Star Trek Voyager Reviews Written by Someone Who Actually LIKES the Show! -- Learning Curve

Hello there and welcome to another spoiler-crammed review of the Star Trek Voyager episode, "Learning Curve." This is expressly intended for Voyager fans and people who like stories about army boot camp. We get some lower-ranked crewmembers, Tuvok gets a lot of lines and Chakotay shows a rare side. If this doesn't sound like your kind of thing, perhaps you'd like to go elsewhere?

How about Dead Presidents? There's something subtly perverse about visiting graves, and I love it!

No? Okay then...

INITIAL VIEWER EXPERIENCE
Hmmm, about time we got some real Starfleet/Maquis tension...Didn't I have Tuvok for phys. ed. in high school? I'm sure I did, or maybe his sister...Well, Dalby's a creep. I hope he finds something interesting and is killed soon...Nope...Ending's a little too pat there, don't you think?

PLOT
Janeway is taking another shot at the gothic holonovel. This time she gets to meet the kids, and they're quite the proper lord and lady. There's Henry, who sneers at Janeway's ignorance about Latin, and Beatrice, who talks mysteriously about giving her embroidery sampler to her mother the day before...her dead mother. Henry stomps all over this and says that Beatrice is obviously mistaken, and gave the sampler to their mother before their mother died. Beatrice insists that she gave it to her yesterday, and...oh, surely we can all see where this is going?

[Q! What are you doing here again? Goodness, I'm beginning to feel flattered...what? You don't like that fanfic I wrote about you? Well, what are you going to do about it?

Ribbit. Ribbit. Ribbbbbbit (Frog groveling for: Please release me from this evil spell, Great and Powerful Q Being)....riiiiibit (...Who's Incredibly Good-Looking).

Ahem, thank you. Now, I think Q is expecting me to tell you that he’s kindly sent me back from the end of the third season so that I can tell you that Janeway finally does something interesting in the holodeck by becoming the apprentice to Leonardo da Vinci. What's kind of funky, you see, is that this first holonovel had her as a teacher to a couple of precocious but hopelessly stilted and uninteresting students. When Janeway calls up da Vinci, she's reversed her situation nicely, becoming the student instead of the teacher. It works better in contrast to her captain's role, potentially reminding everyone, including her, that she doesn't always know everything, but deserves to learn from the best. Interestingly, her manner with da Vinci is exactly the same as with the kids: a touch of challenge, and a calm knowledge of her competence.

Good enough, Q?]

In the middle of dealing with the holobrats, Janeway watches in surprise as Beatrice disappears. Henry demands, "What have you done with my sister?" right before he disappears as well. The audience is relieved, but Janeway is irritated and calls the bridge. Chakotay explains that there are unexplained power outages all around the ship.

Tuvok investigates and finds an open panel from which Dalby (disgruntled Maquis crewman) emerges, holding a malfunctioning gelpack. Tuvok reminds Dalby that there are Starfleet rules and regulations to follow, a protocol for proper repairs, and a time to every purpose under heaven.

Well, Dalby just hates pretentious pop songs, and gets in Tuvok's face, sneering that he never asked to be on this ship and doesn't like it here. Tuvok should just leave him alone!

In the ready room, Janeway, Chakotay and Tuvok talk about the dangers of malfunctioning gelpacks. They only have 47 (drink now) left. Chakotay says Torres should switch over stuff to isolinear chips wherever they can.

Tuvok continues the meeting by voicing his concerns about Dalby. He isn't the only Maquis crewperson to be rockin' the boat, and Janeway suggests that in all fairness they should provide such less-then-up-to-par people with training. She wants Chakotay to think about who could use a trip through boot camp, and she wants Tuvok to teach it. Mr. Vulcan is surprised by her choice of instructor, but Janeway points out that Tuvok taught for sixteen years at the Academy, and that it's Starfleet (not Chakotay) who needs to earn the Maquis crew's trust.

"Don't worry, Tuvok," Chakotay says. "I'll tell them to take it easy on you."

Tuvok sets up his boot camp in a cargo bay, looking over an extremely pissy group of four: Mr. Angry (Dalby), Mr. Sulky (Bajoran Geron), Ms Sneer (Henly), and Mr. Talksalot (Bolian Chell). Right off Tuvok is making major drill sergeant talk, assigning Chell to running 50 laps around the bay and describing the curriculum in painstaking (and painful-sounding) detail. They put up with this for a few minutes, but when Tuvok tells Geron to look at him when he's talking and chew with his mouth shut and clean his plate because there are children starving in China, Dalby makes a spit-ball shooter and moons Uranus before stomping out. The others follow.

Later, in the messhall, Dalby assures the others that they won't be put in the brig and will be left alone if they just do their jobs. Chakotay enters, gets something to drink, commandeers Chell's chair, and asks for Dalby's version of the story

Dalby sneers that there's a "Starfleet way" of doing things, and a "Maquis way." They will just stick to the latter, thank you very much.

