Learning Curve

DVD, Voyager S1 (Learning Curve)

A nice way to round off the first season is this tale of Maquis animosity and redemption, while teaching Tuvok, the wise Vulcan, a little something along the way. The Maquis crewmembers were good characters, and it was especially gratifying to introduce a Bolian and a Bajoran into the mix - a couple of second tier races that all Trek series' shouldn't leave home without! They were good enough that they deserved to be reprised in future episodes and it's a shame that never happened. I suppose the logic would be that they had learned their lesson and would now integrate into the smooth running of the ship.

We later learn in the Sixth Season that this wasn't the case for all crewmembers, but we also have to assume those later dysfunctionals were at this time merging into the background, or Chakotay would have sent them on the course too! It is a great shame, and something that Voyager failed to do - in making recurring characters they could keep and play with. It would have only enhanced the series, but I can't be stern with it after confidently ending its opening season on a high. All the regulars are featured, and most get good little scenes. It's also refreshing that the story is solely an internal matter, to do with the inner workings of the ship, be they organic, or mechanical. Or organic again.

It's fun to see the Doctor in perfect working order while his crewmates are flaking around him, he's clearly enjoying not having an organic body at this point! He has also decided to include more patient concern in his program to enhance his bedside manner, which is another point to inject humour in. Torres' comment "get the cheese to sickbay" sounds a lot funnier when spoken out of context, as in the actual episode you buy everything that happens about the cheese causing the malfunctions. We are even rewarded with visits to familiar Holodeck places - Janeway's holonovel introduces the creepy children, Henry and Beatrice, and Tuvok and Dalby have a pool session at Sandrine's, the most common Holoprogram seen in the first season.

It doesn't end as definitively as you'd expect for the end of a season, but that probably has more to with the further four episodes they shot right after, which were, for some reason, included as the opening episodes for Season Two. I still expected Janeway to have some closing monologue, dialogue or Captain's log... I noticed a lot of similarities to the first season original Star Trek episode 'Galileo Seven', what with a parallel story of enmity in the ranks of each Vulcan's mission, getting trapped in a situation and the Vulcan gaining a bit of respect for his actions, and perhaps learning something from those he's teaching. Certainly helps make it a quality episode.

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