Star Trek: VOY Reviews - From Start to Suicide!

Natural Law

He sighed a bit as he walked down the hallway. The faint, painfully fake moans of hardcore porn echoed out of the door at the end - the flickering pale blue light from the television almost strobed to match. Robert knocked on the frame of the door, almost retching at the scent of sweat, rotting food, stale coffee, and liquids best left for crime scene investigation units seemingly coagulating in his nostrils.

He knocked harder, and a startled yelp called out from behind the desk. Brannon stumbled to his feet, knocking half of the contents of his desk on the floor in the same motion. Zipping his pants hurriedly, he grabbed it up and dumped it in a drawer - an inkjet printout of screenshot of a ship from First Contact with Original Series nacelles taped on. A crushed plastic VHS rental case from Blockbuster for the first volume of Quantum Leap. A Penthouse magazine. Another Penthouse magazine. A third Penthouse magazine. And a childish sketch of a hick shooting a Klingon with a shotgun.

Robert raised his eyebrow a bit - the one so often ensconced in a greasepaint tattoo - and stepped into the office as Brannon stumbled over to the television, pressing the power button and terminating the wailing of the unnaturally endowed woman on the screen.

"What..." Brannon mumbled before hiccuping, "What do you need, Bobby baby?"

"The script you sent me is a photocopy of Darmok from Next Gen, with 'Picard' crossed out and replaced with 'Chuckles.'" Robert replied, holding it aloft. The entirety of the script was held together with a staple in the top right corner, of all places.

"Yeah, so?" Brannon slurred, dropping into his chair and nearly tipping over in it. Glass bottles clinked beneath his desk as he pulled himself closer to it, resting his head on it.

"So, I know Frakes is always asking for work, but I don't think you're going to be able to get Brent Spiner to guest star as Data for this episode."

"Yeah, the fucker only wants to play a fucking scientist instead. Says the contacts hurt too much. Asshole."

"Anyway, Brannon, can you walk me through what you guys actually wrote for this?"

Brannon sighed audibly before rummaging through a desk drawer. He pulled out a notepad that somehow had a bite taken out of it, flipped through a few pages, then looked up at Robert. "OK, here we go. Chuckles is pretending to take Seven to a conference so he can fuck her."

"No, Brannon."

"Fine. Fuck, I swear, I'm trying to do you a favor man - I let you kiss her a few episodes ago."

"So we're actually going to touch on their romantic feelings for each other?"

"Uhg. You and your fucking feelings. No, forget it, you don't get to fuck her any more, you ungrateful dick. Instead, you crash the shuttle into a fucking forcefield."

"Another shuttle?"

"Yeah, fuck it, they found a shuttle nebula or something."

"A shuttle nebula?"

"Yeah, that's why I'm in charge and you're pissing and moaning about every fucking episode I give you, man. Anyway, Chuckles and Seven beam down, but they're trapped beneath the forcefield. It's a fucking badass forcefield. And the shuttle's all over the damn place, so Chuckles and Seven have to piece it back together enough so that Chuckles can go to his fucking conference."

"So, why's there a forcefield?"

Brannon sighed, tipping his chair back. "I fucking swear, I have to explain everything to each and everyone of you assholes. Like Greg won't shut up about wanting to understand all the nebulas he has to talk about."

"Garrett?"

"Yeah, whatever. Do you know he makes more than you?"

"That's...great." Robert said, gripping the edges of his Darmok photocopy a little more tightly.

"OK, so, the forcefield? It's protecting a bunch of Peruvians."

"Like from Earth?"

"No, come on, Bobby, keep up. They're aliens, but they're just like those weird tribes from like Peru or some shit that have never seen airplanes or shit like that. And the rest of the aliens on the planet put a forcefield over their territory like a nature preserve. Anyway, Seven finds a few radiators with blinking lights while Chuckles is bitching about his broken leg and she calls him, but the Peruvians find Chuckles and break his commbadge."

"Aren't they...durable?"

"Yeah, but these Peruvians are obviously like super fucking strong."

"OK..."

"Yeah, and the Peruvians shove a bunch of plants and shit in Chuckles leg and heals him, but Seven wants to get the fuck out. And then, the next morning, Chuckles tries to Darmok the shit out of them by drawing shit in the dirt and they, like, use sign language or some shit to talk. And then, yeah, one of them wants to trade, so he gives them that button thing Chuckles has on his collar."

"Wait, they're pre-warp, right?"

"Duh. They're Peruvian."

"OK, you know not all Peruvians are cut off from the modern world, right?"

"Yeah, but can they watch porn on TV like we can?" Brannon grinned as he showed Robert the box - "Huge Tits, Sexy Bits, Volume VII"

"Anyway, wouldn't the rank pip be some sort of alloy or something? Like, they shouldn't get to have it?"

"You're thinking about this way too fucking hard, Bobby. Anyway, Seven loses her tricorder,"

"Again, wouldn't that be something that would affect the course of their development?"

"Fucking stop man. This shit's just getting good - all the Peruvians are painting themselves to look like Chuckles, so he's like, 'Aw shit, I'm fucking up First Contact,' and Seven's wandering through the forest only to get followed by some teen Peruvian girl who's, like, badass as fuck and not afraid of these assholes in their space pajamas, and she builds Seven a fire."

"So there is a plot."

