"Unimatrix Zero, Part Two"
So basically everything happens the way you'd think it would. Janeway, Tuvok and Torres are successful (and easily de-assimilated at the end of the episode, no biggie), the Unimatrix Zero revolution becomes a full scale uprising, but the virtual world itself is destroyed so that it doesn't actually become a recurring thing. A predictable end filled with good production values and "excitement" but nothing really great. The Borg are totally domesticated as villains, perhaps the only glimmer left of proper Borg writing is when the Queen just starts blowing up entire cubes that have as little as 1 mutated drone on them to quell the insurrection. Like Part 1, there are a lot of retarded plot holes. For example, Axom's plan is to destroy the Queen and somehow this is victory for the rebellion. Huh? We've seen the Queen killed and come back plenty of times, making it clear she's just a kind of Borg unit, that can be reproduced, not some actual centralized authority. Granted, both this and Part 1 write the Queen like she's Emperor Palpatine, like she's just Janeway's arch enemy in a comic book. Then there's the fact that it's made clear that Unimatrix Zero is a virtual environment like the Matrix -- the drones can appear in any appearnace they wish, and the Klingon one even conjures a bat'leth for himself, yet when it comes time to fight the Borg in that environment they make crude traps out of sharpened sticks and vines like fucking Ewoks. Why not imagine yourself a phaser cannon? Also, you're telling me that super mentally disciplined Vulcan Tuvok is the one who succumbs to the Borg mind control, not the halfbreed or the psycho? Finally, it's super easy for Janeway and Seven to destroy the virtual enviroment when it suits them at the end, that it seems unbelievable that the Queen aka the resources of the whole Collective where unable to figure it out at the start of Part 1. Also we take a massive hit from the Cube that makes a big hole in the ship through three decks and NO ONE DIES. Also, it's magically repaired by next week, but that goes without saying.
# of Crew: 138 Total -- 118 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -41
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,292.8 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
"Drive"
This is actually a nice fun episode and a great little Paris/Torres relationship even if it is just basically all stuff we've seen before, it's also the culmination of it all. The only super unsatisfying thing (other than the Delta Flyer being magically rebuilt, better than ever, between episodes like it ain't no than) is that Torres and Paris suddenly get engaged at the end of the story, then get married between commercial breaks. On DS9 Worf and Dax were engaged for a good set of episodes before getting married, and we got like a whole ceremony and everything. I understand not wanting to repeat that, but it feels like a total cheap way out of this whole three year courtship to have them finally get married ENTIRELY OFF CAMERA.
# of Crew: 138 Total -- 118 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -42
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,247.9 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
"Repression"
OMG, someone remembered the Maquis existed! What a weird episode to do in season seven. To basically comeplete forget the Maquis for like three seasons and then to bring it all back just for the sake of a "murder" mystery. Overall it's a decent episode, being Tim Russ' contractually obligated once-per-year "Tuvok goes crazy" episode. But the weirdest thing is that according to this episode there are 30 Maquis onboard (there should be 13), which suggests that the Val Jean's original complement was 35 (when it was 18). Also, based on some dialogue here, the crew complement is made up of 1/4 Maquis (for 120 total), when in fact it should be 9% Maquis for 138 total. Also, this episode claims a distance from Earth of 35,000ly, which is like 5,000 more than they were saying in season 6, and hasn't actually been true since like mid-season 5 or something crazy like that. Also, in addition to there suddenly being way more Maquis, there's also a Vulcan Maquis, when it's been previously established that Vorik is the only other Vulcan on the ship.
But aside from the nitpicks, the biggest problem with this episode is that it's a murder mystery for two acts, then a mind control Maquis rebellion in act three, and then it ends. Tuvok suddenly turns good, so does Chakotay, for no real reason other than the hour is up, and then off camera between a cut all the other mind controlled people are stopped and everything's back to normal and the crew joking around again. Seriously, we go from terrorists controlling the bridge to the crew watching 1950s 3-D movies on the holodeck between cuts. It's fucked.
