The 37's
Due to late changes to the final act of the episode, special effects shots of the settlers' cities could not be completed, with which Braga and series creator Michael Piller were unhappy.
[3] Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet and Maquis crew of the starship USS Voyager after they were stranded in the Delta Quadrant, far from the rest of the Federation.
[4] On stardate 48975.1, the crew of Voyager follows an ancient SOS to a Class L planet whose atmospheric interference requires landing the ship to investigate.
On the surface, Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) leads an away team to discover the source of the transmission: a Lockheed Model 10 Electra[5] with an alien generator added to sustain the SOS.
Joining Commander Chakotay's (Robert Beltran) team, the crew finds a "cryostasis chamber" containing eight humans preserved since the 1930s, including Amelia Earhart (Sharon Lawrence) and her navigator, Fred Noonan (David Graf).
[6] After resuscitation, Noonan uses a handgun to hold the Voyager officers hostage, disbelieving their story and insisting on speaking to J. Edgar Hoover.
Braga therefore condensed it into one episode, and admitted to struggling with the story, pointing out dramatically different tones in the first three acts as compared to the final two.
[1] Jeri Taylor explained that the last act of the episode was developed late, and between budgetary considerations and time constraints, it was impossible to realize them.
[10] Unlike co-writer Brannon Braga and series creator Michael Piller, who felt not seeing the cities was detrimental to the overall episode,[7] Taylor did not think the compromise was "a big deal.
Lawrence later expressed the belief that the qualities of her NYPD Blue character ("somebody who had … a professional strength about them") was what clinched her role as Amelia Earhart.
"[5] In "The 37's", Lawrence was drawn to the relationship Earhart has with Janeway: two women, two professional pilots who have risen to great heights in their chosen fields.
On the set of Star Trek: Voyager the two actresses spoke frequently about their careers, their backgrounds in theatre, and the struggles of balancing home and professional requirements.
[5] Lawrence praised all the cast's professionalism and their ability to cope with the "vast amount of virtually unreferenced text that they have on Star Trek".
[11] For the original Star Trek, to avoid the tremendous costs of landing the Enterprise every week, Gene Roddenberry invented the transporter to get the crew to and from planets cheaply and quickly.
[20] Kate Mulgrew later recalled that she "loved shooting every second of 'The 37's'"; she specifically praised the writing, Sharon Lawrence as Amelia Earhart, and director James L.
[2] In Frank Garcia and Mark Phillips' book Science Fiction Television Series, 1990–2004, "The 37's" was specifically called out for being gimmicky, noting the appearance of not only "a phony-looking, 1936 Ford truck … but long-lost aviatrix Amelia Earhart.
"[22] In his book Delta Quadrant: The unofficial guide to Voyager, David McIntee described the acting in "The 37's" as watchable, and felt the episode was redeemed by the little vignettes such as Earhart and Janeway's discussion, or Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) and B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) debating whether to leave the ship.
[23] Though David Greven, in his book Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek, also described the plot as hokey, he felt the episode contained "a powerful feminist narrative of shared female aspiration and daring.
