Star Trek: Voyager's Robert Beltran Recalls Being Surprised By The Series' Ending

Robert Beltran didn't know much about "Star Trek" before he signed on to play Commander Chakotay in "Star Trek: Voyager." In fact, according to a 2012 interview with StarTrek.com, the actor took the role because he liked the pilot script and the character. He soon realized that everyone he told about it was much more excited than he was, because they were all familiar with the franchise.

Beltran became known for being the most outspoken member of the "Voyager" cast, frequently voicing his criticisms of the show. In an interview with CNet, the actor criticized the franchise's non-interference rule known as The Prime Directive, calling it "fascist crap" to allow a species to die when you have the ability to help it. In the aforementioned interview with StarTrek.com, the actor also complained that Chakotay wasn't given any interpersonal relationships with other characters after Seska (Martha Hackett) left the show, meaning his character didn't have enough room to grow. He also criticized the show in the later seasons for focusing so much on the characters of Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), the Doctor (Robert Picardo), and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) to the detriment of the rest of the cast.

The actor even had some choice words about how "Voyager" came to a close in the two-part episode "Endgame," a story that Beltran feels was set up too quickly.

In a 2014 Reddit AMA, Robert Beltran was asked what he and the rest of the cast thought about the "Voyager" finale, "Endgame." Beltran did not hold back about his displeasure with the show's final episode. "I think most of us were surprised at the quick resolution that didn't seem to be prepared correctly but there was nothing we could do about it," the actor told the Redditors. In the episode, a version of Captain Janeway from a future timeline travels back in time to help the crew take advantage of a Borg transwarp conduit in order to finally get home to the Alpha Quadrant. It was an ending that satisfied the basic premise of the show — they were trying to get home for seven years, after all — but nothing in the preceding episodes set anything up for "Endgame."

Beltran also expressed his distaste for "Endgame" in an interview he did with TV Guide in 2001. The actor explained that he had such a bad time shooting the last few episodes of the series that he was happy to see it over and shed no tears over its ending. "It wasn't too much fun," he said of the two-part finale (via Trek Today). "Actually, it was so gruelling I was happy that is was over with." So it seems like the finale was a big surprise for the cast of "Star Trek: Voyager," and it wasn't a surprise that they enjoyed — at least in Robert Beltran's case.