LizstarTrek - Voyager Season 7 episodes 23 - 25

Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!

This is it. The final Voyager episodes. Let’s go.

Homestead - VOY 8/10

We start with Neelix throwing a celebration on Voyager for First Contact Day. It’s cute, I love Neelix. I’m not ready for this episode. I already know where it’s going to go. The celebration is ended as Voyager scans life signs of Talaxians in a nearby asteroid field. Neelix, Tuvok, and Paris go out in the Delta Flyer to try and find the Talaxians. They’re attacked by an unknown force and crash land on the Talaxians’ asteroid.

Neelix awakes to a lady Talaxian who’s cagey. They don’t trust them. Neelix is isolated, and the Talaxian explains they’re pacifistic. They were hit by a mining explosion, by accident basically. The mining aliens actually contact voyager and go “yo be careful we’re mining. Oh, your people got hit? We’ll look for them, stay out for your safety.”

The Talaxians eventually let Neelix out, and explain they already let the other aliens out, who are fixing up the Delta Flyer. Neelix says if his friends aren’t welcome here, he doesn’t want to stay and chat, so he goes. He is sad, though. This is probably the last time he’ll ever see other Talaxians.

We learn the miner aliens are just bullies who claimed these asteroids and are going to kill the Talaxians if they don’t leave. They don’t WANT to kill them but it’s nbd, tbh. Pretty awful. Neelix saves the kid of the woman he met from being taken by the miners cause he’s the only one with a gun. There’s some discontent among the Talaxians who feel like Neelix’s actions and “violence” will only escalate things but these guys literally said “we will kill you in 3 days if you do not leave. We don’t care that that’s impossible”. Neelix offers to help negotiate a treaty with these aliens.

Holy SHIT, THEY MENTION TUVIX. WHAT THE FUCK.

Basically, if we want to help these Talaxians we either kick the can down the road and transport them, OR defend their asteroid now. Tuvok helps kick Neelix into gear. Those Talaxians need a leader to help them. Neelix is qualified. During his time on Voyager, he’s become far more than a simple cook, or a “wanna-be diplomat”, as he says. He’s so much more than that.

He goes to the Talaxians and leads them to build a shield perimiter, and puts his life on the line in his personal ship, the Baxial, which has just sat in Voyager for YEARS now, to distract fire from the Miners.

With Neelix and the miners working together, and help from the Delta Flyer, they do it.

Now Neelix has to make a difficult goodbye to the Talaxians, as he returns to Voyager. He spends a bit of time with Naomi, then finds Janeway alone in the mess hall. He has a lot on his mind… but she has an idea, and brings it up. Now that they have the ability to do two way communication from this distance… they need a Delta Quadrant ambassador, someone who can keep them abreast of the situation back here.

Neelix is promoted to Ambassador, and its time to say goodbye. He gets a salute and a farewell, and one last goodbye from his very good friend Tuvok, who does in fact dance for him, as Neelix said he always wanted to see. In public, no less. Live long, and prosper indeed. It’s a touching scene actually.

Goodbye, Neelix. Neelix gets a lot of shit and I make it no secret how much I like him. He’s a GREAT character, and it’s sad to see him go.

Renaissance Man - VOY 5/10

The Doctor and Janeway are going to a medical symposium together. He wakes up Janeway with his singing and then announces that holograms are superior to organics. He’s being kinda weird about it. It’s not like he’s ever acted like this before? It’d be like if out of nowhere, Data went “I am superior to organics, do not worry Captain, I am here to fix all your troubles because you cannot fix them yourself”. Okay dude.

Paris tries to make a romantic getaway with Torres. She actually appreciates it which is nice, but can’t have a date with him. Hope this B-plot is nice.

Janeway returns from the symposium and announces that a species called the R’Kaal are here, we’re violating their territory. Based on their laws, we need to eject the warpcore and give it to them and settle on a nearby planet. The captain agrees to this. Chakotay is like “what the fuck”. Janeway gets started on this, but is acting weird, and locks herself in the room. Chakotay asks the Doctor to scan her, but everything is fine. We also get this.

Chakotay tries to tackle the situation and is knocked out and put in the morgue by… the Doctor. He is, in fact, playing the part of Janeway, and now Chakotay. Janeway’s actress was actually REALLY good at doing Doctor-isms and playing the part. Now we have to see Chakotay’s actor try to do that. Oh joy. Anyways we find out it’s actually the Hierarchy… or well, two ex-members of the Hierarchy. They actually left the Hierarchy, stealing a vessel and are trying to steal the warp core to sell it to a buyer.

