Techtite's TV Reviews!

Star Trek Voyager : The Finale

A Techtite Review

[PLEASE NOTE: As would be the case for any review of a finale, this does include a fair amount of spoilers. However, if you're reading a review of a finale, and don't want to know anything about the finale, you're pretty much of a nitwit.]

You know a finale has guts, when it answers a fan's biggest question, in just the first 60 seconds. In this case: will Voyager get to return home? As the intro of this finale confesses --in a view 33 years into their future-- yes, they do. However, this future isn't bright for everyone. This opens the bigger question: can the now-Admiral Janeway go back in time, and improve their past? In other words, as Janeway puts it, this finale wants to go one further, and let the Voyager crew "have their cake and eat it too." The result is more than any fan of the series could hope for...and a great series finale.

"Endgame" begins with the aforementioned view of the future, as we see what becomes of Paris, Torres, The Doctor, the now-Captain Harry Kim, and the now-Admiral Janeway. They're all quite happy at a 10 year anniversary party of their return, after their perilous 23 year voyage back home. However, those years were filled with not-so-great fates for the rest of the crew, which is the reason for Janeway's distress. This includes 3 senor officers that were once Janeway's closest friends (Tuvok, for example, is suffering from a mental illness he could have received a cure for, if they'd only reached home 15 years sooner). It also includes, however, the deaths of 2 dozen additional crewmen Voyager lost along the way. In a move that would make Captain Kirk proud, Janeway forgoes the Prime Directive against altering the past, and goes back to put right what went wrong. Her mission: get the crew back home after a mere 7 years (i.e., where the series is "now"). However, this does mean one final confrontation with --you guessed it-- the Borg.

Before you ask how the Borg decided to pop up just now, there's a very good reason; the best way home for Voyager, you see, is one of their transwarp hubs, "hidden" in a dense nebula cloud that Voyager felt was best to leave behind. The future Admiral Janeway goes back in time, to tell them to give it a try. After all, she has new technology to help them out, from decades into the future; the Borg will not be able to adapt to this new technology in time. However, there is one small problem; the younger Captain Janeway is not as jaded as her future self, and is once again (much like how the series started) not about to risk the chance to save millions of lives just to get her small crew home. After all, destroying that transwarp gate would mean a major loss of Borg strength in the galaxy. The two Janeways try to find a resolution to this conflict of opinion, in a mission to try to get home earlier, and destroy the gate as well. Though the resulting final battle will have the "Nitpicker's Guild" whining for months, it's a fun way to end the series, on a very pleasant note; just what every fan wants to see!

I must admit, regardless of the series' overall rating elsewhere, I'd say this finale is one of the best Trek has ever offered. While the best Trek finale so far would have to be their one for The Next Generation series, their maudlin ending to Deep Space Nine was quite disappointing. By comparison, this finale is more closer to the former, and at some times, is probably even slightly better. After all, Janeway found a way home that was more intriguing than simply relying on the help of the entity "Q." Adding to the fun is the birth of the baby of B'lanna and Tom Paris, as well as the chance to see the blossoming relationship between Chakotay and Seven. They were even able to throw in a cameo from Neelix, who fell in love and left the ship some episodes back.

As for the added question; will this be the end of the Trek saga on TV? Commercials confessed this is not the case; the fifth Trek series, titled Enterprise, will debut this fall. In it, we will get to see the original vintage starship, prior to Kirk, Spock, or even Dr. McCoy, on the ship's maiden voyages. Sounds like a good reason to go back in time in this future-based sci-fi show. However, it's nice that they ended this series on such a victorious note beforehand, and gave the fans just what they wanted. It's very rare these days for a series finale to be satisfying, and Voyager was a pleasant exception.