I'm going through a complete re-watch of the entirety of Star Trek and have reached the finale of Voyager.
I'm writing this as a fan of the show. While it certainly has its flaws, I find it also has a lot to offer.
If I have a problem with the finale, it's that it doesn't give us any time to appreciate the victory. I was watching The Best Years of Our Lives last night, and this morning I started writing just a little sketch of an alternate Voyager finale inspired by that movie. It took me about half an hour and came out of whole cloth, so it's very rough and very short.
I thought I'd share:
The first part is getting home. Similar to the actual finale in terms of a grand escape, lots of danger, high-risk, big effects, etc. But no time travel element.
At some point it becomes clear that someone is going to have to sacrifice themselves to make it past the last hurdle- a complex process to be completed on a shuttle makes sense. There's a fight over who is to go, each crewmember saying why they're expendable with Janeway shooting them down and telling them their worth, from Seven to the Doctor to Chakotay to Tuvok to all of them.
Janeway dies getting them home. The crew tries technobabble scheme after technobabble scheme to save her, none of them working. She has a grand, moving farewell speech before her shuttle disintegrates.
Chakotay brings the ship home in bittersweet victory Janeway receives a martyr's funeral and a grand memorial is unveiled as time goes by. Everyone is at the service, even Mark and an elderly, gray-muzzled Mollie.
The crew have trouble adapting to life off of Voyager. Among the more severely affected is Harry Kim. Though he spent more time than anyone pining for home, now that he's here he just can't settle. He's finally got that second pip on his collar, but it just doesn't mean as much to him if he can't have it on Voyager. He's also junior to most of the lieutenants his age, and is behind the curve on Starfleet's current tech profile (his own experience with Delta Quadrant- mostly Borg tech- is greeted dubiously by most officers he meets). Most junior officers are products of the Dominion War, an experience he missed, contributing to his feelings as an outsider.
Kim desperately wants to be back on board a star ship, on the move, maybe that will calm his angst. But Starfleet needs him in a lab, in a probably years-long debrief on Borg tech. He's growing more irritable by the day, feeling caged. His girlfriend Libby unaccountably stayed true to him. In his mind he'd given her up long ago, and now the idea of being with her comes to look like just another kind of prison. He breaks it off with her.
Tuvok has lost his last personal connection to Starfleet with the death of Janeway and resigns his commission again. At his suggestion, Harry takes a leave of absence to travel with him to Vulcan. Maybe Vulcan meditation will calm his spirit? The PTSD won't go away by meditating, the only thing that seems to alleviate him now is to keep moving, and he doesn't stay long.
Seven has a CRAZY tough time, being both the terrifying Borg and the hope for the lost assimilated, and she can't handle all these strangers with all of their different reactions. She retreats to a simpler place, a place she once felt safe before: the holodeck. Who should she meet there but Reg Barclay. They have something in common! A spark of friendship is struck, and these two lab rats will see each other through the terrors of daily social interaction and do great things in the process.
The Doctor has gone from a small community that only mostly accepts him to a larger one with a lot more dubious view of his rights. He faces curbs on his personal freedoms left and right as he simply tries to exist. This struggle is easy to publicize and he does find allies. He becomes a much more blatant symbol of the fight for tolerance, and an instant (if controversial) celebrity. His rising fame causes alienation from many of his old crewmates, which leads to a scene of tension and release when he gets into a fights with Seven and Tom. He tries to let them know that he cares for them but realizes his path is taking him away from them, and it's important that he walk it. Tom/Seven understand, but it's bittersweet.
It was a strange and painful experience in many ways for Chakotay to command the ship in the final leg of her voyage. He's not Starfleet, doesn't know if he has a home there, feels tremendous pressure to succeed in memory of Janeway. Ultimately he decides to stay and in her honor they promote him to captain.
Tom and B'Elanna are having trouble on Earth. Neither is Starfleet, and both are really uncomfortable with the culture of the planet. Tom's old patterns reassert themselves now that he's forced to stay put and has choices again. The trauma of their last fight out of the Delta Quadrant- and the events of the years before- haunt him. He feels like he'll ruin the lives of his wife and daughter if he sticks around. He's fighting with B'Elanna, who's dealing with her own returning sense of alienation as she reconnects with her still imperfect father. There should also be a nice scene between her and the Doctor on how humans can seem tolerant but really have to "absorb something as a pattern" to accept it, and therefore don't do well with true demographic aberrations).
