I am aware that "These Are The Voyages..." was criticized by many, even by the cast and the makers, for not being a proper Enterprise finale. They argue that it was hijacked by The Next Generation, robbing Enterprise of a deserving ending in its own rite. Indeed, the dialog does contain the words "the next generation," and even "all good things..." But on the contrary, I believe that this ending works very hard at bridging a divide and legitimizing the entire Enterprise series. By seeing a future where the events of Enterprise are so revered, where their every action has become a favored holodeck program, where the ship itself has become a museum, where Archer's speech is required learning for school children, and where the foundation for the very Federation itself is laid.... man, all of a sudden I understand why this show is important. Frankly, before this episode, I just didn't care.
I also think that Tucker's sacrifice is extremely powerful. First, Archer risked missing the signing of the accord embracing the Andorians to help an old Andorian friend rescue his daughter. It had no real impact regarding the major alliance being drawn, but he owed a friend a favor and made good on it. When the bad guys boarded the Enterprise to do harm to that friend, Archer even put himself in the way to protect him. But Tucker one-upped him and put himself in the way to protect Archer. I know some have criticized Tucker's death as meaningless, but I strongly disagree. It would have been easy for the character to die for something grand like saving the alliance, or by sacrificing himself to save everyone on the ship, or something incredibly cheesy like staying back to detonate the nuke that destroys the giant asteroid headed to Earth. But this sacrifice was much more meaningful, because it wasn't necessarily a no-brainer-for-the-good-of-all-decision. It was more important than all of that. It was a personal sacrifice to save a friend.
Which is why the parallel that Riker is trying to draw really doesn't fit. Riker wants to know if it's ok to disobey orders for the right reason. But his situation is much different. He wants to tell Picard that the Pegasus has a cloaking device that violates the treaty with the Romulans. He has time to think about it, and stew on the moral implications of it all. Trip just reacts and makes a split-second decision to save an old buddy. Sure, he disobeys his captain, but he's acting on gut. Why Troi thought that experiencing these events would be helpful is not clear to me. But nevertheless, it does help Riker to make up his mind.
"These Are The Voyages..." is a Good episode. It's not necessarily good science fiction, but is's a great character episode. Seeing the crew of the NX-01 revered in the future in such a way brings gravitas to the whole series. The scenes where Riker is getting to know Trip through the crew as he prepares meals for them is really heart-warming. I don't think the TNG tie-in harms the series in any way. All fans watching the show are coming at it from a future perspective, so I don't see a problem with tying it all back in to end it. The ending sequence that blends Picard/Kirk/Archer's words together is touching. Sure, I can think of ways it could have been better, but it's not as horrible as some make it out to be. I think it gets a particularly bad wrap because of the feeling of death of the franchise that it represents. But now, over a decade later, knowing that the franchise lives on in a whole new set of movies and a whole new series, it doesn't seem so bad.On a lighter note, I just couldn't be happier to see holodeck clothes finally projected onto people, rather than having to actually change their clothes to get into character.
Published November 21, 2018
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