"Caretaker" is the series premiere of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager. It was first broadcast as a double-length episode on January 16, 1995, as the first telecast of the fledgling network UPN. It was later split into two parts for syndication, but released in its original one-episode format on DVD and streaming services. Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet and Maquis crew of the starship USS Voyager after they are stranded in the Delta Quadrant far from the rest of the Federation.

The premiere was seen by American television viewers in 1995. It aired as a single 90-minute show, although later it was also played as two separate roughly-45-minute episodes. The premiere aired between 8-10 p.m. Eastern on that Monday; however, not every television household saw it on that night and time, as the network's coverage in smaller markets (where it was even available at all) consisted largely of secondary affiliations, with UPN programming scheduled on a delay around that of the affiliate's primary network. For example, St. Louis affiliate KDNL aired it on a 2.5 hour delay (at 9:30 p.m. Central) after the evening's Fox programming. In some markets, such as New York, "Caretaker" aired against different Star Trek reruns on other channels.

  1. Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), who commands the starship USS Voyager
  2. Lt. Commander Cavit (Scott Jaeck), Voyager's first officer when they set out from Deep Space Nine
  3. Lieutenant Stadi (Alicia Coppola), Scenes with Geneviève Bujold, the first actress chosen to play Captain Nicole Janeway, were filmed with her over September 7 and 8. Actresses reported as possible replacements for Bujold included Joanna Cassidy, Susan Gibney, Elizabeth Dennehy, Tracy Scoggins, and Lindsay Crouse. Kate Mulgrew was cast as Captain Kathryn Janeway, from among four actresses recalled from the original round of auditions, and shooting of her scenes began on September 19.

"Caretaker" took 31 days to shoot, and was filmed at multiple locations. The production of the episode remains one of the most expensive in television history, reportedly costing $23 million.

The series has similarities to Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, which also features a hologram, a starship transported by an anomaly into a new alien landscape and the deaths of bridge officers and their replacement with a misfit crew.

The art department for Voyager was based out of the Dreier building at Paramount Studios.

Special effect model

In late October 1994, the USS Voyager model was delivered to Image G, who did the motion-control photography video work with the model for the special effects shots. The model was delivered by Tony Meineger to Image G, which was also motion control photography for the Caretaker Array, Maquis ship, and Kazon space ship.

An example of the complexity of some of the sets is the bridge of the Voyager spacecraft. The bridge had eleven different monitors of three different sizes, that had custom graphics displayed depending on what was being shot for each scene.

Awards

"Caretaker" won two Emmy awards, for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Main Title Theme Music" and "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Special Visual Effects".

Reception

Variety found "Caretaker" to be a worthy launch of a Star Trek series, calling it "impressive" and praising the design of the Intrepid-class Voyager spaceship. While "Caretaker" successfully established the characters and their predicament, contemporaneous reviews included complaints that the integration of the two disparate crews so quickly was unconvincing, and too many plot points were left unexplained, such as how Neelix and Kes met This paid homage to Gene Roddenberry's egalitarian vision of the future, such as when he included the female Number One character as second-in command of the Enterprise in the original 1965 pilot of Star Trek, "The Cage". The actress that played that character, Majel Barrett (who soon married Roddenberry), also provided the voice for the onboard computer in several Star Trek series, including Voyager.

The American viewers were lower than the series finale of the seven-year run of The Next Generation, which had over viewers when it concluded the previous year. While Voyager went on to slowly falling ratings, it did achieve seven seasons of production.

In 2012, Den of Geek ranked "Caretaker" the 84th best episode of the series.

In 2015, a Star Trek: Voyager binge-watching guide by Wired suggested this episode could not be skipped.

In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter ranked "Caretaker" among the 100 best episodes in the Star Trek franchise, and noted its similarity to the Next Generation universe, where the Enterprise was often transported to a distant location from which the crew were expected to escape. The same year, they ranked "Caretaker" the 14th best episode of Star Trek: Voyager, remarking: "The series premiere for Voyager promised a Star Trek like none before it" but noting its ties to Star Trek The Next Generation that ended its runs several months prior.

In 2016, SyFy ranked "Caretaker" as the fourth best out of six main Star Trek TV show pilots made up to that time. They felt that the "first act does a fine job of building both characters and tension", and was overall very ambitious. After rewatching the episode in 2019, Den of Geek noted how the premiere had been "captivating" while "[setting] the stage for another great mission to the final frontier".

In 2017, GameSpot ranked this as the third best pilot episode of a Star Trek series.

In 2019, Screen Rant ranked "Caretaker" as one of the top five episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, noting how it introduced characters with an exciting plot and made use of Deep Space Nine by having a stopover there.

In 2020, io9 listed the two-parter as one of the "must-watch" episodes of Star Trek: Voyagers first season.

In 2020, Tor rated "Caretaker" five out of ten, noting that while it was good introduction to the series they felt they had "fudged details".

In 2020, Syfy ranked this the 15th best episode of Star Trek: Voyager.

Releases

"Caretaker" was released multiple times on VHS in various markets after its showing in 1995. The first VHS release in the United Kingdom was in June 1995 by the company CIC. "Caretaker" was released as various sets, for example in the VHS set The Four Beginnings, which included the first episodes of TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager.

"Caretaker" was released on PAL-format LaserDisc in the United Kingdom as part of The Pilots collection, in April 1996. This collection included the color version of "The Cage", "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "Encounter at Farpoint", "Emissary" and "Caretaker", with a total runtime of 379 minutes.

The soundtrack, with works by Jay Chattaway and Jerry Goldsmith was released on compact disc on October 17, 1995. The release also includes a text pamphlet with various facts about the composers in regards to the "Caretaker" soundtrack. The marathon started at 7 am PT/10 am ET and was Live streamed on the YouTube internet video platform, going through each episode chronologically in order of release with "Caretaker" airing between "Emissary" and "Broken Bow". The novelized version of the story was written by L.A. Graf.