Should Voyager never gotten home?

[Cdr MacDuff]

I'm a big fan of Voyager. With time I've learned to appreciated it even more. When you watch it in order on DVD you get a better sense of their epic journey. While every episode are a self-contained movie in their own right with nice replay value.

So the question is this. Would it have been better if Voyager never reached earth? In a "its not the destination but the journey" kind of way.

Voyager is a story which is define by its epic journey in the delta quadrant. Taking Voyager off the delta quadrant is like blowing DS9 to bits and put all the characters all on a spaceship. Along the series, they have been many hints suggesting Voyager could become an inter-generational ship on a 70 years journey to reach earth. Before and after is an example. Ok this future didn't happen, but it still provide a hint into that possible future.

As a side, how would you view the last episode of Voyager to put some closure to it?

I can see an episode like Bliss where we get to see how they all imagine their return to earth (in a dream like state), but in the end they all sit together in the mess hall and realize they have now became a great family. A bit harder to do if the Bliss episode would have already been done.

Or maybe, we could have a glimpse of the future were we see Janeway in a relationship, kids going to classes, Seven being more human than never, Harry teaching young cadet, etc. While in the present, the characters reached the same conclusion about Voyager being a family, their real home. It seem difficult to do a good last episode.

 

[Jaespol]

I wouldn't exactly call Voyager's journey "epic" exactly, the fact most episodes were self-contained and there was little continuity meant the series felt a lot shorter and a lot less epic than say DS9 for example. But I don't think they should have got home in the finale, I totally would have appreciated an "its about the journey not the destination" ending but by the end of season 7, who really even cared?

 

[AuntKate]

Since we didn't get to see the crew's welcome home, etc., I really wish they would have taken the turn that put them right back in the DQ (perhaps a bit closer than they had been).

 

[Lynx]

During the time I the show was aired, I was really hoping that they should get home and I was sure that it would happen too.

But in recent years, I've begun to wonder if it hadn't been better if they had remained in the Delta Quadrant.

Just think about possible adventures in books and possible movies.

And with the main characters still on the ship!

 

[Cdr MacDuff]

During the time I the show was aired, I was really hoping that they should get home and I was sure that it would happen too.

But in recent years, I've begun to wonder if it hadn't been better if they had remained in the Delta Quadrant.

Just think about possible adventures in books and possible movies.

And with the main characters still on the ship!

Me too. The idea of them NOT coming home didn't really occurred much to me. Especially with the slow progression of them having some contact with earth along the way toward the end. It was always a given they would get home to put some closure to the epic journey. A positive end (a pessimist end would be stupid). They never completely lose hope to get back to earth, and they are finally rewarded after 7 years of perseverance. But a more open ending would also be interesting for future products such as movie, books etc. Voyager out of the delta quadrant is not the same. The only way I see them making some other adventure is if they are called back to the delta quadrant for some reason. I gave an example with Neelix in some other thread.

 

[JB2005]

During the time I the show was aired, I was really hoping that they should get home and I was sure that it would happen too.

But in recent years, I've begun to wonder if it hadn't been better if they had remained in the Delta Quadrant.

Just think about possible adventures in books and possible movies.

And with the main characters still on the ship!

Those possibilities are still possible

Spoiler: Full Circle, Unworthy et al

There's nothing stopping them going back to the DQ...

 

[Lynx]

During the time I the show was aired, I was really hoping that they should get home and I was sure that it would happen too.

But in recent years, I've begun to wonder if it hadn't been better if they had remained in the Delta Quadrant.

Just think about possible adventures in books and possible movies.

And with the main characters still on the ship!

Those possibilities are still possible

Spoiler: Full Circle, Unworthy et al

There's nothing stopping them going back to the DQ...

I guess you mean

Spoiler: Spoiler

the current "Voyager crew" in the upcoming books. Sorry, but I'm not interested in that "Voyager crew". Too many good characters missing.

 

[JB2005]

During the time I the show was aired, I was really hoping that they should get home and I was sure that it would happen too.

But in recent years, I've begun to wonder if it hadn't been better if they had remained in the Delta Quadrant.

Just think about possible adventures in books and possible movies.

And with the main characters still on the ship!

