From Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Star Trek generally had good season finals. Indeed outside of The next generation‘S “Shades of Gray” (an episode for the Mist Clip Show), the fans were quite satisfied with how the seasons were wrapped. So we were so surprised to discover that one of the best episodes at the end of the season of the franchise was one who liked the fans but hated the creators. This episode is “Learning Curve”, the season 1 Voyager Finale, in which Tuvok has to train some unruly Starfleet types, and Neelix accidentally infected the ship with cheese.
Why this Star Trek final is hated
Admittedly, the cheese nemnation is this Star Trek final, which hated some fans (although it was later mocked in a hilarious way Lower decks), but the episode as a whole was generally well received. It was also observed by a high number of fans. “Learning Curve” was the most watched first episode of the entire show. Unfortunately, various producers and writers were ultimately dissatisfied with the conclusion of this episode VoyagerThe first season.
One of the reasons why the episode left a bad taste in the mouth of the creators was that they never intended this episode as the end of the first season. Originally four more episodes were shot for the season, but they were held back for season 2. The authors and producers hoped to end in an episode with a little emotional weight (somewhat more similar to “The Best from both worlds” or “descent”) and instead stood season 1 with a bottle episode that had a completely crazy cheese-related Subplot.
Star Trek: Voyager Ken Biller, editor and future executive producer of Story, explained in more detail why this episode was hated among the creative employees. “We ended in an ordinary episode in which Tuvok was the drilling instructor,” he said. Billler continued to notice how the episode “was not a cliffhanger” and “was not a season end”. The episode “had no bang” and made it appear so hot new Star Trek Show “Just disappeared somehow.”
In the meantime, Star Trek: Travel The producer Brannon Braga repeated Biller’s thoughts about why this final was hated among the employees. “I took care of it that it was our last episode because it was a soft episode,” he said. “It had no large action plots or the grandiose topics that we like our final.”
This is an important point to emphasize: “Learning curve” is not a bad episode … In fact, it is a very solid hour of entertainment. But it is a bottle show (TV Speak for an episode that was made cheap) in which the striking fans had expected earlier final data. For example, Tng’s “The Drumhead” and DS9S “The Duett” are both killer Bottle episodes, but they would have led to strange season final.
This is basically where Star Trek: Travel Showrunner Michael Piller landed on “learning curve”. Instead of saying that this is an episode that he hated, Piller simply noticed: “It may not be a season finale, but it’s a good, solid show.” Braga agreed and noticed that it was a “It was a good idea for an episode”, although his small bottle-episode nature caused a bad finale.
The Star Trek: Travel The final was hated as a season as an episode, but it is fair to say that the authors and producers learned their lesson from their mistakes. VoyagerThe second season ended with the fact that the entire ship was stolen, the third season ended with a restless alliance with the Borg and so on. In other words, future finales were generally more action -packed and epic in scope, so that fans want more of their favorite, what they want from their favorite Sci-fi Franchise and less from … Neelix ‘cheese.
