Enterprise Review: “These are the Voyages…” (Series Finale)

You know what? It’s been a long road, getting from there to here.

These are the Voyages…

Cast & Crew

Director: Allan Kroeker

Written By: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga

Starring
Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer
Connor Trinneer as Charles “Trip” Tucker III
Jolene Blalock as T’Pol
Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed
Anthony Montgomery as Travis Mayweather
Linda Park as Hoshi Sato
John Billingsley as Dr. Phlox

Guest Cast
Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi
Jonathan Frakes as Cmdr. William Riker
Jeffrey Combs as Shran
Jonathan Schmock as Alien
Solomon Burke, Jr. as Ensign
Jef Ayres as Med Tech
Jasmine Anthony as Talla

Episode Information

Originally Aired: May 13, 2004
Season: Four (Finale)
Episode: Twenty-Two
Production: 098
Special: Series Finale

What Happened

Six years in the future, an emotional Captain Archer and the crew return to Earth to face the decommission of Enterprise and signing of the Federation charter, ratifying the newly-formed alliance of planets they helped forge.

Review

While I won’t call it “appalling,” Blalock has a point. One hour and a half-ass script does not a series finale make. At least TNG, DS9, and Voyage all had an epic “it’s all or nothing” feeling to them. Were all the actors willing to play Klingons busy that day? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Berman and Braga couldn’t let this one go quietly. No they just had to screw with it one more time.

High Point

  • Always love to see Shran.
  • The final “These are the voyages…” montage with three Enterprises.

Low Points

  • Where’s the epic conflict? The tension and drama? This is the finale you know?
  • All that crap about the speech and we never get to hear it?
  • Space thugs? We lose a major character fighting off space thugs?
  • One hour? One freaking hour!? That’s it?

The Scores

Originality: Nice spin on retelling the story from “The Pegasus.” Would have been nicer to use something else though. 4 out of 6.

Effects: Just a few firefights. Since there’s the a lack of scale here, nothing big is going to happen. 4 out of 6

Story: This is the SERIES FINALE. Why are we wasting time with petty thugs and kiddie rescues? Why not have the Klingons start a war or something. Anything. 4 out of 6.

Acting: Shran is fun as always and most of the cast puts their all into this one. 5 out of 6.

Emotional Response: There’s some great nostalgic moments, but they seem to be eclipsed by the rage I feel about all the things that went wrong. 3 out of 6.

Production: What we do see of the Next Gen sets looks very cool and very well done. The other sets are equally sharp. 6 out of 6

Overall: Not much of a finale. 3 out of 6

Total: 29 out of 42

Next Time on Enterprise

Nothing. Nothing at all. Sigh.

35 replies on “Enterprise Review: “These are the Voyages…” (Series Finale)”

  1. Appalled & Disgusted

    The final “These are the voyages…” montage with three Enterprises.

    The montage itself was nice – the voiceovers, though? That was B&B spitting in the face of Scott Bakula. Explain to me what is added by having Shatner and Stewart speak, and why would they go TOS-TNG-ENT rather than ENT-TOS-TNG? (I personally would have preferred just Bakula standing in front of the delegates saying that – it would have been a nice tie in)

    The killing of Trip was also weak – anything other than space thugs would have been better, especially if IT DIDN’T INCLUDE KILLING HIM. For some reason, he had become my favourite character on the show.

    Also, I find it laughable that they set it during Pegasus – I watched that episode about a week ago, and Frakes is noticeably older here. Why couldn’t they have set it post-Nemesis? Could it be that B&B are afraid of doing something new rather than mucking about in already-established territory?

    Weak. Very Weak.

    • Re: Appalled & Disgusted

      Thekilling of Trip was also weak – anything other than space thugs would have been better,

      That’s part of the B&B franchise formula – some main character’s gotta die. That’s B&B’s idea of emotional drama you see.

      Apalling

    • Re: Appalled & Disgusted

      The final “These are the voyages…” montage with three Enterprises.