Things get desperate enough that Harry and Tom talk about leaving the planet behind for good, even if it means Tom abandoning B'Elanna and his baby. A non-Starfleet Federation science mission is breaking off from the Pathfinder Project to launch a deep space ship to try to bridge the gap to the Delta Quadrant, or at least head in that direction. Tom and Harry both vow to go.
Of course Tom has a change of heart and doesn't abandon B'Elanna. The end of the Dominion War has seen the border shift again, and survivors of the Maquis are seeking to rebuild. Ultimately this is an easy decision and they leave, trying for a fresh start. Hopefully finding a place that doesn't feel like it's forcing them to conform will be a solution (but we can't really know). Harry still decides to leave.
Chakotay considers going back to the rebuilding Maquis worlds, but he feels duty-bound to remain in Starfleet now. Voyager will remain a museum ship (also they need to pick it apart for new tech) but they announce they're building the Voyager-B, and he'll have command.
We'll also see a few scenes with the minor crew members. Naomi is likewise having trouble adjusting. Her arc is smaller- trouble not living on a ship, making friends, etc.- and ultimately serves to exemplify how some people CAN adjust to this kind of change in a healthy way.
Icheb's in the Academy now. He's excelling and possibly doing better than anyone from the show. They admit him as a third-year off the bat, and basically all he has to learn is the command and some of the tactics stuff.
The last scenes will be in the newly-laid hulk of the Voyager-B. Chakotay and Icheb are standing in the hollowed-out space where the bridge will be, both wearing atmo-suits. The ship will take a while, 18 months or so, plus a shakedown cruise. Icheb will be graduating by then, and Chakotay gladly promises him he'll pull all the strings he needs to get him back aboard.
Meanwhile Harry's ship is leaving lunar orbit to head back out towards the Delta Quadrant. Back on the Voyager-B bridge, Chakotay and Icheb see a speck of light pull away from the moon and streak off towards the unknown.
And I know they didn't have post-credit scenes then, but I want one: Naomi makes her way through layers and layers of Starfleet security into secret labs and past waiting admirals. She doesn't even glance to the side as she's waved through. She reaches the intergalactic communicator, plugs in some numbers, and sets up her kadis-kat board. Neelix gets on at the other end and they resume their game.
I'm writing this as a fan of the show. While it certainly has its flaws, I find it also has a lot to offer.
If I have a problem with the finale, it's that it doesn't give us any time to appreciate the victory. I was watching The Best Years of Our Lives last night, and this morning I started writing just a little sketch of an alternate Voyager finale inspired by that movie. It took me about half an hour and came out of whole cloth, so it's very rough and very short.
I thought I'd share:
The first part is getting home. Similar to the actual finale in terms of a grand escape, lots of danger, high-risk, big effects, etc. But no time travel element.
At some point it becomes clear that someone is going to have to sacrifice themselves to make it past the last hurdle- a complex process to be completed on a shuttle makes sense. There's a fight over who is to go, each crewmember saying why they're expendable with Janeway shooting them down and telling them their worth, from Seven to the Doctor to Chakotay to Tuvok to all of them.
Janeway dies getting them home. The crew tries technobabble scheme after technobabble scheme to save her, none of them working. She has a grand, moving farewell speech before her shuttle disintegrates.
Chakotay brings the ship home in bittersweet victory Janeway receives a martyr's funeral and a grand memorial is unveiled as time goes by. Everyone is at the service, even Mark and an elderly, gray-muzzled Mollie.
The crew have trouble adapting to life off of Voyager. Among the more severely affected is Harry Kim. Though he spent more time than anyone pining for home, now that he's here he just can't settle. He's finally got that second pip on his collar, but it just doesn't mean as much to him if he can't have it on Voyager. He's also junior to most of the lieutenants his age, and is behind the curve on Starfleet's current tech profile (his own experience with Delta Quadrant- mostly Borg tech- is greeted dubiously by most officers he meets). Most junior officers are products of the Dominion War, an experience he missed, contributing to his feelings as an outsider.
Kim desperately wants to be back on board a star ship, on the move, maybe that will calm his angst. But Starfleet needs him in a lab, in a probably years-long debrief on Borg tech. He's growing more irritable by the day, feeling caged. His girlfriend Libby unaccountably stayed true to him. In his mind he'd given her up long ago, and now the idea of being with her comes to look like just another kind of prison. He breaks it off with her.
