Jammer's Review
Star Trek: Voyager
"Learning Curve"
Air date: 5/22/1995
Written by Ronald Wilkerson and Jean Louise Matthias
Directed by David Livingston
Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
"I cannot imagine that there are visible emanations which allow you to interpret my mood." — Tuvok to Neelix
I'm beginning to think the Delta Quadrant is the character on Voyager that most urgently needs development. One thing that is beginning to frustrate me about the series is how little the USS Voyager is finding in the vast unknowns of this new territory. Don't get me wrong. The series is doing a fine job of developing its personality and cast. But one thing it hasn't done that it should've by now is take advantage of the fact it has alienated the TNG/DS9 lore in favor of lore of its own.
Instead of a story that in some way develops the Delta Quadrant, we get "Learning Curve"—a basically lightweight Trek outing with a decent A-story and a fairly flat B-story jeopardy premise. Tuvok is placed in charge of putting four insubordinate former-Maquis officers through a basic Starfleet attitude training. Meanwhile, the ship's bio-neural circuitry begins malfunctioning when it literally catches a virus.
It's another nice vehicle to see Tuvok in action, though his character doesn't benefit much in terms of meaty development. His trainees prove willfully stubborn. They didn't ask to be integrated into a Starfleet crew, and they feel justified in continuing to do things the "Maquis way." Starfleet/Maquis conflict is a relevant issue that hasn't been looked at since "Parallax" and it's nice to see that not everybody has fully accepted the situation.
Included in the "Maquis way" is an unwritten rule that removes retreat as an option in battle situations—a definite rule that Tuvok has to remove from their thinking patterns. When he tests them in a holodeck Kobayashi Maru type simulation, they go up against insurmountable odds and die. "At least we went out with our phasers firing," comments Henley (Catherine MacNeal).
However, I question Tuvok's initial methods for breaking in these trainees. He treats them like teenage cadets at the academy. He makes Chell (Derek McGrath) run laps around the cargo bay and degauss the transporter room by means of the slowest method available. It seems like pointless punishment used for comedy rather than a realistic procedure in light of the extreme situations facing the Voyager.
On the other hand, I see no reason why these Maquis officers are so adamant to make the worst out of a bad situation.
It is reassuring to see Tuvok question his own methods. Neelix helps Tuvok realize that his inflexibility, in addition to the Maquis', doesn't make the situation better. This leads Tuvok to attempt to get to know Dalby (Armand Schultz) by playing the pool holodeck program—a scene that ends with realistic results.
This story works fine despite its lightweight nature. Unfortunately, there's also a fairly laughable jeopardy premise in which the ship's bio-neural gel packs begin malfunctioning. The only storytelling point in this plot is the further conveyance that being far from home will continue to have a serious impact on the ship and crew. When these gel packs are damaged, they cannot be repaired. They must be replaced, and there is a limited backup supply of only 47 of them.
The Doctor discovers that the gel packs have a bacterial infection that is destroying them. As it spreads through the ship, systems begin failing like crazy. Tuvok discovers that some cheese Neelix has sitting out in his galley possibly contains the bacteria growth.
Excuse me? A plot in which cheese is the culprit? They're saying that if cheese is left out on the Voyager, the ship's gel packs will come down with a disease? This plot revelation belongs up there with Tuvok's dog/witness in "Ex Post Facto."
And with all the system failures the malfunctions cause, is it too much to ask why the Doctor wasn't affected by them? Maybe that would prove a little too inconvenient for the lazy plot, but it is a valid point to address. No power, no Doctor.
As for character development, Janeway's holodeck novel is not doing the job. It has no relevance to anything on the show. I need to see Janeway interacting with her crew on a personal or social level. She said herself in "Caretaker" that she needs to take time to get to know the crew better. The writers need to find something to do with Janeway apart from commanding the ship, and the holodeck is not the answer.
All in all, "Learning Curve" is an entertaining but underwhelming show. Time to move on.
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15 comments on this review
But apart from this, the episode is an underwhelming season finale. There is no sense of development beyond the ship, whereas DS9 seems to be slipping into inter-stellar war at the same time.
Now I don't subsrcibe to the Star Trek nerd's theory that Braga is everything that's wrong with Trek as I believe he's part of what made TNG and Voyager great, but his underlying arrogance really pisses me off. Whenever he's interviewed for Voyager he has a silent, subliminal smug superiority, even when talking about crap or mediocre episodes of Voyager he possesses a certain misguided assurance that Voyager is the best Trek out there.
Now I've already said I love Voyager, but it would be foolish and going against the truth if I said it was more well written that Deep Space Nine. It isn't, and episodes like these when there is inconsistent character development and the bloody reset button just confirm that theory, as well as the underwhelming series finale theme which would later return with 'These are the voyages'.
Braga never wrote for DS9. He obviously didn't have the creative talent or writing skills required. Either that or he just plain hated the show becaue it wasn't on a space station, or his delusions that Voyager was better written got in the way. That's what annoys me about him and Voyager.