Chakotay nods, then clocks Dalby across the jaw (and you just know he's been itching to hit someone since the show started). That's the Maquis way, he says, and they can do this every day until they report to Tuvok for training.

Back at boot camp, Tuvok passes out study assignments, says there will be pop quizzes, and looks over the uniforms of the crewpeople (you know, "crewpeople" really is awkward compared to "crewmen," but such is life!). He finds fault with Henly's red headband (festive), Chell's medallion (nonregulation), and Geron's earring (Bajoran). He chest-thumps with Dalby and tells them all to report back at 1900.

In engineering, Dalby tells Torres the whole thing is stupid, and she taunts him about saying that only because he's worried he can't get through the training. He tells her he can, and she says "Show me."

Then another gelpack goes.

Torres takes the offending gelpack to the Doctor and Kes. Doc, after trying out his "improved" beside manner on the "patient," discovers that the pack is the victim of a highly contagious (but not harmful to humanoids for a change) infection. They need to find the cause before they can make a cure.

Tuvok takes his class now on a 10K run with heavy packs on their backs. Before the run, however, they crawl through over 50 Jefferies tubes. I'm surprised that Tuvok doesn't make them pile rocks first or something like that...but we get the idea. He has Geron lead (though he quickly falls back with Chell) and refuses to break into a sweat as the others pant and gasp and say things about Tuvok like, "Maybe he'll slip and plunge to his death."

At the end of the run, Tuvok calmly announces that he increased the gravity 10% on the deck, just because "you never know what'll happen in an emergency," and then tells the threatening-to-become-coronary-victims that he'll see them tomorrow, when he expects their performance to improve.

While Chell cleans the transporter room with the Trek version of a toothbrush (a 26.3 hour chore from Tuvok) for some unknown error, Kim checks over the logs to see what gourmet horrors Neelix might have beamed up from their last planet. Nothing seems wrong, however.

Tuvok has Dalby lead his team through a simulation. They are almost immediately in the midst of a firefight, and are killed soon after that. Tuvok asks what they think they did wrong, and then must tell them that sometimes it's best to retreat rather than be destroyed. This anti-hero talk bothers the Maquis, and Dalby sneers that yet again Tuvok has proven that they're not Starfleet material.

In the messhall, Tuvok stares out the window in thought until Neelix, showing a bit more effectiveness as a morale officer these days, offers him some advice. He reminds Tuvok that his students are not Starfleet cadets and should not be expected to act as if they are. Tuvok should get to know them as people, and then be more flexible to be a better teacher.

Tuvok considers this, and then notes that Neelix has made cheese. You must cultivate bacteria to make cheese.

Torres and her team look over Neelix' kitchen (something long overdue, if you ask me) and find that there are many volatile spores in the cheese. While Neelix feels bad and Torres assures him that it's not his fault, she also has the cheese taken to Sickbay for further analysis. (see DICTION)

In Sandrine's, Tuvok shoots pool with Mr. Angry and asks him some questions. Reluctantly, and suspicious of the whole thing, Dalby reveals that he grew up near the Cardassian border and fell in love with a woman who was raped and killed by three Cardassians. Dalby also tells Tuvok that he's trying to help Geron because he's so young and alone, and Tuvok responds that Chakotay chose him for the training in the hope that the leadership skills he learned with help him feel more confident. The whole training idea, Tuvok says, is supposed to be favorable for all of them.

Well, Dalby isn't impressed with this, and tells Tuvok that he doesn't want to be his friend before stalking out.

Kes and the Doctor figure out that the bacteria may be hosts to a virus.

More gelpacks start breaking down, and Tuvok's latest round of class is interrupted by a series of power outages. Tuvok tries to return everyone to their duty stations, but the cargo bay door won't open.

The Doctor tells Janeway that the way to battle the infection is to give the packs a "fever," like a human body gets when it's fighting an infection. They should power up the warp engines without engaging the nacelles.

When the ship starts powering up, Tuvok's students begin to get edgy. Tuvok sends Geron to the upper deck to try the door panel up there. Things start to get hotter and hotter, and then poisonous gas fills the cargo bay (I just hate it when that happens). Geron, of course, is trapped, and when Tuvok orders an evacuation through the Jefferies tube, Dalby refuses to obey. Tuvok wrestles him inside, then goes back himself to save Geron.

On the bridge, everyone sweats a lot and tries to get the ship hot enough.

Tuvok tries hard to rescue Geron, but the poison fumes overwhelm him and he collapses next to Mr. Sulky But Now Unconscious.

The sweaty bridge crew receives word from the Doctor that the infection has been wiped out by the "fever," and they work to return the ship to normal, even though the controls must be hard to work when their hands are so slippery.

Dalby, Henly, and Chell force open the cargo door from the outside and drag Tuvok and Geron out of there. Dalby and Tuvok bond big-time as Dalby demands to know why Tuvok went back for Geron. Tuvok says he has learned that there are times to bend the rules, and Dalby says, "Lieutenant, if you can learn to bend the rules, I guess we can learn to follow them." Then they take all that cheese to Sickbay.