Endgame (2)

 DVD, Voyager S7 (Endgame) (2)

First, I have to apologise to 'Star Trek: Picard' - I was so sure Seven of Nine ended 'Voyager' with a smaller Borg implant above her eye and ridiculed them for not staying true to that, and then I finally get around to the end of the series again and find she has just the same large implant as the rest of the series! I must have been confusing 'Human Error,' in which we see her without implants on the Holodeck, and the operation the Doctor wants to do on her in 'Endgame' which will unspool her emotional side, as strong and visual evidence Seven was adjusting to become more human, but there isn't a visual change and I wasn't even sure the Doc had had time to perform the op - my other complaints about the 'Picard' version of Seven still stand, so I'm not about to recant and come around to the awful choices they made with her, and I will say I found her to be at her most pleasant in this episode. But enough about Seven, it isn't really about her, other than her future death acting as a catalyst for the most grievous temporal violations from a regular temporal violator. Just as she used to wryly observe the 'TOS' era would all be kicked out of Starfleet in her day for their cowboy diplomacy, I can imagine a new generation saying the same thing about her for all her failures to abide by the Temporal Prime Directive. Or did that even exist at this point, I don't remember? Either way she'd be very harshly criticised for all the incursions and alterations, and I would too if there was potential for me not to exist based on a decision she made (except those 'unborn' voices would never get a chance to accuse).

If it isn't a Seven story then it has to be a Janeway story, and here we get two for the price of one: Admiral Janeway come from the future to make sure every member of her crew makes it back to the Alpha Quadrant. Except she seems to have forgotten that risk is part of life, no one can know what the future holds, that's entirely the point - the best line came from Chakotay when he states not even an Admiral from the future can guarantee what's going to happen tomorrow, and therein lies a critical flaw with the story. A Janeway that has forgotten what she was there for, lost sight of the bigger picture and the reality of life being death and loss, and typically stubborn Janeway, refusing to accept any defeat. At least there was some kind of backlash against her with Captain Janeway and the crew acknowledging it was the journey that was most important, not the destination, an uncharacteristically wise speech from Harry saying it best. And that Janeway's decision to strand her crew in the Delta Quadrant in the first place was not the wrong one, she did what was right which often carries a sacrifice making it even harder, but no less right. But Trek is supposed to be optimistic so of course it had to end happily in spite of the nefarious ways in which they got themselves there.

I do feel quite conflicted in a lot of ways about this as a finale. You can clearly see they were trying to duplicate the weight of the time-based story of 'All Good Things...' in which we jumped between different points of 'TNG,' its beginning, its current end, and the future beyond, only not to be quite so direct about it we only have the future beyond. That in itself was good to see as it reminds us of time and the passing of such, that bittersweetness of living out life, but also knowing everything ends, the changes, the heartaches, the losses, so it was fertile ground for a Trek finale to explore, even if it doesn't do it as effectively as 'TNG' did. They also had to bring in the Borg, and specifically the Borg Queen one last time as being the closest they had to a recurring villain, one of the disadvantages of the series being that they were always moving on, making it very tricky to be able to deal with the same people for long. We see the heart of the Borg's power with one of their Transwarp Hubs, something which enables them to travel anywhere in the Galaxy within minutes - it strikes me as a rather big plot hole that they haven't showed up at Earth to assimilate it again. Or Qo'noS. Or Vulcan. Or... you get the idea. When trying to work with big ideas you're more likely to slip up, and I don't recall any excuse for why the Borg don't just sweep the entire galaxy away (as they did in an alternate universe in 'Parallels').