The Doctor is trying to play a million sides of this. He has to take Torres’ identity too, and it becomes VERY obvious when Tom comes up to her offering more food, and she gets uppity about health. Okay, Torres’ actress is ALSO good at acting like the doctor.

It obviously can’t last. Especially not with Tuvok on the job. The doctor now has to run through the ship and work double time to eject the warpcore, which he does, shutting down power and trying to escape. He manages to stop Tuvok and flies away in the Flyer, towing the warpcore.

Back with the Captain, the REAL Captain, she befriends one of the Hierarchy peoples. The Doctor delivers the cargo, and iiiis betrayed, of course. The leader is gonna adjust his program to make him do what he wants. Janeway is piiiiiissed at the Doctor. “Well, Voyager can survive without a warpcore, it can’t survive without a captain!” “NOW IT HAS NEITHER.” Damn.

Back on Voyager, they reactivate the ship and get… the doctor’s calling card, some music he played. But it’s edited slightly. It has the warp signature of the enemy ship. They go to rescue the Doctor and Janeway, just as they start destabalizing the Doctor. The nicer Hierarchy person betrays the meaner one and all is well…. well, no, it’s not. The doctor is still dying.

The doctor freaks out about dying and confesses to a bunch of not BAD, but petty shit, and then the problem is solves easily and instantly. Welp.

This episode was whatever. Just, fine. Neli described it as “trying to do Ferengi with no Ferengi”. Weird that this is the penultimate episode. The Neelix one felt much more penultimate.

Endgame - VOY 6.5/10

This is it. The final episode. It’s extra long. Let’s see how it holds up.

We see Voyager flying over the Golden Gate bridge, triumphant, returning… we learn that it took them 23 years. So we can get 16 more seasons of Voyager?! :D Anyways, this is actually a recording. It’s been 10 years since then. So 40 years after they teleport away. Janeway is looking out her window, old as hell, hair gray.

Janeway throws a party, a yearly reunion. Janeway is now a vice-admiral, which worries me for how her brain is doing. Harry is a Captain, thank God, he’s FINALLY promoted. Tuvok can’t be there, he appears to be ill. Someone also seems to have died recently. Paris is a holonovel author. Torres is an ambassador to the Klingons. The Doctor got married, and named himself Joe. I love Paris’ reaction. “IT TOOK YOU 33 YEARS TO COME UP WITH JOE?!”

Janeway is also a guest lecturer in Barclay’s class he’s teaching on the Borg. She’s a good teacher, but she’s touchy on the subject of Seven of Nine… and also she seems to be working with Paris and Torres’ daughter on something…

We’re jumping around a lot. There’s a lot to learn. Tuvok is doing some weird work, and appears to be mentally… not all there. Some kind of dementia. Janeway tells him she may be… going away, and won’t see him again. It’s a sad scene.

Janeway invites the Doctor over for a nice conversation, a physical, aaaaand also asking him to give her some fucking experimental drug. Where could she be going? It’s hush hush and only a few people are in the know. Apparently the second person in command of this mission is… Reg! Good ol’ Reg. He seems a lot more stable now, I’m proud of him. We get one last scene of Janeway talking to a gravestone. It’s Chakotay! He’s become the bones of our ancestors!

ANYWAYS back on Voyager, like 23 years ago, Belanna is giving birth! Oh false alarm. This happens a lot. Also…. guess who’s fucking dating Seven. Chakotay. Mother fucking Chakotay. Why? I’m tired of this already. We also get to see Neelix! He’s talking to Seven and playing Kadis-kot with her! Seven, for the record, denies that she’s dating Chakotay. She’s just going on dates with him. Well, Seven is canonically polyam, so

We’re jumping between the past and the future. Janeway is trying to get…. SOMETHING from some Klingons. Now they’re under attack by the Borg back in the past, and the Borg Queen is here again. It’s the first actress too, the one from First Contact. Oh boy. My favorite. The Borg are basically protecting some wormholes that could possibly send them home. Kim wants to sneak around them. Everyone is like “I’d rather not die, thank you.” Also, the doctor is going to actually turn off Seven’s emotion inhibitor. Man, this Chakotay x Seven stuff is going to really be important huh? Does ANYONE ship these two, other than Robert Beltran?

Janeway fucking STEALS THE DEVICE, activates some sick-ass shielding on her shuttle. But then she’s stopped by Kim, who found out from the Doctor, who interrogated Reg, and knows what she’s doing. He’s like “are you NUTS?” Kim. You of all people have no damn right to lecture her on this shit. You remmeber the episode where in the future you did time travel crime to try and save Voyager???

