WARNING:   This article contains spoiler information for VOY's
"Learning Curve."  If you haven't learned yet what that means, you
might want to consider caution.

In brief:  Now that's more like it.  The plot's still a bit on the goofy
side, but at least it's holding together -- and the character work here
was quite promising.

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Brief summary:  As Voyager's bio-neural circuitry mysteriously
begins to fail, Tuvok begins training some difficult Maquis crew in
Starfleet procedures.
======

"Learning Curve" is an example of what can happen when the writing
focuses on the more unique elements of the series' premise.  On the
one hand, we had an equipment failure -- a routine enough concept,
but made more pressing by the fact that these things can't be replaced,
by replication or by trotting off to a starbase for repairs.  As Janeway
herself noted, once they run out of equipment, that's it.  On the other
hand, we had more of an examination of the fact that these are still two
distinct crews at times, with different personalities and different
methods.  That side is something that "Deep Space Nine" could
perhaps have done if there were a more prominent Bajoran presence
on the station than simply Kira, but as is it's really more suited for
"Voyager".  And while neither side was perfect, both were fairly well
done -- more than enough to be a nice antidote to the weeks of
mundane shows we've seen from VOY lately.

The main reason the Tuvok/training plot worked as well as it did is
because it was two-sided.  This could very well have been a "let's
teach the Maquis something" show -- and while that's not impossible
to do well, it tends to glorify one side over the other.  Here, though
the four Maquis in question were hardly held up as shining examples
of officer material, Tuvok wasn't much more sterling.  Dalby's quote
to him that "this whole concept is insulting" was absolutely spot-on,
and the episode would have been a great deal weaker if it hadn't gone
on to essentially acknowledge and build on that fact in Tuvok's
conversation with Neelix, one of the show's high points.

Granted, I may be a bit biased towards that particular plot because of
my own situation.  It doesn't take very much practical experience to
know that the same teaching technique will *not* work for every
single student, and that approaches need to be modified on a more-or-
less continuous basis.  I'm surprised Tuvok had as much success as
he did in the sixteen years he taught at the Academy with a single
approach.  [I'm also surprised that one of Neelix's points in his "pep
talk" wasn't to note that all of Tuvok's former students _wanted to be
there_, which his four current "cadets" most definitely did not.]

I wouldn't say that the rest of the Tuvok story went perfectly -- it
didn't.  For instance, some of the scenes were going a bit too broadly,
such as Dalby's expository bit in the holodeck, and I think the ending
proved a little too pat.  (Besides, lines like "if you can learn to bend
the rules, we can learn to follow them" always rub me wrong --
they're way too hokey for me.)  However, all four of the "trainees"
were fairly well delineated (Dalby most of all, of course), and whether
the outcome was "expected" or not, the story certainly proved
interesting enough to be worth following.

One point that *did* need to be made, however, was that Tuvok might
have been a bad choice as the crew's tutor.  Not just because of his
inflexible manner, as was pointed out -- but because as far as the
average Maquis crewmember is going to know, Tuvok betrayed them.  
Yes, he was acting on orders, but I still doubt that's going to go over
well with the likes of Mr. Dalby.

[As an aside, Chakotay's brief demonstration to Dalby that he didn't
want an entire return to the "Maquis way" of doing things was also
very worthwhile.  Some forms of discipline you don't want.]

I particularly liked the holodeck simulation of Voyager's bridge.  
Fortunately, Tuvok was bright enough not to give them an actual
Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario, but it was entirely too close to be
fair to people with no real starship experience to speak of.  And Tuvok
appeared to lose sight of something, too -- even if they made some
incorrect choices, they *did* appear to function as a team then, for the
first time.  Tuvok would have been in far better shape had he actually
commended them for that instead of sticking solely to their flaws.

The other half of the episode, namely the "ship gets sick" plot, was
well executed, if somewhat goofy in concept.  (I will refrain from
calling it "cheesy" out of deference to the sensibilities of sentients
everywhere.  :-) )  As soon as I heard in the premiere about the ship's
"bio-neural circuitry", I knew the concept of a virus attacking the ship
couldn't be too far behind.  My hope was simply that it would be done
well.

Fortunately, I think it mostly was.  Both the infection itself, being one
that only attacked the ship and not the crew, and the "cure", a fever,
seemed grounded in at least marginally plausible logic (which may not
sound like much, but is better than the sort of premises we saw in
"Faces" or "Cathexis", to be sure).  And as I said earlier, there was an
actual sense of crisis involved here -- not so much in the "imminent
jeopardy" angle itself, though, but in the fact that a critical system
could fail with _no way_ to replace or repair it, given their location.  
Although that point was only really made at the start of the show, that
was enough to keep me thinking about it as I watched, which was a
help.

The one big negative in the show was the closing act.  For one thing,
the temperature issues in the "heat up the virus" attempt seemed odd,
partly because it was unclear just where that temperature was.  360
Kelvin is in the 185-190 Fahrenheit range -- that's a bit on the cool
side for the warp engines, but way too hot for humans to survive for
the few minutes they're shown as managing.  (I also thought that,
given the heat they're likely to reach, it might have been a prudent
order to strip down to essentials, or at the very least get rid of the top
layer of the uniform shirts.  These folks seemed like they were trying
to kill themselves at times.)  More important, though, was the
characterization issue I mentioned earlier, where it seems that Dalby et
al. warms to Tuvok a little too strongly right after this.  It's
understandable in the heat of the moment, so I'm not knocking it
down yet, but if we see these characters again and everything is
wonderful between them and Tuvok, I'll object.  (Another point is that
communications, despite being ostensibly out all over the ship, didn't
seem to cause any problems on the bridge -- they could talk to
Engineering and sickbay as much as they wanted...)

On the whole, though, "Learning Curve" was a definite improvement
over the last month -- still a little on the lightweight side, maybe, but
attempting a necessary point and mostly managing it, which works for
me.  

So, some shorter points:

-- Something interesting during Dalby's little self-history:  is this the
first time we've actually heard about a character being raped in Trek?  
TNG's "Violations" used the term, but only as an analogy.  This is
taking it a bit further...

-- The doctor's choice of just now to improve his bedside manner was
definitely a scream.  "Don't worry, my little friend" was almost as
amusing a line as "get that cheese to sickbay", which has my vote.  :-)

-- We also saw more of Janeway's holo-novel, which I'm starting to
look a bit more forward to.  Several people have pointed out to me that
it seems to be an adaptation of _The Turn of the Screw_, which I'm
forced to admit I haven't read; but it's also reminding me of an old
movie called "The Innocents", which I saw this past fall, and which
also has ghosts (at least implied ones, as here) and two exceedingly
chilling children.  In any case, it's interesting to see Janeway in an
entirely different light, and I hope we get to see this continue on for a
while.  (I also hope we get to see her *finish* at least one sequence
instead of getting interrupted every time!  :-) )

That should do it.  So, in closing:

Writing:  A somewhat silly "jeopardy" plot, but mostly sound writing
        and with a lot of good characterization of Tuvok.
Directing:  No complaints to speak of.  The "climb and run" Tuvok
        put his students through came off particularly well.
Acting:  Few complaints, though Derek McGrath (Chell) got a little
        annoying.  Tim Russ seemed particularly good given the
        situation.

OVERALL:  Let's call this one a 7.5.  There's still some room to
improve, but this is definitely an upturn.  Onwards!

NEXT WEEK:  A rerun of "Eye of the Needle".

Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
tly...@alumni.caltech.edu
"Get that cheese to sickbay."
                -- B'Elanna Torres
--
Copyright 1995, Timothy W. Lynch.  All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
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