# of Crew: 137 Total -- 117 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -42
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,219.9 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
"Imperfection"
At times this is a pretty good episode about dealing with a potential terminal illness in a friend or family member, but at other times its an utterly predictable medical procedural played with all the excitement of a completely uninspired and cliché hospital drama. We at least get rid of all the non-Icheb Borg kids in the teaser.
# of Crew: 134 Total -- 117 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -46
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,180.7 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
"Critical Care"
So VOY finally got around to doing a good episode of Star Trek. I mean, this is classic TOS, from the social allegory of a modern day problem in a sci-fi setting, to the emotionless computer controlling it all. The only thing missing was that no one convinced the computer to blow itself up in the end. It's also a great Doc episode, as he learns to play hardball and make some tough choices. The only thing that's a little fucked up is the moral. Doc saves the day because he's willing to sacrifice an individual to save a greater whole, but thats also the rationale that the villains use, who are willing to let lesser patients die to save the greater society. So at what point does "needs of the many" stop being a great logical truth and start becoming the Borg? That's a question the episode never really addresses because then the whole Federation philosophy starts becoming unraveled.
# of Crew: 137 Total -- 117 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -46
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,138.6 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
"Inside Man"
A fun episode with Barclay, holograms and Ferengi. I've seen this episode get criticism for its use of the Ferengi as the villains instead of a more heavy hitting AQ villain, but the choice of Ferengi makes sense because it means the villainy is lightweight enough to be dealt with in one episode and without having to deal with explaining the political fall-out of the Dominion War (like with the Romulans or something). I love the "cool, confident" hologram version of Barclay. I also really like the Barclay/Troi scenes, which actually, after years of doing scenes like this, finally feel like real counselling scenes. All in all, despite being a "Voyager could, but doesn't get home" episode, I liked this one.
# of Crew: 137 Total -- 117 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -46
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,925.8 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
I liked two episodes in a row. Something must be wrong with me.
"Body and Soul"
An episode where we visit a society in the grips of an insurgency of "photonics" -- the highly advanced holographic beings who feel subjugated as a servant class and who have risen up against their oppressors. To avoid detection, the Doc hides in Seven's body. Any interesting notions this episode might contain are thrown out (we never even meet the holo-insurgents) in favour of tired, old "body switch" cliché jokes with Doc Seven, including numerous awkward sexual moments. Also, Tuvok solves Pon Farr by boning a hologram of his wife in a simulation of Vulcan. Yawn.
# of Crew: 137 Total -- 117 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -46
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,758.6 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
Fuck, I am so sick of this show.
"Nightingale"
So it's Harry Kim's first command, which I think we've seen before on this show. The B-plot is basically the same "character who doesn't understand humanity F***S up their first attempts at love" episode that we've seen on this show already with Seven and the Doc, and also on DS9 with Odo, and on TNG with Data -- this time with Icheb going after B'Elanna based on weak premises for the pure result of weak "hilarious" misunderstandings. The entire thing feels thrown together and thrown in to fill time. The A-plot itself is super predictable (the helpless aliens we're assisting aren't what they appear to be) and the ending is nonsensical (the whole point is that it's super hard to get passed the blockade, but once Harry accomplishes the goal of getting in, he's able to get back out lickety-split in the commercial break no problem).
So what's worthwhile in this episode? Actually, quite a lot. It's the first, I think, really GOOD Harry Kim episode, because it acknowledges the truth of the character. It acknowledges that the dude is way too old and inexperienced to still be an ensign. He actually, in dialogue, confronts the captain about it. It would've been nice if he'd gotten promoted at the end of the episode, but at least the episode comes out and says it. And his whole arc of always being Tom's sidekick is examined, as well as the fact that all previous Kim episodes were usually based around him falling in love with the wrong girl. It looks at all that Kim has been so far and says "Fuck, even Harry Kim hates being Harry Kim," and gives him the chance to be something more. It's smart in the way it handles his character and his attitude and Garrett Wang does a helluva job with the script.
Sucks that I know everything will be back to normal next episode. This fucking show.
