Plot – It’s nice to see that Voyager can follow in the steps of TOS with finding bizarre things floating out in space. With one crew it’s Abraham Lincoln, with another it’s a rusty old van. We were at a stage now where shows were ending a season (or beginning, because there is a lot contention about whether this closed season on or opened season two) with something stirring to get its hooks into you to come back next season (or to whet your appetite for the season to come). The 37s is Voyager’s first chance to do that and it’s such a peculiarly understated piece that it is a little difficult to judge on those terms. It’s an episode that begins with Janeway sniffing horse crap out of the back of a wagon and ends with a huge choice on the part of the Voyager crew whether to settle on a new planet or not…and it takes in a historical celebrity on the way.
Throughout its run Voyager encounters a prolific number of things from the Alpha Quadrant that make you scratch your head and go ‘whaa?’ But none more so than Amelia Earhart, perhaps the least likely thing that Janeway and her motley crew are bound to stumble across. Does it make any practical sense? Not really. Is this a franchise that can wave a hand and make implausibility’s like this make sense so you can get to the fun? You bet it does. It’s when it comes to concepts like Tom Paris and Janeway evolving into lizards and having babies that it really starts to struggle.
Character – Good old Tom Paris. You can always rely on him to have an interest in the latest bit of flotsam they have found. Station wagons. Cartoons. Pulp SF. Spaceships. Irish towns. He must have spent his childhood collecting obsessions and then learning just enough to get him by should the ship he ends up on encounters anything of that nature.
Performance – Kate Mulgrew deserves a medal for the scene where she wakes up the 37s and tries to convince them they were abducted by aliens. It’s quite the most preposterous scenario she has been thrown into yet and she copes with it with her usual brilliance. Her scenes with Amelia Earhart work much better because they are such obvious kindred spirits. It gives Mulgrew a chance to show some real warmth, which I find is when she at her most likable.
Production – They could have kept the car and used it to their advantage to bamboozle the latest threat from the Delta Quadrant. The way it makes everybody dive for cover as the exhaust explodes it could be used as an offensive weapon. ‘Launch the wagon!’
It’s so rare for Voyager to land on a planet that I forget it has the capability to do so. There have been many more urgent times when this might have been utilised but if you’re going to do it, it might as well be at the beginning of the season when you can show off how much money you have to play with. It feels like Janeway has decided to do this on a whim but as whims go it is a beautiful effects sequence that triumphantly sets this ship apart from its counterparts. The whole feeling of exploring a world with the Ship so close by and the sunlight pouring in through the windows from inside Voyager is handsomely done.
I want to set the record straight on one thing because I am generally pretty critical of this episode. It looks gorgeous. James Conway’s direction is pretty much perfect and he delivers the surprises that the script offers him attractively. I love the shot of Janeway and crew exploring the hills and coming across the aircraft. It looks so utterly incongruous on an alien planet, but completely enchanting.
Best moment – The most vital moment comes when Janeway and Chakotay discuss whether she opens out the invitation to stay on this planet to the crew or not. How can she run the ship as a democracy…and how can she possibly deny people the chance to have a good life here? It’s a terrific, dramatic idea, the one this episode should have capitulated to much sooner.
Worst moment – Rather dependent on convincing you that the crew might want to stay behind, we never even get to see the glorious cities that this alien race promise for the crew. How absurd is that…an episode that is handling the juicy notion of settlement and we don’t even get to see where that might be.
I wish they hadn’t done that – It’s a peculiarly unique piece of Voyager; a mystery, a celebration of history and a commentary on the position of the crew and their desire to find roots. Brannon Braga was right; it should have been a two parter. There’s too much you could do with all three of these stories and instead we get a scant 15 minutes apiece devoted to each of them.
Nobody chooses to stay on the planet? Nobody? Why do these Starfleet crews always behave in such a predictable way? I would have thought with a Maquis compliment that there would be some dissenters. Imagine if Voyager was forced to stay and the entire second season (or even half) took part on this planet. A serialised arc that saw Starfleet and Maquis trying to find roots but facing racial prejudice from the settlers and attacks from invaders that have followed their warp trail. Janeway forms a relationship with somebody on the planet. One of the regulars dies there. For a brave TV show there is an infinite number of possibilities – Battlestar Galactica did it and that is looked upon as a ground breaker, unlike Voyager, which generally leaves a nasty taste in people’s mouths. Voyager could have been as gripping as that. Instead everybody decides to leave with the Ship and off they go on their merry way to the next anomaly.
A reason to watch this episode again – I’m so desperate to make a comparison with DS9 that I want to explode. I promised myself I wouldn’t. Oh fuck it. I come to bury The 37s because it had huge potential to be so much more than it turned out to be. The mystery about the wagon; that’s your everyday bit of Trek tat. The Amelia Earheart love-in, that could have been so much more and a chance to have two fantastic female engineers bonding in a very forward-thinking way. She should have joined the ship and it could have been an incredible friendship. Voyager can’t just pick up waifs and strays, I hear you cry. Why the hell not? They took Neelix and Borg children along for the ride. Finally, the massive question of whether the crew should settle down instead of this endless journey home could have taken place over an entire season. It is ripe for dramatic possibilities and this episode ducks them all. If there was one plot this episode should have grabbed hold of and explored, it was that one. DS9 closed its first season with religious and political machinations and assassination and opened its second season with civil war. Voyager closes its first year (or opens its second) with a series of missed opportunities. You’ve got some really stellar performances and a fantastic production trying to convince you that this absurd script is happening.
**1/2 out of *****
Clue for tomorrow's episode:
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