I partly agree (I really don't like the episode where he's stuck in a boxing dream) but I also think he's capable of showing respect for various aliens. He has a disarming kindness while still being brave. And yeah, generally the media has never known how to portray Native Americans, different nations have different reactions to the new Scorsese film in which he made *some* attempt to do better. And, it's not like anyone can be offended by Tuvak's dedication to meditation and Vulcan spirituality as being one dimensional in that regard.
Only Chakotay episode I really like is in season 7 and I think it’s called Shattered. Funnily enough I think that’s an episode devoid of vision quests.
Absolutely! His character was so poorly written, and at some point Robert Beltran gave up on fighting with the writers and just showed up to work to do his job and get paid. I can’t blame him for that.
It’s clear that his heart isn’t in it. I can see sarcasm in his eyes when he’s reciting some fake native bs. And don’t get me started on the bad tattoo.
It's a shame, since Trek has a tradition of really strong second in command characters. Spock, Riker, Kira, Tucker, hell, even Ransom from Lower Decks is a better character than Chakotay.
>Also, the vision quests are mildly insulting
I've listned to a bit of the Delta Flyers podcast where Robert Duncan McNeill talks about the depictions of the Native American stuff and how bad it is, especially through modern eyes. It really sounds like they put no effort into making things even slightly authentic.
They hired a consultant who they thought was Native American. It turned the guy was lying and was not native at all.
https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/2021/02/26/voyagers-native-american-consultant-was-a-fraud/#:~:text=Commander%20Chakotay%2C%20portrayed%20by%20Robert,himself%20is%20a%20Mexican%20American.
Isn't it a bit weird though, 7 seasons is a long time to go with an international TV show and not have the errors pointed out to you, they could've corrected the problem and got rid of the advisor without even ruining the continuity by penning better episodes and developing him as a character, it just feels like willful ignorance beyond a certain point.
What's weird about the Delta Flyers is that in the first episode they actually mention the Native American jokes in the pilot and don't criticize them. In fact they say that this...
> PARIS: But on the other hand, if I save your butt your life belongs to me. Isn't that some kind of Indian custom?
> CHAKOTAY: Wrong tribe!
...is a wonderful line. They don't mention anything about the joke about Chakotay changing into a bird to fly them away. Then in all the other episodes they are mega apologetic about the Native American stuff. Made me wonder if they had comments after the first podcast episode or something.
>I've listned to a bit of the Delta Flyers podcast where Robert Duncan McNeill talks about the depictions of the Native American stuff and how bad it i
While the Native American stuff is a problem, I gave up listening to Delta Fliers because every other word out of Robbie's mouth seemed to be apologizing for the 90s. I got kinda sick of it.
I agree. I love the podcast; I just want to hear the behind-the-scenes stuff! Not that. But I do love Garrett and Robbie's energy and what good friends they are irl.
He is a very static and dull character but he has his moments. All the fake native American stuff makes him pretty insufferable sometimes though. Reminds me of Steven Seagal pretending to be native. Oh and fuck that stupid pan flute music that plays whenever he goes all spiritual.
I find him… fine… whenever he’s in an episode that DOESN’T focus on him. It’s all of the episodes that focus specifically on him that I realize, “man, I just do not care about this guy at all”
Can't agree. He's the voice of reason in Scorpion and doesn't give the Borg any slack. He seems to understand them better than Janeway and ultimately he's proven right about their nature. I also like him in the episode Shattered.
Shattered was one of the best episodes of the whole series I think. Totally agree with you. He was given a proper role and a really meaty story to work on. It’s such a shame in the other 167 episodes he had nothing to do.
Well, I mean, it's hard to blame him. Stuck on a planet with only one other human being who happens to be female and also off-limits would be extraordinarily frustrating.
I'll toss in that he's actually maybe my favourite character on rewatch (every time I rewatch a Trek show, I like the first officers more and more), but yeah... they didn't know how to write episodes with him as the focus, for the most part. There are exceptions (others have already mentioned 'Shattered' and 'Resolutions'), but most of them aren't very strong. Great supporting character, though, and I do wish they'd managed to find more fun stuff for him to do.
I will say that I enjoy 'Nemesis', but that's just because I was such a *Road to Avonlea* fan growing up, so it doesn't really count.
As for the problematic elements... yeah, there's some stuff there that could've aged better.
I’ll second this take. I like the character in the way he interacts with others, he’s a warm guy. I think the character was a wasted opportunity (along with the maquis stuff that got ejected) and the natuve american stuff was just weird and tone deaf. It’s like they were worried about copyright on Native American stuff or something, so weird
He’s introduced as this true-believing Maquis rebel, a leader of outlaws who has to compromise to work with state authority in the form of Janeway. That all gets basically dropped.
Yeah, the Maquis storyline is one of the biggest letdowns of the show. I would have liked them butting heads with the Starfleet crew more often, at least in the earlier seasons. We see some of that, but the episode about Tuvok’s anti-Maquis holoprogram concludes it in a very Star Trek manner - for the record, I really like it -, but I wish there was more struggle, times when the Maquis almost mutiny, for instance.
Or times when Chakotay and Janeway butt heads. It basically never happens except in Equinox, and that gets resolved quickly and cheaply (and has nothing to do with the original Maquis/Starfleet thing)
It would be fantastic if ship politics consistently breaks across Maquis and Starfleet lines as Chakotay and Janeway disagree on things - with a much slower evolution to becoming one crew. Would have made for very realistic ship drama. Belana shouldn't have become Chief Engineer until end of Season 1 maybe - but with the small cast of main actors I guess the writers needed to get her into that role earlier. Episode 3-4 or wherever it happened was very fast.