# of Crew: 137 Total -- 117 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -46
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,722.16 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
"Flesh and Blood"
So, of all the 2-hour Voyager telefilms, this is I think the best so far. I mean, it's just as dumb and over-the-top as the others, and I feel like I'm gonna have to sit through at least four or five bottle shows to make up for all the money they spent on this one. The premise -- that the holograms we gave the Hirogen have risen up in revolt -- is at times asinine and the amount of hoops we need to jump through to get the story where it needs to go is insane, but once we get where we need to be, things do work. I appreciated that the leader of the hologram revolt is a crazy Bajoran terrorist who wants to set himself up as hologram Jesus and that the episode actually acknowledges that not all holograms are ultra-advanced potentially sentient beings -- I love when he "liberates" some mining holograms and they are just simple programs. And then the episode manages to end in a big action climax complete with one liners and it doesn't feel totally forced.
But the first half is just freaking awful. Janeway has an argument with Chakotay where she argues that they have a responsibility to help the Hirogen because it was a huge mistake to give them holodeck technology -- and acts like she wasn't the one who made that decision. There is actual dialogue where she says that giving replicators to feed and clothe people is different and something they've had to do, when the first two seasons were all about her steadfast refusal NOT TO DO THAT. Janeway is just batshit crazy in this episode.
Why do the holograms need a home planet? Being in a simulation is indistinguishable from reality for them -- why not Moriarty them all and give them some planet within a computer chip?
Where did the massive medical staff Doc has in this episode come from? What the fuck?
In short -- the first half is a nonsenscial mess but once we ease into the second half and don't have to worry about setting up the premise, things are much better.
Also -- while using Alpha Quadrant computer based holograms was a nice way to utilize the DS9 alien costumes, what the fuck is a Jem'Hadar doing here? There's no way at all that they would be in the database VOY gave the Hirogen.
This is an episode that ocassionally used great continuity (holy shit, referencing the holo-uprising based episode from a few weeks back that sucked and using it to make this one better? Remembering the Maquis??) and then ocassionally shat all over it. Also, once again, the only way Janeway makes sense is if you fanon that she is crazy.
# of Crew: 137 Total -- 117 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -50
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,657.6 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
How did NO ONE die in that episode?
"Shattered"
This is kinda like a clip show where the reshot all the scenes. Voyager gets split into mulitple timeframes from across the series seven year run and only Chakotay can travel between them. We run into a bunch of characters and situations from a few different episodes, and I bet the writers thought this was a good tribute to the show's history but it's all really pointless and procedural and has no fun and at the end everyone's memory is wiped so for all intents and purposes it never happened anyway.
# of Crew: 137 Total -- 117 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 4 Civilians <--- --="" 141.="" 153="" actually="" and="" br="" but="" claims="" combined="" crew="" dudes="" her="" maquis="" of="" past-janeway="" s="" she="" started="" that="" the="" total="" with=""># of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -50
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,593.2 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
"Lineage"
A superbly realized, dramatically effective, and well acted piece about B'Elanna and Tom's troubles once they learn B'Elanna is pregnant, and she wants the Doc to genetically modify the fetus to weed out its Klingon traits. It's a good exploration of a plausible sci-fi ethical issues -- except -- wait -- isn't genetic engineering of any kind except in cases of life-threatening conditions ILLEGAL in the Federation? What is everyone doing standing around having moral arguments over whether this is right or wrong? It's not only wrong, there's already a law against it for just this kind of scenario. The whole episode is totally invalid and complete joke because it never even slightly brings this fact up. That's like a Trek episode being about how hard interstellar travel is since faster-than-light travel is impossible. What?
# of Crew: 137 Total -- 117 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -50
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,539.9 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
B'Elanna has been pregnant: 49 days
"Repentance"
A death penalty allegory episode that strikes one as the VOY writers trying really hard to do a classic Trek "moral choice" episode. Some of the metaphor works, some of it doesn't, some of it comes across as hopelessly naive. I did admire, however, that Janeway respected the spirit of the Prime Directive throughout and remained level-headed, rather than unfairly judging another culture and cowboying their way to moral victory like they usually do. Also I liked the twist that the crazy psycho killer was mentally unbalanced and actually not a bad guy, while the "they only looked me up cuz the system is racist!" guy turned out to be a scheming asshole. This episode is all right, but flawed.