"I'm a fucking profes..." Brannon suddenly stopped, then vomited into a garbage can. A wire garbage can. "I'm a professional, I know what the fuck I'm doing. Anyway, Chuckles is worried about Seven, and one of the Peruvians has, like, a chunk of a circuitboard over her eye, and they've got a shit-ton more parts, so Chuckles knows he's really fucked it all up. The Peruvians take him to her, and they drag a hunk of the shuttle up to a cliff or something to try to disrupt the forcefield, but the Peruvians are like totally curious about all the science Seven is doing. The teen Peruvian gets shocked as the forcefield goes down, so Seven stays behind and helps her while Chuckles gets his ass beamed up to Sickbay."

"So, Chakotay does almost nothing useful, and also crashes a shuttle and gets his leg broken."

"Par for fucking course!" Brannon laughed, ignoring the frown on Robert's face. "Anyway, the aliens show up and want to educate the Peruvians and everything now that the forcefield's down. But Janeway doesn't want to leave their tech behind, so she gets the aliens beamed out before they destroy the shuttle part that was keeping the forcefield down."

"Uh, is that even necessary? It seems like you're just introducing a conflict and wrapping it up five minutes later."

Brannon slammed his fist on the desk. "Damn fucking straight. I get shit done, motherfucker! Anyway, fuck, is that enough for you to quit bitching about the episode? Don't worry, it's the last one we're making you the star of."

"Yeah, I really sound like a star." Robert turned as he heard heavy footsteps bound down the hallway. Robert Duncan McNeill poked his head in the door and grinned. "Hey, I'm glad I caught you guys in time. What do I get to do this episode? C'mon, give me something good Brannon - I can handle it, I promise!"

Brannon rolled his eyes. "Fuck. Just...fuck. The aliens are dicks about driving laws...and...Tom has to go to the DMV. Yeah. The DMV." McNeill glanced down at the floor, crestfallen. "OK, Brannon. Have a good day, guys," he said before heading back down the hallway, his feet scuffing at the carpet.

"Y'know, I'm gonna go too, Brannon. I have a lot of drinking to catch up on," Robert said, inhaling deeply before tasting the air of the room and gagging. "Fuck yeah man, I hear you, me too!" Brannon replied, smiling as he pulled a fifth of Hood River Vodka out of a filing cabinet. "Been saving this shit for a special occasion." he said before downing it all without taking a breath. When he put down the bottle, Robert was gone.

Rating: *
Torpedoes remaining: -64/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 17
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 16

I really hope some of the Galaxy Quest series writers pop in here once or twice for ideas...

Goddamn, did season seven have more than five episodes get anything above a two star rating?

This dreck was godawful. I can't believe I ever enjoyed this show, no matter how briefly.

You should do the DS9 review that @Talkahuano left before finishing as a treat to yourself.

Homestead

Neelix and Naomi are hosting a celebration in the mess hall for "First Contact Day" - established by Janeway to be a holiday worthy of getting out of school for. Neelix browbeats Tuvok into reciting the only line from a Vulcan from First Contact, then tries to get him to dance. He refuses, but just as Janeway is threatening to abuse her powers as captain to make her minions dance for her, Chuckles crashes the party with unusual news - they've picked up hundreds of Talaxian life signs. Apparently, sensors are just scanning for shit that shouldn't be there now.

They track them down to an asteroid field, and Tom, Tuvok, and Neelix take the Delta Flyer to investigate further. Neelix continues to harass Tuvok about not dancing, but a number of explosions start rocking the ship. Apparently, they can detect Talaxians from dozens of lightyears away, but not bombs right next to their ship. They're forced to crash land, incurring no visual damage to the ship. That's right, couldn't even convince the effects guys to toss some scratches on there - all they get is the lights on the nacelles turning off.

Neelix wakes up to a Talaxian woman treating his wounds. Damn good thing they landed on the inhabited asteroid, huh? Anyway, she's pretty xenophobic, and reveals that they wanted nothing to do with Voyager's hails and screened their calls. She also explains that miners were working on breaking up some of the other asteroids, explaining the explosions, just before her son pops up and is all inquisitive like every goddamn child in the 24th century.

Back on Voyager, they're busy not understanding where the bombs came from - apparently this is a common problem - and deciding to throw another shuttle into the asteroid belt, before the miners show up to bitch about mining rights. When she mentions the Talaxians, he gets a bit irritated, but then says that he'll make sure his miners help rescue the Delta Flyer. Janeway apparently won't accept that it's a bad idea to go traipsing through a goddamn mine, and insists on doing it herself. Like, seriously, this is Trek, these are obviously the bad guys, but can you imagine how such an attitude would play out in reality? "Oh, a live ammunition range? I'll be super-duper careful." He shuts her down, though, so at least someone is behaving logically for a minute.

On the asteroid, Neelix bonds with the medic's son, whom he playfully encourages to hide when his mom comes. She brings the leader of the colony with her, who bluntly tells him to leave with Tom and Tuvok. The medic leads him out, past set pieces swiped from DS9 with almost no modification. Neelix finds out that her husband is dead (hmm, foreshadowing much?) before making it back to the Flyer. After she leaves, Neelix reveals that he's pretty emo about it, especially since this would probably be the last time he could ever see another Talaxian.

