UNCUT - Tattoo (VOY S2E9) | Star Trek Journey 383

And just so you know my vote-- E. Erase from cannon. Chakotay is frustrating. I like him. But I don't feel like the writers do. It's like they don;t know what to do with him. Give him a little bit of Kirk/ Riker swagger. Please. Or maybe Sisko depth. I don't see it.

You will get here again. Boring, yes. The most boring? Well, this is the Voyager I know and don't love. I was in High School & College during this era . . I couldn't see everything. I remember DS9 getting better and Voyager just being often bland. Occasionally good, even really good. And usually just okay. Love Janeway. Hate Tuvok-- worst Vulcan ever, Russ and the writers forgot to get the memo that Vulcans have emotions. Always thought an explosion episode 10 should have killed Chakotay, Tuvok & Neelix and give Janeway no first officer and have her figure it out with the lower decks officers. I don't think I've ever watched it all (& I've LOVED trek since childhood). Im committed to watch, sometimes hate watch, with you.

Shower Man is by far the best character in this show, seconded by Older Black Gentleman

Here's the thing, I am sorry if you addressed this, I stepped away at one point for a few minutes and didn't pause. I know you're sick of hearing about the consultant. But regarding this episode, the problem is, even if they'd gotten an authentic consultant and done a better job with the Native American authenticity, the real problem is that they got their specialness partly from aliens according to this episode. That would probably still have been an element of this plot even if they had a more authentic consultant. The only way I can think to justify it is by comparing it to the Bajorans. In Star Trek, religions are generally quietly dismissed as false superstition or they're distortions of truth. The exceptions are the Bajorans because Star Trek does allow highly advanced aliens operating on the Clark law of "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." The Bajorans have a relationship with a species that exists sort of perpendicular to time. So they might have been trying to do that here, to explain why Chakotay's spirituality apparently taps into an understanding of reality beyond current Federation science. And it didn't start with Chakotay. The Traveller told Wesley that Native Americans understood things about reality beyond conventional human understanding.

In a weird sort of way I'm finding I actually like this episode more the more I watch it. Which is not to say I think it's a good episode... but more and more I find I'm beginning to appreciate what it was trying to accomplish. And there actually are a lot of strong elements in this one... they just fail to all come together in a rewarding way for some reason. Regarding the actor playing young Chakotay: while sure, "bad" acting, or inexperience may be part of it, I also wonder if part of what you're disliking is just the general attitude of a young, grumpy teenager. I didn't think he was a bad actor as much as he was portraying a surly teenager, and no one enjoys being around (or watching) a teenager with a bad attitude. So maybe some of it was the way he was told to portray his character. As for the ending, you said you wanted to see something one of the characters did that made a difference in resolving or saving them from imminent doom... I would point out that what Chakotay did in making contact with the aliens and convincing them that they were indeed peaceful is the whole reason they were saved. If he hadn't gotten through to them, Voyager would have been pulled apart. So score one for Chakotay. And as a side note, where you all were teasing about Tim Russ somehow sticking around in the flashback sequences and having the same mannerisms as Tuvok, I recently watched an episode of the show ER and was surprised to see Tim Russ as a guest actor... it was so hard to see him as an experienced surgeon because his lines still sounded so much like Tuvok!

I cant WAIT to get through this season... god its the worse one of the bunch.. season 3 has a few suckers as well.. but.. oh god I cant wait for the seasons after.. WOOOooo so excited

Native American tropes aside, this episode suffers from what I will call "37s Syndrome": random alien civilizations in the Delta quadrant inexplicably sharing a history with humans/Earth despite the vast distances between the quadrants and the abundance of life throughout the universe... so there's nothing particularly special about Earth. It's the 90s equivalent of Kirk/Spock finding random planets where everyone is a 1920s gangster or where they worship the declaration of independence or some such nonsense. It forces me to compartmentalize the episode because it doesn't make any sense in the wider universe.

This is a very odd season. I think it is still feeling effects of having that chunk of holdover episodes that make this season really uneven.

just boring to me.

Yeah....this episode. Was curious how you guys were going to feel about it, always a "meh" for me...not one I often rewatch.

Yeah, I don't viscerally hate this one the way I do some episodes, but objectively it's pretty bad. D tier for me. Even the lightning outside the cave borderline looked like a TOS effect. You got a meaningless and contrived "Voyager in a tornado" problem that ends up being nothing more than filler, a horribly wooden and ADR'd young Chakotay, and some very questionable implications that even with special gifts from aliens able to cross galaxies, the native americans were still too primitive to avoid being curb stomped by the other humans who were white......like the aliens. Do I think that was the intention? No, but SOMEONE should have connected those dots. Doctor's B plot was pretty good though, and it's nice to see Kes being a little bit savage extending his flu like that. He kind of deserved it though. I do think Beltran had some decent acting in this one though. Nothing amazing, but he made the most of the material he was given. Still, the negatives greatly outweigh the positives. The episode shows ass, and it is ass.

