Star Trek: Voyager — 7x26 — Endgame, Part II

Aired 2001-05-23

SpaceOpera.com rating:9

Average reader rating:5.06

Synopsis

Janeway tries to change Voyager's history.

Remarkable scenes

Admiral Janeway boarding Voyager.
Admiral Janeway spilling details about Voyager's future to captain Janeway.
Janeway: "Though I've had some strange experiences in my career, nothing quite compares to the sight of my future self briefing my officers on technology that hasn't been invented yet."
Voyager deploying their new armor.
Voyager shrugging off attacks by three Borg cube.
Voyager destroying two Borg cubes.
Voyager discovering the transwarp hub.
Admiral Janeway spilling the beans to captain Janeway about all the bad stuff that'll happen to her crew.
Admiral Janeway showing up in Unimatrix One.
The Borg Queen assimilating admiral Janeway.
Admiral Janeway infecting the Borg Collective with a neurolytic pathogen.
Unimatrix One's destruction.
The transwarp network's destruction.
The Federation ships battling the Borg sphere.
Voyager reaching the alpha quadrant.
Janeway: "Set a course for home." Final line spoken on the show.

Review

Why oh why didn't captain Janeway just stroll right on through the transwarp hub? We seriously didn't need this whole "have your cake and eat it too" crap. I would have much preferred that admiral Janeway had told captain Janeway about the hub first and had the argument over whether or not to destroy it or use it before entering the nebula. The admiral could then have convinced the captain to use it instead of destroy it, correcting the mistake she made in Voy: Caretaker. Yes, Janeway made a mistake. It would have been a massively awesome humbling experience to see her truly admit it by making the right choice. But no. The writers wanted more than that. The writers not only wanted Janeway to a deliver a major blow to the Borg, but to reach Earth while doing it. (You'll note that they did much the same thing in Voy: Night that they did in this episode.) Hell, the writers even almost saved it by having admiral Janeway "betray" captain Janeway. But again, nope. It was a farce! So in the end, a lot of time in the finale is wasted on this pointless contention between the Janeways and almost zero time is spent on Voyager's homecoming. I was profoundly disappointed that we didn't get to see family reunions, or even Voyager landing on Earth. We're not even told just what exactly happened to the Borg. The way its shown they could have been either extremely wounded or totally and utterly destroyed. They really should have clarified this. Not only that, but captain Janeway brought loads of technology from the future to Earth and we're not shown the repercussions of that at all! I've wanted to know since Voy: Future's End what the repercussions of the mobile emitter would be once Voyager reached Earth. Now we have futuristic stealth technology (which is banned in the Federation as far as I know since TNG: The Pegasus), some really kick ass armor technology, and "transphasic" torpedoes to contend with too! Don't get me wrong. I really liked Voy: Endgame. Maybe if we substituted Voy: Unimatrix Zero with Voy: Endgame and gave us a season of Voyager in the alpha quadrant, it would have been more fitting. But as I always say, what's done is done. We don't quite get the closure I hoped for like in DS9: What You Leave Behind, and the episode wasn't quite as good as TNG: All Good Things, but it was still a damn fine episode and a mostly fitting end for Star Trek Voyager.

9 reader comments

@kethinov, in your analysis of the Voyager series you said it was established in TNG that Borg space is between where Voyager was in the Delta quadrant and Federation space. Do you recall in which episode of TNG that was established? I'd love to watch that episode again. I always thought it was just a nice coincidence the writers came up with for Voyager to run into the Borg.
Additionally, I like these two episodes. I'd probably give them both an 8 or 9 because I agree with you that they could have this episode for the end of season 4 or sometime soon thereafter. There are so many pointless fillers in Voy. But I may also be a bit jaded by my love of DS9's arcs and TNG's lack of needing to get somewhere (e.g. home).
by Wes Thompson | 02/25/2012 at 5:12 pm

Wes,
The first on-screen confirmation that the Borg are delta quadrant residents comes from the TNG film Star Trek: First Contact. However, fan speculation about the subject was commonplace as far back as the early 1990s and many non-canon novels quasi-established this as fact, which the producers of Star Trek were eventually inclined to absorb as canon.
It was so common to assume this as canon that during Star Trek Voyager's pre-production phases in the early 1990s, Michael Okuda is reputed to have told Rick Berman that "since the gamma quadrant is the province of ships from DS9, [then] this new show [should] be set in the delta quadrant. One of the few things we know about the delta quadrant is that the Borg homeworld is located somewhere there. This might present opportunities for the Borg to be recurring bad guys."
by Eric Newport | 02/25/2012 at 10:57 pm

