he series that launched the UPN Network seven years ago revisits old territory to wind up the story of Voyager's accidental detour into the Delta Quadrant. The two-hour series finale "Endgame" begins 33 years after Voyager's journey began with the 10-year anniversary party of the crew's return to Earth.
The party finds all but one of the surviving crewmembers doing well. However, when Admiral Janeway (Mulgrew) raises her glass with the others as Commander Barclay (Dwight Schultz) toasts "To the voyage," she can't escape knowing the terrible price the trip home cost her people. With the help of Barclay and a special device she obtained from a shady Klingon, Janeway secretly plots to travel back in time to help her crew--the Temporal Prime Directive be damned.
Twenty-six years earlier, Voyager comes upon a nebula that appears to have several wormholes that offer the possibility of a way home. While checking out the area, Voyager nearly runs into a Borg cube. They make a hasty escape. Even though the area may offer the way home, they can't return with dozens of Borg cubes swarming the area.
A sudden temporal rift opens and a Federation shuttle flies through it. Admiral Janeway tells a shocked Captain Janeway, "I've come to bring Voyager home." According to the admiral, her plan is that Voyager would adapt her shuttle's superior future technology and fly back into the nest of Borg cubes. The Borg cubes are protecting a transwarp hub that connects to thousands of conduits across the four quadrants, and Voyager can use the hub to travel back to the Alpha Quadrant.
But Captain Janeway has other plans. The future armor and weapons technology may allow Voyager to destroy the grid and deal a crippling blow to the Borg. Once again, the captain is faced with an impossible decision. Save her small crew or save the lives of countless strangers. Sacrificing her crew for the good of the many is a mistake the admiral made once before and isn't about to make it again. But as the Janeways face off, the Borg Queen (Alice Krige) has learned about the Janeway from the future, and she has her own plans regarding the admiral's superior technology.
A fitting end to Voyager's journey
"Endgame" is a fitting finale to Star Trek: Voyager, offering tons of technobabble, questionable science, plot holes, strong acting and clever dialogue. But the reason fans will find this series finale so satisfying is that it allows the characters a chance to wrap up their storylines in a way that has an emotional truth about it.
The biggest complaint about "Endgame" is that we've seen this story before. Since all the Star Treks have made convenient use of time travel whenever the writers felt like it, it's hard to pick on Voyager. The bigger problem is that both Next Generation ("All Good Things")
and DS9 ("The Visitor") have done it better and earlier.
The other negatives, which involve the annoying use of technobabble, silly science and gaping plot holes, are standard complaints. But again, Voyager isn't the first Trek to rely on these sloppy techniques to tell a story. As for "Endgame," anyone with a brain might wonder why Admiral Janeway can travel across time and space with her "device," but adapting the device to Voyager isn't even considered. Why do that when they can send Voyager off to do battle with the Borg?
What "Endgame" does right, however, is what makes it worth watching. Seeing two stubborn Janeways go toe to toe, both knowing they're right, is a treat, and the dialogue is clever and amusing. Another treat is that Seven of Nine smiles more in this episode than she has during the entire series. In fact, all characters get their turn to tell their stories and, in a way, say goodbye to their fans. It's especially nice to see the underused Garrett Wang become a major player as Captain Kim.
The battle with the Borg could have been much stronger. But that isn't what this final episode is about. It's about the battle of the Janeways. It's about giving each character his or her due. And it's about the giving resolution to Voyager's long journey home in a satisfying way. For this series finale, that's enough.
