SEASON 1

Here are all the episode this season in which Kes plays a large part in the story or has some good character moments, i.e. essential Kes viewing!

Left: "Caretaker" trailer. Right: "Jetrel" trailer.

"Caretaker"

In the late 24th century, a renegade group known as the Maquis operate outside the law to right what they see as Federation injustices. Undercover Lt. Tuvok, along with the crew of a ship commanded by the Maquis captain Chakotay and including B'elanna Torres, 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, Voyager, 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. 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. The crew discover a being known as the caretaker is searching the galaxy for a compatable species to care for the Ocampa who he feels responsible for. The crew meets a Talaxian Neelix, a Talaxian scavenger and assist him in rescuing an Ocampan, Kes, from the Kazon. Janeway tries to convince the Caretaker to send Voyager and the Maquis ship back home, but he refuses. The Caretaker wants to destroy the Array he uses to bring ships to him so that it won't fall into the Kazon's hands. But he dies before he can carry out his plan, and Janeway is left to decide whether to use the Array to get home - which would leave it intact for the Kazon - or to destroy it and save the Ocampa. She chooses what seems to be the only moral option and makes a mortal enemy of the Kazon.

Kes has a significant role in this first episode, as does every character. We see the Ocampa homeworld and the relationship between Kes and Neelix. Kes helps the Voyager away team find Harry and B'elanna in the Ocampa city when they go missing after experiments have been made on them. Neelix and Kes go to see Captain Janeway and ask to remain on board as members of the crew. A wonderful first episode for Star Trek: Voyager. It is certainly the best pilot for any of the Star Trek series', very well made and nothing about humanity on trial which, it seems, happens in previous pilots!

QUOTES:
Kes: I never should have gone to the surface, I'm too curious, I'm told it's my worst failing.
Neelix: No, No, it's a wonderful quality. You're most endearing.
Janeway: Would you be willing to take us underground to look for our missing crew?
Kes: I'm afraid Jaben was right, there's no way to get down, the tunnel I came out has been sealed.
Janeway: We don't need a tunnel, we have the ability to transport there directly.
Tuvok : Captain, our sensors did not pick up any indication of an underground civilisation. The subterrainian barrier Jaben descibed may be responsible. It might also block our transporter.
Kes: There are breaches in the security barrier, where it's begun to decay. That's how I got out.
Janeway: Have the transporter room begin a sweep for any breaches we may be able to beam through.
Neelix: Kes can tell you where to go, but now she's free we're leaving this system together.
Kes: Neelix, these people rescued me.
Neelix : I rescued you.
Kes: With their help. It would be wrong not to help them now.

"Parallax"

Chakotay reprimands Torres after she ends a dispute in engineering by breaking the nose of a Starfleet officer named Carey. But despite her volatile nature, Chakotay has faith in her skills, and he recommends Torres to Janeway for the position of Chief Engineer. Janeway is surprised, but before she can consider the recommendation, Voyager is jolted as it enters a region of spatial distortions. The crew have a very strange problem to solve, a paradox.

Neelix and Kes attend the senior officers meeting, even though they were not invited. But, as Neelix points out, he is the senior Talaxian, Kes is the senior Ocampa and he knows more about this area of space than anyone. At the meeting Kes suggests creating a hydroponics bay to grow their own food. Janeway thinks that is a very good idea and Kes begins the project. Kes also has her first proper meeting with the Doctor, and they have a nice little conversation. Important early character moments here for everyone. "Parallax" is a good episode to follow "Caretaker", it shows the problems that are going on between the Starfleet crew and the Maquis and it gives the crew a problem to solve. B'Elanna gets given the role of Chief Engineer and Seska is introduced.

QUOTES:
Janeway: To be honest, we could use some excellent suggestions right now.
Kes: I've been thinking that you might be able to convert one of your lower decks into a hydroponics bay, to grow your own food. I understand that the replicators are down and that the emergency rations won't hold out much longer.
Kim: What about cargo bay 2? It was designed for organic storage and it already has adjustable environmental controls.
Janeway: When can you start?
Kes: Me?
Janeway: It's your idea, it's your project.
Kes: Right away.

