Young Janeway: Are our uniforms going to look that bad?
Old Janeway: Well... yes. If there's one bad thing "All Good Things..." brought into existence, it's this crappy uniform!
All this talk about the Game of Thrones final episode has
got me thinking about other final episodes. Last episodes tend to range from
“what the heck was that crap” to “that was pretty good.” Even some of the best
shows end up having a bad ending. I’ve never watched Dexter, but that’s one
that gets thrown around a lot. Sci-fi franchises have also felt this. For every
“All Good Things…,” you’ll get a “These are the Voyages….” This stuff just
tends to be random. Then, there are the ones that just “whelm” you. They’re not
good nor or are they bad. In Star Trek’s case: it’s one thing: “Endgame.”
No, this doesn’t involve Captain Janeway flinging Mjolnir at
the Borg Queen because that would be too cool. “Endgame” was the series finale
for Star Trek: Voyager and it aired May 21, 2001. At this point, I was catching
up with the show through reruns on UPN. We only had the station for about a
year, so I didn’t start watching VOY properly until the end of the sixth season.
We even got a few surprises in the finale like Alice Krige reprising her role
as the Borg Queen. I know I liked this back when I first saw it, but why did
have a whelming feeling when I saw this a couple of years ago?
The episode starts out in the future (2404). Voyager did
eventually make it home, but it took them 23 years to do it. We pick up 10 years
after their return. Janeway became an admiral, Harry Kim became a captain, Tom’s
and B’Elanna’s child joined Starfleet, and the Doctor chose a name. Unfortunately,
it wasn’t all good for the rest of the crew. Seven of Nine died during the trip
which led Chakotay, her… eventual boyfriend, to die alone. Tuvok ended up developing
an irreversible neurological disease. That’s not including the other crew
members that died during the trip.
Well, at least Old Janeway is looking fashionable here.
Janeway is wanting to secretly travel back in time and see
if she can get Voyager home sooner. After she gets a few trusted folk to get
supplies for her, she takes an experimental shuttle back in time to 2378. At
this time, the Voyager came across a Borg transwarp conduit. It could easily take
them home. Originally, they didn’t go through it because of the danger to the
crew. When old Janeway finds the 2378 crew, she informs them that they can use
the conduit to make it back home. She also tells Janeway about what happens in the
future. Meanwhile, the Seven/Chakotay fling begins and B’Elanna’s ends up having
her daughter.
Eh.
Even though Old Janeway wants them to go back to Earth, the crew wants to destroy the conduit since the
Borg could assimilate anyone in the galaxy. Old Janeway realizes they’re right and they
all come up with a plan to destroy the conduit and make it back to the Alpha Quadrant.
While Voyager goes through the conduit, Old Janeway goes to the Unicomplex, the
main hub for the Borg and the Borg Queen. She tries to get the Queen to give
them free access, but it doesn’t work. Old Janeway gets assimilated, but all
this does is release a pathogen into the Queen (and the Borg?), killing her. The
Unicomplex is destroyed. As for the crew, they destroy the conduit and hitch a
ride in a Borg cube back to Federation space. The show ends with Voyager
heading back to Earth.
And that's all she wrote, folks!
I don’t remember what I thought of the episode when it first
aired, but I think I liked it. When I re-watched it a couple of years ago, I
had a different opinion on the episode especially since I watched all the
episodes at that point. I still think this is a fine episode for the Voyager to
go out on. They finally make it home and that’s well and good. We see Tom and B’Elanna
have their kid. We even get to see the
crew go out on one last, action-packed battle. It was also nice to see the Borg
Queen make an appearance. Even though it wasn’t Susanna Thompson (Voyager’s
Borg Queen), it was nice to see Alice Krige reprise the role for one last time.
Neelix is even barely in the episode and is used nicely, so that’s good, right?
While I did still like it, I actually had some qualms about
it this time. It’s kind of an “All Good Things…” clone. While that’s not a bad
thing, it just sucks because that finale feels more like a farewell than this
did. While I liked seeing the possible future for the crew, it would’ve been nice
to see the crew make it home and enjoy it a bit. We spent seven years with
these people, ya know? It might’ve helped if the show built up to the final
episode, but outside of a couple of things, that really didn’t happen. Since it
was on UPN, they really couldn’t do a whole lot of serialization on the show. After
my re-watch from a couple a years back, I began to see this and it hurt the experience.
One thing that folk have railed about is Seven’s and
Chakotay’s relationship. That coupling came out of nowhere even though there was
one episode that referenced Seven’s feelings for dude. What makes it worse is
that “Chocolate Day” (sorry, blame SfDebris) is just so dull. No wonder Robert
Beltran wasn’t a fan of the show! Also, for someone who was adamant on not
changing the timeline, Old Janeway didn’t give a crap. To be fair, I wouldn’t
blame her, but we’ve seen when someone tries to change the future on the show. Other
than those things and small nitpicks, it’s a fine, though disappointing, finale
for Voyager.
....................................................
Well, that’s all I got on this fine outing for Captain
Janeway and the Voyager crew. While it could’ve been better, I’m fine with it.
At least it wasn’t Enterprise’s crappy finale. While I’ve been writing this, I’ve
been re-watching Battlestar Galactica’s final episodes. It’s been 10 years
since that time, and man, things have changed. If you’re curious about my
thoughts on BSG’s final season, come on back in a couple of days. For now, I’m
going to enjoy my 4-day weekend. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful
out there on this Memorial Day weekend.
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