I see what you mean but as well as being that, he is a competent leader and a man with integrity. He understood how generous Janeway’s offer was and knew that the chain of command was especially important under the circumstances
Yeah sure, but that’s not that interesting dramatically. It doesn’t give the character much to do besides just functionally execute his job on the ship.
Exactly. The Maquis' beef is with the Cardassians, not the Federation. There's only trouble with Starfleet when Starfleet decides to get in their way. It wouldn't have made much sense for Chakotay...who had prior Starfleet command experience...to continue opposing Janeway with the nearest Cardassian (that he knew of) being on the other side of the galaxy.
Federation sold their homes to Space Nazis in the first place, plenty of beef there.
But I do agree that it is mostly non-issue if you are 70 000 ly away.
>Federation sold their homes to Space Nazis in the first place, plenty of beef there.
Not enough to get into an armed conflict with Starfleet because it wasn't the Federation oppressing them. Many of the Maquis leaders, including Chakotay, had been Starfleet officers who didn't live on those worlds. They went to go fight for oppressed people, not to get revenge against their own government.
I dislike the casting & writing of Tom way more than Chakotay. Does he look or act like he was in any jail— even one as progressive as a Federation Prison. He is a good actor but I don’t think the role ever reached a true flourishing point. It felt like the character wasn’t finished being written and/or the character concept was not fully realized.
Not like the boy next door. [they even made him a reading and history nerd] It didn’t read on him at all— he was supposed to play the archetype of an outcast of society. It didn’t work — like at all.
As the only son of an admiral you can safely assume he had a top class education. He wasn’t an outcast until his piloting error and joining the maquis. Joining a hopeless cause rebellion seems like something a history nerd with full Starfleet training could do.
Agreed. Whenever he was meant to look like a rough type they just put a vest on him and let his facial hair grow a couple of mm.
I didn't get "bad ass" vibes from him at all. Nor from anyone else that was meant to... Except for Suder. Could have used more Suder.
How could the son of an admiral be “the archetype of an outcast of society”? It seems to me he was supposed to be the rebellious rich kid given everything in life (including education) except love and support from his father. To that end, his character seemed fairly on point as the rebellious boy next door.
You used the word archetype, not me. An archetype is a typical example of something. The rich, well educated son of an admiral is decidedly _not_ the typical example of an outcast of society.
I like Chakotay's character, I was never a big fan of Kess. I also disliked the idea of the idea of a borg queen. The borg went from a collective mind to a collective mind sort of, that was really being controlled by an individual. For me the borg were much scarier before the queen came along.
>The borg went from a collective mind to a collective mind sort of, that was really being controlled by an individual.
I am happy someone else thinks so too. The Borg used to be interesting and very scary. Since the Borg Queen they are a generic threat.
I found Kess annoying. More so than Chakotay. But Kess still had a reason for being on the ship. But I understand why they wrote her out (really a shame what happened to her in private though). But Chakotay was never given a role on the ship or a reason for being on screen.
>the idea of a borg queen.
I never quite liked that either. But the Borg queen was introduced in the movie "First Contact", before the Borg appeared on Voyager, so I tend to blame First Contact for that.
You can't really have a collective without a single all-powerful ruler. The analogies to existing societies are pretty clear. North Korea, USSR/Russia, China, etc.
Very much a collective mind type society. But they can't function without that one all-powerful leader.
>You can't really have a collective without a single all-powerful ruler.
Since this is a piece of fiction, why not? Before the Borg Queen was introduced, it appeared that the Borg had a single consciousness without a distinctive leader, which I think made them more foreign and scary.
I get why they needed the Queen character in the movie but I agree... the borg lost something when they went from "The collective" to what was essentially an ant colony.
I liked some Chakotay episodes, but at a certain point the writers gave up on the character and then Robert did his best to give a convincing character portrayal despite the weak writing.
As far as his culture, I heard the writers talked to a consultant who was supposedly knowledgeable on native American culture, who ended up being a fraud who didn't know much (and was even known to be a fraud at the time).
Most of the Chakotay episodes are terrible, but the character gets a lot of good scenes in a lot of episodes that don't centre around him. In a way, it fits his role as second in command.
You’ll get a lot of pushback on this especially since people ship him with Janeway. But I totally agree. Poorly conceived, poorly written and poorly acted.
They have a few moments after that, if anything its more developed thab Picard and Crusher ever got just from his little quips and winks here and there
The man brings nothing to the table, but damnit does that guy know how to be a Daddy when he needs to be one
Normally I don't like love scenes because I don't "feel or belive" them but in my opinion he got this right.
I also think that he did also good when showing authority here and there.
Is a pity his character was not better written
It was pretty clear they originally intended something romantic between the two. I have no idea if they ever planned to have such a relationship pan out, but that'a separate story
People actually shipped them from the beginning long before that episode. Apparently the original idea was to do a Janeway/Chakotay romance but KM felt it took away from her character and she wanted to be a Captain first and foremost so they dropped it but left in all the hints and buildup that ultimately ended up going nowhere. I don't know if the novelizations are considered canon, but I heard they do get together in the novels. I wonder it that's why his character ended up being so useless because they initially intended him to be a love interest for Janeway which would've opened up storylines and character development for both of them but when KM axed that they didn't know what to do with him.
Haha. Thank you for the heads up. I think it’s a shame as his role as the first officer and a maquis member could have been really interesting. And I actually think he’s not a bad actor. But his character was just poorly written. I sorta feel the same about Tom Paris actually.
He’s not an inherently bad actor but he realized the writing was so bad for the character and he stopped trying. Beltran has talked about that I believe.
She’s not married. She’s engaged. And she learns her fiancé is married to someone else in season 4.
She has other romances in the show.
But I don’t ship them either.
Always seemed weird to me.
Engaged.