# of Crew: 135 Total -- 115 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -50
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,517.5 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
B'Elanna has been pregnant: 57 days
"Prophecy"
Honestly not as bad as I had expected it to be. Not really good, either. Kinda pointless and cliché and predictable, but not outright bad. I can't even fault them for doing "Klingons on Voyager" because heck, it's Season 7, why not at this point? This show abandoned really treating it's premise seriously ages ago. And it sorta shows we're getting closer to home, I guess. I dunno. Whatever.
# of Crew: 134 Total -- 114 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 4 Civilians,
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -50
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,411.8 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
B'Elanna has been pregnant: 77 days
"The Void"
I liked this better when it was half as long and starrred James T. Kirk. Seriously, this episode is essentially word-for-word "Time Trap" just extended for an hour.
# of Crew: 134 Total -- 114 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 4 Civilians,
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -52
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,386.6 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
B'Elanna has been pregnant: 86 days
"Workforce" Parts I & II
Actually not bad. A decent plot with decent character moments that really only falters in the poor justification for why Janeway's love interest from the planet can't just join the Voyager crew. I mean, yeah the Captain can't fraternize with her crew but there's no regulation against having a boyfriend. He could just be a civillian. It's not like you don't have a habit of picking up hitchhikers.
One thing I liked about this one was that the evil aliens aren't the whole race, and it isn't the concept of working in a power plant that's evil either. It's just a few elite members of the society driven to extremes who are working in secret, and in fact other members of their species help our people take them out. That's cool and refreshing for Trek at this point.
# of Crew: 126 Total -- 107 Starfleet, 12 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -56
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,324.4 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
B'Elanna has been pregnant: 111 days
"Human Error"
It's like a perfect summation of all this series' flaws that a quarter of a season away from the final episode, the only way a major character can experience any kind of significant development is in a holographic fantasy. As well written as this episode sometimes is, in a modern day television show it's closest equivalent would be an episode about a woman writing erotic fiction about her co-workers and masturbating to it. And what an awful reset button ending. If she ever experiences significant emotion her Borg implants will disable her? And she chooses not to get a procedure to remove them, despite that being clearly what she wants. What's the point when you're so close to the end? Oh, right, so you can strip it in syndication reruns such that there's no discernible difference between season 4 and season 7.
And Chakotay is a vegetarian, Seven. If you're gonna fantasize about him, at least get your facts straight.
# of Crew: 126 Total -- 107 Starfleet, 12 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -59
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,279.3 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11
B'Elanna has been pregnant: 125 days
"Q2"
Taken by itself, this episode isn't actually as bad as I remember. Q's son is funny, the actor (de Lancie's actual son) is pretty good, and I enjoyed the show poking fun at itself for a while. It amused me that the central theme is of Q Jr. learning responsibility when the way he acts at the start is the way our "hero" KINO acts in STINO (to use Tux's terminologies).
But the main problem with this episode is that it's the apex (or nadir) of the retrograde development of the Q by VOY, similar to VOY's ruining of TNG's other great concept, the Borg. Once, both were all powerful and awe inspiring. Now, both are flippant jokes used for ratings grabs and reduced to one-note, and largely brought down to human levels. No coincedence it seems that the Borg pop up in this episode too -- as a gag.
Also -- Q Jr is about to make a space-time gate to ANYWHERE using JUST a standard deflector dish and the controls in the Delta Flyer? Fuck Q's "tips", ask him how to do THAT! Hell, you don't even NEED to ask -- keylogs in the Flyer should tell you EXACTLY what Q Jr did! F***IN' Voyager crew man. Dumber than a box of rocks.
