Star Trek: Voyager

“Endgame”

2.5 stars.

Air date: 5/23/2001
Teleplay by Kenneth Biller & Robert Doherty
Story by Rick Berman & Kenneth Biller & Brannon Braga
Directed by Allan Kroeker

"There's got to be a way to have our cake and eat it too."

— Captain Kathryn Janeway

Review Text

In brief: Quite effective on some levels and very much not so on others. A fitting end for the series, and read into that statement what you wish.

For seven years Voyager has been trying to have its cake and eat it too. Now we have "Endgame," the series finale that wants, above anything ... to have its cake and eat it too.

Here's an episode that gives us the extended aftermath before the crisis resolution ... which ingeniously allows the plot to conceal whether or not Voyager will actually, really get home until literally the last minute of screen time. Meanwhile, it gives us a hint of what happens after Voyager gets home. Maybe. But then again, maybe not.

In a way, this is a clever story. That is, of course, assuming the most important question is whether or not Voyager gets home. At this stage in the game, it might very well be, although one would think what happens after the ship gets home would be of at least some importance. What happens to these people after they're home? "Endgame" is far too busy being a time-travel Borg-centered action movie to care.

Does "Endgame" work as a series finale? On its bottom line, yes ... and no. I found it engaging and with some interesting ironies. I also found it maddening because most of its fascinations exist within a time-plot loophole. Should "Endgame" have been more? Absolutely, but then the whole series should've been more. "Endgame," and season seven in general, follows the Voyager pattern to a perfect T. This series gets just the finale it deserves, which is some sort of damning praise.

The story is a curious rehashing of TNG's finale, "All Good Things...," crossed with Voyager's own "Timeless" from season five. For good measure, to up the action and FX quotient, the writers also throw in the Borg one last time. Yes, the Borg. Again.

The episode begins 26 years in the future on Earth, on the 10th anniversary of Voyager getting home. In other words, Voyager is, according to this timeline, destined to stay in the Delta Quadrant for another 16 years from our "present" perspective. Or perhaps not, since this is a time-travel story where anything is possible. We begin the story in the midst of one character's brewing plan, one of stupendous audacity. After years of heartache, Admiral Janeway has decided that her crew's fate was not the one it deserved. In this future, Seven and Chakotay are dead and Tuvok is institutionalized with a crippling Vulcan mental illness.

If it's not perhaps the rosiest of futures it could be for the Voyager crew, it's worth noting that it's also not an especially bleak future in the balance of things. Voyager made it home, even if it took awhile, and many of its crew members have gone on to lead productive lives. Harry is a captain (for better or worse), Tom and B'Elanna are still married with a daughter in Starfleet (Lisa Locicero), Barclay doesn't stammer anymore, Doc has a new wife and a new name (three decades to come up with "Joe," which is perhaps the show's most depressing joke), and the Alpha Quadrant appears to be in pretty good shape, with some impressive technical advances.

Which is why it's a little bit unsettling to find out that the plot of "Endgame" is about Admiral Janeway's secret plan to travel back in time and change the future — with little regard for the history she's going to be changing.

The show's opening passages establish, with a certain amount of interest, what the future has brought. Among the most affecting scenes is one where Admiral Janeway visits the institutionalized Tuvok. You can see a deep sadness in Janeway's eyes that Kate Mulgrew conveys with great effectiveness — a concern for a dear friend whose stranding in the Delta Quadrant prevented his treatment for an otherwise preventable condition. She blames herself.

Janeway — being the ever-controversial figure she has been through much of the series — acquires technology from some Klingons in the kind of shady transaction that in the 20th century might take place in a back alley. This technology, when incorporated into her shuttlecraft, allows the admiral to travel not only back in time 26 years, but also across tens of thousands of light-years of space to the Delta Quadrant. Once there, she intercepts the Voyager of her past in a plot to get them home immediately.

In getting to this point, the plot's structure, similar to "All Good Things...," does a certain amount of crosscutting between the present storyline of Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, and the future storyline of Admiral Janeway planning her trip through time. I'll give credit where credit is due: The script keeps us oriented, giving us just the cues and information we need when we need them in order to ensure the story is understandable. But nevertheless, being a time-manipulation story, "Endgame" is still riddled with the sort of plot holes that all but come with the territory.

The crucial juncture of the story revolves around a mysterious nebula in Voyager's present in the Delta Quadrant. Sensors indicate there's something in this nebula that "Could be a way home!", Harry excitedly announces. "Maybe it will lead right into your parents' living room," says Paris, making fun of Harry in my absence. But in trying to reach the heart of the energy source in the nebula, Voyager nearly collides with a Borg cube and is forced to retreat. A run-in with the Borg, who seem to be using the nebula as some sort of base, is not worth whatever might be inside, Janeway reasons.

It's not too long after this incident when Admiral Janeway emerges from a rift in space, having used her newly acquired technology to intercept Voyager at this precise moment and location. In what has to be one of the stranger moments for Janeway this side of "Deadlock," she comes face to face with her older self and has an urgent discussion over the viewscreen where the older Janeway pulls rank on the younger Janeway as a way to reinforce her argument. Heh. Before long, Admiral Janeway has laid the whole thing out for Captain Janeway: The nebula does indeed contain the way home, and the admiral has brought with her technical defenses to get past the Borg.

Logical gaffes abound: My first question, which apparently never occurred to Admiral Janeway: Why didn't she find a way to adapt the time-travel technology — which not only sent her through time but also all the way to the Delta Quadrant (how convenient!) — to get Voyager home? An even bigger question: If the Voyager crew, which already left the nebula behind by the time Admiral Janeway made her appearance, never found out about the mysterious object at the center of the nebula, how does Admiral Janeway of the future know about it? She may be from the future, but that doesn't mean she automatically has more information. If her past self had never learned of it, she wouldn't have either.

Then there's the whole ethical issue of time travel in order to make the future more personally desirable. I'll deal with that in a moment, but first...

The object at the center of the nebula is among the most awesome sights this series has shown. It's a Borg transwarp hub, used by the Borg to travel all through the galaxy, and depicted here as what looks like a small star surrounded by a web of tunnels. An occasional Borg cube passes through the camera frame. No matter what Voyager has passed up in terms of storytelling potential, no one will ever be able to say the series lacked the ability to bring impressively realized images to the small screen.

According to Seven, the Borg have only six hubs in the galaxy, and taking one out could be a crippling blow to them. Then again, so could the "Borg civil war" that was started in "Unimatrix Zero," but, annoyingly enough, from the looks of things here the civil war didn't amount to squat; it's not even mentioned as an afterthought. This almost makes "Unimatrix Zero" a pointless exercise, since its biggest selling point was that it seemed to be plotting the Borg's eventual downfall.

The true interest in "Endgame" arises from the fact Admiral Janeway holds this key to Voyager's immediate way home, and the question becomes whether or not the crew should take it. The admiral comes with 30 years of improved technology — technology that will make it very possible for the crew to journey to the center of the Borg's heavily protected nebula and use the transwarp hub to get home.

For those who like impressive tech gadgets, we're treated here to Voyager being outfitted with tactical improvements, including some very tough armor that covers the ship like the Batmobile and new torpedoes that can obliterate a Borg cube in a single volley. In a word: neat. It's once Captain Janeway finally becomes aware of the hub's existence and what it means that she falls into conflict with her future self.

Admiral Janeway intends to get the crew home at all costs. Captain Janeway sees this hub as an opportunity to cripple the Borg and save millions or billions of innocents who would otherwise be at the Borg's mercy. Interestingly, the dialog draws an explicit parallel all the way back to "Caretaker," in which Janeway forfeited a way for her crew to return to the Alpha Quadrant in order to save a group of strangers. Now it looks as if history will repeat itself, with Janeway sacrificing a way to get home in order to save more strangers.

And really, that's a pretty good story premise. "Endgame's" central theme is one that grows from some of this series' more important ideas. One is Captain Janeway's ongoing struggle with herself to get her crew home, as she has always promised. Another is the concept of the Voyager crew as a family that needs to survive its dangerous surroundings in the Delta Quadrant. And in "Endgame" — between Admiral Janeway's obsession to get the crew home, strangers be damned, and Captain Janeway's hope to maintain a family that lives by dignified rules and tries to make a difference in the galaxy — we get an interesting conflict between one person who has maintained many of her Starfleet ideals and another who has lived through an additional 16 years of hardship and has become more of a self-serving pragmatist. At one point, the captain says to the admiral, "I refuse to believe I'll ever become as cynical as you."

Of course, one also must ask at what point the crew became "worth" saving for Admiral Janeway. "Endgame" conveniently overlooks all those Voyager crew members who have died over the seven-year course of the series when it talks about all the crew members who will die if Captain Janeway does not decide to take the road home that lies in front of her. Indeed, the admiral uses as leverage over the captain the fact that Seven will die three years from now, Chakotay (who will be married to Seven by then) will never be the same, and Tuvok will end up with a degenerative neurological disorder. Those facts certainly get the captain's attention.

I'm frankly a little disturbed about the implications of changing the future to make it more personally desirable. Admiral Janeway flat-out scoffs at the Temporal Prime Directive and is willing to make timeline changes that affect nearly 30 years of her history. Is that a remotely responsible action on the part of a Starfleet officer? I doubt it, but the story doesn't seem to take much of an ethical stance on the matter at all, although it's a relief that Captain Janeway at least confronts her future self's cynicism.

In the middle of this time-travel Borg plot are a few personal stories that comprise the episode's humanity. The most compelling is the aforementioned Janeway vs. Janeway thread. Another is an amiable, if unoriginal, conclusion to this season's welcome Tom/B'Elanna arc, in which their child is born and they become a fully completed example of the Voyager family premise and one of the more hopeful aspects of the series. There's even a brief discussion about how the couple was getting used to the idea of raising their daughter on Voyager.

Still another element is a budding romance between Chakotay and Seven — a premise that has been panned by many fans. While I must say that this basically comes out of left field and doesn't even work as well in real life as it did in holographic theory (see "Human Error") it does at least signal that "Human Error" was leading somewhere (even if it still has an ending that makes no sense). And once information of a possible future comes spilling out, the notion of Seven fearing a relationship based on the odds of her or Chakotay dying is something that benefits from some useful dialog about living one's life. Unfortunately, there's little conviction behind the idea; the pairing of Seven and Chakotay is more or less arbitrary and serves the plot much more than it serves any sort of character truth.

As a technical exercise, "Endgame" is every bit as good and well-executed as the best Voyager action outings. The episode is expertly paced by Allan Kroeker, always watchable, and most of the actors put in solid performances, especially Mulgrew, who must pull double duty as her present and future selves. But as a series finale, I must say I wanted more than big special effects, more Borg villainy, and such an uninformative ending. Yes, we got the parallelism with "Caretaker" and Janeway struggling with herself in figurative and literal senses — all good stuff — but too many other questions are not asked or answered, and too many opportunities seem utterly lost.

The ending is an entertaining bag-o-tricks but continues to deepen the gullibility of the Borg. We have Janeway going head to head again with the Borg Queen (with Alice Krige in the role for the first time since First Contact). The Queen — inexplicable and unnecessary to the purpose of the Borg collective — has become Janeway's arch-enemy, even though the Borg by definition really should not engage in behavior that looks like grudge matches or petty posturing. And convenient how a virus implanted in the collective can cause all of Borg space to blow up. (Is this a crippling blow to the Borg? Their civil war was not, so I don't suppose this should be either.) Yes, the plot's action works and sometimes works well, but some of the underlying ideas are suspect.

Ultimately, the overall biggest problem with "Endgame" is that no one pays a price for Voyager getting home, despite all the questionable means exploited to get there. There's a lot of talk about how getting home is not the most important thing about Voyager's existence. Indeed, one of the story's key turning points comes when Harry — yes, Harry — makes a "rousing" speech in the conference room about how Voyager's mission is the journey and not the destination. Unfortunately, coming from Harry, I found this speech laughably portentous. It's also not very true. Voyager has always been about the destination, because the journey has usually been contrived for the sake of easier entertainment value.

And then we get that line: "There's got to be a way to have our cake and eat it too." I can't stress how much that guts the real drama. After that line of dialog, there are no truly difficult or emotional choices, because fate suddenly becomes an act of random chance and clever plots that are "against all odds" but obviously destined to succeed. It's good that Captain Janeway stops and asks whether getting home is more important than destroying the transwarp hub, but that decision ultimately does not matter because the Voyager writers let themselves have their cake and eat it too.

I'm reminded of the wonderful episode of DS9, "Children of Time," where a choice forced the Defiant crew to sacrifice their lives as they knew them or erase an entire society of their would-be descendants from history. Ultimately, the Defiant crew could not escape the fact that making either choice required a costly sacrifice. It's a sacrifice that no one here has to make, because they are able to destroy the hub and get home.

Sure, Admiral Janeway dies in the Big Borg Explosion, but she exists only in a loophole, which the story escapes through, allowing no one to face any consequences. Admiral Janeway is a figment of time-paradox scripting that works okay as a technical exercise but not as an emotional resolution free of cheating. The future is changed by Voyager getting home, presumably paving the way for Captain Janeway to avoid her counterpart's actions in her own future. No real character in the story is held accountable for anything, even though the crew can reap the reward of getting home.

The irony is that I don't think the writers were in any position to deny the crew getting home, because their getting home is about all the real satisfaction we can get from a finale where that becomes the whole point. That's why I think it was a mistake to wait until the final episode to answer this question — because the more important questions are in what happens after the crew gets home. "Endgame" attempts half-heartedly to answer such questions with the future timeline device at the story's outset, but everything about that timeline is erased, so we don't have a real ending to hold onto.

Questions about how the crew will rejoin society after being gone for seven years; what the former Maquis members will do next or how they will be accepted; what people who have been trapped on a starship will decide to do next; what it will mean for the "family" to break up and go their separate ways, or if they will choose to do that at all — all are essential questions that have been left completely untouched.

Yes, a certain amount should be left to the imagination, but this ending seems unsatisfying. After the sound and fury of a fast-moving plot and a lot of action (including Voyager hiding inside a Borg ship, for the writers' purpose of manipulating suspense rather than plausibility), our crew emerges in the Alpha Quadrant. "We did it," says Janeway, with a flat, almost unemotionally disbelieving delivery of the announcement — which, by the way, is almost perfectly appropriate. It's a great initial reaction in the less-is-more school of thought, but to then leave it at that is frustrating.

Of course, we have the issue that has always been my paradox when reviewing Voyager — which is that I was entertained and sometimes even excited by the sweep of the story. Is that enough? For a final episode, I dunno. I enjoyed watching "Endgame" even as it disappointed me. I liked the ebb and flow even while I realized many of the characters were pawns in a ludicrous plot. The story is fun on its surface, but dig deeper and there's not a whole lot to grasp. The crew gets home, but we have no idea what it means that they do.

Voyager lives up to, and down to, itself to the very end.

It has its cake and eats it too.

Be on the lookout late this summer for the season seven recap and an announcement regarding my decision about Enterprise reviews.

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Comment Section

315 comments on this post

    Is it just me, or are the season finales of the Star Trek series (excepting TOS, which didn't have a finale as such) on a steady decline?

    TNG: "All Good Things...", a brilliant episode that managed to give closure to the series.
    DS9: "What You Leave Behind", great but not perfect, and leaving a lot of questions unanswered (which is why I recently started on the "Relaunch" book series)
    Voyager: "Endgame", a middling affair, with spectacular action and not much brainpower.
    Enterprise: "These Are The Voyages...", a misguided and strangely uncompelling end to an unloved series.

    Makes you shudder to think what a hypothetic Sixth Series finale might look like, doesn't it?

    I don't think it's you because I've noticed this as well.
    I will say, though, that Marina looked as good as ever in "These are the Voyages..."(Frakes, on the other hand...).

    Personally, I found this the worst of any ST series finale. No payoff at the end, silly situation with the Voyager and borg ship explosion. And the scenes with Janeway talking to future Janeway, horrid.

    To think, she purposefully manipulates the timeline, with unknown future results for the federation, and gets promoted to Admiral.

    I easily find this the worst of any Star Trek series. Still it produced a dozen or so great episodes.......in 7 years.

    The saddest thing about this episode was the "romance" between Seven of Nine and Chakotay. It was clearly invented to pander to the fans and came off completely unnatural and even bizarre. Whatever happened to all that stuff happening off in the wings with Janeway and Chakotay?

    Plus the hints over the years pointing towards a Doc/7 pairing, which is a character pairing I always enjoyed.

    Just watched this on a Spike TV rerun. I think the thing that infuriated me the most was the notion of Harry Kim leturing Admiral Janeway about going back in time to set things right, when he, himself, is guilty of the same thing and knows it ("Timeless").

    That's bad scripting, not remembering where you came from....any other character but Harry might have been appropriate. For me, this is a BIG plot hole in a plot riddled with them.

    Yeah, I'm not sure why the writers paired up Seven with Chakotay and not Doc. Does anyone really know why?

    I would have even liked a Chakotay/Janeway relationship, just as long as it wasn't rushed and forced.

    All in all, it wasn't a bad episode of Voyager - as Jammer was hinting: the ending was fitting for the type of series it was. Mildly entertaining and barely joining on to the other episodes and seasons.

    A typical Voyager Season Finale Episode. It should have come a few episodes earlier and given us a couple of episodes back home and giving us an effective wrap up.
    This would have gone against everything TBTB stood for though.
    I enjoyed it though, I always enjoyed Voyager. It just never left you as satisfied as good TNG or DS9. It's the Cheap Whore of Star Trek.

    I love the Cheap Whore of Star Trek! Awesome choice and right on the money.

    I will say this: to this day I find DS9 utterly horrid and unwatchable, so for me, Janeway beats Sisko.

    watched 'endgame' for the first time recently. It was quite entertaining, however I just saw part of 'eye of the neadle' tonight, in which Chakotay tells the Romulin from 20 years in the past, that 'he' can't tell starfleet not to launch Voyager, bacause of the effects Voyager has had in the Delta quadrant. Now thats just a few years, yet both Janeway's are prepared to jetison 26 years of history to get home now! Remarkable what we're supposed to turn a blind eye to.

    Me and my sister were both left jaw dropped, we turned to each other and said "er is that it? what happened to Seven, Harry etc..."

    Don't misunderstand. I LOVE Voyager, to me it is the best Star Trek ever, by miles... It has a million plot holes, almost no continuity etc.. but that didn't matter to me.. "to the journey!" - lol

    But i'm very much into special effects, make a plot holed story and throw in some neat special effects and i'm instantly won over.

    I guess that makes me the Cheap Whores Bitch. lol :(

    When I saw this episode two years ago (I was stationed in Iraq and ordered every season of every series) I was so angry. The last shot really pissed me off. I know I was not alone, I wanted to see the real homecoming and heroes welcome, this episode let me down as much as ANY in VOY run. All bang and no brain, just action. Not good.

    It's really stunning that Neelix - everyone's least favorite character - gets a highly emotional send-off in Homestead. But in the series finale the rest of the crew gets nothing except some highly questionable actions from future Janeway. Jammer puts it brilliantly - what about the rest of the dead crew? Why does future Janeway pick THIS moment, instead of a moment years earlier?

    One day I hope to read what was truly going on behind the scenes on Voyager. This episode, certainly entertaining in itself, is practically a 'screw you' from the writers for those who care about the characters. What were the decisions that led to not giving us future histories of the characters, or even grand scenes of homecoming? Were they forced to end the series abruptly? Did the producers demand a SFX heavy finale with little emphasis on character? Did everyone just say "screw it, we're outta here" and decide not to do a real series closer?

    Oh, and one day I'd like to understand how the Federation went from losing half their fleet to one cube at wolf 359, to destroying a cube in one shot about forty years of technology later.

    Becuase I didn't watch the series religiously, I liked the final ep; because I hadn't really bought into the characters too much or trawled through pointless episodes just to get some sort of 'character development (with Voyager's writers? fat chance)' the ending of the episode worked for me: they've been trying for 7 years to get home, they got home. Job done.

    As a series finale in general it was weak, but as a Voyager finale I felt it worked fairly well.

    According to Robert Beltran, who by this point was very dissatisfied with the show and his character, the writers did not even begin to write the finale until "the last minute." Whatever that means.

    In many ways, the theme of 'Endgame's' plot is similar to Trek II/III/IV, where Kirk and company throw regulations to the wind to save the life of just one man, Spock. Admiral Janeway here is willing to sacrifice decades of history, including her own, just so that Tuvok/Seven/Chakotay survive.

    That I love II/III/IV, and find this episode to be barely palatable, I attribute to the fact that I just don't care about the VOY crew as much as the TOS one. That's too bad.

    I pretty much agree with Jammer's thoughts, except for one thing. I didn't have any problem at all about not seeing a post homecoming. It doesn't really matter (to me) what they end up doing - it's not really the point. I'm sure they could have come up with some extended epilogue, etc, but I reckon that would have been boringly anti-climactic. The point of the series was their journey home and whether or not they would make it. I thought it ended perfectly with a shot of Voyager heading towards Earth.

    Apart from the temporal plot holes, dubious morality of altering the future (history?) and general Borg stupidity, I found the relationship pairings silly and arbitrary. Doc/Seven would have been a more natural fit (even though it seemed more of a one sided infatuation from the Doc). And Chakotay/Janeway would have been the other more believable coupling.

    But still, quite entertaining nonetheless...

    Voyager is like the Friday the 13th series: It's can be entertaining, but is too nonsensical to be considered good.

    This episode is such an incredible disappointment. It doesn't deal with any consequences! I blame Voyager for helping to create our "do anything and ignore the consequences" moral quagmire that we are stuck in today. For shame!

    Seriously though... watching Tom and his father meet again, this time with a part Klingon granddaughter, seeing how Starfleet reacts to gaining technology from thirty years in the future, watching Tuvok meet his family, seeing what the Maquis decide to do and how Starfleet reacts to them, seeing what the Doctor does next... bah! There are so many things that would've been nice to see but the writer's were too lazy and too afraid to take risks to make them happen. Voyager should have arrived home two thirds of the way through season seven.

    Even though I detest how the borg were declawed in this series, I enjoyed the Borg Queen's look on her face when Voyager easily dealt with several cubes. Of all the 'Borg are scared' moment, this is one was by far the best. No ingenuous tricks, just a simple face to face fight and the Borg lost hands down. Pretty shallow but it worked.

    And yeah, I was also disappointing the homecoming was this terse. I don't need half an hour of people hugging with loved ones, but acknowledgment of the amazing experiences Voyager has had would have been nice. Witness Seven step foot on Earth, find out how Starfleet would receive the former Maquis... I guess those things will have to be resolved in my imagination.

    You know.....

    BSG could always have ended like this!! Adama looks at the blue planet, says "We did it" with no emotion at all, Roslin drops dead in the CIC, and we fade to black.....

    NOW WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE FALLOUT FROM THAT??

    I agree with the person above who said Voyager should have gotten home two-thirds of the way through the Season.

    The slipstream was one of the more interesting of the "ways home" this series presented, mostly because it was an actual technology rather than a happenstance anomoly.

    Voyager should have tinkered and dabled with it off and on sice they first encountered it in "Hope And Fear", and perfected it enough to get home after the events of "Author Author", the last decent episode of the series (Endgame included).

    Shouldn't the same time-policing entities mentioned in "Relativity" have put the kibosh on the events in "Endgame". Or at the least, Janeway should have been visited by the same guys Sisko was after "Trials and Tribble-ations".

    "I blame Voyager for helping to create our "do anything and ignore the consequences" moral quagmire that we are stuck in today. For shame!"

    Nobody watched Voyager, so I doubt it had much cultural impact...

    But Jammer Johnson is right. This is an entirely fitting end to Voyager in that it ignores the consequences of what they've been doing in the Delta Quadrant for 7 years, the potential consequences of messing with the timeline, etc. in favor of an action story. The worst part is it doesn't deliver enough action to work on that level anyway.

    Instead they spend all this time on character moments, which a series finale should be able to do - but not Voyager. They've spent 7 years writing these characters as interchangeable ciphers, so those moments (especially the blatantly illogical ones, like Chakotay and Seven) fall flat on their face. It kills the pacing. If you're going to do an action show and forget the rest of the series, give me more action, dammit!

    For what it's worth, many more people watched Voyager than Deep Space Nine.

    If thats not proof of the lowest common denominator theory, I dont know what is.

    Before I saw "Endgame" I had heard most of what it was about. So while I was curious to see the results, I already knew it involved time travel (which should be permanently banned from any future ST production) and the Borg (maybe not a permanent banning, but definitely a reworking).

    The final shot is unforgivable. At least give the audience a chance to see Voyager enter orbit, before the credits pop up and fade to black.

    The fact that the finale was prepared late, the fact that the series as a whole never respected the characters enough to keep them consistent, the fact that TPTB seemingly made few attempts to maintain continuity within VOY at the very least, etc. I can only assume that subconsciously the writing and production staff had little respect for the fans and for the show on which they worked. I just can't imagine that anyone involved in the production felt that this was the best finale they could come up with.

    I own VOY on DVD, I still watch it and there are episodes and moments that I enjoy. I guess I still keep watching it hoping that magically, VOY will be the series it promised and deserved to be.

    I felt it was satisfactory, not great, but not awful. Oh how I wish Voyager was so much more, but I still enjoy what it is.

    I think three decades to think up 'Joe' is rather wonderful! But then I would...

    What a lousy hacked-together-by-bits-of-other-episodes finale. Some nice character bits at the begining but it all falls to pieces as soon as we are back on Voyager. What about the rest of the cast? They are eclipsed by Mulgrew talking to herself for an hour! And the Chakotay/Seven romance makes me want to vomit. The DS9 finale felt important, this is just lazy and (considering their efforts in the past) far too easy to get home. And no consequences...we don't get to see what happens to the crew? Sheesh...

    When you look at Stargate Universe, you see just what Voyager could have been!

    Absolutely decimated Star Trek.

    Personally, just imagine if Voyager had of had the DS9 characters in it.

    Now that would have been worth watching. Imagine Sisko crashing into the Delta Quadrant, "Jake!! Jake!!"

    "Dax, where are we!?" "Oh my God Benjamin, its the Delta Quadrant"

    dun dun dunnnn

    The biggest plot hole, I think, pointed out or at least implied by the Borg Queen when she was dying, stemmed from the fact that Future Janeway created a "grandfather paradox" kinda thing. By getting Voyager home sixteen years earlier, she effectively erased the future she came from, including herself, meaning that she would not have existed to go back in time and get Voyager home sixteen years early.

    "For what it's worth, many more people watched Voyager than Deep Space Nine. "
    huh? according to wikipedia and a bunch of references, ds9 had stronger rating than Voyager. 6% of marketshare vs 5% on average. TNG had 11%

    I just rewatched "Endgame" after a few years...and the final shot STILL pisses me off. After seven years there is no emotional payoff, it just ends. F***ers for that.
    And I was thinking about it, I know a lot of people were opposed to the Seven/Chakotay pairing - it didn't bother me so much as just seemed....last minute. But to me, a better pairing, and this will cause anger, harsh words and all that (maybe), would have been Seven/Harry. Hear me out.
    Harry is a nice guy (if not a doof) who was all about Seven when she came on. He also was very human. A pairing of the two would have allowed seven someone to play off of for learning humanity, while Harry would FINALLY have gotten a hot babe! Ok, I know it's a strech, but at least after seven years Ensign Never Gonna Progress Because the Writers Hated Him would have had SOME positive in his life.

    But that final scene...FRAK Berman & Braga!!!!!

    The only two people I'd have been entertained by seeing Seven wind up with were The Doctor or Janeway. Either way, it would have been making a powerful statement.

    I'd vastly prefer it be The Doctor, but Janeway helps Seven along on the road to reclaiming her humanity for so long that if either of them swung that way, I could see it.

    Chakotay, though? Seriously? What?

    I guess some would have liked to watch 40 minutes of Torres having a heart-to-heart with her grandmother at the end of which they would hug to stirring music with all of Torres' childhood dramas resolved, and then another 40 minutes of Paris' introspection culminating with his finally forgiving his father... - or whatever.

    Well, I for one LOVED this particular episode. It had a lot of sci, a lot of fi, a lot of tech, and a lot of action. I don't want a sci-fi show to make me cry or feel warm and fuzzy inside; I want phasers and lasers and warp and folding the spacetime continuum. And this episode had all of that galore.

    A great ending, which I would go so far as to say redeemed the more execrable shows of the Voyager series (The Barge and Threshold come to mind).

    A mediocre finale at best that represented the overall impression of Voyager too well.

    Still, someone above me mentioned Stargate Universe as some sci-fi ideal. I completely disagree with that sentiment. SGU went much too far in the other direction and ended up in a ditch on the other side of the road. It was/is much too much character-centric at the expense of an interesting plot. Who needs entire episodes devoted almost exclusively to pure drama?

    I guess I didn't care too much for the stargate "universe" either. Almost every "alien" culture is a cultural extension of earth, and SG1 at least plays out like USA: Galactic Diplomacy. That is more likely to induce nightmares than a steamy night between Neelix and Janeway.

    Conclusion: Star Trek is superior.

    Funny how after 7 seasons + an additional 26 years we skip over, Janeway becomes just another crooked Trek admiral. :)

    "A fitting end for the series, and read into that statement what you wish."

    Indeed.

    It was 100% Voyager: down to business, no consequences, no aftermath. Janeway was 100% Janeway: Badass (let's call her Admiral Genocide! Wiping out the Borg to achieve her own ends - so much for the one who was almost moved to tears by one cube being blown up a small handful of episodes back)

    True, it's disappointing that it ends with a thud.. they're home, a couple of brief lines and roll credits- but that's true to itself really, for better or worse. All the talk of seeing consequences, reintegration struggles etc is something I would expect from DS9 but learned a long time ago is not something to expect from Voyager. And you know, it's fine. Voyager didn't aspire to be DS9 any more than Pinnochio aspired to be an adult and it's probably a little unfair to judge it as something that it has never been or wanted to be. (I mean the writers/producers/etc. You know what I mean.)

    Yes in an ideal world I'd have liked to have seen all that other stuff, and earlier in the season I'd have quite liked to see more of the interaction between Paris and Son, some of the other crew's family etc. But well, Voyager doesn't belong to that sub-genre of sci-fi. So.. never mind! I'd like my coffee to be beer, but it's not, it's coffee. That doesn't make it less of a beverage.

    Well ok I'd have loved to have seen a little more after the ending... a more epic arrangement of the theme with an extended show of Voyager flying in (the one at the start of the episode was a bit half arsed, and starting the episode with it coming home just didn't seem right), some emotional scenes as they land her on Earth and step off to a hero's welcome, maybe a flashback or two. Oh well, not the end of the world.

    Accepting it on its own terms then, a fascinating and exciting action movie (good as) with a suitably epic feel, some good old time travel and, yes, a fitting end to the series. We did also get a couple of things that I was hoping to see, such as Seven's cortical node limiter thing being fixed (a major gripe I had about the depressing end a few episodes back) and a hint that Ensign Kim, bless the hapless young idiot, might actually get promoted one day... maybe all the way to captain if he can get a lock to beam himself to the admiral's office :-)

    Side note - Admiral Janeway reminded me a lot of Margaret Thatcher. *shudder*

    Voyager has shown its fair share of disappointments and of course a great many of them were down to lazy writing and complacency from the past success of Star Trek. But in hindsight many more of those disappointments came from expecting Voyager to be in the same league, or at least the same sci-fi subgenre, as DS9. It isn't. It never was. It was never intended to be. On its own terms, like them or not, it's kept me well enough entertained for 7 seasons (182 episodes I believe?) to care about it, and care about it enough to read every review and comment on most of the later ones. That's no mean feat.

    It wasn't the best Trek series, but in a set of 5 they can't ALL be the best and one of them has to be the "worst" - in a sample that size, being the worst isn't terrible (and it could yet be Enterprise anyway... I'll see soon). Even the worst Final Fantasy is still good, and there are 13 of those excluding the MMOs. Bravo to a job well (enough) done, and RIP Star Trek original timeline 24th century TV series!

