The *Worst of All Possible Worlds

[Oddish]

One of many inconsistencies in the episode. Consider all the good Harry could have done Voyager (and himself) by staying behind to give the news of the ship's non-obliterated state.

Instead, here's a line by Tom that classically illustrated Harry's dubious luck in love: "Actually, I was just going to congratulate you. She's not a Borg, she's not a hologram, and she's not dead. Looks like you might have finally found yourself the perfect woman."

 

[Ragitsu]

Has there ever been a moment when you've heard a character talk, but you know that it is the writer who is speaking?

 

[somebuddyX]

Has there ever been a moment when you've heard a character talk, but you know that it is the writer who is speaking?

Not myself but Darren at Movieblog reckons some dialogue in "Shockwave" could be seen as a metaphor for the interference in Enterprise.
Of course, this isn’t something that was meant to happen. This is all down to time travelers meddling with the time stream – outside forces warping the narrative and messing with the flow of history. When Daniels tries to “fix” the time line, it’s telling that he brings Archer back before the pilot – the night directly before the opening scene of Broken Bow. He informs Archer that this is a place where the other factions in the Temporal Cold War cannot see him. Of course, because this is before Enterprise actually began.
In a way, this seems to be a piece of self-criticism. The only way to fix Enterprise would be to go back to the start and re-work it. After all, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga had originally conceived the first season as taking place on Earth during the development of the warp five engine, a prospect that the network had aggressively resisted. UPN insisted that the show dive to the familiar Star Trek tropes as quickly as possible.
In a bid to save the timeline, Daniels doesn’t just pull Archer back to before Enterpise began. He pulls Archer back into the original concept of the show. Archer receiving a late night call from Trip about the three inspection pods feels like it might have been an element of this alternate version of Enterprise, as Archer and his team scramble to get the ship off the ground – dealing with all manner of diplomatic and practical complications along the way.
Personally, I don't think the writers were approaching it anything but straightforward but I think it's a neat idea.

Of course there's also the "Broken Bow" novelisation where Diane Carey snarks about how idiotic everyone is and takes potshots at the dialogue. I found that out in a thread here.

 

[ReddishAlert]

Janeway and Chakotay never get off cabin planet.

Tuvok lasts a month as captain before a mutiny. Because no way a crew lost in the Delta Quadrant comprised of homesick starfleet and restless Marquis would respond to Tuvok as captain.

Tom Paris becomes Captain with Harry as his XO. They each marry one of the Delaney sisters.

They act a little like Sisko and Kira in Dramatis Personae with Tom constantly distracted building 1980s memorabilia and Harry thinking every anomaly can take them home.

Fully Klingon B’Elanna kills them. Human B’Ellana is made Captain and figures out how to use the device from Prime Factors with Chief Engineer Carey and gets the remaining crew home.

Neelix regrets going to the Alpha Quadrant and has to take a job serving drinks at Quark’s.

 

[WarpTenLizard]

Worst case scenarios....

• B'Elanna Torres is split into her human and Klingon halves by that Vidiian, and can't be returned to normal.
• As human and Klingon Torres fight over how to operate the transporter, they accidentally turn Tuvok and Neelix into Tuvix
• Naomi Wildman dies as a baby and isn't brought back. Meanwhile, Seska's little spoon head is Chakotay's after all. So the half-alien kid of the ship is a half-Cardassian boy instead of a half-Ktarian girl.
• Chakotay gets fed up and leads that Maquis mutiny. Klingon Torres fights for the Maquis while weenie human Torres stays Team Starfleet.
• Sam Wildman blames Janeway for her baby's death, and joins the Maquis. She testifies against Janeway at a little trial the maquis set up, where Janeway is found guilty of incompetence and sentenced to death.
• Tuvix joins the Maquis, and is extatic to be the one set to execute Captain Janeway at dawn.
• Tom Paris tries to rescue Captain Janeway from being executed by Tuvix by taking her away in a tranwarp shuttle going at Warp 10. You know what happens next.
• Harry Kim falls in love with and marries Tom's salamander daughter, and they have a son named Andrew.
• Andrew, mistaken for an alligator, is cooked and kabobed by Tuvix for Cajun night. Harry swears revenge.
• Voyager falls into Chaotic Space, where Chakotay's crazy gene is activated and he's not cured by the end. Command of the Maquis vessel Voyager falls to Tuvix, with Klingon-Torres as his first officer and girlfriend. They obliterate the captain's Ready Room with wild sex.
• Human-Torres meanwhile attempts to save the Doctor's program from the Swarm of Darkling Warheads, but ultimately turns him into Moriarty. (Literally, Victorian villain Moriarty, but played by Robert Picardo).
• Doctor Moriarty liberates Seven of Nine from the Collective and plans to make her a bionic terminator woman.
• The Equinox catches up to Voyager, and not only has B'Elanna's ex-boyfriend as first officer, but also her old schoolyard bully Daniel Byrd as Ops officer, and her least favorite professor from Starfleet Academy, Professor Buttsavage, as chief of Security.
• The Maquis try to recruit Seven of Nine, but she betrays and assimilates everyone. They are all now in Unimatrix Zero.
• Kes's Ocampan menopause mixes badly with assimilation, and half the Collective explodes
• The surviving crew is liberated, the Borg defeated, and the universe saved by Wesley Crusher

 

[Oddish]

Worst case scenarios....

The fact that I laughed all through that just shows what a sick hole I am. Well done.

 

[Leviathan]

Janeway and Tom remain salamanders, but return to their posts juggling their careers and lovable family antics to the sounds of a laugh track and studio audience applause.

...worse enough?

 

[Oddish]

Janeway and Tom remain salamanders, but return to their posts juggling their careers and lovable family antics to the sounds of a laugh track and studio audience applause.

...worse enough?

Add a rap soundtrack, excessive slime jokes, too many ads for assorted medicines with side effects worse than the condition they treat, and guest appearances by a still-unpromoted Harry Kim... and you have the absolute nadir.

 

[Ragitsu]

Worst case scenarios....

• *the snip to end all snips*

....and that's why grey matter hardly matters.