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Alternate Finales

Well
I know it’s a common view that “Terra Prime” should have been the ENT finale, but I wouldn’t want to close the series on Trip & T’Pol weeping over their daughter. (This is not a defense of TATV!)
Well it was just stupid and unnecessary to let Trip die. Main characters never die in Star Trek except when the actors leave the show.
 
I'm fine with the concept of Trip dying. It was the way it was executed (pun intended) that seemed incredibly dumb.
 
For some reason my choice to watch TOS, and sometimes even TAS, in stardate order gets controversial around this site, but "All Our Yesterdays" is the last episode in stardate Order. That also puts "B.E.M." as the last TOS episode, which actually does sort of work as a way to show that that 5-year mission is over wrapping up. The stardate of "B.E.M" might be better regarded as an error, since it seems to be using a fan stardate system and refer to 1974 and the third month rather than a real stardate, and may be a bit too close to TMP.

In fact there are only 4 TAS episodes with a stardate higher than "All Our Yesterdays."
We must note for TOS, when the series was cancelled, it shortened the episode count at 24 versus the planned 26; and as a result, we were left with "The Turnabout Intruder" as the last episode.

I'm a fan of Stardate Order, so in my mind, "All Our Yesterdays" is the last episode. Maybe? I also have an augment that "Day of the Dove" could be the last episode:
For TOS I think either the Enterprise Incident, or, as cheesy as it is, Day of the Dove could have worked very well as series finales. Both bring back recurring adversaries and are enjoyable episodes.
Using Stardates, "Day of the Dove" has no Stardate given in the episode, but Kang says, "For three years, the Federation and the Klingon Empire have been at peace. A treaty we have honored to the letter." Assuming he is using Earth years and the three year measure is close to actually three years, then this puts us ~3000 stardates after the Organian Peace Treaty (EOM stardate 3201) putting it at Stardate ~6200. The last Stardate given in "All Our Yesterdays" is Stardate 5943.9 while "Day of the Dove" could be Stardate ~6200. The first TOS episode is Stardate 1329.1 for "Mudd's Women" (I'm discounting the pilot WNMHGB.) The lapse time is ~4900 Stardates or 4.9 years (4 years 11 months). About one five year mission. YMMV :)
 
The lapse time is ~4900 Stardates or 4.9 years (4 years 11 months).
I have heard the theory of "Day of The Dove" as a finale before due to the "three years," and just assumed it was rounding, but your noting that it would be at 4.9 years after 1329, is actually compelling, to a degree.

I think the possibility that the second pilot is not part of the 5-year mission could work.

I am now trying to recall how often in TAS shots are fired from a Federation to Klingon ship and vice versa. It might suggest if "Day of the Dove" must take place before TAS, or if Kang was meaning something a bit political when he said "at peace."
 
I don't have a specific episode I would have liked Enterprise to end on, but I think it should have ended without any connections to TNG. I thought it was dumb to have the ending scene involve Riker.

Have Enterprise End over a longer arc involving Terra Prime. Humanity has finally dealt with its demons, and in doing so, the ending scene is the foundation of the Federation itself, with Archer giving his speech.
 
Well there is a difference between leaving and dying.
So it really didn't matter killing him off. I like Trip and I thought that was one of the few well done things that episode did: finally some gravitas. No long drawn out 10 minute goodbye with a resurrection 1 year later to make the moment pointless.. just ..dead. (yeah I know the books brought him back.)
 
For some reason my choice to watch TOS, and sometimes even TAS, in stardate order gets controversial around this site, but "All Our Yesterdays" is the last episode in stardate Order. That also puts "B.E.M." as the last TOS episode, which actually does sort of work as a way to show that that 5-year mission is over wrapping up. The stardate of "B.E.M" might be better regarded as an error, since it seems to be using a fan stardate system and refer to 1974 and the third month rather than a real stardate, and may be a bit too close to TMP.

In fact there are only 4 TAS episodes with a stardate higher than "All Our Yesterdays."
My first experience of watching the Original Series all the way through was also in Stardate order, thanks to the Columbia House Collector's Edition VHS tapes.

Additionally, I imagine that for at least some people watching first run, "All Our Yesterdays" was the finale, as there was a gap of, what, ten weeks between it and "Turnabout Intruder"?
 