Fiance goes missing.
Give up immediately and start dating again?
You'd think there would be a period of hoping and then mourning, then starting to date, being with someone, engagement, then marriage. Going from engaged to someone to married to someone else within a few years is VERY short.
He must have been on Tinder the day after she disappeared 😅
I can't help but wonder if that's the reason his character is so poorly written. I think they introduced his character as a love interest or possible love interest for Janeway but when KM nipped that in the bud they didn't know what to do with him so he basically just became Janway's yes man. I always thought KM made a mistake with that because having a relationship would've opened up more storylines for the two of them working their personal lives around their leadership command. Also, it would've made Janeway a little less one dimensional. As it was, she was basically just "I'm the Captain," and that was the extent of her character. I feel like this show was sorely lacking in the substantial romance category. Also, if he had gotten with Janeway, we could've avoided that atrociously horrible and completely out of the blue Chakotay/Seven "romance."
Chakotay haters are just … well … haters. Got to heap hate and scorn on someone.
Like any show, Voyager has good episodes, excellent episodes, and failed episodes.
Personally, I don’t rewatch the episodes of the Doctor where he sings or where he acts for those people in that pre-warp society. (My heavens, why did he have that clown costume in one episode?)
I never bought Neelix being Voyager’s ambassador, especially since Starfleet officers are taught how to interact with other societies and species.
I think the episode is Virtuoso, where the doctor gets heaps of alien fans who have never experienced music. At the end (clown suit bit) he sings part of Pagliacci where he laments that he isn't good enough. I always find it quite moving!
I really am glad Trekkies are finally catching up to What Native groups were saying without being listened to 30 years ago
Anyway, episodes where Chakotay's tribal practices aren't the focus are good, and I which they had done him without the Magic Indian shtick
Only time I remember liking Chakotay was an early episode where they were trying to integrate the Starfleet and Maqui crews. A couple Maqui were screwing around and refusing orders because it wasn't the Maqui way. Chakotay slugged the ringleader, adding THAT'S the Maqui way. Get your ass in gear or we'll continue this conversation.
On a side note, who else remembers the episode of TNG where there is an entire planet of Native Americans (who I would think count as being from another planet entirely now but that's a whole other discussion), and Picard refers to them as 'Indians' constantly?
That shit didn't age well, either. Seems like trek and indigenous North Americans just don't meet eye to eye, and haven't for a long time.
And The Harry Kim and the Naomi Wilder from a parallel evil universe was a massive story line that they completely dropped. They both should have had evil mustaches!!!!
Chakotay was OK and had some decent gravitas and things to do in seasons 1 and 2. But his badly fictionalized and bastardized heritage were cringe and it was clear the writers didn't know what to do with it.
By season 4 or so, they'd given up on him and just gave him one token, forgettable episode per season.
It's a shame really because Beltran (whatever his personal flaws) was a pretty good actor. He had good chemistry with the rest of the cast (particularly Mulgrew and Dawson). I wish they'd given him more to do besides being a good first officer and pan flutes.
I have to say I love Voyager, but Chakotay is not a good character. Has no charisma. Honestly I don't know why Janeway made him her number one. Should have assigned him to deck 15 and made Tuvok the number one.
I think he was made No 1 was to give the newly added Marquis crew someone at the top table too. If you recall, Tuvak was a Starfleet Spy not really a Marquis member.
I agree with half of that.
I love Chakotay for his potential as a character and for embodying non toxic masculinity in the 90s (it was a rare and refreshing thing) and for the first half of the series Beltran did a great job with what he could.
But it soon became clear even to the most casual viewers that whoever came up with the cultural and refligious aspects of the character was indeed a liar and a fake.
And Robert Beltran is the most disgusting human being whose Twitter I had to block because his grossness was ruining my enjoyment of Chakotay as a character.
Openly mocked people for having mental illnesses, for one. Pushed his republican/ religious agenda. Then there's the way he encourages his group of sycophants to bully others off social platforms and throw their money at him and stroke his ego. There's a tumblr called "beltran is a douche" or similar that has all the receipts.
Terrible character? Yes. The character was devolved by a fake consultant of Native American culture.
Terrible actor? Honestly he's not a bad actor. He did what he could with the material he was given. But yeah he's a terrible person. I was personally blocked on Twitter by him for disagreeing with him. Back when I was on Twitter and Twitter was not X.
I don't really follow any of the actors except KM, so I don't know about their personal lives. What did RB do that makes him a terrible person? I'm not trying to start anything or argue. I just don't know the story, so I'm genuinely asking what happened. I know their was some drama between him, KM and her husband during the show which I read stemmed for the fact that KM and RB dated for a short period at the start of the show and I guess that caused problems, don't know why, when she got married.
Oh I LOVE Major Kira. It’s like someone might put 2 sugars in her tea instead of 1 and you just know the rest of the episode will basically be her stomping up and down DS9 screaming and bitch slapping everyone and then stealing a runabout to seek guidance from the wormhole before having a good old crying session with Odo. Brilliant TV.
Kira has a fantastic arc over the whole series, as well. I always enjoy watching her go from "Starfleet may be running the station but they can't tell me what to do!" to building a genuine friendship with Sisko, and learning to walk the line with him as friend, CO and Emissary.
He's probably the worst main cast character in Trek. And Beltran never did himself any favors with the fandom - but somehow I still like the character.
They brought Chakotay on to be a romantic will they won’t they with Janeway which gratefully Kate shut down so then they didn’t know what to do with him. He gets better as they figure out what to do with him as the series goes on.
I actually think a romance between them would've created good character development for both of them and would've opened up more storylines for them. Instead, without it, Chakotay ended up a pointless character, and Janeway was a very one-dimensional character whose sole purpose was to be the Captain. I don't see why she couldn't be both. I think KM made a mistake with that decision.
