Star Trek Voyager: The Fight S05 E19

First, I planned to write about the movie LATINO but I have to admit it's been a while since I watched it and need time to refresh my memories for details.

I decided to go with one of Robert's Voyager episodes. As we rewatch the series and we are in season 5 right now, the memories of Star Trek Voyager's The Fight are fresh.

About this episode: Voyager entered a region called "chaotic space" because the laws of physics are so different that Voyager's crew can't find a way out of that region; even Seven of Nine (the joker on board) has no idea what to do and confirms that there is no known way out. Voyager is in danger because the chaotic space will destroy the ship. The dangerous situation is confirmed one more time by running into a ship whose crew suffered from hallucinations and died.

But it is not only the crew of that other alien vessel that hallucinated; so did Chakotay. When Voyager entered the chaotic space, Chakotay was on the holodeck running his boxing program, and the aliens tried to contact him. After he ends his boxing program, he starts to hear voices and see things. The doctor scanned Chakotay and ascribed his hallucinations to the commander's genetic disorder he inherited. He also suspected that Chakotay's "bad gene" was activated when Voyager entered chaotic space.

It gets more confusing when the Commander goes on a visionquest to seek some answers but instead of getting answeres, the visionquest jeopardized on his sanity. Chakotay is in fear of losing it completely like his grandfather did (whom we met in his vision quest for the first time—portrayed by Ned Romero), but Janeway started to suspect that by activating her first officer's bad gene, the aliens try to contact them to help Voyager to leave that part of space. For that, Chakotay has to become Voyager's ambassador by forcing his genetic disorder. At the end it worked, and Chakotay got the information on how to set a course out of chaotic space, and Voyager is safe.

Thoughts:

What the .... the first scene is Chakotay screaming:. Thanks for that. It scares the hell out of me the first time and it never changed. Everytime this episodes starts I am startled.

At the same time, you get curious how the first officer got into that painful situation.

BUT the scene we see at the beginning is close to the end of the story, and before we get to the point where Chakotay is obviously in pain, we are led back into the present. The past? To be honest, the storytelling is confusing; maybe it is mirroring the confusing mind of the first officer? Am I willing to see more in it than just not-so-good storytelling?

I think the idea to give Robert something he can work on was welcomed and about time to do so. Even though you see him nearly in every episode, real Chakotay-centric episodes are rare in comparison to other characters, especially from season 4 on. All in all, we have Initiations, Unity, Tattoo, Resolutions, Nemesis, Unforgettable, The Fight, Shattered, and Human Error.

Maybe Chakotay-centric episodes are State of Flux, Cathexis, Maneuvers, Coda, Worse Case Scenario, In the Flesh, Timeless, Natural Law, and Endgame, and some episodes have interesting moments like Year of Hell, Waking Moments, The Killing Game, Living Witness, One Small Step, and Workforce, but there are also episodes where they take his story away....

Back to the fight.

Robert's acting is great in the scene between reality and his hallucination. He is great at showing his panic and stress about losing his mind and raising his voice and being physically present. Sadly, they missed the opportunity to give that well-trained actor the chance to show more by focusing on Voyager's problem instead of going deeper into what Chakotay is going through by his fear of losing his sanity. I think of Jonathan Frakes's disturbing and moving episode Frame Of Mind (6x21). I wished they had given him the chance to go as deep as well. Which also means we should have known earlier about his genetic disorder and maybe they should have shown us how he has to handle that in his vision quests before, how that influenced his relationship with his father? How are his life and beliefs influenced by it? Just little hints would have been enough to make this episode the showdown of his personal dealings with his sanity, accepting himself, and understanding his grandfather's choice and father's behavior.

I think they missed a great opportunity.

There were some real good scenes like:

The opening is always shocking, but it is a real kickstarter.

The other one is Janeway being at sickbay to tell him to do his job as 'ambassador' - she makes a hard decision by risking her first officer sanity and Chakotay just agreed silently like a lttle boy, being afraid of knwoing the pain he will suffer but he will do, He does it most of all for his captain and she knows he will face the pain and fear when she ask him to do so. She has that power over him, not only by being his captain.