It was a nice touch to have Alice Krige back as the originator of the Queen, even if the setting has none of the scale or menace of the past and in fact I found all the Borg stuff to be rather small fry, other than the actual Hub itself. I'm not sure we even saw any Borg drones with the Queen. It's a nice callback, but she's hardly Dukat to Janeway's Sisko, simply a confounded enemy who is quite petty. Another nice touch was in keeping with the future uniforms seen in 'All Good Things...' and the combadge, the latter of which would be the only part of the setup to make it to the 'actual' future as seen in 'Picard.' That's the thing, we've now gone beyond all this time period, even in the future and although we know here that the future will be changed, it's still a lessening of the impact the future scenes have when seeing them now. But with Trek seemingly about to come to an end (and not before time, many would cry), with only the dribs and drabs of a couple of poor series' to come, it seems the right time to be reaching the end of one of the great and classic series', the first I watched from the very beginning to the very end, and which will always hold a special place in my affections.

Seeing it end now is a very different feeling, the abruptness of the success at the very end was always galling, but back then there was still some hope they might continue into films when 'TNG' had had its fill, but of course it wasn't allowed that, 'Voyager' never given its dues. We've since had 'Prodigy' as an animated follow-up that brought back a few characters (and across all the modern Treks the only characters not to be reprised were B'Elanna and Neelix, so that's pretty good going when you think how few 'DS9' and 'Enterprise' cast-members were allowed to return), but none of the cameos or other can give us the satisfying conclusion the series needed. And I do like this episode - the technical qualities are there to see with the two Janeways acting off each other superbly, the beauty of the Hub, the pleasure to notice little details like future Reg Barclay being so much more assured, only reverting to his nervous tics under pressure. Old Janeway showing her mettle with the Klingons is one of my favourite things - we get to see Tom and B'Elanna's daughter, Miral Paris, setting things up for Janeway with the dishonourable Korath, protective of her commander, but when it comes to it Janeway goes in alone and doesn't need her 'protection.' If anything, I wished there was more of that side of things, Korath an atypical member of the race, an inventor, but one Janeway easily bests, and not through violence, but guile.

Something the episode does well is the personal: Janeway and Janeway, Tom and B'Elanna, Harry coming to the realisation he's already lost his best mate to marriage and Fatherhood even before the baby's born - that was one of the strongest parts of the episode, Tom's vehement belief that he's already home, Voyager is their home and he's not going to be doing anything to jeopardise it, himself or his family. Chakotay and Seven is a bit strange if we didn't already know Seven had been trying holo-Chakotay on for size recently. It does almost come out of nowhere, but that's another aping of the end of 'TNG' with its Worf and Deanna direction. I'm not sure the poignancy quite works as well for me now, there isn't much of it and the episode barrels along without as much of that necessary closing out of these people and the place they'd inhabited for so long. And of course it would have been so much more affecting if we could have seen them reach home, their families, set foot on Earth, the strangeness of leaving the confines of Voyager for good - they'd been off the ship many times, but always to return before long, it would be a huge wrench to suddenly find complete freedom again.

I've never been a fan of the future technology being used (though on this occasion I noted how the crew were doing all the work out on the hull themselves because there are no drones or robot assistants in this universe, unlike what was portrayed in modern Trek), and it seems all too easy they can have this physical shield come up around the ship, or blast Borg Cubes into oblivion with single Torpedoes. It was all a little easy. Which contrasts with the toughness of the future scenes, whether it be Janeway dealing with the Klingons (good use of the cave set once more!), to her mourning of Tuvok in his presence as his degenerative disorder has taken hold (she leaves him a cast photo as a parting gift - how thoughtful!). But it was clearly wrong what she did, as heroic as it was. At the same time there were unlikely to be any ramifications for the writers to deal with since the next series, they knew, was going to be in the past, and the 'TNG' films could stand alone (and as it happened would get only one more outing), so I can see why they did it. I can imagine that Kim speech closing out the episode if they hadn't forced the trip home and that the point was they were still out there. That would have been the more 'romantic' route to take and left the possibility open for further adventures in the future, and perhaps even the return home as a big draw for a film. I don't really know what was the right way to go, it's so long past that the end of the series has little relevance in Trek for good or ill, we haven't explored the ramifications because Trek has never fully returned to the science fiction, science-based, thoughtful, canonically sound world it had been.

