By Chris Snellgrove
| Revealed
Pop quiz: Who do you suppose is essentially the most boring character in Star Trek? The franchise is full of annoying characters like Wesley Crusher and Neelix, however these characters had been at the least grating in memorable methods. Sadly, Voyager had one character whose strains, line deliveries, and plotlines had been assured to place you to sleep.
We’re speaking about Chakotay, the previous Maquis insurgent chief who has all of the character of an unsalted cracker the second he turns into Captain Janeway’s first officer. Nevertheless, Voyager did their finest to right the issues with this character very early on. For instance, the forgotten Season 2 episode “Initiations” was written largely to make Chakotay extra fascinating to audiences.
The Most Boring Man In Starfleet
Some fast context in regards to the episode: “Initiations” begins with Chakotay (performed by Robert Beltran) taking a shuttlecraft out to conduct a ritual honoring his father’s dying. However he takes custody of a younger Kazon earlier than each are captured by a bigger Kazon vessel. There, they’re compelled to flee in a rollicking journey that offers these two very totally different characters loads of time to find extra about one another’s respective cultures.
By the way, exploring Kazon tradition was one of many objectives of “Initiations” and Season 2 as an entire. However the episode was additionally written largely to make Chakotay a extra fascinating character. As revealed within the sixth difficulty of Star Trek Month-to-month (bear in mind magazines, youngsters?), the producers felt that Voyager had underutilized Chakotay within the first season.
Rebranding Chakotay As An Motion Star
Episode author Ken Biller understood the task as a result of he agreed with the producers that Chakotay was a reasonably weak sauce character in the remainder of Season 1 in comparison with how he was portrayed in “Caretaker,” the sequence premiere. Biller informed the Official Star Trek Voyager Journal that Chakotay is “like an actual motion hero within the pilot” and that “I feel we have to give him some motion tales,” one thing he hoped to do with “Initiations.” That’s why the episode options this primary officer entering into a number of fights, escaping captivity, and even providing to let his newfound ally kill him.
Why was it crucial for the writers and producers to make Chakotay a extra fascinating character? The brief reply is that early Voyagerlike The Subsequent Technology earlier than it, was hesitant to function a lot battle between characters. Subsequently, regardless that the present’s premise was that Starfleet officers can be compelled to work with Maquis terrorists, everybody principally acted like one huge, completely happy household after the primary episode thrust them collectively.
Dealing with Off In opposition to The Complete Delta Quadrant
In “Caretaker,” Chakotay is a Maquis chief who tries to assist his crew escape the pursuing Voyager. After each ships are transported to the Delta Quadrant, he proves himself out and in of battle, ultimately changing into Captain Janeway’s first officer. This was a sensible alternative due to Chakotay’s expertise and Starfleet expertise, but it surely was additionally a symbolic alternative that underscored the necessity for each crews to work collectively to outlive.
This was a recipe for juicy battle between these two very totally different characters, however that by no means occurred; Chakotay rapidly grew to become little greater than Janeway’s sure man in Season 1. The writers tried to make him extra fascinating in subsequent seasons, however this led to combined outcomes as a result of Voyager more and more relied on the fraudulent Native American marketing consultant Jamake Highwater to craft Chakotay tales. At any charge, Chakotay actor Robert Beltran got here to hate how his character was written, and he reportedly started phoning in his performances later within the present as a result of what he noticed as poor scripts.
Whereas Chakotay by no means grew to become a really fascinating character, “Initiations” stays a really stable episode stuffed with motion, journey, and a cameo from Deep House 9’s Aaron Eisenberg. In serving to to flesh out the Kazon, this episode lives as much as the Star Trek mandate to hunt out new life and new civilizations. Sadly for the followers and Beltran alike, although, Voyager would quickly run out of unusual new worlds to discover with Chakotay, who quickly cemented himself as essentially the most boring character in your complete franchise.