... and then there are the boxing scenes. Who got the idea?

Robert had dinner with Biller, Brager, and Mensoky: "And then they said, “What about a boxing episode?” And I said, “I like boxing..." (1)

I like boxing, too (when boxing fights were on TV, it was ladies night at home). I think boxing fits the Chakotay character well. I can't imagine him doing martial arts like judo. It is just a feeling, but it wouldn't be right. Wouldn't it?

For the boxing scenes, Robert was working with former world champion Carlos Palomino, who he had seen box and was a great fan of. (2)

Palomino is a former World Welterweight Champion and member of the IBHF; he was selected on January 8, 2004. Some statistics: he boxed 300 rounds, 61.29% of his fights ended with KOs, and his career started in 1972 and ended in 1998. (3), (4)

"OK, let’s do that. Just give me about a two-month heads-up so I can get in really good shape so I can look like a real boxer.” And they said, “Okay, we will do that.” But then one day I get a call saying they were doing the boxing episode the next week. [laughs] ... It was an episode I really liked, but I didn’t feel the bare-chested thing would be a smart thing to do because I was in good shape, but not boxing shape. Those guys are in incredible shape." (5)

With the last sentence, we go directly to the lady's section. I won't talk about whether it's in good shape or not (sorry to say that, Robert, but you have seen it coming).

The moment we ladies noticed it is about boxing:

1. We dream to see this (pic on the left).

2. We at least hoped for that (pic in the middle).

3. ...but that was all we got (pics on the right).

   
   

.... and the clothes they choose. Violet and yellow???

I don't like the combination of these colors, but did they choose it for a reason?

Violett is a symbol for humility, virtue, and penance. However, the color violet is significantly more complex. It symbolizes the mysterious and mystical, pausing and deep calm.

Yellow is the brightest of the primary colors, and in many cultures, it stands for beauty, sacredness, and divinity.

Well, if you read about the meanings of these colors, they describe Chakotay's character, his being, and his attitude. If they choose the colors because of their meaning, in that case it is ok, otherwise it would have been better to choose black and red like his uniform, right?

His gym clothes are nothing special, but why that tank top over a shirt? The grey shirt would have been enough or just the tank top. Which means we're back to what the ladies at least hoped to see (pic above in the middle).

Rating: neutrally 2-3/5:

Because it is a confusing storyline. The episode left a feeling of scenes and sequences fitting not together. They missed the opportunity to create a really good story by focusing more on Chakotay instead of Voyager's problem to leave chaotic space. Something deeper is missing. Only Boothby's speech to Chakotay at the ring in the holoprogram has maybe some depth: "Boxing is more about taking the shots ... it all comes down to the heart. Do you have the heart for this? That's the contest! It's not against him; it's against your own natural human desire not to get hurt! That's the real fight." - This is exactly what every martial artist and boxer knows, and Chakotay knows that very well, because his record at the academy was 23 to 1—and there is a legend that the "Tattooed Terror" has put more men in sickbay than the Ankaran Flu (6). That means Chakotay has known that since his academy days. He does this sport because of the fight against himself and getting better. That means even this is a bit senseless and does not put the depth into this episode as it seems to.

Rating - RB 5/5:

I like the episode because it is a Chakotay-centric episode. It is great because of the acting I described above. We get a lot of Robert, and I can imagine why he liked the episode, because he got work to do, and I guess the physical part of boxing challenges him as well as the moments on sickbay when he was in pain and tried not to lose his sanity. Even if we ladies didn't get what we hoped to see, we have Robert ... and for imagination, we have fake pictures. :)

At the end, it comes down to one question you might answer for yourself, like:

Do you feel entertained by the episode?

At the end: something for the imagination of the "Tattooed Terror":

(1), (2), (5 )https://trekmovie.com/2017/05/12/interview-robert-beltran-on-the-circuit-and-working-in-the-star-trek-voyager-factory/

(3), (4) https://boxrec.com/en/box-pro/406. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Palomino

(6) Star Trek Voyaher S6 E15

(I) original pictures belong to Paramount