S6 E15: Tsunkatse

Voyager is visiting a friendly planet, and the crew is taking this opportunity to take a little shore leave. While most of the crew is entranced by a sort of mixed martial arts fighting curcuit, Seven and Tuvok opt to enjoy some peace and quiet on a routine nebula survey. However, shortly after they leave, they are abducted, and in the process Tuvok is seriously injured. Penk, the owner of the Tsunkatse fighting franchise, has captured them, and coerces Seven into participating in return for medical care for Tuvok. When the Voyager crew sees her in the ring, they are outraged, but discover that the matches are holographically telecasted from a remote ship. Seven is taken under the wing of an honorable Hirogen fighter, who had been captured years ago. He prepares her for a "red fight" - a fight to the death - which Penk believes will bring in more viewers due to the antipathy that many of the delta quadrant denizens have towards the Borg. When Seven enters the ring, she finds out that her opponent is the Hirogen, who reverals that he has been training her in the hopes that he may finally have an honorable death. Seven is poised to deliver the killing blow, hesitating, with the Hirogen begging her to end it, when Voyager beams the two out at the last minute.

This is oddly the of the lowest rated "event" episodes on GEOS (ranked #138 of 171 episodes total) - and I actually quite enjoyed it. Now, I wasn't nearly as excited about the "big" guest star (The Rock) as I'm sure the network execs thought I would be, but I was thrilled about the other two (Jeffrey "Weyoun" Combs and J.G. "Martok" Hertzler). Both played favorite characters of mine on DS9, and it was a blast to see them again. Also, it would have been very easy for this episode to settle into the uncomfortable "moral high ground" of preaching against violent sport - I mean, the Doctor said his piece on that, and that's fine, but the episode itself only really took a stand on forced participation and fights to the death. In place as a counterpoint to the Doctor's position is Chakotay's defense of the art of combat. I'm sure that part of the reason for that fairness is the whole WWE tie-in element of the episode, so the writers probably felt they couldn't get away with demonizing it - but no matter the motives, I'll always be happier with a more even-handed Voyager story. While knowing that, exterior to the episode, Chakotay's speech comes off as a bit of a sales-pitch for fake wrestling, within the episode it makes perfect sense (and Tsunkatse really has very little to do with theatrical "wrestling" anyways).

Tuvok and Seven, of the under-used Voyager character pairings, is the one that I think the show suffers the most due to its absence. The two are great together, I love their blind-leading-the-blind relationship, and the opportunity it presents to give Seven a less narrow view of individuality than Janeway preaches about. You can imagine my delight when I realized I was going to get a Seven and Tuvok episode - the possibilities were endless! They could use their shuttle flight as a set up for debates about philosophies of idealism versus pragmatism, and then have those world-views put to the test. Tuvok, with his extensive security training and Vulcan strength would have to reluctantly train Seven; a fast learner with Borg reflexes, but whose emotions lead her to be less rational about the final bout, where Penk pits the two against each other!

The thing is, though, none of that happens. Their shuttle scene is cute enough, but then Tuvok is knocked out for the rest of the episode. Now, I thought Hertzler did a great job as the (curiously unnamed) Hirogen, and his story was fleshed out well enough (though not terribly creative - might as well have been playing a Klingon again), but this episode would have been fantastic if it had chosen to focus on two established characters that we already know and care about instead. As it is, it is still a good episode. But it could have been great.

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: This was a much better episode than I was expecting, considering both on its GEOS rating and the tie-in with a show that I am completely uninterested in. I mean, if you watch it, that's fine, we can still be friends, it's just not for me.