Endgame

[Gelnon]

I like all the trek series, however on rewatching Voyager i must say i was disappointed with the way it ended, i got the feeling it was rushed and not finished properly. I was left thinking it would have been nice to see what became of the crew when they got home, future assignments and their personal lives and relationships and promotions etc, Harry Kim an ensign for the whole series, it would have been nice to him promoted and how Seven deals with a planet filled with people and her relationship with Chakotay, i felt cheated.

Thoughts?

 

[Oddish]

Agreed. Worse, many of the characters are doing well. Tom is successful, Harry is a captain (especially satisfying given that his 7-year ensignhood was one of the series's most reviled decisions), many of the characters have had children, and even grandchildren. Admiral Janeway proceeds to obliterate that timeline. In hindsight, her actions seem very wrong. And we never see what happened to anyone in this timeline, aside from Seven.

Far preferable would have been a different ending, and we see what actually happened to everyone, not a future that goes the way of "Before and After" and "Year of Hell".

 

[Seven of Five]

Admiral Janeway's plan had no logic. She decided to get rid of the timeline and all of the families of the surviving crew, for the sake of Chakotay, Seven, Tuvok, and the other crew who died during the original timeline. She couldn't go back a few weeks earlier and save Carey, or all of the other people who died? She may as well have gone back to the start of Voyager's mission and stopped them going in the first place.

I loved all of the scenes in the first half of Endgame where we see how everyone was doing, but ensuring that none of it actually happened was a bad decision, as we never saw any of the real crew arrive on Earth.

Sigh.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Admiral Janeway's plan had no logic. She decided to get rid of the timeline and all of the families of the surviving crew, for the sake of Chakotay, Seven, Tuvok, and the other crew who died during the original timeline. She couldn't go back a few weeks earlier and save Carey, or all of the other people who died? She may as well have gone back to the start of Voyager's mission and stopped them going in the first place.

I loved ll of the scenes in the first half of Endgame where we see how the crew are all doing, but ensuring that none of it happened was bad, especially as we never saw any of the real crew arrive on Earth.

Sigh.

Without Future's End, Earth never leaves the cradle, and if hull excrement would not have been added to the Big Bang, and Organic life would never have existed.

Without the Q and the Grey, the Q Civil War may have destroyed this universe.

After that, you're just about golden.

Meanwhile for all she got wrong... Admiral Janeway destroyed the Borg.

Or at least that was the intent of the author AS THE STORY HAPPENED.

It took me ten years to notice that this was the end of the Borg.

Janeway should have been court martialed for genocide, and her punishment upon conviction should have been ownership of a large moon to retire on.

Ownership?

They made an exception for the woman who saved the Federation from the Borg.

 

[at Quark's]

Agreed. Worse, many of the characters are doing well. Tom is successful, Harry is a captain (especially satisfying given that his 7-year ensignhood was one of the series's most reviled decisions), many of the characters have had children, and even grandchildren. Admiral Janeway proceeds to obliterate that timeline. In hindsight, her actions seem very wrong. And we never see what happened to anyone in this timeline, aside from Seven.

Far preferable would have been a different ending, and we see what actually happened to everyone, not a future that goes the way of "Before and After" and "Year of Hell".

Except for the three crewmembers that would probably have been closest to her: Chakotay (her XO, and near-lover at times, dead), Tuvok (her confidante, mentally incurably ill) and Seven (her pet project and 'daughter', dead). The others (such as e.g. Lt. Carey) apparently could stay dead, as far as Janeway was concerned, by not traveling further back in time. If anything, Endgame shows Janeway is highly partial to her crew members. Unless, of course, there's some compelling reason Janeway couldn't have traveled a bit further back in time, but AFAIK, this is never mentioned.

To be fair though, the same criticism can be given to many other situations. Why didn't Picard travel further back in time when exiting the Nexus to prevent a few more disasters, for example?

 

[Timo]

It's pretty natural to assume that she decided the first seven years involved making history better (see partial list above), and for that reason shouldn't be rewritten, while the next couple of decades did not. Saving Carey might not be that big a deal either way, but once she decided a) to divide the trip into the part that should be preserved and the part that shouldn't, and b) to grab the transwarp hub opportunity, there wouldn't have been that much incentive to go the additional weeks back and risk blowing the transwarp hub chance. And there's always c) where she'd really, really want to take down the Borg, which might only ever be possible at this particular juncture.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[at Quark's]

It's pretty natural to assume that she decided the first seven years involved making history better (see partial list above), and for that reason shouldn't be rewritten, while the next couple of decades did not. Saving Carey might not be that big a deal either way, but once she decided a) to divide the trip into the part that should be preserved and the part that shouldn't, and b) to grab the transwarp hub opportunity, there wouldn't have been that much incentive to go the additional weeks back and risk blowing the transwarp hub chance. And there's always c) where she'd really, really want to take down the Borg, which might only ever be possible at this particular juncture.

Timo Saloniemi

I can understand the importance of this juncture, and I also can understand she didn't want some events erased from the first few years in the DQ (like, for example, preventing the annihilation of the Ocampa by destroying the Array).

However, I can think of no good reason for her to not travel one month further back in time, save the life of Carey, and be able to transfer more knowledge and skills to Voyager at a more leisurely pace during that month, and then destroy that Borg hub.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It was only because of Janeway's intrusion on local politics that the Array's self destruct failed.

They would have been fine.



Admiral Janeway landed on top of Chuckle's and Sevens third date.

I doubt the third date is still the sex date in the distant future, but it was in the 90s when this was written.

The third date went so well, Seven requested the surgery she required to have sex with Chakotay without dying.

The admiral was after one of them.

Intimately.

Again.