Where do those VHS tapes fut the episodes without Stardates? Did someone say that it was at the end, after "All Our Yesterdays"?

I did a watch through or two where I not only used stardates in a way mixed seasons, but also mixed TAS episodes with TOS. There are really only about 4 TAS episodes with higher Stardates that "All Our Yesterdays," and those are "How Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth," "The Pirates of Orion," "The Counter-Clock Incident' and "B.E.M." Any of them could work as episodes wrapping up the five year mission. Actaully, though I am not a fan of the idea of Enterprise having missions after the five year mission was over but before the refit, these could work for that.

Kirk says in "B.E.M" the Entperise is on a "series of...missions," and that B.E.M has remained in his cabin for all of them but the last. I may be misremembering, but I think he said "B.E.M." has been in the background, not leaving his cabin for 6 missions. Depending of whether "Turnabout Intruder" counts, that is, if either the distress signal or yearly check-in on science teams counts, B.E.M might have been onboard since "The Savage Curtain," or even for just the 4 aninmated episodes I alread mentioned. Atlernatively, "The Pirates of Orion," is the first episode to have a higher stardate than 6329 (A possible number for 5 years after "Mudd's Women,"), so B.E.M. might have been onboard from then on.

I really think that 7403 should be regarded as an error, because that number would imply at least 1.1 years since the possible end of the 5-year mission. if you really want to make the case that Kirk has been made Chief of Starfleet operations, but is still on the pre-refit Enterprise, wearing his CPT rank even though he is an admiral, I guess you could. (In TMP, Kirk has been Chief of Starfleet Operations for 2.5 years, but the Enterprise has been under refit for 18 months.)
 
It's probably not controversial to suggest that "Turnabout Intruder" is an abominable send-off for TOS. Similarly, "These Are The Voyages" is... not great, exactly.

If you don't like the finale - or entire final season(s) - of a Star Trek series, what episodes do you think would make good makeshift finales instead?

For TOS, "The Tholian Web" works well - that way, the series ends with Spock and McCoy working together and Kirk coming back to rib them both over it. "The Savage Curtain" works fairly well too; the series ends with Kirk expressing his belief in a better future and his desire to continue the good work of past humanists.

For TNG, "All Good Things" is fine but oddly I always find "Emergence" makes for a fairly sweet finale - the Enterprise-D gives birth to a new lifeform based on the crew's fantasies, and from that it learns compassion and heroism and carries those values forward. Granted, the episode is boring as shit, but thematically it's a good conclusion to the show.

With DS9 you're obviously locked in to the end if you go into the war arc seasons, but if you want to rewatch just the first few seasons, "Explorers" is a fantastic sendoff - Jake and Sisko embracing as the Cardassian government begrudgingly acknowledge the successes of Bajoran culture, which is a situation that will no longer be thematically or logically possible in what the show turns into afterward.

Any others? I suppose Voyager's stuck with "Endgame" (which is fine for what it is), unless you want to awkwardly end with them still trapped in the Delta Quadrant.
The TNG & DS9 finales were great/fine, no need to change. TOS could literally be whatever episode was broadcast the last.

For me of all the finales Endgame hurt the most. Because I liked VOY, and it deserved a much better conclusion to it's premise.

If I could re-do it, I would also involve the Borg.
But I'd have the Borg launch an invasion on Earth. And the Voyager somehow gets dragged along the Borg fleet through the transwarp tunnel & suddenly is in the Alpha quadrant. Now they have to rush to Earth first - and instead of having a peaceful, somber arrival, suddenly everything is hectic, their home itself is threatened, and instead of having a happy reunion, everyone has to scramble to make a plan. Instead of Tom & his father hugging it out, he has to introduce his wife & daughter on battle stations.
And then only after the Borg invasion fleet is defeated, with the VOY crew & Starfleet (Admiral Paris, Troi, Barcley) having successfully worked together - everybody is celebrating the immediate victory, and only then the realisation slowly setting in - they made it. They're back. The end.

Barring this - and following the threads original rules - VOY's "timeless" (aka "the better Endgame") was also always a great finale, ending on a fantastic positive note.

I've weirdly made my peace with the ENT finale - the amazing two-parter is the "real" finale. And TATV is just a hologram story for Riker, as real as DaVinci on VOY - an artistic recreation of events more than 200 years ago, a commentary how ENT as a television series is also wrong about the future in 100 years.
 
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