Melodrama, comic book unreality, fantasy and emotion are what makes Trek these days, and you can see some of the seeds of what was to come even as far back as 'Voyager.' I think for me, the entirety of Trek has become less engaging in general. Partly for no longer being in want: either for new Trek or the ability to see any episode or film any time. It's lost its specialness. Part of that is ageing, but the far larger part is the poor directions and major flaws of what it became, so different to what I grew up with and that accompanied me on the journey, to the extent that even writing reviews has lost a lot of its joy. I no longer need to get out my thoughts on Trek because it's becoming increasingly less important - it still has importance, but it's as much about the nostalgia and sentiment, grabbing back to a time that is rapidly fading away, an unreal world and life where the joys of the past almost only exist in memory. That's quite sad, but I've really reviewed all the old Treks, and other than finishing 'Lower Decks,' have no interest in writing about modern Trek because it's too dreary, uninteresting and irrelevant to me. These last two seasons of 'Voyager' were actually my second run through at reviews since I started with them and felt I needed to expand on the shorter reviews I made in those days.

But I digress... Before I go, I do want to mention a few things: Neelix gets a small scene playing Kadis-Kot with Seven, a nice touch, and the same for Icheb with Tuvok and Harry, unaccountably beating the Vulcan and Kal-Toh (all futuristic games must begin with a 'K'!). Voyager's status as a museum would be borne out in 'LD.' Chell has volunteered to take over from Neelix as master of the Mess Hall, and it's a shame we never saw that as I imagine he'd have been a bit Neelix-like (only much more sensitive towards the crew's dislike of his dishes, I imagine). The Majel Barrett computer voice was still being used in Admiral Janeway's time, at least in this alternate timeline - in that same time the Doctor decided on 'Joe' as a name, but how could a computer man marry a flesh and blood living being? They throw in all kinds of issues like this knowing they'll never have to examine the workings of them, so it's a bit of a cheat. It's claimed Chakotay was never the same after the death of his wife, Seven, but that doesn't ring true for his character who was always so philosophical and capable of adapting to any situation, as seen by how quickly he bowed to Janeway's authority as Captain, or in 'Resolutions' he was much more ready to settle on a planet and make the best of it. The Doctor suggests Seven is running more simulations with holo-Chakotay, which still strikes me as wrong (even though we know the whole crew apparently has holographic templates in the ship's database according to the previous episode!), and I'm really not keen on the Admiral's micro SD in the brain so she can connect with a neural interface. Harry made it to Captain to shut up all the complainers he was still an Ensign (even then he was worried about being busted back down to that rank!). And Tuvok quotes Spock's needs of the many, but for me it was more special to have the symmetry of a scene with his Captain in her Ready Room, like the pilot.

They close out, typically, with some old faces on board, with Vaughn Armstrong in his eighth Trek role (and fourth on 'Voyager,' soon to become a recurring face on 'Enterprise' - it's truly unbelievable that not one single modern production has used him!), as Korath. Richard Herd (also known as a Klingon on 'TNG'), returned for his fourth appearance as Admiral Paris and his final Trek role (he died in 2020). Manu Intiraymi in his eleventh and final appearance as Icheb. Alice Krige as her second and last live-action appearance as the Borg Queen. And Dwight Schultz as his twelfth time playing Reg Barclay, the sixth on 'Voyager.' As I mentioned before, it was the last time Roxann Dawson played B'Elanna Torres and Ethan Phillips played Neelix. But how would I rank 'Endgame' with the other series finales? 'DS9' would still be king, 'TNG' second. I don't know, but I think I prefer 'Enterprise' to this one now, I'd have to watch again. I've since seen a further three Trek series end (four if you count 'Prodigy,' but that was cancelled), though none of those are even in the conversation! I felt generous with my former rating for 'Endgame,' so had to mark it down, but it also marks a definite end to childhood and transition to the next stage, so for all its flaws, easier to see with the passing of time, I still retain a fondness for it and the time in life it stands for, and the series as a whole remains my second best after 'DS9,' something that will never change.

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