[VOY] Lynch's Spoiler Review: "The 37's"
Timothy W. Lynch
premiere, "The 37's". If you don't want to be spoiled, don't read any
further.
In brief: I'm glad this was a first-season holdover; that means I'm just
disappointed instead of *really* worried.
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Brief summary: An old radio distress signal leads the Voyager crew
to find famed pilot Amelia Earhart frozen in stasis -- and a human
community so enticing that they may not want to leave.
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Back when "Phage" aired last season, I said it was a good example of
taking a horribly goofy concept and executing it well. "The 37's" had
half of that -- it took a horribly goofy concept. Unfortunately, the
execution was such that not only did it seem goofy, but _dull_ to boot:
not an enticing combination.
Let me start with what I liked about the show. I thought the scene
with Paris starting up the truck was reasonably entertaining, and I
rather liked the reactions of the revived "37's" when they were told
what had happened. What's more, some of the Janeway/Earhart
interaction was interesting -- and truth be told, despite the bizarre
premise I wouldn't have minded seeing the two of them interact quite
a bit more.
One of the basic problems I think the show had is that it was trying to
be three stories in one. First, there was the "strange signs of an alien
abduction" story that was about half or two-thirds of the episode.
Second, there was the reaction of the abductees and their introduction
to the 24th century, most strongly the Janeway/Earhart stuff. I'm
considering the two separate because the quality was so high, and
because "fish-out-of-water" stories are very different in tone than
"creepy alien" stories. Lastly, there was the "temptation to stay on the
planet" story, which could have been very interesting had it gotten
more than about seven minutes of air time.
Unfortunately, the story that got the most time devoted to it was by far
the weakest of the lot. First, there's the lack of explanation -- we
don't really know why the Briori decided to pick up humans from
1937, why they felt it necessary to go halfway across the galaxy, how
the truck that Voyager found actually got into space, or hordes of
other things. Not only don't we know, however, it appears that no
one on board cares to *find out*, as nothing was questioned or
investigated to any significant extent. For explorers, they seem
strangely uninquisitive.
Beyond that, there are a host of objections on somewhat more
technical grounds. For instance:
-- So there's weird <tech> interference in the atmosphere that nails
sensors and transporters. Fine. Yet they can pick up AM radio,
which fails if you go under a *bridge*, for heaven's sake. Strangely
convenient, that.
-- Similarly, they get an AM radio transmission from the planet, but
nothing whatsoever from any of the three large cities which are
*nearby*. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, either.
-- The truck's power supply is apparently fine after 400 years. Now,
that's a hell of a nice endorsement for Ford :-), but somewhat
implausible. (I'm not so concerned about the gasoline leak as I am
about the fact that the radio was working.)
-- The ship doesn't monitor AM radio. First of all, I believe that flies
in the face of past episodes where starships *have* picked up radio
transmissions, though specifics escape me in this instance. Second,
that's a foolish thing to do if you want to detect pre-warp civilizations
and avoid them. Third, the reason given -- that radio signals only
travel at the speed of light -- also rules out gamma rays, UV, infrared,
visible light ... in short, virtually everything we hear about ships
detecting on a weekly basis. In short, the whole statement's really,
REALLY silly.
Okay, that's enough technical objections. I could raise more (such as,
for instance, the plausibility of a planet looking *that much* like Earth
with an oxygen/argon atmosphere), but I think the point is made.
Moving on, we have strange character moments.
Given the "momentous" nature of Voyager actually landing on the
planet (at least from a drama point of view, given that we've never
seen it happen and the swelling music that went along with the
mention of the idea), the crew seemed amazingly blase about it. No
"I didn't know this ship could do that" (which is *quite* plausible
from those who weren't currently in Starfleet, like Chakotay and
Paris), no "do we know it's going to be safe"; just a quiet "are you
sure that's worth it given what we know?" It's better than no reaction
at all, but it seems extremely understated (and thus, in this instance,
underwhelming).
After the comment that they need to be careful in reviving the 37's,
moreover, they're *not* careful -- not in the slightest. Since Paris
spotted a weapon on one of them, someone should have considered
that maybe others might as well, and the entire group should have
been searched _before_ they were revived. Along similar lines,
Janeway and company put themselves in a situation where they were
outnumbered in case the revivees reacted badly, which is not smart --
and they didn't come prepared with proof of their story, which would
not have been difficult to find in the ship's databanks. (A picture of
Hirohito forty years later might have convinced the Japanese soldier,
for instance, as would pictures of later planes help convince Earhart.)
Finally, Kim and Paris could have easily stunned Fred Noonan well
before he put Janeway in any serious danger; Noonan wouldn't have
expected weapons that react as quickly as phasers do. The entire
revival scene struck me as almost a comedy of errors, which was
clearly not the plan.
