Endgame was awesome!

[Vulcan Logician]

I hope I am not alone amidst legions of Trek fans here, when I assert that Endgame was an awesome episode. Fine, I see there are detractors. I have encountered Endgame on "Top 5 worst voyager episodes" lists. To each his own. I personally would include it in my top ten FAVORITE episodes of VOY.

Am I missing something? Was I high when I watched it?

I am completely confounded as to why people hate this episode. I love it dearly. I'm sure at least someone out there likes it as much as I.

Love or hate... please enlighten me.

 

[R. Star]

If you're asking for opinions, I can offer one. Though I'm not sure you'll care for it. Certainly regardless of mine, you're not the only person who likes the episode. If you enjoy it more power to you. Since you're asking for enlightenment as to why some don't? Well I'll bite, here we go...

It started off strong with a good teaser. In fact the first time I watched it with the reunion scenes at the beginning I was stoked because finally they were going outside the box and doing something creative. I thought it was going to be a flashback episode in a way both showing how they got home, perhaps a few more adventures along the way, and where they all ended up in life.

Instead... no. We just got yet another time travel episode and Borg episode all thrown in one. Like some sort of dead horse beating special, two for the price of one. It's like the writers just got together and went around the table brainstorming about the most facepalming things they could do.

So you have future Janeway willing to change the timeline. Well that might almost make some sense except for why at that point? Why not a few weeks earlier to save Carey? Why not stop them from getting stranded at all? Her original plan was -not- to destroy the transwarp hub after all, to just get them home. Though I guess you could argue that all she wanted to save Seven and she's more important than all the other people on Voyager who died. Though that doesn't make our heroine exactly look good.

Then the Borg... well let's just take away any menacing presence they once had at all. Seriously, the way Voyager was invincible with it's batmobile armor and gunning down Borg Cubes with one shot, I've seen more plausible scenarios involving godmode on video games. Which essentially this is what it was, but if that's not enough they have to technobabble destroy the whole Collective's super technobabble transwarp whatever that conveniently leads all the way to Earth. Boy that would've been useful for the Borg in Best of Both Worlds or First Contact.

As I said, I liked the future part at first, but once it came apparent it was just a plot device to get future Janeway to the past with godmode gear, it lost any dramatic effect. Barclay's cured? So what... Tuvok got Vulcan Alzhemiers? Oh well. Chakotay's dead? Too bad. Seven? Well we'll fix that too and remove any drama while we're at it. If you're going to handwave away these dramatic moments and consequences... you lose the drama and meaning in even putting them on screen too.

The visual effects were nice, but I've said many times they enhance an episode, they don't define it. If you sprinkle sugar on crap... it's still crap. Wrap the whole package in a bowtie with absolutely no resolution beyond a single line saying they're home and a two second shot of them flying towards Earth while the end credits pop up and you end the series on a rather disappointing note.

Though at least it wasn't These Are the Voyages...

 

[Guy Gardener]

You're running a fun run for charity. Half way to the finishline, a version of you travelled back in time, pulls up in front of you in a stolen car. They urge you to hop in, then drive you to the end of the race only to die minutes later.

Do you think that you should really collect on all your pledges to the charity, since you only ran half the funrun and not all of it like you were supposed to, just because you did get to the finishline "technically" like you said you would?

And THAT's what's wrong with Chakotay and Seven Hooking up.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I think it's very nice of 7 to agree to sleep with Chakotay for charity.

 

[JarodRussell]

I don't like the premise of it. Janeway was a bad Captain and then decides the erase the past 20 years of the entire galaxy just in order to get 100 people home. That's immoral. And since the time police had been introduced in the show, her plan would never fly.

And Trek lit makes the episode even worse. Just because of Admiral Janeway's time travel, BILLIONS are killed. Admiral Janeway is DIRECTLY responsible for that. And all just for getting a bunch of people home earlier.

 

[Infern0]

I never really liked it.

I could echo the opinions above, but the main disappointment for me was that Voyager "getting home" literally took up the last 60 seconds of the show.

