The episode starts with the usual Voyager flyby, this time accompanied by classical rendition of Hotel California.
Our first real scene is on the bridge with all the usual suspects in their regular places. Janeway and Chakotay are having a good wholesome, family friendly (but possibly slightly racist) conversation with forced laughter at unfunny jokes, and remarks that are decidedly not witty.
A spatial anomaly is detected which sensor readings say definitely looks like a spatial anomaly that Tom would name after Harry's second girlfriend. Tuvok declares that it could be dangerous, but Janeway decides to take the ship in closer to get better readings. Chakotay says something that Robert Beltran will probably regret later on.
OPENING CREDITS
As Voyager gets closer, Torres calls the Bridge and says that technobabble is going wrong and they shouldn't get closer. Seven gets on the line and says Torres is dumb, and her super cool Borg modifications can totally make it work. Janeway sides with Seven. In the interlude, Tom goes to the holodeck with Harry to play out more bad 50's Scifi that might have been adorable when it started, but is now just kind of sad.
At this time it's revealed that the anomaly is having an effect on the psyche of those aboard the ship, and everyone temporarily becomes lucid. Janeway realizes that being so close to an anomaly is a bad idea, and that they should back away and fire a probe at it instead. But with that train of thought, she starts thinking about torpedoes and how they magically keep reappearing. Which leads to shuttles magically reappearing, and what do you mean we can't tie in power from the holodecks?
As the crew starts to realize that none of this should be possible, and that there's no way that they're actually where they think they are, the Caretaker appears in the captain's chair. Banjo and all he tries to convince them that they've been in some weird holodeck-simulation thing the entire time. The crew call bullshit, having been fooled for seven years they aren't about to take him at face value.
The Caretaker grins and snaps his fingers
It was Q the entire time, and humanity was still on trial.
They were found guilty.
CUT TO THE FUNERAL
Plot inconsistencies involving the anomaly are never expanded upon or explained.
For realz, I don't think I could just change the ending of Voyager, and be happy with any changes from what they did. Everything past like...season 2 would have to be changed for me personally to be really satisfied with any making it home story. Play up the ham big time. Voyager was always stuck on a level where the cheese was just cheesy in a way that makes me embarrassed to watch the show because dear god the humor was lame. It was never delightfully cheesy on a consistent basis the way it could have been like Bride of Chaotica. Go full tongue-in-cheek. Do some satire, have some fun. Go for more of the fun action-adventure TOS-ish feel and step out from TNG's shadow. It doesn't need to be like TNG, or go the dark and serial route like DS9. Something more consistently lighthearted and episodic would have been nice after how seriously the other two series take themselves.
And that's really how I would have liked Voyager to end. No big Borg thing, no time-travel, no technobabble, or talking about Starfleet protocols. Some good character moments, some good fun, and a nice upbeat ending. Maybe something extended to allow us to look at the characters readjusting to life off of a tiny starship, but not for too long.
To be fair though I don't really mind how the show ended, I just don't really care. Episodes like Timeless had essentially covered the same ground, and done it better. By that time, I didn't really care about the characters, and I didn't really whether they made it home or not. Voyager was always stronger on the individual episode level, like the aforementioned Timeless, for me. Really from the list of episodes that people generally put in their top ten lists, it could have just as easily been an anthology series with different characters. I could care less about the overarching story and the vast majority of the series which careened from forgettable to automatic skips on rewatch. Which still puts it miles ahead of a lot of other scifi from the time frame in my book.
TL;DR- it was meh ending but I don't think it could have been anything but meh without some serious work being done much earlier in the series.
Or y'know just have it end with a pan out to reveal that it was a story being read by one Benny Russell's descendants, who has achieved the success and respect his/her forebear was denied by the kind of society that is the antithesis of the best ideals that ennoble the Trek franchise. IT'S ALL INTERCONNECTED AND META AND STUFF.