Star Trek Voyager Reviews Written by Someone Who Actually LIKES the Show -- Future's End

Okay, this is a review of Start Trek Voyager episode, "Future's End," which was a two-parter. I'll just review the parts together, since the first part wasn't a season cliffhanger or anything, and since they really do play like a two-hour episode, not setting up anything in the first hour that gets ignored or over-turned in the second. This review is written solely for the pleasure of people who like Star Trek Voyager and alligator snowglobes. It contains many spoilers. Those who do not know how to make the right sign when someone says "Live long and prosper" are encouraged to go elsewhere.

How about Eric Conveys an Emotion?

No? Well then...

INITIAL VIEWER EXPERIENCE
Wheeee!

PLOT
Hippie-man Henry Starling (Ed Begley Jr. in a role he's perfect for) is camping out in the High Sierras in 1967. When his transistor radio goes out and a bright light fills the noisy sky, it can only mean a starship is crashing nearby. Since this isn't the X-Files, though, this starship will actually work.

Janeway is talking tennis with Tuvok when she's called to the bridge and finds that a temporal rift is opening in the space right in front of Voyager. A six-meter Federation ship appears from this cosmic pothole and starts firing on Voyager. Only one shot brings down the shields and knocks out the helm, and some sort of disrupter starts tearing apart the ship's molecules.

In other words, they're in trouble, but Chakotay calls for a deflector pulse that holds the tiny ship at bay. The ship hails Voyager, and Captain Braxton, who seems like a real jerk, announces that he's from the 29th Century, where the Voyager is responsible for an explosion that destroys Earth's solar system. Voyager is to lower its shields and accept destruction. Chakotay seems oddly swayed by this argument, but Janeway calls for more than a ten-second conversation before she'll surrender. The resultant struggle disrupts the temporal rift, which sucks in the two ships.

When they stop getting thrown about, the Voyager crew discovers they're at Earth, which is great, but in the 20th Century, which is not so great. Scanning, they find signs of subspace disruption in --where else? -- Southern California. Janeway leaves Kim in charge and goes to the surface with Paris, Tuvok, and Chakotay.

Cut to a colorful panoply on Venice Beach. In appropriate attire, the away team scans for more subspace readings. Paris and Tuvok talk about the dangers of UV rays while Janeway and Chakotay find an old homeless man who is giving off those subspace signals.

Meanwhile, at Griffith observatory, twenty-something astro-scientist Rain Robinson sits in her kitch-covered office, playing with a New Orleans alligator snowglobe. Her computer beeps. It seems her scans for gamma emissions have found SOMETHING in orbit.

Starling sits in his overly-cute computer magnate office and instantly shows he's the sort of corporate slime we all enjoy hating. A phone call from Rain tells him about those gamma emissions. He tells her to do nothing and to wait for him to get back to her. After she hangs up, however, Rain figures there's no harm in sending the standard SETI greeting.

Torres runs down a list of ship's woes for Kim, including the crashing of the transporter, which will take a couple of days to fix. The emergency transporters will work, but they only have a range of about 10 kilometers. Kim's day is further trashed by that SETI greeting.

The away team now follows the old bag man as he pursues his self-appointed task of posting apocalyptic signs all over town. Kim signals Janeway about the SETI greeting, and she orders Tuvok and Paris off to the observatory before she and Chakotay finally confront the old man, who turns out to be none other than Captain Braxton. They ask him what's going on and he explains that with the timeship's controls out, chance took Braxton to the 60s while Voyager only went as far back as the 90's. This would all make a bit more sense if Braxton weren't himself half-way to Planet Clare, if you know what I mean.

Amid his ramblings, he takes a piece of chalk to the wall to attempt a Back to the Future II kind of explanation about the inevitability of the future's end [Applaud title now]. It seems his own timeship is the cause of the destruction. Starling stole Braxton's ship 30 years ago and will soon attempt to travel to the 29th Century in it. This will set off the explosion. Braxton shows them his paper-bag schematic on which he's figured all this out just as the cops arrive to talk to Braxton about his literary urban renewal project. Janeway and Chakotay do the old "we don't know this man, officer," and Braxton runs off. Wonderfully, neither Janeway not Chakotay ever seems to give him another thought.

Janeway and Chakotay, now knowing the name of their true nemesis, head for Starling's company, Chronowerx. Starling is currently trying to squelch Rain's reports about SOMETHING in orbit, and orders his henchman, Dunbar, to retrieve Rain's data and "take care of her" with "the weapon."

A shot of the Hollywood sign takes us to Griffith Observatory and Tuvok and Paris's new "wheels," a big black pick-up truck boosted from the dealership. Inside Rain's sci-fi postered office, they find her computer and her snowglobe. How, they wonder, does she know how to look for warp drive emissions? Rain herself appears, and Paris chats her up as Tuvok wipes her hard drive with his tricorder. Our heroes exit quickly, but Rain chases after them when her computer crashes. Paris tries to shake her off, but Duncan appears with a super-duper 29th Century phaser and vaporizes the "wheels." As Tuvok shoots back and almost loses his hat, Paris and Rain get her van, pick up Tuvok, and escape.

On Voyager, Kes and Neelix monitor earth's communications and tell Kim about soap operas. Kim would rather play Beowulf.

Janeway and Chakotay sneak into Starling's office and find computer data on the time ship. Starling has made his fortune by scavenging the timeship and "inventing" computer technology for years.

Driving down Hollywood Boulevard, Paris convinces Rain not to scream and spins a laughably bad story about spy satellites and the KBG. Says Rain, "The KGB doesn't even exist anymore." Says Paris, "That's what they'd like you to think." Tuvok says the super-phaser has ruined their combadges.

