A better way to end the series then Endgame

[Kobayshi Maru]

You know there was another way to end the series, Shattered. They make it the last episode of the series and instead of chakotay burning out the thing that burns out, something goes wrong and it's Janeway's time that is selected and they are all back in the alpha quadrant with no memories of what happened...

The story continues from right before the caretaker kidnaps them all and everything plays out exactly as it did before... Voyager... The series that invented perpetual motion...

 

[Anwar]

Well, preferably they should have returned back to the Federation around Season 3 or so because that's all the "Lost in Space" thing is good for. But with DS9 on that wasn't happening.

I'd have just had it turn out the whole thing was Q messing around with them and then he teleports them home cause he's tired of them.

 

[bbjeg]

Re: A better why to end the series then Endgame

"Endshame" was a total disgrace.

Voyager should have ended with a final showdown with Suspiria, the female Caretaker.

In this episode, Surpiria should have returned to finally destroy Voyager. Then Kes should have returned from the "energy-being" state and finally she would have persuaded Surpiria not to destroy Voyager, convincing Suspiria that Janeway told the truth about how The Caretaker died and also that Voyager fulfilled The Caretaker's last wish when they distroyed the array.

As a final gift, Surpiria would have sent Voyager home and also given Kes a human lifespan as thanks for her help.

Then we would have had a real homecoming for our heroes.

Maybe a "happy end" between Chakotay and Janeway!

I love that idea a lot! Returning full circle to the Caretaker's mate would've been a nice way to tie the whole series together. I always was fascinated by the powerful and mysterious Necenes and the mysteries of the Ocampans - potentially incredibly powerful beings reduced to living a life of basically hamsters. Giving Kes a role in the finale would've been a really nice gift to Kes fans.
Rather than having Kes be given a human lifespan as a gift, I'd prefer that Kes's powers finally be under her control and discover that a long life is natural to the Ocampans, that they only lived such brief lives due to the Caretaker's control and interference. That would be a nice touch for Kes to solve her own problems since there was an ongoing theme with Kes struggling to control her own life, with her power, lifespan, reproduction and ultimately her own sanity and morality going out of her control.

I like a lot of Endgame. I am a borg fan, and I thought Admiral Janeway was great. Chakotay and Seven's puke worthy romance really brings the story down, and Tuvok's sudden illness is just too contrived. In a perfect world we could've gotten a Borg showdown as the penultimate story with some tie in to the finale with Suspiria. Perhaps in the aftermath of destroying the Borg Voyager is seriously crippled which could play a part in Suspira's story.

Having Suspira arrive, ultimately judge Voyager, and send them home would feel a bit like TNG's malevolent being judging the Enterprise D ending.

...
3) The Borg teleportation gate that was used in the finale, time travel was not necessary for that story...

I still say that would have been a way better ending than what we got.

 

[Dukhat]

Well, preferably they should have returned back to the Federation around Season 3 or so because that's all the "Lost in Space" thing is good for. But with DS9 on that wasn't happening.

I disagree, to a point. They could have gone the Farscape route (after John Chrichton is stranded on the other side of the universe, he pretty much gives up trying to get home and instead acclimates to his new surroundings.) Unfortunately the whole "we need to constantly find a way to get home even though everyone knows that won't happen for seven years, so lets just randomly wander through space instead of trying to find a new home" thing was what they went with instead.

The crew should have just stayed put and tried to form a mini-Federation of their own with the indigenous alien races of that particular area of the DQ. IMHO, that would have worked much better as a series than the Lost in Space effect.

 

[Dick_Valentine]

I thought Endgame was a symptom of a burnt out writing team phoning it in.

Think about it, nearly every element was a rip off direct from all good things.

Time travel elements: check

Tacked on relationship that comes out of nowhere: check (Worf/deanna, Seven/chakotay )

Degenerative disease that comes out of nowhere (Picard, Tuvok)

Future Klingons a threat again: check.

And a myriad of other ways that prove they just took the tng script and copied and pasted it. With added borg.

Myself I'd have gone for sone thing like them coming home a few episodes previous then them finding being sent out on speerage ships carrying out boring surveying missions not to their liking so deciding to steal voyager back, rescue seven and the doctor from being studied by starfleet, possibly the maquis from a starfleet brig and the last shot is them setting course for the delta quadrant again.

