MUSE: The fantasy element, Conclusion

The [#1 and #2 Caretaker] draft seemed to be coming along well, but something about it bothered Piller. When he eventually realised what it was, he wrote a memo to Berman and Taylor, setting out his recognition of a structural and thematic problem, his struggle to find a solution, and then the breakthrough. The memo happens also to illustrate one of Star Trek's major canons: the Star Trek universe is consistent, even to the point of incorporating the same conceptual characteristics in each of its pilot episodes.

May 24, 1994 TO: JERI & RICK FROM: MICHAEL RE: THE MISSING LINK ON VOYAGER I think I've got it. It came to me very late last night in bed which is usually a good sign. The only thing I think this story is missing, the one thing that every Star Trek pilot has had, is the bend in reality. A touch of fantasy. [TOS: The Cage] had the prison that took you to the greenswept park with the imaginary Susan Oliver. [TNG: Encounter at Farpoint] had an Inquisition with an omnipotent being. [Deep Space Nine] had the metaphysical interrogation by the prophets. Our story works, I believe, but it is all real in 24th Century terms - it never leaves the baseline universe as we know it. In fact, it never goes into the UNKNOWN. The fix may be simple. Here's the idea I came up with: what if the inside of the Array isn't test tubes and probes. What if, when we're transported off Voyager, we find ourselves suddenly in the Heather on the Hill from Brigadoon, beautiful people coming to greet us, embrace us ... or on the beach of Bora Bora with naked Polynesians coming to greet us ... or it's the Orientals from Shogun ... or some other earth-like metaphor for voyagers who've landed on strange shores. If the entity can create himself as an old man and a bag pipe, he can create an entire environment from his data bank scans, can't he? So, it seems briefly like an idyllic environment we've come to ... the entity in some appropriate guise, tells us relax, I don't mean you any harm, but Janeway knows better not to trust what she sees ... Tuvok says it's a hologram... The Polynesian natives, if we go that way, are putting leis around our neck, dancing the dances to the drums and it's hard not to get caught up in this if you're Kim or Paris. It's almost like we were in an old 19th Century whaling ship thrown off course by a hurricane, says Kim. But quickly, the idyllic setting becomes dangerous ... not exactly sure how .. but instead of probes, some optical zapping might occur, (looking for something more subtle, indigenous to test for this DNA particle) ... then one laughing native girl pulls Kim into the bushes as native girls are wont to do ... but as he expects carnal delights, he winds up being grabbed by an optical beast and disappears. Problems occur: how do we show the entire crew of Voyager has been taken to this wondrous environment ... (yes, Captain, the rest of them are just over the ridge) (matte shot on the beach maybe?) (a cast of hundreds?) How do we find the Maquis? Maybe we never get to the test for the DNA particle in this sequence - maybe Tuvok uses a tricorder to track down the source of the holographic generator, stumbles into the real world where the Maquis are on ice ... which sets off a melee and we're all zapped into unconsciousness right there on the beach. And when we wake up we're back on the ship, more confused than ever. So, the result is - we never actually see the interior of the Array except for that Maquis on ice moment which might be a matte shot with a few close ups of the Maquis we know. Every time we go to the Array, we go to this environment. We'd have to lose the tubes ... well, let me take that back ... maybe they reveal in the very last sequence as he's dying, the signal that he's dead, is the dissolution of the fantasy environment and they reveal that he's an ooze monster. This probably only adds another million to the budget. But it only affects about twenty pages or so - maybe only ten in a substantial way. Anything here, guys? Michael

His basic concept ended up as the "farmyard" scene which introduces us to the alien known as the Caretaker. (No Polynesians would be seen in [Star Trek Voyager] except as holograms at a luau in the third season story [#56 Alter Ego].)

[#1 and #2 Caretaker]

[#1 and #2 Caretaker]

Michael Piller: "The second hour always seemed to dog us. The biggest danger in the pilot was in creating a story that nobody cared about. Instead of taking the approach I took with Deep Space Nine, I felt this time the audience was ready for a slam-bang action-adventure. So we spent less time on any individual character, which in a way would have been easier to write because you really get into the meat of the characters. Instead we played the adventure off the family. So the only true character arc in this show is Paris'.
    Technology works reasonably well, but it doesn't hold up the show. I'm much more comfortable writing a show about a character than I am about events or technical enigmas. When we got to that second hour and we started to get into the mystery of this underground planet and the Array, there was a little question mark in our minds about how to do it in such a way that the audience would care.
    I think we solved those problems. But it was many, many rewrites by Jeri and by myself before we got there. It has huge thematic explorations about the welfare state, about religion, and about a variety of other subjects. It works on a lot of levels. I think it's less pretentious than some of our other Star Trek shows. Our ambitions this time, versus Deep Space Nine, were to tell a really great adventure, and introduce a family. So our ambitions were a little less lofty. I also think they might be a little more popular."

With [#1 and #2 Caretaker] shaping up well, the co-producers turned their attention to the rest of the first season's episodes. Stories needed to be generated, alien species developed, characters fleshed out, crew relationships explored, Doc Zimmerman's role investigated further and more. And of course the episodes had to go into production, meaning absolutely everything including building the sets and models, hiring the actors, scoring the music, adding CGI, and a host of other matters involved in making [Star Trek Voyager] a physical reality. But all the important aspects of [Star Trek Voyager], at least for the all-important pilot episode and the first few episodes, had by now been conceived.