Neelix’s ending was far from perfect but he still got what he wanted

Star Trek: Voyager said goodbye to Neelix before the show ended, and while it wasn’t the perfect ending, it was a solid one.

Though hardly ever stated, Neelix was part of the U.S.S. Voyager for one reason and one reason only; find a place he belongs. Neelix was constantly seeking a family to call his own, after all, the Talaxians (of which Neelix was one of), no longer had a home planet after the Haakonian Order gassed their moons and forced the planet of Talex into submissions.

The Talaxians left their planet, and Neelix, left his home without his family; who all died during the gassing of the Talaxian moons.

So when he arrived on Voyager with a young Kes in tow, the goal for him was to find a safe space to raise a family with Kes. Kes ended up not wanting children with Neelix and broke up with him. Eventually, she left the ship and Neelix ended up trying to become a Godfather to Naomi Wildman, doting on her dutifully while her mother worked on the ship.

But it wasn’t enough to satisfy his desire to have a family and when the chance for Neelix came to be part of a family for real, he took it, leaving the Voyager crew behind right before they returned to Earth.

A return that should’ve included Neelix.

Neelix’s ending wasn’t perfect but he got what he wanted

CBR recently wrote that they think Neelix’s ending was perfect for Star Trek: Voyager and they aren’t wrong in the sense that Neelix getting his ideal family was the right way to go, there were better ways of going about it than cutting him off from his surrogate family of seven years.

Neelix getting the family was the right call, but instead of leaving Neelix on a mining outpost, like the show Star Trek: Voyager did, the writers would’ve been better served bringing the Talaxian mining colony into play sooner in the final season, and then using the surviving miners to round out the missing and dead crew members; finally giving Voyager a full compliment of crew members.

This would give Neelix a larger and more important role in the final season, as he would help train the other Talaxians to follow Starfleet guidelines, usually in step with Tuvoc, thus giving us the best buddy-cop comedy possible in Star Trek history.

Neelix would then be able to fall in love, become a father, and still maintain his ties to his other family aboard Voyager, allowing them all to land on Earth together.

But, that would’ve deprived us of arguably the best scene in Voyager’s history; Tuvox “dancing” as part of Neelix’s goodbye.