Don't Trivialize Your Ending

Long, long ago in 1998 or so I briefly wrote some columns for a little local sci-fi magazine.  Not because anyone wanted me to but since I was working on the website I figured I should get something for my trouble; a column no one would care about was basically my compensation.  In one of my columns, I complained about the end of an episode of Star Trek Voyager.  

Looking back, I guess it was the finale of the 4th season--whatever that was.  Some bad shit happened and people had died or something and I complained it was inappropriate at the end for Janeway to be playing racquetball or whatever with 7 of 9 instead of contemplating what had happened. A great dramatic character moment had been lost!  Here's what I actually said, fished out of my archives on my backup hard drive:

Watching the season finale made me lose all respect for the show’s most pivotal character (or what is supposed to be the most pivotal character), Captain Janeway. It was Janeway’s reckless alliance with the Borg that destroyed the alien’s home, and yet she didn’t even care. She gave a token apology, which didn’t even seem like she meant it, and moved on. Her whole attitude suggested that the alien should just get over almost his entire race being wiped off the face of the galaxy, because she in her infinite wisdom had made a selfish decision to benefit her crew alone. I’m sorry, but you don’t just shrug off inadvertently killing billions of people, especially not if you’re a Federation captain. Life is sacred, and a captain showing so much disrespect made me angry. I actually wanted Janeway to be assimilated by the Borg. I can’t ever remember pulling so hard for a "villain" before, but to me, the real villain wasn’t the alien seeking revenge for the deaths of his race, but the Federation captain who showed no remorse

If you ask me…and few people do, I would have ended the season finale with some kind of human element. Instead of having Janeway and Seven playing some silly game on the holodeck, I would have rather seen Janeway in her quarters having some kind of reaction about what she had done. Even if she couldn’t have known, she should have felt guilty in some way. When you know a decision you made has cost innocent people their lives, you have to feel responsible, command training or no. 

Fast-forward to 2022 and I had the same feeling watching an episode of The Orville.  The episode was largely a ripoff of Star Trek IV as the dumbass pilot gets lost back in 2015 and the crew has to save him, but they can only go back to 2025, by which time he has a wife and kids and a good life--that they erase by going back to 2015 to "save" him before he met anyone.

The way the end of the episode plays out, the dumbass pilot is talking to the captain and first officer and it's really weird then how he's comforting them.  He's saying stuff like, "That must have been such a hard decision for you."  And then they get out a bottle of booze to drink the night away.

And like before, I thought a great dramatic character moment had been lost!  Instead of comforting the people who cost him happiness and getting drunk, the dumbass should have been in his quarters, holding the phone from 2015, and thinking of what might have been.  Then they could have him decide to quit and start a family--that's just my wishful thinking.

If you're wondering, it's not just me who thinks this way.  Reading Harlan Ellison's original version of City on the Edge of Forever, he commented how he really didn't like how Roddenberry/Shatner/whoever else changed the ending.  In his original ending, Kirk is in his quarters after having lost Edith Keeler in the past.  Spock goes in and comforts him and even calls him Jim.  A great dramatic character moment!

But the ending that aired has Kirk going on the bridge and saying tersely, "Let's get the hell out of here."  There are a number of reasons this might have been done:  time or maybe Shatner thought the end was too wimpy for Kirk or whatever else.  But the original was a better ending because it let our characters be vulnerable and feel something.  Just going up to the bridge and saying, "Let's get the hell out of here," or playing racquetball, or getting drunk trivializes what happened.  You might as well have them shrug and say, "Whatever."

I get these are largely episodic TV shows, so it's not really supposed to be all dramatic and have a lot of character changes and stuff.  Still, just letting a little humanity in is nice for me, the viewer.  Because if your character is trivializing what just happened, then shouldn't I do that as well?

[Shrugs] Whatever.  Let's get the hell out of here to go play racquetball and then get drunk.

(Fun Fact:  Brannon Braga is/was a writer/producer on both Voyager and The Orville, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised they have the same bad storytelling.)