      The montage itself was nice – the voiceovers, though? That was B&B spitting in the face of Scott Bakula. Explain to me what is added by having Shatner and Stewart speak, and why would they go TOS-TNG-ENT rather than ENT-TOS-TNG? (I personally would have preferred just Bakula standing in front of the delegates saying that – it would have been a nice tie in)

      The killing of Trip was also weak – anything other than space thugs would have been better, especially if IT DIDN’T INCLUDE KILLING HIM. For some reason, he had become my favourite character on the show.

      Also, I find it laughable that they set it during Pegasus – I watched that episode about a week ago, and Frakes is noticeably older here. Why couldn’t they have set it post-Nemesis? Could it be that B&B are afraid of doing something new rather than mucking about in already-established territory?

      Weak. Very Weak.

      This wasn’t even an Enterprise episode. This was a very, very lame episode of Next Generation. Horrendous, execrable, abysmal, appalling, terrible, awful, detestable … Lemme open a thesaurus, I don’t feel I have exhausted the possibilities …

      And killing the character they killed, in such a contrived, limp-wristed fashion. Why? This was one of my favorite characters too. He deserved better. For me the whole series began hollow, and slightly off-key, and ended with probably the worst episode(s) in the history of the franchise.

      This was completely, utterly disposable.

      To me the finale demonstrates the level of commitment of the series’ producers to maintaining any level of quality: none. This is treacle that would have been a waste to film using a handheld VHS camcorder …

      On the bright side the actors got paid to do nothing except recite lackluster lines that could have been written by a fourth grader. The only place their skill showed was how the assembled cast managed to speak such dreadful sentences with straight faces. Somehow Emmy’s should be handed out.

      With a flatulent send-off like this, even with several decent episodes in the later seasons, good riddance to Enterprise. May her producers, the heirs apparent, find their careers in a sharp downturn that ends with them unable to even find work producing cut rate zoological porn.

      I am glad I had grabbed the latest Doctor Who, “Father’s Day,” to view after I watched this garbage. I felt somewhat redeemed.

      -Joe G.

    • Re: Appalled & Disgusted

      The final “These are the voyages…” montage with three Enterprises.

      The montage itself was nice – the voiceovers, though? That was B&B spitting in the face of Scott Bakula. Explain to me what is added by having Shatner and Stewart speak, and why would they go TOS-TNG-ENT rather than ENT-TOS-TNG?

      I thought it perfectly appropriate for the respective captains to do their voice-overs as their ships flew by, and TOS-TNG-ENT is chronological, which also makes perfect sense. This was absolutely the high point for the show for me, and I thought paid a nice tribute to the history of the show.

      Like someone else, however, my reaction at the end was “this isn’t the last Enterprise, this is a weak new TNG”. I do still need to go back and watch the pegasus episode now though.

      But they’re putting the founding of the federation of planets at risk for a very precisely timed rescue attempt? Given that timing, it would have been *far* more likely to be a ruse to disrupt the founding of the alliance. Which would have been a better episode. I do like Shran, but I think this was another character pretending to be Shran, and not quite pulling it off — I don’t think Shran would play dead, and I don’t think he’d run lightyears for help from Archer.

      Oh well, at least it’s been put out of our misery now.

      • Re: Appalled & Disgusted

        The final “These are the voyages…” montage with three Enterprises.

        The montage itself was nice – the voiceovers, though? That was B&B spitting in the face of Scott Bakula. Explain to me what is added by having Shatner and Stewart speak, and why would they go TOS-TNG-ENT rather than ENT-TOS-TNG?

        I thought it perfectly appropriate for the respective captains to do their voice-overs as their ships flew by, and TOS-TNG-ENT is chronological, which also makes perfect sense. This was absolutely the high point for the show for me, and I thought paid a nice tribute to the history of the show.

        The way I look at it, it’s B&B saying “hmmm… people don’t seem to like our cast (it couldn’t be us!) let’s get Shatner & Stewart into this somehow – people like them!

