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TREKCORE
> VOY >
EPISODES >
LEARNING CURVE >
Behind the Scenes
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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. |
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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." |
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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." |
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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." |
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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?" |
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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." |
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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." |
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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." |
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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. |
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