Just before they leave, they discover the medic's son has snuck aboard. He walks him back to his mom, only to overhear the miners declaring that the Talaxians have to get the fuck out of their mine. Neelix defends the medic's son after he chucks a rock at the miners, but it's obvious the colony needs help, since they only have one ship remaining.

Neelix suggests getting Janeway to try to buy the asteroid or something, and convinces some of the Talaxians to visit Voyager. Neelix shows the medic and her son all over the bridge, and Harry and Chuckles talk him up a bit. They run into Naomi in the hallway, and she invites the boy to the holodeck to spend time in one of Tom's godawful Captain Proton holonovels. This lets Neelix mack on the medic with some Talaxian booze in her darkened guest quarters. However, he restrains himself from making out with her to be on his best game for the negotiations.

The next morning, they try to convince the miners to trade the Talaxian's geothermal energy in lieu of the ore they'd get from their asteroid. However, they will only push back the deadline.

Meanwhile, in the mess hall, Naomi is busy telling the medic and her son all about Tuvix and how he was a "whole other person." That's right - even by Voyager's definition, Janeway straight up murdered him. Neelix shows up to deliver the bad news, and despite Janeway offering to straight up move all of them, that's not good enough for the Talaxians.

Neelix ends up talking with Tuvok, who "hypothetically" suggests how the Talaxians might go about defending themselves, and also suggests Neelix lead them in such a rebellion. Neelix scoffs, claiming he's just a cook with glorified titles, but Tuvok points out that he's become much more than that over the past seven years. After Neelix decides to take his own shuttle out, Janeway realizes what he's up to, but permits him to go in the end.

On the asteroid, Neelix lays out his plan to modify torpedoes into a delivery mechanism for shield emitters, powered by the asteroid's geothermal core. He convinces the Talaxians to fight for their home. Shortly thereafter, the medic makes out with Neelix - apparently, kissing is just as much a Talaxian pass-time as a human one (if there's one brilliant thing DS9 did with their oft-faltering Ferengi episodes, its to establish that some species find kissing to be revolting).

The miners start bombing the asteroid, but Neelix defends them with his shuttle. He's about to get bombed out of existence, and then the Delta Flyer shows up - Janeway and company are aboard, "helping a friend in distress" in an obvious violation of the Prime Directive she claims to hold so dear unless it's inconvenient.

After the shields come online, the miners give up and back off. Neelix goes to say goodbye to the Talaxians, and Voyager heads on out. Neelix goes to visit Naomi, who's too busy with homework to pay him much mind. He offers her a bedtime story, and she tells him she's not a little girl any more. He's proud, but obviously crushed as well. He ends up talking to Janeway, who suggests that Starfleet might need a way to keep up appearances in the Delta Quadrant - giving him an out as a permanent ambassador, and letting him stay with his people.

As he sets out to leave, he finds the corridors lined with people coming to wish him a farewell, including, naturally, the senior staff. Janeway wishes him well, and in a moment that, thanks only to the excellent acting of Tim Russ and Ethan Phillips, serves as one of Voyager's few moments of actual emotion, Tuvok stops him, puts one foot out, and shakes it back and forth slowly. The episode closes on Neelix showing back up at the colony, and holding the medic and her son. Yes, that's right, Neelix gets a more emotional farewell than the entire rest of the crew and this goddamn fucking show. Naturally, Voyager will fuck it up by having him cameo in a mostly-useless scene in the finale, but overall, this episode was Not Terrible. In fact, it's probably the last decent one of the entire series.

Rating: ***
Torpedoes remaining: -64/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 17
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 16

Two more episodes to go, then you can take off the hair shirt, put down the cat o'nine tails and swap your current bed of nails for a comfy mattress...

Only two left....

I liked Homestead, annoying kid aside. Don't know what the hell Talaxians were doing this far out in the quadrant but this ep was a good way for Neelix to go out. Again Ethan Phillips shows how well he can do when the episode is about him and is given a decent script to work with. A nice, fitting end for a character on the show (unlike, say Jennifer Lien's exit) and I liked the touch at the end between Neelix and Tuvok.

Wow, you made it to the end! You should get a posrep bomb for all your suffering!

I finished my TNG review thread (including the movies) 4 months after starting it... and you started this thread one month after I started mine, 6 years ago!

Is it really wise to encourage PTSD sufferers to relive the trauma?

Renaissance Man

The Doctor's singing opera. Surprise of surprises! Janeway apparently let him drive the Flyer while she took a nap on the way back from a medical conference.

Here's the odd thing about fucking off to all of these conferences and shit they're always talking about - the Flyer's maximum speed and range must be dwarfed by Voyager's, so, what, is Voyager just maxin' and relaxin', waiting for the Doctor to finish boring new and exciting alien races, or puttering along in first? Fucking hell, Janeway, they want to get home, it's no time to get distracted by boring old Starfleet's version of the world's largest ball of twine.

Back on Voyager, it's Vorik, in case you forgot this is the penultimate episode and the last real chance to see him! And Tom tricks Torres into going on a date in a goddamn shuttle. You know these two have fucked in every shuttle aboard the ship, and given how many shuttles Voyager must have had, that is a lot of fucking.

Maybe the shuttlecraft replicator is powered by fucking. That would explain everything. ORIGINAL IDEA DO NOT STEAL.