        It’s been said elsewhere here, this is a poor TNG episode. If the concept absolutely had to be used, it should have been for the pilot (or at least somewhere in the first season) to give some sort of tie to the other Treks. This was a piss-poor way to send off this series. It may have been drek for the first two seasons, but Coto was starting to turn it around (I’m going to assume it was his influence that got the “All good things” quote included, which was one of the few nice touches). It deserved better than this.

        At least it’s over. I’m with rickyjames – SERENITY NOW!

  2. insulting
    I felt very uncomfortable watching every scene with Riker (and Troi) not on the 1701-D, and even those were out-of-place. The "Enterprise" portions of the episode, trite as they were, could have easily existed without the holodeck aspect.

    But, despite Riker looking to have aged twenty years overnight, I liked that this was just one of those little day-to-day stories behind an episode, in this case "The Pegasus". This little story couldn’t have been a TNG episode (hardly even a B-story), but placing it within or behind one gives it some context and more body than if it had just been a frame story.

    Overall, I think it was a horrible finale. Tripp dies, we have TNG (and even TOS) stealing the spotlight, and the whole motive behind "Enterprise", namely the founding of the Federation, gets left as little more than a footnote.

    • Re: insulting

      It’s petty to notice, but I found the attempts to conceal the amount of weight Frakes has put on more distracting than the age. Overall, though, a pointless episode, which used NextGen characters to no good dramatic end.

      • Re: insulting

        It’s petty to notice, but I found the attempts to conceal the amount of weight Frakes has put on more distracting than the age. Overall, though, a pointless episode, which used NextGen characters to no good dramatic end.

        I thought I had read or heard Sirtis bragging about how Frakes was in better shape than when TNG aired. I won’t fault a man for aging, but he did not look well. Did you see the bags under his eyes? Makes me wonder if the article were… fact or fiction. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)

  3. It could have been good 4 years earlier
    The basic idea of the episode was good. It would have been great in season 1, where it would be able to bring in old characters without the use of time travel, and also give a sense of where enterprise belongs in the trek timeline (instead of the feeling that it was just created in order to have a new spin-off instead of a prequel) However it was a horrible idea for a season finale and reduced the rest of the cast to a supporting role for Riker and Troi.

    • 2006
      trek is 40 next year.

      can we have a public lynching of Rick Berman, Paramount?

      Terra Prime would’ve made a marginally better finale than this barf-o-rama.

      • Lynching …

        trek is 40 next year.

        can we have a public lynching of Rick Berman, Paramount?

        Terra Prime would’ve made a marginally better finale than this barf-o-rama.

        Lynching would be a waste of good rope. I prefer to think of this series ending with “In a Mirror Darkly.”

        -Joe G.

    • Re: Appalling

      ’nuff said

      Please don’t hold back. I need to read some vitriol after this turd of an episode soiled my monitor, and you do it so well.

      -Joe G.

  4. Ugh

    Yeah, I want back that hour of my life. The CG Enterprise-D wasn’t even that impressive, Sirtis and Frakes looked every one of the 12 years too old they are, the Shran plotline was just forced and lame, and the “shocking moment” with the space thugs was possibly the cheapest thing I’ve ever seen on Trek.

    Yes, including Voyager.

    Way to stop the series from standing on its own two feet at the end. Way to end 18 years of celebrated television with a steaming pile of dog crap.

    I wouldn’t watch another B&B Trek project if they paid me to.

    • Re: Ugh

      Yeah, I want back that hour of my life. The CG Enterprise-D wasn’t even that impressive, Sirtis and Frakes looked every one of the 12 years too old they are, the Shran plotline was just forced and lame, and the “shocking moment” with the space thugs was possibly the cheapest thing I’ve ever seen on Trek.

      Yes, including Voyager.

      Way to stop the series from standing on its own two feet at the end. Way to end 18 years of celebrated television with a steaming pile of dog crap.

      I wouldn’t watch another B&B Trek project if they paid me to.

      Hear hear.

      -Joe G.

      • Re: Ugh

        Horrendous, execrable, abysmal, appalling, terrible, awful, detestable … Lemme open a thesaurus, I don’t feel I have exhausted the possibilities …

        Dude, this quote by you will always shine as “truer words were never spoken” about Enterprise in general and this so-called finale in particular. The founding of the Federation is the very heart, soul and core of Star Trek. It was the reason for bothering to produce the whole series in the first place and it was virtually ignored throughout the whole run. To have that pivotal moment as a throw-away holodeck program from a previous show instead of run it as the crowning glory of Enterprise itself is an unspeakable betrayal. I am speechless.

        Even worse is that just before Archer goes out to fulfill the dream of his world and our own, he gives T’Pol a bearhug. Aurgh. ANYTHING would have been better than such an action. All I could think of at that moment was great, they killed off Trip so Archer and T’Pol could finally get it on for the rest of their lives like they did in the Memento ep.

        I’m about ready for such an “it was all a dream” twist to bring the show back, but there’s nothing to bring it back FOR. Enterprise was ultimately as empty at the end as it was thru its whole run.

        Rest in peace, Trip. This week, first you cried, then you died. So did we.

    • Re: Ugh

      The CG Enterprise-D wasn’t even that impressive…

      I don’t even think that’s a new shot. It has the same feel (lighting, shadow, aliasing) as the first-gen CG used in trek, towards the end of DS9 when they first stopped using miniature models.

  5. Is It Sept 30 Yet?
    B&B can’t take the sky from me…
    Let’s get on with Serenity.

    • Re: Is It Sept 30 Yet?

      B&B can’t take the sky from me…
      Let’s get on with Serenity.

      Hahaha… good one. But, never underestimate the power of the dark side.

  6. Old and Young
    Frakes and Sirtis are not the same age as they were in The Pegasus. I’m sorry, I couldn’t even try to suspend my disbelief to allow for that. Maybe if they had done her hair the same way… Have they really aged that much in the what, two years since the last movie, or was makeup just really bad?

    On the other hand, none of the crew looked a day older than the previous episode. What happened to those six years?

    And killing Tucker was just dumb. I don’t miss him any more for dying 10 minutes before the rest of the crew "died", sorry.

    I liked watching Riker play chef. The holodeck clothing thing is a great stroke of common sense that should have been introduced sooner.

    • Re: Old and Young

      I liked watching Riker play chef. The holodeck clothing thing is a great stroke of common sense that should have been introduced sooner.

      I also like the use of “objective mode”. The idea was nothing new, really, but giving it a name was a nice addition.

  7. To quote my wife:
    “I want to hunt down B & B and make them eat the film on which this was recorded.”

  8. Silver lining
    I like to interpret the whole “Enterprise” series as just Riker’s fantasy holodeck novel. It never happened. It’s a highly-fictionalised story based somewhat upon real characters that I suppose founded the Federation, but like todays “historical action flicks (i.e. Kingdom of Heaven)”, it doesn’t follow history precisely.

    It ended with “computer, end program”.

    Like it’s supposed to. Good riddance Enterprise.

    Here’s to hoping J. Michael Strazynski retcons the *actual* founding of the Federation some years later when B&B are out of a job at Paramount.

  9. I liked it
    Sure its was TNG more than Enterprise, but you say that as if it was a bad thing ! *G*

  10. One Good Line
    The only part of the entire episode that was any good was when Shran’s daughter says, “Thanks, Pink-Skin”. Other than that, the episode was an entire write-off.

    The Enterprise crew hadn’t aged in 10 years
    Riker & Troi had aged in 2 minutes
    Malcolm’s “All good things” line
    The whole simulation
    Shran falls in with the wrong crowd… whatever
    Alien thugs look like Orcs from Warcraft
    The Enterprise no longer has security staff
    Trip dies
    The Enterprise crew sit in the nose-bleed section
    You don’t hear Archer’s speach (would have been worthless any how)
    Showing the further ships with voice overs by Kirk and Picard was lame
    TNG cross-over was generally a dumb idea

    I knew it was going to suck but I thought it would suck in the regular B&B sort of way. But they wanted to make an impact and make it suck in a far greater way than anything has ever sucked before.

    B&B accomplished their goal and should receive an award.

