30th Anniversary VOY Discussion Marathon

[Nate the Great]

January 16th, 1995, "Caretaker"


Fiver by Zeke


The Episode


GUL EVEK [on viewscreen]: Maquis ship, this is Gul Evek of the Cardassian Fourth Order.



I didn't remember that the Cardassian was Evek from "Journey's End". It's almost like the creators WANT us to complain about the inconsistencies with the prior episode.


(Inmates are busy constructing something. They all wear ankle-tags...


This seems odd. Why would you still need ankle tags in the 24th century? You'd think you they'd just inject a microtag under their skin.



JANEWAY: Tom Paris? Kathryn Janeway. I served with your father on the Al-Batani.



I question why Janeway would think that invoking Admiral Paris would be a good first impression for Tom.


PARIS: You'd like me to lead you to my former colleagues. I was only with the Maquis a few weeks before I was captured, Captain. I don't know where most of their hiding places are.
JANEWAY: You know the territory better than anyone we've got.


This is a really flimsy premise for bringing Tom along. DS9 should've been mapping the Badlands this entire time, especially after the Maquis revealed themselves.


PARIS: Chakotay will tell you he left Starfleet on principle, to defend his home colony from the Cardassians.



I don't think that this ever really came up after this episode.



JANEWAY: Officially, you'd be a Starfleet observer during the mission.


Paris being reinstated as a real officer instead of the provisional rank that the Maquis had seems odd to me. Especially since Chakotay wears the provisional pips when he actually had the rank of Lieutenant Commander before leaving Starfleet.


PARIS: Stadi, you're changing my mind about Betazoids.
STADI: Good.
PARIS: Oh, that wasn't a compliment. Until today I always considered your people warm and sensual.
STADI: I can be warm and sensual.
PARIS: Just not to me.
STADI: Do you always fly at women at warp speed, Mister Paris?
PARIS: Only when they're in visual range.



Tom is very charming and clearly has practiced his methods for getting women, but I question why he'd try them on a Betazoid when they can instantly tell how phony he's being.


STADI: Some of the traditional circuitry has been replaced by gel packs that contain bio-neural cells. They organise information more efficiently, speed up response time.



And yet these things never came into play as anything other than a gimmicky plot device. Furthermore even if they can do processing faster, you still have the delays introduced by converting isolinear to bioneural, then bioneural to isolinear again.



KIM: We were warned about the Ferengi at the Academy.
QUARK: Warned about Ferengi, were you?
KIM: That's right.
QUARK: Slurs about my people at Starfleet Academy.


Slurs? It's the truth! Even so, I thought Starfleet officers were trained to leave their prejudices in their quarters (see "Balance of Terror").


DOCTOR: Oh yes. The observer.
PARIS: That's me. As a matter of fact, I seem to be observing some kind of problem right now, Doctor.
DOCTOR: I was a surgeon at the hospital on Caldic Prime at the same time you were stationed there. We never actually met.



As SF Debris said, isn't it convenient that all the people who hate Tom die? In the case of the doctor I don't think that anti-Paris opinions should've been expressed, or else we're going to think that the EMH is an improvement over this grump.


JANEWAY: She's pregnant?
MARK [on monitor]: The puppies are due in seven weeks.
JANEWAY: Oh, Mark. You've got to take her home with you.
MARK [on monitor]: With me? I just got the rugs cleaned.


Ugh. If starships can be self-cleaning, why can't all Federation homes (with the obvious exception of the retro folks like in "Sub Rosa", of course)?


JANEWAY: Ensign, despite Starfleet protocol, I don't like being addressed as sir.
KIM: I'm sorry, ma'am.
JANEWAY: Ma'am is acceptable in a crunch, but I prefer Captain.


And yet "ma'am" and "Captain" will be freely used in roughly equal numbers over the next seven years, so what's the point of this exchange?


PARIS: Tomato soup.
COMPUTER: There are fourteen varieties of tomato soup available from this replicator. With rice, with vegetables, Bolian style, with pasta, with
PARIS: Plain.
COMPUTER: Specify hot or chilled.
PARIS: Hot. Hot, plain, tomato soup.



This is just dumb and a waste of time. It's not even funny. A simple "tomato soup" should default to hot, plain soup.



PARIS: Was the accident my fault? Yes. Pilot error. But it took me a while to admit it. Oh, fourteen varieties and they can't even get plain tomato soup right.
KIM: They said you falsified reports.
PARIS: That's right.


I wish they'd made it clear that the problem wasn't the pilot error, it's the falsified reports. And even at this point it's clear that Paris is not Locarno.



PARIS: Look, I know those guys told you to stay away from me. And you know what? You ought to listen to them. I'm not exactly a good luck charm.
KIM: I don't need anyone to choose my friends for me.


A good scene, and a fine example of "Locarno was bad pretending to be good, and Paris is good pretending to be bad."


CAREY [OC]: Possibility of a warp core breach.
JANEWAY: Secure all engineering systems. I'm on my way.


I never liked this bit. Janeway was a science officer, not an engineering officer. This makes her either look like she doesn't trust anyone but herself to do anything or she has the compulsion to be in the part of the ship in the greatest danger at all times, which I suppose is the same thing.


COMPUTER: Warning. Warp core microfracture. Breach imminent.


This is where you do an emergency shutdown, clear out all the matter and antimatter, then fix the fracture.



PARIS: We lost our nurse too.


Are they trying to say that on a ship of 150 people the medical staff was two people? That's just dumb.



EMH: Tricorder. Medical tricorder.



What's a normal tricorder doing in Sickbay anyway?


(The corn is as high as Kim's eye...


Cute. Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day...



DAUGHTER: Hey, let me show you around. The root cellar's right over there.
KIM: What's down there?
DAUGHTER: Potatoes, onions. But it's real private.


Yikes is that inappropriate. The Caretaker thinks that a strategy to keep the crew here is to offer sex?


CARETAKER: You don't have what I need. They might. No, you'll have to leave them.


I'll buy that Torres' genetics might be more useful to the Caretaker than the others, but Harry? He's an ordinary human and I doubt that Asian genetics are sufficiently different from that of other races when it comes to alien reproduction compatibility.