The 37’s

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Star Trek: Voyager episode
"The 37’s"
Voyager encounters an old airplane, which originated from Earth
Episode no.	17
Prod. code	120
Airdate	August 28, 1995
Writer(s)	Jeri Taylor Brannon Braga
Director	James Conway
Guest star(s)	Tarik Ergin as Lt. Ayala Brenda Jean as Karyn Berlin David Graf as Fred Noonan James Saito as Nogami Mel Winkler as Jack Hayes Sharon Lawrence as Amelia Earhart John Rubinstein as John Evansville
Year	2371
Stardate	48975.1
Episode chronology
Previous	"Learning Curve"
Next	"Initiations"

"The 37's" is the 17^th episode of Star Trek: Voyager, the first episode of the second season.

[edit] Plot

The Voyager crew discovers that a group of people on Earth who disappeared in the 1930s, including Captain Kathryn Janeway's personal hero Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan, were in fact captured by aliens and brought to a planet in the Delta Quadrant for slave labor. This group were dubbed "The 37s".

For unspecified reasons, half a dozen individuals including Earhart and Noonan were placed in cryostasis while other people from Earth rebelled against their alien captors, destroying them and their orbiting vessel.

When Voyager's crew comes upon the planet in the 24th Century, the 37s have been left in stasis for centuries and the descendants of the original Terran abductees have developed several cities on the planet's surface using fusion-based technology left by their captors. Earhart and Noonan (and the others) are revived and Earhart is given a tour of the Voyager, learning about her place in history. When offered a chance to join the Voyager crew, Earhart and Noonan decline, deciding to stay on their adopted homeworld.

The episode makes numerous references to the Earhart legend, adding one element; in this version of the story it is revealed that Noonan has fallen in love with his pilot, and romance blossoms between the two as they choose to stay on the planet.

In the end, all of the 37's decide to remain on the planet. Despite being offered the opportunity to settle on the planet, every member of the Voyager crew declines and resume their journey home.

[edit] Notes

"The 37s" was not initially intended to open Voyager's second season, as it was produced for airing during the first season. The fledgling UPN network, as a cost-cutting measure, ordered that several episodes intended for the first season be held over to the second, thereby reducing the number of episodes needed to be produced for year two.

The episode is notable in "Star Trek" history as it marks the first time a Federation starship is shown landing on a planet's surface, rather than dispatching shuttlecraft or using transporters to beam crew to the surface. (This is particularly ironic as Gene Roddenberry often said in interviews that he had created the transporter because he couldn't figure out a way to land a huge starship with the budget he had available.) Capt. Janeway orders helmsman Tom Paris to land Voyager after learning that the planet is surrounded by some phenomenon that made communications and transport impossible.