On the bridge, Ensign Aiello even gets a pity line. The Flyer is apparently fucking with Voyager's deflector. It's an emergency call from Janeway, who asks Harry to pass along the message to Chuckles to meet her in the ready room when they get back.

She regales him with the story of some aliens who attacked them - ones with a "transphasic" warp drive, because normal transwarp drives are too fucking mainstream for these goddamn space hipsters or something. They believe that normal warp engines fuck up subspace, and this should be a sign to Chuckles that something is amiss, because they totally do. In some TNG episode that tried to tell some sort of environmental message, they established that use of high warp speeds shits all over subspace, which is supposedly why Voyager's goddamn nacelles move - it prevents the damage through technobabble, ensuring that Voyager doesn't have to live out the space equivalent of a Sammy Hagar song.

Anyway, the hipsters are going to demand that Voyager park itself on a planet and give up its warp core as punishment for fucking around in their space. Chuckles is aghast that Janeway agreed to it. She also runs off and asks Torres to start fucking around with the Flyer so it can tow the warp core. When Chuckles confronts her about it, she starts babbling to herself, then claims she has a headache and runs off. This is behavior that doesn't warrant immediate action, indicating Janeway is at least like this some of the time anyway.

Chuckles wanders off to Sickbay, and the Doctor beams in to chat with him. He questions if something happened to Janeway during their encounter with the aliens, but the Doctor claims ignorance, and that she cleared a physical.

He then goes to chat with Seven, and asks her if she could detect the claimed fleet of cloaked vessels they claim - she says yes, but is interrupted by a call from the aliens, who demand the warp core in less than 10 hours.

Chuckles goes and confronts Janeway that he's angry she's not consulting him, and then does the classic fake-anecdote story to reveal she's an imposter. He tries to call for help, but she knocks him out with a hypospray, then dumps him in the ship's morgue, which has a goddamn lot of slabs. In Sickbay, Janeway starts talking to herself again, then pulls up her pant leg and deactivates her holoemitter - it's actually the Doctor. Was this supposed to surprise fucking anyone?

Anyway, he gets a call from the Hierarchy, who has Janeway hostage. She tells him not to dump the core, but they shuffle her off and demand the Doctor obtain a bio-neural gel pack. Yes, those goddamn things are going to be a plot point. The computers that can catch a fucking cold. Technobabble so important, they name-dropped it in the first fucking episode, then proceeded to ignore it for 99% of the series.

The Hierarchy are using the same trick as in Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy, but they've got an audio feed as well. They warn him not to fuck up, just as Tuvok requests Chuckles' presence. As if anyone would ever want to talk to the rough equivalent of a goddamn potted palm tree. The Doctor loads up Chuckles' program, somehow resists the urge to go trick Seven into holofucking him, and goes to see Tuvok. But this scene is worthless, because the Hierarchy immediately tells him to get the fuck out of there after Tuvok suggests that there wasn't an attack to the Flyer.

On the Hierarchy ship, it's revealed that its crew are actually a couple of thieves running from their government, and they plan to sell the warp core to the highest bidder to finance a life of luxury. It's like Voyager wanted to do a fucking Ferengi episode, but realized that they couldn't shoehorn them onto the show any more than they already have.

Back on Voyager, the Doctor's hard at work taking apart the Captain's quarters, and requests Torres' presence before loading up her hologram. It seems like this entire fucking situation could be resolved if Starfleet would fucking stop letting people make holograms of living human beings. Then you wouldn't have Geordi trying to fuck a scientist who was dressed like a 1950s librarian, Barclay living out delusions of grandeur, Tuvok making a holonovel that tried to stage a Maquis coup, or the Doctor impersonating the entire fucking senior staff.

Anyway, the Doctor runs in to Engineering as Torres after she leaves, and asks Vorik where they keep the spare bags of DNA. He's skeptical as to why she doesn't know where they are, but points her right to them. As the Doctor starts to grab up the packs, Tom shows up to try to force her to eat fried chicken. Why the fuck is Tom running around the ship with fried chicken? The Doctor ducks out of eating it, but Tom goes in for a kiss. That's right, it's the penultimate episode, so let's make the Doctor kiss Tom. Why don't they include that on the Memory Alpha article for sexuality?

The Doctor has to run up to Astrometrics as Chuckles, as Harry and Seven have discovered that the alien transmission was a fake. Harry runs off to the hololab, and reconstructs the alien as a hologram. He discovers that the Doctor created it, just in time for a hypo to the neck. Another body for the morgue.

After dropping him off, Tuvok, shows up, and accuses the Doctor of swiping Janeway's hologram just before she called the ship. The Doctor goes to hypo him as well, but Tuvok is having none of that shit, threatening to destroy the holoemitters in Sickbay if necessary. However, he makes use of the fact that he's non-corporeal in sickbay and jumps through the window of his office, grabs his holoemitter, and runs away. Tuvok follows him to the holodeck, where there are hundreds of Doctors. However, the Doctor has already escaped into a Jeffries Tube.

Chuckles then runs into Engineering, yelling that the Doctor's fucked with the sensors and that a warp core breach is about to occur. Of course, it's the Doctor pretending to be Chuckles - shocker, I know. Tom notifies Torres of that fact, and locks her behind a forcefield. The Doctor then swaps himself into ECH mode and ejects the fuck out of the core. They psych us all up for seeing that from inside the ship, but then chicken out at the last second after a typical shower-of-sparks explosion before cutting to the exterior of the ship.

