Yes, I liked These Are The Voyages. Far from the best finale of Trek, but I did enjoy it, despite its flaws.
TOS. Never even had a proper finale, just a last episode. ENT. A hastily cobbled together finale, trying to play on nostalgia by including TNG characters. As a regular ep it wasn't bad, but not worthy of a finale. Would have loved to see the Archer speech at the founding of the UFP, though. VOY I actually kind of like this one, though I think it is extremely unlikely that VOY can do that much damage to the Borg, even with technology 30 years from their future. DS9. Predictable, in a way. Wasn't bad though. We all know there will be a final battle against the dominion, that there will probably be a final standoff between Sisko and Dukat, that Winn probably won't escape unscathed, etc etc etc. Also, I don't like all these goodbye scenes and flashbacks that are drawn out for half an hour or so. TNG. The best, in my view. A proper adventure that also manages to come full circle to 'encounter at farpoint'.
When I look back at the episode now, this is what I love the most. It reminded me of when I had to say goodbye to my high school friends when we all left for college, and then when I had to say goodbye to my college friends after graduation. Everyone moving on to new things... Also, the few bars of 'Minstrel Boy' when they show O'Brien gets me every time.
All Good Things... had the strongest plot of the ones I've seen and it also tied the end to the beginning fairly well. What You Leave Behind on the other hand really truly felt like you were saying goodbye to the whole cast. The plot could have been a little tighter but it got the emotional aspect perfect. It and Terra Prime both left me a little teary eyed. Terra Prime was good as both a story and a finale but It didn't quite live up to the other two, of course it wasn't trying to.
TNG...not the biggest fan of time travel storylines but it was overall the best conclusion and a very creative use of time travel as well. DS9...meh, it was a good conclusion but then it gets bogged down by my least favorite aspect of DS9. Also didn't really care for Sisko, so I wasn't very invested in the conclusion of his story. -----wide margin------ Voy---- Didn't care about anybody on that show anymore by that point so why would I care what happens to them? Also one of the stupidest time travel plots. Admiral Janeway erases people from existence so that Chekotay, Seven and Tuvok get to live (perhaps) a little longer. Our hero? ENT - Do I need to explain? TOS - Didn't have a finale. But as I understand very few shows back then did get to film a finale, right?
Exactly. The notable exception was THE FUGITIVE in 1967, where Richard Kimble finally caught up with The One-Armed Man and cleared his name in the final episode. (At one time this was one of the highest-rated broadcasts in TV history.) Typically, shows just ended when they were cancelled, and there was no attempt to provide a "finale." Which makes more sense when you remember that most shows of the era didn't have really have ongoing story arcs or plot lines. The LOST IN SPACE crew never found their home home. Roy Thinnes never defeated THE INVADERS. The guys on TIME TUNNEL remained lost in time. Etc..
Since the OP didn't specify a single episode finale, I voted for DS9: The Final Chapter. Conceived as a nine-part, ten-hour story, it had numerous moving parts that worked fairly well together. I'm glad that is was willing to be maudlin rather than force optimism.
It's been suggested that "All Our Yesterdays" should have been the finale for TOS because AOY was Spock's "City on the Edge of Forever" moment. I quite agree. IMO, "All Our Yesterdays" had a far more powerful ending than "Turnabout Intruder." Perhaps women weren't yet captains in Denise Lester's day. But they were respected scientists, engineers, and historians and thus were on their way up the Starfleet ladder, which somewhat dilutes the force of Lester's complaint. Spock, on the other hand, was facing an enormously difficult choice, and his grief at losing Zarabeth carried far more emotional weight with me than did the conclusion of TI. Just my opinion, though.
That's how I feel. I generally can't stand it when Trek does time travel episodes even though I love many shows based on the same idea. "All Good Things" is still the best, imo. It's a great conclusion to a great show.
1. TNG, by far the best 2. VOY - Great double episode, but only Nelix got a proper good-bye. Everyone else was like, "Home, peace, fade out!" 3. DS9 - IMO the post climactic goodbyes were a bit lengthy but I still liked seeing it. More than I got from Janeway. 4. ENT - If we're counting Terra Prime as the real finale, then this is actually #3 for me. If not, then it's not a finale, just a weird 40-minute sub-plot to TNG-The Pegasus. N/A TOS - TV shows did not have finales back in the day and I think it's impossible (or just unfair) to rank TOS against the others. But if any TOS could pass for a decent finale, it would be The Menagerie as a double episode. To me it makes the most sense, especially since The Cage was released and is now generally accepted as the true first episode.
When I glean message boards, I found that people who really liked TATV fall into 2 camps. a. Trip haters b. radical Archer/T'Pol shippers
Now you have me curious, T'Arwen. Why do some posters hate Trip? And what makes Archer/T'Pol shippers radical? (Incidentally, I quite like your screen name; I've always related to Eowyn myself.) Another question: Is Trip as volatile as Scotty?
Part of me lives in my own little world where TaTV and Endgame never happened. The crews are still out there happily travelling around. I'm glad they dealt with the fall out from the 'original' Admiral Janeway's decision in the books. I LOVED Trip. He was the only reason I watched Enterprise (Scott Bakula was a given). I still haven't been able to bring myself around to re-watch that show after all this time. All Good Things was great but I never really knew how to feel about the ending of DS9. I didn't hate it. (That's BSG) but it was more like the ending of LOST. Left me...confused.
There was a TATV thread a few months ago where one person said it was a good thing Trip died. Of course, he tarred and feathered. I love Trip and really can't understand why anyone would hate him. It's on the third post down but I don't see any substantial reasons for the hate. http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=251965&highlight=trip+worst&page=4 I'm not saying all Archer/T'Pol shippers are radical, just that there's a radical segment. One board has a story of a woman who falls into both the camps I mentioned last time. http://triaxiansilk.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2531&p=95446&hilit=hug+archer#p95446 I live in my own little world where Terra Prime was the final episode and the crew had many nice adventures afterwards.
Charles Tucker demonstrates that people from the south-eastern portion of the United States, with southern accents on top of that, and play the harmonica, are intelligent thoughtful and capable people. Well, this drives some folks just plum crazy.
I think at the very least Trip's a meaner drunk than Scotty. Yep, this for sure! Terra Prime was STE's real finale. TaTV was just Star Trek's version of a Seinfeld finale: It didn't fit and just made everything awkward.
Yep, I think you're right. As a native, I can tell you that Trip's accent does not represent the norm in Florida. But for Pensacola? Yeah, it's pretty spot-on.