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Star Trek: Voyager Season 5 Episode 23

11:59

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6.9

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AIRED: 5/5/99

Stardate: Unknown
Captain Janeway relates the story of her distant ancestor, Shannon O'Donnell (Kate Mulgrew in a dual role), and her involvement in the construction of Earth's "Millennium Gate". She meets and falls in love with Henry Janeway - the one man standing in the way of the Gate's construction.

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Fan Episode Reviews (7)

doesn't live up to the score of fair

3.1

By bklynsson, Dec 11, 2011

This is a late review, I've been watching the shows in syndication on Spike via dvr. I never like these episodes that take place in current times, but these episodes can work if they are tied tightly to the future. This one is boring and seems to be a flashback although it would be a flashback of a situation no one knew about. Yhe thing that stands out to me is that this is Janeway's ancestor before she was a Janeway, but she is 44 when she meets mr Janeway and at the end they show a photo of Janeway's ancestor and her children and grandchildren. She's too old! My wife and I paused it on that photo and tried to figure out who were her children and who were grands and it just didn't fit. The music in this episode is worth mentioning and the reason I don't give this ep a 1.moreless
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Who do I talk to about getting this hour of my life back?

1.5

By FrakkingFrakker, Dec 09, 2011

Total flashback episode. Unfortunately it's a flashback to a completely unimportant ancillary character, an ancestor of Janeway's. Perhaps this was the Star Trek way of celebrating the millenium or maybe this was meant to be social commentary on the overdevelopment that has ruined many small towns in America. In the end, it doesn't matter. The episode is so offputting, and blatantly predictable.

It was an uninteresting story at heart, made worse by the fact that it doesn't forward the story of the Voyager crew. It doesn't deepen any of the main characters or even the secondary characters. It deals primarily with characters that are only in this episode. This is a problem.

What makes it more of a problem is it came just a few episodes after Course: Oblivion or whatever the title of the crummy duplicates episode was. This has been an amazingly horrid season of Voyager. As I move towards the end of the season the quality of the episodes is certainly declining. This episode almost earned a "bottom of the barrell" classification. It's awful. Don't watch it, you won't miss anything.moreless
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11:59

9.5

By TrueTvWatcher, Oct 05, 2011

11:59 was a superb episode of Star Trek: Voyager and I really enjoyed watching this episode as the crew was getting ready to celebrate Ancestor's day. It was interesting to learn more about Captain Janeway's heritage through her ancestor Shannon and her connection to the Millennium Gate. Over all a great character episode for Captain Janeway. I look forward to watching the next episode of Star Trek: Voyager!!!!!!!
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Worse Voyager episode ever! Most of the action takes place in the 20th century! The episode's millenium gate plot is almost unwatchable. A money-saving episode in preparation for "Equinox"

2.0

By gamespotshadow, Jul 22, 2010

After Neelix shows off his knowledge of Earth's history to the captain, Janeway tells the story of a 20th c. relative who was involved in the constrution of the "Millenium Gate".

We are transported to Earth circa 1999 with Kate Mulgrew playing her own distant relative. She drive an old station wagon and is down on her luck. I will spare you the details. This is totally unexpected from a Voyager episode. Roughly 36 of episode's 44 minutes are spent in boring 20th c. earth.

The little action that takes place aboard Voyager is somewhat better. One memorable scene involves members of the senior staff telling stories of their own famous relatives in Janeway's quarters.

You will see no aliens and no starship combat scenes in this one.

I give this episode 2.0/10moreless
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A nice diversionary episode, which is fine as long as they don't do it too much.

8.0

By tv-striker, Mar 09, 2009

A nice diversionary episode, which is fine as long as they don't do it too much. I think it is fine for Sci-Fi to push its boundaries once in awhile and try something different. Risky? To be sure. However, if they pull it off, it can be fairly satisfying in its own right.

This story has nothing to do with Voyager or its journey in the Delta Quadrant other than helping to explain "our" Janeway's character and motivation based on her perception of one of her ancestors. It turns out that Janeway's perception and family history is way off base. This is a flashback story of sorts telling the history of Shannon O'Donnell, Janeway's ancestor and played by Kate Mulgrew. The key part of the story takes place on December 31, 2000, just before the beginning of the new millennium as opposed to the Y2k "millennium" which was the year before. Shannon has lost her job and is heading south to Florida in an old car during a winter storm. The car breaks down in a town in Indiana where a developer is buying up all the property in order to build the Millennium Tower. This will be a self contained "biosphere" which will set the guidelines for future space colonies. "Our" Janeway believes that her ancestor Shannon was the one who built this structure. The lone holdout to selling is a bookstore named Henry Janeway. Henry is one of those people challenged by progress. He likes his life living in a world of books. Shannon somewhat cons him into letting her do some work for him so she can pay for her car repairs. This puts the two of the in close proximity to each other.

The two have a "romantic" dinner in Paris which involves opening up a travel book on the table in the bookstore. This is the extent of Henry Janeway's world. Shannon would rather visit the real Paris. (And we're talking Paris, France here… not Tom Paris).

The developer knows Shannon and offers her a job as a consultant on the tower if she can convince Janeway to sell. She tries but fails. The developer still offers her job at the tower's alternate site in Ohio. Meanwhile the construction trucks are congregating for the "midnight" deadline. Hence the episode title, 11:59. Shannon is confused and decides to leave. She drives off, unsure if she'll press on to Florida or turn east towards Ohio. Instead, she comes back. Henry Janeway also starts having a change of heart (probably helped out by his teenage son) and when Shannon returns, he takes his second chance and agrees to sell out so they can run a bookstore together in the new tower.

There's probably a couple of good points to make here. First, the characters of Shannon and Henry Janeway are very well drawn and believable. Secondly, I believe their "romance" was handled well…something of a rarity in any Sci-Fi story but especially in Voyager's case. Yes, there were some plot holes and some contrivances…like who is going to start construction on anything on New Year's Day?

Back in Voyager time, "our" Janeway is disappointed when she learns her ancestor's history was inflated. Shannon didn't build the Millennium Tower; she was only a consultant on the project. This depresses "our" Janeway. We can all relate to this. As children, our parents are big and powerful. It's a letdown when we find out they're just regular people.

Seven points out to "our" Janeway that it was the inspiration, not necessarily the content which really mattered. I would turn this in the other direction; looking down to our descendants. Who knows what you might do that might inspire your progeny? I think that's represented in the last frame of the elderly Shannon holding up what is either a grandchild or even a great-grandchild.moreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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Robert Picardo	The Doctor
Kate Mulgrew	Captain Kathryn Janeway
Robert Beltran	Commander Chakotay
Roxann Dawson	Lt. B'Elanna Torres
Ethan Phillips	Neelix
Tim Russ	Lt. Commander Tuvok

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Kevin Tighe	Henry Janeway	Guest Star
Bradley Pierce	Jason	Guest Star
John Carroll Lynch	Moss	Guest Star
Majel Barrett	Computer Voice	Recurring Role

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- Neelix: (to Seven regarding her dismissal of the idea of procreating) I wouldn't dismiss it, some day you might enjoy a little Seven of Nine point Five running around, heheh... or not, or not.
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- The Doctor: I, too, come from a distinguished line.
  Paris: His cousin's an electric shaver.
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