Like many Trekkers, I anxiously awaited the series finale of Star Trek: Voyager. I
thoroughly enjoyed the two-hour finale which flew by, but was left afterwards with
troubling questions… questions about missed opportunities, continuity errors, and hints at
a potentially richer story (for a possible movie pay off?).
I liked how “End Game” opened. Questions of whether, how and if Voyager returned are
resolved as we time warp to the future. An older (not sure about wiser) Admiral Janeway
is living in San Francisco at Star Fleet Headquarters and is teaching fresh-faced cadets
how to handle the Borg with Reg Barclay (Dwight Schultz).
Voyager clearly returned, but not everyone made it, thus the dilemma for an older, feisty
and boundlessly confident Janeway who “knows” how to fix this tragedy if given a second
chance. The question for the audience is: Do we buy it? Would Janeway violate every
temporal directive? Would she bring advanced technology from the future to her crew from
the past… technology, which if it fell into Borg control, would possibly end millions of
lives? Would she do this to save a couple dozen people? I don’t know if I believe it.
This story parallels a popular Voyager episode called “Timeless” where an older Harry Kim
returns to the past with vital information to correct a mistake he made which killed his
crew mates. However, in that scenario it was simply a matter of stopping himself from
inputting a wrong heading, not taking advanced future technology to his younger self which
would could alter the course of millions of lives if he screws up.
The only justification I can find was one tantalizing hint. A hysterical, future
Tuvok, suffering from a degenerative disorder, kept yelling a star date of when the real Janeway
had disappeared years ago. This seems to imply that the older Janeway we meet in this
finale is not the “real” Janeway… that possibly Janeway’s still stuck somewhere in a
temporal distortion. This might explain this Janeway’s blitheness in violating the
temporal laws. And there’s the obvious mind tickler. If an older Janeway returns to bring
herself back sooner, then the future she knows will cease to exist anyway.
However, I still have to wonder about why they would devote screen time to a frantic Tuvok
referring to a long past star date and a supposedly temporarily lost Janeway. Do they
pay this off with further hints? I don’t think so. A perfect opportunity would have been
with Reg Barclay who has a magical talent for figuring out these types of conundrums.
Instead, they waste time with him in a somewhat clichéd scene reaffirming that he knew of
Janeway’s secret mission, but he had to keep it quiet. I would have preferred to see the
Tuvok scene paid off with Barclay having his clichéd scene and then Barclay running some
tests after everyone leaves mumbling to himself saying, “Something’s not right here. I
have to find out.” This would’ve left Trek fans mind tickled to the max wondering about
the movie Star Trek: X and hungering for answers.
However, with lack of payoff, many Trek fans are taking what they saw at face value and
wondering why they were watching a replay of a weaker “Timeless.” Then there’s the
continuity problem of Seven of Nine’s abilities. As a Borg, she was connected to the hive
mind and knew everything the Borg knew. So why didn’t she know about their speedy
transportation system which can blast them from galaxy to galaxy in a few minutes? This
was not a recent invention. The Borg were speeding around the galaxy since they were
introduced during the run of Star Trek: Next Generation.
We Trekkers want answers!
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"Star Trek Finale: We Want Answers!"