The Doctor then makes a run for the Flyer as Torres. He encounters Tuvok, and does a wall-flip over him to phaser him from behind (the CG on this is actually surprisingly good, especially for the time. Today, it looks hokey only in that the movement is a little unnatural). He makes off with the Flyer and tractors the warp core away with it.

He brings it to the Hierarchy outlaws, and promptly gets both the warp core and himself shanghaied. They reveal that they plan to reprogram the Doctor, and leave Janeway in some random system. And Janeway is pissed that the Doctor didn't follow her others. He babbles that "Voyager can survive without a warp core, but not without her captain." And that's fucking bullshit. Virtually every member of this goddamn train wreck can be dialog swapped with the other, she's totally replaceable. She spits back that it doesn't have either anymore.

Back on Voyager, they've managed to stumble their way through finding everyone that had been knocked out by the Doctor and rebooting the impulse engines. The Doctor's classical music starts piping through the speakers, and they discover that the Doctor's warp signature has been encoded in it. They send another shuttle to go follow it.

They sneak up and beam onto the Flyer, and both shuttles start attacking the Hierarchy ship. While one of the outlaws wants to blow up the warp core and use the blast as a means to escape, the other defends Janeway and the Doctor as they escape the forcefield, however, the Doctor's matrix is damaged, because of fucking course it is.

Anyway, after they get back to the ship, the Doctor hurriedly asks them to donate his emitter and delete his porn. Just as he's confessing his crush on Seven, Torres reboots his program. I'd imagine this was supposed to be funny, but it was just awkward. Anyway, Janeway, per usual, doesn't hold him accountable for any of this shit, and invites him out to the holodeck for coffee. Fucking coffee.

I actually remembered this one being better than it was - it was just so mediocre. The only person who even bothered to imitate Picardo's performance as the Doctor was Roxann Dawson, the crew were depicted as bumbling idiots, there was no fucking conflict because you knew they were going to get the damn warp core back, etc., etc. It was intended to be lighthearted, but it was just people talking at each other for forty minutes.

Rating: *
Torpedoes remaining: -64/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 17
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 16

The more I remember of Voyager, the more I'm glad that Kate Mulgrew's character took off on OitNB. Red is a far better example of Starfleet principles and holding others accountable that soon-to-be Admiral Janeway ever was.

Red would have got them out of the Delta Quadrant in 6-8 months, tops.

I'm sure a fanfic of this exists. If not, then it should.

And Brook Soso could be Harry Kim's equivalent, only less useful

But hotter.

On a tangent to this, Mulgrew just released a memoir this year. She mentions that she was pregnant back in her "Ryan's Hope" days and gave the baby up for adoption and the two reunited in 2001. I am...kinda surprised that I've been a Trek fan since that time and I've never heard a word about this until doing a Wiki search a few days ago. Her pregnancy was even written into the soap opera at the time. This took place in the 70s, so I guess the media was a lot better at hiding this kinda thing.

What species was the father? She may have given up the baby out of cultural considerations, or perhaps the child needed an ammonia/methane atmosphere.

I didn't know about that, either, until I saw this last Spring.

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/kate-mulgrew-on-real-life-drama-in-new-book/

Y'know, considering Data was able to take over the Enterprise in less than five minutes, it's pretty sad that the Doctor couldn't manage something similar. I realize his heart wasn't really in it, but still.

Endshame

Endgame

CGI fireworks over a CGI San Francisco with a CGI Voyager swooping into frame can mean only one thing. Voyager has finally made it home. The only hitch? This is footage from a news broadcast for the 10th anniversary of Voyager's homecoming after 23 years in the Delta Quadrant.

We were lucky, guys. We were spared 16 more years of this train wreck of a show.

We see a party for the anniversary of Voyager's return - Harry talks to Naomi's daughter, and mentions how his four years of a deep-space assignment as captain of his own ship (the very idea of which is fucking bullshit, Harry couldn't captain a fucking shit into a goddamn porta-john) was a long weekend compared to his time on Voyager. Trust me, Harry, we fucking feel that.

She puts on a happy face, but an aged and gray Janeway is increasingly unhappy with how everyone she brought back home has moved on and is happy with their lives. Tom has become a full-time holonovelist, and is doing his best to look like a slightly lumpier Jeff Daniels. Meanwhile, the Doctor has brought his tall, leggy blonde of a wife to the party - obviously has a fucking type. Oh, and his name is fucking Joe. Even Tom thinks that's bullshit, and his words are from the goddamn people who just wrote the fucking line that his name is Joe.

Janeway has got Torres into some fucking palace intrigue relating to the Klingon High Council as a favor for a Klingon friend of Janeway's, and it's sent Tom and B'Elanna's daughter away on business. But that's interrupted by Barclay showing up, looking younger than the Voyager crew somehow, and wearing one of those dapper "All Good Things..." future uniforms that somehow looked better than what they elected to go with for years of DS9 and all of Voyager. He toasts them, and Janeway is a fucking buzzkill by reminding everyone of everyone who died along the way.

