25 WORST Episodes Of Star Trek EVER
4. The Fight - Voyager
Was anyone dying to see the episode where Chakotay gets to play Rocky? Anyone?
Ok, so the premise needed work. But, that doesn't mean it would necessarily be a bad episode. Plenty of strong stories have come from wafer thin plots. And Robert Beltran is certainly a strong enough actor to work with most material and any chance for Boothby to make an appearance would garner sympathy from the hardest critic. So, why does episode deliver such a clunker?
The issue is in the plot itself. Voyager gets caught in chaotic space and the aliens who live there try to contact the crew to help them escape. To do so, they rewrite Chakotay's DNA, causing him to feel as though he is losing his mind. There are several flashback scenes which are shot in the style of Orb visions but, when the episode was pieced together, it became a bit of a confusing mess.
The original idea itself is very much in the style of Trek - aliens that are so different from us have a hard time translating themselves - but it seemed as though more emphasis was placed on getting Chakotay into the boxing ring than was placed on the idea of First Contact. For what its worth, this episode ranks as one of Robert Beltran's favourites, saying that he was delighted to get a chance to box. We may not have understood just exactly what was going on but at least there's that!