# of Crew: 126 Total -- 107 Starfleet, 12 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -59
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,234.4 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 12
B'Elanna has been pregnant: 141 days
"Author, Author"
While this episode is in many ways a retread of "Measure of a Man", it's still one of my favourite Voyager outings. It's certainly the best episode all season, maybe the best since "Blink of an Eye" in season 6. It manages to be just different enough from "Measure" to be worthwhile, and the holodeck stuff is well done as well. It's an episode that makes good use of series continuity as well, even drawing on earlier hologram related episodes this season -- it almost feels like "holographic rights" is the theme of season 7, if you wanted to give the writing staff that much credit. The characters are well drawn this hour, and somehow we manage to fit in the Doc's Holo-Novel, Tom's parody, the courtroom drama, and the subplot of Voyager crewmembers reconnecting with their families all into one hour without any of it feeling rushed. It's a well-written episode, and no matter how derivative, this is a rare enough quality in Voyager to make it a worthwhile hour.
I also like how the idea of being able to achieve 11 minutes of reeltime contact with home really establishes how close we're getting to the goal. It's like this episode was written by someone realizing that the series was wrapping up!
# of Crew: 126 Total -- 107 Starfleet, 12 Maquis, 4 Civilians (Neelix claims there are 146!)
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -59
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,167.2 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 12
B'Elanna has been pregnant: 160 days
The final scene with the EMH-Mark 1s actually takes place a month or so after the crew returns home.
"Friendship One"
This episode is intellectually retarded, on several levels. First up, the Friendship 1 probe traveled at Warp 1 (or near that) for 180 years before Starfleet lost contact. Because they tracked it to Voyager's vicinity, that means that the loss of contact was probably due to the crash, not, say, it falling into a wormhole or something. So how come it's 24,000ly from Earth and not, say, 180? Which would place it closer than Rigel, Antares, Vega, Betelgeuse, etc, etc.
They could have said the probe was from Kirk's time, or even Archer's, and it could have then gone 24,000ly in a reasonable time for Voyager to find it (and for the radiation sufferers to only be like 1st or 2nd generation instead of the unlikely idea that they'd survived on a dead world for 200 years), and it would not have changed anything
Then we have poor Joe Carey, a major S1 recurring character who we haven't seen except in flashbacks and time travel since "State of Flux", and is summarily killed off here for some cheap pathos, despite the fact that hardly anyone in the "regular Voyager audience" would remember him.
Then there's the idea that travelling to a planet 136ly away would take a month at max warp according to Torres, and 17 round trips would take 3 years, which is the BS reason they can't help the people dying of horrific radiation, when in fact this would only take Voyager about 20 weeks at max warp.
Then there's "action Doc", who shoots 3 dudes when the Hippocratic Oath is hardwired into him.
Janeway doesn't want to help the entire planet of dying radioactive people because it's "not their problem", when helping the Ocampa is what landed them in the DQ in the first place, and I don't even remember why destroying the Array helped them anyway.
And then finally, Janeway is so morose after the death of the character we haven't seen in six seasons that she declares that exploration isn't worth the risk if it means even the death of one man. WHAT THE FUCK? You're the Captain of a vessel in a quasi-military whose main mission is exploration and whose quasi-military nature means that everyone is prepared to give their lives in the line of duty! RISK IS YOUR BUSINESS, JANEWAY! That's like the mission statement of STAR TREK!!! Worst. Captain. Ever. Just based on that one statement alone, regardless of all her other, major, failings.
# of Crew: 125 Total -- 106 Starfleet, 12 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -65
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,188.8 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 12
B'Elanna has been pregnant: 167 days
"Natural Law"
Another terrible episode where Seven learns primitive aboriginals are just as good, if not better, than her, while Paris goes through driver's ed. Augh. If I caught this in reruns and you told me it was the fourth last episode of the show I would not believe you. Also, Seven, who has a crush on Chakotay, is stranded on a planet with him, and their "romance" is a major plot point of the finale less than a month away, and yet there's no evidence of such a subplot here at all. Also, Janeway is terrible and I have no idea what moral this episode is getting at, except I'm pretty sure it's misguided as fuck.
This show, man.