"Time and Again"

Investigating the origins of a huge shockwave, the crew finds a nearby planet where a cataclysmic explosion recently wiped out all life. Beaming down, the Away Team discovers that the detonation has actually fractured subspace. But before they can react to this dangerous revelation, Paris and Janeway find themselves transported back in time to the day before the explosion...

This episode has the first hints of Kes's mental powers which is explored in episodes to follow. Kes sees something terrible happen on the planet while she sleeps. In a talk with Neelix she tells him of how her ancesters were known to have unusual mental powers but he dismisses it. She asks Chakotay for permission to be on the away team and senses where Janeway and Paris have been. Another excellent early episode that involves time travel, it turns out that Janeway and Paris caused the explosion but they had not yet been there?

QUOTES:
Neelix: What do you mean you saw it?
Kes: I don't know.
Neelix: What did you see?
Kes: [very upset] I saw them...burning...their bodies...and it was just where they stood.
Neelix: You felt the shockwave in your sleep. Just your imagination, a strange coincidence.
Kes: I don't think so.
Neelix : What else could it be?
Kes: It was almost telepathic.
Neelix: Telepathy is a message, words, a voice. What you're descibing is almost like the visions of Drakian forest dwellers.
Kes: Who?
Neelix: A tribe with paranormal abilities. They can walk into an empty room...
Kes: Neelix, my ancestors were said to have unusual mental abilities.
Neelix: No one believes those stories.
Kes: I always have.

"Phage"

During an Away Team survey of a planet that seems to be rich in raw dilithium, Neelix is attacked and left for dead. The other members of the team find him and beam him up to Sickbay, where the Doctor reports that the Talaxian's lungs have been removed. With no other alternatives, the Doctor fits Neelix with a set of holographic lungs. They'll keep him alive, but require him to remain confined in an isotropic restraint in Sickbay for the rest of his life. When Voyager manages to find them, the aliens admit that they stole Neelix's lungs, but defend their actions by recounting the battle that their species, the Vidiians, have fought for years against the Phage, a gruesome disease that destroys their genetic codes and cellular structure. Unable to defeat the Phage, they have learned to survive by scavenging organs from healthier species to replace their own diseased tissues. Unfortunately, Neelix's lungs have already been transplanted into one of the Vidiian's bodies...

Neelix episodes also usually give Kes quite a big role too. Kes is with Neelix in sickbay throughout and she donates one of her lungs to Neelix which shows how much she cares for him. Following this episode Kes starts to train as a medical assistant, probably due to her time spent alongside the Doctor here. A great episode, the first to really focus on Neelix. The Vidiians are a very interesting enemy, doing what they can to survive, so you sympathise but they're also very scary! They return a few times in episodes such as "Faces", "Deadlock" and "Fury," which is because of Kes!

QUOTES:
Vidiian: Which of you will donate a lung?
Kes: Me.
Neelix: No, absolutely not. It's too dangerous. Let someone else do it.
Kes: No, I want to do it Neelix, I'm willing to take the risk. Besides you've done so much for me, let me give you something once. Just for once.
Neelix: Alright.

"Eye of the Needle"

When Ensign Kim finds a wormhole that might lead to the Alpha Quadrant, the crew believes they may have found a rapid route home. Although the opening to the tunnel in space proves too small for Voyager to fly through, Janeway decides to launch a microprobe into it to see what's on the other side. They transmit a message through the probe, hoping it will be picked up by whoever is scanning it. Before long, they receive a subspace response from the Alpha Quadrant, 70,000 light years away! They meet with a Romulan, who at first thinks they are spies but eventually agrees to relay messages. However, the crew discover he's from the past and dies before Voyager is lost in the delta quadrant!

In this episode there is the main plot, with the wormhole and a B-plot involving the Doctor and Kes. Kes is training to be a medical assistant and takes in the knowledge very quickly. A crewman ignores the Doctor while he's being treated, only talks to Kes and she talks to the Doctor about it. He says that's what most people are like. Kes stands up for him and goes to see Janeway about it. At the end of the episode, the Doctor tells the same crewman to address him and says to Kes that he would like a name, although he doesn't have one till the final episode of the whole series!