You should listen to the DVD commentary for Star Trek Generations. Braga is surprisingly honest and candid about what's worked and what hasn't worked in Trek scripts over the years.
Along with Ron Moore, both point out many of the flaws in that film, while also pointing out the good parts. Braga is surprisingly critical of the Nexus storyline.
Since then, Braga has delivered some solid work on 24, this past season. Season 8 also looks promising.
That being said, my one defense for this episode was that it was NOT supposed to be the season finale. It was supposed to be episode 16 of a 20-episode season and was written and produced as such. Add "Projections", "Elogium", "Twisted" and "The 37s" to the season (in that order) and you get a much better big picture (in my opinion) with a theme string running through the whole season, and a final resolution made by the crew to perservere in their journey for as long as it takes. As Jammer said, the Delta Quadrant hadn't got much development yet at this point (just as the Gamma Quadrant hadn't got much development on DS9 at the end of its first season), but all in all I sincerely believe that Voyager had the best FIRST season of all the Trek series.
There were even 2 times out of 16 episodes where the crew mistakenly does something wrong to an innocent life form.
The show didn't have much character. Only a few times where the maquis vs. starfleet conflict ever brought up. None of this was really explored like it could/should have been. It would have been nice to see conflicts and integration taking place over 16 or 20 episodes at least.
And I think Battlestar Galactica did the "stranded in space" and "trying to find home" bits a lot better. There was a lot of cohesion to BSG - none on this show.
The episodic format worked on TNG, because everything was fresh. A lot of the stuff on this season seems forced and a little hokey.
I thought it was a fun episode and fun way to end the season.
@Nic I tend to agree with you about the sexism on TOS. I do generally enjoy the show, and I love the original crew. But, as a woman, sometimes those old episodes are a little hard for me to watch. The TOS movies were much better about treating women like equals.
I don't know about this episode. I kind of liked it. I laughed several times. BUT, I am really hating all these holodeck programs.
WTF is with Janeway's British nanny holonovel? Who wants to spend their spare time watching two Victorian brats? I mean, Janeway searched her brain for the activity she would most like to do in her downtime and came up with having her Latin skills insulted by a 9 year old? I question that.
Tom Paris's bar is less offensive to me. But, I don't particularly like that program either. I find myself hating it less as it shows up more often. But, something about it still feels totally cheesy and forced to me. It just feels too much like the writers sat down one day and said "TNG had poker, DS9 has darts... Let's do pool!". In fact, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what happened.
Still, this episode was generally pretty fun. I'd say this was a two or two and half star outing for me too.
You've got that partially backwards. This episode wasn't the first appearance on VOY of the pool table and DS9 didn't do darts until season 3 -- so actually the pool-playing appeared on VOY before they ever played darts on DS9. In fact I read a production note at Memory Alpha for the first dart episode that said they purposely avoided pool because it had already been done on Voyager, so for better or worse the thought process you ascribe to the Voyager pool thing is actually a better description of the thought process that led to the DS9 dart thing.
Most of the good is the acknowledgement that:
1. Voyager is partially run by new bio-tech;
2. Any non-Starfleet people (wether they're Maquis or not)would have a hard time adapting to heavy protocols on a starfleet ship.
The comic factors - the doc practising his bedside manners on the biogel packs or the cheese - didn't bother me. What felt totally wrong was the captain assigning a Vulcan for a task best suited for a counsellor. The military boot-camp was so so wrong... If you seek respect, you don't make the rebels do what Tuvok made them do (I would have mutinied against Tuvok too !)
What came right was the simulation and the pool discussion.
What I mean is that those two points should have been more developped, but not in one episode only. It's a shame because the bits of character developpement we had so far were pretty good.
This episode is an excellent example of what's wrong with this series. It's supposed to be different than all the others, and yet here we are, witnessing Tuvok's efforts in forcing everyone to follow the same Starfleet rules that they have. The only two options seem to be 1) join Starfleet or 2) go to the brig.
Let's assume the brig just isn't big enough. Well, why isn't it? Wasn't Voyager's original mission to track down the Maquis and apprehend them? Shouldn't the ship have a brig large enough for all those Maquis? If that's not the reason why you can't just throw everyone in the brig, then why not? The way Tuvok was treating the Maquis reminded me of the argonizer in the Mirror universe. Maybe if they had one of those, they wouldn't need a brig at all.
But back to the point. Why are these their only two options? Why not allow the Maquis to stay on board as civilians? Aren't there things that need to be done on the ship that can be handled by civilians? Or here's an idea - why not allow them to colonize an M-class planet that they find along the way? They could have stayed on that planet that had the 40,000 LY transporter. Or maybe Janeway could have allowed them to take Dr. Jetrel's ship that was left in the shuttle bay after the previous episode. Then they could go off on their own and have their own adventures. If this series is really supposed to be different, why not take some risks?
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