Star Trek: Voyager (TV Series) Future's End (1996) User Reviews

Wow...the ship is sent back to 20th century Earth...I bet that's never been done before...

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 17 February 2015]

This is yet another time travel episode that takes the ship back to the 20th century! Despite a heavily reused plot idea, this one manages to deliver in every other way--and this two-parter is well worth seeing.

The episode begins like most others--temporal police from the 29th century arrive and announce that they are going to destroy Voyager in order to prevent the future from being wiped out! However, Captain Janeway isn't about to just let them blow up the ship and in the process of fighting back, the captain of the temporal ship AND Voyager are sent back in time. Why they then arrive in 20th century Earth never did make much sense to me since they were in the Delta Quadrant.

When crew from Voyager land on Earth they soon discover the time cop--but apparently he landed there a few decades earlier. Soon they realize that the problem with the time police is not due to them but a major jerk from the 20th century, Mr. Starling (Ed Begley, Jr.), who apparently discovered the time cop's damaged ship back in 1967 and has been exploiting the 29th century technology to become a mega-rich 'genius'. Can the landing party manage to beat this jerk using very futuristic technology combined with zero ethics?

Guest starring along with Begley is Sarah Silverman who is rather cute as a 20th century lady who want to help Voyager. What I particularly liked about this one is seeing the landing party trying to fit in-- and landing at Venice Beach in California--which is well known for being almost like a freak show atmosphere (this is not meant as an insult). This is when Tuvok remarks "We could have worn our Starfleet uniforms...I doubt if anyone would have noticed!". In fact, several times Tuvok delivered some zingers. It also offers the first time for the Doctor to become completely mobile--using 20th century technology to be able to walk about on Earth unimpeded. Overall, this is a very clever episode that combines a few laughs and an engaging story.

20th Century L.A. Is More Alien Than the Aliens

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 23 August 2018]

Ed Begley and Sarah Silverman. The crew is minding their own business when they are attacked by a small ship from the 29th Century. They are told by the pilot that Voyager must be destroyed because it is instrumental in the deaths of billions of people in his time. Voyager sails into a rift and finds itself in 1996. The crew members are transported to the surface to find the man who attacked them. They run into a man who has commandeered the time traveller's ship, planning to use it. He must be stopped. He is formidable because he has future technology. I love these time travel shows and look forward to the second part.

One of the best 'Time Travel' episodes

[dukeb0y · 9/10 · 10 March 2010]

I won't give much away, but this is one of my favorite episodes.

Voyager, due to a Temporal space anomaly, that is man made, flies WAY back to 1996 L.A. Great street scenes. Tuvok says "I don't think they would have noticed if we were in our uniforms". Something to that effect.

This is where the Dr. gets his portable "Holomitter". From the past? watch and find out!

Great performance by Sarah Silverman, Ed Begley, and the regular cast of Voyager.

Considering the TV budget, it's EXCELLENT quality, including early CGI.

I gave it 9 stars, great Science fiction!

A "Top Ten Episodes" Contender

[adayldbagl · 10/10 · 15 November 2021]

This is a very well written episode. Perfect pacing, good performances, impactful plot. Very cool guest star, some screen time for the Doctor, I could hardly ask for more.

1996 really was the peak of our civilization.

Don't listen to the people complaining about the time travel paradox not making sense. Time travel never makes sense in Star Trek. If you want time travel with consistent, logical rules, look for hard science fiction instead of Star Trek.

"From A to B to C"

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 17 June 2019]

This is another episode that I had reviewed previously, and the review has magically disappeared. Can you please restore my original review. Thank you.

Shortly after this episode aired, "First Contact" was shown in the theaters. The title of this pair of episodes becomes an important line, said by the Borg Queen. "Watch your futures end"

I thought that was nice how they took the name of this episode and put it into a feature film. In fact, the name of this episode appears in other places as well, it's a pivotal episode not just for voyager, but for Star Trek in general.

So... Voyager goes back to a contemporary point in time, in this case 1996. Well, I don't care whether or not "Star Trek 4 the voyage home" did the same thing or that they even did something similar to this in deep space nine. Or that Star Trek discovery has a magic red angel suit that can bring them to any point in time, so what? This episode of Voyager is not any of those, and was not made like any of those, it's its own dog. And as such, it has a lot of very unique things in it. So stick a sock in your mouth whoever is saying "this has already been done", your negative review has already been done, and I'm pretty tired of reading it especially as it appears as if it was written by several different reviewers but in fact it was written by only one guy.

