The 37's

[The_Baroness]

Watching a bit of this this morning on the telly while downing my morning coffee before dragging meself to the office.

At one point, when they discussed waking up the folk in the freezers Chuckles pipes up with "Suggest only human crew a present when we wake 'em up"

Janeway agrees..

then takes Kes along..

whut?

 

[Sandoval]

Kes covers her ears with her hair, thus appearing human and not triggering heart-attacks in the people being unfrozen when they see an alien.

Do you really need this explained?

 

[Timo]

Of course, by the same logic it would have been nice to have Tuvok there (in a silly wool cap or whatever), as the situation could well call for the abilities of a trained security officer with superhuman strength...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The_Baroness]

Of course I realise what they've actually done. But "ONLY HUMANS!" doesn't mean "ONLY HUMANS (and aliens in disguise, sssh!!)

 

[LOKAI of CHERON]

Of course, by the same logic it would have been nice to have Tuvok there (in a silly wool cap or whatever), as the situation could well call for the abilities of a trained security officer with superhuman strength...

Timo Saloniemi

Yes, and if he misplaced the cap they could've explained the ears away as an unfortunate accident in a mechanical rice picker.

 

[Sandoval]

Of course, by the same logic it would have been nice to have Tuvok there (in a silly wool cap or whatever), as the situation could well call for the abilities of a trained security officer with superhuman strength...

Timo Saloniemi

There are plenty of human security officers to chose from. Plus the away-team had phasers.

I'd hazard a guess that a phaser could take down an unfrozen person from the 1930s pretty easily, without having to resort to Vulcan superhuman strength.

Sando Sandoniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

Of course I realise what they've actually done. But "ONLY HUMANS!" doesn't mean "ONLY HUMANS (and aliens in disguise, sssh!!)

You'd have to wonder if they thought for saying "That" that Chakoaty was a speciesist and it called for a black mark in his permanent record?

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Of all the things wrong with this episode, that line is the last thing that bothers me.

In fact, the existence of what I call humans with funny ears in the Delta quadrant is much more disturbing, and the scene where Janeway shows the ears of Kes to the 37s is so wrong. Why would you put a scene which only highlights the ridiculousness of the notion – it's so ridiculous that even the characters didn't buy it, and you're expecting the viewers to buy it?

The reason Spock's ears were fine in “The City on the Edge of Forever” was because it was funny. This wasn't. The reason Spock's ears were fine in “Tomorrow is Yesterday” and “The Voyage Home” is that the hint was subtle and open for interpretation. This was neither, and being delivered by the Janeway in lecturing mood made it even worse, because I can imagine Shatner delivering the same lines and making me crack a smile. A completely pointless lines which only served to exacerbate a flaw, and to create an awkward situation (for the show, the viewers and perhaps Janeway) which served no real purpose.

The 37s is one of the many episodes in my list of episodes that could have been great because they took the liberty to create an impossible and thrilling situation, but in the end completely missed the opportunity to take advantage of it and turned out to be a mess. I watched it quite a few times because I love exactly this kind of unanticipated set-ups, but unfortunately it didn't go anywhere.

And, frankly, I agree that I would take the “only humans” line off the episode if I were to make a list of the things that need to be fixed in it. There's simply no need to draw any attention to this. Either make it subtle or make it comical.

tl;dr - I love first contacts, time travel, alien abductions, and Earth-shattering discoveries. Why do most such episodes suck?

 

[Lord Manitou]

Obviously if one finds himself working with an earlier or less advanced culture, psychology should be used. It might be less a tool than it was in TOS because all questions are answered but Capt. Janeway resorts to this anyway and it is one of the reasons she is an important character.

 

[The Dominion]

It was an ok episode, I don't know why people hate it. What about that one where Chakotay finds his Alien Indian relatives in the Delta Quadrant?

 

[Sean Aaron]

This is where the show lost me, specifically the end. I'm supposed to believe that not even one of the Maquis members of Voyager - many of whom aren't ex-Starfleet is going to continue with the Voyager crew on what may be an endless journey rather than stay and help an isolated, thriving human colony that may be facing a returning hostile alien race? Really? I mean wouldn't the same spirit that made the Maquis leave the Federation cause them to be inspired to stay and help these people?