    I somehow got it into my head that when the "Marqui Situation" was brought up, that Voyager would elect to stay in the Delta Quadrant to protect the crew. It would have been a great finale with some of the characters (like Harry) returning to the Alpha Quadrant, but most deciding to stay on Voyager and stay in the Delta quadrant to continue to explore for Starfleet.

    That would have been a real twist, but would have angered many of the fans, since the main goal of the series, Voyager returning home, would not have happened.

    After reading these comments it becomes apparent, that
    1)Jamahl Epsicokhan is a VERY good analytical writer and
    2) There is no pleasing everybody.

    My wife and I came to the conclusion that no series can be made without plot holes, characters contradicting themselves, and characters making foolish decisions repeatedly.

    We very much enjoyed this series, especially the moral dilemmas, but I always imagined it would end with them finally reaching earth and realizing that earth had nothing for them and just keep going.

    Brief assessments of each series finale usually correlates to what brief assessments of each series.

    TNG: Good team ensemble, with Patrick Stewart anchoring things and just enough technobabble/problem solving/time travel at a point when we weren't worn out on such things. Also, great because of the recurrence of Q.

    DS9: The most ambitious and sweeping. It took the most chances and also, occasionally, went too far and left things unfinished (Bajor's entry into the Federation, etc.).

    VOY: The most episodic and least tied to logic. Rules were often tossed out the window and continuity was rarely maintained. But lots of things blew up.

    ENT: A conflicting, entertaining mess where the creators clearly struggled with making a prequel and entertainment that stood on its own.

    I enjoyed Voyagers Finale. It was not a good as I thought it would be. I do feel we should have gotten a glimpse of what happens to the crew when they get back to earth. They could have done a montage of each crew member and what their lives are like possibly five years down the line.

    Or they could have done ENDGAME as episode 23 and 24 and then episode 25 and 26 could have been shown their lives a couple of days after they arrived and then skipped on 5 years and have to fight off the Borg one more time of something along those lines.

    But overall I'm satisfied with ENDGAME. It wrapped up most stories and answered the question, Do they get home?

    Why didn't Janeway develop a single wrinkle in 26 years? Things like that bug me immensely. Did they run out of makeup budget, did Mulgrew refuse to the indignity of old age makeup...or are we expected to believe Janeway got regular facelifts?

    And so it ends. I echo many sentiments above - as an episode it's enjoyable to watch, even if it's basically a poor man's version of All Good Things hybridised with Timeless. I couldn't believe it when we suddenly saw two characters suddenly getting together for a doomed relationship, and discovering another character had a degenerative neurological disorder. The writers clearly ran out of their own ideas years ago.

    There are some very questionable ideas, such as bitter old (yet curiously unwrinkled!) janeway -- who, YES, looks and behaves freakishly like a futuristic Margaret Thatcher -- deciding that she needs to play God and rewrite history just because there are some elements that didn't pan out well. Hell - that's LIFE, b*tch! And no matter how you much try to avoid the bad stuff, it'll find you. It's the way it works, life is about taking the good with the bad. I was uncomfortable at what appeared to be a casual act of genocide. Not a very Star Trekkian message for Voyager's last gasp. Just what was the message here? Star Trek's writers used to spend time considering such things. The message is not a good one...

    As for the ending....Seven years -- seven YEARS -- of build up and supposed emotional investment -- all for a cursory shot of Voyager heading toward Earth for three seconds before the end credits roll. The ending was so horrifically rushed, almost as if someone looked down at their watch and though 'sh*t, we have to get them home - NOW!'. I fully agree that Voyager should have gotten home at least a couple of episodes ago - so many unanswered questions. Endgame? More like Endshame. So much wasted potential - but that's Voyager through and through.

    Totally agree with Jammer. Voyager very much died as it lived. Towards the end of the show I'd accepted it was never going to be all (or even a fraction) of what it could be, instead it was what it was. But although entertaining, action-packed, yadda yadda as an episode, this is a wholly unsatisfying finale to a seven year series. Guess it all lives or dies on the writing, and the writers for this show were really just showing up for the pay cheque.

    It is what it is though. Much like life. Unlike Admiral Janeway I won't try to mess with time just so I can go back and try to encourage the writers to create a decent ending...or series...

    When I originally saw this way back when, I really thought the opening shot of voyager, and the golden gate bridge was a really clever twist on the last episode. We're all expecting them to get home, but right away - they're already home, and you see them living their lives.

    I still think that was clever, but looking at it now, I think that future Janeway's reasons for traveling back in time were incredibly selfish. Time travel to make things "better" bothers me as a concept anyway. What's to stop the Borg from going back in time and undoing this? Or going back in time and giving themselves current technology/adaptations so that they can defeat everyone and overrun the galaxy. What's to stop anyone from changing outcomes to their advantage, (at the expense of everyone else)? If no outcome is final, everything is meaningless.

    They could have perhaps given future Janeway a better reasons for going back, and also some kind of explanation for making this type of time travel not reproducible. Oh well, its just a show.

    I thought Admiral Janeway's attitude in this episode was entirely consistent with the character we've seen for the rest of the series. A little more extreme, perhaps, but not much.

    To me, Janeway was always the single worst thing about Voyager. She was a raving megalomaniac who made decisions according to her own whims, which affected the lives of (often several) other characters, and to hell with said other people, if they were unhappy with said decisions.

    Said abuse of authority and command immaturity weren't nearly the worst of it, however. The really painful thing, was the fact that if Janeway's moral deficiency was ever brought up with female fans of the show, the gender card was immediately reached for, and as a male critic, you would consistently be labelled a misogynist.

    It makes me wish that Janeway *had* been male, because then it might have demonstrated that, no; her gender doesn't have anything to do with it. Abuse of authority is abuse of authority, whether the person who commits said abuse is male or female.

    For those who perhaps read this and think that I desperately need to get a life for being so adamantly upset about a fictional character eleven years after the fact, yes, you're also probably right.

    It's odd that Tuvok, with this illness, would be living on Earth rather than on Vulcan, and would need to be visited by Barclay and the Doctor, rather than by his wife...

    Voyager did show the character's lives on Earth: 26 years later, Barclay is part of the Voyager family, toasting the crew at a reunion, Tom Paris returned to civilian life as an author, B'Elanna as Klingon Ambassador, the Doctor ("Joe") with a human wife ...

    What would have made the ending, though, is to see Seven of Nine walk into the reunion as an epilogue, with a contented Admiral Janeway looking on.

    ...

    On the Borg ...

    Having the last couple seasons witness the Borg expand exponentially, like their power and drive to assimilate would allow, would have been frightening and lent awesome suspense leading up the finale. The Borg were a virus multiplying, and with their transwarp conduits could easily catch up to Voyager. Even though it wasn't perfect, the story "Hope and Fear", where an advanced race is finally conquered by the Borg and you see the despair and rage of the survivors, could have lead up to a final confrontation. A race like the Borg had to be stopped, not annihilated, but have the drones freed and the Collective disbanded.

    ....

    Gotta love that scene, though, of Voyager ripping through a Borg cube with a single shot, ;)!

    Just finished watching series Finale. I enjoyed the final episode and thought the Borg Queen limbs detaching was funny.

    I am glad B'Elanna gave birth on Voyager but wished Tom had gotten back to Sick Bay in time.

    Chakotay came across as the creepy older man pursuing the younger beautiful female employee.

    I know there have been many jibes at Harry Kim's character but he was needed to make the crew work. How boring if all the crew members were the same. I enjoyed his character much more so than Chakotay or Tuvok.

    I believe this was a great ending to the series because additional scenes would have just been a lot of repetitive drama that was seen when the crew were talking to families on the ship.

    If Janeway could open a rift to go back in time with future weapons, surely the Borg would have assimilated a way to do the same, so it's rather absurd that the Borg are outclassed by "future" weapons. They could do just what they tried in First Contact...go back in time and assimilate the galaxy, and keep trying until they succeed.

    "The biggest plot hole, I think, pointed out or at least implied by the Borg Queen when she was dying, stemmed from the fact that Future Janeway created a "grandfather paradox" kinda thing. By getting Voyager home sixteen years earlier, she effectively erased the future she came from, including herself, meaning that she would not have existed to go back in time and get Voyager home sixteen years early."

    Not necessarily. The episode, as given, without any later events shown would imply an infinity loop where history cannot progress beyond the point when Admiral Janeway made her "time-jump." Time will progress to the point where Admiral Janeway would have made her jump but at the moment she would have left, instead a sawtooth snap would occur in which time would lurch back to Voyager passing the Nebula - without Admiral Janeway showing up. This Voyager is destined to travel another 16 years before Janeway will Jump again - starting it all over. Infinity Loop. But perhaps we can make an N-Jump instead, so that way time can progress.

    Let's imagine an epilogue where an older, tired but satisfied (and unwrinkled!) Admiral Janeway has a quiet evening with her crew - Seven and Chakotay smilingly in attendance - recieves a package from the Doc with a kind word as they all bid her farewell. For she has to go back to the past again, to ensure that this future will happen.

    How's that for consequences? Janeway, forever doomed to repeat her trip through time and face her death at the hands of the Borg Queen in order that her crew, her family can all survive and live out their lives.

    Kind of a twisted ending but I like it better than what the writers presented me with as a closer.

    It would have been better if the time travel wasn't the main explanation for the return. After all, why go back exactly to that time after the Borg nebula was found and that Voyager was already afraid of it? Future Janeway could have gone to almost any time, even back to Caretaker time and beat up the Kazon to buy time to return home using that technology (and then destroying the array anyway). It would have saved everybody, but killed the series. And using the time travel also diminish the "I will get you home" promise from Janeway... sure she did it (even twice!) but the one we saw was cheating!

    But at least the time travel made it possible to kind of explore what happens after the return of Voyager (even if it's deleted) while keeping the getting back home with the end credits that the authors favored.

    If the Borg have this ability to dispatch ships instantly to anywhere in the galaxy, its hard to imagine that the Borg Collective and the Dominion haven't come into direct and savage conflict...surely the Jem'Hadar would be highly prized as drones, and the Borg are certainly "solids". Dialogue in various episodes indicates both entities have been around for centuries.

    I loved Voyager (it's the best ST after Enterprise to me). To the journey!
    Too bad we won't have any more of the ST series...

    OK, so Arcturus in Hopes and Fears said that a swarm of Borg turned up and took over his planet.
    The Borg are intent on assimilating humanity.
    They have a Transwarp conduit that opens up right on Earth's doorstep.
    Why have the Borg continued to send one ship time after time rather than a dozen and do the job properly.

    Now I can suspend disbelief to a degree for a Sci Fi program but Voyager continually put things in that just open huge cans of worms. Timeships from the future are another example.

    People may slag off DS9 for being anti Trek but Voyagers problem was it was anti intelligence.
    I still love it (just got 3 series on DVD for Xmas) but, as I said under my old name on here Dan, this really is just cheap whorish entertainment. The more you think about certain episodes the more others unravel.
    Obviously there are some classics, some of the best Trek ever in fact. As a series overall though, a missed opportunity.
    Oh and not giving us anything but 'What If' in the future rather than an real coming home resolution is frankly just as insulting as setting the last Enterptise episode on the Holodeck of the Enterprise D.

    Yeah, Jack, it would be interesting to see the effect of nanoprobes introduced into the Great Link.

    The episode had lots of action, but no closure. It seems to me the natural way to end the series would have been for Voyager to have a fateful encounter with the female Caretaker who sends them hope with ten minutes left to spare to let us see the crew reunite with their loved ones. It was an important and unresolved plot line. The female Caretaker would have had the power to travel to their location no matter how far they had gone, making it plausible. They could have thrown in the Borg somehow and even Kes. "The female Caretaker sics the Borg on Voyager, but has a change of heart when Voyager rescues her from being assimilated. She throws them back to the Alpha Quadrant, putting a nice bookend to the series."

    For interest, the breakdown of star ratings for each season of Voyager (listed in the form number of 4* episodes / number of 3.5 * episodes / ... so on down to 0* episodes), along with average rating, is the following.

    Note that I count Caretaker, Dark Frontier, Flesh and Blood and Endgame to be 2 episodes apiece, since they are 2-hour shows.

    S1: 0/3/ 7/2/3/1/0/0/0, av. 2.66 stars
    S2: 1/3/ 8/6/5/1/1/0/1, av. 2.54 stars
    S3: 1/4/ 8/4/4/4/1/0/0, av. 2.58 stars
    S4: 1/1/12/5/4/2/0/1/0, av. 2.60 stars
    S5: 2/1/11/4/5/2/1/0/0, av. 2.63 stars
    S6: 2/4/ 7/4/6/2/1/0/0, av. 2.65 stars
    S7: 1/4/ 7/6/6/2/0/0/0, av. 2.65 stars

    Series: 8/20/60/31/33/14/4/1/1, av. 2.62 stars

    Average star rating, the seasons in descending quality order are 1, (6,7--tie), 5, 4, 3, 2.

    I used to dislike Voyager because it could have been so much more, but after watching some episodes I discovered its true purpose: it's the comfort food of all the Star Trek series. Consequences of character actions are rare, and and it requires from the viewer very little thought. It's easy to watch and comprehend; just sit back and let the simplicity wash over you. Some people enjoying not having to use their brain and more power to them

    Ok, that's the last time I post from my phone using speech to text. That is horrendous.

    I agree with most others that Voyager, in sum, is inferior to TNG and DS9 (though not nearly as woefully inferior as most here assert). I attribute some of that, however, to its burden of being not only a network show (asopposed to the syndicated nature of TNG and DS9), but the flagship of that network. It was subjected, therefore to hokey gimmicks and ridiculous promos. Surely it still would have had some of the same factors anyways (weiters, directors, etc.), but I think if it had gotten to be syndicated it might not have gone off on such tangents and would have been more able to be the series that its premise really should have been.

    My sincere thanks, Jammer, for providing these reviews. I grew to trust them and thus managed to skip most of the worst of the Star Trek spinoff series episodes. Once they appeared on streaming Netflix and I could finally summon the will to watch them. The only Star Trek I'd known was the series I saw on television when I was a teenager in the late '60s.

    Although I was not impressed by these latter day takes on an interesting television series I found myself with a lot of unwanted time on my hands. There was no Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, or Jerome Bixby - actual science fiction writers - writing for these.

    Perhaps it's a reflection of my age but television or film science fiction could never approach its written form where it has the freedom to fully engage your imagination unlimited by video technology, production budgets, the FCC, focus groups or entertainment executives.

    That said, I believe that writers of any era would have appreciated the pure space opera of the Borg, the notion of a lifetime lived in minutes (Inner Light?), the able retelling of Phillip K. Dick's The Imposter (Whispers), along with meditations on life and sentience created by Data and the Doctor.

    Plus we had some wonderful actors along the way. Kate Mulgrew with the captivating voice of '40s film star Patricia Neil - if not Neil's sheer seductive beauty - the smoldering power of Avery Brooks and the pitch perfect Dwight Shultz and Colm Meaney, the vivid and dependable Robert Picardo. The franchise also kept a host of able character actors, such as Vaughn Armstrong, employed.

    In the end, though, this series, more than even Enterprise, proved that the franchise is spent. Time for something new to serve the need for hope and awe among people who fail to find it in conventional tales and tired spiritual institutions.

    Again, Jammer, my heartfelt thanks.

    I feel that Voyager's grand finale was a terrible missed opportunity. In the end, I felt cheated, even on the less-than-great terms the series had established up to this point. I would expound on all of that, but I just simply don't have the energy. Voyager had a great premise, the potential of which was abandoned almost immediately by the writers and showrunners, probably out of fear of alienating the Trek demographic. It's swan song felt shallow and abrupt and deeply insincere, to an extent that I feel is completely unforgivable.

    Nevertheless, I must admit that Voyager's best episodes, relatively few and far between though they may be, were truly excellent. "The Year of Hell" in particular stands out as one of the best stories Star Trek as whole has ever told.

    Aside from that, the nicest thing I can say about Voyager is that it had, in my opinion, far and away the best opening credits sequence and main musical theme of any Star Trek series. Relatively faint praise, but it's the best I can do.

    I'm going to start re-watching DS9 now. I've watched TOS and TNG in their entirety more times than I'm willing to admit and I've never managed to get through the first two seasons of Enterprise because I just can't quite convince myself that I'm actually watching Star Trek.

    After DS9, perhaps I will watch all of the feature films in sequence... excluding Nemesis, which is, in fact, worse than "Threshold". ;)

    Thanks for the reviews, Jammer. They have enhanced my 3rd and (possibly) final re-watching of Voyager IMMENSELY. I look forward to reading all of your DS9 reviews.

    This was like having a pound of bacon at a sitting. Tastes good and satisfying in the short term but when you think about it you realize that it's not very nutritious.

    99% of what I thought has already been covered. But I would have liked to have seen a scene like this:

    Captain Janeway: "Why now? Why not earlier? I needn't have had to lose so many. Maybe we could have got everyone on BOTH crews home"

    Admiral Janeway: "This has the most probable chance of success. I couldn't exactly run simulations, could I Kathryn?"

    CJ: "So you want to interfere with the timeline just for your, er, our personal gain? That idea is repugnant to me Admiral."

    AJ: "I know how much you've agonized over the Caretaker. Should I have done it differently? Mined the array and hopped it was destroyed before the Kazon took advantage? Or...? This was the best way I could come up with to try to undue the consequences of that decision. The best way to try and save this family."

    A little soapy? Yea probably but it would have gotten a little more into the motivation of the Admiral. Also it would have been interesting to see some of the survivors blame her for the deaths of those that didn't make it.

    Also it would have been nice to see Icheb for a few secs as well as Naomi. Especially since we see an adult version of both in Shattered.

    @skadoo: That would have been a great scene and it would have answered a lot of questions. I think Voyager punted on a lot of situations like this that could have added to the series.

    The "best chance of success" could have revolved around Voyager's encounter of the transwarp hub (which Janeway presumably determined was a hub sometime after the events in this episode originally unfolded). It's pretty clear that Adm. Janeway doesn't think the Klingon device will work for a return trip (she says as much to Harry) so she needed a way to get Voyager home.

    I suppose Adm. Janeway could have returned to the events leading up the Maquis ship being sent to the Delta Quadrant and prevented that. But the "best chance of success" thing might come into play again.

    The positives:

    • Production value!!! Holy crap, the production value!
    • Alice Krige returning as the Borg queen. Don't get me wrong, the other woman was great and even kind of looked like her, but Alice just has this...graceful creepiness. She's smooth and soft-spoken but the slow and deliberate way she carries herself and the way she uses her facial expressions makes her feel very intimidating, despite the tragic neutering that the Borg suffered at the hands of the Voyager writers.
    • The old-age make-up. I know a lot of people griped about Janeway not having any, but it was there and it was fairly subtle, blended so well that it was hard to pick out. Her neck looked aged, with more loose skin and some wrinkles, and her face looked a bit more sunken and tired. She did look older, at least to me. (Finally, an appearance to match her voice.) In any case, Doc did make a comment about her having aged exceptionally well and I have seen older women that look that good so it's not implausible, especially that far in the future. But overall, all of the age makeup was pretty well done. It's one of the hardest things to do because the person has to look natural and still like themselves, and it's VERY easy to screw up. There was one shot of "Captain" Harry from the back over his shoulder where the line was a little too obvious but that's nitpicking.


    The negatives:

    • Every freaking thing else! It's pretty much all been said and said well in the review and by the other commenters, so there's no need for me to just reiterate the same sentiments of disappointment and frustration. I would like to put forth a way it could have ended that really wouldn't have taken much more time and would have felt SOOOOOO much more satisfying.


    Last scene:

    We see the reunion again, just like from the beginning, but everyone is there this time. Admiral Paris and B'Elanna's dad are both there with Tom and B'Elanna and their daughter/kids(if multiple), Tuvok is there with some of his family, we see Naomi Wildman and Icheb grown up as they were in "Shattered," with whatever families they may have started, Harry and Doc and Barclay and, heck, maybe even Neelix with his new family! Maybe by then they've found a way to get to the Delta quadrant and back faster. Since Voyager got back early, I'm sure there would be a TON of stuff Starfleet could adapt, like Slipstream travel.

    So, everyone is talking and sharing bits of dialogue about how things played out once they got back. It wouldn't have to be much, just enough to answer some questions that the show just left hanging. So then someone asks about Chakotay and Seven and about that time, they walk in. Seven is implant-less and natural, and maybe they have a kid of their own. Janeway looks emotional and proud. They join the conversation and after talking about where they've all gone in life from the time they got back, make a final toast, "To the journey!"

    Cut out to a view of the Earth from space and then pull out, accelerating as the camera flies through stars and planets and nebulae and such as the music swells. Do that for a few seconds or however long it takes for the spectacle then fade to black as the music resolves with a sense of wonderment and satisfaction.

    End scene (and leave me smiling, despite the shortcomings!)

    Actually, As already mentioned before,a real shock ending would be for admiral Janeway to go back to the Caretaker and prevent the entire series from happening...
    That would be the reset of ALL resets...

    I was entertained, but not satisfied. As many have pointed out, there was no emotional impact to the return home. I find Voyager more enjoyable than DS9 overall because I like its variety and optimism, but DS9's finale and its heartfelt farewells had me in tears. I care more about Voyager's characters, but the abrupt - "oh we did it" credits roll - ending didn't give me time to be emotional. Heck, Admiral Paris and Tom didn't even interact while he was on the view screen and Paris was sitting right there!

    As a result, I remained unaffected as well when I'd expected to have my heart filled to bursting with the joy of their homecoming. After seven years, that's it? So anticlimactic.

    I know I like this series more than most who post here (strangely). For me, this finale is not a "fitting end" for characters I've come to care about. It's a very disappointing one.

    Oh well. At least it didn't pull a Quantum Leap and have them never get home. I've never been so angered by a finale as I was at that one.

    I enjoyed it immensely when it aired but over the ensuing decade and a few years I've come to realize what a cop-out it is.

    It was lazy plotting, period. And Chakotey and Seven? It should have been Seven and Kim. Seven wouldn't need the "big strong man" stereotype to make her feel secure, and Kim is a scientist, just like she is.

    As much as i like TNG and DS9, i still believe Voyager is my favorite series. I loved all the anamolies and time travel. like Michael, i love the sci in sci-fi. i enjoyed the last episode and i was thoroughly entertained.

    however, i like leah's ending. I think they needed to show WHAT IMPACE Janeway had on changing history. i think it would have only taken 5 mins or less. which they could have tossed 5 mins of the Seven/Chakotay scenes.

    I have no problem with the Seven/Chakotay match, as they had multiple episodes preceding this. The doctor had a oneway infatuation.

    great series. fun last episode which could ahve been tweeked.

    3.5 stars .5 if they had added a final scene.

    The notion of a Borg transwarp aperture with an exit a light year from Earth is indeed a huge, irresponsible can of worms for this episode to open, one which completely flies in the face of existing continuity. It's worth remembering, as others have commented, that transwarp conduits weren't presented as fixed infrastructure until season 6's Child's Play (a great episode but not without certain flaws). Before that, transwarp was presented a capability of ships, like a faster version of warp - ships opened conduits themselves. Introducing the concept of a fixed network of Borg transwarp conduits spanning the galaxy and controlled by various hubs, as this episode does, is highly problematic. But so are a lot of other elements of this episode.

    @Leah - you would have been a better writer for Voyager! :-)

    To add to that final scene:

    We learn that Dr. Zimmerman has been working with Barclay and the Doctor to liberate the EMHs from servitude and their programs are enhanced to naturally move beyond their original programming. The Doctor has created a movement for the rights of Holospecies and even a Choral Society for several of his EMH colleagues.

    We learn that the Maquis members of Voyager have been exhonerated of all adverse actions and that the Federation has formally acknowledged their role in forcing the Maquis to be founded in the first place.

    Harry receives a double pip promotion and a Star Fleet commendation for his creation of the Astrometrics department on Voyager, his work with Holograms, engineering and the Delta Flyer. He seems unable to avoid the attention of women everywhere.

    B'Elanna develops an appreciation for blood wine.

    Chakotay and Janeway fully submit to their underlying attraction and love for each other.

    Seven realizes that the one person that has truly loved her all along is the Doctor.

    Just before the scene of Earth and the pull back to the expanding universe, the EMH Choral Society favors the Reunion with a vocal rendition of the Voyager theme song which becomes the closing credits background score.

    Run credits.

    FADE TO BLACK.

    I'll stake my colours to the mast: I am and always will be a fan of DS9 much more than any other Star Trek series. But what I think's missing in a lot of comparisons of DS9 and Voyager is an acknowledgement/understanding that the shows shows served different functions and quite deliberately had different tones, different target audiences etc. Voyager was never supposed to be a second DS9, and as such, it can't and shouldn't be judged for failing to be a serious character show that it never intended to be. For better or worse, despite the potential of the premise, I think it's very clear that Voyager was never intended to be a serious character show with arc storytelling etc. The DS9 character are characters, the Voyager characters are figures - and in both cases, they're supposed to be. They're expressly designed to be.

    Voyager was designed to be fun first and foremost, and to pull in casual viewers - and to retain them by not expecting them to remember what happened last week. It was a "weekly adventures on a ship" show - hence the lack of continuity, the Voyager Action Insert, and the inconsistency regarding Voyager's actual position (by this I'm referring to the Hirogen turning up in S7 and the Borg in S5-7, when the ship was supposedly tens of thousands of light years beyond their space).

    It's important to remember that while continuity is the norm on US/UK TV these days, this a relatively recent development and the opposite was the case in the 90s and earlier. By being almost entirely episodic, Voyager was far from the exception in the 90s - it was the norm. The only shows attempting arc storytelling at the time were a small number of crime series like Murder One, plus The X Files and DS9/B5. Of the latter two, B5 was episodic for the first two and a half seasons and only turned into an arc show from "Severed Dreams" onwards, while DS9 was largely episodic but with strong character/plot/situational continuity, plus a small number of actual arcs (The Circle, the S6 war arc and the closing stretch). Voyager was absolutely typical of 90s US TV and very much a product of its time.

    If DS9 had ever been the "main" Trek show on air at the time, the writers would never have the huge amount of freedom that they did to create such a brilliant show (one that stands up superbly 15 years on and in many ways is better and more pertinent than ever). It's thanks to TNG/VOY carrying the franchise's torch and rolling out the standard Trek format of "fun but more-or-less inconsequential adventures on a ship, with strange-foreheaded aliens and a fight at the end" week after week throughout DS9's run that DS0 was able to be what it was.

    What I'm saying is that while DS9 was on air, it was Voyager's job to be a counterpoint to it - the lightness to DS9's heaviness. It was designed to give casual Trek viewers people their weekly dose of ship-based adventures. And after DS9 went off the air, Voyager took on an additional purpose, which was to give people their dose of Trek. Hence the greatly increased use of TNG-era tropes - the communication link with the Alpha Quadrant and the addition of Barclay, Troi, Admiral Paris and Doc Zimmerman as recurring characters, the in many cases gratuitous use of Klingons in Barge Of The Dead, UMZ, Prophecy and Endgame, Bajorans in Survival Instinct, Good Shepherd and Flesh And Blood, and the appearance of ancient Earth tech in One Small Step and Friendship One.

    Voyager is what it is. It do what it do. I vastly prefer DS9 and find a lot of Voyager disposable - and I think it's aged far less well than DS9 - but I do enjoy Voyager for what it is. It was a fun, watchable show and still is.

    I would say as a finale, this is perhaps slightly below DS9s' "What You Leave Behind" but still very much an effective end to an enjoyable series. I'll try to keep my comment spoiler-free for anybody skimming over this on the Comment Browser.

    Maybe I'm a big softie, but I had a lump in my throat and it made me feel both happily nostalgic yet sad to see Voyager come to a natural end. The very last moments of the show were a little abrupt and I would have liked just a bit less focus on the admittedly impressive action in order to get a better chance to soak in all of the crew in their wonderful, ultimate bookends; so it is fair to say there was a respectable margin for improvement. This is much like Voyager as a whole wrapped up in one neat, pleasant little farewell parcel which makes you smile whilst hoping for more.

    With all that said, it was still very effective and I was sad to see it end. I found season 7 was actually the most strongest season the show has ever had and I am both sad and glad to see it go on such a high (unlike its' older brother TNG!). For all of its' faults and frustrations, it was often fantastic entertainment and I will miss spending time with the Voyager 'family'.

    3 stars for an effective put slightly lacking finale, and 3 stars for Voyager as a whole.

    I'm pleased I took the time and the effort to comment on the whole of the season, Jammer makes it look easy! It might be a while before I'm back commenting since I've ran out of Trek to watch except TOS, for which I have to wait for Christmas to get on DVD (I've already seen about 60 % of TOS in the past and I'm a big fan). Until then, I'll finish by saying thank you for the marvellous reviews! :)

    We were thinking that a good ending would have the only change in the timeline be that "Joe" gets an ugly wife at the reunion party.

    Another year and another viewing.

    Actually warmed to this a little. I still stand by a lot of my old comments but I did enjoy this. A couple of plot holes aren't plot holes. Future Janeway mentions something about better technolgy in the future. I think in the scene with future Harry. This explains how she knows about the Transwarp hub.
    I also liked the Seven and Chakotay romance if only because it is played well and not the likliest of parings.
    Still think the end is a cop out but I suppose the writers justify it by giving us the true ending for Voyager first and then erasing it.
    Which is as Trekien as Trek itself.

    @Latex Zebra:

    Sorry, but no -- the VOY ending is not as "Trekien as Trek itself". It was simply classic Voyager -- i.e. a poor man's version of TNG filled with cheats and missed opportunities.

    When TNG had a similar ending -- a fake look into the future, a time travel finale, etc. -- it was far more meaningful because it brought Picard closer to his crew leading into the movies. In other words, "All Good Things ... " wasn't the final chapter.

    For Voyager, "Endgame" was it -- and we never see interesting things like how the Maquis crew members were initially handled or how Seven of Nine would adapt. Even the more interesting things that we did see, like Paris being a writer, Kim being a captain, the Doctor being in Starfleet as more than a hologram, Tuvok's illness, etc., were all wiped away by the cheat ending.

    What's most frustrating is that if the events of "Endgame" had occurred two or three episodes sooner, it would have been impactful. Instead of just seeing the fake future, we could have seen how Admiral Janeway's actions changed things. Wouldn't it have been interesting if, in saving Seven, Chakotay and Tuvok that Admiral Janeway's actions had other negative effects? Maybe the series would have ended with Janeway pondering whether she made the right decision.

    Sadly, this was the kind of miss that was classic Voyager. When it asked the tough questions -- "Timeless," "Year of Hell", "Living Witness", it almost ALWAYS had a reset button.

    Maybe put another way, "Endgame" is best compared with the much-reviled "Star Trek: Nemesis". That film, despite its many flaws, did serve as a better end to the TNG saga, because we saw or understood how things had changed (Data's death, Riker, Troi and Crusher leaving the ship, etc.) with Picard, Worf and Geordi continuing on -- and with B4 as a sort of interesting "what if".

    The action and Shinzon story of "Nemesis" were pretty lame and not as good as "Endgame", but it was a better finale.

    @Paul, I am not a fan of "Endgame" for many similar reasons, though I have not watched it since the day it aired (and I was fourteen) and so don't want to speak about it too strongly. And I think the idea of showing change in "Nemesis" was generally good, though I'm, uh, not wild about the execution (or the specific choices made even on a conceptual level). That said, having recently rewatched "All Good Things," I really think that it stands on its own as a series finale very well. I think maybe partly because we really do see the way Picard has been transformed by the experience in the last few minutes; not just his joining the crew, but also Picard's last conversation with Q. I think Picard joining the poker game is sufficiently powerful even with nothing else following it. Among (lots and lots of) other things, Picard has had a chance to see the fragility of life, to recognize that every moment matters, and then to choose to spend the precious time he has on a new "adventure" of becoming closer to his crew. In a way, this moment itself shows what's important: the future will come no matter what, and some of it will be good and some bad, but we control what we do in the present, and Picard chooses to be with these people. It's a great ending whether we take the films into account or not.