I liked the original actor that played Captain Braxton, later, he is replaced by that guy who used to fly MacGyver around all the time, and he was good too (he was also in the movie Timecop as well), but I wish he would've done Captain Braxton originally. We get used to seeing an actor creating a character, and then later having to replace that actor with somebody new. It was even done in Game of Thrones, at least four times that I can remember. But I liked the guy who originally played Braxton, and I wish they would have used him when the character appeared later in the series.

Voyager is attacked by a timecop from the 29th century (Braxton), who doesn't really want to give Janeway too many details about why he has to do such a thing. Other than "Voyager was there". Janeway is not going to allow her ship to be destroyed on the basis of a 10 second conversation, The resulting confrontation begins this conundrum.

After that point, we get to see why that A to B to C thing comes into play- Braxton explains the thing beautifully in his new role as Bum. Wait, how did he get from Timecop, to Bum? I don't know, watch the episode.

This episode has some very funny character actors and some very funny things in it including Sarah Silverman, very young, and she bounces off of Tom Paris beautifully. She's almost as whack as he is, so it's a match made in, wherever.

This episode even has Alex Jones style conspiracy theorists getting their asses whomped, which is a beautiful thing to behold.

And then it also has the guy from Saint elsewhere, Ed Begley Junior, in fact he's got the first line in this episode, and it's great.

Another episode that I originally saw when it was first broadcast. One other very important thing occurs in this pair of episodes, as they say in Starship Troopers, "do you want to know more?"

Sent to the past by a ship from the future.

[Tweekums · 9/10 · 21 August 2010]

This episode opens back in the sixties with a hippie called Starling being somewhat surprised when a spaceship crashes near where he was camping. After the credits the action switches to Voyager just before a temporal rift opens in from of them. A Federation ship from the 29th Century emerges and attacks claiming that Voyager will be responsibly for a disaster in that time. Voyager resists the attack and both ships are thrown back in to the past. Voyager is now in orbit above 1997 Earth and there are signs that the time ship may be in Los Angeles. On the surface they find that Captain Braxton is living on the streets and his ship was stolen by the hippie we saw in the opening scene. He is now a successful businessman and has been using the future technology to help his computer business. A researcher working for Starling finds Voyager in orbit and sends a message assuming it must be an alien ship, Tom and Tuvok go to the Griffith Observatory to discover what she knows and to delete her records, things go a little wrong however when one of Starling's men turns up and tries to kill them all with a weapon that is clearly from far in the future. Meanwhile the Captain and Chakotay have broken into Starling's office and discovered that he plans to launch the timeship unfortunately they are caught soon after. They manage to beam out but in doing so they Voyager is spotted and when they try to take the timeship Starling manages to steal a lot of information from Voyager's computer... and a member of the crew!

It was fun to see the away team exploring '90s LA, clearly inspired by Star Trek IV: The Return Home where Kirk and his crew end up in the '80s. Ed Begley Jr. was suitably sinister as Starling and Sarah Silverman put in a fun performance as the researcher Rain Robinson. The regular cast were clearly having fun as people out of their time.

Tuvok 'n The Hood

[Bolesroor · 10/10 · 2 February 2011]

(Please Note: This is my review for both parts of the two-part episode "Future's End.")

Future's End is a beautiful time-travel episode which involves the crew of Voyager traveling to present-day Earth in order to stop a time-traveler from destroying their ship. If Voyager ever made a major motion picture, this is the script on which it should have been based.

Packed with story, fast-moving, and genuinely funny, this is Star Trek at its best. Sure, human cancer Sarah Silverman guest-starred as the astronomer, and yes, Egg Begley, Jr's role as evil technocrat was rushed and slightly under-developed, but there's so much here to love: A time ship from century 29 set to destroy Voyager for the good of mankind… Tuvok dressed like a brother from the hood… Kes and Neelix watching soap operas...

Okay, so Voyager should be better protected against a 1996 IBM desktop and the Doc's mobile emitter was the first step in the over-use and eventual abuse of the Doctor character, but this is too fun to nitpick.

GRADE: A

Best ever episodes

[evans-15475 · 10/10 · 8 February 2020]

By far my favourite two episodes,the banter with Sarah Silverman is just top notch and the whole story just flows so well, I don't know why all the extras in LA were such extremes and in 2020 I don't know what the aim was,the only negative was the enabling of the doctor to expand his part

Ah, the Joys of Time Travel

[flash-104 · 8/10 · 6 August 2021]

Ah, the joys of time travel, back to a (surprise, surprise) spatio-temporal location near the production studio, in a bygone millennium when an attractive woman could safely walk on a Los Angeles beach protected by only a Vulcan security chief and two high-T human males. Some things never change, however: The chief threat is from technology belonging to a vagrant vandal, and (spoiler) the supervillain turns out to be a capitalist. Despite the clichés, however, it's good fun; thanks to Voyager for People who Hate Voyager for the recommendation.