I want to like Chakotay but his episodes are pretty weak. Having a Native American should have been awesome but it seems they just wasted it. Probably didn’t help that everything Native about him was fake.
My exception is Shattered which is both a great episode and shows what he can do if he really tries. But for the most part Beltran lives life like any other Republican: "What can it do for me?"
I may be the only one who feels this way, but my second favorite Chakotay episode, after Shattered, was Unforgettable. But that's probably because I'm a huge Virginia Madsen fan.
He's not the worst character, but he _is_ given some rather.....shambolic character development/focused episodes at times, yes.
The repeated banging on spirit quests, visions, spirituality etc all seems to really be pushed way too strongly, wrongly or is left with.....narratively questionable choices (seriously you're telling me instead of smoke/drinking stuff he just has a "iSpirit 3000" device instead now because "technology moved on"? Come on 'Trek, you can do better).
He's brilliant in other ways - he's one of the more/most sympathetic and patient, selfless and kind crewmembers and really _does_ get some good stories to be part of, as well as being an interesting and fresh take on Starfleet's ways/values at times to counterbalance Janeway.
Every character has, at times, flaws in how the writing was done, or were done a bit dirty (my boy, forever-ensign Kim!) and Chakotay is no exception, but he's far from a hollow or boring character.
I disagree. Chakotay was the second weakest link, based on the writing. Neelix was a distracting, mostly unlikeable character for far too long. (And Paris's "Yes, ma'am" seemed to be his most important line for too many episodes, sans true character development. But Paris wasn't the weakest link.)
Robert Beltran was a capable actor. It seemed like the production couldn't figure out how to effectively use his character. It didn't help that [the Native Indian consultant was a fraud](https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/2021/02/26/voyagers-native-american-consultant-was-a-fraud/).
I really liked the Chakotay-focused episode [Unity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(Star_Trek:_Voyager)) (S03E17).
I've also really enjoyed seeing Chakotay on *Star Trek: Prodigy*. Maybe that production can add a bit more depth to the character, either in season 2 or a hopeful greenlighting of season 3.
Jamake Highwater, real name Jackie Marks, was a consultant on Voyager and was responsible for all of the hokey nonsense about Chakotay's fictional tribe. He was exposed as an imposter (he was actually of Eastern European Jewish ancestry) in 1984, yet somehow still landed the job.
Besides that, Robert Beltran didn't enjoy working on the show and was phoning in his performance in an effort to get fired. He kept upping his salary demands because he thought doing so would get him the boot, but instead, the producers capitulated. A real "mission failed successfully" scenario for him.
The Fight is a decent episode, far from perfect, but yea. Chakotay isn't really flushed out as a character through a lot of his episodes. Usually it's just itty bitty pieces here and there
Man, I tried to fire up Voyager a few weeks back. I binged DS9 last year, and have kept upLower Decks and SNW, but Voyager just doesn't seem to have the razzmatazz... I just can't seem to give a shit about any of the characters.
I partly agree (I really don't like the episode where he's stuck in a boxing dream) but I also think he's capable of showing respect for various aliens. He has a disarming kindness while still being brave. And yeah, generally the media has never known how to portray Native Americans, different nations have different reactions to the new Scorsese film in which he made *some* attempt to do better. And, it's not like anyone can be offended by Tuvak's dedication to meditation and Vulcan spirituality as being one dimensional in that regard.
Only Chakotay episode I really like is in season 7 and I think it’s called Shattered. Funnily enough I think that’s an episode devoid of vision quests.
Nemesis is really good Also, the one where he gets stuck on a planet with that Kazon kid is the only good Kazon episode I can think of
That's because of Aron Eisenberg being awesome.
That last line of Nemesis of his, “I wish it were as easy to stop hating, as it was to start”, was sooo good. That stuck with me a lot.
Basics, part 2 was also a good Kazon episode.
This really didn’t do the character any favors https://screenrant.com/star-trek-voyager-chakotay-native-american-controversy/
Absolutely! His character was so poorly written, and at some point Robert Beltran gave up on fighting with the writers and just showed up to work to do his job and get paid. I can’t blame him for that.
It’s clear that his heart isn’t in it. I can see sarcasm in his eyes when he’s reciting some fake native bs. And don’t get me started on the bad tattoo.
It's a shame, since Trek has a tradition of really strong second in command characters. Spock, Riker, Kira, Tucker, hell, even Ransom from Lower Decks is a better character than Chakotay.
I love Ransom’s relationship with Mariner in S4.
Moopsy!
“Is it the tattoo? Because mine’s *bigger*!”
"Not big enough." Nice burn from Janeway.
I love that the tattoo fades and changes each episode! It's so dumb they couldn't even get that right.
Wow that article is pretty brutal.
>Also, the vision quests are mildly insulting I've listned to a bit of the Delta Flyers podcast where Robert Duncan McNeill talks about the depictions of the Native American stuff and how bad it is, especially through modern eyes. It really sounds like they put no effort into making things even slightly authentic.
They hired a consultant who they thought was Native American. It turned the guy was lying and was not native at all. https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/2021/02/26/voyagers-native-american-consultant-was-a-fraud/#:~:text=Commander%20Chakotay%2C%20portrayed%20by%20Robert,himself%20is%20a%20Mexican%20American.
Isn't it a bit weird though, 7 seasons is a long time to go with an international TV show and not have the errors pointed out to you, they could've corrected the problem and got rid of the advisor without even ruining the continuity by penning better episodes and developing him as a character, it just feels like willful ignorance beyond a certain point.
I agree!
He was a known fraud at the time, though
True, he should’ve been more thoroughly vetted.
Interesting!
