Star Trek: Voyager — 6x15 — Tsunkatse

Aired 2000-02-09

SpaceOpera.com rating:7

Average reader rating:4.74

Synopsis

Seven must fight for the entertainment of others.

Remarkable scenes

Torres: "The Borg wouldn't know fun if they assimilated an amusement park."
Seven: "Two hours, 37 minutes, 13 seconds. That's how long we've gone without verbal communication." Tuvok: "Why is that remarkable?" Seven: "The Doctor encourages me to engage in conversation during awkward silences." Tuvok: "Did you find the silence awkward?" Seven: "No." Tuvok: "Nor did I."
Chakotay, Kim, Tom, and Torres discussing Tsunkatse.
The people's champion fighting Seven.
Seven fighting the hirogen while Voyager fights the "traveling circus" ship.
Seven of Nine and the Hirogen being beamed away just as Seven's about to kill her opponent.
Tuvok consoling Seven in the end.

Review

Good continuity with Voy: The Fight regarding Chakotay's fascination with boxing. I am quite surprised though how excited everyone was, until they saw seven in the pit of course. It's as if the crew has an aristocratic opinion of the whole thing. They're above doing this sort of behavior, but not above watching it. Aside from that admittedly small deficiency, the episode is exciting. I can't say I was all that excited about "The Rock" and his guest appearance, but he didn't play a major role, nor was his role anywhere near as annoying as "real life professional wrestling" is. Though this episode seems to be remarkable guest star central. Two former very important DS9 actors in the same episode along with "The Rock." Very strange casting. Jeri Ryan (and perhaps a stunt double ;)) gave a spectacular athletic performance in this episode. Her acting as also top notch. It's not as if Star Trek (especially TOS) hasn't done "let's make our crew fight for the amusement of others" before in excess, but this particular gladiator rehash was quite well done and remains one of my favorite generic action episodes. It just goes to show how much the little details can sometimes contribute to a meager plot.

6 reader comments

I've just noticed - after watching the episode for the nth time - in several of the fight crowd shots you can see a Voth in the audience. Some recycling from the makeup dept methinks!
by David Chambers | 04/13/2010 at 10:43 pm

These episodes where the reviewer's rating and the fan ratings differ considerably are always somewhat curious. In this case, I have to side firmly with the fans, especially the ones who voted on the lower end of the scale.
In other words: atrocious.
Not completely without redeeming moments, and even redeeming characters (the Hirogen and Penk were both good), and with a good concluding scene, but painful to watch, on the whole.
Lousy fighting choreography. Lousy dialogue. Too many crowd shots, too many flashing lights, and too many spinning cameras.
by formborg | 12/31/2011 at 6:11 am

I got the impression everyone on Voyager only had a problem when the found out the competitors were not doing it of their own free will, when everyone thought that the combatants were self motivated this was fine, when they were slaves fighting for their bed and bread was when perspectives changed against the game.
Was there also a slight dig at modern day big business getting away with whatever they want as they support local economies with their revenue creation and are often above the law? For example like big pharmaceuticals and petroleum interests in modern day.
Yes the fight choreographing was terrible (did you expect Shaw brothers here? This is from a branch of Hollywood in the 90's like the rest doesn't know how to throw non theatrical punches yet)but they probably had the Rock on as fight consultant so it was bound to look like WWE trying to look like real fighting.
Redeeming features for me, harry getting goaded by the crew in regards to his paresi Squares injuries and him telling Tom he punches like a Ferengi, Weyoon and Martok actors outdoing themselves with yet another passionately twisted and convincing alien, Seven doing an abused version of wing chun or tai chi in the silver spandex and Neelix debating whether to go to the insect display at the museum or go to the fight
"Alien bugs or alien fitiscuffs? That is a tough one" next frame of film he is jumping up screaming and cheering at the fight.
by Rob UK | 10/28/2013 at 1:02 am

…wow not what I expected from people. For folks claiming to be into sci-fi, your ability to imagine non-abthropocentric species is surprisingly limited…
But then so are the writers'. Yes, this episode was mind of a weak rehash and jumble of many different things--but the inference one could make, and that I wish the writers had explicitly drawn out, is one of culture/epistemology.
Just as we have seen species who communicate only telepathically, have no concept of music, or any number of permutations on our multiple understandings of "sensible" behavior, it is easy to imagine a culture or species which already operates with a kind of shared "memory-net," this being a conventional way of sharing things for this society. Despite this being a more intense version of this and no doubt jarring to members of that society, it also would not be unfamiliar in form, like a particularly violent photo does not shock you simply because you are looking at a floating image of something that happened somewhere else, but because of its content.
And if this is the case, yes, it would be morally questionable for another species to desecrate the monument because it interacts with their physiology or cultural experience differently. If they didn't know any better and destroyed it, fine. But once they knew they had that burden of knowledge, and the final decision was very Trekkian in my opinion--maintaining a sort of "posthumous prime dirextive". Again, despite the mediocrity of the episode over all.
An analogy that occurred to me instantly upon fi ishing the episode would be some kind of alien species that did not use visual imagery of any kind in either symbolism or scientific communication, perhaps with some kind of limited and easily-damaged eyesight that would feel like staring at the sun would to us, connected to the emotion their were witnessing They are visiting a now-extinct Earth. They come across paintings, or pictures, or even gruesome historical footage of atrocities on Earth, either by downloading them or, as on the case of many monuments or murals, simply seeing them. And this causes a similar existential upset for them, leading to the dilemma of destroying or leaving the monuments. While we keep these for historical purposes, to this 'innocently exploring species'--if there is such a thing--it feels like an invasion of their very being.
So, wouldn't the answer be obvious here? To us, these are innocuous things we can turn our eyes away from easily, and disengage from. But to another species, it may not be. I thought the analogy, here, was very clear if poorly drawn out. Trek has had its fair share of species who share thoughts, project them, change their environment via the same, or even prosecute 'thought crimes'. How is this not a leap people can make?
So, yeah. While heavy handed, not the worst episode ever, by far. Get it together, people!
by parkbench | 02/28/2016 at 12:02 pm

Hard to imagine a space faring people who have travelled millions/billions of Kilometers through space being undone by a painting or photograph.
Plus there is a difference between seeing a seeing a painting right infront of you and have an image forcibly beamed into your head.
by lumzi23 | 07/27/2017 at 12:32 pm

My comment: This was one of the dumb, bad episodes. Not the dumbest or worst, of course, but dreadful all the same. One of those that'd I'd rather just forget about… and yet I comment here…
Because what I really wanted to say is:
The two comments above this one* (those of parkbench & lumzi) seem to be meant to be under "Memorial".
*if this one makes it -- which I'm supposing it will, as Kethinov (thank you) has been very accommodating so far.
by QuasiGiani | 09/19/2017 at 5:13 pm