Redshirts Roundtable: The Best Goodbye

Image: CBS Studios

Andrew Depledge
Star Trek Enterprise – These Are the Voyages…

For me this one was always going to be a tricky answer, even as I asked the question I knew I hadn’t given The Animated Series a fair viewing in so long that I couldn’t pick anything from it, The Original Series didn’t get a goodbye in Turnabout Intruder, and as much as I love The Undiscovered Country I’ve always seen Generations as the real goodbye to that crew.

So this leaves the Next Generation era and of course Enterprise.

I was never a fan of Endgame, I love the premise, but I always disliked the execution, I just can’t get past the writers failing to find a better way than to force the characters into using vague, unhelpful dialogue to hide their lack of a plan from the viewer.

"‘Mr. Paris, what’s our position?’ – Captain Janeway ‘Right where we expected to be’ – Lt. Paris"

And after the Borg sphere is destroyed from the inside out:

"‘How did you?’ – Admiral Paris ‘It’ll all be in my report sir’ – Captain Janeway"

It still pisses me off. Its like an intern wrote it as a joke and couldn’t believe it when the producers signed off on it without understanding that it was insultingly stupid.  That alone eliminates Endgame for me. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum is What you Leave Behind that was a fantastic finale, except it really felt like it was trying to give a finale to EVERYTHING in the universe, except the ones we’re really invested in like Sisko, Odo, the Cardassians, the Bajorans, Garak, the Romulans, The Dominion… It’s nice to know Rom has the lobes to lead the Ferengi, but I really want to know if Garak will become a leader to his people, or if Sisko returns.

Its good, but the best? Not quite.

On the surface All Good Things is head and shoulders above the rest, it felt right.

It had a great mix of everything that made The Next Generation such an iconic series.  But with the movies following so soon after it wasn’t exactly goodbye, right?

So that leaves me with These are the Voyages….

The people behind Enterprise knew it was coming to an end well in advance, so surely they had time to write a fantastic ending and that’s exactly what they did.  We have an alliance between the major players in the quadrant and in the future an aging NX-01 on it’s last legs, even though it will do another thirty years of ceremonial service, with her original crew on their final mission to bring this new United Federation of Planets into existence. It’s fantastic, we couldn’t ask for a better ending really. I never thought Enterprise would make it 10 years, so to see the Federation founded, beautiful.

….But then they killed Tripp for nothing more than effect, shoehorned Riker and Troi in there in a situation that in no way made the two situations seem similar (Pegasus? Come on! I love good phasing cloak as much as the next guy but it had nothing to do with…. errr!) and to top it all off we actually never even found out what happened because the whole point of a holodeck program is that you interact and change the story, and to make it worse Riker chooses a non-character to play! Chef!?

I know we fans always say we want an episode or series to end with “Computer, End Program” and it turns out to have been a simulation, there was even a fan theory that Voyager would end that way with Cadet Janeway passing her exam, but like the whole ‘It’ll all bet in my report’ thing I said earlier, it’s more of a joke we tell than a real request.

So, really…. Not that one…

Ok, maybe I don’t actually like that episode all that much, in fact I agree with pretty much everything David said, and I mostly just wanted to find a way to say I picked These Are The Voyages just to bug him, but at it’s base it had a solid premise minus the Next Generation angle, I could even forgive the Tripp part without Riker.

So For the best Goodbye, as it was produced and aired, All Good Things, without a doubt. For potential, These Are the Voyages had an opportunity to stand out like no other. It’s just too bad they blew it.

So there you have our picks for the Best Goodbye, now we want to hear from you! Let us know on Twitter, Facebook or in the comments, what was the Best Finale, or what would have made a better Finale?

Does anyone genuinely like These are the Voyages? Is that a thing?