We get to see the cadet version of those uniforms next, as Barclay introduces a class of students to Admiral Janeway, who "wrote the book on the Borg." Fucking Christ, somehow, in all of Trek canon, this fucking lunatic is the gold standard for what was once one of Trek's most formidable enemies. A cadet asks Janeway about Unimatrix Zero, and ignores the fact that in the process of that obviously completely worthless revolution, given that Voyager was picked on by the Borg dozens more times in this timeline, Janeway was complicit in the deaths of millions of, essentially, slaves. Another cadet asks her about Seven, which immediately gets Janeway all fucking mopey.

She gets pulled out of class by Tom and Torres' daughter, who informs Janeway that the Klingon has delivered on his promises. She then goes to visit Tuvok, who's scribbling like a madman in a padded room (though they've given him candles, so he can't be that bad off). He doesn't believe it's her at first, but eventually concedes. Janeway tells him that she's going away - permanently. And that causes him to stop writing for a moment. She leaves him a gift of the cast picture used in promos, before telling him goodbye.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the pinnacle of acting during this episode. Because Kate Mulgrew doesn't phone it in - you can hear her voice crack, and Tim Russ plays back perfectly with what would be the Vulcan equivalent of dementia. It's a scene deserving of a far better episode, and it's a minute long.

Janeway then asks the Doctor over, makes some small talk, then demands that he give her a shitton of experimental drugs that protect against tachyon radiation. And you fucking goddamn well know what tachyon radiation means. Later, she gets a shuttle from Barclay, then goes to an obvious fucking set to visit Chuckles' gravesite, babbling about fucking Seven of Nine again.

Back in the Past...

Torres insists it's time. But when she and Tom get to Sickbay, the Doctor explains its false labor. And apparently this information is public knowledge, as the rest of the crew has decided to capitalize on their suffering and start a betting pool on when she'll actually go into labor. And Chuckles has a date - a third date - with Seven in the cargo bay. Meanwhile, Icheb beats Tuvok at Kal-Toh, which naturally makes him run off to Sickbay, where we learn that Tuvok has been taking treatments for Vulcan Alzheimers.

That would have been a far better episode than Renaissance Man. Swap the order of that and Homestead, and have Tuvok dealing with the onset of this disease, and Neelix stepping in to demand to help - first in his typical annoying fashion, but then later in a more meaningful role. That would have been fucking fantastic. So naturally, we didn't get that shit, no, we got the goddamn Doctor playing like he's in the Matrix.

Seven's playing a remote game with Neelix, who reveals that he's going to ask his girlfriend to marry him. Aww, how sweet. Say goodbye to Neelix - you won't be hearing from him again. Anyway, Seven detects a fucking anomaly in a goddamn nebula, which happens so frequently that you'd think that nobody would give a shit anymore, but she comes to the conclusion that it indicates a cluster of wormholes. The senior staff is greatly pleased.

Back in the Future...

Tuvok's flipping out, and the Doctor is called to help. He's babbling stardates, and eventually yells that she is never coming back. The Doctor goes to see Barclay, and talks out some of his confusion about Janeway's recent actions. The Doctor notices that Reg is stammering, which is unusual for him in this timeline, so he realizes something's wrong.

Admiral Crazypants, meanwhile, has beamed down somewhere to meet Ensign Paris and her Klingon contact, an inventor. She demands he give her what she traded him for the High Council seat, but he refuses after she doesn't give him technology from her shuttle.

Back in the Past...

This ship of fools has driven straight into the nebula, only to realize that it's full of fucking Borg cubes. So damn full of them. They can detect all those damn wormholes, but the signatures of those Borg ships? Nah. It does, however, attract the attention of the Borg Queen - the return of Alice Krige to the role in what was a bit of a casting coup, but kind of a snub to the actress who had been playing her on Voyager.

Anyway, all the Borg ships scares Janeway off, so they get back on the road despite Harry's desperate need to get back home so that he has some fucking chance of promotion. He begs Tom to try to help, but he shoots him down - Voyager is his home now, the poor fucking bastard.

Meanwhile, Chuckles is busy interrupting Seven while she's doing work in order to fucking flirt with her and imply that they should fuck on their next date. She goes to Sickbay and actually references the fucking episode where she fucked Holochuckles and requests that the Doctor perform the surgery necessary to let her enjoy all of those emotions. The Doctor takes this opportunity to hit on her in that creepy "I'd be happy to help you explore" sort of way, but she shuts him the fuck down, saying that she "has all the help she needs," which is fucking cold as ice and deservedly so. It's a shame its too subtle a message for the majority of its audience.

Back in the Future...

Janeway plays hardball with the Klingon to get the tech she's after. It turns out he's developed a goddamn flux capacitor, which she promptly steals. She beams back to her shuttle, and deploys the goddamn Batmobile armor around the shuttle. She warps away from a battle with the Klingons, only to be met by Harry's ship. Harry reveals that her cunning plan to fool everyone by entrusting her secrets to Reginald Fucking Barclay has fallen through, and has arrived to arrest her.

She beams over to his ready room to be lectured by Harry about responsibility. So that's a goddamn bad sign if it's such a bad idea that even Harry thinks its bad. She plays on his guilt over the deaths of, apparently, just Chuckles and Seven, as nobody else who's died has warranted mention.

Back in the Past...