So yes, she’s trying to do time travel crimes. Specifically to save her girlfriend, and also her emotional support cardboard cutout that she kisses sometimes. I’m just saying, there’s a reason Chakotay x Seven of Nine has 400 works on AO3, and Seven of Nine x Kathryn Janeway is literally 4 times more.

Future!Janeway goes back to the past and announces she’s here to save them. The Borg Queen watches and tries desperately to be subtle. She fails at it. Past!Janeway, or just Janeway I guess, is really unhappy about everything. Seven walks in after scanning the Admiral’s ship, sees two Janeways at once, and her cortical node short circuits and she dies of an orgasm. Future!Janeway literally goes “Temporal Prime Directive Temporal Prime Shremective.”

The Borg Queen keeps being in this show, and I hate it. She announces that she knows the Admiral is here, and will assimilate them all if they try to enter her nebula. Meanwhile, Chakotay keeps being in this show, and I hate it. He’s being smarmy and showing favoritism to his girlfriend, showing why you should probably not date your superior officer.

Using the future armor, Voyager is being shot at by three different Borg cubes at the same time. They make it through, blowing up a cube, and find out that the wormholes in there is actually a transwarp hub. No wonder the Borg didn’t want them there. The Admiral demands they go through, Captain Janeway is piiiiiiiissed. Admiral Janeway explains “Three years from now, Seven is going to die.” This puts the wind out of her sails. Also Tuvok can be cured if they get home early. But mostly, her girlfriend will die. There’s some shit about her having a husband at the time, but that shit is dumb, and I’m choosing to ignore it.

The crew doesn’t care. They believe in the Captain, and will go with her plan. What’s her plan? Blow up the Transwarp conduits, save a LOT of lives, and go home the slow way. They can wait. But both Janeways come up with a plan… A way to possibly have their cake and eat it too. Admiral Janeway goes to the Borg Queen and asks her drag Voyager home for her, since the Captain intends to hurt the Borg. So she’ll save the Borg, if the Queen helps her. They compromise and come to a deal. Or do they? Nope, the Queen betrays her and captures her instead, immediately assimilating her. RIP Admiral Janeway…

The Queen could have just been “Okay, whatever. Get Voyager out of my fucking quadrant, I am so sick of their shit”, but no, she has to be weirdly aggressive and violent for no reason, which is ALWAYS her downfall. She assimilated a virus alongside the Admiral.

The Borg Queen dies, like “Well if we kill Captain Janeway this will never come to pass :)” lol yeah okay, dude. That’s not how your time travel works, at all, but you’re too fucking stupid to know that. The system blows the hell up, killing them all.

Meanwhile, a transwarp hole appears near Earth, and they rush to try and fight a Borg invasion. Voyager is chased by a Borg Sphere, but they basically blow it up from the INSIDE OUT, in front of the entirety of Starfleet, while ALSO having just blown up the Borg’s transwarp conduit.

It ends with the Paris baby being born, and then Janeway announcing they’re home, and that’s uh, it.

Okay. That was an abrupt ending. I think this episode should have gone like, 5-10 more minutes. It should have shown them happy and celebrating, and ended with Janeway turning the lights off and walking off the empty bridge. We don’t get that, it’s just, BAM, sudden, done. It doesn’t even clean up all the plot threads this EPISODE opened up.

And that… is Voyager! In the end, I will miss it. It is… flawed. It’s by far the worst of the three 90s shows, but it has a LOT to love in it. I like the characters quite a bit by the end, mostly, and there’s like, a season’s worth of all timers to watch. But it’s one I’d recommend skipping around in.

And now, my series-end tier list of every character. I actually made a tier list of this before Seven showed up, and there’s been a lllootttt of changes since then.

If you argued Seven is the best Voyager character, I wouldn’t argue. But Neelix is consistantly a bright spot the entire show. He deserved more good episodes. In the end, I’ve come to change my opinions on Chokotay. I think I’ve gone from thinking he’s the pure neutral C tier boring uninteresting character to F tier. I cannot remember a single good moment of his from this entire show. That is not a good thing.

Most improved award goes to Paris, who was a low C almost D tier, and is now ALMOST S tier. The only thing holding him back was his abysmal first season. He was so good by the end, I loved having him around. He got SO much better once he married. Most fallen award goes to the Doctor, who USED to be 4th place, and almost fell out of S tier. I feel like the late season Doctor focused less on his humanity and him as a character and more a flanderized asshole version of him that I just did not appreciate. He was always arrogant and antagonistic but it was becoming more exhausting by the end than anything.