The 37's

In the long 40 year history of Star Trek, there are a few episodes that have become synonymous with awful. The most hated episodes that would not be touched by fans with a ten foot cattle prod: "Spock's Brain", "Shades of Grey", "Profit and Lace", "Threshold", "A Night in Sickbay", and others. Of course, these tend to shift from person to person, but these ones are generally regarded as some of the worse. That said, there is one episode which I fell is not bad enough to be counted with these, but it's bad in another category: season premieres. That being said, this is "The 37's", one of the worst openers of Star Trek.

Interesting tidbit about this episode. It was originally supposed to be the Season 1 closer. But, the executives thought it would work better as the Season 2 opener. It may have slightly worked better as a finale, but that's a pretty big bit of optimism. The episode still falls flat on its face and is what I consider to be a horrible mess. In addition, some bright spark said "let's air the first bit of Season 2 out of order!" Yeah, I always hate it when they do that, raising continuity issues and such. Alright, enough stalling. Let's get this one over with.

It's just a truck! Finding the Ark of the Covenant would
be a bit more surprising!

This episode opens with the crew of Voyager detecting rust in space. They come across a poorly photoshopped truck floating in space, which Tom is able to immediately determine is an ancient Earth vehicle known as an "automobile". Yeah, once again they're doing that stupid "ancient" thing. Okay, some will view "ancient" as being anything before a new era. While First Contact is a truly important event, is it really that important compared to something like the dawn of intelligence? After all, when you begin encompassing World War II and the Gallic Wars within the same time period, it does tend to get a little ridiculous.

They bring the truck on-board, magically turning it from a photoshop to a real thing. Tom takes a look around and immediately begins saying everything about it, explaining how "'36 Ford" was the ancient Earth way of saying the manufacturing year and the company that made the truck. Yeah, the crew of Voyager is so stupid that they have even this explained to them, as I'm sure vehicles are still called this way. Oh, and it gets better. Harry shows his genius and asks if the vehicle is an early hovercar. In a way, it is, the same way a typewriter is an early computer.

Perhaps I'm being a bit too harsh, because it's clear that this is simply a Holmesian situation. Torres is examining the back of the truck with a tricorder, and is unable to identify that the "traces of potassium nitrate, ammonium and methane" is manure, while Janeway is able to immediately determine that this belong to a farmer. How is this Holmesian? Well, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote almost all Sherlock Holmes stories entirely from Watson's POV. Now, Watson is an intelligent man; he's a competent doctor and a decorated war hero. However, he's not as observant as Holmes is (and good thing; if they were written from Holmes' POV, the stories would be done in a few paragraphs) and it mostly served to make Holmes appear awesome. Same here. Jeri Taylor wrote this episode to show how awesome Janeway is, much like every other episode she penned. It's one thing to misinterpret what the initials on a cane mean; it's another to not know what the hell manure is!


Tom gets into the truck and manages to bring it back to life, startling the crew. Tuvok even pulls out his phaser upon hearing the car start up. Once again, it gets better. Tom begins flipping through the old AM/FM radio, picking up what Torres calls "the ancient Earth distress call known as SOS" (might be too soon, but just roll with it). They didn't pick this up because Voyager doesn't normally scan those areas. Going on, they trace the SOS signal to a planet which has a technobabble atmosphere that conveniently prevents shuttles and transporters. Thus, that leaves one solution: landing the entire ship. Voyager's equipped to do that, you know.

Congrats, boys! We made Farpoint look reasonably good!

So, Voyager lands in what actually rivals the slow reconnection of the Enterprise in "Encounter at Farpoint", of a special effect put in simply because they could. Not knowing they are being watched (even when using tricorders, their source of everything), they find an "ancient Earth aircraft". Once again, I rub my head at the idea that airplanes are considered "ancient". In someways, that's one thing Enterprise did right: they used "old", not "ancient" to describe pre-First Contact things. By the way, the most idiotic stuff is yet to come. Still not seeing the humanoid stalking them, they find a cave filled with people in suspended animation that they are able to determine as being from the same time period as the truck. Heh, the officers cannot identify manure from the sight and smell, but they are able to determine decade from clothing. Oh wait, it's Janeway who determines what time period they are from.

We are unable to decode the operating system. It is
an ancient Earth OS known as "Windows Vista".

Then...Janeway has a Shatner-moment. She comes across a woman that is wearing a leather jacket and the name tag "A. Earhart". She observes this by saying "A...period...E-A-R-H-A-R-T". Rather than just sounding out the name, she spells every letter and then has a eureka moment by saying "Amelia Earhart". A potentially good twist...if not that the credits listed Sharon Lawrence as "Amelia Earhart". Yeah, this scene seems to just draw out what we already know. Thus, it'd be better to either have Lawrence's character not listed in the credits, or have Janeway just say "Earhart".