# of Crew: 125 Total -- 106 Starfleet, 12 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -5
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -65
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,135.5 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 12
B'Elanna has been pregnant: 186 days
"Homestead"
This episode has a lot of stupid things in it. The Talaxian colony 50,911.5ly from home. That they got there within 22 years (Warp 9.89 without stopping). The fact that they've settled on an asteroid owned by someone else after settling on other planets owned by someone else as if there were no uninhabited planets within all that space. The fact that everyone overlooks the simplest solution: The miners wanna mine, the Talaxians already have an intricate tunnel complex throughout -- rather than blowing them up, pay them to mine for you. Then everyone keeps acting like this is a Prime Directive issue, when it's really clearly not. Then there's the chronological snafu of making it April 5, 2378 suddenly when it should be Nov 14, 2377 according to the stardate system.
But, y'know what? Whatever. Neelix gets a good episode to go out on, an end to his character arc, and some closure and a nice goodbye. That's better than anyone else on this show gets, and it means we get a couple of hours without Neelix, too. That might make it the best episode of VOY by default.
# of Crew: 124 Total -- 106 Starfleet, 12 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -5
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -65
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,088.5 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 12
B'Elanna has been pregnant: 201 days
"Renaissance Man"
This episode was actually really good. It's clever, the characters are super-competent, Tuvok is awesome, the Doc gets to do a bunch of awesome stuff that he should always have been able to do but never did, and at the end of the day it's not ridiculously stupid (although the initial con ruse seems that way when the episode is pretending the con is real). I really liked this episode. But THIS is the second-to-last show? Really? At least the Doc's fake death scene gives him a chance to say a bunch of stuff to the crew that gives a feeling of mini closure. But of course he's fine. VOY reset. But oh well, a good episode is a good episode (and one last holo-episode for a season full of 'em!)
# of Crew: 124 Total -- 106 Starfleet, 12 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -5
# of Warp Cores: 1
# of Photon Torpedoes: -65
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 24,059.4 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 12
B'Elanna has been pregnant: 209 days
"Endgame"
Okay, we all know why this episode is super stupid. The time travel makes no sense, there's no closure for anybody at the end, the tech upgrades make Voyager super OP, why does Admiral Janeway choose this lost opportunity to get home and not any others (especially the Ferengi wormhole incident)? Why is Tuvok's illness, Chakotay's death, Seven's death, etc. the motivation to ruin an entire timeline and everyone else's lives all of a sudden? How did Seven not recognize that it was a transwarp hub? Why doesn't the Borg Queen just assimilate everybody the first sign of trouble (she doesn't need to interrogate people if she just assimilates them!) Remember when the Borg were undefeatable and un-negotiable? Not to mention the shitty storytelling and filmmaking decision to cut back and forth between the future and the present continuously until Janeway arrives in our timeline. Sloppy. Etc. Etc. Etc.
But what's especially aggravating is how easily all the problems could be solved. I can even buy why it's THIS moment she goes back to and none of the others -- a friend pointed out that it's a point when the crew is at their most happy -- Neelix has his happy ending, Kes is a hyperevolved life-form, Seven and Chakotay are beginnng their romance, Tom and B'Elanna are about to have their baby -- ultimately you don't wanna wipe out too much of the journey because if they went back, say, with the Caretaker Array at the start, then Neelix would still be trading garbage, Kes would be getting raped by the Kazon, Chakotay and B'Elanna would be in Federation prison along with Tom, etc. etc. So I get it. And she can't wait too long after this point or Tuvok's condition (which also comes out of nowhere and should've been alluded to in earlier episodes) would be untreatable already. So, imagine this:
We start in the future, same shit, same dumb story (I'm fixing the episode, I can't make it high art). But Janeway gets the device without a hitch -- no Doc seeing Tuvok, seeing Reg, warning Kim, fight with Klingons, convincing Kim because at the end of the day NONE OF THAT MATTERS because she succeeds! There's no real tension for it. It doesn't matter because all of these characters are gonna be wiped from the timeline. We just need to see that Voyager got back, get a hint of their lives since, and most importantly, see how things are bad (Tuvok's first illness scene does that fine, as does Chakotay grave scene). So bam, the future scenes are much shorter. Admiral Janeway travels back in time. THEN! We're in the present, everything's the same (including the damn Chakotay/Seven romance because ultimately my only problem with that is that they should've fucking built up to it -- it comes out of so much nowhere). Admiral Janeway shows up.