Tuvok has lost his last personal connection to Starfleet with the death of Janeway and resigns his commission again. At his suggestion, Harry takes a leave of absence to travel with him to Vulcan. Maybe Vulcan meditation will calm his spirit? The PTSD won't go away by meditating, the only thing that seems to alleviate him now is to keep moving, and he doesn't stay long.
Seven has a CRAZY tough time, being both the terrifying Borg and the hope for the lost assimilated, and she can't handle all these strangers with all of their different reactions. She retreats to a simpler place, a place she once felt safe before: the holodeck. Who should she meet there but Reg Barclay. They have something in common! A spark of friendship is struck, and these two lab rats will see each other through the terrors of daily social interaction and do great things in the process.
The Doctor has gone from a small community that only mostly accepts him to a larger one with a lot more dubious view of his rights. He faces curbs on his personal freedoms left and right as he simply tries to exist. This struggle is easy to publicize and he does find allies. He becomes a much more blatant symbol of the fight for tolerance, and an instant (if controversial) celebrity. His rising fame causes alienation from many of his old crewmates, which leads to a scene of tension and release when he gets into a fights with Seven and Tom. He tries to let them know that he cares for them but realizes his path is taking him away from them, and it's important that he walk it. Tom/Seven understand, but it's bittersweet.
It was a strange and painful experience in many ways for Chakotay to command the ship in the final leg of her voyage. He's not Starfleet, doesn't know if he has a home there, feels tremendous pressure to succeed in memory of Janeway. Ultimately he decides to stay and in her honor they promote him to captain.
Tom and B'Elanna are having trouble on Earth. Neither is Starfleet, and both are really uncomfortable with the culture of the planet. Tom's old patterns reassert themselves now that he's forced to stay put and has choices again. The trauma of their last fight out of the Delta Quadrant- and the events of the years before- haunt him. He feels like he'll ruin the lives of his wife and daughter if he sticks around. He's fighting with B'Elanna, who's dealing with her own returning sense of alienation as she reconnects with her still imperfect father. There should also be a nice scene between her and the Doctor on how humans can seem tolerant but really have to "absorb something as a pattern" to accept it, and therefore don't do well with true demographic aberrations).
Things get desperate enough that Harry and Tom talk about leaving the planet behind for good, even if it means Tom abandoning B'Elanna and his baby. A non-Starfleet Federation science mission is breaking off from the Pathfinder Project to launch a deep space ship to try to bridge the gap to the Delta Quadrant, or at least head in that direction. Tom and Harry both vow to go.
Of course Tom has a change of heart and doesn't abandon B'Elanna. The end of the Dominion War has seen the border shift again, and survivors of the Maquis are seeking to rebuild. Ultimately this is an easy decision and they leave, trying for a fresh start. Hopefully finding a place that doesn't feel like it's forcing them to conform will be a solution (but we can't really know). Harry still decides to leave.
Chakotay considers going back to the rebuilding Maquis worlds, but he feels duty-bound to remain in Starfleet now. Voyager will remain a museum ship (also they need to pick it apart for new tech) but they announce they're building the Voyager-B, and he'll have command.
We'll also see a few scenes with the minor crew members. Naomi is likewise having trouble adjusting. Her arc is smaller- trouble not living on a ship, making friends, etc.- and ultimately serves to exemplify how some people CAN adjust to this kind of change in a healthy way.
Icheb's in the Academy now. He's excelling and possibly doing better than anyone from the show. They admit him as a third-year off the bat, and basically all he has to learn is the command and some of the tactics stuff.
The last scenes will be in the newly-laid hulk of the Voyager-B. Chakotay and Icheb are standing in the hollowed-out space where the bridge will be, both wearing atmo-suits. The ship will take a while, 18 months or so, plus a shakedown cruise. Icheb will be graduating by then, and Chakotay gladly promises him he'll pull all the strings he needs to get him back aboard.
Meanwhile Harry's ship is leaving lunar orbit to head back out towards the Delta Quadrant. Back on the Voyager-B bridge, Chakotay and Icheb see a speck of light pull away from the moon and streak off towards the unknown.
And I know they didn't have post-credit scenes then, but I want one: Naomi makes her way through layers and layers of Starfleet security into secret labs and past waiting admirals. She doesn't even glance to the side as she's waved through. She reaches the intergalactic communicator, plugs in some numbers, and sets up her kadis-kat board. Neelix gets on at the other end and they resume their game.