QUOTES:
Kes: If there were a member of the crew whose needs weren't being met, would you want to know about it?
Janeway: Of course... Kes, do you and Neelix feel your needs are being ignored?
Kes: Of course not, we're very happy here. I'm referring to the Doctor.
Janeway: The Doctor?
Kes: I don't understand why people treat him the way they do?
Janeway: How do people treat him?
Kes: As though he doesn't exist. They talk about him while he's standing right there, they ignore him, they insult him.
Janeway: Well, as a matter of fact, I've been hearing the other side of the coin. Many of the crew have complained that the Doctor is brusk, even rude, that he lacks any bedside manner. We've even been talking about re-programming him.
Kes: You can do that? It doesn't seem right.
Janeway: Kes, he's only a hologram.
Kes: He's your Medical Officer, he's alive.
Janeway: No, he's not.
Kes: He's self-aware, he's communicative, he has the ability to learn.
Janeway: Because he's been programmed to do that.
Kes: So because he's a hologram, he doesn't have to be treated with respect, or with any consideration at all?
Janeway: Very well, I'll look into it.
Kes: Thank you Captain.

"Cathexis"

An assault on a shuttlecraft manned by Tuvok and Chakotay leaves both men injured and Chakotay apparently brain-dead. Tuvok reveals that an unidentified ship that emerged from a dark matter nebula attacked them. Janeway orders Voyager to head back to the nebula to investigate, but before they reach it, the ship changes course. The navigational computer implicates Paris, but he denies having made the change. A short time later, Torres initiates a warp core shutdown, but like Paris, she can't remember instigating the actions. When the Doctor examines the pair, he discovers that a strange brainwave pattern was superimposed on them during the tampering incidents, which could mean that an alien entity momentarily seized control of their minds...

This has further references to Kes's mental powers because she can sense an alien presence. Kes goes with Tuvok to attempt to do a Vulcan mind meld but they are both found unconscious soon after. By the episodes end it is discovered that a Tuvok performed a Vulcan nerve pinch, while inhabited by the alien and Kes recovers. There's a lot of paranoia here, anyone could be inhabited by the alien, and a great mystery, it's very well written episode.

QUOTES:
Kes: Captain, I heard what's happened. I think you're right, there is an alien presense here. I've been sensing something unusual all day. I don't know how to describe it, but I know there's something here.
Janeway: Do you know where?
Kes: No, just that it's on the ship.
Tuvok: Captain, Kes's telepathic abilities are undisciplined. If I could initiate a Vulcan mind meld with her, I may be able to help her focus those abilities to detect the alien more accurately.
Kes: I'm willing to do that.
Janeway: Very well, proceed Mr Tuvok.

"Jetrel"

An alien scientist by the name of Jetrel approaches Voyager, apparently Neelix has a serious medical condition however this is a front against what Jetrel really wants; a sample of his DNA and Voyager crew's help to help un-do the damage that he previously did by destroying Neelix home and family. Jetrel was the scientist who invented a weapon immense power. But unknown to the crew of voyager Jetrel is dying, will he be able to un-do the damage he previously caused?

A fantastic performance by Ethan Phillips as Neelix. Expressing such extreme anger and upset at seeing this man. Kes does all she can to comfort and help him. Kes and Janeway persuade Neelix to let Jetrel examine him. Kes appears in Neelix's nightmare with a burned face playing the role of Neelix's sister. Ethan Phillips deserves some sort of award for his work in this excellent episode.

And here's Kes's role in every other episode this season...

* "The Cloud" - Kes calms Neelix down in a scene in the Mess Hall and then they both take snacks to the Bridge during a tense moment, so funny!
* "Ex Post Factor" - The Doctor is pleased at Kes's rapid progress in learning medicine and he's trying to choose a name. Kes assists the Doctor throughout.
* "Emanations" - Kes befriends a woman who was expecting to wake up in the after life but woke up on Voyager! And Kes is in sickbay of course.
* "Prime Factors" - Kes is with Neelix in the Mess Hall welcoming Gath from the idyllic planet aboard.
* "State of Flux" - Kes treats a rescued Kazon and asks the devious Seska about her medical records.
* "Heroes and Demons" - Kes offers the Doctor lots of support and encouragement for his first away mission on the malfunctioning holodeck!
* "Faces" - Kes assists when the Doctor surgically alters Chakotay to look like a Vidiian.
* "Learning Curve" - Kes assists in examining a neural gel pack from a medical p.o.v. and some cheese! She is seen sweating a lot when the ship is malfunctioning!