‘THE 37’S’ (VOY)
Please feel free to comment on my review.
This is the first episode of Season 2 of ‘Voyager’ and it’s one of my favourites from the series. I’m sure this episode was meant to be the season finale to Season 1 rather than the opener to Season 2.
In the episode, Voyager discovers a 1936 Ford truck in space. They also discover an ancient SOS which leads them to a Class L planet. The atmosphere causes the Voyager ship to land on the planet.
This episode is the first to establish that Voyager has landing struts. It was interesting to see a starship land on a planet, since this hadn’t been before, compared to ‘The Original Series’ and ‘TNG’.
On the planet surface, Captain Janeway leads an away team to discover the source of the SOS transmission and it happens to come from a Lockheed Model 10 Electra, which is a 1930s airplane. 😐
The plane happens to have an alien generator installed to sustain the SOS. Janeway soon joins Chakotay’s away team where they discover a cryostasis chamber containing humans from the 1930s.
One of the humans happens to be Sharon Lawrence as Amelia Earhart as well as her navigator David Graf as Fred Noonan. I wouldn’t have heard of Amelia Earhart if it wasn’t for this ‘Star Trek’ episode.
Amelia Earhart was an American pilot that went missing in 1937. Her mysterious disappearance has never been answered in real life, though this ‘Voyager’ episode says that she was abducted by aliens.
It was interesting to see how ‘Voyager’ answers Amelia Earhart’s disappearance by saying she ended up on a planet in the Delta Quadrant. She also happens to be an inspiration for Janeway in the story.
I liked the scenes shared between Janeway and Amelia Earhart in the episode, especially when they have in things in common with wanting to travel as well as wanting to aspire to a pretty idyllic life. 🙂
Once Janeway, Tom Paris, Kes and Harry Kim revive the 37’s (that’s what we’ll call the 1937 humans), Fred Noonan holds a gun to the Voyager crew as hostages. He demands to speak to J. Edgar Hoover.
Whilst Noonan doesn’t believe the story that Janeway and the others are giving them about being on an alien planet and in the year 2371, Janeway does persuade Amelia Earhart to hear her out here.
Janeway tells Amelia how significant she is to human history as well as to herself. Soon, Amelia agrees to see the starship Voyager, inviting other people along. Noonan also comes, but is sceptical.
As Janeway leads the way and exits the caves, a firefight breaks out between the Voyager away team and three hooded figures. Janeway manages to flank the attackers from behind as she disarms them.
It turns out the attackers are human, to which Janeway is quite surprised by. The attackers are also surprised that Janeway is actually human. The attackers’ leader is John Rubinstein as John Evansville.
Evansville accuses Janeway and her crew for stealing the 37’s, assuming Voyager was a ship belonging to an alien species called the Briori. Evansville gives a brief history of what had happened.
Apparently, the Briori visited Earth in 1937 and abducted some 300 humans to be their slaves in the Delta Quadrant. Thankfully, the humans rebelled and very soon the Briori fled and never returned. 🙂
More than 100,000 humans are living on the alien planet. The last eight unrevived humas were kept in cryostasis, believed to be dead. Janeway explains to Evansville that the 37’s were in a deep sleep. 🙂
Unfortunately, the Briori technology was destroyed during the revolt by the humans long ago. Thankfully, the human settlers offer the Voyager crew into their society, as they’re far from home. 🙂
After visiting the settlers’ cities, Janeway faces a crisis about whether to allow the Voyager crew the choice to stay on the planet and continue the journey home. She soon offers the choice to the crew.
Thankfully, when Janeway and Chakotay visit the cargo bay, they find all of the crew have decided to stay aboard Voyager. The episode finishes with Voyager soon leaving to continue the journey home.
Amelia Earhart, Noonan and the rest of the 37’s also stay behind on the planet. ‘The 37’s’ has been an engaging ‘Voyager’ episode to watch and I’m pleased this episode introduced me to Amelia Earhart.
On Disc 1 of the ‘Star Trek: Voyager – Season 2’ DVD, there’s a text commentary on the episode.
‘The 37’s’ (VOY) rating – 9/10
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