So, they go back to Voyager and Harry asks who Amelia Earhart is. Now, normally, I'd be generous and say that Harry genuinely does not know who Amelia Earhart was; after all, not too many Americans may know who Charles Carroll was (the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence). However, why would Harry wait until they got back to Voyager to ask who she was? That's one problem I often have with cinema and television; a conversation is going on in a normal fashion, but there's a change in location that should have taken several minutes. Anyway, Janeway goes into an almost fangirl craze in describing everything about Amelia Earhart, including her disappearance in 1937. She tells the officers to brush up on "ancient Earth" before reviving them; yeah, Kathy, you'd might want to be a little more specific.

The smile of a psycho.

They bring Kes along, since it's still before the Doctor can make house calls. Tom points out the Japanese soldier is armed "with some kind of weapon"; huh, he can identify a '36 Ford but doesn't know what a Nambu pistol is (or just a handgun in general)? As Amelia Earhart exits her cryochamber...God, I cannot get over that weird smile Janeway has on her face. It's less a sign of "Wow, I'm meeting my hero!" and more of "I want to play a game. Behind your eye is the key..." through a talking puppet. Naturally, Amelia Earhart, her navigator Fred Noonan, a Japanese soldier, a black farmer, and some other people who never get a line are startled and don't believe Janeway's story. Well, at least they're showing they're not as gullible as the people of Grover's Mill, New Jersey. Janeway tries to explain by revealing that Kes is an alien, and okay, there's one funny bit. Amelia Earhart refuses to believe that Martians have invaded Earth, but Harry says "it's the other way around. Earth colonized Mars."

Still, Fred refuses to believe them and takes the group hostage. Janeway manages to convince Amelia Earhart to talk him down, saying that people believed after Pearl Harbor that her flight around the world was an intel mission. To this, she replies "no one was supposed to know about that", almost acknowledging that she was not trying to break new ground for women, but to gather intel on the Japanese! Smart move, Jeri and Brannon! As if the "alien abduction" theory wasn't enough, you had to say the intel mission was true! Meanwhile, Chakotay and Tuvok, two men highly trained and experienced in guerrilla warfare, are ambushed while trying to rescue the officers by the people who were stalking them earlier.

"May I take her for a spin"
...no comment.

Janeway, of course, gets to play action girl and outflanks the attackers, learning that they are human as well. The leader, John Evansville (yes, really), returns with them to Voyager for the almighty task of overacting. He explains the backstory of this planet: in 1937, an alien race abducted 300 humans and brought them here. The human slaves eventually overpowered the aliens and destroyed them. Yeah, this would eventually be reused in Enterprise, in a slightly better way. Now, the plot holes this monologue raises are painfully obvious, like why these aliens would go across the galaxy for humans when they are so many races that would make better slaves in the Delta Quadrant? Also, I have to wonder how these guys never came back. In "Journey's End", Troi talked about a Native American rebellion that the Spanish eventually came back to inflict retribution. Did these humans somehow manage to completely annihilate the alien civilization?

I want adventure in the great wide somewhere...

Then, we get into the biggest misstep of the episode. Evansville says that, while the alien ship is long gone, there are "beautiful cities" and some 100,000 people living on this planet. I'm a bit surprised that 300 people would be able to breed enough to get just 100,000 in 400 years, not to mention that they probably couldn't impart the skills necessary to create such vast cities. The officers head out to see these beautiful cities and...we then go back to Janeway looking at the sky, ready to burst into song once more. Once again, we are told, not shown, that these cities are amazing, and that now they are in a dilemma of whether they should just stay here. Just outright awful. Brannon is not exhibiting the essential skills that screenwriting needs.

Rewatching this episode is just painful for me to do, so I'll sum up. Amelia Earhart is shoved into the background, Harry and Torres debate staying, and in the end, no one decides to stay behind. Yep, no one, and also, Amelia Earhart and the other 37's stay behind as well. The crew of Voyager departs into the unknown, into episodes which are only getting worse from here.

Sorry to be repeatedly saying this, but I feel I must say it. I just started the final season of Battlestar Galactica. The first two seasons of BSG went by much more quickly than the first third of VOY Season 2. This just threw out so many potential plot points! What if the aliens finally come back? How would Amelia Earhart adjust to life in the 24th Century, which has vehicles capable of going faster than she ever dreamed? Yeah, Amelia Earhart just shows up, does one thing, and is almost instantly forgotten! Way to treat this American hero! Why not bring her along and be the second pilot on board? I'm actually questioning whether I should continue to watch Voyager on Netflix after the awfulness of "Tattoo".

Let me close by saying this: if you want a better depiction of Amelia Earhart, watch Night at the Museum 2. That's right. A horrible movie is actually better in depicting this famous person than Star Trek! That's a new low for Trek to sink!

Final Score: 3/10