Utter bollocks.

Nevertheless I will be buying the Voyager DVDs and watching the entire series as part of my planned Trek marathon in what now looks to be 2012.

 

[The Dominion]

You expected an ending that challenged the status quo on Voyager?

 

[Galileo7]

You expected an ending that challenged the status quo on Voyager?

Agree, but I could not believe that such an early aviation explorer as Amelia Earhart would not have wanted to return to Earth to see what has changed and furthermore explore herself as a starship crew member.

 

[Sean Aaron]

You expected an ending that challenged the status quo on Voyager?

Yes, actually. Given the challenging situation of the crew I expected a more challenging show after watching DS9. I know, I'm naive...

 

[The Dominion]

You expected an ending that challenged the status quo on Voyager?

Yes, actually. Given the challenging situation of the crew I expected a more challenging show after watching DS9. I know, I'm naive...

Yeah, I was there once too.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

It was an ok episode, I don't know why people hate it.

I hate it exactly because it was an OK episode when it could have been great, I liked it when I could have loved it. It failed for two reasons – it failed to make a good use of the incredible premise, it failed to do something to make the main plot more interesting.

That's the main failure of Voyager, a series of good stand-alone episodes that do little to make Voyager's journey interesting. We essentially established the entire crew in episode one, when we were supposed to be in a exceptional situation that would warrant many crew changes until the crew is settled down. And nothing happened.

If this episode was in season one, and there was some real conflict between the Maquis and the Starfleet (not invented Cardassian-Kazon alliances), it could have been put to use:

- Some Maquis and some of the crew stay behind and leave Voyager with a crew shortage
- Amelia Earhart comes along and becomes a regular who has to grow up to live in the future world, not unlike Seven of Nine who had to grow up to live as a human
- A repressed population of Briori is found living in one of the human cities and this creates some real conflict (not a mere misunderstanding)
- Some of the Briori join the crew of Voyager helping with the crew shortage a bit (they might also cause trouble later on, myeah...)
- We use some Briori technology to get moving faster and give us a glimpse of real hope (you see, lack of any real advancements was one of the reasons we had Endgame... why not make a little one in Season 1 that's not a microwormhole?)

I'm not saying these are great ideas, but they would work if they are well-written and something would actually happen!

 

[Sean Aaron]

Yeah it was a potentially really interesting episode if they had chosen to at least revisit some plot elements in the future if not fully serialise the show. Instead it's just "Neat, there's a bunch of humans in the Delta Quadrant and maybe the aliens that brought them are still around - eh, whatever."

 

[The Dominion]

Well, the Briori can just join the club, because there were several other species wanting to be developed, like The Vidiians, the race that the Kazon stole their technology from, The Ocampa (who were the pivotal device for Voyager's whole situation) and last but not least; The Caretakers themselves.

All those races ended up being aliens of the week, by the time the Briori showed up I had little expectations for them either. The fact that the episode involved Emilia just cemented its fate of being shuffled under the rug immediately after ending.

 

[exodus]

Kes covers her ears with her hair, thus appearing human and not triggering heart-attacks in the people being unfrozen when they see an alien.

Do you really need this explained?

Especially since Janeway explains it the exact same way in the episode as you did.

 

[exodus]

This is where the show lost me, specifically the end. I'm supposed to believe that not even one of the Maquis members of Voyager - many of whom aren't ex-Starfleet is going to continue with the Voyager crew on what may be an endless journey rather than stay and help an isolated, thriving human colony that may be facing a returning hostile alien race? Really? I mean wouldn't the same spirit that made the Maquis leave the Federation cause them to be inspired to stay and help these people?

I don't see the Maquis as having a choice the first time around.
They were force to leave the comfort and technology they had to fight the Cardassians. The Maquis plan was to force the Cardies off their land in the hopes of returning to the comfort they knew.
Given the choice to live in luxury on Voyager or live hand to mouth while roughing it on an unknown planet, I'd think they'd choose comfort instead. Besides, the Maquis wanted to get back to the AQ to continue the fight. How could you stay in the DQ knowing you're family back in the AQ are still being brutalized by the Cardassians? Wouldn't you feel guilt?