FIRST THOUGHTS: Even though I’m not the biggest fan of this series, I absolutely hated the way they closed this out. It was maybe the most disrespectful series finale that I’ve ever seen - sidelining the characters we’ve journeyed with for four years and instead focusing on characters from another series and their moral dilemmas. The fact that the show essentially ends with characters from this other series making a decision that we as viewers don’t care about, further blunts any sense of satisfaction or closure. Plus, the death of a major character is handled in such a cavalier manner, and the entire fallout glossed over so quickly, that what should have been a deeply moving arc feels like a footnote.
And the really frustrating thing is that the season was probably the strongest of the series. It still has a lot of the problems of ‘90s/early-‘00s Trek - characters that never grow or change and yet often act solely for the convenience of plot, the white male savior issues that forces Archer to be the unshakable hero of every story, the predictable plot beats that get recycled from one series to the next… But this season also did a number of shorter story pods - two or three episode arcs - that made for much more compelling storytelling throughout. I just wish they hadn’t bungled the ending so thoroughly.
Review by Josh HornbeckBlockedParent2021-09-17T04:44:06Z
FIRST THOUGHTS:
Even though I’m not the biggest fan of this series, I absolutely hated the way they closed this out. It was maybe the most disrespectful series finale that I’ve ever seen - sidelining the characters we’ve journeyed with for four years and instead focusing on characters from another series and their moral dilemmas. The fact that the show essentially ends with characters from this other series making a decision that we as viewers don’t care about, further blunts any sense of satisfaction or closure. Plus, the death of a major character is handled in such a cavalier manner, and the entire fallout glossed over so quickly, that what should have been a deeply moving arc feels like a footnote.
And the really frustrating thing is that the season was probably the strongest of the series. It still has a lot of the problems of ‘90s/early-‘00s Trek - characters that never grow or change and yet often act solely for the convenience of plot, the white male savior issues that forces Archer to be the unshakable hero of every story, the predictable plot beats that get recycled from one series to the next… But this season also did a number of shorter story pods - two or three episode arcs - that made for much more compelling storytelling throughout. I just wish they hadn’t bungled the ending so thoroughly.