Best Ending

Kirby

Personally, I think had Enterprise started with season 3 as their opener with the Xindi attacking earth, more people would've been hooked in and watched the show.

It wasn't stellar by any means, but it was a story. People like Arc's and its one of the reasons why DS9 worked so well in my opinion. Standalone episodes don't bring about any character progression. Everything remains the same after the hour is over and goes back to the way it was.

With an arc, the writers can do things to the characters that actually matter.

Underdraft

Kirby wrote: »

Personally, I think had Enterprise started with season 3 as their opener with the Xindi attacking earth, more people would've been hooked in and watched the show.

It's kind funny but Iirc that was the only time Ent tried to do it's own thing and as a result probably produced its strongest episodes. Season 1+2 was mostly riffing on familiar themes and Season 4 was pretty much just a direct homage to TOS. I don't know why they were so deliberately tried to copy the other shows rather than coming up with something new for itself but that's the way it went. Even the Ent finale didn't have enough courage to not lend from previous shows.

IvySlayer

Kirby wrote: »

Personally, I think had Enterprise started with season 3 as their opener with the Xindi attacking earth, more people would've been hooked in and watched the show.

It wasn't stellar by any means, but it was a story. People like Arc's and its one of the reasons why DS9 worked so well in my opinion. Standalone episodes don't bring about any character progression. Everything remains the same after the hour is over and goes back to the way it was.

With an arc, the writers can do things to the characters that actually matter.

Their first mistake was naming the show and ship 'Enterprise'

A pre-TOS show didn't sound so bad, but they ****ed it right up. The signing of the Federation charter, the Earth-Romulan war(did ENT even touch this) etc

Also, Archer was so annoying.

Kirby

IvySlayer wrote: »

The signing of the Federation charter, the Earth-Romulan war(did ENT even touch this) etc

Also, Archer was so annoying.

They signed the charter in the last episode.

Their hands were tied with the Romulans due to the fact that star trek cannon stated at that time, nobody had ever seen one. They had the romulans early on where enterprise stumbled into a Romulan minefield but that was about it.

And yes, Archer was annoying.

Sad Professor

I actually find the last episode of ENT kinda interesting. DS9, VOY and ENT were all spin-offs of TNG; and with each new series, TPTB always claimed that they were going in a different direction. And conceptually this was true. If you look at the pilot episodes of DS9, VOY and ENT, they all seemed like a significant departure from TNG. But in the end, DS9 was the only one that actually avoided becoming TNG-lite. This was the whole problem with DS9, VOY and ENT: they never escaped the shadow of TNG and either ended up trying to recapture the success of it or living with the status of being a dark horse. The fact that TPTB initially tried to present ENT as being some sort of reboot is laughable. It's fitting therefore that the last TNG spin-off series should end with what is essentially an episode of TNG.

nyarlothothep

Sad Professor wrote: »

I actually find the last episode of ENT kinda interesting. DS9, VOY and ENT were all spin-offs of TNG; and with each new series, TPTB always claimed that they were going in a different direction. And conceptually this was true. If you look at the pilot episodes of DS9, VOY and ENT, they all seemed like a significant departure from TNG. But in the end, DS9 was the only one that actually avoided becoming TNG-lite. This was the whole problem with DS9, VOY and ENT: they never escaped the shadow of TNG and either ended up trying to recapture the success of it or living with the status of being a dark horse. The fact that TPTB initially tried to present ENT as being some sort of reboot is laughable. It's fitting therefore that the last TNG spin-off series should end with what is essentially an episode of TNG.

I think it was suited as an epilogue piece. Its actually a bit of a sad episode, star trek acknowledging its own irrelevance/staleness at that point and gracefully bowing out with a subdued quiet episode, the product of over saturation and creative exhaustion.

kitakyushu

Just watched the final ep of VOY again for the first time since it aired. The time-travelling Janeway does seem like a bit of a cop out. Interestingly, apparently the the original story *WAS* the fate that Admiral Janeway timetravels back to prevent in the final aired episode. (ie Seven dies and the crew make a choice that means they don't get home for another 16 years.)

Personally I think it would have been very powerful and suprising to have the crew make a choice that left them stranded and to have them not reach home by the final episode. For fans of Quantum Leap

just think how much of a kick in the guts it was when you found out Sam never made it home. But it didn't ruin the show, if anything it only made his effort more heroic.

Also the original ending for Voy would have bookended the show with Caretaker better than the ending we got. Both TNG and DS9 got final eps that bookended nicely back to their pilots (and clearly this was the plan with the voy finale) but I guess they just chickened out at the last minute.

Kiith

The Voyager ending annoyed me because they spent 7 seasons trying to get home, and all we got was a 'oh look, we're home...credits'.

Goldstein

Kiith wrote: »

The Voyager ending annoyed me because they spent 7 seasons trying to get home, and all we got was a 'oh look, we're home...credits'.

Begs the question why did the Borg not just send 100 ships into Earth orbit in the first place if Voyager could take a Borg transwarp conduit there. Always so many plot holes with the Borg.

Was rewatching Dark Frontier a few days ago (pretty good feature length episode) but continuity was all over the place with TNG. If Starfleet knew about the Borg 20 years ago, why didn't anyone (except Guinan) know about them in Q-Who? ?

There's also the question of the ablative armour, transphasic torpedoes & other tech from the future shifting the balance of power after Endgame. The federation would have been massively powerful thereafter as would (assuming they recovered) the Borg who assimilated the ablative armor tech from the future shuttlecraft and Janeway's knowledge of the transphasic torpedoes.

downwithpeace

Both TNG and DS9 were good.

Voyager had already destroyed the idea of the big bad Borg so it was no surprise they beat them again to get home, it was really drawn out and the doctors name Joe was a terrible joke.

Enterprise was another terrible ending but if the series was taken up for 5th season then the edited version could have proved interesting, as it was it came off as a last attempt to bring Enterprise into the Star Trek people knew from previous series but failed miserably.

FGR

Prequels imo are always a bad idea. Canon, nostalgia and the imagined scenarios of incidents referred to in the likes of TNG, DS9 etc are completely ruined.

I didn't enjoy ENT, and it wasn't the fault of the cast. I could have imagined them having a great time if it was set in TNG era/the future.

I remember the rumours of a series based on the Titan. That would have been far superior than ENT or VOY.

Captain Chapman

Ok, I'm not going into my personal opinion on all the series, as far as endings go, I have to go for Voyager. I know this is going to be controversial and I will probably be booed off the internet for even thinking it, but read my explanation.

First off, I am not denying that it was a poor ending for the series. Some sort of welcoming home scene would have been nice, but the fact that the whole series was based on a relatively small vessel defying all odds to get home, when they finally enter federation space I did get a deal of satisfaction and a feeling of finality to the whole thing.

That is my extremely poor excuse for choosing Voyager as my best ending.

downwithpeace

Captain Chapman wrote: »

Ok, I'm not going into my personal opinion on all the series, as far as endings go, I have to go for Voyager. I know this is going to be controversial and I will probably be booed off the internet for even thinking it, but read my explanation.

First off, I am not denying that it was a poor ending for the series. Some sort of welcoming home scene would have been nice, but the fact that the whole series was based on a relatively small vessel defying all odds to get home, when they finally enter federation space I did get a deal of satisfaction and a feeling of finality to the whole thing.

That is my extremely poor excuse for choosing Voyager as my best ending.

To boldly post what no one has posted before

I see your reasoning though.

Captain Chapman

downwithpeace wrote: »

To boldly post what no one has posted before

Haha, yes that did enter my mind as I was typing. I thought I would be virtually assassinating myself.