Learning Curve Behind the Scenes

TREKCORE > VOY > EPISODES > LEARNING CURVE > Behind the Scenes
 

 The episode inadvertently turned out to be the Season One finale in the USA. When aired in the UK and other countries a lot later, the episode planned by the show's writers and producers as the Season One finale, "The 37's", was aired as the Season One finale. Paramount's videos issued in the UK also have the finale episode, "The 37's", reinstated. But in the USA, four episodes produced for Season One, were held to start Season Two. This meant that the finale was a "bottle show." A bottle show is often used as a way of keeping to budget. Having Learning Curve as the finale in the USA also meant that the impressive novelty of Voyager landing on a planet, planned for the finale, would not be seen until some way into Season Two.
   
Michael Piller: "It wasn't our intention. It's an old story device, but it was a natural for us and it allowed us to exploit the franchise within the show. It took the Maquis background, established the problem, put Tuvok in charge, and we see how he guides them and how he learns something about himself. In that regard, I thought it worked nicely."
   
Brannon Braga: "Tuvok becoming the drill instructor is charming. I am somewhat bothered that it was our final episode because it's a soft episode. It didn't have big action set pieces or the grandiose themes that we like our finales to have. In its own right, though, I thought it was fun."
   
Kenneth Biller: "I came up with the gag that Neelix's cheese was causing the problem. I thought it was hilarious, but I don't think people got it that there was some tongue-in-cheek element."
   
Writer Ronald Wilkerson: "We liked Kenneth Biller's gag about the cheese. We liked the aspect that something very mundane can bring down something great and mighty. And why not? What's wrong with that concept? We've seen lots of wrenches in the works in almost any kind of mechanism that you can imagine, and cheese was something somebody came up with during the story break as being the most innocuous kind of goofy thing. It was a little bit of humor in the midst of this chaos that was going on. We liked that idea. After all, a tiny grommet knocked out the power generators in Niagara Falls that blacked out New York City for an entire evening twenty years ago, and a little break in an 0-ring knocked out the Challenger. So if tiny, stupid little things bring down the mighty, why not cheese?"
   
Writers, Ronald Wilkerson and Jean Louise Matthias, had introduced a Vulcan character in their script for the TNG episode "Lower Decks" and were keen to step up Tuvok's profile. Ronald Wilkerson: "As freelancers, one of the things we do is look to see who is the character that is underused and then try to develop some new stories."
   
Director David Livingston's main concern was making the bottle show visually interesting. In the case of Tuvok's mandatory run through the ship's corridors, David Livingston made creative use of the Jefferies tubes. David Livingston: "I was told I had to shoot the show on schedule. I put the camera in one place in the Jefferies tube, and all of the Jeffries tube scenes were shot from the same camera position. All the stuff of climbing up and down and coming through a tube was literally shot through a ladder, and all we did was vary the action and vary the camera angle, but basically the camera never moved when they were in the Jefferies tube. When it's all cut together, the audience doesn't know. They think they've been in all these different places throughout the ship, but they haven't."

For the corridors, the director used the hallways on Stage 9, reversing his camera angle and changing lenses for the various decks of the ship:
"When you turn the camera around, the audience thinks you're in another place, and that does give a sense of opening it up and making it seem bigger. I got to add a lot of bits into it that weren't necessarily in the original script. There's a three-shot of the three Maquis, and you think that's all the people that Tuvok's talking to and then, all of a sudden, this blue guy's head comes into the shot and you realize he's talking to this fourth guy as well."
   
Writer Jeri Taylor: "The story put Tuvok in a place where he could really get fractured and that was a lot of fun. I think, again, it was allowing Tuvok to make mistakes and realize that he couldn't handle this group of unruly Maquis the way he had handled Starfleet Academy cadets. He had to learn to grow and adjust and make some movement. I think to do that for a character is wonderful."
   
The surname of crewmember Mariah Henley might well be a tip of the hat to Sue Henley. (Kate Mulgrew's stand-in.) The character's first name Mariah is from the show's script and is not mentioned on screen.