Earhart was the only revived character whose reactions seemed on-
target and whose characterization seemed more than marginal. Her
skepticism to the very idea of starships was nice, as was her later
warming to it -- and Janeway's discussion of the "real purpose"
behind Earhart's mission was one of the few bright spots of the
revival. (I've no idea if Janeway's story is true, by the way; I've
never heard of it, but Earhart has never been much of an interest of
mine. It certainly sounded plausible.)
Once they got out of the caverns, the show improved to some extent,
at least until the last sixty seconds. The idea of a new human
civilization being built on the planet isn't a bad one, and the idea that
some or all of Voyager's crew might be tempted to stay there and
settle down isn't a bad one either. However, this part also suffered
from problems, the easiest summation of which is "it's not a ten-
minute issue".
Janeway's doubts about having to make the entire decision for her
crew seemed on-target, as did Chakotay's answer (even if the
dialogue was a little stilted, in my opinion). However, the later
discussion implies that every single member of Voyager's crew
considers Earth home, which I find extremely hard to swallow. Add
to that the fact that we didn't get to see the aliens that were the indirect
cause of all of this, any of their technology, or even the cities that
these humans had built, and there was no real sense of temptation on
Voyager's side -- there was nothing drawing *us* to stay on the
planet.
Finally, the thought that *no one* would choose to stay behind is
what finally made me slam the book on the show for good. Of all the
endings we could have seen, this was by far the least satisfying and
the least plausible. Having a few people stay behind would have been
more realistic, and I think more poignant as well, given that they'd
have friends who would miss them and never see them again. There
were other options as well: some could have stayed behind, but
simultaneously other humans from the planet could have chosen to
come aboard, thus allowing for a little bit of turnover. Or, as a friend
of mine suggested, we could have seen Voyager use the planet as a
temporary base for a few months from which to launch searches for
wormholes and other anomalies (or at least the Briori, which unless
extinct are presumably somewhere around with technology that could
get them home). But having every single person choose to stay, while
perhaps giving Janeway a nice warm fuzzy feeling, just made me
scoff rather loudly. (Of course, there's always Lisa's thought; Tuvok
stunned all of them so that they didn't get to the cargo bay. Or maybe
Janeway and Chakotay glitched it, and went into the wrong bay. I'm
picturing this huge crowd in a different bay wondering where the heck
their captain is... :-) )
Other minor thoughts:
-- I hope they at least gave that guy his truck back. :-)
-- I don't know if I was the only one, but when the truck appeared
floating through space in the teaser, I was irresistibly reminded of the
NBC execs' car chasing the Enterprise in "Saturday Night Live"'s
"Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise" sketch from two decades or
so back. Utterly priceless.
-- "I think you'll find that's manure." Well, I'm glad *someone* said
it, I guess...
-- Kim's cluelessness about the first half of the 1900's is reasonable,
though I was a little skeptical that Paris, who seemed interested in
ancient vehicles, didn't know about Earhart.
-- Finally, I did at least learn one thing from the show. Noonan's line
about wanting to talk to J. Edgar Hoover sort of set me back a bit, as I
didn't think he was running the FBI that early. However, he was;
apparently he started in the mid-'20s. So the show had some
educational value. :-)
I think I've said enough about the show at this point. I'm glad it
wasn't the first-season finale, as it would have been an extremely
disappointing one -- but as it is, it leaves a fairly unpleasant taste in
my mouth, and I hope the shows actually created for the second
season are a vast improvement over this.
So, summing up:
Writing: The main concept was silly, and the later ideas were
undercut by the endings or by what we didn't see.
Directing: I didn't see much one way or the other, but the shot of Kes
rapidly scanning everyone was offputting. (The "revival by
lighting change" also felt old.) James L. Conway's done a
*lot* better -- like TNG's "Frame of Mind" and DS9's "Duet".
Acting: Sharon Lawrence did what she could with Earhart, and
Mulgrew worked well with her. The rest -- mostly a loss.
OVERALL: A 3; quite a disappointment. Better luck next time.
NEXT WEEK: Something actually filmed for season 2.
Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
tly...@alumni.caltech.edu
"...the most ridiculed notion [about Earhart] was that she had been
abducted by aliens."
-- Janeway
--
Copyright 1995, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
This article is explicitly prohibited from being used in any off-net
compilation without due attribution and *express written consent of the
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Janeen DeBoard
when I saw that truck flying through space. Surely that had to be
someone's idea of an in-joke!
Personally, I think that Voyager just reflects current social life, as
Star Trek always has:
First we were brave adventurers, out there exploring because we really
wanted to (the original series & the movies 1-6)
Then we got rather stiff and conversative and politically correct (TNG)
Then we hung out at the mall (DS9)
Now we're lost (Voyager)
What could be next?