 

[Oddish]

If the writers really found it necessary to snuff Carey, they could have technobabbled out a reason why Janeway's little time journey could only go to a specific location. Quantum tunneling this or chroniton cascade that. But it didn't occur to them. That was Voyager in a nutshell: brilliant premise, excellent cast, amazing potential... and sloppy execution.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If the writers really found it necessary to snuff Carey, they could have technobabbled out a reason why Janeway's little time journey could only go to a specific location. Quantum tunneling this or chroniton cascade that. But it didn't occur to them. That was Voyager in a nutshell: brilliant premise, excellent cast, amazing potential... and sloppy execution.

Lets assume that Rick Berman, the author of Endgame, rubber stamped everything and had underlings do the day to day for him. So Berman might have had no idea that Carey died a few episodes earlier in Friendship One, six months earlier before filming started on either.

 

[Timo]

However, I can think of no good reason for her to not travel one month further back in time, save the life of Carey, and be able to transfer more knowledge and skills to Voyager at a more leisurely pace during that month, and then destroy that Borg hub.

The best reason might be that if she demonstrated the ability to bring back the dead, the crew would mutiny and want more resurrections. The Admiral keeps her "friends won't make it to Earth" motivation secret until pressed, and in general wants to rush things because the crew isn't her ally here: it's her enemy, what with having a will of its own.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

Hogan was sexy as heck, but he was eaten by a snake in season 3.

 

[Oddish]

Here's a thought... If they were going to delete stuff, then go big! Adm. Janeway goes to the Ocampa homeworld, 7 years earlier, with a buttload of high explosive. She hails Capt. Janeway near the end, says "save your tricobalt devices... I got this." Zoooooom! Voyager goes home. Admiral Janeway triggers the bomb, goodbye array. And Voyager ends with the mind bending premise that the series we spent seven years following...

...NEVER @#*%$-ING HAPPENED!!!

It's like Year of Hell on steroids!

 

[at Quark's]

The best reason might be that if she demonstrated the ability to bring back the dead, the crew would mutiny and want more resurrections. The Admiral keeps her "friends won't make it to Earth" motivation secret until pressed, and in general wants to rush things because the crew isn't her ally here: it's her enemy, what with having a will of its own.

That may very well be true. However, if true, it only goes on to show how screwed up she really has become over the years, imho.

Here's a thought... If they were going to delete stuff, then go big! Adm. Janeway goes to the Ocampa homeworld, 7 years earlier, with a buttload of high explosive. She hails Capt. Janeway near the end, says "save your tricobalt devices... I got this." Zoooooom! Voyager goes home. Admiral Janeway triggers the bomb, goodbye array. And Voyager ends with the mind bending premise that the series we spent seven years following...

...NEVER @#*%$-ING HAPPENED!!!

It's like Year of Hell on steroids!

Often thought DS9 as a series should have ended on a very similar note: with that scene that ended Far Beyond The Stars, with Benjamin Sisko and Russel watching one another through a window.

 

[ThreeEdgedSword]

Here's a thought... If they were going to delete stuff, then go big! Adm. Janeway goes to the Ocampa homeworld, 7 years earlier, with a buttload of high explosive. She hails Capt. Janeway near the end, says "save your tricobalt devices... I got this." Zoooooom! Voyager goes home. Admiral Janeway triggers the bomb, goodbye array. And Voyager ends with the mind bending premise that the series we spent seven years following...

...NEVER @#*%$-ING HAPPENED!!!

It's like Year of Hell on steroids!

And Seven would never have been de-borgified... That's a no-no for Janeway.

That said, I always thought that Endgame was lazy and kind of a cheat. Not to mention Janway erasing a whole future for the lives or sanity of three friends was very romantic, but still wrong. (Same goes fr Harry, who in one episode screwed up and killed his friends, then erased it.) They tried to muddie the waters with them also "defeating" the Borg, but... yeah, no.

 

[Quinton]

For very nearly 20 years and counting, I've been 100% convinced that "Endgame" needed to be the two-hour penultimate lead-in to a regular-length coda episode. Such a missed opportunity.

Or, you know, if that's too weird for the network, just do the first half of "Endgame" the penultimate week and combine the second half with a coda. Whatever.

The point here is that "dammit." I like the episode on its own terms overall. (Seven/Chakotay will never not disgust me but whatever.) As a series finale, however? Man, Kate Mulgrew sold the word "home" better than anybody else I've ever seen, but that ought to have been the start of an ending, not the ending itself.

I'm glad I can see Seven again in Star Trek: Picard. (I'm doubly grateful that I actually like the series as well as its depiction of Seven. I know that's far from absolute consensus.) But it's a shame that I'm quite as desperate as I am to see other Voyager characters again -- I mean, it'd be great regardless, but I wish it weren't due to a nonexistent denouement.

 

[Oddish]

A multiple choice quiz for show writers.

Which of these things do viewers who have followed a show for years want to see?
A. How the characters don't end up, due to an erased timeline.
B. How the characters actually end up.
C. A retread of a previous episode, just with a different character's older version.

Did anyone say "Can we do both A AND C? Can we? Pleeeeease?"

 

[Quinton]

Accurate.

 

[amp]

However, I can think of no good reason for her to not travel one month further back in time, save the life of Carey, and be able to transfer more knowledge and skills to Voyager at a more leisurely pace during that month, and then destroy that Borg hub.

Staying on board Voyager for an entire month means she'd be eating a whole lot of leola root. There are limits to the sacrifices she was willing to make to get the crew home.

 

[dupersuper]

To be fair though, the same criticism can be given to many other situations. Why didn't Picard travel further back in time when exiting the Nexus to prevent a few more disasters, for example?

I always assumed he could only leave the Nexus along its path.