70. Clinton-Era Star Trek

Liz and Anika sit down to discuss the Voyager pilot "Caretaker", and end up with a podcast almost as long as the episode itself!

• We are not good at maths
• “It’s a good pilot, but not a good episode.”
• The script has a really complicated relationship with Janeway’s femininity
• Tom Paris is a truly awful character in the pilot (and for a while after)
• Chakotay: stereotypes and racism abound
• Tuvok is magnificent and we love him
• Harry Kim and the completely unsupported idea that he’s bad with women
• We love and adore Kes and hate most of the storylines for her
• (We also love and adore age gap relationships … except Kes/Neelix)
• “Neelix doesn’t know what a boundary is.”
• B’Elanna doesn’t play a big role in the pilot, so we make up for it by discussing her whole arc over seven seasons
• The Doctor is basically just Cranky Siri in the pilot
• The paternalism in this story

Other episodes discussed: 

“Initiations”
“Alliances”
“Basics Part 2”
“Journey’s End” (TNG)

Notes: At one point, Liz refers to Evan Evagora as “half-Maori”. A better term would have been “of Maori heritage”, rather than a phrase which suggests some sort of division or blood quantum. My apologies.