Its obviously a bit cliché and overdone but sometimes it's not about the destination but the journey

 

[borgboy]

I agree that Suspiria doing the heavy lifing of sending Voyager home would be a dramatic let down, but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be a way to use Suspiria and still have Voyager be more proactive at getting themselves home. Kes could use her powers to move Voyager forward with Voyager's crew providing help to her. Maybe Torres can improve the engines but needs Kes to provide the power, for example.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Borg Assimilate Susperia.

She is the new Queen, since Susannah was unavailable.

 

[borgboy]

The Borg assimilating Superia sounds like a really fun story - that would make for some really scary upgrades.
AFAIK, they used Krige as the Borg queen just because she was more high profile and they wanted to do something special for the finale; Krige was used instead of Susannah because of a production choice. Is that not right? Was Susannah really not available for the finale?

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I thought Endgame was a symptom of a burnt out writing team phoning it in.

Think about it, nearly every element was a rip off direct from all good things.

Time travel elements: check

Tacked on relationship that comes out of nowhere: check (Worf/deanna, Seven/chakotay )

Degenerative disease that comes out of nowhere (Picard, Tuvok)

Future Klingons a threat again: check.

And a myriad of other ways that prove they just took the tng script and copied and pasted it. With added borg.

Myself I'd have gone for sone thing like them coming home a few episodes previous then them finding being sent out on speerage ships carrying out boring surveying missions not to their liking so deciding to steal voyager back, rescue seven and the doctor from being studied by starfleet, possibly the maquis from a starfleet brig and the last shot is them setting course for the delta quadrant again.

Its obviously a bit cliché and overdone but sometimes it's not about the destination but the journey

I am sorry but I don't see random coincidences as a rip off.

For instance the diseases in Picard's case and in Tuvok's have very different impacts on the story. You may as well say that it's a rip off that both stories include ships firing at each other for example.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Borg assimilating Superia sounds like a really fun story - that would make for some really scary upgrades.
AFAIK, they used Krige as the Borg queen just because she was more high profile and they wanted to do something special for the finale; Krige was used instead of Susannah because of a production choice. Is that not right? Was Susannah really not available for the finale?

Susannah was a secondary character in a series called Once and Again when Endgame was being filmed. Maybe they asked her agent, or maybe they knew that they didn't have to.

Point is, if they wanted to lock her down for End Game, they could have done it 2 years earlier during Dark Frontier since the very last story was that generic, predictable and practically fanfiction.

 

[at Quark's]

Tacked on relationship that comes out of nowhere: check (Worf/deanna, Seven/chakotay )

The Worf/Deanna relationship doesn't come entirely out of nowhere. There are more S7 episodes that refer at least to the possibility (Eye of the beholder for example). Worf might have gotten the idea in Parallels. In that sense, it is far less sudden than the 7/ Chakotay thing.

 

[Anwar]

I disagree, to a point. They could have gone the Farscape route (after John Chrichton is stranded on the other side of the universe, he pretty much gives up trying to get home and instead acclimates to his new surroundings.) Unfortunately the whole "we need to constantly find a way to get home even though everyone knows that won't happen for seven years, so lets just randomly wander through space instead of trying to find a new home" thing was what they went with instead.

Even Farscape bothered to return Crichton home to wrap up that plot before the show ended, just to make it clear that returning to Earth wasn't the point after all.

The crew should have just stayed put and tried to form a mini-Federation of their own with the indigenous alien races of that particular area of the DQ. IMHO, that would have worked much better as a series than the Lost in Space effect.

They start doing that, return home by S4 or so, then go back out there to continue the Delta Federation plotline to make it clear THAT'S the real plot.

 

[borgboy]

I agree that Worf and Troi were hinted at and their relationship was built up over time, compared to the out of left field mess that was 7/Chakotay. We had a growing closeness between Troi and Worf over a season or more, and a previous episode where Worf encounters several alternate realities where he's married to Troi, and one reality where they had two children together. Like it or not, that relationship was given time to grow and develop.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Was C/7 originally planned to drop much earlier, or did some fucking moron think that there was going to be a season 8?