Those possibilities are still possible

Spoiler: Full Circle, Unworthy et al

There's nothing stopping them going back to the DQ...

I guess you mean

Spoiler: Spoiler

the current "Voyager crew" in the upcoming books. Sorry, but I'm not interested in that "Voyager crew". Too many good characters missing.

Can't help ya then

 

[Lee T]

Either they shouldn't have come back, or they should have made a big build up arching over the last season to make their return something epic and big.

 

[nx1701g]

I remember reading that there were discussions in the writers room about having Voyager swept into a conduit when Janeway told Paris to alter his heading that would have taken them back to Kazon Space. The writers decided against it because they thought fans would've been unhappy with the resolution.

 

[od0_ital]

^

I would have loved that endin'. Its actually what I was hopin' for.

If anything, I would cut out the future stuff from the finale, had the ship get home about midway, and then use the second half of the two-hour finale as an epilogue, showin' the crew back home, and what happens next, rather than havin' it nicely wrapped in an "everybody gets a promotion and/or pardon" way the books did it.

 

[Tachyon]

They shouldn't have gotten home. Closer perhaps, like 10 000 light-years away or so, but not all the way directly to Earth's doorstep.

 

[LeadHead]

Should Voyager never have gotten home? No, they should have just dropped off Janeway, Seven and The Doctor somewhere. :P

I was always hoping during the series that they'd get home a little earlier and that we'd actualy get to see the effect of that, sadly that's not what happened.

 

[Tachyon]

I made a poll about this couple of months ago: http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=82870

 

[Jaespol]

I remember reading that there were discussions in the writers room about having Voyager swept into a conduit when Janeway told Paris to alter his heading that would have taken them back to Kazon Space. The writers decided against it because they thought fans would've been unhappy with the resolution.

That would have been so amazing I might just have orgasmed.
How about they get thrown back to Kazon space and are so dispirited and broken that they go to that planet in "Prime Factors" and just force them to get them home?

 

[exodus]

I remember reading that there were discussions in the writers room about having Voyager swept into a conduit when Janeway told Paris to alter his heading that would have taken them back to Kazon Space. The writers decided against it because they thought fans would've been unhappy with the resolution.

I find that to unoriginal because it copies from TNG & DS9 by having a bookended finale. That's too me saying we're not going to bother trying something different, we'll just stick with formula. Voyager was supposed to be about them progressively moving forward, not going back to where they had been.

Plus fans went out of their way to express how much they didn't like the Kazon, why go back to see characters that stayed around two seasons too long?

Voyager should have ended with "Fury" or something similar. Bring Kes back for the last ep., show us how powerful a being she's become. The purpose is she now knows what she can do to help her people evolve but needs a way to get home. The end deal is they find a way and her return favor to Voyager is to push them home.

My only regret to that is missing out on the oppertunity of Mulgrew meeting Alice Krige

 

[Hober Mallow]

So the question is this. Would it have been better if Voyager never reached earth? In a "its not the destination but the journey" kind of way.

That was the way Michael Piller had seen the series from the beginning.

 

[Anwar]

Well, that may be so but that doesn't mean it HAD to end that way. And like Exodus said, we had enough of these bookend finales as it was with Trek so why NOT just let them go home?

 

[Cdr MacDuff]

So the question is this. Would it have been better if Voyager never reached earth? In a "its not the destination but the journey" kind of way.

That was the way Michael Piller had seen the series from the beginning.

Thats what I felt during the show. A lot of thing demonstrate it. Dialogue between Paris and Harry. Same with other characters. The birth of Naomi Wildman and the start of a generational ship (the idea was mentioned). Just the way characters began to settle down in the show on the ship along the years. But on the other hand they never lost hope to get back to earth, so in no way they would settle down on a planet (people have been given that choice in one of the episode I can't remember the name). But they slowly but surely began to have contact with earth, it began to be a given for me they would return to earth at the end of the show.

 

[JoeZhang]

I would have liked the following...

They can see earth on the other side of a wormhole, however they detect another "anomaly" by the wormhole and Janeway orders them to investigate it first - it then sucks then even further away.

The last shot is of Janeway being fired into the sun by angry crewmembers.

Something twisted like that - it would be funny.