How Star Trek: Voyager SHOULD Have Ended

Talk about your favorite books, movies, music, TV shows, and other non-gaming forms of entertainment here.
Forum rules

1) This is a Christian site, respect our beliefs and we will respect yours.

2) This is a family friendly site, no swearing or posting offensive links, pictures, or signatures.

3) Please be respectful of others.

4) Trolls are not welcome and will be dealt with accordingly.

5) No racial comments, jokes or images

6) If you see a dead thread over 6 months old, let it rest in peace

7) No Duplicate posts
User avatar
ArcticFox
CCGR addict
Posts: 3502
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:00 am
Are you human?: Yes!
Contact:
For those who watched Voyager, you'll remember the finale... The ship gets into a Borg transwarp conduit and, after a firefight and a blown up sphere, finds itself in the Alpha Quadrant and a fleet of Federation starships.

But then... That's it. Show over. No emotional payoff, and a zillion questions left unanswered.

What happens to the holodoctor, now that he's taken on his own sentience?
What will Starfleet do with Seven of Nine?
Are the Borg really defeated for good?
What will happen to the Maquis crew, now that they're back in Federation hands?
Will the Federation keep all the future tech Voyager had accumulated, including the Doctor's portable holo-emitter?
Does Tom Paris have to go back to jail?

What they should have done:
Do an 8th season, set on Earth. Have a storyline in which the Maquis are initially arrested and held in a Starfleet detention center pending the outcome of an inquiry into each one of them. Their Starfleet crewmates, outraged at the treatment of people who have become fine, honest, loyal officers, initially begin to pursue official channels to try and get them released, but eventually they must turn to less... conventional means.

Meanwhile, Seven of Nine is taken for a debriefing but isn't heard from again by any of her friends. Starfleet has decided that she needs to be intensely studied and interrogated, just in case the Borg survived the catastrophe.

The future tech from Voyager is spirited away by agents from Section 31, and it's also revealed that one of the ship's crew was a Section 31 agent the whole time. Among the advanced devices taken is the Doctor's portable emitter, which, if it can be replicated... could be abused in terrifying ways. Imagine an army of super troopers with superhuman physical characteristics... or holographic weapons, holographic vehicles...

Meanwhile, Janeway's career is in jeopardy. Her decisions are questioned, analyzed, second-guessed, and she's in no position to push for any justice for her badly treated crew.

In a sense, season 8 would have featured Starfleet as the villain, and perhaps a few cameos from sympathetic starfleet officers, perhaps a few from a ship named Enterprise, come to help...
"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."
—Brigham Young

"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus."
—Christopher Hitchens
User avatar
Deepfreeze32
Site Admin
Site Admin
Posts: 7041
Joined: Sun Oct 01, 2006 12:00 am
Are you human?: Yes!
Location: On the run from Johnny Law; ain't no trip to Cleveland
Contact:
So kinda like Babylon 5 season 5, then?


Either way, I like it. I think it would have been a really interesting twist if, say, Kim were a member of Section 31. Might be why he's always passed up for promotions while people like Tom Paris get promoted, demoted, and promoted AGAIN.


One thing I would have done differently outside of your idea is the show's pacing up to the finale. The finale is a bit of a spectacle, sure, but it also lacks any real build-up. In TNG, we spent the final season exploring the characters, and giving stories some finality (Wesley Crusher's story, for instance). In Voyager, all they did was wrap up Neelix's story. Granted, the writers of Voyager didn't use continuity enough to really make the show shine, but that's for another day. It was very much a "going, going, going, Cut!" kind of thing.

Again, not to rag on Voyager, but I would have liked more character development in the last few seasons. SFDebris mentioned this a few times, but in a lot of cases, the bad acting in Voyager has the same cause as the bad acting in the Star Wars prequels: The actors aren't unskilled, it's just that the writers aren't giving them enough to do with the character. When Voyager shined, it was great. Scorpion, with the dynamic between Janeway and Chakotay was brilliant. But the show didn't soar to the heights TNG (or even TOS) did, because it didn't make it's characters human enough. In TNG, we could really understand Picard, Riker, and Data. Geordi wasn't the most interesting in terms of background, but he got some development and he wasn't just a prop. Both Crushers were sorely underdeveloped, but that's for another day. Even Troi got the occasional chance to flex her command skills.

