Nathan Edward Williams

Star Trek: Voyager Future's End, Part II Original Airdate: 1996-11-13

We rejoin our heroes on earth outside the noble VW Bus. Paris is trying to use Rain's car stereo to repair his communicator that was damaged when Dunbar used The Weapon™ against them. He's unsuccessful, but they figure out that they could use the radio dish at the observatory to send a signal to Voyager. Actually, they eventually figure out how not only to use the dish to contact Voyager, but route the signal through local cellular towers to enable them to use a common cell phone (humongous in 1996) to talk freely with Voyager. I must say that's pretty damned impressive considering how often your average cell phone drops a call today, much less in 1996!

Can...can you hear me now? Hello? J-Janeway? Wait...is that...can you? Hold on, let me go outside...

Back on Voyager, Janeway and crew are discussing their options. They again affirm that Henry is a "genius," but that that will only get him into the future. It won't prevent him from destroying the solar system in the 29th century. Tuvok gives them a call, and they decide to enlist Rain's help to get the timeship, since she's employed by Henry.

Henry, meanwhile, is talking with The Doctor. We learn that he has a "holographic simulator" in his office that he uses to test new microchip designs, and it allows him to project The Doctor perfectly. Riiiiight...

Henry believes that Janeway has come to steal his timeship, and that the whole part about him destroying Earth in the future is bullshit. Our genius then informs us that he's not some "backwards 20th century Neanderthal," and that he wants to know about Janeway. The Doctor tells him that Henry has no way of intimidating him, but Henry has figured out how to alter The Doctor's program and cause him pain. He makes The Doctor feel like he's on fire, and this whole scene just reminds me of how much Ed Begley Jr. is just phoning it in, and how good of an actor Robert Picardo is.

Henry's interrupted by a call from Rain. She tells him how people are shooting at her and they're going to find her, etc., etc. Henry tells her to take a cab to his office (so he can kill her, because, you know, he's Eeeevil), but she gets him to agree to meet her at Metro Plaza.

Henry then tells The Doctor that he's coming with him. The Doctor points out that he can't go where there aren't holographic emitters. Henry just laughs. You see, Voyager (the show) has decided to rip off Red Dwarf even further than they already have. Henry has a "mobile emitter" that The Doctor can wear on his arm to go anywhere. Yes, we now have Voyager's version of the Light Bee. As we'll learn, by the 29th century we'll have perpetual motion technology, since this thing is described as "self-sustaining." Maybe it's like one of those self-winding watches that's powered by the movement of your wrist. I guess I shouldn't be too upset by this, though. With this miraculous invention, I get to see a lot more of The Doctor, who was almost reason enough to watch Voyager. Almost.

I'm going to have to start wearing a damned "H" on my forehead now, aren't ?

Kinetic Movement of the future!

So Henry goes to the Plaza. Chakotay and B’Elanna go down in a shuttlecraft to beam up Henry. Tuvok has triangulated the location of Rain's bus to beam up Henry. Rain tries to draw him back to her bus, but Henry takes her to his car, which means Tuvok has to quickly re-triangulate the beam-out location.

Once inside the car, Chakotay tries to beam up Henry, who manages to activate a device to disrupt the transport. He is unsuccessful, and dematerializes. Rain and The Doctor escape from Dunbar. But wait, Henry is stuck in their pattern buffer, and they can't get him to rematerialize!

Kal-El, I am your father!

And with this fist, thy ass shall I kick.

This is just stupid. How the hell can a device that has been broken down to energy still have an effect on the transporter? Even more, how could it be disrupting systems all over the shuttle? I thought it was bad when you had characters moving around during transport on Next Generation, but this is like a whole new level of absurdity. We've crossed into bullshitity, or something.

As the shuttle gains altitude, Voyager locks on to the shuttle's pattern buffer and transfers him to Voyager. On Voyager, they still can't get him to materialize because the tricorderish device he's holding, that's still broken down to energy, is putting out an "interference signal." Harry compensates, and Henry arrives only to pass out on the transporter pad.

Meanwhile, the shuttle is damaged enough to cause them to crash on the outskirts of a rejected set from Deliverance. Chakotay and B’Elanna wake up tied up in the basement of a farmhouse. Their captors are apparently members of the California branch of the Montana Militia, as they are armed to the teeth, and suspect that Chakotay and B’Elanna are government spies. I should point out that this entire subplot is completely pointless. Really, it's just padding. You could completely remove it from the story, and nothing else would be affected.

Yup, happiness is a warm gun and a cold beer, I tell you what!

So the rednecks come in and tell Chakotay that he has a purdy mouth, I mean that they were sent in their stealth plane by the Federal Government, and that the Federal Government is "The Beast" come to get them. Oh brother.

No, really, I played Meg Mucklebones!

We rejoin Rain and gang in her bus. Janeway calls them to tell them that Chakotay went down in Arizona, and that they need to rescue them. Tuvok sends Paris back to Chronowerx with Rain to continue trying to get the timeship.