Glad you guys.....watched....it.... I mean, really, good on you for making it through once. I am a fanatical old-school fan since I can remember. I think I got up and made dinner during this episode when it first aired. Lost me in the first few minutes and I stand by my decision of skipping this on every re-watch.

Not an episode that I love, although I do get some amount of a weird "So bad it's good" enjoyment from watching it. I dislike most of the Chakotay Native American stuff. It's a D sort of episode if you try to take it seriously. Not taking it seriously and embracing the over-the-top cheese factor elevates it to a B for me.

Variable reward means sometimes you have to be punished....Enjoy!

Awful.

There have been episodes where I didn't bother watching the talking part after the reaction. This was an episode I only watched the after reaction part after doing a quick skipping through my Voyager version to see which episode this gonna be. During my rewatch of all of Voyager a couple of months ago, this was, to me, one of the most painfully boring ones as I forced myself to watch every episode fully at least once.

Oh no! The “Indian consultant” was a fraud? Who gives a shit. Hollywood is nearly all frauds and everyone these days thinks they’re an expert on everything. Get over it. Also, that has zero bearing on Robert Beltran, who does a good job in his role. He’s a Mexican/Native playing a Central American/Native. Not too far of a stretch, folks. No doubt all of the people so upset over Voyager are equally upset over all of casting in the new Odyssey movie and all the other Hollywood slop out there?? Is that not how victim mentality works or is it only one way and selective??

I'm traveling this week, so expected not to be able to watch reactions. But I was surprised with a brief respite and fast wifi, so figured I would watch the release I missed yesterday. Saw it was this one. Decided to leave a comment and find something else to watch, lol. I'm sure the reaction was hilarious, but I'll watch when my free time isnt at a premium

Henry Darrow is a real “Hey it’s that guy” for me. He guessed oretty in every television show in the 1970s or 1980s.

Welp. I figured you gents would hate this one, and you did not disappoint.

Episode aside... you're never too old to get your first tattoo. Got my first one last year at 63, and my second just a few weeks ago. Both have strong significance in my life. But that still doesn't mean this is a very good episode, aside from Chokotay's butt. 😁

This would have been a better episode if it was just about the Doctor's flu

It feels like the Doctor regressed in season 2. He seemed to be getting more human in season 1, but then had episodes like this in S2. I don't know if that was because of the mix of scripts between the two seasons.

Richard Chaves was one of the stars of one of my favorite sci-fi shows, The War of the Worlds (1988 sequel to the 1953 movie). Sadly it only lasted a year before network interference ruined it. You might remember him better from Predator.

I have never liked this one. The most positive thing I can say is if you are having trouble sleeping stick this on.

There was Picard Ass in Chain of Command wasn't there? while he was being tortured? Definitely Sideass at a minimum

Another extreme season 2 low point

I have one or two major reasons I'm not a fan of Voyager, but we can talk about it when you've watched the whole series. I don't want to introduce or plant any bias. (Eerily, Josh briefly touches on the main problem.) Now, I have a connection to some Southwest Native American tribes and was immersed in the culture for a few years. Maybe that's why anything to do with Chakotay and his generic, Hollywood Indian background is just so cringe to me, somewhat disrespectful, and borderline offensive...and it's not even MY culture! I think they try very hard (and a little too often) to make his background meaningful. I wish they hadn't.

At least a hawk screamed a couple of times.

A bit boring and Beltran kind of phoned it in. But it is nowhere near as bad as people are making it out to be.

Not a bad episode, just uneventful and uninvolving

I think the voyager complaints deserve a modicum of leniency based on how frequently ya'll defend bringing up your grievances about names in credits, and "the plot", etc. I think you see those same few complaints a lot because they are valid problems the show has and continues to have. Just like ya'll say you will continue to praise the show when it's good and chastise it when it's bad, so do we. Sorry but I gotta call it when I sees it.

So if all four of them beamed up at the end, who flew the shuttle back? No way any Indian tribe in Central America has forehead ridges like shown. D rating.

This episode is like watching beige paint dry.

Fun fact. In addition to Henry Darrow who previously played a Star Fleet Vulcan admiral, Richard Fancy (the alien) also played a previous Vulcan admiral in the TNG episode "First Duty". As for the episode, I agree with Josh: meh, which is how I've felt about most of the Voyager episodes so far. You both brought up good points. Would be a D except for the Doctor segments, so I'll go C-.

