because she’d rather
have Tuvok and Neelix back.
Goddammit, Kathy!