    My biggest issue with the ending is that providing Seven, Chakotay, and Tuvok the fate she felt they deserved, Admiral Janeway stole the future of the rest of her crew, a future that was shown as being very happy, fulfilling, and productive. That show of favouritism doesn't seem right.

    I also suspect that she stole from Chakotay and Seven the chance to be together (I think they would end up separating on Earth). Never mind how random the pairing was, it's one that makes sense to me and I feel that they got cheated.

    You review is pitch perfect. This is an ending that is pure Voyager. What a disappointing series.

    After watching sevn seasons of this series ... THIS is ho it ends? Really?!

    To be honest, I didn't care all that much about the first 90 % of the episode - all I wanted was the emotional release of these characters finally getting home to Earth!

    Somehow I feel swindled! Where's the REAL ending to this series?

    BOO!

    @Caine

    I consider season 4's "Living Witness" the *true* series finale as it's *not* a fake-out alternate future. So chronologically, it works.

    I'll say this, Harry had it right - it's all about the journey, not the destination. We hardcore Trekies are quite capable of using our imagination to figure out how each crew member ends up...Hey maybe Seven figures out Chakotay is a complete flake and rebounds with the Doc (that's my story and I'm sticking to it! ;)

    Like returning from a long and incredible journey, the arrival back at your front door with your luggage in hand is inexorably an emotionally deflating experience.

    To the Journey!

    I have similar problems to Jammer with the whole of Voyager: it's entertaining, but it's just that. There seems to be a real lack of a through-line in Voyager which is seriously disappointing, because out of all the Trek series (except perhaps DS9 which I'm re-watching at the moment) has the most clear and single-minded premise or project. That project is, here, the journey - or the destination. I'm inclined to think that these things are not separable, because a journey after-all is the thing between a beginning and an end. Which is why this end just doesn't function well.

    Voyager had several (largely) superfluous two-parters throughout ("Killing Game", "Unimatrix Zero"). While DS9 got bogged down in the (highly moving and groundbreaking) Dominion War, away from its original focus:
    - on Bajor (in a sense, this enacted Bajor's integration into Federation interstellar politics - the first two seasons were all about the local, and from then on we saw the microscope zoom out, a change in tone detracted from the originality of the series in exploring postcolonial politics in the Star Trek setting)

    - and the exploration of the Gamma Quadrant (this was rather left to a few choice episodes, and the notion it was other crews , organisations and individuals taht were doing just that - that DS9 existed as a station, not an excuse to go off into the Gamma Quadrant every single week to see a new token-race - which is how a lot of Voyager felt like).


    I realise I've spent nearly all of this comments talking about shows other than Voyager. But this is because it really feels like a wasted opportunity. The finale is all action, very little ethics, and actually compromises a lot of the sense of adventure and loneliness that the series built into its premise. As a narrative it feels lazy, although the debate between Admiral/Captain Janeway does make a good argument for this episode's integrity. The all-action finale is arguably down to First Contact, and Voyager's, relegating of the Borg into an action film threat, rather than a truly cool sci-fi villain ("Q Who?") or opportunity to explore notions of freedom and sentience ("I, Borg"). To shift the tone back (assuming we're still including the Borg in a revised ending) to their earlier appearance would be both a blessing in terms of gravitas and concept, but one which might alienate audiences that have got used to the Borg in this form.

    So in typical sci-fi fan form I have some ideas for how they could have done this plot but in a better way:

    1) Make this a 6-part arc, or even a whole season, something akin to the end of DS9 or Series 3 of Enterprise. This was a series all about the long-term premise, and while we can include "Homestead" and others in helping to wrap up the series/send characters off on their way, it just doesn't make sense in long-term and strategic ways for it to be as it is: a series of one-off episodes leading to a 2-hour finale...that consists of its own one-off plot with very little consequences. Which is why the Janeway plot in "Endgame" is so puzzling, as the review demonstrates. Every episode leading to the finale should have been an opportunity.

    2) Have the final episode as being similar in tone to TNG's "Family", which served brilliantly after a The Best of Both Worlds, in allowing the characters to do character drama after the all-action and suspense. We need to see how these characters go about reintegrating themselves. And I want to see that, not just be told about it.

    3) To keep the Admiral Janeway plot, have her not physically time travel, but send some messages back through time. Thinking about it there's a DS9 episode based around this premise - "The Sound of Her Voice", whereas here it would be deliberate. This device would fit a premise in a lot of episodes of Voyager - that they receive important information from afar, but must do something about it themselves, or just have the information in hand. The Admiral could confirm that the transwarp hub is in the nebula, and then the Voyager crew plot to get there. This would give the crew a real scientific challenge (one of the supposed premises of the series being this was a science-oriented series, ship and crew), as Best of Both Worlds did for the TNG crew. The Admiral at this point has done enough to change history - she could perhaps enclose some documents or information that tells the Captain of the terrible fate of some of her friends and crew. In the end of course we know Voyager will succeed, and the timeline will alter (so no back-and-forth talking - this should be about the present Janeway deciding herself whether destroying the hub is more important than getting through it. While in 'Caretaker' her decision was questionnable (e.g. why not just leave loads of bombs to automatically detonate which are really hard to disarm?), here it's based on the familiar backstory of the Borg (she doesn't want there to be more people like the El Aurians or the other people we see whose planets have been devasted and assimilated) and the Starfleet objective to cripple them. In the end they come up with a risky but well-reasoned strategy that gets them through, perhaps after a few attempts. Janeway has a debt to her crew to get them home, and that's the conclusion the show (for me) should take all along. There should be plenty of ethical decisions on the way, but getting the crew home was the televisiual and narrative raison d'etre.

    4) Have an arc set in the future depicted here in Endgame, where the future-Admiral Janeway has to decide whether and how to send the message, if you really want that. Then you could have the pathos that this finale does do well. We don't want a rehash of the All Good Things future Picard plot, because here Janeway's trauma and wounds would be from the memories of her decisions, rather than a Syndrome like with Picard. Unfortunately (as it was a very fine episode in a barrel full of bad ones) this would make "Timeless" a bit redundant (then, arguably, so does Endgame).

    I have to agree with the consensus (and Jammer) on this farewell episode. The first time I saw it (in college—I had a Voyager finale party at my apartment), I liked it—it had action, the Borg, Klingons, time travel, and...they got home!

    But watching it again so many years later, it was frustrating for all the reasons people have already said—the ethics of Admiral Janeway's quest, the split-second shot of Voyager approaching home, and all the rest in between. Interestingly, my husband liked it (much like I did the first time around) but he did notice the ending was a bit abrupt!

    Voyager is our favorite series and this finale is just okay. It works, for what it is, but I wouldn't call it "special". The big asset Voyager had to offer was the characters—the good acting, the sense of "family", and the quest for home. And it seemed it was the characters who got shortchanged in the final saga.

    I liked the idea someone had above: what if the Borg weren't annihilated (were they, even?) but rather their queen crippled and they somehow became liberated? It would have been a fascinating premise. "Endgame" (with its flaws, I suppose) could have been aired as a mid-season two-parter/mini-movie, and then the second half of the seventh series could be Voyager trying to help all these Borg who are lost and confused, maybe the Borg and Voyager working together to get Voyager back home (or in contact with Earth) to pull in the resources of the rest of the Federation, to help with his massive and unprecedented effort. Starfleet could launch a plan to send a buch of ships to the Delta Quatrant to help out, and voila, you have a neat set of episodes where you're seeing more of the Federation, maybe Earth, maybe homecomings, and some interesting Borg moral dilemmas (some of them die, some of them go crazy, some try to take over Starfleet, etc.).

    Could've been fun!

    An entertaining, but completely lazy ending. Like much of Voyager, it is devoid of logic and continuity. They did exactly as Beltran said... tried to wrap up 7 years in little more than an hour. Pathetic.

    I think your star rating is right on. As an episode, I would give this 3 stars. As a series finale? 2 stars.

    It's like they couldn't think of anything, so they said, "I know! Let's destroy the borg!"

    Considering what the borg were for most of TNG, this is pretty sad.

    Maybe they already knew that the next Star Trek series was to be a prequel, so they wouldn't need the blog anymore anyway. Not until Enterprise got desperate for ideas, that is.

    I think this—and Voyager as a whole—was the beginning of the end of Trek. They started something really great in Pathfinder. Why couldn't they build on that? I'm not saying they just get to fly through a wormhole and cross to the alpha quadrant, but come on...give me anything but another weak as water time travel story.

    Even old Janeway remarks about how tiresome time travel is.

    I did enjoy seeing the crew in their older years, but that doesn't make up for the steaming mess of improbabilities that was End Game.

    Oh Voyager. Mindless to the end eh? This show was so bad, but I finally finished it and my god am I relieved. No more disappointing mediocre action plots. No more massive missed opportunities. No more aggressively being average. No more caricatures that refuse to change. Am I glad I watched through this entire show? Well... probably not. It was really bad. If this wasn't a Star Trek show, I wouldn't have bothered. But at least it's done right? I breathed a major sigh of relief when it was over, let me tell you.

    I didn't expect it to be satisfying. Voyager has never been satisfying. They never used their full potential. So the fact that they waited until the very last second of screen time to get Voyager home really wasn't surprising.

    You know, it took me four years to watch through all of Voyager, but in that time I watched DS9 three times because of how good it is.

    Also, Elliott is nowhere to be found? This is Voyager's finale and he loves to defend Voyager. I'd actually be curious to hear what he thinks of this one.

    After all the distance they travelled in 7 years (by my reckoning by the events of "Renaissance Man" they had to be virtually to the Beta Quadrant border, and even nearing the outermost fringes of the Klingon Empire), it's hard to believe it took another 16 years to get the rest of the way.

    And they went a bit overboard on aging some of the characters, particularly Harry Kim. He'd only be 55 here, they made him pretty shriveled for 55. B'ehlanna, Tom, and Harry all look older than Janeway does. They all got wrinkly, rubbery faces, all Janeway got is gray hair.

    They had roughly 30k light years to go. That could have taken nearly 30 years. I DO agree that at the speed they were going it probably wouldn't have, but there's no reason to assume they kept pace. It easily could have taken another 9 or 10. 16 is probably a bit much.

    I agree that it was an apt end for the show. And I don't mean that quite as cynically as Jammer.

    Couple of points:

    - I like how the Doc's future wife was basically Seven 2.0

    - Harry's "It's all about the journey" speech had me in stitches. I mean my god, how cornball can you get..

    This would have been appropriate.

    TUVOK: "There's a vessel coming through the [temporal] rift."
    CHAKOTAY: "Klingon?"
    TUVOK: "No. Federation."
    JANEWAY: "Geez, I hope it's not Captain Braxton again."

    I think the thing that bothered me most, and this might seem trivial, but it was the first scene with Naomi Wildman's daughter. Harry talked to her, and Janeway patted her on the head... But they basically decided that her life was inconsequential. Yes maybe Naomi's life would have followed the same path, and she would have met the same guy and gotten pregnant at the same time - but what are the odds? Janeway took it upon herself to change the course of history, and wipe Naomi's daughter out of existence

    I would have thought this episode was okay, if it wasn't for the extreme selfishness of Janeway. If she had been going back in time to prevent some horrible tragedy that affected all of humanity (like Picard in the TNG finale), that would have been one thing. But to go back in time, just to save three friends... Not that three friends aren't important, but it doesn't make sense. I have loved ones that I'd like to bring back, but I wouldn't put all of humanity at risk for it. And why not go back farther, and just destroy the array? Sure they wouldn't save (or even meet) 7 of 9,... but they would save countless others who died throughout the years.

    Also, it reduced Janeway to the pathetic sadness of the captain in 'Year of Hell', who just kept trying over and over to restore his wife. Consequences be damned! It would have made more sense if there was some kind of consequence... For example, if Tuvok or Seven had died on the way home.

    It didn't bother me that they didn't show what happened after the crew got home. I'd rather leave that up to my imagination, anyway.

    Watching this as an adult, with my kids and wife next to me (and seeing how hooked they were), really made me appreciate this episode. When I was younger, I found it derivative and hokey, but seeing it through less jaded, less cynical eyes, I now think it's a great episode.

    You get a real sense of family, camraderie and of Janeway's sacrifices and sadness. Yes, the ending is a kind of philosophical cop-out, but it nevertheless allows the episode to tap into themes of altruism and sacrifice. Above all, the episode embodies what I like best about the Trek ethos. Its "the needs of the many" ideology is pretty radical in our age of rampant, capitalistic "individualism" (which we're told benefits all).

    I liked the way Endgame also tied in with the first episode of Voyager. Overall, I'd say the final season of Voyager was Trek's best final season.

    The ending was so bad the worst ever in any sci fi tv-show and the last season I found only 4 episodes to be good. I think Braga lost ideas for tv-show. It was too many episodes with Borg and nothing else. As soon seven of nine arrived at show it become so different and not so interesting anymore. Still it OK to watch but that was the best they come with ending.Bad very very bad ending I was predending I was watching something else. Predicting Feature please...

    Just re-watched this tonight and it really is the perfect finale for this show. They cheated. They had their cake and ate it too. Just as the crew of Voyager cheated, so did the writers: they cheated the fans out of the series Voyager could have been, given its premise, and gave us reheated TNG instead. (Oh, and while they were at it, they ruined the Borg.)

    When I was through watching this I found myself thinking about Farscape, a TV show with a similar premise of space travelers stranded far from home. Specifically, I was thinking about the episode in which the food rations had run out and the characters were actually starving to death. (They ended up having to join an outer space mining camp in order to earn enough money to eat.) I wish Voyager had given us stories like that...but they didn't. Instead, food never ran out and the ship was always repaired by the next episode, ad characters never had to pay the price for their actions, because the writers never saw that as important.

    I know Brannon Braga is bewildered as to why the Trek fandom turned on him so vehemently--for me, Voyager was the reason. Under Braga, Voyager was a craven show, and ultimately a failure.

    And Seven and Chakotay was just silly. Like combining a firecracker with a glass of warm milk. One is explosive; the other just puts me to sleep.

    I've always felt like Endgame was like a redux or poor man's version of All Good Things + First Contact. It didn't feel like Voyager. At this point Voyager was content repeating some of the things that made TNG great so I'm not exactly surprised, just disappointed. The finale should have delt with the Caretaker in some way, IMO.

    Even though the books aren't canon, I think a few of the post Endgame books, some of their story elements could have been worked into a great finale for Voyager. Ah well.

    Voyager was a bad series-premise to begin with (i.e. More "Wizard of Oz" than Star Trek) and "Endgame" was just Dorothy clicking her heels.
    Even if Admiral Janeway was senile or something, what about CAPTAIN Janeway so readily breaking the Temporal Prime Directive? By cooperating with this plan, she'd be just as guilty.
    A much better plot would have been Captain Janeway refusing her older self's assistance, and saying she was ashamed of what she had become, to want to play God and destroy the timeline for her own purposes.
    But then, Janeway never cared much for regulations, since she violated the Prime Directive from square 1, in the pilot episode, by interfering in the Delta Quadrant where she had no authority rather than obeying her priority to the Federation by protecting her ship and her crew. This shows that she felt herself to be above the law, and able to violate orders with impunity if she thought she had a good reason.
    This was directly against the philosophy of Star Trek: such as in "The Doomsday Machine," when Spock accepts Decker's assertion of authority under regulations, when on Voyager he'd just give him a Vulcan Neckpinch.
    The moral: you can't break the law just because you think you have a good reason.
    But that's all Janeway ever did-- however to add insult in injury, in one episode she badmouthed the TOS crew for violating them all the time, snarkily sneering "they'd get kicked out of Starfleet in a second today."
    I'm sorry, didn't Spock expressly tell McCoy there was nothing he could do about Decker's taking over under regulations, even at certain death to the ship?
    Didn't Kirk sacrifice his own life, and his crew obeyed, to avoid violating his oath in "Bread and Circuses"?
    No, the writers of Voyager were just smug and arrogant... and it showed; that's why the franchise went "prequel" with Star Trek: Enterprise... and accordingly, downhill.

    Tricia: "I think the thing that bothered me most, and this might seem trivial, but it was the first scene with Naomi Wildman's daughter. Harry talked to her, and Janeway patted her on the head... But they basically decided that her life was inconsequential. Yes maybe Naomi's life would have followed the same path, and she would have met the same guy and gotten pregnant at the same time - but what are the odds?"

    About the same odds as her getting pregnant with the same child: i.e. zero over infinity. It would be a DIFFERENT PERSON; that daughter we saw at the opening scene was GONE.
    Not even history, but WIPED from history entirely; never existed, never would.
    And the same goes for everyone and everything else affected by such a monumental event as destroying the Borg queen, hub and conduit, along with Voyager returning; it would make Nero's destruction of Vulcan look like a picnic in terms of lives erased and altered.

    I watched this again and feel it unfairly gets a bad rep. This is ultimately pop-corn; a low brow adventure with a dollop of soap opera and some high concept action sequences. It's Voyager being Voyager.

    Go in with low expectations and it works well I think. That is, aside from those rediculous "shield plates" which the ship acquires.

    Of course I would have hoped that the crew got home earlier in the series, or at the very least during the first half of the final episode. The actors milked what emotion they could from that final scene, but it was not nearly enough. Where was Tom’s reunion with his father? Kim’s promotion to Lieutenant? Seven’s first steps on Earth?

    The second-best option, and one that was seriously considered if you can believe the DVD extras, would have been for the crew to stay in the Delta Quadrant. Say what you will, Harry’s « rousing » speech about doing what’s right was the best scene of the episode, and seemed to be heading toward this alternate ending.

    Unfortunately, we got the least interesting option, which was the crew getting home at the last minute without any valuable payoff for the characters we’ve known for seven years. I don’t mind plot-based stories, both DS9 and Voyager have done their fare share very well. But there’s barely a plot here to speak of.
    - Captain Kim from the future tells Admiral Janeway that her device will burn itself out after one use, a contrivance I have trouble swallowing.
    - All talk of the Temporal Prime Directive is hogwash because it has been firmly established that it exists in the 29th century, not the 24th.
    - The very existence of a transwarp hub seems redundant as it’s been shown before (in « Dark Frontier » and way back in TNG’s « Descent ») that Borg ships generate their own transwarp conduits without the need for hubs. This is a real lack of imagination on the writers’ part.
    - The entire gimmick of Voyager hiding in a Borg sphere that explodes. In any plausible notion of this story, Voyager would have been destroyed along with the sphere, armour from the future or not.
    Someone once called Voyager the « Gilligan’s Island » of Trek. That seems awfully appropriate.

    A disappointing end to a series that began with so much potential. 2 stars.

    @Nic: Also, minor nitpick add-on, but notice that Voyager remains at red alert after entering the Alpha Quadrant all the way to Janeway's last words, even keeping the lights dim. (Remember "Basics Part I" when the head Kazon guy boarding the bridge commented "Why is it so dark in here? Someone turn on the lights!" Wink, nudge!) Come on, you're home free, at least turn up the brightness a bit!

    The crew didn't seem to react much to coming back home to Earth in general - they just sat there like "meh, another day in the office". One of the little details that made BSG feel more authentic was that after every victory, big or small, the entire command center spontaneously erupted in cheers. Small things like that made Voyager feel fake from a character standpoint. I feel sorry for Robert Beltran; he became a very vocal critic of the show towards its end and I really don't blame him.

    That said, Voyager wasn't a bad series overall, it just could (and should) have been much more that it was.

    I watched nearly every episode of this series twice. I watched this episode twice, and it still doesn't make sense to me. I wish I had all that time back.

    If I recall, I got rid of my TV around this time and still haven't bothered to replace it.

    I guess I am in the minority but I like Voyager best. The original: too obsessed with Gods and powers far beyond them and too many idiotic decisions...and there were those random '60's crap episodes, and of course zero continuity, and seriously terrible attempts at sets. The Next Generation: the ship is too big, they ludicrously endanger too many children. Come on that is just stupid to go around with a city into dangerous situations, and too many characters are sleeping around with whatever alien shows up. The counselor is a tramp, and so is the first officer. That guy just gives me the creeps. But all in all the second best series. The style of the ship interior and uniforms are great, even though they have to straiten them every 5 minutes. Data, the captain, Barclay, Jordi...good characters and great actors. DS9: horrible. They go nowhere. I hate the whole besieged thing, they have to make the religious leader with absolutely no redeeming qualities at all. Sisko acts calm...but he just is not believable doing so, and they make something of him being black...who would care 300 years from now? The actor who plays Tovok on the other hand had a very convincing calm. Sisko was ok though in many other aspects. Just too much interpersonal nonsense on the show. Miles is too old for his wife. And domestic quarrels are not entertaining. His wife is a terrible actress with absolutely no warmth. And Miles is just too grouchy and serious...hurt the series. Cardassian architecture and instrument panels...just ugly. And repeated equipment malfunctions just gets stupid after a while. The bar and casino stuff...why? That is the best they can come up with for activities in a space station? And the nice holodecks of the next generation get turned into orgy "holosweets". Garak, Bashir, Zek, Eddington, Fontaine, Ezri Dax, Old Jake Sisko (in "the Visitor"), are all great characters played well. Voyager is much more clean. There is no bar. It is a restaurant/cafeteria. The holodecks are holodecks like in the Next Generation. The mission, though not chosen, is more like the original...better really, as the original went back and forth and were never too distant from Earth. Voyager characters...I don't like how they try to make everyone go bad and ugly if they leave: Kes comes back an old angry woman just like the captain does later. Even Harry is a bit of a jerk when he is living with the consequences of causing everyone to die. Then they do a heist and take a transwarp coil which is very difficult but later they have a whole Borg cube when they take in the children Borg but do nothing with the cube. Couldn't they take some transwarp coils from that one, maybe some weapons and other stuff. Heck they could have fixed it and taken it home. Whoever wrote that episode is an idiot. Nanoprobe cure Nelex from the dead hours later, but they can't save other people later with far less severe injuries? I guess you have to be a main character to be worth saving. Joseph Carey...one shot to the chest and the doctor gives up after less than a second. And then there is the way too complicated surgery for Tom to be guided to do while the Doctor works on the other patient...that is not complicated at all. And why the hell can they initialize the doctor twice so they have 2 doctors when there are 2 patients? The holo emitters have no problem making more than one hologram? Is everything copy protected in the future? Apparently, that is of even higher priority than the "prime directive". Did not care for 7 of 9. And there was a break up between Kes and Nelex that makes no sense. It happens in another timeline or something like that but then they act like in happened anyway. That make no sense, plus Ocampans mate for life. The writers must have been smoking weed. Giving birth on their backs? Why not their armpits? Come on...who spun the random wheel? The Doctor never improves his personality or fixes his ego issues, in fact, he just keeps violating the captain's orders even worse. You would think he could learn some of these things. And the episode with the ferengi...comes off in the end like a Gilligan's island episode. People on that ship would be quite a bit more depressed after loosing their trip through the wormhole.

    Well, anyway. The finale: dreadful. If you are writing a finale the first thing you consider is the final scene...some celebration, some tears of joy...then you decide how you are going to get to that end. The path they chose could not go there. How can you have killed thousands of drones and they say "whoopee, we are home?" How is it "idealist" to try to kill thousands of Borg and their transportation hub after you had a truce with them? Why stir up the hive? They are not going to use one of the other 5 hubs and arrive at Earth with a hundred cubes 5 minutes later? What is with this militant crap? Totally out of character, but we are supposed to accept that? What happened to making peace with the Borg and species 8472, and anyone else who might be a scourge?

    If I were writing it, it might go something like this: The Borg queen is killed by the virus that is in Icheb when the Borg go and try to recover that cube. Borg come and surround Voyager with dozens of cubes forming a massive cube with a hollow center with Voyager inside. They don't make their customary greeting...instead they ask for 7 of 9 and it is learned eventually that they intend to make her their queen because the other was lost. She feels an obligation and an opportunity to make a difference and does so after discussions with Janeway and others. She changes their way of life...makes them grow infants in maturation chambers rather than assimilating. This is accomplished by taking the body of "One" from the episode:Drone and recovering an undamaged "One" from the transport buffer in his site to site transporter devise on his wrist making him materialize again just like he was being transported with some Voyager crew help after some doubts and impassioned argument. She expands unimatrix 0 to all Borg when they are regenerating and expands regeneration time. And instead of assimilating technology from current civilizations, she instead has them scour the galaxy for technology from advanced dead civilizations. Chakote joins the collective to stay with 7 of 9, in a surprise move that 7 of 9 accepts after some thought realizing that he has accepted her leaving the ship so why can't she, if she really believes in the reborn Borg collective. And 7 of 9 sends Voyager home down the hub with a dozen cubes following. Earth fears the worst, but the cubes after an unusual greeting leave, as a clear gesture that they no no longer are attempting to assimilate Earth. Janeway comes home with a peace accord with the Borg. Big celebration, but with mild concern for Chakote and 7 of 9 and well-wishing them (by toast) on the Borg transformation which is less than certain because many cubes are cut off because of the disruption from the virus...and we can't be certain they will all accept her or if she can control the will of the whole Borg with such an abrupt change.

    So if you did not like the real ending, visualize that one ;)

    What I would like to know is how Voyager got home in the original, unaltered timeline. We know it was 16 years after 'Endgame', so it couldn't have been by conventional warp travel, the ship was still about 30 years from Earth by the finale. Was it quantum slipstream or another form of propulsion technology, a wormhole, another transwarp hub in the Beta Quadrant? Even a handwave would have been nice!

    That finale was underwhelming.

    So was Michael's trolling on this one. He was never great at it, but he seemed to get worse at it as time went on. Kinda fitting, really.

    "What I would like to know is how Voyager got home in the original, unaltered timeline. We know it was 16 years after 'Endgame', so it couldn't have been by conventional warp travel, the ship was still about 30 years from Earth by the finale. Was it quantum slipstream or another form of propulsion technology, a wormhole, another transwarp hub in the Beta Quadrant? Even a handwave would have been nice!"

    They managed to go 36 years in the first 7 (via several shortcuts). The fact that it took another 16 to go 30 means they seriously slowed down. Even just a couple of little shortcuts (2 or 3 little boosts of 3 years) plus some better stellar cartography would make this believable.

    Their biggest jumps were Kes (10 years), slipstream (10 year), and the transwarp conduit (20 years). But they constantly had little boosts like the Vadwaur's corridors and the catapult. Of course some of that just balances the time we went backwards through Kazon space, but w/e. Nobody's perfect.

    @ Robert

    Kazon Space:

    They were going through Kazon space to gather supplies, because with a less advanced species they were safer, and knew there could be bigger problems, like cy-borgs, space dino and the WWE Rock, Dwayne Johnson.

    Getting Home:

    Barclay invented a hyper fast ship, going at Dr Crusher's Warp 14, and went to get them. Voyager was towed back home by this ship.

    Sisko gave them the info for the fast ship, by coming back from the wormhole with new info from the prophets.

    There were some big flaws, especially future Janeway doing an about-face seemingly because of Harry Kim's speech, but a lot of strengths.
    In particular I thought both future Janeway's and present Janeway's decisions were acknowledged as highly ethically questionable and I don't see why a finale must have (actual) sacrifice, especially when the ending made it seem as if the plan could have and nearly did lead to the whole crew dying.
    A lot of the supposed loose ends were addressed or plausibly inferred from previous episodes and the possible future (the Maquis will be pardoned and with the rest of the crew praised, Kim and the Doctor will greatly advance in their fields, Tom and B'Elanna will do well in and/or out of Starfleet, Chakotay and Tuvok will remain close to Janeway, Seven's future is the most up-in-the-air but she will, despite obstacles, continue to grow).

    We also know that Admiral Paris is/will be proud of his son, that Janeway and Mark have both moved on, that Tuvok and his wife will be pleased to reunite, that Seven has relatives, that Torres and her father will try to reconnect, I don't think it's necessary to show those reunions.

    It is a little too under-addressed why Admiral Janeway choose this particular moment but its reasonable to infer that it was the best chance to get all the way home, maybe having Chakotay and Seven begun their romance and (I wish this had been emphasized more) that she felt this was the first time she had grown close enough to the crew that she would consider acting selfishly.

    I'm a very (very, very) casual voyager fan and I've never seen any other star trek shows so take my comment with a grain of salt, but I've watched Voyager on Netflix for the past few months and I am utterly confused why anyone thinks Seven and The Doctor should have ended up together. Time and time again she shows zero interest in the Doctor: she makes it very clear when she kisses him on the cheek that it's platonic; she tells him that there is no one of interest on the ship to her--very directly implying to him that he is included in that assessment; he flat out tells her he is in love with her and she still does not want him; and in the last episode, she tells him she does not want his "assistance" with learning how to have a relationship. It would have been at the expense of her character if the writers indulged in that male fantasy of the beautiful woman finally realizing that she loves the less attractive, nerdy guy.

    Now as for her and Chakotay (who was duller than dull, in my eyes), I think the actors actually did well considering the last-minute wrap up of it (and looking back, those two do make more sense together than Seven/The Doctor. I wish the writers would have realized it sooner though). Plus, I like seeing two pretty people kiss...so there's that!

    " I am utterly confused why anyone thinks Seven and The Doctor should have ended up together. "

    Wishful thinking, as they're the 2 best characters on this show by far why not have them together I suppose.

    Now that Earth has advanced futuristic technology, wouldn't the Borg launch an all out attack against Earth? Sure, they destroyed the transwarp hub, so it would take the Borg some time to get there, but there are other transwarp hubs that could possibly cut that journey down. Either way, Earth would be in for a massive war either weeks, months, years or decades away - there is no way the Borg will ignore that kind of technology. Even if the Federation uses the time to replicate the future-tech, getting attacked by thousands of cubes/spheres simultaneously would probably be catastrophic for the Federation. Also, the Borg would spend the entire journey (no matter the length) analyzing their results from the last encounter, building defenses, and possibly even replicating some of it themselves (especially if they managed to get any info from future-Janeway before she died).

    Also, I doubt that the Borg are "destroyed" - I'd imagine they would be Hydra-esque - kill one queen, and another drone (groomed for the position) rises. It would be incredibly short sighted for the Borg to die because one queen dies (and didn't Enterprise-E kill a queen without destroying the Borg?)

    Basically, this episode probably condemned the Federation to death.

    @Jay
    Sat, Sep 5, 2009, 7:57am (UTC -6)
    For what it's worth, many more people watched Voyager than Deep Space Nine.

    Doubtful

    Tiarfe
    Sun, Oct 7, 2012, 8:53pm (UTC -6)
    "Just finished watching series Finale. I enjoyed the final episode and thought the Borg Queen limbs detaching was funny.

    I believe this was a great ending to the series because additional scenes would have just been a lot of repetitive drama that was seen when the crew were talking to families on the ship."

    You mean repetitive character depth and development? Yeah, we didnt need that. And the fact that the most vicious, deadly and sinister threat in Star Trek history was reduced to you finding it funny that limbs were detached tells you all you need to know about the shape of that series and how bad that finale was.

    @Mindbreaker you have too many things in your post. And trying to drag down the other series to justify Voyager is silly. The others were clearly superior.

    @Caitlin
    Tue, Dec 8, 2015, 5:23pm (UTC -6)
    I'm a very (very, very) casual voyager fan and I've never seen any other star trek shows so take my comment with a grain of salt, but I've watched Voyager on Netflix for the past few months and I am utterly confused why anyone thinks Seven and The Doctor should have ended up together. Time and time again she shows zero interest in the Doctor: she makes it very clear when she kisses him on the cheek that it's platonic; she tells him that there is no one of interest on the ship to her--very directly implying to him that he is included in that assessment; he flat out tells her he is in love with her and she still does not want him; and in the last episode, she tells him she does not want his "assistance" with learning how to have a relationship. It would have been at the expense of her character if the writers indulged in that male fantasy of the beautiful woman finally realizing that she loves the less attractive, nerdy guy.

    Now as for her and Chakotay (who was duller than dull, in my eyes), I think the actors actually did well considering the last-minute wrap up of it (and looking back, those two do make more sense together than Seven/The Doctor. I wish the writers would have realized it sooner though). Plus, I like seeing two pretty people kiss...so there's that!

    Huh? So basically you're vain and you think that only two people you consider "attractive" worthy of each other even though that does not happen in the real world? Yet your opinion is logical and the realistic situation is a "male fantasy?" Wow.

