By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Even if you don’t love Star Trek: Voyager, it’s hard not to smile while watching “The 37’s,” the show’s Season 2 premiere episode. This was an episode that featured everything from Voyager landing on a planet to Captain Janeway rubbing elbows with Amelia Earhart, making it one of the franchise’s most memorable adventures. It was an adventure that got completely changed, though, as this was originally meant to be the Season 1 finale, and one major producer fought to make this standalone tale into a two-part episode.
The idea that Star Trek: Voyager’s Season 2 premiere was nearly its Season 1 finale may seem strange until you consider that this spinoff’s first season only had 16 episodes. This was because Voyager was broadcast on UPN and network executives deliberately held some episodes back so the show’s second season could premiere two or three weeks earlier than most other shows. As a result, “The 37’s” ended up kicking off the second season when it was meant to end Season 1 (which instead ended with “Learning Curve,” a lame episode about Tuvok training disgruntled former Maquis.
While this Voyager episode really did make for a memorable Season 2 premiere, it’s easy to see how it was originally written to be a season finale. Having the ship land on a planet was a big deal…in fact, Gene Roddenberry wanted to be able to do this with Star Trek: The Original Series, but the high production costs of doing so is what led to the invention of the transporter. Additionally, Janeway meeting Amelia Earhart was a big deal, and the whole idea of the crew running into humans from the 20th century matched the vibe of the TNG Season 1 finale “The Neutral Zone.”
The network’s decision to make “The 37’s” the Season 2 premiere rather than the Season 1 finale annoyed Jeri Taylor and Brannon Braga, two of Voyager’s producers. Taylor noted how this episode “worked better as a season-ender than as an opener” and that its plot about the crew banding together, reaffirming their mutual commitment, and heading home “would have been a nice way to conclude the first season.” Braga, meanwhile, was disappointed that the show couldn’t end Season 1 with this “very high-concept, action-adventure episode,” but he was happy that the Voyager episode made for such an explosive Season 2 premiere.
Braga was less happy about the fact that this wasn’t a two-parter episode. He later said that he was the only one on the show who wanted “The 37’s” to be a two-parter but that nobody else really wanted to end Season 1 on a cliffhanger. As for Braga, he thought there was plenty of crunchy narrative material in this ambitious episode that would have merited a second hour of storytelling.
Once upon a time, “The 37’s” was almost very different: not only was it nearly a two-parter, but it was originally designed as a Season 1 finale. However, we can’t help but prefer this Voyager episode as a Season 2 premiere…sure, “Learning Curve” was a lame S1 finale, but “The ‘37s” helped prove just how good this show could be when it was firing on all cylinders. And, frankly, nothing gets us to stick around for a new season of a show more than this kind of killer premiere.
