I mostly enjoy Endgame, although I would have liked to see a bit more after return to the Alpha quadrant, such as a little montage what happens to the crew, shaking hands with admirals, seeing their families. Just a few minutes, even freeze-frames with some emotional music in the background would have been great. Besides that, I find the latter part of Endgame a bit confusing. If it was the plan all along to get assimilated by the Borg in order to infect the collective, why go through all the trouble with the neural interface? She could have just beamed over to the queen in person. And there was a discussion here recently how Voyager got back to the Alpha quadrant, IMO inside the sphere, but it is not 100% clear. Apart from that, I love Endgame. Time-travel, Klingons, Borg, some nice twists, great acting by Mulgrew and Russ, lots of eye candy... Aaahh, maybe they could have left out the last-minute-romance between Seven and Chakotay.
QUOTE]) Horrifying Ending. Due to Admiral Janeway's selfish and dangerous exploitation of time travel technology, Voyager returns home...only to find the entire planet was assimilated long ago. closeup of Janeway staring at the screen in dumbfounded horror. Voyager receives the standard Borg message of assimilation. The crew votes in favor of AutoDestruct. The countdown begins. The EMH and Seven start singing “You Are My Sunshine”, and one by one, the Bridge crew join in, all with somber faces. As they near the end of “Please don’t take my sunshine away”, 10 seconds are left in the sequence. At 7 seconds, an emergency Star Fleet message is onscreen. Majel Barrett voicing. ABORT AUTODESTRUCT. WHAT YOU ARE SEEING IS A BORG ILLUSION. REPEAT. ABORT AUTODESTRUCT. They do. The illusion disappears. They fly into San Fran singing. At the Welcome Home party, a banner reads, “RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE.” Admiral Paris explains to Janeway that, yes, the Borg tried to assimilate Earth, and got a buttwhooping. But before that, they installed a set of cloaked hi tech holoemitters in space, attempting to scare the fleet away from their prize, with the illusion. “We’ll never find all of them.” “But we did rescue a whole new race of ex-drones. Who have, ummm.....assimilated into society. All productive, valuable citizens again.” Janeway: “And the remaining Borg?” Paris: “They no longer find humans, um, interesting.” Cue Theme.
I would have preferred something that was more of a real look back at the series in its entirety as well as allowed for some time to see our crew settling in. Spend the final season with the crew finally beyond Borg space (use "Unimatrix Zero" to close out the Borg threat), and able to finally return more to the themes of the earlier seasons, meeting new races who aren't all pointlessly belligerent. In the latter half of the season Our Heroes begin to find evidence that the female Caretaker has moved to this portion of the galaxy (to avoid assimilation? to try to find a new mate? other reasons?). By the finale have her acknowledge the good that Voyager has done (versus her attitude at their last encounter) and send the ship home, having laid the groundwork for the DQ species (at least the ones encountered in the final season) to want to welcome the UFP back. I dunno, this is five minutes of thought.
I'd say, 1) skip the very beginning which happened in a future timeline and let viewers live fully the present and be shocked by the unexpected apparition of an old Janeway and the reason of her presence in this timeline (Seven's death, Tuvok's illness and Voyager's very long journey with more deaths) 2) skip all Chakotay/Seven moments which the purpose was uninspiring and served to only fill the blanks. 3) offer us a reunion with families (for 7 years, we saw the crew dreaming of Earth and what is meant for them to be with their ffriends and families and what did we get? A vessel entering in AQ welcome by an armada of Starfleet vessels ... Not great! At the end, everyone could see/imagine what they wanted (Janeway/Chakotay even if in this episode, there was no signal of an eventual romance to become once back on Earth ; Chakotay/Seven afterwards even if we skip every intimate moments between them, there was nothing letting us think of an eventual romance ; the future of former Maquis crewmembers; Janeway's official inquiry and promotion, etc...). Authors of fanfictions were pretty good at this job!
I would have had them get home in the first two minutes instead of the end. A group of Starfleet security officers beams aboard and immediately arrests Chakotay, Belanna and the other Maquis and ships them off to prison for their time as Maquis. Just because the crew had to forgive and forget in order to survive doesn't mean Starfleet is going to. They also send Paris back to prison to finish his term there. The Doctor is taken out of sickbay and sent to a lab somewhere so the scientists can see the effects of his program having been on so long. Seven is also arrested, but sent to a lab to be dissected so Starfleet can learn how to beat the Borg once and for all. Janeway, Tuvok and Kim spent the episode trying to get their friends out of trouble. In the end, they get their friends off, Janeway reassembles the crew on the Voyager and they fly off to have normal Star Trek type adventures. The End
^^ Jesus man, that's overly oppressive. They finally get back to earth and everyone except Janeway, Tuvok and Kim are arrested/imprisoned?