Sacrificing billions for a sweet penthouse.

[thevacinstaller · 7/10 · 16 July 2021]

It's worth watching for the 90's apparel alone. Halters Tops, Janeway's casual professional outfit and whatever the hell tuvok is wearing looks like he dressed in the dark.

If we are being honest ---- The storyline of this episode is a bit of a mess but the forward momentum and wacky situations that the crew find themselves in turns out to be enough to turn a blind eye to certain problems.

My enjoyment in this episode is mainly in appreciating the campy elements of it ----- The high tension "truck chase" scene was straight out of a B-Grade 80's action flick and I was roaring with laughter.

I sometimes ponder if this episode was created as a means of getting the doctor out of sickbay? He's one of the strongest actors on the show and more Doctor centric episodes are always welcomed.

This isn't masterclass trek but it is hilarious in spots and brings back a bit of that adored camp that trek has been missing since S1 of Next Gen.

what could've been

[awbusa · 10/10 · 10 March 2021]

SARAH SILVERMAN was supposed to be a new addition to STAR TREK : VOYAGER and a love interest for TOM PARIS but after they went to all the TROUBLE of establishing her character the producers went in another direction - RAIN'S character could've worked with a different character name and a different actress SARAH SILVERMAN wasn't a good fit to the show - BRANNON BRAGA infamous for his RELATIONSHIP with STAR TREK : DS9's TERRY FARRELL JADZIA DAX had an interest in JERI RYAN and they started dating while she was married to REPUBLICAN SENATOR JACK RYAN & he was the primary opponent for DEMOCRAT SENATOR BARACK OBAMA for the 2016 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION and JACK RYAN could've been the U.S. PRESIDENT and JERI RYAN the FIRST LADY but she chose BRANNON BRAGA oh well & here's to what might've been - I lost interest in 7 of 9 after the tabloid reports of their relationship

Right Place, Wrong Time

[mlane-19099 · 7/10 · 30 August 2018]

This episode is a good one. Time traveling to the year1996. Good set of acting. I seen this episode maybe 15 times or so.

Timeless premise ruined by insultingly bad writing

[JamesB-Rodgers · 1/10 · 17 June 2023]

This should be a standard Star Trek time travel episode. And instead, the writers said, "how about we create a villain who knows everything, can anticipate anything, and do literally anything" How can we do all this? Unexplained reasons! How does he MASTER technology that's literally hundreds of years beyond his comprehension? More unexplained reasons! Does the villain even operate consistently or use mild logic with his seemingly endless magical powers? ROFL Nope! He's gotta do things that drive the plot so things can happen! I could never fathom a way in which my intelligence could be more insulted... oh wait, nevermind, I just had to give the episode more time. Oh wait, there's a part 2!!!

We could have worn our Starfleet uniforms

[snoozejonc · 7/10 · 22 December 2022]

Voyager goes back in time to the 1990s and when somebody tampers with the timeline.

This is a fun time travel episode with some memorable moments.

The strength of this first part is in setting up a good premise and making me want to find out what happens next. There are also some attempts at humour that for me range from mildly to moderately funny.

Several characters are used quite well by the writers, such as Janeway, Chakotay, Tom Paris, Tuvok and Harry Kim. They are overshadowed slightly by the presence of guest characters played by Ed Begley Jr and Sarah Silverman, but this is not a negative.

It's quite amusing to see Star Trek characters in 90s L. A. locations. I think it's quite reminiscent of stories like 'The City on the Edge of Forever' and 'The Voyage Home', but it's main inspiration has to be 'Back to the Future 2'.

This time travel episode should have worked, except ...

[makiefer · 7/10 · 24 October 2023]

... the past is hate. Even the contemporary 90s. Time travel works, if Star Trek travels between times in the future. See e.g. 'Yesterday's Enterprise,' season 3 of The Next Generation series. Star Trek: Voyager's universe was so beautifully developed, that you immediately spot that the real-life 90s were hate (albeit an alternate-universe-90s were Microsoft rules earth). Cinema flic Star Trek IV tried the same, and traveled back to their real-life 80s. Hate. Look at medieval paintings. All the hyped Venetian maestros - really - painted hate. Google them and explain to me how they are not hate. (Some ancient Dutch paintings are watchable because they drew nature.) If contemporary times were bearable, the best existing show ever, Voyager, would have nailed it. They are really not.

Ridiculous

[Whyaducck · 1/10 · 15 August 2021]

So much nonsense. Help do people get past this stuff? I would think the show would adhere to a higher intelligence but no. Too much to list so I won't bother.