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Voyager should have been in another galaxy so it was physically impossible to get home without finding some super-technology, wormhole, or advanced race willing to help them. That way instead of moving in a straight line they would have needed to settle on some kind of home base and make local connections.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

Voyager should have been in another galaxy so it was physically impossible to get home without finding some super-technology, wormhole, or advanced race willing to help them. That way instead of moving in a straight line they would have needed to settle on some kind of home base and make local connections.

That would have been a completely different show.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Voyager should have been in another galaxy so it was physically impossible to get home without finding some super-technology, wormhole, or advanced race willing to help them. That way instead of moving in a straight line they would have needed to settle on some kind of home base and make local connections.

That would have been a completely different show.

I don't know about that. Every alien race they met, they wrote as if Voyager was hanging around in basically the same region of space. They were meeting basically the same set of recurring alien races from seasons 1-2 and then the same set again from seasons 4-7. They met the Hirogen from seasons 4 through 7 and the Potatoians from seasons 5-7 even though they supposedly crossed 20,000 light years in that time frame. If anything, it would have made more sense for the same aliens to keep bothering them over a long period of time.

The only thing that really would have changed in terms of the kinds of stories they wrote was they wouldn't have thrown out the distance they were from home now and then, and episodes that involved crossing hostile regions of space would need slightly different justifications.

 

[Dukhat]

Even Farscape bothered to return Crichton home to wrap up that plot before the show ended, just to make it clear that returning to Earth wasn't the point after all.

I thought the two instances where he thought he was home were just alien-induced hallucinations?

They start doing that, return home by S4 or so, then go back out there to continue the Delta Federation plotline to make it clear THAT'S the real plot.

Actually, it would have been better had they formed a Delta Quadrant Federation but never returned home, just staying there to help manage what they built. The final episode could have dealt with the future Federation and the Delta Federation making contact after all those years, instead of the future of Admiral Bitchy Janeway.

I agree that Worf and Troi were hinted at and their relationship was built up over time, compared to the out of left field mess that was 7/Chakotay. We had a growing closeness between Troi and Worf over a season or more, and a previous episode where Worf encounters several alternate realities where he's married to Troi, and one reality where they had two children together. Like it or not, that relationship was given time to grow and develop.

I don't quite agree with that. First of all, the Worf/Troi thing started when Worf found himself hopping through alternate universes in "Parallels," which was already halfway through the final season. It was a parallel universe where he was married to Troi; in the prime universe he and Troi showed zero interest in each other. If that had just been it, things would have been fine. But someone decided there needed to be some "romance" where none existed previously except in an out-of-context experience. There were only one or two eps that dealt with it, and not even as the primary focus; it was just relegated to some embarrassing side scenes with Worf, Troi and Riker. There was really no relationship development at all, except for the erased future of AGT.

Was C/7 originally planned to drop much earlier, or did some fucking moron think that there was going to be a season 8?

Nobody thought there was going to be a season 8, because ENT was already on the drawing board well before VOY's season 7 ended.

Voyager should have been in another galaxy so it was physically impossible to get home without finding some super-technology, wormhole, or advanced race willing to help them. That way instead of moving in a straight line they would have needed to settle on some kind of home base and make local connections.

That would have been a completely different show.

Where Voyager was located made no difference whatsoever with the episodic nature of the show. It could be on the other side of the galaxy, the other side of the universe, or even in a parallel universe. The same stories would have been told, the only difference being the distance to Earth, which is no difference at all considering how they eventually got home.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Chricton and the Gang got home middle of season 4. Spent 4 episodes getting their shit straight, when Scorpius decided to lay waste to Earth. Sure it was going to take seventy years to get there, and he himself wouldn't bother with the trip... No that happened earlier? Oh. Earth had a natural resource that the Scarrans desperately needed and they'd turn hmanity into a slave race or dust to see that they got it.

Earth was toast unless John Went back into space, so John went back locking the wormhole they used right behind him.

But yes, there were several fake-outs that turned out to be mind control bullshit earlier in the series.

 

[Dick_Valentine]

Was C/7 originally planned to drop much earlier, or did some fucking moron think that there was going to be a season 8?

Wasn't there even an episode where chakotay and seven were marooned together for a considerable time and they decided against a relationship?

I think it was only about 5 eps before the finale too