Part III, Chapter V: "The Odyssey Begins"
“That first year on set was the hardest, by far. We were still figuring our characters out, and we didn’t all know each other quite as well as we do now yet. But it was fun as well. I got to play a character that isn’t sure of herself, but has to maintain a tough facade to stop either of her ambitious aides from taking her position. Janeway was a character of compromise, but also one of action.”
- Claudia Christian on her role as Captain Katherine Janeway.
Expectations were high for the first season of
Star Trek: Odyssey. It had promised much, and fans were expecting the show to deliver. Most important, out of all of these promises would be that the show would have “real consequences”, abandoning the “reset button” that many of the other shows in the franchise used to allow for the stories to be watched out of order easily.
Odyssey’s writing staff said that they had found a happy balance, that would allow for people to watch it out of order, but would reward the viewers for sticking with the show.
Part of these consequences would be the Kazon, this season’s main antagonists. Pursuing the
Odyssey to get revenge on them for thwarting their plans in the show’s opening episode, they would appear again and again to hamper her trip home, until the
Odyssey left Kazon space at the end of the season. [1]
The first season of
Star Trek: Odyssey would be praised, though some of the acting and writing was criticised at times. Most were, however, confident that these issues would be solved as the show went on, as it had with
The Next Generation and
Deep Space Nine.
List of Episodes of Season 1 of Star Trek: Odyssey: [2]
Caretaker (Part I)
Caretaker (Part II)
Parallax
Forget-Me-Not
Barefoot Through the Stars
Duty and State
Eye of the Needle
Time and Again
Prime Factors
Living in the Moment
The Enemy of my Enemy
Stuck in the Middle
Cabin Fever
Strange Bedfellows
State of Flux
Extravagance in Violence
Learning Curve
Phage
Vengeance (Part I)
Vengeance (Part II)
Bold text indicates a story written by @The Chimera Virus
Cast of Season 1 of Star Trek: Odyssey:
Captain Katherine Janeway – Claudia Christian
Commander Chatan – Graham Greene
Commander (Gul) Evek – Nigel Havers
Lt. Tuvok – Tim Russ
Lt. (Glinn) Rejal – Tracy Scoggins
Lt. (j.g.) Kollin Torres – Kim Cattrall
Ensign Harry Kim – Garrett Wang
Ensign Nick Locarno – Robert Duncan McNeill
The Doctor – Robert Picardo
Falox – Ethan Phillips
Kes – Jennifer Gatti
As many had predicted, the show would suffer somewhat from not being on network television, and being released into first-run syndication. While
Deep Space Nine was bringing in about 9% of the US audience, the first season of
Odyssey only managed 6%. Given its positive reviews, however, the decision was made to bring it over to UPN for its second and further seasons.
The cast and crew had proven that the format could work. Production on the second season began during the first’s airing, as they planned to bring
Deep Space Nine’s fourth, and
Odyssey’s second seasons in line with the old airing schedule for
The Next Generation. Overall, fans were relieved to find another show to follow, and to see proof that this new era of
Star Trek could do well. [3]
[1] The Kazon will only really stick around for this season. Next season's big bads are introduced in one of these stories, and they're a species that I think was quite interesting.
[2] Very few stories from OTL's Voyager will make it through. A lot of original(-ish) story ideas for this show. That's one of the reasons I've been looking forward to it so much.
[3] So far, DS9 and ODY have been airing Jan-Jun, but that's going to change to Oct-May, with a break around December.