Seven beams to Chuckles' quarters, bringing him flowers, which is more than enough to convince him to have some makeouts. And apparently, this was their first kiss. They round the goddamn bases slowly in the future. Never mind that Seven's well fucking acquainted with all of Chuckles' anatomy by this point thanks to her adventures in the holodeck. Janeway fucking cockblocks him one last time by calling them both to the bridge due to a temporal rift forming near Voyager's position.

Back in the Future...

Harry's helping Janeway install the flux capacitor in her shuttle, and reveals that it's probably good for one trip back to 1955. He's emo about it being a one-way trip, but has no cause to be, as he will fucking cease to exist as soon as Janeway fucks up the timeline. The Klingons show up to attack, but Harry fights them off as Janeway speeds up to 88 miles per hour and flies through the temporal rift...

Back in the Past...
Admiral Janeway demands Janeway close the rift with technobabble, and apparently rank of yourself in the future actually carries weight. With all fucking concern for the Temporal Prime Directive thrown out the window, they beam Admiral Janeway over and the two Janeways have a chat. It's about as thrilling as you'd expect. Anyway, Admiral Janeway insists that they go back to the Borg nebula, and that she's brought technology back to defend themselves. Janeway is skeptical, but Admiral Janeway throws out that people are going to die otherwise. Of course, if Admiral Janeway was worried about that, she'd go back to before Voyager left the fucking Alpha Quadrant.

Anyway, they drag Admiral Janeway off to Sickbay, and she's surprised by Seven's presence. Janeway authorizes Seven to adapt the weapons and Batmobile armor from Admiral Janeway's shuttle - the plan to go back to the nebula apparently heading full steam ahead.

Seven runs off to regenerate, but gets a Skype call from the Borg Queen. She reveals that they're aware of Admiral Janeway's presence from the future, and suggests that they not return to the nebula. That's right, the Borg Queen is asking that Voyager observe their fucking boundaries. That's it. That's all. She is willing to let them go if Janeway will, y'know, not provoke a goddamn war. Now, obviously, she's a bad guy, so it's clear she's hiding some serious shit, but that's not why Janeway wants to go there. She wants to go there to take the secret passage from the Kitchen to the Lounge.

Anyway, Admiral Janeway basically says that the Queen can't do shit, since they've got 30 years of tech on them. 30 years of tech that, if they fail, the Borg will assimilate. Janeway is convinced, provided Seven will, like, schedule an automated scan for Borg activity or something. Fuck, shouldn't the ship be always scanning for the goddamn Borg?

Also, there's some inconsequential bullshit between Chuckles and Seven and Tom and Torres regarding their post-homecoming plans. It's awful. Ignore it.

Anyway, they reach the edge of the nebula, and deploy the Batmobile armor. Admittedly, it's a cool looking effect, even today, but it makes no goddamn sense in the context of Trek, and it has such far-reaching implications post-Endgame that it's enough to make Starfleet virtually invincible in Alpha/Beta Quadrant affairs. It's a cool effect for cool effect's sake, and you know it's because Braga thought it was a hot fucking idea.

Anyway, the Borg start taking pot-shots at them, to little to no effect. Because it's not enough to just keep moving through the nebula - Janeway's blood lust must be sated, after all - she orders the firing of three "trans-phasic torpedoes," which I have to assume are modified photon torpedoes. One of 'em is enough to destroy a Cube. If there was ever any doubt to the pussification of the Borg, let it be put to rest here.

Anyway, they reach the center of the nebula, and discover a Borg transwarp hub - one of six. And Janeway is pissed off that Admiral Janeway didn't tell her about it, so she tells Tom to get the fuck out of the nebula. They regroup in Astrometrics, where Janeway immediately focuses on how to destroy the damn thing. The Janeways storm off, where Janeway insists that it's the right thing to do to fuck over the Borg. Admiral Janeway throws back that Seven and 21 other crew members will die before they get back home in her timeline, and lets her know about Tuvok's space Alzheimers that can only be cured in the Alpha Quadrant for, uh, reasons? Apparently it requires a mind-meld with Vulcans with the right fucking blood type or something, I don't know.

Janeway goes to talk to Tuvok about it, who throws out Spocks "needs of the many" quote in deference to Janeway's decision to try to fuck over the Borg. Admiral Janeway, meanwhile, goes off to guilt-trip Seven into trying to convince Janeway to just go the fuck home.

Anyway, they figure out a way to bring down the hub from the inside. Timed explosives. You know, kind of like how you could have, say, timed an explosive on the Caretaker array, programmed it to send Voyager home, and then avoided seven years of this bullshit. Janeway gives a speech, then Harry gives a speech. Think the most awful, sanctimonious speech from TNG, and you'll probably be pretty close.

Anyway, the Janeways go to chat, and the crew's optimism inspires Admiral Janeway to be a little less jaded - they come up with a second plan that, hopefully, should let them destroy the hub and get to use it to get Voyager home. Janeway shoots Admiral Janeway up with a hypo, then sends her off into the nebula to go through the transwarp hub.

Then, Seven and Chuckles have a fight because Seven doesn't want to pursue a relationship knowing about her death from Admiral Janeway. If you ever wondered what All My Space Children would be like, this is it. It's soap opera bullshit, it's fucking garbage, and I can't imagine why they thought it'd be a good idea to shoehorn into Voyager's final fucking episode.

On the plus side, Torres is in labor, just in time for Tom to be needed on the bridge to fly the ship into the nebula. How convenient!

