# Rating Star Trek finales
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [June 3, 2019, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947 "2019-06-03T13:19:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/1 "2019-06-03T13:19:09Z")
I don’t recall a previous thread on this topic
In my opinion:
1. ST:TNG: Superb. A finale that would be one of the best ST movies if it had been big screen.
2. DS 9: A good finale to a great series.
3. Voyager: A good finale to an okay series.
4. Enterprise: Framing the finale inside an episode of TNG was a blunder.
5. STTOS: One of the worst episodes of all Trek - a sad end to the original series.
Thoughts?
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/2 "2019-06-03T13:37:37Z")
To be fair, you can’t judge TOS. No one in that era, with the exception of The Fugitive, ever had finale episodes. They just…stopped. The Clampetts are still living in Beverly Hills in the same clothes. Hogan is still in Stalag 13. And Gilligan is still on the island, and will always be.
And one vote for “All Good Things…”.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/3 "2019-06-03T14:09:19Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> And Gilligan is still on the island, and will always be.
No, the castaways were eventually rescued, twice I think. Just long after the TV series had ended.
I don’t think anyone at _ **TOS** _ knew “Turnabout Intruder” would be their farewell episode. In fact, there was supposed to be 26 episodes that season, but NBC cancelled the last two, one of which Shatner was going to direct.
To answer the question, I suppose I’ll have to go with _ **TNG** _. Haven’t seen the \*\*\*DS9 \*\*\*finale, and I didn’t care for either _ **Enterprise** _’s or _ **Voyager** _’s. The thought of fucking up a 30-year timeline for the benefit of one individual leaves me very uneasy.
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### Author:  [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/4 "2019-06-03T14:12:21Z")
All Good Things is frigging terrible. ‘Oh, the Space Wedgie is developing backwards through time…so, the plot can proceed in a forward direction, as long as Picard time travels, obviously. Nothing internally contradictory about that!’
Of the ones I can recall (all except Voyager), DS9’s final episode is the only that’s not garbage, and even it is merely ‘meh’.
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/5 "2019-06-03T14:35:41Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> I don’t think anyone at _ **TOS** _ knew “Turnabout Intruder” would be their farewell episode. In fact, there was supposed to be 26 episodes that season, but NBC cancelled the last two, **one of which Shatner was going to direct**. (Emphasis added)
So, “Turnabout Intruder” WAS the good finale?
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/6 "2019-06-03T15:04:08Z")
. . .
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/7 "2019-06-03T15:21:57Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> No, the castaways were eventually rescued, twice I think. Just long after the TV series had ended.
That isn’t canon!
🆒
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### Author:  [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/8 "2019-06-03T15:35:12Z")
Maybe All Our Yesterdays should be seen as the TOS Finale.
I don’t loath Turnabout Intruder but see how others do.
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### Author:  [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/9 "2019-06-03T15:36:13Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> No, the castaways were eventually rescued, twice I think. Just long after the TV series had ended.
>
> I don’t think anyone at _ **TOS** _ knew “Turnabout Intruder” would be their farewell episode. In fact, there was supposed to be 26 episodes that season, but NBC cancelled the last two, one of which Shatner was going to direct.
>
> To answer the question, I suppose I’ll have to go with _ **TNG** _. Haven’t seen the \*\*\*DS9 \*\*\*finale, and I didn’t care for either _ **Enterprise** _’s or _ **Voyager** _’s. The thought of fucking up a 30-year timeline for the benefit of one individual leaves me very uneasy.
Last we saw them, the castaways were still on the island…with the Harlem Globetrotters I believe.
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### Author:  [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/10 "2019-06-03T15:46:50Z")
No love for “The Counter-Clock Incident”??
Which, I would offer, supersedes “Turnabout Intruder” as the last “Original Series” episode, in a way. 😃
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/11 "2019-06-03T15:51:49Z")
All Good Things… was superb. The DS9 finale was mixed – the war-ending stuff was solid, but the supernatural demon stuff got pretty silly, IIRC (it’s been several years). But the overall Dominion War arc was excellent – easily the best big story arc in Trek, IMO.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/12 "2019-06-03T16:25:44Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> But the overall Dominion War arc was excellent – easily the best big story arc in Trek, IMO.
Well, that’s another modern thing. In TNG and older, no one did season(s) long arcs.
Unless you count Encounter at Farpoint and All Good Things… as one arc. :eek:
The closest thing to an arc in TOS was having Harry Mudd in two episodes. They couldn’t even keep the same Klingon foil for Kirk like they would have liked to.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/13 "2019-06-03T16:34:06Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#):
>
> So, “Turnabout Intruder” WAS the good finale?
It was the last episode _produced_. Now that I think about it, I remember watching “Requiem for Methuselah” in either late August or early September 1969 (summer vacation was coming to an end), so that may well have been the last episode _aired_.
Surely that would have been a more appropriate final episode.
“Forget!”
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/14 "2019-06-03T16:37:03Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#):
>
> Last we saw them, the castaways were still on the island…with the Harlem Globetrotters I believe.
Yes … but they could \*leave \*whenever they wanted to, couldn’t they? 😕
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### Author:  [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/15 "2019-06-03T19:39:09Z")
“All Good Things” was indeed excellent. My one quibble is the “paradox” of an explosion of anti-time growing backward in time was blindingly obvious. Picard was forced to hold an idiot ball so the story could play out.
I stopped watching DS9 before the finale. Voyager’s finale was, IMHO, pretty darn good especially for a show that had gone so off the rails.
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### Author:  [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2019, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/16 "2019-06-03T20:13:06Z")
Definitely “All Good Things…”
My issue with DS9’s finale is it felt more like a finale of just the last two seasons or so than the series as a whole.
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### Author:  [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2019, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/17 "2019-06-04T14:42:28Z")
TNG, without a doubt. TOS has at least three claimants to bring the last episode, but mostly it’s said to be Turnabout Intruder, which is mediocre, although nowhere near the worst, not when there’s the Omega Glory, or the Empath, or the one where the space hippies call Kirk “Herbert”.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2019, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/18 "2019-06-04T15:53:03Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> It was the last episode _produced_. Now that I think about it, I remember watching “Requiem for Methuselah” in either late August or early September 1969 (summer vacation was coming to an end), so that may well have been the last episode _aired_.
>
> Surely that would have been a more appropriate final episode.
>
> “Forget!”
Nope, _Turnabout Intruder_ was the final first-run episode aired, on June 3, 1969. Anything aired after that was a rerun.
> **[Turnabout Intruder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnabout_Intruder)**
>
> "Turnabout Intruder" is the twenty-fourth and final episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Arthur H. Singer (based on a story by Gene Roddenberry) and directed by Herb Wallerstein, it was first broadcast on June 3, 1969.
> In the episode, a woman switches bodies with Captain Kirk and then tries to take over command of the Enterprise.
> Originally scheduled to air at 10pm on Friday, March 28, 1969, NBC pre-empted it with a special report...
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2019, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/19 "2019-06-04T16:06:30Z")
> [@cochrane](#):
>
> Nope, _Turnabout Intruder_ was the final first-run episode aired, on June 3, 1969. Anything aired after that was a rerun.
>
> [Turnabout Intruder - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnabout_Intruder)
Wow. Fifty years ago yesterday!
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2019, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rating-star-trek-finales/834947/20 "2019-06-04T16:26:57Z")
> [@cochrane](#):
>
> Nope, _Turnabout Intruder_ was the final first-run episode aired, on June 3, 1969. Anything aired after that was a rerun.
Of course. Back then, almost everything in the summer was a rerun, except for summer replacement shows.
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