    @romemmy If the Federation was able to build a defense against the Borg three decade into the future why would current day Borg's be able to counteract something the Borg couldn't defeat that far into the future? You forget, the Borg also had knowledge of these weapons in the future and clearly encountered it yet they were unable to figure it out. So why would they be able to figure it out with 30 years less of information? And what could Janeway have from an informational standpoint that could possibly give all of the major secrets to a technology created by Starfleet? Maybe strategical plans but a technology? Highly doubtful. If the Borg could not adapt 30 years in the future while actively fighting the technology nothing will change in the present.

    I really want to give this one a good mark. I mean love some of the ideas the writers bring up with: time travel, unforgettable mistakes, and outsmarting the Borg. I suppose my problem is that this show already touched on these matters in a more compelling way. For time travel and mistakes, there's "Timeless" . For outsmarting the Borg, we have "Scorpion".

    And the only sort of epilogue we get is a Voyager crew is from a not so happy future which ultimately won't be the show's ending anyway. I think they could've done better with the writing staff they had and the stories leading up to "Endgame". But for some reason we get this odd sort of Borg Queen gambit, and a story which provides few, if any, paybacks for the journey.

    2.5 Stars.

    What annoyed me was the gigantic size of the admirals shuttle next to voyager.

    I also didn't like that janeway went back just because of three dear crew members whereas she has lost a lot more over the years…well.

    The ending should have more been something of a build up, voyager getting home using wits rather than hand delivered future kick ass technology, like in timeless..

    I think its funny for them to toast "to the journey" whereas the series has been more or less been comprised of single and stand alone episodes. the series has not really been about a journey.

    after seven years of watching the show, Im sure most people would have liked a scene or a whole episode at home. I mean, they had star fleet and maquis people. There must be some kind of trial or decision on how to proceed.

    Well, at least the armor looked cool.

    I think Nancy in the comments above put my thoughts precisely into words - "I was entertained, but not satisfied." As a spectacle this was top notch, ablative armour, transphasic torpedos, transwarp hubs, disintegrating Borg queen and all. And it was never less than intriguing, and at times exciting.

    But... that conclusion was ultimately as underwhelming and unsatisfying as could be. In some respects I have some sympathy with the writers idea that the beginning of the episode be the end, but clearly that timeline is gone by the finish - and that in and of itself is something that probably needs more than a cursory nod.

    The other thing that bothered me is that both cynical and idealistic Janeway both get to be right - they can get home early and lay a hit on the Borg. But that to me undermines the whole earlier debate - why does it matter who's right then? And the power of that debate was in the fact that one was right and one was wrong...

    I was underwhelmed but not angered by the Chakotay/Seven relationship, there was at least some trailing going on there and I agree that to have her end up with the Doctor would have been crass in the extreme.

    So a curates egg to wrap up with, some good, some not do good. Definitely a leit motif for the series as a whole. 3 stars.

    I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I'm ok with the series ending the way it did, namely, ending at the moment that the crew reaches the Alpha Quadrant. I realize that a ton of people wanted to see the aftermath of their return home and all (some even suggesting that they should get home before the finale!), but I just can't see how that would work without turning into a case of epilogue-itis. The point of the show was Voyager getting home. The climax, naturally, is them getting home. We don't need a long strung out sequence of events afterwards.

    It's not a parallel case with DS9 (which, while a superior finale, I felt did have too much of an epilogue-itis feel at the end). There were two different plotlines to resolve in that finale (the war and the Pagh-wraiths), so any single one couldn't have served as the climax. Thus, you needed a more drawn out resolution. Furthermore, with Sisko becoming a prophet or whatever and Odo potentially never seeing his species again, there were going to be some shakeups required. Rapid and permanent changes are happening that need to be mentioned. But Voyager? What happens after they get home. They all probably get debriefed, maybe have a party, then go take a month long vacation, getting in contact with old family and friends and adjusting to life back on Earth or wherever. Only then can we get a "where are they now" situation as their lives move on. But how do you show that? I think it would fail no matter what they did. So best to just leave the whole thing to the imagination.

    That's not to say that Endgame handled the matter well, of course. They completely avoided the compromise answer that was staring at them right in the face; have the character resolution occur BEFORE the plot resolution. They knew that they were going to try to get home. They knew that this was the biggest, most important mission they would have in the Delta Quadrant. They knew that everything might be over within a day or two. So why not show any of that? I guess it wouldn't be a party or anything, since there was no guarantee of success. But why not show the characters all coming to grips with the fact that this time, it may be for real? Whether that be renewed eagerness for picking up their lives back home and wistfulness at the end of the road might be different for each character, but at least acknowledge it! That way we could still have the show end with Voyager looking at Earth, but still get the character resolutions that everyone wanted.

    Heck, I think they should have gone beyond that and had these character resolutions spread out throughout the seventh season. They had constant contact with Starfleet at that point, so it could be continually brought up as B plots to whatever the A plot was at the time. This was done nicely in Author Author, with everyone getting face time with their relatives again, but that was too short. For example, why not resolve the Maquis issue once and for all? They brought it up earlier once Voyager was in contact with Starfleet, but then dropped it again. Why not show Janeway and Chakotay working together to produce a firm response to Starfleet that there is no Maquis problem. Why not get official confirmation from Starfleet that the Maquis crew would be pardoned, and could even join Starfleet if they wish? Then we could see Chakotay, B'Elanna, and Tom (not Maquis, but I assume he gets pardoned as well) discussing if that is the life they want. Why not, when Icheb expressed interest in joining Starfleet, have Janeway ask Seven if she's interested as well? We could have had little character resolutions spread out throughout Season 7 so we wouldn't NEED to complain about its lack of presence in Endgame.

    As for old Janeway's decision, I think there was some good there, although it wasn't fully executed. I and many others believe that Janeway's character arc through the show is a negative one, that she goes from being an optimistic, confident, idealistic young captain to emotionally scarred, pragmatic, and believing the ends justify the means by the end due to the crushing responsibility of getting her crew home against all odds. Old Janeway, then, works as a continuation of that character arc. She is even more beat-down, even more uncaring about Federation ideals or morality or whatnot. Only one thing matters to her, getting that ship home sooner, regardless of all the temporal negative consequences that would occur. Frankly, I don't think we're supposed to be cheering for her. The show goes out of the way to make her unsympathetic (particularly when she claims not to care about crippling the Borg), and I'm inclined to believe that's what the writers wanted.

    I think it was clever to show the future as a nominally happy one, thus making us question Janeway's decision. But at the same time, there were three castmembers for whom the future was unhappy: Seven, Chakotay, and Tuvok. And those are the only three members of Voyager's crew that Janeway had a close relationship with! Again, I think that's intentional, and I think that works as a way to rationalize Janeway's decision in her mind. Sure, she could claim she's going back for all of the 23 crewmembers killed in that time frame, but we know that her personal guilt by seeing her personal friends suffer only magnifies the issue.

    The problem, though, is that if this was the intent, it's obscured. For one thing, if Old Janeway was beaten down and filled with guilt, she sure didn't show it. She acted just like young Janeway in a wig! Secondly, I would think the arguments between the two Janeways would be more pronounced if this were the case. We really need to confront this issue, of Janeway slipping into desperation, head on. Maybe have a big argument that ends with young Janeway saying that she despises the thought that she will end up like Old Janeway, and Old Janeway responding that she's trying to change the future so that Young Janeway won't HAVE to end up like this. Or something, I don't know, there's a reason I'm not in Hollywood writing. But show the conflict boiling over.

    It would also allow our Janeway to leave the show on a positive note, noting that she manages to get home without "crossing the line" and becoming like old Janeway. It would show that her future as an unsympathetic character is not set in stone.

    Oh, and as for the complaints that Janeway should have gone further back in time to save Caray and others? Well, the problem is that her method of getting home required the Borg superhighway, and so she needed to come at that time. Sure, she could come earlier and then give a bunch of advice to her younger self, except A) she knows that her younger self wouldn't put up with that, and may not be able to do all that much to save anyone, B) as the timestreams start to diverge, her knowledge becomes less relevant, and may lead to an even more catastrophic failure of Voyager, and C) if she goes further back in time she'd have to put up with Neelix again, and some sacrifices just aren't worth it.

    So that's two major elements of the plot that I liked the idea of, but don't think it was executed well. How about the actual trip home? Well, it was exciting, of course. All looking really cool and daring and all. And it was certainly epic, going above and beyond all the other little tricks and teases we've seen over the years. If it was just a normal wormhole or cosmic slipstream or whatever, I don't think it would have the same impact. But a massive Borg superhighway? OK, that looks cool and "worthy" of a grand finale. So, the continued wimpification of the Borg aside (ugh, it's lame, but I don't want to talk about it), there's a good idea here. But I think Jammer stated it quite well; the problem was that everything became routine. There was no real sacrifice, no real danger. Everything just kinda unfolded the way it was supposed to in a formulaic manner. The only tension was in the writers faking us out; pretending that Old Janeway betrayed the ship and pretending that Voyager left its course while in the transwarp stream. We needed more tension, more drama, more sacrifice. Like what?

    Here's my idea: let's assume, as before, that Old Janeway needs to go to the unicomplex in her shuttle (to get her out of the way). But try as they might, they can't come up with a solution to destroy the hub before entering the transwarp conduit. That is, until Young Janeway tells the crew her solution. They fly in, eject all the escape pods (with the crew inside) into the conduit that brings them back home, and Janeway flies Voyager alone into the heart of the conduit to destroy it. The crew naturally protest, but she won't hear it. She would gladly sacrifice her life to save 23 members of her crew, which is what Old Janeway said would happen. And she would gladly sacrifice her life as a Starfleet captain to deal a crippling blow to the Borg. She tells them not to grieve for her; the knowledge that she succeeded in her mission - to get them home safely - is comforting to her and allows her to be at peace with her impending decision. So the plan happens, and we get the action sequence of the beefed up Voyager taking on the Borg, with Janeway as a badass manning the bridge while explosions happen all around her (reminiscent of Picard in Yesterday's Enterprise), culminating with her ramming the complex and it blowing up. We could then end with the rest of the crew, safely in the Alpha quadrant on a Federation ship, being saddened and silently mourning their captain. But someone (Barclay perhaps) interrupts, and eventually the crew realize that Janeway would have wanted this to be a joyous occasion, and look forward to their return to Earth with a feeling of hope.

    A gutsy call, perhaps, killing the star in the finale of what was a lighthearted show. So maybe that's going too far. So maybe not go that far. Keep what I said above, where Young Janeway shoots down any objections to her plan. After the meeting, the rest of the crew talk to Chakotay to try to get her to change her mind. He tells them that when she's in this kind of mood, she can't be budged. So try to find a better solution. Then, when the big action sequence comes, we see all the escape pods leave Voyager and enter the conduit. We also see the Delta Flyer leave, but we don't see it enter the conduit. Then Janeway has her big epic moment as before against the Borg, blasting her way through and setting a collision course. But right before Voyager hits the complex we see her beamed out. She's as surprised as we are, but the rest of the main cast is on the Delta Flyer and glad to see her. She's a bit upset at them ignoring her orders, but Chakotay said they didn't tell her about this plan because they knew she would object. Everyone tells her that it wouldn't be worth getting home without their captain. Well, everyone except Tom, who's busy piloting the Flyer through the conduit at the exact moment as its collapsing, dramatically escaping right into the waiting arms of a Federation vessel. We confirm that the rest of the crew made it safe and sound, and we get a final coda on board the Delta Flyer as the episode ends.

    Sure, that might seem like it's also having your cake and eating it too, but there's still the sacrifice of the ship. There's still a twinge of regret over the whole situation, that they achieved what they wanted but at the loss of a part of them. They will never be able to set foot on Voyager again; their home was destroyed. And while that's a small price to pay for killing the Borg and getting back to Earth, it's still somewhat poignant. It would also set up some character resolution beforehand like I said above. The crew would know, one way or the other, that this is the end. And we could see them reflect on it.

    Oh well, just some idle thoughts I had. I suppose its only fitting that I should end my Voyager reviews this way. All throughout the show, there was a constant theme: good idea, had potential, but could have been done better. And when it comes down to it, that's what Endgame is: a good idea with potential, but could have been better. The show ended on the same note it's been hitting for years.

    Back when the finale aired, I did not mind that no aftermath was shown to bring a closure to all the story arcs that were created during seven seasons, because I was hoping for a few Voyager movies on the big screen to show us all the consequences upon returning but as of this writing, there are no plans for bringing VOY on the big screen.

    @ navamske
    Tue, Jun 29, 2010, 10:18pm (UTC -5)

    "The biggest plot hole, I think, pointed out or at least implied by the Borg Queen when she was dying, stemmed from the fact that Future Janeway created a "grandfather paradox" kinda thing. By getting Voyager home sixteen years earlier, she effectively erased the future she came from, including herself, meaning that she would not have existed to go back in time and get Voyager home sixteen years early. "

    Old post I know, but good discussion. this caught my ear as well, but I think the writers took this into consideration at the end. Janeway and Voyager made it into the trasnwarp hub before Old-Janeway died. I think this allows Voyager to get home. I could be wrong of course.

    I just can't beat up the time-travel aspect of Endgame because you can beat up every single trek time travel episode for some sort of nonsense. Like I've said before, it's a trek staple so I just enjoy the stories and little intricacies while telling the story. Your eyes would bleed trying to make hey out of every detail. What if, why this, why not.... etc. It is what it is. Janeway's little gadget got old Janeway there in a spot where she could get them home... that was her goal so complaining about not going back to the Caretaker or before is just blabbing IMO. She needed the transwarp hub and needed to meet Voyager there.

    I love the old-Janeway/Janeway conversations throughout this one.

    I also could give a rats ass what color Janeway's curtain are in her bathroom after getting home etc. The whole 7 years has been about getting home. I have no problem with the finale completing this. (although I would have like to see them stranded with a movie getting them home or something to that effect.)

    I about puked when Harry gave is "it's the journey" speech... good lord, really? Then right after that the take the "short-cut" anyways? What were they trying to accomplish? ... we all know that the crew is loyal to Janeway.

    I gave WYLB 3 stars, this was better so I'll go 3.5. Still not at AGT's 4 star level.

    I don't remember anyone saying this, and I'm surprised Jammer didn't make mention of it.

    The last line for Janeway in Caretaker was "set a course for home".

    Her last line of the series was "set a course for home".

    sniff, sniff...

    I thought this was better than DS9's closer. At least they remembered they were Star Fleet. Noone turned into a frellin god...

    I just finished watching "Voyager" on Netflix this past weekend. I remembered why I was so irritated with this show at that time.
    They use time travel as a fast way to get a plot point across without using any logic. (Not to sound Vulcan) Paradox after paradox, returns to the point, that once you create a new timeline, it will loop to the point of it's beginning. And start again. And repeat.
    Janeway's solution was to go back in time, and give high tech equipment to her prior self, and bring them home earlier. Coming home earlier, erases everything, including the need to be brought back. So, by not doing this, they are not brought back and they stay, until, They once again are brought back, which eliminates their need...

    @Timeship

    I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable sounding technobabble solution here. Like, the future tech Janeway gives past Janeway is surrounded by chronoton particles which renders it safe from the fluctuations of time. (See "Past Tense")

    (***.5) DS9 was a far superior series on the whole but Voyager got the better send off. The only regret is not seeing 7's reaction to earth considering they spent so much time building her anticipation. As for the others, even though the future was negated I was satisfied with the original depiction of life after voyager.

    Just finished a rewatch of this series, and this finale is much more hollow than I remember it being. The whole thing screams of utterly sloppy writing. There is the borg civil war from Unimatrix Zero that is completely ignored. It was earlier established that Seven could NOT have a relationship because of one of her implants, yet now she has one with Chakotay with no issues (a relationship that just came out of nowhere and is not believable in the slightest.) Why would Admiral Janeway go to that particular point in time? Why not use the technology to simply bring Voyager back across the galaxy? Why is the exit point of the transwarp hub so close to Earth? Wouldn't it have been seen before? (They allude earlier that the exits are static: "That one leads to the Delta Quadrant.") If the Borg have trans-warp hubs, why haven't they ever sent an army to cripple Earth? With that kind of traveling power, one would think the Battle at Wolf 359 would have been a cakewalk for them.

    I love Voyager but it could have been so much more. The whole story line with the Maquis is left unanswered - it's alluded to earlier in the series that the Maquis will face severe consequences when they get back! How does Seven integrate into society? What about the Doctor? Echeb?

    My hope was that with the new Star Trek Discovery, we would at least get to see what happened to some of these characters via guest appearances, but turns out the series will be set before TOS. I don't have much hope for the Trek franchise anymore.

    To be honest, voyager has always been my favourite Star Trek series while Enterprise, DS9 and TOS are the worst, imo of course but the final episode of Voyager left me feeling cheated.

    There was just no pay off at all. I think everyone knew they would get home by the end of the episode but the abrupt ending was ridiculous.

    Under the assumption that Jammer doesn't delete posts - which would render mine irrelevant - I'm going to go with the idea that the above ad for meds is an indirect review on this episode, by way of saying that everyone who watches it needs to be medicated afterwards. With that in mind I will say that I agree with davisanderson's review.

    Peter G.

    Yeah, I just assumed that Captian Anderson grew disatisfied with his position on the council. Orthat the Citadel star child absorbed his consciousness into an AI fornefarious purposes.

    Regardless, at least we know that the pharmacy is his favorite store on the Citadel.

    FYI, I do delete any messages that are obviously spam, as well as any trolling or abuse that crosses lines of decency.

    Makes sense, Jammer. But I still maintain that the spam was a viable review of the episode :p

    Like a lot of people here, I'm left feeling a little flat. It wasn't a bad ending, but wasn't great either. Can be said for the whole series really.

    I've watched all 7 seasons over about 6 weeks, and honestly I'm not sure if I'll do it again.

    So much lost potential. What could have been great, was merely mediocre. Alas.

    2.5 stars is my rating for the entire voyager series.

    Just finished the series for the first time and like others who've already mentioned, I felt that the ending was cut off too quickly. That 7 and Chakotay romance was pretty stale and should've began much earlier in the season or even further back. It felt rushed and not genuine. On the flip side, I did enjoy seeing Alice Krige (Borg Queen) again from first contact.

    Seven: Wow, this is like the highest concentration of wormholes in one place ever...

    Later...

    Seven: Remember that time I told you there were 6 of these things?

    Wow. This episode was a pile of puke. So is this review. A perfect pike of puke to end a pile of puke series.
    This garbage constantly tried to rip off the magic of TNG. It was never legitimate on its own. "Hey let's put the Borg in half the episodes so the detestable Janeway can defeat them again and again by compromising humanity's, Starfleet's, the Federation's, and get own values, morals and rules."
    At one time, the Borg were considered one of the greatest villains in TV history. Luckily no one watched Voyager or they certainly won't be remembered that way.
    As for the finale, what a blatant attempt to rip off the essence of 'All Good Things.' Ever watch Deep Space Nine and notice it had its own characters, themes and plots? Poor Voyager. You never had a chance with Braga as the principle creative driver and Mulgrew cast in the lead.
    One note on Jeri Ryan. Her beauty and blonde over biguns want enough to make the show decent, just bought it the three final seasons. She was a great actress though. Voyager didn't deserve her. This is evidenced by the last episode melodramaromance/ with Seven & Chakotay. What a disservice to both characters and actors.
    💩

    Wasnt seven supposed to have waited for that guy from holomatrix. What happened wuth ending the series with that romance or to that dudes fate alltogether. It was partially answered since apparently the holomatrix civil war failed, so are we to asume he died in that civil war or what?

    Awesome episode, only needed an epilogue.

    The Borg were Voyager's biggest villains and and honestly to the people who say "they shoud have remained in TNG!" What fools are you!

    The Borg were stated in Q-Who as being native to the Delta Quadrant.

    Also Voyager didn't destroy the Borg just gave them a bloody nose and broken leg.

    Honestly what is this anti-Voyager prejudice gripping the commenters here?

    I'm 3 minutes in and we're supposed to believe the eternal Ensign Kim is a friggin' captain now? At his rate, he'd make captain around age 240.

    I haven't seen this since the first time it aired but that jumped right out haha..

    Ok, it just got over. I liked it better than I thought I would however:

    The Chakotay / Seven scenes were kind of.. wrong somehow. It felt super forced. He has more chemistry with Janeway and she has way more with the Doctor. Blah.

    I kind of didn't get the ending. How's exactly did Voyager end up inside the sphere? When Janeway said "it'll be in my report" I was looking forward to the answer as well!

    Oh man they really needed to devote more time for when they got back. Whatta' gip!

    All in all, it was a great series, with a great ending. Should've been a Endgame I & II.
    With II dealing with their awards ceremony, their re-assignments, them fading from one to the other a single scene in their new lives.
    Ponder this.....Theres still Borg tech in some of the crew that couldn't be removed.
    I just have this pic in my mind as 7 being a instructor on the borg.....(probably borg in other areas of the universe), besides being a scientist.
    Camera rolling, end of the day, Star Fleet HQ. We see 7 beaming into a large empty room, lights being emitted by her Borg Alcove, watching her look around, a long sigh as she steps into her alcove to regenerate. She turns around, closes her eyes....
    Fade to Black....
    Then, a door creaks open, a old Janeway peeks around the edge, old and gray, 'Sweet Dreams'................
    A Great Series

    I'm glad they got home. I agree with Leah's above comment/proposal for the final scene. The ending is just a bit too abrupt. They should have shown everyone for just a couple minutes on Earth, just to give me time to tear up in happiness. Unlike some commenters, I mostly prefer to use my imagination on how their lives turn out on Earth. But some quick smiles, embraces, tears, and reunions would have given this a more complete feeling. I also would have liked Admiral Janeway to have told us just a few more reasons that going back earlier was preferable. Like maybe the crew in general got depressed as the years dragged on, lost their curiosity and desire to help planets and people in need, etc. There didn't have to be more death and destruction, but some indication that the majority of the crew would have definitely been happier with getting home sooner would have been nice.

    I also have a problem with the whole Chakotay/Seven thing. I actually thought the actors sold it quite well, considering how last minute it was. . . But it was too last minute. Lots of people in the comments above seem to have a problem with it because they think SEVEN should have ended up with someone else. But I don't care who Seven ends up with. Could be some rando on Earth after she is finally done figuring out what it means to be human. I feel like Harry would have been the most obvious choice from the Voyager crew, since she has already turned the Doctor down pretty decidedly,but the point is, she didn't need to end up with anyone. That was never her arc. My problem is with Chakotay and Janeway not getting together, considering they've been on a slow boil the entire show, with the only reason they couldn't get together being that Janeway was his captain. I would have liked them clasping hands or something when they see Earth. Or perhaps the show didn't need to show anything between them at all, but if they hadn't chosen to shoehorn in the Seven thing, we could have chosen to envision any future for them we chose.

    In general, I'm much less bothered by the ending than most, and you can put me in that rare group of people who likes TNG, VOY, and DS9 all equally, for different reasons.

    Megan: "Like maybe the crew in general got depressed as the years dragged on, lost their curiosity and desire to help planets and people in need, etc."

    Great suggestion. Even better if this had been true all season, say, showing an actual change in the characters as a consequence of their voyage.

    Crap ending for a crap series.

    Nice that captain Kim will be demoted to ensign for helping Janeway. It's the only closure we get.

    Easily the most shopworn, poorly conceived/written series of the lot. Good riddance. Give me DS9 for good writing, consistent character development and exciting plots.

    Watching Endgame made me realize how much I liked Kate Mulgrew playing Janeway.

    It's not as bad as people make it. It just suffers with laziness to conclude the series in a shoehorned, inconsistent fashion. But it's entertaining at least. Nice to see future Janeway isn't as naive as her older self... well, for a while at least.

    Voyager was, overall, a weak series, mainly due to very poor planning. I think they originally had the sole idea "stranded ship lightyears from home", but didn't put any thought into the logistics of why a series with that theme would be hard to pull off. Repairs, supplies, fuel, time, relations aboard Voyager. Pretty early on they just threw it all out of the window and treated Voyager as if it were TNG, hopping planet to planet, telling morality tales.

    With some cleverer writers it could certainly have been far better. Still, the world is better for having Voyager than not (entertainment wise).

    @ DLPB:

    Really I think it's only the very end of the episode that pisses people off. It's so abrupt and even the VOY crew deserves a better send off.

    Now that I think of it, starting with TNG the series' enders have all gotten worse and worse:

    TNG: Awesome, with a hopeful feeling
    DS9: Good, but I felt like crap knowing they basically stuck Sisko in infinite limbo
    VOY: Entertaining, yes, but WTF ending over way too quickly
    ENT: Craps on the crew totally, and even somehow makes The Pegasus a bit worse retroactively

    @Del_Duio - Actually the whole stupid thing pisses me off. 7 years ago Janeway picked the Ocampa over everyone who would die over the next 7 years.

    In Endgame Janeways picks Seven, Chakotay and Tuvok over everyone that Voyager would help over the next 19 years.

    There's something that feels really, truly messed up about the whole thing. Coupled with the ending of Friendship One

    "JANEWAY: I think about our ancestors. Thousands of years wondering if they were alone in the universe, and finally discovering they weren't. You can't blame them for wanting to reach out, see how many other species were out there asking the same questions.

    CHAKOTAY: The urge to explore is pretty powerful.

    JANEWAY: But it can't justify the loss of lives, whether it's millions or just one. "

    I can't help but feel like Janeway (starting with her depression in S5's Night where she decides she made the wrong choice in Caretaker) has decided the entire TV show of Voyager that made this little family that I grew to care about was wrong. It pissed me off.

    DS9's ending was mostly good, a little rushed, a little disappointing, but it didn't piss me off. This did.

    And for the record, since TNG's ending is sadly Nemesis, DS9's ending will have to stand as the best in all of "modern" Trek. But I think the ending of TOS (Undiscovered Country's ending) is perfect.

    UHURA: Captain, I have orders from Starfleet Command. We're to put back into Spacedock immediately, ...to be decommissioned.

    SPOCK: If I were human, I believe my response would be 'Go to Hell!' ...If I were human.

    CHEKOV: Course heading, Captain?

    KIRK: Second star to the right, ...and straight on 'til morning.

    Captain's log, U.S.S. Enterprise, stardate 9529.1. This is the final cruise of the Starship Enterprise under my command. This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew. To them and their posterity will we commit our future. They will continue the voyages we have begun and journey to all the undiscovered countries, boldly going where no man, where no one, ...has gone before.

    @Robert

    "Actually the whole stupid thing pisses me off. 7 years ago Janeway picked the Ocampa over everyone who would die over the next 7 years. In Endgame Janeways picks Seven, Chakotay and Tuvok over everyone that Voyager would help over the next 19 years."

    I think they were trying to show that over 26 years Janeway would regret her (naive?) ideals that got Voyager stuck in the first place, and again on multiple occasions. I consider that a reasonable circumstance for a change of character.

    It's nice that (younger) Janeway doesn't buy into the her jaded future, and I think that at least stresses that the prime timeline remains hopeful and idealisticas does its Janeway from earlier in the series.

    I agree with Jammer's review, so I won't go much further on this, I just want to reinforce that Voyager got *some* things right with finale.

    On a side note as a TNG fan, I would never consider Nemesis to be the end of that series. All the TNG movies are woefully out of touch with the series, so if you're searching for a symbolic ending and not just a chronological ending, I think "All Good Things..." still caps off TNG just fine.

    @Chrome - On the one hand, I agree with you. On the other hand... it doesn't feel like she changes her ideals. It feels like she abandons them because the personal cost is too high. I just didn't like it. I'm a fan of early Janeway and I feel this puts the final nail in her.

    That said, if I turn off what annoys me about VOY the episode is very entertaining. But that's true of a lot of VOY.

    I think the reason I struggle to enjoy this episode isn’t for what it is but for what it isn’t. For seven years we watched Voyager as the story of a single ship, alone, making its way home. To me the finale to that story should have been Voyager making their way home on their own (though of course "home" in this case needn't mean Earth, since if they made it back to somewhere in or near Federation space then they could start stopping at starbases, getting help from other ships etc. and the journey alone would be over before actually getting to Earth).

    Instead, we get informed at the start of the episode that Voyager did eventually get home but it happened many years in the future and we’re not going to get to see the rest of the journey. Then Future Janeway shows up and gives them futuristic technology and information to get them home much earlier than they would have if they were on their own. So instead of getting to see the culmination of Voyager’s journey throughout the seven years, we basically just get to see them rescued ahead of time. You may as well have had a second Caretaker in the Alpha Quadrant drag them home.

    To me this would have been a much better episode if they’d cut out the time travel all together. At the start when Harry tried to suggest some modification to go investigate the possible way home and Janeway hadn’t even let him finish before cutting him off, I would have loved to see Harry just tell her to shut up and listen. Then it would have been nice to see him actually have a good idea which was genuinely worth considering and required everyone working together to work. Of course, Janeway would have been mad but Harry could have eventually gotten enough of the crew behind him and it could have been a good way to show some character growth both for Harry and Janeway when she gave him the go ahead. The crew could all agree to work together on whatever Harry’s plan was (after so many “look how stupid Harry is for being optimistic moments” a “good on you Harry for not giving up moment” would be nice).

    While of course there always had to be a shortcut home at the end, that really needed to be the only convenient plot point to make it work. There didn’t need to be a Janeway Ex Machina to save the day. The little ship on its own could have made its way home on its own.

    It also would have been nice to see some scenes on Earth (I suppose that's what the future scenes were for). It did feel a bit like “These Are the Voyages” cutting off before Archer’s speech, except in that case I can understand that it would have been beyond the writers’ ability to come up with Archer’s speech and so I can say “fair enough”. However, the Earth scenes could have been written.

    I agree with comments above though that it may have been difficult to make it work as an epilogue without it being anticlimactic. That said, given maybe seven people thought Voyager wouldn’t make it home, there was no reason the episode couldn’t have been told “out of order” anyway if they just wanted to end it with Voyager arriving home and show some “on Earth” scenes earlier.

    Matt totally agreed. Indeed, imagine how impactful it would have been if no one even knew about the Voyager and they just showed up, this ship out of the past, sort of like Tom Hanks in castaway or the Flying Dutchman. I imagine this transformed ship, modified and gerrymandered, but built as a generation ship with a crew of Maquis and Starfleet young adults borne from the original crews intermingled.

    But I guess I'm thinking of a very different STV, the one I wanted, not the one I got.

    As of today's viewing of "End game", it completes my watching of everything that is Canon all shows. 62 years old and still trekking!

    A bit late for a review, but with the new series imminent, i have been re-watching all the old shows.

    I personally enjoyed the series much more this time around, not sure why, but the Finale is still unforgivable, mostly because it would have been so easy to make it right.

    If Seven and Chakotay's relationship had developed over a few episodes....
    If it was Chakotay who went back in time and not Janeway it would have been more in character and more believable...
    If Tom had given Harry's speech...
    If Voyager had taken a beating getting home and lost a lot of the crew it might have felt like the decisions made were important, and the Borg might have actually been useful to the episodes plot...

    The list goes on.

    I went into this episode with a new appreciation for the series, but every scene made me more and more frustrated and annoyed.

    I have actually come to appreciate the writers efforts through the series to create 'imperfect' characters with flaws, but in this episode the characters become completely unrecognisable.

    I can't help feeling it would have been easier to get this episode right, than create the total mess that we were given. Epic Fail!

    @Martin - "I personally enjoyed the series much more this time around, not sure why"

    If I had to guess I'd say expectations. You already know the series doesn't live up to it's potential so you can just enjoy what awesomeness is there instead of being flustered by expectations that they keep failing to meet.

    I don't know Robert. I seem to enjoy rewatches of Voyager more than any of the series and it's not that I had any expecations the first time I watched it.

    I enjoyed the finale for what it was - an exciting action flick, but I also agree with all of the complaints about it. It could've been so much more. Especially some sort of epilogue. The way it ended, it felt like there was going to be a follow up episode.