    • Re: One Good Line

      I knew it was going to suck but I thought it would suck in the regular B&B sort of way. But they wanted to make an impact and make it suck in a far greater way than anything has ever sucked before.

      B&B accomplished their goal and should receive an award.

      This comment made me think of a Doonesburry comic I read today…

      Druggy: So when you getting discharged dude?
      Soldier: Dunno, soon as the med board rates me.
      D: Well let me know the second your out and coming home okay?
      S: Why?
      D: That’s the day I tell my boss to shove it. I am planning something special.
      S: Great, how special?
      D: Very, look for it on the news.
      S: What channel?
      D: UPN!

    • Re: One Good Line

      The only part of the entire episode that was any good was when Shran’s daughter says, “Thanks, Pink-Skin”. Other than that, the episode was an entire write-off.

      The Enterprise crew hadn’t aged in 10 years
      Riker & Troi had aged in 2 minutes
      Malcolm’s “All good things” line
      The whole simulation
      Shran falls in with the wrong crowd… whatever
      Alien thugs look like Orcs from Warcraft
      The Enterprise no longer has security staff
      Trip dies
      The Enterprise crew sit in the nose-bleed section
      You don’t hear Archer’s speach (would have been worthless any how)
      Showing the further ships with voice overs by Kirk and Picard was lame
      TNG cross-over was generally a dumb idea

      I knew it was going to suck but I thought it would suck in the regular B&B sort of way. But they wanted to make an impact and make it suck in a far greater way than anything has ever sucked before.

      B&B accomplished their goal and should receive an award.

      You missed Archer’s “next generation” line.

      • Re: One Good Line
        I think the montage at the end was to signify that this is not an end only to enterprise but for trek in general.

  11. Chef
    Thoughout the entire 4 year run of Enterprise we have heard of “Chef” but we never got to meet him. And in the final episode, we do, but it’s Riker!!! What a crock of BS!
    Oh and who has aged better Frakes or Shatner? (both are now way overweight!) And I agree, this was a ‘Saint Elsewhere’
    ending to the show.

    • Re: Chef

      Thoughout the entire 4 year run of Enterprise we have heard of “Chef” but we never got to meet him. And in the final episode, we do, but it’s Riker!!! What a crock of BS!
      Oh and who has aged better Frakes or Shatner? (both are now way overweight!) And I agree, this was a ‘Saint Elsewhere’
      ending to the show.

      Hey, I liked the ending of Saint Elsewhere …

      -Joe G.

    • Re: Chef

      Thoughout the entire 4 year run of Enterprise we have heard of “Chef” but we never got to meet him. And in the final episode, we do, but it’s Riker!!! What a crock of BS!
      Oh and who has aged better Frakes or Shatner? (both are now way overweight!) And I agree, this was a ‘Saint Elsewhere’
      ending to the show.

      Who cares what the chef is! That’s such a petty complaint. Who gives a hoot, precisly because we never met him. And then they use riker for that spot. I thought that was amusing.
      And he is not overweight, he has put on weight like a lot of adults do. What is it with that attitude that they must have the body of a 10 year old. That is not normal for adults!

  12. rant, rant, vent, vent
    Hey B&B;
    [CENSORSORED COMMENTS: FIT ONLY TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN A B&B EPISODE]

    Damn, now if only that had happended to this ep. and the series had ended with Terra Prime. I wanted to post something after this… thing that B&B came out with aired. I yelled and screamed. OK on an unrelated note; I have found 2 problems with the internet. (1) you can’t choke people to death with an email, and (2) you can’t express jumping up and down until the keyboard breaks with anything other than

    CONNECTION LOST…

  13. Well…
    … it is over and I’m not really going to miss it.

    I like to have new sci-fi. I really really do. And Enterprise had some good moments. But it never lived up to the good ideas that the fans had for how a pre-Federation Trek show could be. And it never lived up to even the better ideas that it showed. So it became a rerun of past bad-Trek features.

    Maybe someday Trek will return with some good, fresh ideas for sci-fi. Maybe not.

