Sfdebris.net

https://www.sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/a122.php

This final episode really did sum up the series best. Definitely a trend into outright goofiness at points, but also doing a fairly interesting exploration of concepts Trek hadn't really tried before (or in some cases since). Even this one, with the wacky logic of the backwards dimension, as far as "Crew members get made younger" plots its still far less cringeworthy or awkward as something like Rascals.

I don't care what my husband says. No way in hell am I getting in that transporter and giving up decades of life I'd been granted.

Yeeeeeah... that may be the "responsible" answer a hero guy has to give on a kid's saturday morning cartoon, but no one is going to say no to a restored youth and decades of life.

I guess there was extreme memory loss associated with it, but...

What, no mention of Rascals?

RobbyB1982 wrote:Yeeeeeah... that may be the "responsible" answer a hero guy has to give on a kid's saturday morning cartoon, but no one is going to say no to a restored youth and decades of life.

I guess there was extreme memory loss associated with it, but...

But see, this is Star Trek, where any and all attempts to extend life, cheat death, or attitude other than total fatalistic acceptance will inevitably make you evil.

Reverse aging being normal for some people was also a main plot element in VOY:"Innocence".

From the way it was portrayed, it looks like the couple deaging back to when they were young also means they lost all the memories they've had since they were that age. If they had decided to stay young, from their perspective they wouldn't have increased their lifespan any, because to them the last fifty or so years of their lives never happened. It's less a Fountain of Youth and more like time travel, and since they know in the original version of events they both live to old age and are still together, successful, and seemingly happy, it makes since to stick with that sure thing than gamble that they can create an alternate timeline for themselves that would be better.

Though, honestly, it would be pretty hilarious if the episode left the Enterprise crew as infants and that was the end of the series. Just the amount of nerd rage that would provoke would almost be worth doing it.

Sure, they may not remember it, but there are records and what other people know. Anything they've written or recorded. Possibly children or grandchildren. The amnesia gained by reverse aging, while not completely undoable, can be mitigated. They can get a cliff notes version of those years. They still lived them, even if they don't remember them, and they can live them again.

Whenever this "reverse aging" stuff comes up I can't help but wonder how the people involved actually, you know, give birth. It seems like something that could be a bit of a problem if they're starting out full grown.

I didn't like this episode as much as SfDebris did (for a change). The way it handled the backwards universe made very little sense, and that seemed to be the focus of the episode. IIRC, the novelization made it all a simulation by some godlike alien of the week.
Still, it could have been worse. Without the transporter's magical reset at the end, this could have segued into a "Star Trek Babies" cartoon...
For the series as a whole, its firmly in my canon. Like I'm going to lose "Yesteryear" and keep "Masks"? Yeah, right.