Voyager just didn't do that enough. When they did, the show really worked. I mean, there's two ways to play the "Trying to get somewhere with limited supplies" story: There's the generic episode-of-the-week thing Voyager ended up doing, and there's the Battlestar Galactica. My avatar should tell you which I prefer.


Anyway, rant over. I would have dearly loved to see Voyager do something like you've described, Arctic.
User avatar
ArcticFox
CCGR addict
Posts: 3502
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:00 am
Are you human?: Yes!
Contact:
Here's a piece of trivia for you... Ron Moore, creator of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica was on the production team for Voyager for a short time. Creative differences were why he left, but he wanted the Voyager to gradually accumulate other ships that had themselves been refugees or displaced ships who would stick together for safety.

It would have been the story of a starship,leading a ragtag fugitive fleet to a shining planet called... Earth.

hm....

And so the idea to re-create Battlestar Galactica was born.

So, if it hadn't been for Voyager, there'd have been no new Battlestar!

I agree that character development suffered, and I think part of it was because it seems an awful lot of the scripts for the show were unused scripts from TNG. Sometimes you can even tell what lines were meant for which character.

I was hoping for a much more emotional ending to the series. Maybe some shots of crew reuniting with their families. A few more vanity shots of the Voyager approaching Earth with a few Federation starships escorting her. Maybe even some guest appearances from other shows welcoming them home. Can you imagine how cool it would have been if the Enterprise had been one of the ships there to meet them?

"Picard to Voyager. Welcome home, captain." with the Enterprise majestically in the background.

They could have showed Harry getting back with his parents, or Tom sharing a long-overdue warm reunion with his father. Maybe Tuvok is shown boarding a ship bound for Vulcan for an extended leave of absence to get the medical treatment he needed and to rejoin his family.

I dunno. Something. In Battlestar, there was nobody waiting to meet the Galactica when she arrived at Earth, and still they managed to get more of a wrap-up than that.
"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."
—Brigham Young

"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus."
—Christopher Hitchens
User avatar
Chozon1
Site Admin
Site Admin
Posts: 22806
Joined: Sun Dec 10, 2006 12:00 am
Location: In the shadows. Waiting for an oppurtune moment to create a dramatic entrance.
Contact:
I was thinking it should have ended more like this:

*Final episode of the first season ends while a private audience of the producers and network execs watch*

TV EXEC 1: "Wow guys. Just...wow. I'm afraid we're going to not even sort of consider renewing your contract. But thanks for the lulz."

TV Exec 2 "Dang...I will never be able to get that time back."

>_>

<_<
Image
User avatar
ArcticFox
CCGR addict
Posts: 3502
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:00 am
Are you human?: Yes!
Contact:
Voyager, like Enterprise, was a show with a ridiculous amount of potential for awesome stories, that just crapped it all away by recycling unused TNG scripts and material. Voyager could have been the desperate tale of a Starfleet ship clawing its way across the Delta Quadrant on limited EVERYTHING, barely surviving. Remember the episode when they encountered the USS Equinox? Yeah, like that.

But, since they were mostly stories meant for TNG, the ship was always in fine condition with a full crew compliment and plenty of supplies, except the rare story where low supplies was a plot device.