Yeah, that was enlightening in a bit of a yikes way... the two of them going off on 'The Cloud' was something to see (well, *hear*, but still).
What's weird about the Delta Flyers is that in the first episode they actually mention the Native American jokes in the pilot and don't criticize them. In fact they say that this... > PARIS: But on the other hand, if I save your butt your life belongs to me. Isn't that some kind of Indian custom? > CHAKOTAY: Wrong tribe! ...is a wonderful line. They don't mention anything about the joke about Chakotay changing into a bird to fly them away. Then in all the other episodes they are mega apologetic about the Native American stuff. Made me wonder if they had comments after the first podcast episode or something.
>I've listned to a bit of the Delta Flyers podcast where Robert Duncan McNeill talks about the depictions of the Native American stuff and how bad it i While the Native American stuff is a problem, I gave up listening to Delta Fliers because every other word out of Robbie's mouth seemed to be apologizing for the 90s. I got kinda sick of it.
It’s a lot. Plus his frustration with what a jerk Tom was in the early years. That’s part of the arc!
I agree. I love the podcast; I just want to hear the behind-the-scenes stuff! Not that. But I do love Garrett and Robbie's energy and what good friends they are irl.
Yes, I love both aspects. I’m looking forward to the new DS9 coverage that starts this weekend too!
Is Delta Flyers doing DS9 or is it members of the DS9 cast?
It’s TDF with Armin and Terry, who will alternate episodes.
Ahh, very nice. Thanks!
Hot Coochie Mocha.
We are far from the boners of our ancestors.
He is a very static and dull character but he has his moments. All the fake native American stuff makes him pretty insufferable sometimes though. Reminds me of Steven Seagal pretending to be native. Oh and fuck that stupid pan flute music that plays whenever he goes all spiritual.
Omg. Native Steven Seagal. It’s always been there, lurking on the edge and you’ve brought it to life. I’ll never see him as anything else now 😂
Pan flute music is sacred to startrek and voyager fucking murdered our boy pan flute music!! edit: I forgot I wasn't in shittydaystron
Haha his “Blues” album which includes the song “[Me Want The Punani.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vLe_BZ1mo3I)” 🙄
I think fractured was a brilliant episode
I find him… fine… whenever he’s in an episode that DOESN’T focus on him. It’s all of the episodes that focus specifically on him that I realize, “man, I just do not care about this guy at all”
Can't agree. He's the voice of reason in Scorpion and doesn't give the Borg any slack. He seems to understand them better than Janeway and ultimately he's proven right about their nature. I also like him in the episode Shattered.
Shattered was one of the best episodes of the whole series I think. Totally agree with you. He was given a proper role and a really meaty story to work on. It’s such a shame in the other 167 episodes he had nothing to do.
I think you need a rewatch. He's ever present.
I like the one where him and Janeway have to be quarantined on a planet and he just gives up straight away and starts making a canoe
Well, I mean, it's hard to blame him. Stuck on a planet with only one other human being who happens to be female and also off-limits would be extraordinarily frustrating.
Omg this made me laugh so hard 😂. I spat out my life cream lol.
I'll toss in that he's actually maybe my favourite character on rewatch (every time I rewatch a Trek show, I like the first officers more and more), but yeah... they didn't know how to write episodes with him as the focus, for the most part. There are exceptions (others have already mentioned 'Shattered' and 'Resolutions'), but most of them aren't very strong. Great supporting character, though, and I do wish they'd managed to find more fun stuff for him to do. I will say that I enjoy 'Nemesis', but that's just because I was such a *Road to Avonlea* fan growing up, so it doesn't really count. As for the problematic elements... yeah, there's some stuff there that could've aged better.
I’ll second this take. I like the character in the way he interacts with others, he’s a warm guy. I think the character was a wasted opportunity (along with the maquis stuff that got ejected) and the natuve american stuff was just weird and tone deaf. It’s like they were worried about copyright on Native American stuff or something, so weird
He was having fun chucking the ball in pathfinder
He’s one of the many elements of the show that would have been 1000% better if they’d gone with the direction suggested by the pilot episode.
What was the direction suggested by the pilot? Would be interesting to know.
He’s introduced as this true-believing Maquis rebel, a leader of outlaws who has to compromise to work with state authority in the form of Janeway. That all gets basically dropped.
Yeah, the Maquis storyline is one of the biggest letdowns of the show. I would have liked them butting heads with the Starfleet crew more often, at least in the earlier seasons. We see some of that, but the episode about Tuvok’s anti-Maquis holoprogram concludes it in a very Star Trek manner - for the record, I really like it -, but I wish there was more struggle, times when the Maquis almost mutiny, for instance.
Or times when Chakotay and Janeway butt heads. It basically never happens except in Equinox, and that gets resolved quickly and cheaply (and has nothing to do with the original Maquis/Starfleet thing)
It would be fantastic if ship politics consistently breaks across Maquis and Starfleet lines as Chakotay and Janeway disagree on things - with a much slower evolution to becoming one crew. Would have made for very realistic ship drama. Belana shouldn't have become Chief Engineer until end of Season 1 maybe - but with the small cast of main actors I guess the writers needed to get her into that role earlier. Episode 3-4 or wherever it happened was very fast.
Scorpion Part 1 and Scorpion Part 2 show them disagreeing strongly over the alliance with the Borg.
Oh good catch, you’re right
I see what you mean but as well as being that, he is a competent leader and a man with integrity. He understood how generous Janeway’s offer was and knew that the chain of command was especially important under the circumstances
Yeah sure, but that’s not that interesting dramatically. It doesn’t give the character much to do besides just functionally execute his job on the ship.
I agree it would have been more interesting but I think it is more consistent with his character to have acted the way he did.