Now, remember, the Borg Queen has shown remarkable restraint to this point. She warned Voyager to fuck off, and she didn't retaliate when Voyager blew the fuck out of two Cubes unnecessarily. Now, Admiral Janeway has shown up to the Unicomplex to harass the Queen, and Janeway's about to enter Borg space again. It's no small wonder that the Queen wants them dead - they're annoying as fuck, and if it were anyone else, they'd be falling all over their damn selves to avoid violating their borders. Admiral Janeway has hacked into the Queen's head, and says that she'll give the Borg defenses to their weapons and shield tech if the Queen will deliver Voyager unharmed to the Alpha Quadrant, claiming Janeway is being a self-righteous bitch.

The Queen counters with demanding to assimilate the shuttle, getting the entirety of the weapons and defense tech and the complete future database. After Admiral Janeway insists that Voyager be returned safely first, the Queen reveals that she's found her cunning hiding place in the middle of the Unicomplex, doesn't find this at all suspicious, and beams her over and promptly starts assimilating the her.

Voyager hops into the transwarp hub and starts heading back home. The Queen is pretty pleased with herself, but discovers that Janeway has infected her and the Collective with a pathogen that starts fucking shit up. Voyager fires three more transphasic torpedoes, destroying the hub. And as the pathogen starts to infiltrate the collective, the Queen starts literally falling apart at the seams. She sends a Sphere to follow Voyager, and reveals that they've assimilated the goddamn future tech and presumably all the shit on that shuttle. The Queen dies, her head slithering out of her body as the unicomplex explodes, killing Admiral Janeway with it.

Meanwhile, the Sphere is continuing to attack Voyager, bringing down the Batmobile armor. One transwarp exit point will take them back to the Delta Quadrant, but at this point, you know that shit isn't happening, so why the fuck even bother? Starfleet detects the transwarp exit near Earth, and amasses a fleet filled with pretty much one of every class of Starfleet ship in operation, including the Prometheus class. The Sphere exits to phaser fire, as Voyager confirms the transwarp network has "been obliterated." Suddenly, the Sphere starts to explode from the inside - a shot of one last transphasic torpedo destroying it as Voyager had parked itself inside of, well, an opening the Sphere opened for no goddamn reason?

In any case, Voyager is now at Earth's doorstep, Tom and B'Elanna's baby girl has been safely delivered, and Chuckles gets to take the helm as Janeway orders a "course...for home."

This episode is awful. Possibly not as bad as These Are The Voyages, but I'll be damned if it wasn't fucking disrespectful in an entirely separate way.

I literally just exhaled. Deeply. Completely. Almost as though the weight of Atlas has been lifted from my back. It's over. It's over. It's over. I made it. I made it home. 168 episodes later. Countless utterances of profanity later. 109 torpedoes later. 17 shuttles later. 16 failed endings to the three-hour tour later. It's done.

Rating: *
Torpedoes remaining: -71/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 17
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 16

Season Seven
This season culminated in, essentially, an admission that TNG-era Trek was over. Nemesis and Star Trek '09 skirted around it, but make no mistake - any Trek set after Voyager has to deal with its ramifications. The Federation has tech that will essentially make it the pre-eminent superpower in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. The Borg are either dead, or in possession of 30+ years of future information. And who gets to sort this shit out? Not B&B, who had long-decided to fuck up pre-TOS era Trek next. No, they left it like a time capsule full of shit for someone else to deal with - when unearthed, a literal bucket of crap that has to be respected due to its history, but not due to any quality whatsoever.

But fourteen years, five months, and four days later - it's over.

*: Unimatrix Zero, Part II; Drive; Inside Man; Body and Soul; Nightingale; Repentance; Workforce, Part I; Workforce, Part II; Human Error; Natural Law; Renaissance Man; Endgame
**: Imperfection; Repression; Flesh and Blood, Parts I and II; Prophecy; Q2; Author, Author
***: Shattered; The Void; Friendship One; Homestead
****: Critical Care; Lineage

Total : 19
Total : 6
Average rating: *,

FTFY

One story I heard about C/7Gate was one of the writers who would was passed over for Enterprise wrote it in as a big old middle finger to Bermaga and to sour the fandom even further. He shouldn't have even bothered when B&B would go on to do a much more thorough job of that with Enterprise's second season.

Great job with this. Rest easy, soldier.

It's not over @Kyle . Now you have to review the Voyager novels.

An epic journey almost as long as the Voyager series itself comes to an end. Well done, mate.

Do ENT next!

Hats off to you, @Kyle . This thread was epic and you submitting yourself to such...torture...would surely deserve some sort of Wordforge Bravery medal if we had such things around here.

@Kyle, you better still be in Portland. I should buy you a drink for seeing this through.

Fuck, I'd but him a whole bottle of Jameson's 18 year reserve. That, or the thousand quid bottle of Royal Navy rum from when the British Navy went dry.











Seriously, you may as well do Enterprise. At least we know that show gets noticeable better over time while still producing lulz.

You realise all the owners and mods missed a trick, doubly so given the time of year, by not making it appear like the database had corrupted, obliterating the thread, and leaving the simple message of "Sorry Kyle, perhaps you could start again?"

There is a Wordforge Bravery medal. You should start a BAMF thread dedicated to Kyle.