    What bugs me about the main conflict between the Janeways was what to do about the transwarp hub. All I could think of, when they were planning to blow it up, was, "They built it. They can build it again. So how does this matter?" Even worse, they mention that there are six transwarp hubs. The animation in Astrometrics, displayed the connections from the one hub they were talking about destroying. It showed connections throughout the galaxy. So, are we to assume the other 5 hubs don't have a similar spread of connections? If so, what will destroying a single hub accomplish in the long run? Unless we go with the idea that it's just this one hub that has so many connections and the rest only have a few strands. The basis of this conflict was lame and this problem should've been pointed out in the episode, so that they could focus more on attacking the central node/queen's cluster/whatever it's called. That at least made sense, but since it's less eye candy, we just have to assume that the suicide infiltration by Janeway with the "virus" (what the hell was it anyway? and how did it destroy the complex?) works without giving us any information on how that was possible. And are we supposed to assume that the queen's cluster getting blow'd up destroyed ALL of the Borg? Or not? Or some? Or the other transwarp hubs? hello?

    I wish future Kim was still an ensign.
    That would have been worth 5 stars.

    Let me sum it up for all of those haters on Voyager which call themselves Star Trek fans, of which Jammer is really included:

    It was a great show that had plenty of Sci-Fi intrigue, mixed with action and heartwarming stories about humanity. A wonderful addition to the Star Tek universe, which is miles better than Discovery at this point. Discovery hardly resembles a Star Trek show. Very disappointing through 2 episodes so far.

    My experience watching Voyager has been that I enjoyed many of the episodes because i was able to stay in conscious denial about many of its flaws. And while Jammer and other people's reviews don't often sway my personal review very much, this time was a little different. I actually enjoyed this finale enough that I was considering it 3 1/2 stars, but I agree with almost all of Jammer's review and am thinking more like 2 1/2 or 3 stars. By far the biggest flaw is how casually Janeway is willing to play with the universal timeline so she can feel better. One can not understate how ridiculously shameful, selfish, and stupid that was. I also agree i would have liked a more satisfying ending. Nevertheless, amazingly I still enjoyed the finale and the series!

    I'm glad we didn't really see what happened when Voyager finally reached Earth (apart from the future which will now never happen), because if there's one thing the first few Voyager relaunch novels showed me, it's that the characters on that show work best when in deep space, away from the rest of the Federation, interacting with each other. After seven seasons in the Delta Quadrant, what I want to see is that crew together on that ship. I honestly didn't much care what happened once they got back to Earth, though I'm glad they did.

    Voyager in the Alpha Quadrant just doesn't appeal in the same way.

    1.5 stars. Awful

    The transwarp stuff over the course of the series just kept mushrooming leading to now out of the blue a massive transwarp hub that could drop a Borg vessel or fleet at aearth’s doorstop at any moment which opens its own can of worms

    The character payoffs were awful

    - Chakotay’s dead and had an unearned romance with Seven
    /the emh after seven years is now Joe?!?!? Talk about lame and being too cute by half and of course is married too a younger hotter wife ugh

    Paris is a holo programmer yawn

    Kim thinks now?!?!? The journey is more important than the destination

    The Borg are even more of a mess. You have the Collective suggest assimilating Voyager and the Queen vetoes it. So much for idea sge is the Collective mind physically realized

    And if you bring back the Borg in the finale you’d think that the writers could have brought in the Unimatrix zero rebels. In fact, they should have just saved that story idea for this outing honestly. I think it would have been more interesting here for the crew to learn of UZ and start a civil war with rebels that spanned the entire galaxy making for a smoother more plausible way to bring in the Federation. And you could have the some rebels seize a cube and bring voyager back home to the Alpha Quadrant

    You could also bring in species 8472 and other races on other fronts in a multi galactic pronged attack on the Collective. Seeing the Collective fall via the rebellion would have been far more satisfying than a neurolytic pathogen and instead of future Janeway sacrificing herself we could have had the assimilated Janeway part of UZ end uo sacrificing herself so there was a genuine loss

    You could tell no one had their heart in this whole affair. Brannon and rick were already onto ENT so they couldn’t be bothered with writing the finale so they just handed it off to Doherty and Biller who admitted he had no idea what to do with the finale and asked Brannon for suggestions hence Brannon’s story credit.

    In fact the whole final season was a hot mess. Easily the worst up there with voyager season 3. What they should have done is mapped out an arc even only six or so episodes and each subsequent episode jumped forward in real time marking the passage of time and chronicling where the crew were in that time frame leading up to them getting home a decade or fifteen years or two decades or what have you in the third to last episode so the remaining two or three hours could deal with the fallout and homecomings forbtge crew

    I also completed a recent rewatch of Voyager hoping I might enjoy it more all these years later and maybe nostalgia could even enhance my opinion of it this time but alas no change.

    In fact a few episodes I originally enjoyed went down this go around and everything else remained the same as my original opinions meaning I didn’t care for most of the episodes except a handful across as the series, seasons three five and seven were just as awful, seasons 4/6 were its strongest even though highly uneven, Janeway and seven were the only characters I was invested in, the show’s problem wasn’t the lack of maquis tension or not being like nuBSG or not being serialized but it’s problem really was just poor writing that sunk it.

    Tng still is my favorite series and one of the best tv shows ever. Then DS9 and I think Ent May actually be better than Voy although both VOY and ENT had a lot of problems.

    But as mediocre as Voyager was it still did enough right that I watched it all the way through to the end if for no other reason to see what it would add to Trek unlike DIS which is the first Trek series I dumped and six episode dew into its first season no less. DIS was just utter garbage. Forget it being Awful Trek it was awful tv

    It's as hard to get over the prudential issue as it is the ethical one in this story. It's incredibly stupid to expose or risk losing future tech to the Borg. These things could alter timelines in so many unforeseen ways; it's hilarious that this is dismissed as "pragmatism" about the temporal prime directive.

    I'm OK with the abruptness of the end. I prefer it to the drag that is the second half of DS9s end anyway, though there's probably a golden mean somewhere that's better than either.

    Honestly my biggest problem is probably that Admiral Janeway is too much in the DS9 cynicism and that sours the ending for Voyager a bit. The story would have worked better for me if they hadn't been able to "have their cake and eat it" and this hadn't been the final episode.

    Also I wish the Queen hadn't mentioned the whole "grandfather paradox" thing. It wasn't consistent with how time travel worked in this episode and was very unnecessary

    This final episode looked to me like they decided, since they had to put it together quickly and weren't sure where they were going, and as Jammer pointed out, to take All Good Things and redo many elements of that ending episode adapted to Voyager.

    In All Good Things you have the three Picards from each of the different time periods as compared to the two Janeways in this episode. The difference is that while the three Picards are all sharing the same thoughts and never meet, the two Janeways meet but aren't sharing thoughts the way the Picards did.

    In All Good Things you get an idea of what happened to the crew of the Enterprise decades in the future, but it turns out that what you see may not happen. At the poker game at the end it is pointed out that since the Picards were successful, that they are not locked into the future as we saw it and their Picard told the crew about. In this Voyager episode we are shown what happens to the crew in the future that is shown, but then it is clear that the future as shown will not happen.

    In All Good Things a major antagonist from the series is brought back, in that case Q. In this Voyager episode, the major antagonist that is brought back is the Borg. And since in The Next Generation it was Q who originally introduced the Enterprise to the Borg, the entire thing sort of comes full circle.

    In All Good Things, the one particular missing character in the future is Deanna Troi. They point out that she was somehow killed and that Riker and Worf had a feud that was ongoing because of it. In this Voyager episode Chakotay and Seven were somehow going to be killed in the future.

    And the final action resolution in All Good Things was the three Enterprises coming together in a blaze of glory to resolve the problem. In this Voyager episode we have Voyager coming through in a blaze of explosive glory to come back to the Alpha Quadrant and destroy the transwarp hub.

    And finally, you have Janeway saying, "We did it," which was kind of analogous to Picard saying, "The skies the limit."

    In the end, for me, I think this ending to Voyager was not satisfying because, unlike All Good Things, the crew of Voyager could not return to normal. Their time as this family on Voyager was coming to an end. Maybe if the transwarp hub had deposited them so that they still had a year to go before getting home, they would have had time to celebrate on the ship and get mentally prepared to arrive home rather, than, all of a sudden being there. In All Good Things, what happens is that they do go back to normal. In fact, the only difference is that Picard has now joined the poker game. I liked Troi's line that he was always welcome. Perhaps if they could have had some sort of analogous final scene in this final Voyager episode, the ending would have been more satisfying.

    I enjoyed this finale, but Star Trek time travel plots make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

    Am I to believe that when Janeway returns home at the end of the episode, she is going to go back and time and tell her former self that Voyager didn't make it home in time for Tuvok to be cured or for Chakotay and Seven to survive? Because none of those things would have been true and there would be no reason for her to go back, meaning Voyager wouldn't have received any help from the Admiral in the first place in order to get home.

    An appropriate ending to the series -- one that captured the various themes and weaknesses in VOY over the 7 seasons. It's a feel good ending with them getting home -- that's ultimately what the viewer wants to know.

    I'm ambivalent about having an epilogue -- like what they all do once back home. In a way it would be a big departure from the show since the crew is a unit and the show is about the journey (thought Harry Kim's speech made sense, as trite as it was -- maybe he does have captain material!). So just leaving the epilogue up to one's imagination is OK in this instance.

    The episode reminded me of "Timeless" except it's Admiral Janeway wanting to go back in time and rescue Voyager/change the future. There are obviously tons of ethical issues here that just get swept under the rug, which happens now and then in VOY, but importantly, we get some Janeway self-examination going back to "Caretaker" when she essentially strands the crew in the DQ. Good philosophical debates with older Janeway who had become pragmatic after being worn down with regret. Wonder why young Janeway doesn't react when seeing her older self on the view screen...

    There's the old Spock adage employed: "The needs of the many..." lt rings true in a number of ways -- destroying the Borg transwarp hub or getting home.

    The series finale aimed big with the Borg Queen and their massive hub in the nebula. Can't fault the series finale for not pushing the envelope on big ideas and visuals, albeit sometimes lacking substance.

    In true Trek fashion, a whole lot of things that should be highly improbable and that require an extra dose of suspension of disbelief manage to work out -- but it's TV so what do you expect? What I expected was a bit more plausibility within the Trek paradigm -- I also wish we didn't have to deal with time travel or the Borg again. But the Borg are the best Trek villains and VOY never shied away from using them if they wanted a standout episode ("Scorpion", "Drone", "Unity" come to mind).

    I did like how the finale was structured, starting with the future situation but then having the switches between the 2 times a la "All Good Things..." Definitely tried to borrow from that successful series finale but didn't come very close to being on that level.

    Just enough for 3 stars for "Endgame" - definitely compelling although Part I presented a lot of loose ends and it had me wondering what was going on. But it's a good Janeway episode which is what it had to be. The other characters played their parts well, particularly 7 (as usual) although her romance with Chakotay was a surprise. Ticks all the boxes for a series finale in true VOY style.

    2nd run through of Voyager complete, and awwwww... I’m always sad to see them go.

    I agree with most of the rest of you that the show bungled its true potential, but there’s still something about the characters that makes me miss them when they’re gone.

    Of course, I get that way over DS9 and TNG, too. Maybe I’m just a sap. haha

    Speaking of which... *grumble*... it’s finally time to re-watch TNG. I’ve delayed this as long as I can, please keep me in your thoughts as I slog through the DREADFUL season 1.

    I must stay strong...

    I found the episode surprising simply because it's not the strengths (as they may be) of Janeway and/or her crew that get her home - it's alternate timeline Janeway that does it. In the TNG finale, we have Picard figuring out Q's puzzle (with the help of his crew) and in DS9 we have Sisko confronting Dukat and the Pah Wraiths, as well as the crew helping to tie up some loose ends and end the war. But it is the characters themselves that bring the shows conclusion to an end. The Janeway that we have known is not even the one to pull off the victory, it's alternate Janeway with her bag of techno tricks and cynicism that does it. What makes the episode more difficult for me is that alternate Janeway has to practically smack her "present" self across the face multiple times before she gives in and realizes that hey, this can all be over RIGHT NOW. It comes across as an insult to the character of Janeway, particularly given that it is the finale episode. I hope I'm not the only one who picked up on this.

    As Jammer and many others are saying fitting way to end this series with highs and lows, weird Chakotay scenes, and questionable ethical decisions by Janeway. Overall found the series worth watching, with the best episodes up there with any Trek... but the lows felt more pervasive than in TNG and DS9. Still, definitely worth watching as a whole but there is a lot you can just skip through. Have to admit though, that I did find some of the legendary lows to be entertainingly bad such as Theshold and Tuvix. Funny to even think about those plot lines.

    It was not the series finale of my dreams, but, as a isolated episode, solid 4 stars.

    Mindbreaker
    Thu, Aug 6, 2015, 3:43am (UTC -5)

    "The Next Generation: the ship is too big, they ludicrously endanger too many children. Come on that is just stupid to go around with a city into dangerous situations, and too many characters are sleeping around with whatever alien shows up. The counselor is a tramp, and so is the first officer. That guy just gives me the creeps."

    Why? What's wrong with "sleeping around?" There is nothing wrong with a healthy sex drive, regardless of whether you're the first officer or the ship's counselor.

    TNG took place in the 24th century, not in the 1607 Massachusetts Bay colony, which seems to be where you came from.

    Hey, here's something no one mentioned: What about the Equinox crewmembers who are now on Voyager and demoted to "crewmen?"

    I'd imagine they'd be facing criminal charges for mass murder as soon as they get back to Earth.

    Good double episode, but somehow I missed an serial end. And if I have had a saying, a building up over a more connecting episode after Neelix leave and this would have been good. The time travel was unnecessary.

    As so ends Voyager … I often think that the best image of Voyager - and much of Trek I’m afraid - is the poker games on ST:TNG and other series. We’re constantly reminded that money doesn’t exist in the 24th century (for the Federation anyway), so what are they betting? One could argue replicator rations or duty assignments, but you rarely see that aspect played out. No, it’s usually just “chips”. Playing poker with chips is a kids game. If you want to understand poker you have to play with real money with something significant at stake.

    Voyager, for much of its run was playing kiddy poker with chips with nothing really risked and nothing really gained. For me, the best SF series of all time is “Babylon 5”. Despite some significant flaws (especially in Seasons 1 and 5) you always felt that the characters were really risking something and that they had to overcome severe trials both from external foes and from their own internal demons. It’s interesting that in both series’ final episode there is a reunion scene of the characters years in the future and in both scenes the chief protagonist (President Sheridan and Admiral Janeway) toast their missing comrades.

    But in B5, the loss of comrades is accepted and mourned with the understanding that victory invariably comes at a cost. In Voyager, well, as Captain Janeway says: “You can have your cake and eat it too.” And that was true of the entire series from beginning to end.

    So, the game is over. Cash in your chips. Oh wait, there’s nothing to cash in.

    Man, reeaaalllly longtime lurker, first time commentor. I have read Jammer's reviews as well as the conversations (which sometimes devolved into heated debates) in each comments section for TNG, ENT, and now VOY. Like a lot of other folks, I am in the process of going back through full series-watches of all the Trek shows thanks to NetFlix. I had watched TNG and DS9 growing up, but for various reasons never watched VOY or ENT. As of now, I have rewatched TNG, watched through ENT for the first time, and now tonight, finished up VOY after blasting through it in about a month.

    After this finale two-parter, all I am left with is a sort of melancholy. Firstly, it's over, and considering that this show ended over seventeen years ago, we'll never see anything with these characters again. It was the same feeling I got at the end of ENT (which I frankly enjoyed for the most part). Secondly, in those final moments wherein we see Voyager being escorted to earth by that fleet of Starfleet ships, I kept thinking about how it was also the end of so many things for those characters. For several years, they had been a very tight-knit family, just them against an entire quadrant of unknown (and unfriendly) space. 152 people in a plucky little space-ship half the size of ships like the Enterprise-D, personal space would have probably been at a premium. There were countless situations that arose where if they had been in the Alpha Quadrant, the Voyager crew could have just radioed Starfleet Command for guidance/direction, but instead had to come up with unorthodox solutions to problems and many times those solutions broke some rule or other. Janeway was the ultimate command authority, and her word was law, whether it jibed with Starfleet regs or not. They were all alone and could only rely on each other. It's what made the show special, to me. Thinking back on TNG, the Enterprise was NEVER alone. There was order, structure, and regulations to be followed all while operating in familiarish territory.

    Anyway, so now the Voyager crew gets home, and they're effectively back in an environment where this tight-knit family will be broken up and go their own separate ways to do whatever it is they're directed by Starfleet to do. Really, for me, there was no way the end of this show WOULDN'T have been somewhat sad. Imagine if you're working on a team for seven years that became a family, where everyone addressed everyone else in a familiar way, and then you suddenly get transferred to another ship, and another team where regulations have to be followed to the letter, and there's a stilted formality in place, and the ship is run under a different command style. I couldn't imagine that being a positive change after so much time living another way. So many of the various characters would probably react poorly to this change in circumstances.

    One final bit of commentary, I have seen a TON of comments in virtually every episode's review talking about how Voyager is a poorly executed show because somewhere halfway through the second season, they dropped the pretense of trying to follow the initial premise that Voyager was stranded so far from home with finite resources, food, shuttles, etc. I have to say that for ME PERSONALLY, I didn't have a single issue with this. A show where there was constant tension of people starving, working aboard a ship that was badly damaged, in constant need of critical repair, people dying (we'd have chewed through the crew compliment pretty quickly!), and so on would have just been grim and not enjoyable to watch. Or at least, not for 7 seasons. Plus, little things like early on, they made the mistake of numbering how many photon torpedoes they had. Like, what? They have a 70,000 light year journey ahead of them, they'd have gone through their entire compliment of torpedoes just getting out of Kazon space! That would have left them defenseless. Or what about when they were talking about having limited power for the replicators. Power? What about the tanks full of chemicals (or whatever it is) that the replicators use to create things (TNG Engineer's Manual, woo!)? Where were they going to get refills on that?

    I get that they originally were going to try to be realistic, and have realistic losses, but I figure someone on the writer's team got smart and realized that there'd be no crew (or ship) left before too long, and there'd be entirely too much of a dark tone to the show. I'm glad they made the decision to move away from it, even if most fans don't. I mean, we knew they weren't going to stick to the plot the first time Janeway was talking about some galactic phenomena or other she wanted to divert course to go see. What? That's not the action of someone desperate to get home, and exploration is definitely not the action of a crew desperate to see their own home and family again in their lifetimes.

    Anyway, about the only thing I DO wish they would have incorporated as the seasons went on is some sort of visual evidence of all the modifications and upgrades they had made to the ship and its systems after receiving or finding all of this advanced alien technology through their journey. Instead, each episode, the ship looked the same it had looked in the first episode.

    All of the nitpicks aside, this show really gave me a huge nostalgia trip of the days when I was back in high school and my local TV station would replay the episodes of TNG the afternoon following the evening it had originally aired so I could watch the episodes when I got home. A much simpler time, then.

    Quietbreaker,

    "One final bit of commentary, I have seen a TON of comments in virtually every episode's review talking about how Voyager is a poorly executed show because somewhere halfway through the second season, they dropped the pretense of trying to follow the initial premise that Voyager was stranded so far from home with finite resources, food, shuttles, etc. I have to say that for ME PERSONALLY, I didn't have a single issue with this. A show where there was constant tension of people starving, working aboard a ship that was badly damaged, in constant need of critical repair, people dying (we'd have chewed through the crew compliment pretty quickly!), and so on would have just been grim and not enjoyable to watch. Or at least, not for 7 seasons."

    That was called 'Battlestar Galactica'. I watched and for the most part and very much enjoyed it. But I don't want my 'Star Trek' to be BSG and I for one am glad they kept the tone where they did.

    Also, huge 'Enterprise' fan here too, glad you enjoyed it.

    "Anyway, about the only thing I DO wish they would have incorporated as the seasons went on is some sort of visual evidence of all the modifications and upgrades they had made to the ship and its systems after receiving or finding all of this advanced alien technology through their journey. Instead, each episode, the ship looked the same it had looked in the first episode."

    I think you suggest here a path that would have pleased both the show's fans and its critics: have good or neutral changes to the ship, and, indeed, crew stick more often. Have bad things happen, and matter, more often, but counterbalance it with weird, unusual benefits that show the crew changing and getting something unique out of the DQ experience. They do this to an extent, but they could have pushed for more changes, without all the changes being bad or tough for the audience.

    "Quietbreaker,

    "One final bit of commentary, I have seen a TON of comments in virtually every episode's review talking about how Voyager is a poorly executed show because somewhere halfway through the second season, they dropped the pretense of trying to follow the initial premise that Voyager was stranded so far from home with finite resources, food, shuttles, etc. I have to say that for ME PERSONALLY, I didn't have a single issue with this. A show where there was constant tension of people starving, working aboard a ship that was badly damaged, in constant need of critical repair, people dying (we'd have chewed through the crew compliment pretty quickly!), and so on would have just been grim and not enjoyable to watch. Or at least, not for 7 seasons."

    That was called 'Battlestar Galactica'. I watched and for the most part and very much enjoyed it. But I don't want my 'Star Trek' to be BSG and I for one am glad they kept the tone where they did.

    Also, huge 'Enterprise' fan here too, glad you enjoyed it. "

    @Yanks, that's only the symptom of a larger issue with Voyager. No one said Voyager had to be as dark as BSG. But, they undeniably squandered a great premise by choosing to do nothing with it. Your comment ignored other parts of the premise. What about the tension between the Starfleet officers in the Maquis? What happened to the Delta Quadrant that was described by Q in "Q Who?"? The larger problem is, Voyager chose the past of least resistance in every single situation. Instead of boldly pushing itself out of its comfort zone or taking Star Trek where it had never gone before, it settled for being 'passable', when it could have been fantastic. That, I think, is why Voyager gets so many complaints. It's a solid 2.5/4 series that could have been *so* much better.

    @ Yanks

    I agree with your assessment, actually. That's a really valid point. In fact, I am almost done with season 3 of BSG and frankly, even though I enjoy the show, it's exhausting to watch because the tone is so dark (and frankly, I cannot stand Gaius Baltar). It's taken me the better part of six months to slog even this far. That said, I AM going to finish the series because I do enjoy several of the other actors in the show and I hate leaving things unfinished. But yeah, I couldn't have watched seven seasons of this show if it were that dark.

    @ William B

    Absolutely. That really was one thing that as the seasons passed got a tad more unbelievable, although the worst offender (which actually knocked me out of the immersion) was when the Delta Flyer got destroyed and somehow was back the VERY NEXT EPISODE. What???!!! Come on, guys. I admit that's probably the one thing that made me feel like the writers didn't even care in the slightest. I mean, sure, the very idea that a ship that had the limited resources that Voyager was supposed to have, being able to produce something like the DF was a huge stretch in the first place. I simply explained it away as it being a possibility that there are large manufacturing replicator-type machines somewhere on Voyager, maybe stashed in a corner of a cargo bay somewhere. That's really the ONLY idea that makes any sense to me. And really, if we are taking Starfleet technology by that time into account, I candidly would expect something like that to exist on EVERY Starfleet ship. I mean, a Galaxy or other deep-space exploration ship isn't going to have easier access to Starbase repair facilities than Voyager does, if we're being candid. So, it just makes sense to me that ships (well, larger than some small scout craft, or maybe something like the Defiant) would have large scale manufacturing capabilities onboard so they could outright replicate entire hull panels, new nacelles, etc. And you know, it would have been so simple to do, since most of Voyager was CGI, if I recall correctly. It would/should have been easy to simply start adding things to the model. Extra external armaments here, blocky components attached to each nacelle increasing their efficiency there, and before you know it, you have a ship that feels lived in. They could have handwaved the ludicrousness of it all away with a simple line of dialogue from one of the characters.

    Janeway: "B'elanna, where are we on those new whatchadoodlits for the warp nacelles we got from that passing ForeHeadian trader ship convoy last week?"

    Torres: "We'll have finished replicating all of the components for the upgrades in the next 73 hours, and then it will take four days to install them. Oh, Captain, one thing of note. Once the technobabble whatchadoodles are installed, the nacelles will be locked permanently in their warp configuration."

    Janeway: "Got it."

    And then, maybe in the next episode, during one of the flybys, we see the new modules on the nacelles. It all would have been so simple. It would have also made the show feel more like writers were taking it seriously. They should have had a white-board of all the things they'd received over the years posted up somewhere because it seemed like the Voyager crew were getting updates (either specs/plans, or outright tech like the Transwarp coils) virtually all the time. I lost count of how many times their shields and weapons had been modified or upgraded. I wish we could have seen that.

    You know, in retrospect, ENT did that, when they did that one episode about the future Enterprise which had become a generational ship? You could see both inside the ship and out, the physical changes/upgrades/repairs that had been made. It was fantastic, and it really sold that episode for me.

    Quietbreaker,

    My mini-assessment of nuBSG....

    The first 2&1/2 years & RAZOR - it's some of the best most riviting TV drama I've ever seen.

    The rest you could throw away.

    ENT: E2 was fantastic trek!!

    Iceman,

    "@Yanks, that's only the symptom of a larger issue with Voyager. No one said Voyager had to be as dark as BSG. But, they undeniably squandered a great premise by choosing to do nothing with it."

    I don't agree. Tons of folks wanted it dark, with lots of crew conflict, broken down Voyager, starving etc... You are understating what's reflected on every board and on this site.

    "Your comment ignored other parts of the premise."

    In your view.

    "What about the tension between the Starfleet officers in the Maquis?"

    The Maquis had an issue with the Federation and the stupid treaty, not Star Fleet. (as we saw in the DS9 epsiode "The Maquis".

    "What happened to the Delta Quadrant that was described by Q in "Q Who?"?

    Please be more specific. We saw a HUGE area controlled by the Borg. Were the Borg supposed to be interested in technology only like in Q Who, or interested in biologics like we saw in BOBW and FC?

    "The larger problem is, Voyager chose the path of least resistance in every single situation. Instead of boldly pushing itself out of its comfort zone or taking Star Trek where it had never gone before, it settled for being 'passable', when it could have been fantastic."

    It WAS fantastic. You obviously wanted it to be something other than Star Trek in the 24th century.

    "That, I think, is why Voyager gets so many complaints. It's a solid 2.5/4 series that could have been *so* much better."

    More like BSG? .... character assassination at every turn? ... turning on your shipmates? .... alchoholics .... murderers? .... politics? .... religion?

    I graded VOY out at 2.89.

    I honestly think that the handling of the Maquis is a failure regardless of how one feels about Voyager overall, but the question becomes *at what point* it's a failure. The Maquis were seeded on TNG/DS9 specifically for Voyager, and if Voyager was not going to make much use of that backstory, it probably shouldn't have been seeded.

    @ William B,

    "I honestly think that the handling of the Maquis is a failure regardless of how one feels about Voyager overall, but the question becomes *at what point* it's a failure. The Maquis were seeded on TNG/DS9 specifically for Voyager, and if Voyager was not going to make much use of that backstory, it probably shouldn't have been seeded."

    It was worse than a failure - I would call it (from a storytelling standpoint) a catastrophe. I simply can't think of a worse fate for an intended story arc than to have to decide that it's going to be dropped and forgotten about. A failure would have been an attempt to wrap it up but not having it be handled all that well. This was more like chucking it in the bin when no one's looking...except we were.

    I agree with you that there were wires crossed here about what exactly the Maquis were being seeded for. Colonists who prefer growing their own food to eating replicated food; people who believe in community more than being strangers to your neighbors; people who have a strong tribal instinct where friends are like family but enemies are anathema; all of these traits which we saw in DS9's early episodes were never even featured on VOY in the slightest. Not even once! The most we ever got was "we don't live by Starfleet's rules!!" but never did we hear about what rules (if any) they do want to live by. So much for their point of view being important.

    @ Yanks,

    "I don't agree. Tons of folks wanted it dark, with lots of crew conflict, broken down Voyager, starving etc... You are understating what's reflected on every board and on this site. "

    I think you're misreading what people (at least here) are saying. You can have a show involving crew tension, a broken down ship, lack of resources, and all that, *and still not have it be dark.* For a case in point, look at Firefly, which is generally a free-spirited show with light banter and the occasion dark moment. But even when everyone's being tortured it's basically a comedy. So having these elements as a structure has nothing to do with whether the show is dark or not. I can't recall hearing anyone on this site wishing for Voyager to have been grimdark, and despite its failings I definitely never wanted that for it either. It could have been just as positive as TNG - even more so! - with these elements in play. Think of how hopeful a show would be featuring a crew lacking resources and keeping positive anyhow; about two crews who don't see eye to eye but develop strong friendships across their lines. We can see a bit of the the 'friendship despite being at odds' on ENT with T'Pol and some others, and it's a good example of not having to be all on the same page in order to keep the show optimistic.

    @William B

    You make a good point...HOWEVER. I kiiiiiiinda understand why the writers did what they did. I am no writer, not even a little bit. However, I can understand the huge dilemma that the Maquis represented, and understand why they "snapped into line" pretty quickly. Can you imagine trying to write exploration stories where the conflict is external (like TNG) except you have a ship full of people at odds with each other to a possibly deadly degree? I picture a scene where the Kazon have seen what Voyager can do, so they run off, regroup, and show back up with a big battle group to destroy or capture VOY, and Janeway is standing on the bridge, and orders shields up and weapons to ready. Unfortunately, the Maquis are up to their same tricks and have sabotaged key ship systems in ways that can't just be "beep-beep-boop"ed away by Kim or Tuvok on their panels, and is left completely defenseless. Then, pre-Seska, they get beamed down to some planet and left, and VOY is taken away by the Kazon. Without some heavy (and insultingly stupid) deus ex machina intervention, that's effectively the end of the space exploration part of the show.

    So, I understand why the writers gave the Maquis-vs.-Starfleet personnel some token plot elements in the beginning, and then simply flattened them all away fairly quickly, so they could get back to writing external-threat episodes. I mean, I'm not sure how I'd be able to do it myself in that position. You're a Starfleet crewman, and you get sent on an away mission with one or two other guys who were Maquis. I'd suck at my job because I was too busy watching my back waiting for one of them to stick a knife in it or cause my ops board to explode in my face or something.

    @Yanks:

    ""What happened to the Delta Quadrant that was described by Q in "Q Who?"?

    Please be more specific. We saw a HUGE area controlled by the Borg. Were the Borg supposed to be interested in technology only like in Q Who, or interested in biologics like we saw in BOBW and FC?"

    Q described the Delta Quadrant as having both treasures and horrors beyond Picard's wildest imaginations. That's not anything close to what the Voyager writers came up with. Sure, it's a tad unrealistic to expect something similar to what Q said, but more humanoid aliens in forehead makeup? Weak.


    "I don't agree. Tons of folks wanted it dark, with lots of crew conflict, broken down Voyager, starving etc... You are understating what's reflected on every board and on this site. "

    I think you are misunderstanding what we Voyager-bashers wanted from the show. We wanted it to use its premise to generate genuine tension and drama, and tell interesting and involving stories on a consistent basis. It did neither of those things. They could have balanced the drama with humor and character work if they didn't want the show to be an exhausting slog.

    "
    The Maquis had an issue with the Federation and the stupid treaty, not Star Fleet. (as we saw in the DS9 epsiode "The Maquis"."

    William B. and Peter G. already explained my issues, but I'll say them anyways. The Maquis storyline was designed for Voyager. It's down to them to do something interesting with it. You can argue that it was a bad idea from the beginning, and that they should have had Voyager be forced to work with Cardassians or Romulans, and I would agree with you, but that doesn't make Voyager's handling of the Maquis any less a disaster.


    "It WAS fantastic. You obviously wanted it to be something other than Star Trek in the 24th century."

    That's a straw-man. What I wanted from the series was it to tell interesting and unique stories, develop more than 3 characters, and take risks. Basically, I wanted it to be great sci-fi. Is that too much to expect? I don't think it is. The first 3 Star Trek series were. It was generally comprised of mediocre-to-poor episodes.

    "More like BSG? .... character assassination at every turn? ... turning on your shipmates? .... alchoholics .... murderers? .... politics? .... religion?"