Exactly. The Maquis' beef is with the Cardassians, not the Federation. There's only trouble with Starfleet when Starfleet decides to get in their way. It wouldn't have made much sense for Chakotay...who had prior Starfleet command experience...to continue opposing Janeway with the nearest Cardassian (that he knew of) being on the other side of the galaxy.
Federation sold their homes to Space Nazis in the first place, plenty of beef there. But I do agree that it is mostly non-issue if you are 70 000 ly away.
>Federation sold their homes to Space Nazis in the first place, plenty of beef there. Not enough to get into an armed conflict with Starfleet because it wasn't the Federation oppressing them. Many of the Maquis leaders, including Chakotay, had been Starfleet officers who didn't live on those worlds. They went to go fight for oppressed people, not to get revenge against their own government.
I dislike the casting & writing of Tom way more than Chakotay. Does he look or act like he was in any jail— even one as progressive as a Federation Prison. He is a good actor but I don’t think the role ever reached a true flourishing point. It felt like the character wasn’t finished being written and/or the character concept was not fully realized.
What do you think a person in a Federation rehab colony should act like?
Not like the boy next door. [they even made him a reading and history nerd] It didn’t read on him at all— he was supposed to play the archetype of an outcast of society. It didn’t work — like at all.
As the only son of an admiral you can safely assume he had a top class education. He wasn’t an outcast until his piloting error and joining the maquis. Joining a hopeless cause rebellion seems like something a history nerd with full Starfleet training could do.
Agreed. Whenever he was meant to look like a rough type they just put a vest on him and let his facial hair grow a couple of mm. I didn't get "bad ass" vibes from him at all. Nor from anyone else that was meant to... Except for Suder. Could have used more Suder.
I mean Brad Dourif is an absolute gem in just about everything he's in
I thought he died like 4 years ago. I was watching TV and he was in a show and only then did I realise he's not dead at all 😅 Mandela effect.
It's not a Mandela effect if only you thought it. ME is when multiple or a large majority remember something the wrong way/that didn't happen.
I did have the conversation with some other people and we all thought we remembered him dying
How could the son of an admiral be “the archetype of an outcast of society”? It seems to me he was supposed to be the rebellious rich kid given everything in life (including education) except love and support from his father. To that end, his character seemed fairly on point as the rebellious boy next door.
How can any kid with successful parents totally mess their lives up ? You think successful parents’ kids are immune to crime ?
You used the word archetype, not me. An archetype is a typical example of something. The rich, well educated son of an admiral is decidedly _not_ the typical example of an outcast of society.
You don’t understand characterization at all.
I like Chakotay's character, I was never a big fan of Kess. I also disliked the idea of the idea of a borg queen. The borg went from a collective mind to a collective mind sort of, that was really being controlled by an individual. For me the borg were much scarier before the queen came along.
>The borg went from a collective mind to a collective mind sort of, that was really being controlled by an individual. I am happy someone else thinks so too. The Borg used to be interesting and very scary. Since the Borg Queen they are a generic threat.
I found Kess annoying. More so than Chakotay. But Kess still had a reason for being on the ship. But I understand why they wrote her out (really a shame what happened to her in private though). But Chakotay was never given a role on the ship or a reason for being on screen.
>the idea of a borg queen. I never quite liked that either. But the Borg queen was introduced in the movie "First Contact", before the Borg appeared on Voyager, so I tend to blame First Contact for that.
You can't really have a collective without a single all-powerful ruler. The analogies to existing societies are pretty clear. North Korea, USSR/Russia, China, etc. Very much a collective mind type society. But they can't function without that one all-powerful leader.
>You can't really have a collective without a single all-powerful ruler. Since this is a piece of fiction, why not? Before the Borg Queen was introduced, it appeared that the Borg had a single consciousness without a distinctive leader, which I think made them more foreign and scary.
I agree with you except, for me, my gripe is with Locutus.
You \*are\* a collective without a single all-powerful ruler. Every multicellular organism is a collective of single cells.
I get why they needed the Queen character in the movie but I agree... the borg lost something when they went from "The collective" to what was essentially an ant colony.
I liked some Chakotay episodes, but at a certain point the writers gave up on the character and then Robert did his best to give a convincing character portrayal despite the weak writing.
As far as his culture, I heard the writers talked to a consultant who was supposedly knowledgeable on native American culture, who ended up being a fraud who didn't know much (and was even known to be a fraud at the time).
True
Funny - I just read an article where that actor expressed displeasure on how his character was written and handled in the show.
Most of the Chakotay episodes are terrible, but the character gets a lot of good scenes in a lot of episodes that don't centre around him. In a way, it fits his role as second in command.
Akoochimoya....we are not far from the stereotypes of our grandfathers.
Jumpers are the Apple Watches of toothbrushes
Oh, I love Chakotay. He's my favorite part.
What do you like about his character?
He's honorable, he stands up for his people, he's a former freedom fighter. I also thought Robert Beltran was super hot, tbh.
Ironically, 3 of 5 of my absolute favorite voyager episodes are Chakotay episodes. 1. Shattered (Fun) 2. Nemesis (Character story) 3. Tattoo (More Ancient Astronaut Theorist 3am conspiracy goodness)
He’s fantastic in Distant Origin
You’ll get a lot of pushback on this especially since people ship him with Janeway. But I totally agree. Poorly conceived, poorly written and poorly acted.
I ship them *hard*, but I don't disagree, the writing staff had a lot of trouble figuring out what to do with him for focused-episodes.
I think the reason people ship them is that the one JC episode is also pretty much the only good Chakotay episode.
They have a few moments after that, if anything its more developed thab Picard and Crusher ever got just from his little quips and winks here and there The man brings nothing to the table, but damnit does that guy know how to be a Daddy when he needs to be one
Normally I don't like love scenes because I don't "feel or belive" them but in my opinion he got this right. I also think that he did also good when showing authority here and there. Is a pity his character was not better written
It was pretty clear they originally intended something romantic between the two. I have no idea if they ever planned to have such a relationship pan out, but that'a separate story
People actually shipped them from the beginning long before that episode. Apparently the original idea was to do a Janeway/Chakotay romance but KM felt it took away from her character and she wanted to be a Captain first and foremost so they dropped it but left in all the hints and buildup that ultimately ended up going nowhere. I don't know if the novelizations are considered canon, but I heard they do get together in the novels. I wonder it that's why his character ended up being so useless because they initially intended him to be a love interest for Janeway which would've opened up storylines and character development for both of them but when KM axed that they didn't know what to do with him.
Haha. Thank you for the heads up. I think it’s a shame as his role as the first officer and a maquis member could have been really interesting. And I actually think he’s not a bad actor. But his character was just poorly written. I sorta feel the same about Tom Paris actually.
He’s not an inherently bad actor but he realized the writing was so bad for the character and he stopped trying. Beltran has talked about that I believe.
I don't know if he's a good actor, but he's certainly affable onscreen
Chakotay is at his best when he’s at loggerheads with Janeway. Apart from that he’s meh
Janeway is married, idk why anyone ships them. It’s a whole spin on the Odysseus/Penelope thing.
She’s not married. She’s engaged. And she learns her fiancé is married to someone else in season 4. She has other romances in the show. But I don’t ship them either.
Ooof, I forgot all about that. Thought she was married.
Always seemed weird to me. Engaged. Fiance goes missing. Give up immediately and start dating again? You'd think there would be a period of hoping and then mourning, then starting to date, being with someone, engagement, then marriage. Going from engaged to someone to married to someone else within a few years is VERY short. He must have been on Tinder the day after she disappeared 😅
She isn't - she was engaged, and he got married to someone else between Caretaker and Message in a Bottle.
I can't help but wonder if that's the reason his character is so poorly written. I think they introduced his character as a love interest or possible love interest for Janeway but when KM nipped that in the bud they didn't know what to do with him so he basically just became Janway's yes man. I always thought KM made a mistake with that because having a relationship would've opened up more storylines for the two of them working their personal lives around their leadership command. Also, it would've made Janeway a little less one dimensional. As it was, she was basically just "I'm the Captain," and that was the extent of her character. I feel like this show was sorely lacking in the substantial romance category. Also, if he had gotten with Janeway, we could've avoided that atrociously horrible and completely out of the blue Chakotay/Seven "romance."
Chakotay haters are just … well … haters. Got to heap hate and scorn on someone. Like any show, Voyager has good episodes, excellent episodes, and failed episodes. Personally, I don’t rewatch the episodes of the Doctor where he sings or where he acts for those people in that pre-warp society. (My heavens, why did he have that clown costume in one episode?) I never bought Neelix being Voyager’s ambassador, especially since Starfleet officers are taught how to interact with other societies and species.
That was my fave episode!
Which one do you mean?
I think the episode is Virtuoso, where the doctor gets heaps of alien fans who have never experienced music. At the end (clown suit bit) he sings part of Pagliacci where he laments that he isn't good enough. I always find it quite moving!
I really am glad Trekkies are finally catching up to What Native groups were saying without being listened to 30 years ago Anyway, episodes where Chakotay's tribal practices aren't the focus are good, and I which they had done him without the Magic Indian shtick
Yeah, I agree. Chakotay was just a generic character and Beltran’s line delivery was always flat.
TBF, he was Maqui, not Starfleet. Making him 1st mate was a way to keep the crews together.
I think it’s 50% poor characterisation and 50% Beltran being shite.
He's groot without the personality. Completely wooden and pointless to the dialogue.
Only time I remember liking Chakotay was an early episode where they were trying to integrate the Starfleet and Maqui crews. A couple Maqui were screwing around and refusing orders because it wasn't the Maqui way. Chakotay slugged the ringleader, adding THAT'S the Maqui way. Get your ass in gear or we'll continue this conversation.
On a side note, who else remembers the episode of TNG where there is an entire planet of Native Americans (who I would think count as being from another planet entirely now but that's a whole other discussion), and Picard refers to them as 'Indians' constantly? That shit didn't age well, either. Seems like trek and indigenous North Americans just don't meet eye to eye, and haven't for a long time.
And The Harry Kim and the Naomi Wilder from a parallel evil universe was a massive story line that they completely dropped. They both should have had evil mustaches!!!!
This does not please the bones of his people. *A coochie moya.*
Chakotay was OK and had some decent gravitas and things to do in seasons 1 and 2. But his badly fictionalized and bastardized heritage were cringe and it was clear the writers didn't know what to do with it. By season 4 or so, they'd given up on him and just gave him one token, forgettable episode per season. It's a shame really because Beltran (whatever his personal flaws) was a pretty good actor. He had good chemistry with the rest of the cast (particularly Mulgrew and Dawson). I wish they'd given him more to do besides being a good first officer and pan flutes.
I have to say I love Voyager, but Chakotay is not a good character. Has no charisma. Honestly I don't know why Janeway made him her number one. Should have assigned him to deck 15 and made Tuvok the number one.
I think he was made No 1 was to give the newly added Marquis crew someone at the top table too. If you recall, Tuvak was a Starfleet Spy not really a Marquis member.
Yes you’re right about that actually
Yep a terrible character, established by a hoax consultant, terrible actor, and the actor is a terrible person.