But the transwarp hub ISN'T the Borg's. Because when you think about it, it breaks the Borg. We see that the hub network can take them ANYWHERE nearly INSTANTLY, including the Dominion AND 1ly away from Earth! It's not consistent with ANYTHING we've seen of how the Borg travel up to this point. Yeah, their ships are fast, but why haven't they used this thing to conquer EVERYTHING so far? Why weren't the Borg fucking up the Jem'Hadar? Why aren't they constantly launching Cubes at Earth?
So, instead, the hub is run by some group of friendly aliens that we befriend, and Admiral Janeway didn't know about when she was Captain Janeway (Voyager scanned the nebula, didn't detect the hub, kept going, but Future Janeway knows because these aliens will have made contact with the Feds in the years since Voyager's return). But! The Borg have discovered the hub! And the crew then decide to fuck about risking Voyager to help the aliens DEFEND the hub from the Borg because otherwise if the Borg get access it risks all the above shit I just said the Borg could do with the hub the episode already gives them. This is then Admiral Janeway's conflict with Captain Janeway about selfishness vs. heroism, because in the episode as it stands it's clear the Hub isn't a big deal (since the Borg haven't used it to fuck everybody) and so Captain Janeway comes off as stupidly reckless (again). Also, in this new scenario, our villains are trying to do something villainous, and we're risking our way home to stop them! As opposed to risking our way home to shit on some people who aren't actually doing anything in the story -- yeah, those people are the Borg, but as it stands the Queen's villainous scheme is "don't get blown up by these guys."
So the moral quandary is that Janeway realizes the hub is too powerful to let stand -- even if we defeat THESE Borg, they will keep coming as long as the hub exists. So we convince the aliens to destroy it to save themselves and the galaxy, and the jeopardy is can we destroy the hub, defeat the Borg, and get through in time to get home?
I think Admiral Janeway can still use the pathogen to kill the Borg by sacrificing herself. I like that bit, because we've been talking about killing the Borg that way since "I, Borg" and it's good to finally do it -- and I like that it straight up takes the Borg out of the equation -- you can argue that after "Endgame" they are dead, which is good because they've been beaten into the ground and no longer useful as villains.
Then we make it home, and because we cut all that faffing about in the future, we can have SOME FUCKING CLOSURE.
And it doesn't have to be a big never-ending Return of the King thing. It can be like a "Wire" style montage of short, simple scenes:
The Doc and Reg hug, see Zimmerman again, who's just fine, thank you.
Kim shows up at his parents' doorstep, wearing LIEUTENANT's pips, hug.
Chakotay and B'Elanna at an official hearing are cleared of all charges, as are all the other Maquis, in light of their service to Voyager.
At another official hearing Janeway is cleared, promoted and given medals.
Seven introduces Chakotay to that aunt, she calls her "Annika" and so does Chakotay.
Tom meets his father. They look at one another. Then, B'Elanna and the newborn emerge from behind Tom, Admiral Paris is overwhelmed with joy. Admiral Paris: "I'm proud of you."
The crew and other Starfleet officials, all in dress uniform, standing in front of the Voyager, landed at the Presidio. They toast the ship and her crew. Then, old Admiral Janeway, same time period we started, looking at a holo-image of that day, happy. The End.
It would take like ten minutes if that, which you would easily get by eliminating the dumb Doc/Tuvok, Doc/Reg, Janeway/Klingons, Janeway/Kim, Kim/Klingons shit in the future period.
***FINAL STATS***
# of Crew: 124 Total -- 106 Starfleet, 12 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -5
# of Warp Cores: 1
# of Photon Torpedoes: -71
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 0 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 12
B'Elanna has been pregnant: 239 days
I'm so fucking glad to be done that. Disapointed we didn't lose more crew, but -71 torpedoes is pretty F***IN funny.
Now on to NEMESHIT. Zod, why couldn't there be something GOOD to look forward to at the end of my chronological Trek? Even if I follow Ambassador Spock back in time, I just end up at STINO. Trek is a Hollow Franchise -- ends with a whimper.
Fuck you, Rick Berman. Fuck you.