Do we get to see them reunite with their families? Do we get to see Tom hug his Dad? Do we get to see Janeway beam down outside starfleet HQ in san fransisco?

No, none of that, we get borgs blowing up for an hour and a half and then a last shot of earth right at the end.

I'd spent 7 seasons waiting for them to get home, I would have enjoyed at least 5 minutes of them actually you know, at home!

To me it just had no emotional impact, and that was a shame after all that time.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I wanted to see the Beta Quadrant.

 

[Zippo and Flask]

Here's the problem with Endgame. In "Eye of the Needle", only 7 episodes into season 1, the Voyager crew refused an offer to have their expedition to the Bad Lands prevented because they had already made a significant impact on the lives of people in the Delta Quadrant.

So, the precedent had been set that you shouldn't undo "history". Yet in Endgame, there was suddenly no problem with undoing 20 years of unseen Voyager history. If the immorality of changing their own timelines was being ignored, then it would have made more sense to stop Voyager from being stranded in the Delta Quadrant in the first place.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I don't care about the "problems". I bought pizza and watched that finale and I loved every second of it. And I still think it was a fantastic FINALE of Voyager.

Did I want to see what happened when they got back, how the Maquis had boring ass trials and got special dispensation thingies and how Harry got promoted at last and how B'Elanna and Tom had a baby shower at Tom's parent's house? No.

There were no godawful montages like in DS9's finale, no exploded rectum pieces of blech like ENT's finale, it was a whole lot of Borg and time travel and TWO Janeway's and fireworks over the Golden Gate bridge.

It was awesome and it was a trip.

But yeah some people don't like it.. whadda ya gonna do.

 

[Jeri]

Endgame was awesome!

Yes, it was. And I luv the Admiral. Glad she got back on the brew, though; that was a close one.

 

[Gaith]

I am completely confounded as to why people hate this episode. I love it dearly. I'm sure at least someone out there likes it as much as I.

Love or hate... please enlighten me.

If you're honestly puzzled as to why you're wrong, please report back after reading Michelle Erica Green's and Richard Whettestone's reviews.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I couldn't stop laughing the first time I read Richard's review.

If you're from the future, then you must know when Rick Berman will be fired.

2006.

 

[DonIago]

I don't like the premise of it. Janeway was a bad Captain and then decides the erase the past 20 years of the entire galaxy just in order to get 100 people home. That's immoral. And since the time police had been introduced in the show, her plan would never fly.

And Trek lit makes the episode even worse. Just because of Admiral Janeway's time travel, BILLIONS are killed. Admiral Janeway is DIRECTLY responsible for that. And all just for getting a bunch of people home earlier.

Now now...if you're going to bash Trek lit for that, you should also note that it establishes that if those billions hadn't died then the Borg would ultimately have taken over the entire galaxy.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I'm pretty much "meh" towards it. By that point in the series' run I had lost interest in the Seven of Nine show, but did watch the finale when it was on.

Time travel is an overused plot element and in this episode Janeway breaks about every rule of time travel, going back in time to tell them what happened, giving them advanced technology, etc, all because of her unrequited love for Seven (the other excuses about how her death affected Chakotay was pretty poor and very little was made about Janeway’s best friend suffered a serious neurological breakdown on their voyage).

Other little things bug me such as: Torres being an ambassador to the Klingon Empire, the Doctor being married, Barclay’s inclusion, the sudden Chakotay/Seven thing, Kim being Captain —but nothing enough to detract from the overall episode.

How they get home is a smart idea, and I liked seeing Alice Krige back as the Queen. But the super-Voyager was a bit of a cop out, as was the fact the Borg apparently don’t have any firewalls/anti-virals to deal with biological attack.

It’s been a while since I last saw it and if it came on TV I wouldn’t flick away, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it again.

 

[MacLeod]

So you have future Janeway willing to change the timeline. Well that might almost make some sense except for why at that point? Why not a few weeks earlier to save Carey? Why not stop them from getting stranded at all? Her original plan was -not- to destroy the transwarp hub after all, to just get them home. Though I guess you could argue that all she wanted to save Seven and she's more important than all the other people on Voyager who died. Though that doesn't make our heroine exactly look good.