I do like Voyager though, because the few good episodes were REALLY good. It wasn't as preachy as TNG and not as dark as DS9.
"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."
—Brigham Young

"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus."
—Christopher Hitchens
User avatar
Orodrist
CCGR addict
Posts: 7831
Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2008 6:38 pm
Location: Surrounded by blood and bathed in fire on a frozen lake
Contact:
ArcticFox wrote:Voyager, like Enterprise, was a show with a ridiculous amount of potential for awesome stories, that just crapped it all away by recycling unused TNG scripts and material.
I liked Enterprise *sneaks out*
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do - Robert A Heinlein

Courage ~ Discipline ~ Fidelity ~ Honor ~ Hospitality ~ Industriousness ~ Perseverance ~ Self Reliance ~
User avatar
ArcticFox
CCGR addict
Posts: 3502
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:00 am
Are you human?: Yes!
Contact:
I liked Enterprise too, but I still lament for its lost potential.
"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."
—Brigham Young

"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus."
—Christopher Hitchens
User avatar
Deepfreeze32
Site Admin
Site Admin
Posts: 7041
Joined: Sun Oct 01, 2006 12:00 am
Are you human?: Yes!
Location: On the run from Johnny Law; ain't no trip to Cleveland
Contact:
I also liked Enterprise, but felt that it had the potential to be so much more. Some of the episodes of the final season showed us what could have been: Arik Soong's stories, the mirror universe episodes, heck, even the Klingon Augmentation plotline weren't too bad.

But they could have done so, so much more...
User avatar
ArcticFox
CCGR addict
Posts: 3502
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:00 am
Are you human?: Yes!
Contact:
Totally. I loved the way they wove the Mirror Universe into the original series episode "The Tholian Web." It was a little like the Deep Space Nine episode where they went back in time and became part of "The Trouble With Tribbles."
"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."
—Brigham Young

"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus."
—Christopher Hitchens
User avatar
Chozon1
Site Admin
Site Admin
Posts: 22806
Joined: Sun Dec 10, 2006 12:00 am
Location: In the shadows. Waiting for an oppurtune moment to create a dramatic entrance.
Contact:
ArcticFox wrote:Voyager, like Enterprise, was a show with a ridiculous amount of potential for awesome stories, that just crapped it all away by recycling unused TNG scripts and material. Voyager could have been the desperate tale of a Starfleet ship clawing its way across the Delta Quadrant on limited EVERYTHING, barely surviving. Remember the episode when they encountered the USS Equinox? Yeah, like that.

But, since they were mostly stories meant for TNG, the ship was always in fine condition with a full crew compliment and plenty of supplies, except the rare story where low supplies was a plot device.

I do like Voyager though, because the few good episodes were REALLY good. It wasn't as preachy as TNG and not as dark as DS9.
I don't know if I can agree with this. Not that I have to, but, you know. This is the internet. :D

See, if you ask me about DS9, I can name episodes (and on a good day, the season they're in) that just blew my mind with awesomeness. I have to struggle to come up with one Voyager episode. It was just that forgettable to me. It seemed like I was watching TNG with characters I never really cared about. I can name one episode I sort of liked, which was Barge of the Dead, or sommat.

Or rather, when I did care about them, they did something either braindead or annoying with them. Or turned them into a star. Which, granted, has to be one of the most original random exits there is. XD

Also, while it may not have been as "I AM STARFLEET AND BETTER THAN YOU", it was certainly...overly voiced that they were Federation, and they wouldn't compromise on that.

The worst part of this is, I now want to watch the whole blasted series over again. @_@
Image
User avatar
ArcticFox
CCGR addict
Posts: 3502
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:00 am
Are you human?: Yes!
Contact:
Well if you've got Netflix, you certainly could...

I agree that overall Voyager was forgettable, but it had its moments. My favorite was the 2- parter "Equinox." I felt like the story of the Equinox was what the story of Voyager should have been. A story of a Starfleet crew so desperate to survive that the captain has to start making really hard choices that compromise his morals. I think Janeway was a great moral center, but I don't think she was morally challenged very often, at least not in a way that really stands out.

You gotta expect the writing on DS9 to be top notch. After all, Ron Moore was responsible for a lot of it.
"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."
—Brigham Young

"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus."
—Christopher Hitchens
User avatar
ArchAngel
CCGR addict
Posts: 3539
Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 12:00 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:
I'm just going to be in the corner cradling my Intrepid-class starship.
Pew Pew Pew. Science.

RoA: Kratimos/Lycan
UnHuman: Tim
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests