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Star Trek Voy - Season 3 - Episode 08

Star Trek Voy - 3x08 - Future's End, Part I

Originally Aired: 1996-11-6

Synopsis:
Voyager visits 20th-century Los Angeles. [DVD]

My Rating - 6

Fan Rating Average - 5.93

Rate episode?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 13 1 5 3 19 9 9 17 15 12 17

Problems
- Tuvok says, "Thermal and ultraviolet radiation are at hazardous levels." You grew up on a bloody desert planet, Freakasaurus! I think you can handle a little California.

Factoids
- In 2047, the entire region of southern California sank into the ocean. It became one of the world's largest coral reefs, home to thousands of different marine species.

Remarkable Scenes
- Tuvok catching Janeway's ball.
- Braxton trying to destroy Voyager.
- Janeway: "I won't sacrifice this ship and crew based on a ten second conversation, I need proof!"
- Tuvok: "We could have worn our starfleet uniforms. I doubt anyone would have noticed."
- Braxton describing the temporal paradox.
- Braxton lamenting about the 20th century.
- The phaser fight just after Tuvok wipes Raine's computer.
- The soap opera scene.
- Tuvok and Paris in Raine's van. Not very good spies. :)

My Review
This episode used to be one of my favorites of Voyager, but in later years I've grown to like it less. The main problem is that they get a few things just wrong, and during this time in Earth's past the Eugenics wars are going on, yet there is no mention of it. None of the little problems in this episode are serious, but they make the episode that much less effective to the seasoned Star Trek viewer. Some details that annoyed me were the way computers were handled in the episode; I rather like how when people type for two seconds and suddenly the computer does fifteen things automatically. Other than that, captain Braxton was a cool, albeit badly written initially and underused character. The first part presents a convincing story, though not without its flaws.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From what the? on 2007-02-04 at 11:49pm:
    I'll gladly take a million sub-par ferengi episodes to this flaming pile of human crap. We all know what happens when star trek meets 20th century earth. Stupid fill-in-the-blank jokes about spock not being able to swear right. Doesn't the joke get old after 2 minutes? Seriously, I had all I could take of star trek visiting 20th century earth when the whales needed help. Why do I need to see a rehash of a gimmicky 20 year old idea? This gets my personal worst of trek award. Enough with the social commentary nonsense.
  • From Macca on 2009-02-03 at 10:53pm:
    Actually, I rather like this one. It's fun; the temporal paradox is the usual head-f**k; Tuvok and Paris sparring makes me smile; Harry in the big chair; Neelix watching soaps - loads of good stuff.
    On the niggle side - Janeway tells Chakotay she has no idea what her ancestors were doing in 1996. Jars rather with her obsession with Shannon O'Donnell in 23:59 who was apprently the reason she went into Star Fleet.
  • From Tallifer on 2011-04-09 at 5:37am:
    Take a look outside and you will see that the Eugenics Wars clearly did not happen in the 1990s: the dates of history from that chaotic time must have become jumbled and confused during the chaos of post-armageddon Earth as portrayed in "Farpoint Station." (My justification anyways.)
  • From fromfuture on 2011-09-09 at 10:45pm:
    As of right now, this two-parter is one of my favorites of Voyager. This could've been a complete catastrophe, full of painfully cheesy and gimmicky moments. Instead, it's a solid, immersive, intensely comical, action-packed, intriguing portrayal.

    It's not perfect, but it's damn good. Braxton is a great character. The time paradoxes are excellent, including how a time anomaly and Voyager's battle with Braxton led to the computer revolution, and thus to the technology that made Voyager, Braxton's ship, and all of Starfleet (and it's "Timefleet" successor) possible.

    Rain is a great character. Starling is a great character. His silent henchman is suitable. It all works, as far as I'm concerned. Harry even gets to be captain for a day, libertarian secessionist survivalists get a cameo (love the bookcase full of canned and pickled food detail), and to top it all off the Doc is granted freedom from sickbay/holodeck! Man this thing was packed, and I enjoyed every minute of it.


    Notable Lines:

    -Braxton to LAPD: "Quasi-Cardassian totalitarian!"

    -Janeway: "The future is the past, the past is the future, it all gives me a headache."

    -Braxton: "Temporal prime directive."



    Notable Details:

    -VW/Truck chase scene is pretty awesome, for a TV show

    -Paris tells Rain that her VW van's engine is flooded. His knowledge of 20th century cars proving useful (sort of, at least for continuity's sake).

    -Doc is visibly gleeful and excited about being "out and about." It's funny how Janeway is slightly annoyed when he demands his own quarters. It's that existential dilemma creeping in again - is he a person, or a ship function?

    -The time-ship and the time rift looks awesome as far as I'm concerned.



    Minor Problems:

    -(this is really about Voyager: Death Wish, not about this episode) It's cool how Janeway at least asks Braxton to return them to the Alpha quadrant. I wonder why she didn't even ask Q when she had the opportunity (I mean after the hearing was over, not when he tried to bribe her with it)?

    -OK. The shuttle crashes in Arizona. Chakotay and Torres are captured. One of the survivalists spots "the Feds" already on their way: there are three cars and a chopper. Tuvak, Paris, and the Doctor are still in LA, when they find out the news. They take off immediately, and somehow beat the U.S. government there? Isn't there an army base or an FBI office or even a police precinct closer to the crash site than LA? Kind of weird, no? The only way I can make it work is... well... maybe if the events are not quite shown in chronological order (I'm stretching it, I know). So that the Feds are *not* spotted and *not* "on their way" before Tuvak/Paris/Doctor even hear about it, but rather after, when they are almost there. We are shown things out of order for some mysterious reasons (hey, it's a time paradox episode, why not). I'm stretching it, but the episode is good enough to deserve wiggle room.

    -The very last scene is just a tad too cheesy.
  • From thaibites on 2014-03-06 at 7:11am:
    To all you Trek geeks that have a problem with no Eugenics wars. "I AM NOT FAMILIAR WITH THAT TIMELINE." Isn't that what Braxton says at the end of the next episode? Works for me!
    My problem with this 2-parter is that we yet again have another Voyager episode dealing with Earth. I thought the whole point of creating this series was to get away from Earth and Federation Space so that we could truly "go where no one has gone before".
    What happened? Did the writers run out of ideas? Did the corporate bean-counters upstairs tell the producers that the show would appeal to more viewers if it had familiar themes and would then increase advertising revenue?
  • From Bronn on 2015-07-24 at 3:23pm:
    This is a case in which Voyager actually does several things really well, and I generally approve of the effort.

    I really, really like Tom Paris in this. They've done a good job (using actual continuity!) of establishing that Paris is a history buff (maybe American history from what we've seen), so it makes sense that he's comfortable here. His love of cars and his comments about "Secret Agents" makes me wonder if he enjoys James Bond movies. Despite that, even he's not perfect-his focus was always more on the early part of the 20th century, so he gets details wrong, like when the Cold War ended. It really humanizes him that he can be an expert without having an encyclopedic memory-it would have been easy for the writers to just have him know everything and fill in the rest of the crew.

    The mobile emitter is another brilliant thing to come out of this-it actually develops the Doctor's character, and the Doctor's character development is one of the most interesting things to happen on Voyager. Plus, it's a piece of tech that you can use to let the Doc explore, but you can always lose it later on if you feel it ruins the Doctor's character.

    Heck, I even loved Sarah Silverman in this.

    Things I don't like:

    1) Braxton at the beginning. Not in so much of a rush that he can't explain what he's doing, but in so much of a rush (why? he's in a TIME SHIP) that he tries to murder everyone on Voyager instead of evacuating them.

    2) Starling is a bit cartoonish as a villain.

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