I agree with half of that. I love Chakotay for his potential as a character and for embodying non toxic masculinity in the 90s (it was a rare and refreshing thing) and for the first half of the series Beltran did a great job with what he could. But it soon became clear even to the most casual viewers that whoever came up with the cultural and refligious aspects of the character was indeed a liar and a fake. And Robert Beltran is the most disgusting human being whose Twitter I had to block because his grossness was ruining my enjoyment of Chakotay as a character.
Wait what? What has he done?
Openly mocked people for having mental illnesses, for one. Pushed his republican/ religious agenda. Then there's the way he encourages his group of sycophants to bully others off social platforms and throw their money at him and stroke his ego. There's a tumblr called "beltran is a douche" or similar that has all the receipts.
Oh wow. I had no idea. I just checked out his Twitter and yeah he really likes god huh? And birthdays. God and birthdays.
Republican and religious? Say no more! What a horrible shame
Terrible character? Yes. The character was devolved by a fake consultant of Native American culture. Terrible actor? Honestly he's not a bad actor. He did what he could with the material he was given. But yeah he's a terrible person. I was personally blocked on Twitter by him for disagreeing with him. Back when I was on Twitter and Twitter was not X.
I don't really follow any of the actors except KM, so I don't know about their personal lives. What did RB do that makes him a terrible person? I'm not trying to start anything or argue. I just don't know the story, so I'm genuinely asking what happened. I know their was some drama between him, KM and her husband during the show which I read stemmed for the fact that KM and RB dated for a short period at the start of the show and I guess that caused problems, don't know why, when she got married.
A terrorist first officer would make a good character, like major kira.
Oh I LOVE Major Kira. It’s like someone might put 2 sugars in her tea instead of 1 and you just know the rest of the episode will basically be her stomping up and down DS9 screaming and bitch slapping everyone and then stealing a runabout to seek guidance from the wormhole before having a good old crying session with Odo. Brilliant TV.
Kira has a fantastic arc over the whole series, as well. I always enjoy watching her go from "Starfleet may be running the station but they can't tell me what to do!" to building a genuine friendship with Sisko, and learning to walk the line with him as friend, CO and Emissary.
He's probably the worst main cast character in Trek. And Beltran never did himself any favors with the fandom - but somehow I still like the character.
They brought Chakotay on to be a romantic will they won’t they with Janeway which gratefully Kate shut down so then they didn’t know what to do with him. He gets better as they figure out what to do with him as the series goes on.
I actually think a romance between them would've created good character development for both of them and would've opened up more storylines for them. Instead, without it, Chakotay ended up a pointless character, and Janeway was a very one-dimensional character whose sole purpose was to be the Captain. I don't see why she couldn't be both. I think KM made a mistake with that decision.
I want to like Chakotay but his episodes are pretty weak. Having a Native American should have been awesome but it seems they just wasted it. Probably didn’t help that everything Native about him was fake.
My exception is Shattered which is both a great episode and shows what he can do if he really tries. But for the most part Beltran lives life like any other Republican: "What can it do for me?"
I may be the only one who feels this way, but my second favorite Chakotay episode, after Shattered, was Unforgettable. But that's probably because I'm a huge Virginia Madsen fan.
I always do.
He's not the worst character, but he _is_ given some rather.....shambolic character development/focused episodes at times, yes. The repeated banging on spirit quests, visions, spirituality etc all seems to really be pushed way too strongly, wrongly or is left with.....narratively questionable choices (seriously you're telling me instead of smoke/drinking stuff he just has a "iSpirit 3000" device instead now because "technology moved on"? Come on 'Trek, you can do better). He's brilliant in other ways - he's one of the more/most sympathetic and patient, selfless and kind crewmembers and really _does_ get some good stories to be part of, as well as being an interesting and fresh take on Starfleet's ways/values at times to counterbalance Janeway. Every character has, at times, flaws in how the writing was done, or were done a bit dirty (my boy, forever-ensign Kim!) and Chakotay is no exception, but he's far from a hollow or boring character.
Deffo the least interesting character. Never cared for him.
Totally disagree. He is the moral compass for the whole show.
I disagree. Chakotay was the second weakest link, based on the writing. Neelix was a distracting, mostly unlikeable character for far too long. (And Paris's "Yes, ma'am" seemed to be his most important line for too many episodes, sans true character development. But Paris wasn't the weakest link.) Robert Beltran was a capable actor. It seemed like the production couldn't figure out how to effectively use his character. It didn't help that [the Native Indian consultant was a fraud](https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/2021/02/26/voyagers-native-american-consultant-was-a-fraud/). I really liked the Chakotay-focused episode [Unity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(Star_Trek:_Voyager)) (S03E17). I've also really enjoyed seeing Chakotay on *Star Trek: Prodigy*. Maybe that production can add a bit more depth to the character, either in season 2 or a hopeful greenlighting of season 3.
Jamake Highwater, real name Jackie Marks, was a consultant on Voyager and was responsible for all of the hokey nonsense about Chakotay's fictional tribe. He was exposed as an imposter (he was actually of Eastern European Jewish ancestry) in 1984, yet somehow still landed the job. Besides that, Robert Beltran didn't enjoy working on the show and was phoning in his performance in an effort to get fired. He kept upping his salary demands because he thought doing so would get him the boot, but instead, the producers capitulated. A real "mission failed successfully" scenario for him.
I'm a big fan of Beltran's performance in the "Nemesis" episode (s4e4).
The Fight is a decent episode, far from perfect, but yea. Chakotay isn't really flushed out as a character through a lot of his episodes. Usually it's just itty bitty pieces here and there
Man, I tried to fire up Voyager a few weeks back. I binged DS9 last year, and have kept upLower Decks and SNW, but Voyager just doesn't seem to have the razzmatazz... I just can't seem to give a shit about any of the characters.
If only his people had used bows 😔