    It doesn’t really matter for the moment. We have other, better series now. When/if those ever end, and there is nothing to take their place… well, maybe then someone will have a good Trek idea and it will be time for another letter campaign.

  14. IN a few years….
    Once Berman and Braga are out of the picture I would love to see a mini series on the SCI-FI channel featuring Shran. Or maybe some new Vulcan character, or maybe something covering the first Federation-Klingon conflict, maybe even the first conflict with the Romulans….

    One can dream…

  15. Sad… ending. Not tearful, just disappointing
    B&B may have made missteps, but who’s perfect?… uh, hmmm… unfortunately, this time they proved producers should never write (finales, at least). I like all the Treks (except the Bajor soap opera… DS9 itself good, Bajor bad, Emmy episodes notwithstanding). I like all the characters, pretty much… I don’t mind that Riker/Troi aged a bit. However…

    I could understand not tying next millenium TV into ’60’s episodes (although TNG about did)… but this finale just felt ‘wrong’ to the extent that I unfairly have to say that it felt like B&B wanted to promote/boost TNG syndications… Enterprise dead, go watch TNG (forget TOS). Can’t be that mercenary…but who knows Hollyweird.

    The retrospective would have been far more innovative from the Admiral’s viewpoint, or some real Earthbound STARFLEET framing plot, not an OUT-OF-SEQUENCE TNG. The TNG-TOS-ENT farewell may have fit the reverse chronology… but still felt ‘out-of-order’ (both senses)… an especially Lame way to inject a split second glimpse of TOS Enterprise… in the middle, instead of next. The epilogue simply would have been more enjoyable as a normal grand sendoff to TOS… Archer’s words over -all- the Trek ships (and stations) to come… ju$t don’t $ee the need to tie in the other B&B franchi$e.

    Archer already had one speech… it would have been satisfying to have crewmembers (in seats of HONOR, give me a break) mentally ruminate during the start of Archer’s speech… and finish with the ending of his speech. Some kind of rumor hashing (foretelling) briefly by each character…

    Shran’s just cool… conflicted but almost honorable (or he’s learning… a good final lesson to impart). [Did anybody else notice his daughter went from Blueskin to GREENtint?? I guess they turn green after they’re fed StarFleet food.] BUT… WTF, suddenly Trip freaks out in out-of-character PANIC and finds a way to suicide everyone around… they could have at least made him DESPONDENT, say over his almost-child? Simply bad contrivance, unless Trineer requested being “Terminated from Trek” in the future. Maybe B&B were using this opportunity to poll experimental ‘off’ plot responses… bad.

    And little remorse from Archer… lot on his mind, maybe, but… too little time for too much script experimentation. Got more response from T’Pol… and a strange, lonely, Archer hug at end. When Troi said Tucker wouldn’t return, I was hoping he was just gonna decide to go Vulcan… far more interesting segue spin, but…

    As dkichline said: “they wanted to make an impact and make it suck in a far greater way than anything has ever sucked before.” LOL… Definitely, resonates… “where no(one) has gone before.”

    Just reminds of minor TNG episodes that felt that way too, I must say. Enterprise finale did not have to… One near-dead fantasy: if there’s some time lapse between Terra Prime and the finale… (like 6 years?) perhaps somebody (cable?) picks up Enterprise for another season or two where they fill in those six years AND GIVE IT A PROPER FINALE!!! Maybe one where the loss of Tucker is better realized. I mean… let’s just SHOVEL Trip into the life-saving chamber like a tray in the morgue, and give each other a stupid he’s-dead look… rather than the usual die-in-friend’s arms. Sometimes the end is quick… like when you cheat the fans.

    It just could be possible to write more about -Earthbound- Star Fleet and Enterprise’s other 6 years, or whatever.

    And not try to drop Trek from the name again.
    If it’s Star Trek universe… it’s Trek: (to be continued).

    Enterprise Epitaph… ‘Terra Prime’. ‘These are the Voyages’… B&B offered eulogy. Where’s the ‘stinky’ emoticon? Phthpthththtttt.

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