By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Star Trek has generally had good season finales. In fact, outside of The Next Generation’s “Shades of Grey” (which was a crummy clip show episode), fans have been pretty happy with how seasons wrapped up. That’s why we were so surprised to discover that one of the franchise’s best end-of-season episodes was one that the fans liked but the creators hated. That episode is “Learning Curve,” the Season 1 Voyager finale where Tuvok must train some unruly Starfleet types and Neelix accidentally infects the ship with cheese.
Why This Star Trek Finale Is Hated
Admittedly, the cheese subplot of this Star Trek finale is one that some fans hated (though it was later mocked in hilarious fashion by Lower Decks), but the episode as a whole was generally well-received. It was also watched by high numbers of fans. “Learning Curve” was the most-watched first-run episode of the entire show. Unfortunately, assorted producers and writers were ultimately unhappy with how this episode wrapped up Voyager’s first season.
One of the reasons the episode left a bad taste in the creators’ mouths is that they never intended this episode to be the end of Season 1. Originally, four more episodes were filmed for the season, but they were held back for Season 2. The writers and producers were hoping to end on an episode with some emotional heft (something more akin to “The Best of Both Worlds” or “Descent”) and instead wrapped up Season 1 with a bottle episode that had a completely insane cheese-related subplot.
Star Trek: Voyager story editor and future executive producer Ken Biller explained in more detail why this episode was hated among the creative staff. “We ended on a run-of-the-mill episode where Tuvok was the drill instructor,” he said. Biller went on to note how the episode “wasn’t a cliffhanger” and “wasn’t a season-ender.” The episode “had no bang” and made it seem like this hot new Star Trek show “just sort of disappeared.”
Meanwhile, Star Trek: Voyager producer Brannon Braga echoed Biller’s thoughts about why this finale was hated among the staff. “I am somewhat bothered that it was our final episode because it’s a soft episode,” he said. “It didn’t have big action set pieces or the grandiose themes that we like our finales to have.”
This is an important point to emphasize: “Learning Curve” isn’t a bad episode…in fact, it’s a very solid hour of entertainment. But it’s a bottle show (TV speak for an episode made on the cheap) that lacks the flashiness fans had come to expect from previous finales. For example, TNG’s “The Drumhead” and DS9’s “The Duet” are both killer bottle episodes, but they arguably would have made for weird season finales.
That’s basically where Star Trek: Voyager showrunner Michael Piller landed on “Learning Curve”. Instead of saying this is an episode he hated, Piller simply noted “It might not be a season finale, but it’s a good, solid show.” Braga agreed, noting it was a “it’s a good idea for an episode” even though its small-scale, bottle episode nature made for a bad finale.
This Star Trek: Voyager finale was hated more as a season-ender than as an episode, but it’s fair to say that the writers and producers learned their lesson from its mistakes. Voyager’s second season ended with the entire ship getting stolen, the third season ended with an uneasy alliance with the Borg, and so on. In other words, future finales were generally more action-packed and epic in scope, giving fans more of what they want from their favorite sci-fi franchise and less of… Neelix’s cheese.