Turns out that "subspace divergence field" in Deadlock was actually an opening into the Mirror Universe. New Harry is in fact 100% pure evil. As soon as they get back to Earth he seizes control of Voyager and quickly conquers the unsuspecting planet. At this point a triumphant Kim finally finally promotes himself to Lieutenant (jg).
Meh, I was just going off the way things were when the series started. They left alot of stuff unresolved when they got lost in the DQ.
I would have made it totally different. A two-part episode which would have included a final showdown with the female Caretaker to wrap up what had been going on since season 1. It would have included a last attempt from the female Caretaker to finally destroy Voyager, a come-back for Kes in which she at the last moment would have interfered and persuaded the female Caretaker not to destroy Voyager and as a result of that, Kes would have been restored to normal, got a human lifespan and followed Voyager to Earth. The horrible character which showed up in that disgusting episode in season 6 whould have been revealed as the female Caretaker in disguise. I would also have included a real homecoming for the crew members where we would have seen them being welcomed back to Earth by friends, relatives and Starfleet hotshots. And maybe a "happy ending" between Chakotay and Janeway which was something many fans wished for.
I would have liked to see Harry come home to the home of his parents were Libby and his parents would wait for him. Then Kim jumps through the door, rush into their living room and starts jumping around singing the old Runaway's song "Cherry Bomb" but with altered lyrics, like: "Hello Mum, Hello Dad, I'm your D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-Duplicate Son! Hello Libby I'm your wild man, D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-Duplicate Son!"
I'd like to have seen Libby, John Torres, Kim's parents and Irene Hansen again. And a message from the D-Quadrant from Neelix, being happy for his friends for making it home.
Flip the end to the beginning. Start with Voyager arriving home, show the crew repatriating with their Earth life, and gradually reveal the sacrifices made, showing us Janeway's journey towards obsessing over how to change things and going back in time. The fundamental plot doesn't need to be different, it just needs to be rearranged to give us a more satisfying feeling of closure for all these hanging arcs from the series. Paris being officially released from his sentence and reuniting with his dad. Torres meeting the in-laws. Kim discovering what happened with his girlfriend. Tuvok returning to life on Vulcan with his family even despite his bad health. Janeway, though knowing Mark has moved on, perhaps meeting him and his fiancé and getting back her dog. Little moments. Even if the episode still ends with history being revised by future Janeway, we as an audience would get some sense of what happened when they got home. Not in retrospect, not in flashback. Show don't tell. This is the last chance to see these characters we've been following for seven years, make it memorable and satisfying for the audience who are invested in them. And *then* hit the reset button.
Maybe Harry could have met a young Enseign from a lower deck - without knowing yet - that she would be THE ONE... you know, like the love at first sight!. But well, it's Voyager and we know how romance & love stories are treated. And with our luck, Harry's girlfriend would have found a way to get killed before the end of credits and/or a sudden/temporary amnesia would have made her forget everything about him between the 1st and 2nd part and our Harry Kim would once again found himself in a corner of the Mess, wondering why fate denied him the 2nd pip and a serious romance!
They get to Earth, and find that the language has changed. Every sentence, every phrase....is full of Technobabble. “My dog...shed his organic plasma on my manifold.” “Dispatch a Takeon Pulse.” “I did, and he collapsed his matrix from the gravimetric shear!”
I wouldn’t have just had the female Caretaker try to destroy Voyager. Maybe she is captured by the Borg and Kes shows up with the space station Ocampa asking for help rescuing her with the implication if they help she will send her home.
What if Demon planet Kim hadn't "died" and got home first? hey! I am the first duplicate of the original Kim. And I am not filled of goo. Twinkie Kim! *Childish shoving commences*
See, I like this also. Using another Caretaker is something that, like TNG's finale, actually harkens back to the pilot episode, and brings things full circle.
I like those horrifying endings. How about an ending where Janeway finds the earth was assimilated by Borg long ago because of her miscalculation and the Federation lost the Dominion War because of a Sisko error and sentient life in the AQ never developed because Picard failed to solve that anomaly riddle from AGT ?