    I never said that. Again, straw-man. I'm of the opinion that BSG collapsed in on itself after "Exodus Part 2", so you'll get no argument from me. All I wanted good or even great storytelling. I personally feel that one of the best ways that the Voyager writers could have made it great was through using putting the crew in harsher situations. BSG did dark storytelling poorly. That doesn't mean Voyager shouldn't have attempted it. (And as stated above, it didn't even have to be as dark as BSG. It could have balanced humor and warmth with drama the way shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Person of Interest, and yes, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine).

    I think part of the issue is that the first two seasons - which represented Voyager's most serious handling of the Maquis theme (Prime Factors, State Of Flux, Learning Curve), the show's most substantive attempt at arc storytelling (Seska and the Kazon, plus the Vidiians sub-arc), and also had several fantastic standalones with dark, mature themes (Resistance, Meld, The Thaw, Jetrel, Faces, Death Wish) - were poorly received, especially season 2. Which is a great shame, because as much I love the Seven and Doc episodes of S4-7, I still consider S1-2 the show's creative and storytelling peak. While DS9 is by far my favourite Trek, I consider Voyager S1-2 the best first two seasons of any Trek series since the original. After the poor reception to season 2 in particular, there was a concerted attempt to make the show fun and light going into season 3 - I remember the press material emphasizing this at the time. (This was also part of the thinking behind the beach resort holodeck theme.)

    So the fact Voyager became much more lightweight is a response to the unpopularity of those first two years. Basically the show rebooted itself. Season 3 is an interesting curio in this regard, as it represents a transitional year between the old Voyager and the new Voyager. It's hard to credibly do arc storytelling or feature recurring characters when your ship is supposed to be hurtling through space at maximum speed, so I guess it was inevitable that by the end of season 2, fans were frustrated that Voyager was still dealing with the same aliens introduced in the very first episodes.

    Basically DS9 and VOY are the way they are because of the level of studio attention and the quality of the writing teams. The whole reason the DS9 writers had so much creative freedom and so little interference is because the studio was focused on Voyager as the flagship show, and very much wanted it to be "entertaining". The writing issues on Voyager which lowered the show's quality (especially in season 6) have a lot to do with Brannon Braga, as Moore has spoken about. Season 7 was a definite improvement on season 6 once Braga had less control. The positive aspect of Voyager's lack of serialization, though, is that the many great standalones (by writers like Bryan Fuller, Michael Taylor, Lisa Klink etc.) still stand up really well and can be enjoyed in isolation without them being dragged down by a bad arc or season. For this reason, for all Voyager is lightweight, I find it much more rewatchable than Enterprise, Discovery or BSG. BSG had great episodes in every season but the show as a whole became a mess - and it's hard to go back and rewatch great BSG episodes because they're so tied into the surrounding context. Rewatching a BSG episode is like reading a chapter of a book - whereas Voyager (like TNG) is a compilation of short stories.

    @wolfstar-That is true as well. The 1st two seasons didn't really work, but therein lies another difference between DS9 and Voyager. DS9 learned form the mistakes of its uneven first three years, fixing what didn't work while keeping what did. The result was that its final four years were not just some of the best Trek ever made, but some of the best television ever made. Voyager set fire to everything and retreated back into its shell, determined not to take any risks.

    Also true is the fact that the DS9 writing teams couldn't be any more different. The DS9 guys loved working on the show and generally agreed with what they wanted to do and how to get there, even if they didn't plan out everything ahead of time a la B5. In contrast, the Voyager writers were constantly at each other's throats, with each person completely disagreeing on how to improve the show. In general, it seems like it was a very toxic work environment, showed by the fact that two of Star Trek's best writers, Michael Piller and Ron Moore quit. Not to mention the fact that people involved with DS9, unlike Voyager, tend to speak very highly of their experiences.

    You are also correct that the DS9 writing teams faced less challenges from the studio than VOY. Ira Steven Behr really couldn't be bullied into anything by Berman, unlike Brannon Braga. According to Bryan Fuller, he wanted to make positive changes when he took over, and Berman vetoed all of them.

    I think it's a shame that the first half -- or, really, first 15 eps -- of Voyager s2 was as weak as it was, because I think that period, though it gave us Projections and Resistance, really trashed the possibility of the show in its original conception working, for many. Elogium, Non Sequitur, Twisted, Parturition, and Threshold all within a handful of eps of each other, not to mention more arguable failures like The 37's, Cold Fire, and Persistance of Vision, plus Tattoo -- which is divisive -- and arc episodes Maneuvers and Alliances which I thought weren't very good. The problem is that despite significant problems, the back 9 show significant progress at winning back that original version of the show. Meld, Death Wish, The Thaw, Tuvix, Lifesigns and Deadlock are generally well received (okay, The Thaw is also divisive but has many fans) and range from good to great IMO, and I'd add Innocence and Resolutions, and even Basics I seems to be making the best of a by this point fairly broken arc. The only bad episode, IMO, was Investigations. Piller I think has said that he felt the show was finding itself around this time and was disappointed others didn't really agree, and I tend to agree with him. I still like a lot about later Voyager but I felt a kind of...optimism almost when watching the show pull itself together in late s2, and some sadness that it's a version of the show that never really comes to fruition.

    @William B-I agree. I feel like "Investigations" was such a disaster that they decided to give up on the concept entirely. Meanwhile, standalone episodes that used the reset button like "Deadlock" was acclaimed. So, I guess it must have seemed the logical choice at the time to do more of them. But, as you say, there were many other episodes that showed using the original premise *could* be done, and done well. That's why it's a shame that the production team threw in the towel.

    I'll tell you one thing that was self-sabotage from day 1 regarding the Maquis. Of the main cast, Janeway, Kim, Tuvok and Doc were Starfleet. Neelix and Kes were basically unaligned, so let's leave them out of it. Paris was sort of in his own camp but seemed accepting of being labelled as 'Starfleet' - this probably shouldn't have been the case but that's the way they went so maybe we should add him to the Starfleet list. And finally the Maquis consists of - Chakotay and B'Elanna. Just two of them! And to make matters worse, you know that the studio was never going to permit the expense of regular appearances of guest stars and recurring Maquis characters to fill in the roster. So once, for reasons of economy, we're left with two Maquis people, one of who is responsible for keeping the ship in one piece, there's not even any room for conflict other than perhaps from Chakotay. So if anything the place where they dropped the ball was in not allowing him to be a regular 'representative' of the Maquis (who would no doubt remain unseen due to budgetary constraints). But even then that's a very narrow window of opportunity to develop the Maquis storyline, especially when Chakotay has been sidelined into having these Native American bogus stories when instead his background should have been used to further why he became a Maquis in the first place.

    Even looking at this setup from the word go I could have told the producers that they didn't have much wiggle room for Maquis stories, unless Chakotay's role as first officer had been defined from the start as being the voice of the Maquis to make sure their beliefs were heard at the command level. Instead we got the good ol' melting pot approach, where it became the duty of the Maquis to pretend they were Starfleet. Why? I have no idea! Why that would ever be a thing is quite beyond me. I would have fired a writer who even suggested it; I'd know immediately he had no instincts for the job. No one can say for sure how all of this went down, but I can't imagine it was anything more than a failure at the top. I suppose that must mean Berman? As far as I can tell he had no business being a showrunner in the first place. He was basically Roddenberry 2.0 and if anything was the weak link on TNG.

    Not that I have some great respect for Braga, but at least he proved that he has a good creative talent, albeit one that needs to be focused and reigned in. But that's ok - people like that are an asset under good management. I do like to blame the writers when applicable, but in this case perhaps they were just doing what they were told, even against their better judgement? And it can be spectacularly difficult to write good dialogue when you're not feeling the characters coming alive and inspiring you. Out of the main cast in S1-2, which I agree are among the stronger seasons tonally, can we realistically suppose that the writers were inspired by most of the actors on the show? And it's a vicious cycle, too, because if an actor has a bad script they look bad, and in turn the failure to inspire leads to more weak writing. I could imagine Doc and Janeway inspiring early writing, and perhaps Tom Paris and B'Elanna to an extent. Judging from the first few episodes, if I were writing for Tuvok, Kim, Chakotay, Neelix, or Kes, I'd have no clue what to do with them. I could come up with a Maquis storyline and shoehorn Chakotay into it, but just based on the presentation of the character alone? Heck, even after 7 seasons I wouldn't know what to write for him. Much easier for entertaining people, and it shows since after S4 we can see who was inspiring the writers half of the time.

    As far as I'm concerned, DS9 can keep its Maquis. I wasn't sorry to see them disappear from VOY. I never really understood what their gripe with the Federation was in the first place - but politics was never one of DS9's strong points anyway.

    Season 1 was the best VOY in spite of the Maquis, not because of them. I don't know what happened after that and why the show declined so badly, but it wasn't for want of more Maquis episodes.

    Forgive me if someone has mentioned this already, but Brannon Braga basically gave away the game in Mark Altman and Edward Gross' "The Fifty Year Mission" two-volume series (Vol. 2, p. 588):

    "I liked the setup of them being lost in a new part of space, away from Star Trek's usual suspects. I wasn't (italicized) a fan of the Maquis thing-that kind of political stff just bored me. My feeling was, imagine you're deserted on a desert island with an al-Qaeda terrorist. How long are you going to bicker about your point of view before you both realize you have to eat and no one else is there to bicker over? You have to survive and need each other, and I turned out to be right. The Maquis thing just really wasn't going anywhere. The situation defused almost immediately, but it had to. What else would you do? I supposed you could have had a mutiny or something along those lines. I can only speak for my involvement in the show and I was more into doing weird sci-fi; I was in weird sci-fi shit mode."

    Where to begin?

    Admittedly, Braga was not involved with Voyager in Season 1, but his sentiments sound eerily like the post-hoc justifications made by other producers who were. If the Maquis storyline was political and bring and plays itself out quickly by definition, why bother using it as your premise in the first instance?

    The two competing philosophies-Federation and Maquis-apparently could only be contrasted or make for any drama at all through characters "bickering." The mere existence of Deep Space Nine puts the lie to this notion. Good drama is generated by good writing, and the writers could have found inventive and creative ways for the dfferences between the Maquis way and the Starfleet way to make for good entertainment. Indeed, it seems that every time the show depicted Janeway's Federation Principles being called into question (except for "Alliances," that is), a good episode resulted (see, "The Void," "Equinox Parts 1 and 2"). This is not to suggest that every moment of every episode should have been an exercise in compare and contrast. However, judicious use of the Maquis-Federation conflict, and how that conflict would assert itself and play out in the context of encountering unknown Delta Quadrant species and phenomena, would have been totally fine.

    The problem with dismissing "political stuff," or any other type of story, out of hand (for the sake of dwelling on weird sci-fi shit), is that you invite failure on both the "political stuff" level and the "weird sci-fi shit" level. Witness the witless bore that was "Repression" from Season 7. There, the fact that the Maquis still exists asserts itself, in an inane, boring, contrived, tired mess. Writers who hate political stuff will not be good at integrating it with "sci fi" stuff.

    Braga's weird sci-fi-stuff led to some standout individual episodes, but by definition, worked against the grain of the Voyager premise, which is that not only is space is full of weird stuff, but the Delta Quadrant - which, by the way, the crew is trapped in, in a long journey home where it faces obstacles to its survival, is full of weird stuff that no human has ever been within 70,000 light years of before. "Weird" turned out to be business as usual under Braga without acknowledging the various aspects of the show's premise.

    The producers of Voyager, it's been written, have said their aim was to create stand-alone episodes so the casual viewer could tune in and follow without having to "catch up." This insults the intelligence of the casual and the dedicated viewer. What research did these people conduct that showed that a) there was a dedicated following of casual viewers (an oxymoron by definition), and that b) this audience would only, and did in fact only, watch episodes that were completely self-contained with no acknowledgment of the larger Voyager universe?

    I suspect the answer is none. I suspect the writers were simply too lazy to care about anything remotely resembling serialization.

    @cakpil,

    Just to piggyback on your thoughtful comment, I wanted to mention one thing:

    "I suspect the writers were simply too lazy to care about anything remotely resembling serialization. "

    One of the points VOY admirers raise it's that it's not necessarily a plus to have serialized arcs, and I agree with them. There is nothing at all wrong with the TNG model of new adventures each week. That does not, however, mean that there can't be any prolonged character development or mini-plotlines that appear now and again. And in fact in alter VOY seasons they do indulge in recurring mini-plots, such as the rearing of the Borg children, and the Neelix-Naomi Wildman stories. These aren't serialized but they do carry forward ongoing character stories. So it's a red herring (on the part of the producers) to have thought that because they didn't want serialization that therefore each week had to be a complete reset button with no ongoing story for the crew.

    There are many available levels of ongoing arcs, which can include Game of Thrones style serialization, but can also include Firefly-type arcs that grow slowly over many stand-alone adventures, or even X-Files style where small pieces are added to the puzzle slowly over time even though most episodes aren't part of an arc. Heck, even sitcoms have ongoing plotlines most of the time. So the one to me has nothing to do with the other. The reason there was no room for Maquis-Starfleet interactions is simply because they didn't know how to do it. And Braga makes this crystal clear - he almost admits outright that they weren't equipped to write it! The only event he can think of to feature a Maquis-Starfleet interaction is a mutiny, of all things! How banal. It's too bad "political" stuff bores him (note: the etymology of "political" is "any interaction of people"), because that means that exploring different cultures and ways of living must bore him too. No room for that when there's "weird sci-fi shit" to throw against the wall. And to Braga's credit some of his shit did actually stick and was enjoyable - I'll be the first to praise Cause and Effect as a truly awesome episode. He should have always remained an idea man and never a producer, in my opinion. Someone like him needs to be commanded, not to command.

    “The producers of Voyager, it's been written, have said their aim was to create stand-alone episodes so the casual viewer could tune in and follow without having to "catch up." This insults the intelligence of the casual and the dedicated viewer. What research did these people conduct that showed that a) there was a dedicated following of casual viewers (an oxymoron by definition), and that b) this audience would only, and did in fact only, watch episodes that were completely self-contained with no acknowledgment of the larger Voyager universe?

    I suspect the answer is none. I suspect the writers were simply too lazy to care about anything remotely resembling serialization. ”

    Surely Paramount was trying to dumb down Star Trek for the UPN demographic. If your Trek show is couched between shows like Clueless and WWE Smackdown, you don’t want to lose that audience with complex arc-spanning Sci-Fi. At least that’s what the strategy apparently was until UPN went under.

    @Chrome

    I am sure Paramount was trying to dumb down the show for the UPN demographic. What I can't understand is why anyone ever thought that this was a good idea. Season 1 had a few semi-intelligent episodes; the ratings went down as the dumbness increased. Just as a musing (I don't have the numbers in front of me), was "Threshold" a hit with the 2 to 20-year-old reptile viewer?

    Imagine if instead of the time travelling, the crew discovered the transwarp nexus themselves. Janeway still regrets her decision from seven years ago decides they can do both - go home and destroy the nexus but with the sacrifice of one person. Who will it be? Seven, the former drone looking to repent? New-daddy Tom with the best chance of piloting the Heisenfram resonator to the right spot? New mommy Banana Torres with her engineering skills or her friend Tuvok with his tactical skills? Or does she sacrifice herself leaving maquis-Chacotey to take them home (Starfleet would love that).

    None. 7-year ensign Harry Kim who has shown he's not cut out for command twice before steals the Delta Flyer to save his friends.

    Well, having just gone and watched the whole series through for the first time, I have to say that I'm glad I wasn't watching when this was in it's initial run. They really betrayed the people who watched this series and waited all those years for a payoff that feels almost cruel.

    Makes you really appreciate All Good Things even more. At least TNG went out with a bang. I don't know what this was but it was an insult to Voyager's fans.

    This is bringing tears to my eyes, here in the beginning, with Tuvok, especially.

    Pretty good job aging everyone.

    Chakotay and Seven are surprisingly cute together. I didn't think I was going to be able to buy in to the relationship with so little build up, but the two actors have enough charm to sell it. Really lovely.

    Tim Russ with a great, moving performance.

    Casting for "Ensign Paris" is perfection.

    Harry Kim gets a good turn here at the end.

    "I hope you don't intend to kiss your baby with that mouth." Love the Doc.

    I could have done without the Borg Queen stuff, but I suppose it was necessary.

    Seven was like a daughter to Janeway, who will have no other "children." Yes, she'd do anything to save her. It's so limitless, what someone will do for their child.

    Not to get too morose here, but I lost a son who was in his twenties. I'd harrow Hell to see him for five more minutes. I'd make you harrow Hell so I could see him for five more minutes. So I don't know if the Admiral's right or wrong, but I get why she's doing this.

    Love the Borgy destruction. Wonderfully done. The Baby!

    And I'm crying.

    A lovely send off.

    +2,000 stars.

    With the -1,000 stars I gave Threshold, this puts the series at +1,000 stars overall.

    Bravo, bravo, bravo, bravo.

    Just finished watching seasons 6 and 7 of Voyager for the first time. Love the series one of my all time faves.
    Didn’t like this ending though, very unsatusfying. Chakotay/Seven romance is awful! Total cop-out script, we don’t even get to see the actual return home which was supposed to be plot payoff of the whole series.
    That said, I still rank the series very high, loved all the characters and I will miss them. Until the next binge!

    Personally I’m glad they did away with the Maquis bickering.

    Frommy perspective VOYAGER’s problem was not a lack of serialization or a lack of conflict or not addressing resource shortages.

    I’d have been perfectly happy had it ended up being TNG in the Delta Quadrant. Weekly adventures telling a variety of consistently entertaining episodes week in and week out

    Unfortunately it was highly uneven and mostly mediocre storytelling

    The show didn’t have a strong head writer like TNag did with Piller. Jeri Taylor oversaw a weakened season six of TNG and awful final season. Brannon when he took over came through on his scripts but seem torely care about polishing everyone else’s

    TNG was so good because it looked for scripts and ideas from outside the writers room. I’d argue that the writers on TNG were at their best working off of and rewriting other people’s submitted ideas than generating ideas themselves. But they were good enough writers to turn out a good script

    Voyager pretty much had all ideas generated drone from jeri Taylor(Real Life, One, Resolutions, Day of Honor, Coda, nothing human), Ken Biller( Initiations, Jetrel, Elogium, lifesigns, Tuvix, The Chute, Qand the grey, Mediocre Unity, Nemesis, Endgame, Q2), Rob Dohert(Vis aVis, Taunkatse, Imside Man) Joe Menosky , Lisa Klink,(Warlord, Blood Fever, Favorite Son, Sacred Ground, OmegaDirective, Revulsion), Michael Taylor( Drive, Once Upon a atime,)BryanFuller(Gravity, Juggernait,Spirit Folk, Friendship One, Mortal Coil, Retrospect )who weren’t very good idea people. Brannon was much better at generating fresh ideas and script writing than anyone else on Voyager staff in my opinion.

    Another thing were the characters. All of them on Paper had potential. All were well cast except Beltran who I think wasn’t a great Chakotay

    But as time went on the writers butchered most of the characters to the point where I was happy wen they started sidelining them and focusing only on a Janeway Seven and the Doctor.

    Paris was fine until season four then became an obnoxious jerk. Kim became annoying around then.
    Torres was an indifferent character around season two

    So at the end I was only interested in plot heavy episodes or episodes headlined by those three.

    And by the final season it was clear nobody cared and just wanted to be done with the series as evidenced by the weak offerings at the end, no revisiting the Caretaker, no revisiting Unimatrix Zero resistance and Biller having no idea what to do for finale and asking Brannon for ideas who at the time was involved in preparing ENTERPRISE and clearly not interested in VOYAGER anymore. Hence the halfhearted series finale

    I saw this in 2001 and never again. The Chakotay and Seven romance was too out of left field and really turned me off. I couldn’t stomach watching it again.

    As with all ST series, Voyager had ups and downs—judging by what I have read here, not only for this episode but all others, there is great animosity for this particular incarnation of Roddenberry’s ‘wagon train to the stars’...so much so that I doubt anything could elicit a favorable review. I am not going to try and offer a defense as such for this finale or for the entire run except to say that, for Mulgrew/Janeway ALONE, I will forever be a fan of this ST run— We had ego with Kirk; erudition with Picard; emancipation with Cisco and eagerness with Archer....and with Janeway....we found equality. She was the captain I, as a female Trekkie (I go waaaay back) was looking for! For the record, I liked the way they ended it. For the record, I rewatch Voyager on Netflix A LOT! Just wanted to be the voice of ‘the loyal opposition ‘ on this site..... Live long and prosper.

    "Emancipation with Cisco? (sic)"

    Are you saying we were liberated from bondage by Sisko? I'm sorry, I don't really understand where you're getting that from. Also, why can't Sisko be equality? And for that matter, did Voyager really spend many episodes on the struggles of Janeway being a captain because she's female?

    "And for that matter, did Voyager really spend many episodes on the struggles of Janeway being a captain because she's female? "

    That would be inequality, wouldn't it? The fact the show treated Janeway like any other (male) captain, and didn't focus on her female-specific problems, says she's the same, not different.

    In other words, the only proactive choice in “equality” was a casting choice, not a writing choice. How convenient.

    Do we know it wasn't a proactive writing choice? What better way is there to demonstrate equality in a show set in the 24th century than to say "look, gender isn't an issue in the future. We're all the same". If that message is far more appealing to present-day women than men, it tells us men still don't want to hear it. If decades of feminist literature and academia hasn't helped, what will?

    One thing that Discovery got right was that although it didn’t deal with Burnham’s race directly, it did explore the dilemma of racial differences between humans and Vulcans during Burnham’s childhood. To elaborate, the challenge of racism wasn’t just swept under the rug, it was dealt with metaphorically in a way that made sense in-universe.

    Voyagers’ writers didn’t make a similar effort for women. They get credit for casting a woman, but as far as tackling women’s challenges, it’s still only partial credit.

    Guys it is so simple.
    In Star Trek as in society it goes
    - white dude, white dude, black dude, white woman, white dude, white dude.
    a gay guy probably slipped in there somewhere. No way of knowing.
    Easy :)

    In hindsight it's actually strange how Voyager declined to feature alien races balking at the sight of a female captain. There would have been so many ways to involve the audience in the feminist side of Janeway's Captaincy while at the same time having it be so ingrained to the crew that they'd never think about it twice. Even Neelix could have been a great source of conflict or at least education on that front, especially given his protective initial stance towards Kes, which easily would have been compatiable with preferring females to be guarded rather than be out there in danger. In Sisko's case they addressed his skin color not through direct storytelling but rather through casting him in a broader plotline involving helping people recovering from recent slavery. That very much tells us something about his race even while declining to write episodes about race. So I do tend to agree with Chrome that just casting a woman is really not enough if you're got nothing more to say about it during the actual show. Half-credit sounds about right for the casting alone, but never addressing is in-show can't just be re-categorized as "proactively doing nothing". You could make that claim about just about anything! I could argue that TNG was making bold statements about baldness, and it did so by never bringing it up, 'proactively'.

    @Peter G.

    It's funny, I was just thinking about the Picard-baldness comparison, too. I think you could say Picard's a good role model who shows that going bald doesn't ruin a man's ability to be charismatic and attractive. However, to go as far as to characterize TNG as motivational piece for bald men is going a little too far. In fact, a better example within TNG would be episodes that dealt with Geordi's blindness because, though he often faced challenges within the show because of being blind, he routinely uses that weakness as a source of strength. I think DS9 too is a good example of a show that actively promotes the image of a strong, competent black man who considers the challenges of race but nevertheless draws strength from his family and his heritage.

    So the problem with Momofsix saying "Voyager is about equality" is that very few (if any) shows actually deal with that concept. The show isn't really challenging the viewer on that level. There are more important themes in Voyager such as the importance of home and struggling to keep the ship true to its mission which characterize the show more accurately.

    I think both of you are overestimating the value of proactivity - whatever that might mean. Uhura in TOS for example, in my understanding, produced a shift in consciousness for many viewers merely by placing a particular character in a particular role. Was that proactive? Maybe not, I don't know. Could more have been said? Certainly. Yet it was what wasn't said that might have been that people responded to, the silent acceptance of equality as the status quo. I do not think any amount of speeches by Kirk about equality amidst an unequal crew could have equaled the effect of that.

    So I'm not really sure why proactivity is so important. For me it's a bit like saying Gandhi's non-violent movements were ineffective because they weren't violent. Quite a few women have pointed out they appreciate seeing Janeway as captain and admire her style of captaincy, things often overlooked by men, and that should tell us something.

    Disclaimer: I feel like the same person with different alts is engaging in this conversation. ;-)

    Thomas, let me hand a question back at you. Do you think Brooks should have left the topic of race alone in Star Trek? After all, since he's a black captain -- by your logic -- nothing else needs to be said because his presence is enough.

    I don't disagree actually that silent demonstration can be effective, and I'll back up that point about Uhura any day. TOS did make a concerted effort to be inclusive, and it was mostly reflected in casting although the occasional content in-show did also reflect it (like the Abraham Lincoln racism moment, or the sexism shown in Mirror, Mirror). So this is not by any means a small thing. But let's face it: it's hard to beat TOS and then TNG in the "inclusive casting" requirement to show we're advancing as a species. There's only so much you can do with that before you're retreading old ground and just patting yourself on the back looking for compliments. Sisco and then Janeway as show leads were definitely new steps to take, but overall the casting inclusivity was not much better on DS9 or VOY than it had been previously. So for those shows to be "about" topical issues like black recovery from slavery or (let's say) feminism, they needed to do more than just cast the person and walk away. TNG, despite being on the nose about it, made huge efforts to show that being different is ok: Geordi with his VISOR, Data with being different from others, Worf with having a different culture. That show was definitely 'about' respecting each other's differences and even to see them as strengths. I would not, however, say that DS9 was 'about' this theme even though its casting was very diverse. And in VOY's case I do think that show content would have to reflect it being about women's equality if that was going to be the show's MO. The casting merely reflects the next phase of rotating through the diversity spectrum in the show lead (which is a good thing), but it doesn't make the show 'about' that unless the show is actually about that. I agree with Chrome that VOY seems primarily to be about family, getting home, adventure while lost, and perhaps to a smaller extent about how the mission unites them more than their individual beliefs.

    Having a black woman as a bridge officer. Something that was probably borderline (or actually) impossible during the 60s is bold. Interesectionality and all. A white woman in the 90s as captain far less so.
    On the other hand culture is about cues and seeing a competent woman leading a ship changes perceptions.
    Oh and I wasn't big on Voyager, Janeway was one of the few things I liked, other here may know it. Weren't the Kazon sexist?

    @Momofsix - right there with you. I love many things about Voyager, but even if didn't have all those things, I will love it forever for Captain Janeway alone.

    I wrote MY ending for it.

    They have received the news that they will be home soon. The method is unimportant. Alien technology, a wormhole—whatever. The first hour will deal with their reacitons to this news.

    Seven is nervous about meeting all the new people and talks to Doctor about her concerns. There are tears and hugs and joy and sorrow as they say their goodbyes and make their plans. Naomi and Samantha are joyous that she'll finally get to meet her Dad--and so are we as I don't think we ever saw a K'tarian before, did we?

    Harry is bouncing off the walls. We smile at his enthusiasm. Everyone else is happy and we touch on what all the the characters are looking forward to.

    Then the second hour is actually pulling into a docking port and the crew leaving the ship, hugging Captain Janeway as they step off for the last time, and the reunions begin. Harry is first off, leaping with joy to his parents. And Libby maybe?

    Tom and his father see each other and Tom starts to run to him, then hesitates--maybe Dad is still angry? Then Admiral Paris runs to him and hugs him so tight he can't breathe. B'Elanna is standing hesitantly behind, holding the baby, and finally the admiral releases his son and turns to her and hugs her, saying "I am so happy to meet my daughter in law," then takes the baby and says "I might give her back someday," and cuddles her lovingly. B'Elanna's father says, "You might have to fight me for her, Admiral." And B'Elanna bursts into tears and hugs her Dad.

    Tuvok is greeted by his wife and family, in the subdued Vulcan way, but as he raises his hand to greet T'Pel, palm to palm, we see the merest suggestion of a tear glimmering in the corner of his eye.

    Seven and Chakotay step off together and suddenly a crowd of reporters and curiosity seekers swarm towards her. Fearfully, she steps back and looks behind her, and suddenly realizes. She runs back to the ship and says, "Captain, where is the Doctor? There are no holoemitters on the dock. Does he have his mobile emitter?" Seven runs to sickbay and finds the Doctor tidying up his things. She says "When I became afraid, I looked around for the person I trust most in the world, and he wasn't there. I need my best friend to face all this with me." She then extends her hand to him, and they leave the ship together. She spots Irene Hansen in the crowd coming toward her, carrying a strawberry pie. Seven introduces the Doctor to her, never letting go of his hand. Lewis Zimmerman walks forward, surprising the Doctor. He looks well. "So happy to see you, my . . . son." They hug. The Doctor says, "I'd like you to meet Seven of Nine. She is my . . . " his eyes glisten as he looks at her curiously. "Fiance," Seven says definitively.

    Chakotay is greeting his family as he sees the Doctor and Seven leaving together and he smiles. He knew his own flirtation with Seven was more convenience than real attraction. He greets Reginald Barclay, who has been dashing back and forth, greeting everyone from the ship, so happy he can barely speak. We see some familiar faces leaving, a great mass of happy reunions all over the dock. Chakotay looks back toward the hatch and cannot see the Captain. He goes searching for her and finally finds her on the bridge. "It's hard to leave," she says. He understands. "Have you relinquished command?" he asks.

    She nods. "The admiral spoke to me a few minutes ago. I just wanted to say goodbye to her.." Chakotay walks up to her and takes her hand, then pulls her close. "You're not my Captain anymore, Kathryn." She turns her face up to his and kisses him the way she has been dreaming of doing for years. He kisses her back the same way, probably with tongue.

    Five years later they meet for a reunion. And they all live happily ever after.

    Yes, I'm a total sap.

    Love it, @grumpy otter!

    I liked End Game, but I also had vague, sappy dreams. I like how you thought it all out. :)

    @grumpy otter - Sounds lovely. They wanted action for the last episode... Oh and Borg.

    A shame. They could have had an episode like that for the penultimate one and then a more character based episode to deal with them returning home and the impact. But that is treating the fans like grown ups so would sadly never happen.

    @grumpy_otter That was absolutely beautiful and perfect, I'm going to save it, thanks for sharing - you invested so much thought and care into it. In every sense, the ending we should have had.

    Well thanks, y'all! Appreciate the kind remarks Springy, and wolfstar and Latex Zebr. Which makes me wonder if something has happened to Latex Zebra? lol

    I've been disappointed ever since it ended that we didn't get to see all the reunions with their families, so there we go!

    Voyager just wasn't scoring enough in the ratings. It's as factual as it gets as to the reasons why Voyager abruptly ends like it does here. But it's not that simple.

    I'd argue that the writers have to take a lot of the blame for all this.
    The Voyager writers, producers, whoever, they didn't plan for Voyager getting home at all, clearly. They tried to simply do a two-part episode that really should have been more like a six-part epic that leads to Voyager returning 'home'.
    I feel that this episode should have at least been the Season 6 finale.
    Season 7 could have been an opportunity to explore the aftermath and to explore ideas relating to what returning home actually means for all these characters.
    I see no reason why that would have been boring. I think it would have been an exciting change of pace, and would have allowed for more resolute ending.
    Hell, the Borg could still be a feature for this hypothetical season back in the Alpha Quadrant. Don't think the Borg would be going quietly for sure.

    Season 7 had some good episodes in the TNG spirit but to be absolutely honest Voyager was totally squandered as a premise by this point.
    The writers had given up even trying. "Endgame" plays like a rerun of "All Good Things" to just tee-up the TNG honor worship this series has been.

    Also, the Borg in this episode now resemble nothing of what they originally appeared to be back in TNG. The Queen even refers to herself as "I" and seems to literally be a ruler that is guiding the Borg collective rather than speaking with it.
    That wasn't even explored really. Is the Queen some sort of Individual separate from the Borg Drones, or what? It's all just not answered.