Then the Borg... well let's just take away any menacing presence they once had at all. Seriously, the way Voyager was invincible with it's batmobile armor and gunning down Borg Cubes with one shot, I've seen more plausible scenarios involving godmode on video games. Which essentially this is what it was, but if that's not enough they have to technobabble destroy the whole Collective's super technobabble transwarp whatever that conveniently leads all the way to Earth. Boy that would've been useful for the Borg in Best of Both Worlds or First Contact.

As I said, I liked the future part at first, but once it came apparent it was just a plot device to get future Janeway to the past with godmode gear, it lost any dramatic effect. Barclay's cured? So what... Tuvok got Vulcan Alzhemiers? Oh well. Chakotay's dead? Too bad. Seven? Well we'll fix that too and remove any drama while we're at it. If you're going to handwave away these dramatic moments and consequences... you lose the drama and meaning in even putting them on screen too.

The visual effects were nice, but I've said many times they enhance an episode, they don't define it. If you sprinkle sugar on crap... it's still crap. Wrap the whole package in a bowtie with absolutely no resolution beyond a single line saying they're home and a two second shot of them flying towards Earth while the end credits pop up and you end the series on a rather disappointing note.

Though at least it wasn't These Are the Voyages...

Here's the problem with Endgame. In "Eye of the Needle", only 7 episodes into season 1, the Voyager crew refused an offer to have their expedition to the Bad Lands prevented because they had already made a significant impact on the lives of people in the Delta Quadrant.

So, the precedent had been set that you shouldn't undo "history". Yet in Endgame, there was suddenly no problem with undoing 20 years of unseen Voyager history. If the immorality of changing their own timelines was being ignored, then it would have made more sense to stop Voyager from being stranded in the Delta Quadrant in the first place.

These are more or less my issues with the episode.

As has been pointed out as early as season one, Janeway made the descion that they shouldn't try and stop their mission from being lauched ("Eye of the Needle") yet a few years later who cares if we change the lives of who knows how many people. And why not go back even further and prevent all those deaths and prevent Voyager from being stranded in the first place, or even a few weeks and save Carey?

Surely the Starfleet which monitors the future as seen in "Relativity" would just undo such a massive change to the timeline.

Oh and lets not forgot the Borg have a transwarp conduict exit almost on Earth's doorstep, but stay instead of sending a ship to assimalte Earth via that way thus minimsing the time Starfleet has to mobilise to defend. lets send a ship the old fashioned way right through Federation space.

 

[stj]

Most TV and movie scifi with time travel admits changes in the timeline, and delight in the paradoxes. It's rare to find one rigorous enough to limit itself to a causal loop, which may be wild but isn't a paradox. Voyager is quite typical in the way it admits some paradoxes while excluding others, seemingly unaware of its inconsistency. I'm not sure why Endgame, one of many time paradox stories, is somehow so offensive. Until that is explained, I'll just move on.

Nor am I quite sure why it is so necessary that the Borg be unstoppable. Adaptability was always emphasized in the presentation of the Borg, and the Borg adapted quite rapidly in this episode. They were never presented in Voyager as invincible. In any event, the Voyager episode that showed them at their weakest was Survival Instinct, which is never cited as an example of the error of making the Borg conveniently weak. Since it is evident this is not a serious objection, I'll just move on.

The Admiral's attempt to change the past her way was rejected, and she dies, so it is unclear how her position on changing timelines was endorsed. It is especially unclear why the episode was demonstrate in some fashion that she was right.

It is clearly stated that the spacetime travel was to be one way, and there would be no return. Therefore, clearly the Admiral had to travel to a point in their journey where there was a way to come back. The Admiral was in no position to agree to Q on either occasion. The decayed wormhole still would have been decayed. And diverting Voyager away from saving that planet from the Ferengi would have been loathesome.