Back on Voyager, Janeway and Henry have an exchange that I can only describe as childish. It's basically made up of:

Janeway: Neener-neener, we caught you! Give us the timeship!
Henry: You can't threaten me, I'll blow up Los Angeles!
Janeway: You don't care about anything, do you, you Big Meanie?
Henry: I care about the betterment of mankind, and you're a Poopy-Head!
Janeway: No, you are!
Henry: No, you are!
Janeway: I know you are, but what am I?

And so on...

Oh gods, just stop squeezing my testicles and I'll tell you anything!

Essentially, Henry wants to go to the future to get more technology so he can start "the next ten computer revolutions." He actually takes credit for the bar-code reader. Gods, this episode is full of hot air and bullshit. And we all know how bad that smells!

If you look carefully at the end of this scene, Janeway erects a force-field about 6 inches in front of the bio-bed, but when Henry touches it a few moments later, it's moved to a few feet in front of the bio-bed.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Good Night!

Back to the useless subplot with the rednecks, and we find the head redneck telling Chakotay and B’Elanna that the gubmint's BAD, m'kay! I'd relate his speech, but it's just too stupid. The, uh, irony comes at the end of the scene when the Feds actually show up to shut down their Waco Compound, or whatever the hell they've got going on. The writers have turned on their improbability engine, though, as Tuvok and The Doctor come to rescue them, right when the Feds arrive. A mild firefight ensues, but it's nothing really worth writing about.

Look, I can do a Kirstie Alley impersonation!

Rain and Paris are heading back to Chronowerx, and Rain is still trying to get Paris to tell her what's going on. I don't really understand why Paris won't just tell her he's from the future. Would it really hurt things any more than they already have been?

Dunbar is now in the timeship, and yee-hah, he transports Henry through Voyager's shields. They then proceed to send out a black truck emitting Tachyon Emissions as a decoy to draw them away from the real ship, which is still in the Chronowerx building. That shifty bastard!

Rain and Paris give chase, and Dunbar shoots at them. Paris shoots out the truck's tires, and the truck spins out of control. Rain slams on the brakes and the bus dies. While trying to restart it, the truck comes over the hill to ram them, but Rain and Paris jump free!

Voyager's shuttle comes over the hill and destroys the truck in a truly horrific CG explosion. I mean, it's first season Babylon 5 bad. The cab disappears in a shower of perfectly square fragments flying off. Oh, and when if you watch Paris look at the shuttle, he doesn't look anywhere near it. He looks a good twenty feet below it.

Maybe he's looking at the bushes, I don't know.

Farewell Dunbar, we hardly knew ye...

They realize that the timeship wasn't in the truck, and we cut to Henry in the timeship. He activates the "Hyper-Impulse Drive" and launches out the side of the building in another horrific CG explosion. This time we have the same square fragments shooting out the side of the building, but the ship doesn't leave much of a hole behind.

Janeway decides that since phasers are still off-line and the photon torpedoes won't respond to the launch sequence, she should go down and reconfigure them for manual launch.

Janeway. The captain. Leaves the bridge in the hands of Ensign Kim again. Don't they have engineers on the ship who can do this? If I was B’Elanna, I'd be pissed! Not only is Kim given the reins to the ship, but the captain decides to pull another Captain Kirk and go down to perform a task that any redshirt really could have handled.

Harry warns Janeway that launching a photon torpedo manually will cause plasma exhaust to blow back and burn her, but she's just too cool to listen to him. Don't they have face-shields on the ship?

Henry goes to warp and prepares to go forward in time. Janeway manually launches a torpedo and destroys the timeship (burning herself in the process). Henry's final shot is priceless, as he gets a "Oh Garsh!" look on his face and says, "Uh-Oh!" The ship explodes, and the rift closes, trapping Voyager in 1996.

Woah.

Fortunately (mainly because it means this episode is almost over), a deus ex machina arrives in time as Captain Braxton shows up in his timeship to send them home. Apparently his people in the 29th century can scan time and noticed that they were in the 20th century. He's come to send them back to the 24th century to correct this anomaly. Of course, they could've shown up years ago to get Braxton's ship, or even days ago to get Voyager (I'm actually offended that they didn't have the decency to stop the episode from occurring!). Oh well, my brain hurts too much from watching an hour and a half of stupidity anyway, so we'll just take this one in stride.

Woo-hoo, it's over! Yeah!

I already have the voice of an old man, so why not the grumpy frown of one?

Anyway, he can't send them home to the Alpha Quadrant because of his Prime Directive and all, so they have to go back to the Delta Quadrant. Bummer for them. I guess the words "Prime Directive" mean pretty much the same thing anywhere you go: "We are directed primarily to do whatever involves the least amount of effort on our part, especially if lifting the proverbial finger would be immensely compassionate and benefit a large number of people."

And my job here is done. Thank the gods!