    @DataMat

    I really enjoyed reading your comment and I agree with most of your points. It's funny, I tried to look for some commentary or discussion about Voyager ending and all I could really find is that Brannon Braga had stepped down as the showrunner to work on Enterprise and all the other Treks-of-the-time had seven seasons so it was a natural ending place for Voyager, production-wise.

    It would have indeed been interesting if they'd brought Voyager back sooner in order to provide closure to more Earth story threads the show had created up until then. I wonder if the problem wasn't that they couldn't really count on a weekly audience for Voyager like they could for DS9, so trying to make the story semi-serialized at this point would confuse the viewers. Perhaps they tried to do the best of both worlds by giving some of the Earth story threads like the Pathfinder project continuity while keeping Voyager in the DQ until the very last moment. Of course, if Braga were here now, I'd imagine he'd say something like "We wanted this series to be completely different from other Trek shows, so we thought our energy was better spent keeping Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, dealing with new and exciting adventures rather than mired in the same stories of TNG." Well, maybe he would be right, I can't really say without more info!

    I'll say one thing in defense of Voyager, however, about the Borg Queen. The Queen was established in the TNG movies and Voyager basically had to run with the concept because it was canon. Notably, Trek's showrunners too wrestled with the introduction the Queen but decided it had to be done:

    "The existence of the Borg Queen was a controversial change made to the Borg during the writing of Star Trek: First Contact. While the writers had intended to stay true to the original concept of the Borg as a collective hive, they found it difficult to maintain the dramatic impact of villains without a central face. Thus, they created the Queen. In the film, she claimed to have been present during the events of "The Best of Both Worlds", which in retrospect would appear to have negated the reason for Picard's assimilation in that episode (it was claimed that the Borg needed a single representative to speak for them)."

    Like the Simpson's predicting a Trump presidency, this fairly good series finale accidentally (probably) predicted the "time heist" plot of what is currently the highest grossing movie of all time...it even has the same title (what're the odds the Russo bros never watched Star Trek? :)

    I love your ending, grumpy_otter, specially the Tuvok part(I thought exactly the same scene).
    But I think your version is not enough bittersweet. We learn with Endgame that Voyager lost a few officers, I think it's fair.My version would include the loss of the innocent Harry.
    The loop wouldbe complete with another Caretaker sending the crew back. Janeway must destroy Voyager to permit the crew's return(I don't know how and why...), another heartbreaking scene. Maybe with Chakotay preventing Janeway to sink with her ship, (by declaring his love?) .
    I imagine Harry's parents looking for him in the crowd at the dock.Then a sad Janeway arrives in front of them... No words.. Just her sad face. Heart breaking...
    I think also that some officers, after so many years of action,as war veterans, will not adapt to civil life, specially Janeway. After a year of living with CHakotay holidays, unsatisfied with her new life, she broke and take the command of another ship.
    A final meal scene, with the ancient bridge crew, before Janeway departure, with a vacant seat for Harry, a toast to the lost crew, emotional crossed looks and a large final shoot of the table, where life resumes with enjoyed talking and smiles.

    Very nice discussion all.

    Steve Shives has a couple of interesting ideas here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqpjYFki2Pg

    I watched it. His new version of Endgame is much better. Janeway trying to save Galaxy from Borg Apocalypse is more relevant than destroying future to save egoistically a few friends.Borg Apocalypse reminds me a fine episode of Tng, where Riker tries to survive in an alternate reality.
    If you add the promised reunions(Paris father and son, Tuvok and his family...), Voyager destruction and my bittersweet moments and ending, you obtain a fine episode, with great issues, action and believable human behaviors.
    On the other end, his original final episode is underwhelming:no great issues and it's a rehash of a previous Barclay episode. Not good.
    A finale episode and preferably a last season should resolve all issues satisfactorily.last season and Endgame does not:Paris/ father janeway/chakotay doc/seven Tuvok/family and on and on... Strangely, only Neelix got a great conclusion in a full episode!!!

    Finally, my re-watch of Voyager didn't change my first opinion :it's a fun but inconsequential show, far behind Tng and DS9, with very few great episodes.
    But better than Enterprise and Discovery (ugh)

    See you in a few months to deliver my own finale episode of Enterprise, after it's first re-watch.... Lol

    Hello Everyone

    A few mild thoughts on this one that I don't recall seeing above. They might be there, I'll admit my eyes glazed over a few times reading all the messages...

    There was an episode where the "Time Police" came and got Braxton before he could change the timeline, even though he didn't seem to be considering it right then. Why wouldn't they go after Janeway? Maybe she was just setting things right. :)

    With the Borg skill at adapting, wouldn't that special armour plate and weapons be nearly useless against them in a short time? It should make Starfleet head-and-shoulders above the other races in the Alpha quadrant, though. Oh, wait, they would probably just shelve it for 15 years or so while studying it, like Voyager seemed to do with every advance they obtained... heh.

    I agree they should have gotten to Earth a few episodes earlier, then dealt with the aftermath. Not as bleak as BSG would later do when they found Earth, but just a general unease from some of the crew could have happened. I would understand some of them having a problem adjusting to normal society or regular Starfleet again, and instead getting a nice civilian ship (with a few augmentations), picking a direction (maybe... up?) and heading out. Why, it could even be a spinoff! *ducks quickly*

    Have a Great Day... RT

    The name “Endgame” has been around in literature for a long time. If one were to examine the script by Beckett, for example, to which I have actors in my family that had been part of such productions, and also cross over to Trek famous episodes, you would find Janeway’s actions steeped in philosophy of the absurd.

    I’ll leave you magpies to your wire.

    One sec, are you telling me that after Harry spent almost, if not more, of his life in a whole other freaking quadrant, they assigned him in a deep space mission that puts him far away from the place he just tired to get to for 23 years? And he was just like ok, totally not the one who was always for going into Borg infested nebulae to get home. Not buying it

    This was an absolute terrific finale!

    To get this off my chest I don't understand some of the tomatoes thrown at this remarkable climax of an entertaining show. I know you can't argue taste and I get that. But complaints of who Seven ending up with (Chatokay) doesn't compute when real life has that stuff happen all the time....you can't cement in relationships.

    The fact that Harry did a similar altering time thing I wondered about myself. however his situation had so many different variables it would take too long for me to lecture them here. It wasn't a big deal.

    This finale had a lot going for it in action, suspense, romance, sadness, joy, and best of all a happy ending. Who could ask for more?

    If talking to yourself is a sign of madness, then is writing on a 12 year old post similar....No matter, I enjoyed writing my humble lonely posts throughout this series and now I feel a little sad....like losing a good friend. At least I know our Voyager got home. Without further ado I thank all you ghosts out there for the fun of reading your posts.

    Tim-1....signing out.

    This was my 2nd time watching the finale. Was surprised the first time when we didn’t see them actually on earth seeing all their loved ones. But this time I understood why. Show wanted to only focus on the guys we’ve been enjoying the last 7 years. Not random family members we have no connection to. Plus, they showed enough of that with the letters from home.

    Both watches I enjoyed completely, though. Janeway taking out the Borg was perfect. All the other events were fitting with just the right amount of humour. I like that season 7 really makes us miss Voyager. Whereas TNG ended in a way that made me glad it was over. Hated the TNG finale with all those Picards. That re-watch was a chore.

    Now that I’m done with Netflix Star Trek, I can enjoy watching these on Sci-Fi channel. Something special about reliving 90’s television with never knowing what season/episode will be playing. And love that Voyager and TNG are episodic - works great for syndication.

    There we go. To be honest I didn't know what to expect, so I just took it for what it was. With this in mind I have to say that "Endgame" was a more than adequate finale to a series which I at first had a hard time to accept, but now when all is said and done, have learned to absolutely adore.

    The episode felt like the blockbuster motion picture we never got for Voyager, meaning what it lacked in depth, it made up for in action and excitement. Would really appreciate watching this on the big screen one day. I'm not too keen on the premise, but it was all extremely well executed; and two Janeways is obviously a big plus regardless of how you look at it.

    Here's a few points I would like to touch upon:

    -I can't believe no one has mentioned the most emotional scene in the whole movie, when Admiral Janeway hugs Captain Kim in the shuttle. In a way it redeemed the whole Harry Kim character, and I for one couldn't hold back the tears.

    -Grease ball Chakotay was painful to watch.

    -Alice Krige did an ok role as the Borg Queen, I guess. However, I much prefered Susanna Thompson, who did a much better job in conveying a sinister aura.

    -Paris with his priorities set straight was just satisfactory to behold. He finally grew up.

    -Going back to Harry Kim again, his speech was great and served as yet another redeeming action to his character.

    -It was nice to see some good old klingons again, and Torres daughter was great, the little we saw of her. Too bad she wasn't featured more; albeit understandable.

    -The ending was too abrupt. The first shot should've been the last, or something similar. Would have benefitted a lot if at least the end credits showed Voyager being in the proximity of Earth.

    -Doctor Joe... seriously? They should've gone with Papageno. Just sayin'.

    ____________________________________________________________

    With that said I would like to conclude with two last indirect remarks.

    1. I really like this forum and will continue to use it as I make my way through both new and old Trek episodes. Hopefully, as long as I live. Thank you Jammer for this excellent site, and thank you fellow trekkies, for your comments. As Tim-1 so eloquently put it, this feels like an old friend.
    2. In the words of the great Springy: “I love many things about Voyager, but even if it didn't have all those things, I will love it forever for Captain Janeway alone.“

    Addendum:

    Just rewatched it and saw that they do indeed show Voyager close to Earth in the last scene, albeit just a few seconds, but nevertheless.

    I'm a bit confused as to how the Borg sphere came out before Voyager through the hub (?).

    I'm still disappointed we never got to see the Doc playing golf.

    And so I've reached the end of Voyager. And it's been a right rollercoaster ride, with a few highs and many lows.

    It's a pattern which has been present since the very first episode, and in many ways, this final episode reflects this.

    On the one hand, it's a grand spectacle, as Voyager goes head-to-head with the Borg, with CGI explosions a plenty. And with the time-travel aspects of the plot, it even gets to have it's cake and eat it, as we get to see most of the cast after they got home the first time.

    But behind the smoke and mirrors, there's quite a few things wrong, or at least odd.

    The first thing is the fact that it's another time-travel episode. Not only are there shades of TNG's far finer grand finale All Good Things, but it's also distinctly reminiscent of the earlier Voyager episode Timeless, where it was Kim and Chakotay who traveled back in time to rescue the crew.

    Were the writers really that hard up for new and innovative ideas?

    Because that's the second thing: above and beyond the recycled time-travel plot, the entire story is made up of a bunch of deus ex machinas (DEMs for short!), glued together with a lot of duct tape and hand-waving.

    The first is the Time And Relative Dimensions In Space engine which a Klingon just happens to have. And which to all intents and purposes, is the only one in existence. As is often the case when it comes to amazingly advanced technology.

    Then, there's the setup for future Janeway. Which is something of an abstract-negative DEM. Because the key element of future Janeway's backstory is that it took Voyager twenty three years to get home.

    Twenty three.

    Admittedly, we saw around seven of those twenty three years, but even so: in those seven years, Voyager managed to travel over half of the 75,000 light years back towards home. And after these seven years, Voyager has managed to pull together a lot of technology which it didn't have at the start of the journey *and* has a hotline back to Earth which it can use to share data.

    And still, it took Voyager a further sixteen years to travel the final 30,000 light years back? No more wormholes, slipstreaming engine technology, catapults, weakly godlike entities or any of the distance-munching events which occurred in the last seven years?

    Less than half the distance and more than double the time? I guess the writers really were feeling creatively barren.

    Then, there's the nice little package of future-super-technology future Janeway merrily hands over to Voyager, and which can handily be bolted onto Voyager for their David vs Goliath battle against the Borg.

    Oddly, there's a couple of omissions in this futuristic data-dump. Big guns? Ready to rock!. Batmobile-inspired dynamic armor plating? Let's strap it on and go for a spin. Specially invented for this episode Time and Relative Dimensions In Space engine (aka: a Chrono Deflector)? Yeah, but we can't plug it into Voyager for Unexplained Reasons, despite Voyager having bolted everything up to and including the proverbial alien kitchen sink into it's systems before now.

    In fact, this cornucopia of futuristic super-technology doesn't include any new propulsion technologies, despite the Federation having had 33 years to invent new technologies, plus a decade to complete the reverse engineering of the many and varied alternative-engine systems that Voyager discovered in it's twenty-three year journey.

    Which leads us to the next carefully positioned DEM. A little bundle of wormholes, one of which can bring Voyager straight home - but which happens to be sat behind an armada of Borg cubes.

    (Which also begs the question: how does future Janeway know about this nexus? Presumably the Borg would have been just as good at chasing her Voyager away before she could eyeball it!)

    Handily for this grand finale, this means that Voyager has to go toe-to-toe with the Borg if they're to have any chance to get home. And not only that, but it just so happens that the Borg in question are sitting atop a previously unheard of bit of Borg technology[*]: a transwarp hub, which gives the Borg the ability to instantaneously jump across the galaxy. Why fire up a transwarp coil when you can hop aboard the Conduit Express?

    And so, the scene is set for Future Janeway (FJ) and Past Janeway (PJ) to party.

    FJ steals technology. FJ breaks the Temporal Directive by travelling back in time. FJ has a chat with PJ about the future. FJ gives PJ future technology. FJ chats with Chatokay about the future.

    Future, future, future. The only thing more entertaining about the way future Janeway keeps breaking the temporal directive is the way that everyone keeps mentioning said directive immediately after she's already revealed something which could potentially break the timeline.

    In fact, where are the temporal police? This isn't a minor infraction. After all, not only is future Janeway liberally revealing Forbidden Secrets (TM), but she's also given Voyager Future Technology (TM) /and/ given the Borg a good, long look at it.

    In other words, not only has she given the Federation a chunk of future technology, but she's also effectively given it to the Borg. Which doesn't bode well for the future of the Federation - after all, they don't yet have the infrastructure needed to roll this technology out across their entire fleet, and even without their shiny new trans-wormhole-thingy technology, the Borg could fire up their standard trans-warp drives and be knocking on the Federation's door in a matter of months, both armed and armoured with their freshly reverse-engineered future technology.

    So yeah. There's drama, explosions, pithy one-liners and lots of action. But behind all the smoke and mirrors, it's pretty clear that the writers just wanted to finish things off with a big bang...


    [*] To be grudgingly fair, Janeway does mention that 7of9 has previously talked about them. And a similar concept popped up in an earlier episode. But to all intents and purposes, these conduits were cut from whole cloth specifically for this episode.

    Jamie, best not to overthink with Voyager. And since the last episode, writers are probably more concerned with wrapping up the show and characters. But I am someone who never questions the technobabble. So they could do some pretty outlandish stuff, and I’d accept it completely - so long as it made me laugh and care about what I was watching.

    Sleeper, ha, ha, Chakotay is indeed a greaseball. Him and Seven were one of the few pairings I couldn’t get on board with.

    I also preferred Susanna to Alice as the Borg queen. The latter seemed too dramatic and her expressions were uncomfortable.

    I may have commented on this before, who knows ... but I just watched the episode, and discovered that the Borg Queen was right ... kinda sorta ...

    "Captain Janeway is about to die. If she has no future, you will never exist, and nothing that you have done here today, will happen."

    Assuming nothing else changes, as soon as Voyager makes it home, after only a seven-year journey, Admiral Janeway's motives for going back in time disappear, and she never does.

    - Tuvok is able to get treated.
    - Seven and Chakotay are able to get married.
    - Be'lanna and Tom still have their child.
    - The crew as it is seven years on, gets home.

    But therefore there is no reason for Admiral Janeway to be angst-ridden enough to go back in time to help Voyager get home. The only way this works is if we say that besides all of the Adm. Janeway interference, that the Voyager crew could have done the deed themselves, and they simply did. The only thing Adm. Haneway contributed was the damage to the Borg, which could be bypassed ...

    Just some ramble-thoughts.

    Amy

    I didn’t have many problems with this episode, I liked it quite a lot and thought it was a good finale. Of course the Chakotay and Seven romance was bizarre. The two actors had chemistry but you just can’t shoehorn that kind of thing in one episode. Also I don’t know why b’elanna had to give birth the old fashioned way when Naomi Wildman was delivered by instant beaming transport. Those are nit picks though. I enjoyed the episode and have to say it was better than what I was expecting. Well I guess now I’m going to have to start watching Enterprise.

    C'mon, you missed the best line.

    Doctor - Be'lanna

    "I hope you don't intend to kiss your baby with that mouth!"

    I really loved Voyager. The premise itself was extremely interesting and strong - a Starfleet vessel flung to the other side of the galaxy with a journey of 70 years back home to Earth. There were some wonderful episodes like "Blink of an Eye", to "Someone to watch over me" and the iconic quotes like "They've got lasers... A black man and some bald guy!"

    There were also some interesting concept like the Macquis and moral Chakotay integrating with the Starfleet crew. I wish there had been an actual mutiny set of episodes though. The Equinox double bill was superb, though I would have liked to have seen a "Starfleet Pegasus" ship having joined them even if only briefly (perhaps sacrificing itself just like the Pegasus).

    This finale though - I'm mixed. An entertaining episode yes. And as a finale it would be sad that it was ending. But it's bittersweet. I am at a loss to explain as to why they made it a bit 'anticlimactic' at the end. There should have been a GLORIOUS arrival on Earth (a little like the opening of the actual episode) and some celebration..or something.

    There's also the time paradox, which definitely is not possible from what we know of temporal mechanics - like the TNG movie First Contact, or Voyage Home, events need to have already happened and thus time maintained rather than changing it. It was of course cool to see the Borg being destroyed like that, but surely maintain time somehow.

    The series was great and each Star Trek series had its own greatness. Before the dark times. Before lense flare. Story and morality and exploration and wonderful ships made Star Trek. But I feel like several filler episodes like the weird boxing one, and ridiculous Chaotica episode could have been used to add on to the Finale episode to make Endgame have a grander more befitting ending for the Voyager crew. Showing them get home and giving them (and us) payoff to that significant achievement would have meant something and let you forgive the "changing of the timeline."

    As far as the romantic pairings go, I thought personally the buildup of Janeway and Chakotay had been there from the start (especially after they got left on that planet). Whilst I understand it might have been difficult to "date" given the circumstances of command, I did feel it was hinted at the entire time. I mean they were having some pretty intimate dinners often. I don't think Picard dines with Riker every other evening. Hell I'm not even sure if Troi dined with anyone every other evening (though the holographic Deanna is another matter). I think it would have been befitting for Janeway and Chakotay to become one at the end.

    As for Seven - I concur with above that it felt so out of place without any basis the pairing they showed us. I really liked Seven as a character - her humour and doing what was necessary a lot of the time. Personally, I did very much enjoy her and the Doctor singing. To me, it felt like forever Ensign Kim and Seven should have ended up together. There was chemistry there from the "Do you wish to copulate" scene and "I play the clarinet... You are not on the list Ensign". It would have also given both a happy ending. Of course, the Doctor needed a happy ending - should have met someone fascinated with his intellect when they arrive on Earth.

    Should have really seen these characters we've watched for years get their happy ending. Seeing Tuvok meet his family, Tom reconnect with his father (same with B'Elanna"). Oh what could have been.

    I loved Voyager, I just feel they could have done the ending better. Replace the 'filler episodes' by giving the finale more screen time and show the glorious ending on Earth. If necessary, skip forward several years to the SAME anniversary celebration this time with ALL characters present - except it's a reunion now they all made it back safely. That would have been poignant in my view.

    @Megan @Drake I agree

    I agree. For a fantastic series, the ending was too abrupt.

    I've just finished watching Voyager seasons 4 - 7. I'd watched the show in its entirety throughout its initial run. At the time I was an unhappy young man, and I certainly didn't appreciate the many gems in the series. I didn't like the characters and the first three seasons seemed especially dismal. Now, years later, I'm a sweet old guy, and I appreciate Voyager very much. During my partial re-watch, I've skipped a few, but overall I've had a really good time.

    That is, until Endgame, which has always left me baffled. I know many criticisms have been made about Endgame and I don't want to repeat those - although I will say that I felt like the Seven/Chakotay romance seemed completely idiotic.

    My main confusion with Endgame is in the final scenes:

    How did Voyager get inside a Borg sphere? The sphere was firing heavily on Voyager - it doesn't make much sense that the Borg would open a door for them to safety enter.

    Also, Tuvok fired weapons to destroy the conduit BEFORE the Borg queen ordered the sphere to pursue Voyager. How can the sphere enter something that was destroyed? I assume the entrance would be destroyed first, logically.

    How does Voyager survive, without difficulty, being inside of an exploding Borg sphere? The armor was failing (per Tuvok), so their protection seemed unlikely.

    Responses welcome.

    @Dirk

    I’ve seen a few people wonder how voyager got inside the borg sphere but my thought when I watched it was that the were behind the sphere and then become visible after the explosion. Still wouldn’t explain how they got behind it but seems more plausible than getting in it

    @ Alex, Don't you think the show prpdiced more than a dpzen good episodes in 7 years? I think it did despote all the flaws here..Did most people think the concept of the Borg transwarp hub was at least a cool.and fairly original and imaginative sci fi concept? Something we havent seen before..I wish more ofnthe episode had explored how itnwas created or built and introduced new alien life forms..maube subpsace life forms within the corridors like the Nacene who love in subspace! And tie it back into Caretaker that way! What does everybody think of that idea? Any other altentate suggestions for how the show could've ended?

    Doc should have been gay. Could pair him off with Barclay; would have made a great couple. Hologram-addict engineer and sentient hologram: perfect match.

    This mostly feels like any other episode in the show's run that just happens to end with the crew returning home. In the end, nothing really mattered. Not the Borg civil war, not Pathfinder, and not the numerous time their journey was shortened—they just stumble upon a way home here and are successful. Everything else in the episode, like the Borg and Admiral Janeway, is basically just there to fill the time. And don't get me started on the detour with the Klingons, which is padding on top of padding.

    The crew getting home was inevitable, but 'Endgame' has no imagination when it comes to what happens next. It features a couple of nice character beats, but ultimately has nothing to actually say about these people, and worst of all, it's just not very exciting. Voyager fighting the Borg (again), Harry's big speech (ugh), it's all well-worn territory made to hide the fact that the finale has no tricks up its sleeve that haven't been done numerous times. And there's nothing rousing about any of it. It's a real shame, especially considering how much potential was here.

    What I never understood about Voyager (and to some degree Star Trek as a whole) is why when it comes to 2 parters or 2 hr special events, they always rush the ending. You have all this time to tell a great story, but by the time you get to the end, it’s like the writers forgot they had to wrap things up. You have all that extra time, start from a compelling and interesting ending, and work your way backwards. I guess it’s kind of Stephen King-esque to write a compelling plot and have a hard time finishing it, but it does leave us with a sense of “uh, that was it?” 2.5 stars from me, in my opinion the second weakest of series finales I’ve seen (I haven’t seen Enterprise, but I don’t know if that ending can be worse than “Turnabout Intruder). I’ve seen every ST episode in order and now I’m on to Enterprise. I’ll probably never watch Voyager all the way thru again, especially knowing how it has such a meh ending, but I’ll certainly watch my favorite episodes in the future, because when Voyager was good, it was GOOD.

    Why didn't Janeway just go back and stop Voyager from ever launching? THAT would have been typical Voyager. Reset the entire series, consequences be damned.

    @Batfunk

    Thank you! I like yours, too. I have always been focused more on characters than plot--I just mainly wanted to see "happily ever after" for these characters I love! Wasn't thinking too much about storytelling.

    (I've been off this site for over a year because of stuff, and then i come back and you wrote your comment exactly one year ago--cool! lol)

    I watched 20 episodes during the original run, and watched the entire series from start to finish over 6 months. I didn’t expect much as my die hard ST friends were unrelenting on their hatred of the series. Well, I can say that 20 years later, some episodes were stinkers, but I enjoyed the series. I grew to care about the characters, rooted for them in their struggles, and wanted to see them get home. I do feel like SciFi series have a certain shelf life and I feel like 3 years seems to be the maximum that the writers can be original without getting too goofy. I grew tired of BSG’s religious undertones, hinting at ghosts, and the supernatural. Star Trek likes to throw in weird time travel, Q, holodeck malfunctions, and shuttle crashes. No matter, we are not trying to cure cancer, we are trying to entertain, and it was still much more intelligent than so-called reality TV.

    Voyager, I was entertained, and although you frustrated me many times, I will miss the feeling I had when watching the episodes for the first time. Adieu, and welcome home!

    Endgame was not the ending we deserved, of all the possible scenarios taking Voyager back home, this is what they could come up with? Don’t get me wrong, there were some powerful scenes (e.g. future Janeway & mentally ill Tuvok) but after years’ worth of build-up we don’t actually get to see the payoff of them being home and reconnecting with their family.

    Voyager such a frustrating series overall. I know it was a product of its time but my main issues with the show:

    - Predictable storylines.

    - No real stakes, day-to-day it felt like a ship in the Alpha Quadrant (think Enterprise D on TNG) and in constant touch with Starfleet/Federation.

    - No stakes or risk taken with the characters given the fact they were tens of thousands of years away from home in an unexplored quadrant of the galaxy. The closest we got to exploring the dangers & trauma of this was the Year of Hell two parter but like with many episodes, everything was reset at the end.

    There were some highlights:
    - A few of the guest characters like Suder were good.

    - Dr was great and convincing, be it in comedic or serious scenes. Robert Picardo is a great actor.

    - Seven of Nine was a great addition to the story, although the constant focus on her was at the expense of the rest of the characters towards later seasons.

    - It took time but Kate Mulgrew eventually grew into her role and became a convincing enough Captain.

    To me, Voyager's lasting legacy is a show that never tapped its full potential.

    Just finished my latest rewatch (lost count now, maybe 4 or 5?)

    This sucked worse than usual. I don't remember cringing so hard at the Chakotay and Seven scenes. Or thinking as hard about the ludicrous temporal mechanics (and implications thereof).

    This totally sucked. Still enjoyed the rewatch on the whole, though. Janeway, for all her faults, is an entertaining captain. A better and bolder show would have given us some post-return episodes.

    I’m on a rewatch and encountered some comments I wanted to highlight.

    @Caine

    You said, “To be honest, I didn't care all that much about the first 90 % of the episode - all I wanted was the emotional release of these characters finally getting home to Earth!”

    I think that was my number-one problem. I WANTED that emotional release! I recall when I watched the Seabiscuit movie and loved it. In the final big race, the entire theater audience was on the edge of their seats—I could see the tension as they rode along with him as he put his heart into that race. The finish line is in sight and we hear the pounding hooves and we are getting ready to cheer out loud for his victory when suddenly . . . the director chose to cut the sound and move into slow motion, and I think there was a voiceover, too. It too ALL the momentum out of the moment and stole that emotional release from the entire audience. I could actually see it—this entire room of people all getting psyched up to cheer happily suddenly sat back with a dissatisfied sigh. That’s how this finale felt to me.

    @Nick
    You said, “Like returning from a long and incredible journey, the arrival back at your front door with your luggage in hand is inexorably an emotionally deflating experience.”

    I don’t think that would be the case in this scenario. In this case, all most of them wanted was to return home. For most people, coming back home after a journey is disappointing because your home is dull and uneventful—but you could have gotten there at any moment. It wasn’t something denied to you for seven years as it was for the Voyager crew. I am sure some of them had become addicted to the adventure and probably headed out on deep-space journeys, but that initial moment of getting home would have been wondrous.

    @Batfunk

    Your said “But I think your version is not enough bittersweet. We learn with Endgame that Voyager lost a few officers, I think it's fair. My version would include the loss of the innocent Harry.”

    I replied to you before but suddenly had another thought—I would have been fine with that except couldn’t they have promoted him already? That still pisses me off. (I am writing this with Voyager on in the background and Harry just said, “I didn’t notice a little box on MY chair,” lol That was in the first part of Unimatrix Zero when Tom got his pip back)



    @Tim-1
    You asked, “If talking to yourself is a sign of madness, then is writing on a 12 year old post similar?”

    I’ve been coming to this site for 13 years, and some of the people I spoke to then are still here now. It’s a nice community. I’d been a member of the imdb community for almost that long when those assholes decided to get rid of the message boards—and I still miss it. I had conversations on there going back more than a decade. I am very glad Jammer has kept it going. I love that we can have discussions that span more than a decade. I’ve actually watched myself change my views on things over the years. It’s very cool.

    @M
    You said, “Doc should have been gay. Could pair him off with Barclay; would have made a great couple. Hologram-addict engineer and sentient hologram: perfect match.”

    At first I knee-jerked to that with “NO! Doc should be with Seven!” and then I started to think about those two together. Holy cow, yeah—they would have been very good together. I did love Doc’ romance with Danara Pel, though, so I guess he’s actually bi, lol



    @Austin
    You said, “What I never understood about Voyager (and to some degree Star Trek as a whole) is why when it comes to 2 parters or 2 hr special events, they always rush the ending. You have all this time to tell a great story, but by the time you get to the end, it’s like the writers forgot they had to wrap things up. You have all that extra time, start from a compelling and interesting ending, and work your way backwards. I guess it’s kind of Stephen King-esque to write a compelling plot and have a hard time finishing it, but it does leave us with a sense of “uh, that was it?”

    I recall reading something by Dean Koontz a long time ago where he was talking about how to write a good story and he was saying how when you get to the climax, you need to end it quickly—or something. He had reasons for it that I don’t recall. As an example of how NOT to do it, he mentioned Stephen King’s “The Stand,” and said that the climax happens then then King includes 50 pages of “pointless filler to get the characters home.” (paraphrasing, but that was the gist) I just laughed. To me, THAT part of “The Stand” was the most enjoyable—and it still had some dangers to face. I don’t think I would have reread that book 20 times if it hadn’t been included.

    I think the Voyager writers were members of the Dean Koontz school of narrative. For those of us who love characters more than plot (for the most part) those moments are precious.



    @HK Star Trek

    You said one of your problems with Voyager was, “ No real stakes, day-to-day it felt like a ship in the Alpha Quadrant (think Enterprise D on TNG) and in constant touch with Starfleet/Federation.”

    OMG, seriously. This has been a theme throughout. The Equinox was a MUCH more believable scenario for how being stranded so far from home would have been like. Voyager was like a floating cruise ship, constantly being replenished.

    And I also agree about being in touch with the Alpha Quadrant—it was great when it happened occasionally, but the monthly messages made it boring.

    ---------------
    This finale highlighted ALL the overall problems with Voyager. At least I can re-watch my own personal finale in my head whenever I wish.

    @Jammer:

    ))An even bigger question: If the Voyager crew, which already left the nebula behind by the time Admiral Janeway made her appearance, never found out about the mysterious object at the center of the nebula, how does Admiral Janeway of the future know about it? She may be from the future, but that doesn't mean she automatically has more information. If her past self had never learned of it, she wouldn't have either.((

    This is truly one of the *easiest* conundrums to solve: We can safely assume that Starfleet learned of the existence of the nebula through some *other* means - some aliens told Starfleet about it, Starfleet's long-range sensors detected it, the fragment of a Borg sphere containing "secret files" was discovered and analyzed, Q told them, etc.

    No one from the future is *automatically* omniscient - but we can't exclude their *somehow* having discovered *something* - maybe even something vital - that their present-day counterparts don't know.

    @Mike:

    ))Why does future Janeway pick THIS moment, instead of a moment years earlier?((

    Because THIS is the moment that Voyager stumbles upon the nebula, wherein doth lie the transwarp hub. If Admiral Janeway had contacted Voyager earlier, she could have outfitted Voyager with nifty FutureTech, but without a transwarp hub in convenient reach...

    "Because THIS is the moment that Voyager stumbles upon the nebula, wherein doth lie the transwarp hub. "

    Except for the fact that Admiral Janeway herself has magic future tech that permits her shuttle to not only jump through time but also through space all the way to the Delta Quadrant instantaneously.

    She could undoubtedly have just used that tech to bring Voyager home or equipped it with whatever advanced propulsion she had access to in the future.

    All of which would have been simpler and less dangerous than picking fighting through a fleet of Borg cubes to use their hub.