After watching a lot of Voyager in the past little while--thank you, Netflix--I've noticed another gripe I have. Out of the three series I have really watched (TNG, DS9 and Voyager) Voyagers class is the weakest. In fact, I am often annoyed with the acting of Voyager's cast. I do not discredit their hard work, by any means. However, Jeri Ryan, Robert Picardo and Tim Russ are the only above-soap-opera-caliber actors on Voyager. I'll admit that some of my frustration may simply be due to the writing, but I counter that with the idea that I believe the writers write the characters to the actor's abilities.
Since I wasn't alive during the run of TOS, it's hard for me to criticize their acting since I don't really know how it compared to the acting of the day. Although, I thought their acting was pretty good in Star Trek IV and VI.
I feel quite secure in saying the actors of TNG were the best actors of all. They were each fabulous in their roles and in the movies. You could rarely say that it seemed like they were acting. Instead, it more often seemed like they actually were the character they portrayed.
The DS9 cast is a close second to TNG's cast, for me.
So, while I like some of Voyager's episodes (mostly the ones Kethinov has rated high), the acting annoys me far too often to be a really great series for me.
by Wes Thompson | 03/16/2012 at 2:37 pm

Well… from having tried to watch it twice before and really not liking it to seeing it all in a year and feeling emotional in the end went quite a distance. Sure, some characters were annoying and never did anything right, and other's were inconsistent, but I felt happy for them all in the end. And I'll miss them. All and all, not a bad trek series after all. I wonder when we'll get something similar again. And I've found that I mostly agree with your likes and dislikes, which is nice.
by Nightwish | 12/15/2014 at 2:41 am

Without any "reunion" scenes at the end of the episode, it definitely left me feeling like we, as invested viewers, were denied closure. After all the years trying to get back to Earth, we at least deserved a chance to see Tom reuniting with Admiral Paris, Tuvok's unemotional reunion with his wife and children, Seven's reunion with her Earth family, Harry's long-awaiting reunion with his fiance UH I MEAN PARENTS HIS PARENTS RIGHT I FORGOT WE ALL AGREED TO FORGET THAT HARRY WAS ENGAGED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SERIES. Ending the series the way it did just left me feeling empty.
by Dstyle | 08/13/2015 at 1:59 pm

I just finished watching the entire series on Saturday. After 172 episodes, I definitely enjoyed seeing the future versions of the characters since I feel a strong bond with each.
For that same reason, I share Kethinov's disappointment that we don't see any of what occurs on Earth after they return. Yes, I understand that the show was about "the journey." Yes, I understand that you always want to leave viewers wanting more, but I could not shake the empty feeling that I got when the final shot of the show was Voyager approaching Earth from space.
Voyager could have easily returned in mid to late season 5 (or even season 6) and then used season 6 and/or 7 to explore the crew's lives on Earth. How would Seven of Nine and the Doctor adjust to Earth? How would the new technology and experiences affect Starfleet? What kind of homecoming would the crew receive?
Anyway…I loved the episode and I loved this series. Definitely captures the brilliance of TNG and DS9, but clearly not on the same level. I was just disappointed with the way they left it. Seemed so sudden!
by Andrew | 12/12/2016 at 4:13 pm

TNG: All Good Things. Still the best finale in all of Star Trek. This one almost became a close second if they'd just given us some idea what happens after the real return of Voyager. Now I'm in the awkward position of liking a finale with Vic Fontaine more than this one.
In addition to all the things left out of the finale you mention, I'm also bothered by the destruction of the transwarp hub. It's one thing to want to get rid of the Borg, but that is too cool of a phenomenon to just get rid of mere minutes after we find out about it. It also raises the question of why we never got to see a Borg-Dominion War. Plus, the destruction of the hub and the success of the pathogen, though unexpected, seemed a bit too easily achieved. It was a pretty quick denoument after so much build-up.
I do like the twist this finale gave us of showing a potential future for all the characters, and then altering it based on the episode's outcome. That was very similar to TNG: All Good Things, where we know the events that "future Picard" experienced will change. So in this finale, as with that one, I say…if JJ Abrams can muck up the Star Trek timeline, why can't Star Trek play games with its own timeline?
In response to Wes: the acting of the TOS cast was one of that show's strengths. They had an on-screen chemistry that I don't think any of the other series reached. Each series had some amazing actors, but as a group, I think TOS was the best.
It made up for the fact that the storylines on several episodes were pretty weak. Some were downright ridiculous. I'd even say that overall, the science fiction on Voyager was better. But then again, TOS was itself a sci-fi innovation and it all had to start somewhere.
by Mike L. Jackson | 06/07/2017 at 3:28 am

I think it was a decent closure. I like it more than DS9 (which is a better series, but all that Star Wars-like duel between jedi Sisko and Darth Dukat was… horrible). Don't think we should see the reunions between crew and their families. Final shot with Voyager approaching Earth was great. I'm satisfied:)
by McCoy | 11/12/2017 at 10:27 am

Maybe not the families, but they could have at least made the final scene near earth longer than 30 seconds. Also, what's the big deal about destroying the borg hub? The Borg have 5 more and they build them once, they can build them again…
by bodner | 01/19/2020 at 10:06 am