Quite aside from the fact that somehow interfering with the original capture of the Voyager and the Maquis would have meant sacrificing both Kes and Seven of Nine, and Icheb too, what could the Admiral have done? The Caretaker reached out over seventy lightyears to grab up Torres and Kim for reproductive purposes. She couldn't have gone back to the Alpha quadrant and warned the Maquis, who were after all hiding as well as they could. It's not even certain whether the displacement wave wouldn't have simply struck at Earth if Voyager had sacrificed the Maquis!

As to interfering at the Array, there's no way she could count on overcoming the Caretaker. After the Caretaker's death, events were forced by the Kazon. How could the Admiral know that her shuttle would be enough to destroy all the Kazon reinforcements, even if should she want to resort to such violent methods?

(By the way, the acquisition of Seven of Nine was probably the key event in Voyager acquiring enough tech to defeat the Borg on its original trek. Terminating the journey without Seven of Nine would begin a timeline in which the only source of that tech would be a future that didn't happen, a full blown paradox. As is, the new timeline had a wealth of data to use against the Borg, including the Infinite Regress and Collective/Child's Play weapons. A possibility, for what it's worth.)

The Admiral made it clear that she needed to push the agenda to keep the Captain off balance. That alone explains why she didn't go back early enough to save Carey. And the episode showed us that keeping the Borg off balance was at issue as well. I don't understand why people ask the question. Not liking the answer is another thing.

Two last issues: C/7, and the resolution. C/7 was present since Human Error, which I thought was far more offensive. It played a much smaller part in Endgame and can't be such a big deal. Insofar as Voyager had a continuing story, it was about getting home. The series ended at the resolution, the climax of the story. The rest was basically showed to us and will not be essentially different: Paris and Torres have a baby who grows up to go into Starfleet, the Doctor practices medicine and sex, Barclay doesn't stutter, Tuvok has a dignified old age, Janeway becomes an admiral, Kim becomes a captain, etc. I really cannot believe that people were disappointed at not seeing Kim with his family, or Seven with hers. After all, we had seen those meetings in previous episodes!

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Two last issues: C/7, and the resolution. C/7 was present since Human Error, which I thought was far more offensive.

What did you think was offensive about Human Error?

 

[SchwEnt]

I say, NOT awesome. Lots of problems.
But mainly, the whole part about getting home (the whole point of the series).

It starts out with the near-impossible, Janeway and the Voyager and most of the crew *did* get home after all, within their lifetimes. They've gone on with their lives and so on.

Not too bad, considering the odds were they'd never make it back to Earth.

But that's not good enough for Janeway. It's not as good an outcome as she'd prefer. So let's time travel and alter history so she can personally get a better outcome than the one that panned out.

Really?

And mainly because Janeway didn't like the roll call of "who lived/who died"?

She's gotta fix it for Seven and Chatokay, but not for Carey and Hogan and Stadi?

Bad enough Janeway does this--even after the ship and crew DID get home anyway--but VOY already did eps with the villain Annorax altering time and history for the sake of his personal outcome.

So Janeway does the SAME THING as a big heroic finish for the series?

NOT awesome.

 

[stj]

Two last issues: C/7, and the resolution. C/7 was present since Human Error, which I thought was far more offensive.

What did you think was offensive about Human Error?

Chakotay in Human Error was supposed to be a holographic simulation. Yet the way he treated Seven was oppressive, maybe even brutal. This strained willing suspension of disbelief (why would any woman program a man to act like that?) treating holo-Chakotay as the real thing still made him look bad. It was far too reminiscent of his tough love (cracked) approach to Torres' depression in Extreme Risk.

 

[Guy Gardener]

She's course, obstructive and blunt. We think it's funny, but her victimization is justification for otherwise acting like an asshole for a moment. This is how Seven thought people would treat her like, if she tried not to be an asshole all the time saying "I am Borg" everytime a mere human acts like a dingus.

All little girl's have princess fantasies.

No, Seven is not an adult woman in her brain in a couple important places where it counts.

Anika has a childlike understanding of many things.