    I liked the first half, 3 stars on its own and could have been the first half of a standout episode. But the second half just got progressively disappointing-- once we got the cake line, I just felt a shrug. I think I liked it more in middle school. But It all just ends with a shrug for me (and how did voyager get in that sphere?)

    Fortunately, since voyager isn't particularly into growth and change and continuity and such, it's not like this is a blown landing for things leading up to it.

    And my, how tired the borg have gotten.

    2.5 stars sounds right. I love Voyager, but it's not a great show. Cut out 1/3 of the episodes on rewatch, turn off your brain to anything beyond the episode itself, and it's my favorite to watch for whatever reason.

    If I want something that does more, DS9 and BSG await. I like Voyager for Voyager. As a series? 3 stars? 2.5?

    @ grumpy_otter

    Very well put....I understand the connection over the years with other commenters on a great tv show...or any show for that matter.

    I used to be a regular commenter on the remake of Battlestar Galactica....and wow did we have some interesting discussions. When the show ended I was probably more sad that I lost the connections to the friends I'd made on the forum than I was of the show ending......so yes...I know where you are coming from.

    I think I am a little jealous that I missed the party with Star Trek Voyager (years after the final episode) and I was pleasantly surprised the post was still open....a tribute to the quality of the commenters.
    Thank you for your feedback!!
    ps Happy New Year!

    With 7 of 9 and Janeway both coming back for new Star Trek series (Picard & Prodigy) I decided to give VOY a new chance. I never liked it in its first run, was a diehard ds9 fan. I think that after 20 years, i can “have my cake and eat it”. I really enjoyed it, even with its plot holes (as big as craters). I found the characters charming and grew to understand Janeway’s decision. They used to enfuriate me!
    All in all, if you are willing to just enjoy the ride, VOY surely provides a good journey

    @Facundo, Star Trek Voyager is a wonderful series. I do concur with a comment above which I think worth quoting and similarly to what I think:

    "The premise itself was extremely interesting and strong - a Starfleet vessel flung to the other side of the galaxy with a journey of 70 years back home to Earth. There were some wonderful episodes like "Blink of an Eye", to "Someone to watch over me" and the iconic quotes like "They've got lasers... A black man and some bald guy!""

    - YES. I agree. Really great premise and some superb episodes and quotes.

    "There were also some interesting concept like the Macquis and moral Chakotay integrating with the Starfleet crew. I wish there had been an actual mutiny set of episodes though. The Equinox double bill was superb, though I would have liked to have seen a "Starfleet Pegasus" ship having joined them even if only briefly (perhaps sacrificing itself just like the Pegasus). "

    Good point on the Battlestar Galactica analogy. It was also interesting to see the Macquis/Starfleet element and former Starfleet personnel as members of the Macquis.

    "This finale though - I'm mixed. An entertaining episode yes. And as a finale it would be sad that it was ending. But it's bittersweet. I am at a loss to explain as to why they made it a bit 'anticlimactic' at the end. There should have been a GLORIOUS arrival on Earth (a little like the opening of the actual episode) and some celebration..or something."

    THIS is one of the things I am saddened by. It felt like the ending was not the one we needed, nor deserved, nor what the show deserved. Frankly they could have skipped that weird Boxing episode earlier and used that extra 45 minutes for the Finale to show us celebrations on Earth, and make a more wholesome story in terms of any time travel like the movies First Contact and Voyage Home.

    " events need to have already happened and thus time maintained rather than changing it. It was of course cool to see the Borg being destroyed like that, but surely maintain time somehow. "

    YES.

    "The series was great and each Star Trek series had its own greatness. Before the dark times. Before lense flare."

    YES.

    I do agree on the romance having alluded to Janeway/Chakotay - even if it happened after they got home to Earth. Similarly I thought Harry and Seven a much better pairing based on development. Also likely based on development is Seven being made a Captain before him at this rate.

    "There was chemistry there from the "Do you wish to copulate" scene and "I play the clarinet... You are not on the list Ensign". It would have also given both a happy ending."

    YES.
    "I loved Voyager, I just feel they could have done the ending better. Replace the 'filler episodes' by giving the finale more screen time and show the glorious ending on Earth. If necessary, skip forward several years to the SAME anniversary celebration this time with ALL characters present - except it's a reunion now they all made it back safely. That would have been poignant in my view."

    THIS. Also I wondered why Voyager didn't utilise the "blue beam"/tractor beam from the Voyager Conspiracy episode.

    Think about this. The Finale could have had the Borg use the same time travel we see in the film "First Contact" to seize the Caretaker technology and devise some new form of space travel that could take their entire fleet now equipped with a modified Romulan cloaking field within minutes directly to Earth to overwhelm Starfleet. Voyager could have made the decision to stop them, at the cost of having to travel all the way back to the start of their journey. Defeat the Borg and then have saved the critical element of the Borg cube that they THEMSELVES could use to grab the Caretaker reactor (by cloaking Voyager and grabbing the reactor). They could then travel back in time to the future and use the reactor to travel back home to Earth thus maintaining the timeline, and having a happy ending on Earth.

    You could utilise the same opening scene of Voyager returning and the Celebration party, except everyone lives (shouldn't have any main character dying, nor change the timeline). This time show them meeting/celebrating with loved ones and the whole 30 years later angle. Maybe end with Admiral Janeway touring the bridge of the new USS Voyager B at the space dock above Earth which does a celebratory swing by Jupiter, and fade to credits with the music as Janeway says "Set a course. For home."

    Might be cheesy, but it would have felt more complete and a cohesive story that utilised the whole blue tractor beam. And you'd still have the Borg element as well.

    Actually, while Admiral Paris and his son didn't really interact at the end, the Admiral kept looking down from the view screen at Tom and smiling. Very nice touch.

    The ending was kind of abrupt, but we got the gist of most of their futures from the false future. Not bad really.


    I could have done without the idea that Doctor Joe was able to squeeze Barclay for Janeway's full plan, then Harry swooping out to try to stop her. Worse, if they were going to do that, there SHOULD have been a mention of the events of Timeless. That was a different Harry, but they pretty well know what he did, and it's essentially identical.

    Seven and Chuckles? So random and silly and not believable.


    The timey wimey stuff is as wacky as usual, but at least the Queen referenced that these events would never happen because of the changes, though for the wrong reason.


    Acting was pretty good, especially with Schultz and Mulgrew.

    It is kind of hard to believe Admiral Janeway would have done this 10 years after Voyager got back. Have there been no children born in that time, and for that matter, the 16 additional years Voyager was lost?

    And Barclay was ok with it too? And, ultimately, Harry?


    I mean, this all does suggest the Janeway/Seven ho-yay was true. Kind of like in Timeless, where the similarly un-paired Harry arguably altered time to save TOM.

    This episode was like the 10th or 15th time they redid the timeline? No wonder Captain Braxton was pissed LOL. Oh yeah and the one with the frozen planet and the slipstream drive. And after Future's End and Relativity I gave up trying to figure out who was the real captain Janeway. Also an important reminder. Ensign Kim and Naomi aren't their original selves either, they were both duplicated in the "Deadlock" episode and the captain sent their surviving clones over to the original ship. So much for the Temporal Prime Directive. She throws Tom in the brig for a month for trying to save a civilization but then violates every oath she took just to get them home a few years earlier. Wasn't she the one that was like "I promised not to get caught in one of these time paradoxs" but here she is, stealing Klingon technology to contact her younger self after she was already home LMAO

    Silly - - I always just thought Admiral Janeway created an alternate reality. The timeline she came from was still in existence as well as the 'new timeline'.
    J.J. trek has already now established in this universe that alternate timelines exist so its plausible.

    Having just watched this episode, I think it's pretty decent enough and has aged OK for the most part considering it's now 20 years old. I didn't like the way this series just 'ended' with a really lame shot of the entire fleet, Voyager centre, going straight at Earth - cut to black.
    We needed a final scene, some kind of epilogue, to give a more intimate closure for the crew and the audience. Something akin how TNG ended.
    It's so frustrating because TNG had such a perfect ending. It almost felt like a goodbye even though they still had a good 9 hours of screentime to come over the next 8 years after that episode aired. Voyager had nothing like this sort of closure.

    I loved Voyager and this episode was great, but not as a series finale.

    First, a huge missed opportunity again to not have Kim still be an ensign 30 years in the future, blaming Starfleet being a small organization that has too many lieutenants.

    But in all seriousness, the writers really flunked here by failing to have any aftermath of the arrival home. The entire "tension" of the show is being far from home, and you can't just wrap 7 years of that in 2 minutes. Season 7 had so many "throwaway" episodes that no one wanted, so it is tragic that they wasted screen time on those instead of a proper send off. All they needed is 15-30 minutes to wrap up character loose ends. What will become of the Maquis? Will we see Barclay hang out with the crew? Will Tom reconcile with his father? What will Starfleet Command have to say? Will there be a tribute to the red shirts who died? What will become of Seven? Will Torres meet up with her parents? Will Tuvok see his wife and "cure" his "ailment"? What will the Doctor do? And the most important question: will Harry finally get laid?

    One could argue that TNG didn't have an extended ending, but it didn't need one. TNG tied up loose ends along the whole series, and Picard at the poker game was the final loose end. He finally removed the stick from his ass and became as much a friend as he was a leader. But Voyager needed an extended ending and didn't get one.

    All in all, I really did enjoy the series. Some great episodes and characters that I will never forget.

    "First, a huge missed opportunity again to not have Kim still be an ensign 30 years in the future, blaming Starfleet being a small organization that has too many lieutenants."

    Haha, this made me laugh more than it had any right to. It's like, take a beaten to death joke tell it again, only harder, and - pazzah, magic recipe.

    @Procyon

    "I guess I didn't care too much for the stargate 'universe' either. Almost every 'alien' culture is a cultural extension of earth, and SG1 at least plays out like USA: Galactic Diplomacy. That is more likely to induce nightmares than a steamy night between Neelix and Janeway."

    I didn’t think it was possible, but that's an image even more disturbing than the thought of Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgnine on their wedding night.

    Speaking of whom, maybe there could have been a show "Star Trek: Ernest Borg Nine."

    Watching this episode again reminds me what a slapdash, half-baked affair it is.

    Let's start with the basic premise: Janeway brings advanced technology from the future to combat the Borg who are "behind the times" but travels through time using a *borg* device she steals from the Klingon. Umm humhum why don't the Borg just use their own time travel technology to foil Janeway's little scheme? I mean obviously time travel in of itself is a universe breaking proposition going back to TOS and the flying around the sun trick, but how can you use a *borg* time travel device against the *borg* while pretending that the *borg* can't retaliate with the same means in the very same episode?!

    Then there is the whole transwarp network thing and boy does the writing shoot itself in the foot here. We are told there are *six* of these things in the galaxy (why wouldn't Seven know the locations?) which totally undermines the urgency of this mission because what good does blowing up 1/6 of these things actually do other than guarantee that the Borg are going to send an armada of cubes to Earth in retaliation using one of their 5 other hubs(!!!)

    And then we have the virus used on the Borg queen and this really blows my mind. It reminds me of the movie Independance Day where they blow up the alien mothership with a bomb and it's like wait, they can do that? Well what the hell? Who cares about some dumb transwarp network? You can kill the Borg queen with a virus and that's just a throwaway incidental detail? Isn't killing the queen and destroying her central plexus or whatever that was a lot more significant than just destroying 17% of their transportation network? Or is it? I mean did they just destroy the Borg as in wipe them out? How can something so important be so ambiguous? Agggh!

    I also like that it's Admiral Paris and Barclay(?) leading the armada against the Borg? I mean Admiral Paris okay, but Barclay? Boy oh boy I guess they really didn't want to confuse the audience by introducing new side characters but still, Barclay? Maybe Troi should have led the armada since she was in a couple episodes too.

    Hey Jason R,

    Don't forget about the fact that Voyager has Species 8472-level tech that destroys cubes immediately, so what if the Borg did send an Armada to Earth? I guess it would just blown up, right? Sort of makes you wonder whether the Romulans and Cardassians will crawl over to Federation HQ begging for their mercy, since Earth and Earth alone possesses this means to destroy the otherwise implacable Borg threat. Between that and the mobile emitter, it seems like the Federation is about to be jumped ahead a few centuries in technology, so it almost may as well be the Kelvin timeline as far as any sequel series would have been concerned. How do you actually follow that up?

    You know I just realized they don't actually say the device Janeway stole was Borg did they? Haha I think it was Kim who stole a Borg time travel device in the previous episode Timeless which is virtually the same plot as this one. And holy smokes it was Captain Kim who intercepts Janeway's shuttle and tries to convince her not to go ahead with her plan! No wonder he let her go - not out of loyalty but because he'd die of embarrassment being such a hypocrite.

    But in my defence a) we already established the Borg have time travel tech like this from Timeless and First Contact and b) what is the deal with Voyager ripping itself off so blatantly?

    And ya Peter by this point Voyager has quantum slipstream drive, the mobile emitter, borg nanoprobe bombs which only were used against Species 8472 but could just as easily blow anything up.

    But I guess we could presume that the Borg would eventually adapt to Transphasic torpedoes?

    But this brings up a perennial problem with the Borg ever since we established in Scorpion that they've got hundreds, even thousands of cubes floating around. Why don't they just send 2 or 25 cubes for that matter to Earth and assimilate those pesky humans? This is especially glaring after we learn in Endgame that the Borg can just casually send a cube or fifty cubes right to sector 001 within minutes via 6 transwarp networks!

    And the standard head canon answer of most Trek fans is something along the lines that the Borg deliberately pull their punches hoping their prey will adapt and get stronger making them more valuable for assimilation. Pretty clever explanation right?

    But no silly fans. This all gets definitively chucked out the window yhanks to another Voyager stinker Dark Frontier where the Queen expressly tells 7 she wants to assimilate earth and needs 7's help to deploy some biogenic plague in earth's atmosphere. And not since Enterprise's asinine Carpenter Street episode do you want to scream at the screen as much in frustration. HEY YOUR MaJESTY if you care so much about assimilating humanity send TWO cubes dumbass!

    The idea of letting races get stronger to make assimilation more fruitful is an especially odious explanation, since if other species possess the ability to create tech that the Borg can't make which would benefit them it undermines the point of this forced assimilation in the first place. If these races are so valuable then maybe annihilating them without a conversation could be seen as...counterproductive.

    This is going to sound like armchair producing, but maybe just maybe VOY could have offered a real explanation of why the Borg are the way they are beyond being EVIL. A V'Ger type of explanation could have been in order; or maybe a continuation of Unity's idea of the collective having originally been voluntary; or maybe the Borg have some sort of actual philosophy that - don't freak out - makes sense! Not that they succeeded IMO, but in the recent Marvel extravaganza they tried to give Thanos a reason for being a villain. It was half-baked and illogical, but for some reason some people think he was talking sense. Maybe the Borg could have become sympathetic in some abstract way in this manner, or at least interesting.

    Eh, it's all academic at this point. The Borg are clearly bush league compared to whatever is out there in PIC.

    The Unity explanation was my favourite - namely that collective consciousness is both inherently seductive / pleasurable *and* conducive to totalitarian ways of thinking. Or at least that's my head canon of what Unity was saying.

    With Voyager it's like the writers are always striving to achieve mediocrity and when something brilliant shines through it's as though by accident, like someone was asleep at the switch and forgot to follow the formula.

    "The idea of letting races get stronger to make assimilation more fruitful is an especially odious explanation, since if other species possess the ability to create tech that the Borg can't make which would benefit them it undermines the point of this forced assimilation in the first place. If these races are so valuable then maybe annihilating them without a conversation could be seen as...counterproductive."

    This idea was sort of touched on in Scorpion, the "investigation" versus "assimilation" idea. It makes very little sense when you stop and think about it since clearly the Borg do gain knowledge outside of assimilation - their magical ability to "adapt" to any weapon no matter how powerful being an obvious example (except Species 8472 for some reason but whatever) But ya, as Data told the Bondage Queen in First Contact, the Borg idea of their own perfection seems to be straight up delusional. It is difficult to comprehend how, given what is portrayed, they can justify this belief even to themselves.

    By Endgame the Queen might as well be Skeletor or Gargamel. Her characterization is EVIL and that is all there is to it. Even the idea of collective consciousness has basically been jettisoned and it is just the Queen giving orders like she's a petty dictator. Sad sad sad.

    @Peter

    "...in the recent Marvel extravaganza they tried to give Thanos a reason for being a villain. It was half-baked..."

    It was probably a full-baked reason at first, but Thanos undid precisely half of it.

    I have actually become a little more sympathetic to the Thanos plan in retrospect by applying a little head canon that Thanos really was "mad" as in actually insane. I mean I could almost see a human getting to that point as we see human serial killers sometimes act out extremely bizarre fantasies based on outright delusion and logic that follows their unique pathology. And some of those types are even able to pass as semi normal in society and to execute complex plans requiring clear thinking, methodical behaviour and logic.

    It didn't work in the movies, ironically, because truth really is stranger than fiction and thus when fiction becomes too strange we tend to discount it as unrealistic. But Thanos's "plan" could be an extreme compulsion on par with Buffalo Bill's skinsuit but amplified by being, well, a space warlord / demigod.

    After seeing every episode, I am going to say that the best 5 are:

    Deadlock
    Futures End
    Relativity
    The Thaw
    Bliss

    And the worst 5 are:

    30 days
    Threshold
    Memorial
    11:59
    Endgame

    I just watched the finale for the first time. When the credits came up I said “was that it?” Omg it so disappointing. I wanted to know what happened to everyone. I know they never made any movies, so I assumed it had a more satisfying ending.
    It just ends.
    I didn’t like Seven and Chakotay as a couple. It should have been Chakotay and Janeway. I wanted Seven to reconnect with her boyfriend from Unimatrix Zero.
    I was hoping we’d see Harry finally move up from ensign. Tom, B’Elanna and their daughter on some adventure…
    I don’t know, it was just so lacking.

    "According to Robert Beltran, who by this point was very dissatisfied with the show and his character, the writers did not even begin to write the finale until "the last minute." Whatever that means."

    I just watched the "Behind the scenes" stuff on the Season 7 DVD. There was talk on that about how the writers for about a month were toying with the idea of a script that had the crew not actually getting home at all, like, *really* going with the "it's the journey" and "Voyager is our *real* home now" thoughts that were expressed in the episode. There was also a comment from one writer that he had always had an image of Voyager coming home inside a Borg ship like some kind of trojan horse, having the entirety of Starfleet shooting at this Borg ship, and then Voyager flies out of the wreckage. So I guess that actually happened in the final show because this writer thought that would look cool.

    From that, I take the idea that how the show would end was still up for grabs as the script for Endgame was being written, which suggests that the focus was more on making the finale as a whizz-bang special double episode than as an excellent way of tying up well thought through plot lines.

    I'll probably write more later, but:

    1) How does destroying one transwarp conduit's scaffold destroy the whole network?

    2) Why does killing the Queen result in the entire central nexus exploding?

    3) Why is the Queen personally involved in this situation at all, since the Borg have no celebrities or single personalities to hold grudges?

    4) How was Voyager not destroyed immediately when the sphere it was inside of was destroyed?

    5) For that matter, why did the sphere even bother tractoring Voyager inside itself, when the goal was to destroy Voyager to protect the Borg timeline?

    6) Why did the producers not think to get Voyager home maybe one or two episodes early so that we could see what re-integration would look like? There were so many unanswered questions about how they would be greeted, their first impressions being back, the celebration, etc. We were cheated of those narratives and no Trek production since has ever illustrated it.

    7) Why did it take Admiral Janeway 16 more years to get Voyager home when they were able to cut 30,000+ light years off their journey in the first 7 years? Are you telling me there wasn't a single extra shortcut or innovation after that point?

    The finale seemed to embody the action packed intrigue with no consequences ethos of the entire series, without really caring about some serious practicalities. Like Chakotay and Seven's romance... not really believable, given how hamfisted it was at the 11th hour, and given that there was nothing noteworthy to indicate sparks between these two any other time in the series.

    I'll probably write more later but for now these are my immediate thoughts after re-watching Endgame.

    Five things:

    1. Firstly, this was a fabulous show. Really wish we had this type of Star Trek today.

    2. It definitely needed a more expansive finale of the crew reuniting with their families and more of a happy ending. E.g. in the same way they showed us the future at the start, to show us the Voyager crew back on Earth. Could have ended it with the Reunion in the future, or old crew members at a ceremony seeing off the Voyager B.

    3. In my view, the romance definitely should have been Captain Janeway and Chakotay. I thought Ensign Kim would have been the best match for Seven, or just leave it as it was. And seeing Seven reunite with her human family on Earth should have been some screen time.

    4. The plot should have been more in line with films like "The Voyage Home" and "First Contact" where the time travel was a predestined set of events and not changing time. So no Admiral Janeway coming back to help them and changing history. They could have still kept the Borg in the equation, but had the Borg trying to go back in time to steal the Caretaker reactor and assimilate it to enhance their propulsion to propel a Fleet of Cubes (at the staging area they come across) to attack Earth. Voyager steps in to stop them. And Voyager could be the ship that was cloaked using the "blue beam" - the mystery seen in "The Voyager Conspiracy" back in Season 6. And use it to get home in the final battle with the Borg.

    5. I feel like the whole crew (including Neelix) should have gotten back to Earth alive without any changing of time lines. If I'm not mistaken, they came across another Caretaker during the show. That technology could have been part of the episode regarding getting them back quickly. Even the Borg with their Conduits take time to get places as seen in other Star Trek shows or movies.

    It feels like the show deserved a better ending. If they needed more run time, then take out the earlier 40 minute boxing episode and add that to the overall runtime for your conclusion to make it a full feature length finale.

    P.S. I would love to see the Voyager EMH interacting with Data.

    As many commenters above have been doing over the years, I’ve been working my way through voyager while using these reviews as a sort of touch stone, so I’d just like to say thank you to jammer for his insight and excellent writing.
    It’s been a strange experience being able to binge watch a series that was clearly intended for 90s era weekly televised consumption. Reconciling modern viewing culture with content from a previous time is an interesting mental exercise. However, even with that in mind, I have to say my full impression of voyager is still one of a show with a great premise but a lackluster follow through. I’m particularly left with the feeling that the writers for this show were generally subpar, whether that’s due to some sort of lack of talent/effort or the effect of network pressures I can’t say, but the preponderance of plot hole headscratchers and general laziness is undeniable. For my part what drives me a bit nuts about that is just how unnecessary all the mistakes and poor creative choices were; there’s no reason why choosing a more episodic structure automatically means you have to be slapdash in your plotting and character work. It seems like such a waste for people to have an opportunity to write a major chapter in such an iconic franchise only to turn around and phone it in half the time. But it is what it is, and honestly, what it is…is pretty entertaining.
    After watching the whole series I think I can safely say it’s better than I remembered it being back when it was first on the air. Just could have been so, so much better.

    A few random thoughts about the finale:

    - Finishing up with a laborious time travel plot was a goof. All the pieces were there(icheb’s virus, unimatrix zero Borg infighting, the female caretaker, etc..) to do a straightforward plot that got voyager home. No need for ethically dubious time paradoxes. Time travel is, in my opinion, the second laziest plot device in the sci-fi toolbox, the first being “it was all a dream”, so boo on time travel as a finale.
    - We needed some emotional catharsis from this episode, which I would argue should have included some emotional interplay between the crew and the ship itself. This vessel took them halfway across the galaxy and was their home for years, the idea that they wouldn’t spend a bit of time reflecting on that, giving the characters, particularly Janeway, a moment to say goodbye, is just such a huge missed opportunity. But I guess that’s the voyager way.
    - Voyager really mucked up the Borg. I’m all for fleshing the Borg out, elucidating their weaknesses, motivations, even origins, I see all that as dramatically necessary, but reducing the Borg to a sort of evil queen situation? Kinda lame. The way voyager set things up, there’s no reason the Borg hadn’t already assimilated the federation, not to mention the rest of the galaxy. I would have loved a more nuanced approach to what’s going on at the center of the Borg hive mind, but instead we got this cartoonishly petty evil queen. Sigh. Whatevs voyager.

    Fun, yet frustrating show to the very end.

    What promise did Voyager fail to live up to? To be like Battlestar Galactica, which I grew to dislike in the end?

    I love Voyager. It had its flaws, but I can say the same about the other Trek shows. I also love the finale. I am so grateful that it's finale lacked a sequence featuring the crew splitting up and saying goodbye - something that bored me senseless in Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5.

    What a stupid episode. If any of "30 Days", "Prey", "Nothing Human", "11:59", and "Memorial" weren't my worst 5 this certainly would be one of them.

    I'm starting to think Janeway is literally just a temporal troll. Preaching endlessly about the importance of the prime directive and temporal alterations, yet this is how she ends the series LoL

    There were already at least 20 episodes where the crew was either now from an alternate timeline, duplicates, or duplicates of alternates..etc, what the hell are they now? Are we also supposed to believe that out of the mere SIX transwarp hubs in the entire galaxy, that one of them just so happens to end exactly at Earth, or even our star? Armor that magically materializes and unfolds around a shuttlecraft like the bikes in TRON. Seriously? EMH getting married? Tuvok having yet another mysterious neurochemical imbalance? What happened to all the people in the original timeline back at starfleet? Did they just vanish? The Tom-Torres relationship is almost as bad as the Worf-Troi crap. An inpatient ill tempered klingon into a character like TOM. Dumb. Is that baby going to basically have Torres' road rage in the shuttle crafts that she gonna want to fly around from Tom's genes?

    Wow, was that the best the writers could come up with? Having said that, you could say the same about the series as a whole, don’t take any risks, just play it safe. One of the main criticisms was that the show was too episodic, there was almost no sense of a ship stranded thousands of light years from home and then, they are home, how did that happen? The Seven/ Chakotay romance was beyond absurd, it’s literally me the writers couldn’t wait for it to be over and thought, just give them any old rubbish. Throughout the seven seasons and the twenty three years that Voyager was in the Delta Quadrant the crew faced the Borg, Species 8472, the Hirogen, deadly pathogens and many other menaces and survive without a scratch. In Scorpion, Harry is assaulted by a member of Species 8472 and is being eaten alive from the inside. The Doc delivers one of his hypo sprays and Harry is back on his feet in no time, it takes longer than that to get over the common cold, yet in Endgame, two of the main characters are dead and one other, Tuvok has succumbed to a mental illness, where was that plot armour? One of my biggest complaints is the absence of any continuity. Voyager would have been returning to a quadrant devastated by the Dominion war, billions dead, major planets, including Earth had been attacked and Starfleet suffering major losse, they were struggling to get enough ships into battle, even with the aid of allies, the Klingons and Romulans. Many of their friends and family would have been casualties of that war, but no, it’s like it never happened. As for the time travel element, unlike TNGs All Good Things, which was a beautifully crafted story involving time travel, Endgame was a complete mess, it’ was as if Janeway had written the script herself. In the Year of Hell, Annorax, fails to restore things to the way they were despite repeated attempts, yet here, everything goes her way, as if she had written it herself. Voyager could have been a great series but the writers threw away every opportunity they had been given, perhaps Endgame sums up the series as a whole.

    I'm going to be frank. I don't really like your opinions of "STAR TREK VOYAGER". There is a touch of bias against the show in your reviews. The series had its flaws (like all of the TREK shows), but I believe it was just as good as "NEXT GENERATION" and "DEEP SPACE NINE". And honestly, I prefer this finale to that of TNG (which was basically a two-part character study of Picard) and DS9 (I loved the first half and found the second half boring as hell).

    Can’t you just people enjoy the show without over analyzing every aspect of it?

    And after watching the disaster known as Discovery, you should be thankful for Voyager and its 7 year run.

    I remember that the crew get home, but I forgot how. It was an enjoyable episode, but I don't know how I feel about them breaking temporal laws to do it

    @Sean Hagins

    I think Janeway did what most of us would've done given that choice. She most likely had a lot of guilt about Seven and Chakotay, and also not getting back to the Alpha Quadrant soon enough to cure Tuvok's illness. She crippled the Borg, think how many assimilations she prevented.

    What show are you going to view next? Have you seen Enterprise recently? Jammer should really start a Discord server so the more chatty posts can be placed there and not upon the reviews.

    @EventualZen I am going to rewatch a couple of my non-Star Trek shows next. Whiz Kids (from 1983), Tenspeed & Brownshoe (from 1980 [one of Jeff Goldblum's first shows]), and the Edison Twins (1984 [the first Starfleet girl assimilated on the Enterprise-E in Star Trek First Contact is the main female lead for that show!])

    One show I haven't watched in some time is TOS and TAS. I may do that next when I get back to Star Trek (or a may change my mind)

    I still have one more episode I just watched. It is "Living Witness" (I have the show in fictional chronological order on my hard drive, and since that one is technically 700 years in the future, it is the last episode)

    On rewatch, I liked this a lot more than I remembered from the first time.  But Jammer does raise some points (nitpicks, plot holes, what have you) that are valid and which I hadn't previously considered (as well as one I already had, which is that I agree it would have been nice to see at least a little of how things went after they got back).
    @Tricia (2014): "Also, it reduced Janeway to the pathetic sadness of the captain in 'Year of Hell', who just kept trying over and over to restore his wife. Consequences be damned!"
    Great point.  Although tbf he did ultimately succeed.
    @Yanks: "My mini-assessment of nuBSG....

    The first 2&1/2 years & RAZOR - it's some of the best most riviting TV drama I've ever seen.

    The rest you could throw away."
    100%.  I always tell people to stop after "Resurrection Ship, Part II".
    @grumpy_otter: I liked a lot of your fanfic ending, except for putting the Doctor and Seven together.

    "The Finale could have had the Borg use the same time travel we see in the film "First Contact" to seize the Caretaker technology and devise some new form of space travel that could take their entire fleet now equipped with a modified Romulan cloaking field within minutes directly to Earth to overwhelm Starfleet. Voyager could have made the decision to stop them, at the cost of having to travel all the way back to the start of their journey. Defeat the Borg and then have saved the critical element of the Borg cube that they THEMSELVES could use to grab the Caretaker reactor (by cloaking Voyager and grabbing the reactor). They could then travel back in time to the future and use the reactor to travel back home to Earth thus maintaining the timeline, and having a happy ending on Earth.

    You could utilise the same opening scene of Voyager returning and the Celebration party, except everyone lives (shouldn't have any main character dying, nor change the timeline). This time show them meeting/celebrating with loved ones and the whole 30 years later angle. Maybe end with Admiral Janeway touring the bridge of the new USS Voyager B at the space dock above Earth which does a celebratory swing by Jupiter, and fade to credits with the music as Janeway says "Set a course. For home."

    Might be cheesy, but it would have felt more complete and a cohesive story that utilised the whole blue tractor beam. And you'd still have the Borg element as well."


    ^ This.

    Utiise the blue beam detected by Sensor logs at the original Caretaker array. That did happen. So have an actual Time travel story where events always happened this way. Like in First Contact. Not changing history, but being part of established events. The original array gets Voyager home speedily. And show us the arrival and reunion with families.

    Janeway ending up with Chakotay. Seven ending up with Harry. B'elanna with Paris. One of the next generation perhaps getting assigned to the next Voyager when they grow up.

    At the celebration at end, have Barclay part of the Voyager family. Cameo of Data appearing to duet with the Doctor and them talking small talk non stop.

    Things I would have liked to have seen

    1) Janeway sacrificing herself to defeat the Borg

    2) The Borg to be 100% irrevocably defeated

    3) I know it's the premise of the show, but I wish Voyager never made it back to Earth. I'd like some of the crew to make it home to Earth, but I like the idea of others staying onboard Voyager and exploring the DQ and helping rebuild after the defeat of the Borg.

    I thought it was exceedingly lame that the writers/producers chose to name the ship and the show "Voyager." Yeah, it voyages all the way across the Delta Quadrant. I'm surprised the writers/producers didn't find a way to say, "See what we did there?"

    "There's got to be a way to have our cake and eat it too." —Captain Kathryn Janeway

    Spock: "Jim, Edith Keeler must die."
    Kirk: "Are you sure? Maybe there's a way I can have my cake and Edith too."

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