These Are The Voyages... - Reception

Reception

"These Are the Voyages..." was negatively received by both critics and the show's cast. Before the episode aired, Blalock called the episode "appalling." She followed up her remarks by saying she was upset over the finale being a The Next Generation episode rather than an end for Enterprise. Connor Trinneer, who played Trip Tucker, felt that the finale should have had a memorable farewell that he described as a "M*A*S*H moment", but that the producers did not want to focus on such an element. Anthony Montgomery (Travis Mayweather) was similarly displeased with the finale and said "I feel there could have been a more effective way to wrap things up for our show as well as the franchise as a whole. It just seemed to take a little bit away from what the Enterprise cast and crew worked so diligently to achieve over the past four years." While Frakes enjoyed working with Sirtis again, he said that "the reality is it was a bit of a stretch to have us shut down show," and that in hindsight it was a disservice to them. The early criticism forced the show's producers to hold a conference and address the issue. Braga admitted there was cast unrest, but defended the episode as a way to close not just Enterprise but Star Trek as a whole.

Reviewers were also critical of the Next Generation tie-in. Sci Fi Weekly's Patrick Lee said the framing story "reduces to the status of lab rats." Lee further noted that even without the guest appearances, the episode did not live up to the best offerings of the season, including "In a Mirror, Darkly". National Post's Alex Strachan called the Next Generation cameos reminders of better Star Trek, compared to the "bad make-up effects, bad acting, bad music" of the latest show. Rob Salem of the Toronto Star said the cameos served no narrative purpose, and that the episode "robs characters (and their fans) of any significant long-term development or satisfying sense of closure." Reviewers also criticized the episode's ending, where viewers never got to see Archer's rousing speech. IGN said that the episode was "Berman and Braga's parting shot, making sure that everyone knew who was in charge," and that the sharp contrast between "These Are the Voyages..." and "Terra Prime" brought into relief the reason why both should not be allowed to produce Star Trek ever again.

The death of Trip Tucker was another object of controversy. Salem described the development as "a major character is pointlessly killed off in service of a pointless plot device," a complaint echoed by IGN. Actor Connor Trinneer, who played Trip, said during a convention appearance that the character had "gotten out of much worse scrapes than that," and the death seemed forced. The writers, Trinneer contended, wanted to kill off a character to "get the fans talking," and so Trip was killed off simply to manipulate viewers. Several critics ended their reviews by saying that whether fans would be disappointed or pleased by the episode, the majority of casual viewers would not care one way or another.

In response to some of these criticisms, Coto stated that he personally considered the two-part story "Demons" and "Terra Prime" that preceded "These Are the Voyages..." the actual finale of the Enterprise storyline. Berman said "I've read a lot of the criticisms and I understand how some people feel, but and I spent a lot of time coming up with the idea and a somewhat, I would say, unique ending to a series, especially when you’re ending it prematurely. You never like to disappoint people, but I think its nonsense to say that it was more a Next Generation episode than an Enterprise episode. The only elements of that were present were there as a sounding board to allow us to look at a mission that took place six years after "Terra Prime"."

According to TrekNation, Enterprise's final episode attracted 3.8 million viewers, an increase of 69% over the previous season's finale. Newspapers covering Enterprise's cancellation and its final episode often said that the failure of Enterprise was evidence that the franchise had moved too far from its roots and grown too dark. Andy Dehnhart of MSNBC said that "while the writers and production designers deserve credit for offering worlds that were perhaps slightly more believable, they lost the fantastic, wondrous approach to space travel that The Next Generation borrowed from the original Star Trek and then perfected." USA Today's Michael Peck said that without the "dreams" of earlier series, "Star Trek becomes just another television drama." Melanie McFarland of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, meanwhile, said the show "never found the sense of uniqueness within the Trek universe that every version that came before it possessed." Despite the cancellation, Paramount remained optimistic. Studio head David Stapf looked "forward to a new chapter of this enduring franchise in the future." Berman and screenwriter Erik Jendrensen developed a concept for a new film taking place after Enterprise but before the 1960s television show. Meanwhile Paramount asked Roberto Orci for ideas to revive the franchise, resulting in the production of a prequel to the original series simply titled Star Trek, released in May 2009.