Ep 1: Caretaker, Part I
Production 101
Stardate: 48315.6
Airdate: 1/16/1995
Guest Stars: Bruce French
(Ocampa Doctor), Richard Poe (Gul Evek),
Josh Clark (Carey), Alicia Coppola (Lt. Stadi), Stan Ivar
(Mark),
Scott Jaeck (Cavit), Eric David Johnson (Daggin),
Basil Langton (Banjo Man), Scott MacDonald (Rollins),
Jeff McCarthy (Human Doctor), Gavan O'Herlihy (Jabin),
Jennifer Parsons (Ocampa Nurse), Angela Paton (Aunt Adah),
Keely Sims (Farmer's Daughter), David Selsburg (Toscat),
Armin Shimerman (Quark)
Written By: Rick Berman &
Michael Piller & Jeri Taylor
Directed By: Winrich Kolbe
Teleplay By: Michael Piller
& Jeri Taylor
Synopsis:
While searching for a missing
officer, Captain Kathryn Janeway and the crew of the Starship Voyager are
swept 70,000 light-years from home.
In the late 24th century, a renegade
group known as the Maquis operate outside the law to right what they see
as Federation injustices. After infiltrating a Maquis cell to apprise Starfleet
of the group's activities, Lieutenant Tuvok, along with the crew of a ship
commanded by the Maquis captain Chakotay, disappear in an area of space
known as the Badlands. Tuvok's commanding officer, Captain Janeway, leads
a mission to find the Vulcan lieutenant, enlisting the aid of Starfleet
prisoner Tom Paris, a former Maquis member, to guide her ship, the U.S.S.
Voyager NCC-74656, through the Badlands.
Considered a traitor by most of Voyager's
crew, Paris strikes up a friendship with Ensign Harry Kim, a naive young
Starfleet Academy grad. Kim learns that Paris was drummed out of Starfleet
after his piloting error caused the deaths of three officers. The outcast
joined the ranks of the Maquis, but was soon arrested by Federation authorities.
After reaching the Badlands, Voyager
encounters an inexplicable phenomenon that sends the ship hurtling to the
Delta Quadrant, located 70,000 light years from home. The catapult effect
kills a number of crewmembers, including the Chief Medical Officer, who
is replaced by an Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) that attends to the
wounded. But the EMH has barely begun his work when the entire crew of
Voyager is transported to what appears to be a pastoral farm, populated
by friendly humans. But it's only an illusion; the farm is actually the
interior of the Array, a huge space station, and the residents are holograms.
The crew is imprisoned within a strange laboratory facility, alongside
the missing Maquis.
After being subjected to a painful
examination, the crews of Voyager and the Maquis vessel are returned to
their respective ships, docked outside the Array. But two crewpersons are
missing: Harry Kim and B'Elanna Torres, the half-Klingon, half-human engineer
from the Maquis vessel. Returning to the "farm," Janeway confronts the
only remaining inhabitant, an old man playing a banjo. But the man cares
nothing about their dilemma and offers them no information about the missing
officers.
Noting that the Array is sending
energy pulses toward the fifth planet of a neighboring system, Janeway
sets course in that direction. Far beneath the surface of that planet,
an ailing Kim and Torres regain consciousness in a medical facility. But
what they're doing there — and why — they have yet to discover.