Janeway explores the data in Starling's computer, finds the timeship in the adjacent room, and starts downloading (uploading?) information to Voyager. Starling enters with Dunbar and tells Janeway he won't let her steal his ship. Using Janeway as a hostage, he gets Kim to stop taking data from his computer.

Torres urges Kim to go down to the planet so they can use the emergency transporters to get Janeway and Chakotay. Kim agrees.

Janeway says she'll destroy the building to get to the timeship, and Starling is complimenting her "cajones" (sp?) when she and Chakotay are beamed away. Janeway tries to beam the timeship away too, but some sort of forcefield interferes. Furthermore, Starling uses his stolen 29th Century technology to use the transporter beam as a computer link. He steals about 20% of the computer's files...including the Doctor, who stands in some befuddlement in Starling's office.

Neelix sees on television that Voyager was videotaped while making its low pass to pick up Janeway and Chakotay.

END PART ONE

Paris tries and fails to turn Rain's radio into a locator signal. Rain herself tries to find out what's really going on, but shows that she trusts Paris, at least to a point. Tuvok returns with burritos for breakfast, evidently ready to eat anything as long as Neelix didn't make it. Paris and Tuvok figure out they can use a cell phone and the satellite dish at the observatory to contact the ship. Over the phone, Janeway asks Tuvok if Rain will help them capture Starling. Watching her flirt with Paris as they look together through a book on B-Movie horror sci-fi flics, Tuvok would have to say...yes.

Starling explains to the Doctor that his office is equipped with holoprojectors. The Doctor is suitably unimpressed and wants to go back to the ship. Starling accuses the absent Janeway of wanting to steal his timeship so she can use 29th Century technology in the 24th Century, and the Doctor suggests that Starling get some therapy. Starling wants Janeway's psychological profile, and shows the Doctor that the hologram is not so invulnerable to pain as he might think. The fun and torture games are interrupted by a call from Rain. She claims to be scared and Starling promises to pick her up, but Rain thinks he sounds suspicious of her.

Suspicious indeed, Starling rides in his limo to meet Rain in her chosen public location. The Doctor, outfitted with the 29th Century autonomic, self-sustaining mobile holo-emitter that Starling got from the timeship, is along for the ride. Tuvok and Paris, hiding in the shadows to help capture Starling, are surprised to see the Doctor. Rain goes to meet Starling.

Torres and Chakotay go down to earth in a shuttle rigged to look on radar like a small aircraft. The plan is to get Starling in Rain's van, then beam him up to the shuttle.

Unfortunately, Starling instead wants Rain to get into his limo.

Fortunately, everybody manages to change over the coordinates before the limo's in motion. Torres beams Starling onto the shuttle.

Unfortunately, Starling has a 29th Century tricorder which wrecks the shuttle's transporter and makes the shuttle crash in Arizona.

Fortunately, Rain and the Doctor, who runs like a girl, escape from the limo, and Staring doesn't really know how to use the tricorder right. Eventually, Janeway gets him and his tricorder on Voyager.

Torres and Chakotay are captured by some sort of Freemen-like extremist group in Arizona. Torres growls at one extremist who tries to touch her forehead, while another extremist worries about the imminent arrival of "the Feds."

Back on Voyager, Janeway tries to cower Starling, but he isn't buying it and threatens to blow up the timeship, and most of Los Angeles, if anyone tries to tamper with it. A few minutes later, Dunbar uses the timeship and a satellite in orbit to retrieve Starling from Voyager.

With Tuvok and the Doctor off to rescue Torres and Chakotay, Paris says goodbye to Rain, who tries to get his phone number before she drops him off at Chronowerx. A semi driven by Dunbar pulls out of the building, however, and Paris detects the timeship inside. Paris and Rain pursue it.

The Feds do indeed lay siege to the Arizona freedom-fighters, but in a nicely deflating twist, they're only after the "aircraft" and its passengers. Noises outside grow odd, and one of the extremists runs inside shouting about "A black man and some bald guy" who're shooting lasers. The Doctor comes in next and takes a few rounds of bullets before stunning the extremists and rescuing a surprised Torres and Chakotay.

Paris and Rain pursue the semi into the desert. Paris shoots out one of its tires, but the van stalls and the truck returns to ram them. Paris and Rain jump from the van -- and the truck is blown to smithereens by the shuttle. This is great!...except that Torres scans the wreckage and...no timeship. The truck was only a diversion.

On the timeship, which is still at Chronowerx, Starling starts up the hyper-impulse and launches.

With weapons still off-line on Voyager, Janeway goes to torpedo tube one to launch a photon torpedo manually, even though Kim objects that it's too dangerous for someone to be in there when a torpedo is fired.

Torres has the shuttle's transporters back on line, and a somewhat dazed Rain says goodbye to Paris, that heartbreaker!

Voyager chases after Starling's ship as the entire away team returns to the ship. Ensign Kaplan [Don't get attached to her] leads the Doctor down to torpedo tube one.

Starling starts up the time rift, Janeway fires her torpedo, and we all say a hearty good-bye to Starling.

An injured Janeway gets back on the bridge, hoping to be able to access the time rift, but now Braxton's little ship once again shows up, this time with no memory of his previous encounters with Voyager. The Temporal Integrity Commission in the 29th Century was/will be scanning time and sent him to investigate the disturbance Starling made. Janeway asks him to take Voyager back to the 24th Century but keep them here at earth. Braxton tosses off something about the Temporal Prime Directive and proves that he is a jerk, after all.

At a toast in the mess hall, the Doctor looks forward to a newly mobile life, and Paris passes on Rain's assessment of Tuvok: "Has anyone ever told you you're a real freakasaurus?"