Tv's weren't blurry in the 90's lol. They were just Standard definition, maybe you just need glasses. I have I have the Region 2 box set though, and it looks almost HD by comparison to the original 2003 DVD boxset I bought though, since I had to re buy it because my house burnt down.

Remember this was the 90’s long before people were admitting the scope of the genocide that we did to the indigenous people

The Doctor side story is the only semi redeeming part of this episode

The two things that trouble me are there are Voyager episodes worse than this one and this episode is better than most episodes of Trek post 2017

It’s voyager episodes like this that makes you appreciate DS9 so much more

This episode should have went all Cannibal Holocaust

So, after reading these comments as the episode starts, I'm curious to find out just how "bad" this episode is.

Once again the only time we get a chakoytay story is if it deals with his culture it almost seems vaguely racist. Why is that the only way the show defines his character

Like many tattoos, this one is regretable.

I would love to know just how many times in Voyager Tom says 'inertial dampners are offline'. As catchprases go it's not the best lol.

Not one of my favourites. I can only give it a D, and that's only because I like the B plot with the Doctor.

The old saying, "You don't put a tattoo on a Bentley..." but they are useful in holding a Yugo together due to all the rust. This episode is a Yugo.

Yeah this was... a Episode. Imagine we got not the 10 Minutes ot the B Plot. (The Doctor is the B Plot for me, not the Storm)

I’ve never been more happy for an episode to be over.

Tat: J&A, that's not the S2E2-reaction you promised me. (on the May calendar)

I was very tempted to skip this episode, but I haven’t skipped one yet since I started with you guys in TNG season 4.

Fun Fact: Richard Chaves plays the Tribal Chief they meet in the flashback. If that name doesn't seem familiar, he played Poncho in Predator. Other than that, this is a rather forgettable episode of Voyager.

You did this, Josh.

I always thought Kes learned so much about medicine so quickly because her people only live up to nine years. If they couldn't pick up knowledge and skills quickly they would never get proficient in anything.

I'll never fail to be amazed at how perfectly decent TV manages to inspire hatred and other strong negative emotions. No, it's not Shakespeare or The Best of Both Worlds, but there's nothing wrong with it.

You don't think Bob Picardo's performance up there with Mulgrew and Russ?! He had me sold since the pilot.

*Regains consciousness* Sorry, what was that? What did I miss? Oh, nothing but an okay B plot with the Doctor? Okay. Welp, see ya later!

So bad.

Not exactly the Inner Light for poor old Bob Beltran's spotlight episode.

Well, they all can't be winners, although I don't think it was terrible. Who is to say the fake Native American Consultant didn't do research and get a lot of things correct? Also, where do you go exactly to find an expert on 24th Century Native Amercians who live close to the Cardassian border? I'm too lazy to go verify right now but didn't you see Picard's man ass in "Chain of Command Part 2"?

"Ancient Astronaut Theorists say Yes!" Episode

Young Chakotay sucks!

Power Rankings: 1) Technobable 2) Neelix Boyardee 3) Native American Huxster 4) Pulsar 5) Nebula Sure the episode was bad because of the ancient aliens stuff, but I didn’t think it was that boring. However, this season is about to have a major uptick in quality so on we go.

They should have just shown the B plot.

Now for something completely unrelated, I am watching the Emissary TNG with Bunny and Keylar mentioning her Klingon temper made me wish we saw that later…..

The seventh worst episode of the series, according to IMDB viewers. (Elogium is below it; you haven't reached the others yet.)

My problem with the episode is what it's expecting me to buy. 45,000 years ago, aliens went out of their way and spent two generations making it all the way to Earth, genetically altered the indigenous people to be more capable, still waited around for a long time for them to move across the planet, and then came all the way back? And then a descendant of those people ends up on the planet in the delta quadrant? Come on. We've already done the '37s -- one story like that is enough. That one I can at least buy, because those aliens simply abducted some people from Earth, went really far away, and shoved off. It's the same reason I hate The Chase -- sorry, I don't accept that these aliens seeded life in our galaxy long ago, or at least our little corner of it, and we just shrug it off and never mention it again.

I love how they were so nonchalant about an earth flower being on a planet 68 million light years from home!

In my opinion and in how I view art, the politics of the episode and the message of the episode IS the quality of the episode. For me that's one in the same thing. It is not the sole thing that defines the quality of the episode but it is a factor in how good it is that's on the same merit as directing and acting is. For me I want to respect the show and try to analyse it and see what I get from the experience and "is it entertaining or not?" being more important honestly feels reductive of art to me.

In regards to the post episode discussion about people bringing their outside biases to a viewing, I think you're correct about that not actually having anything to do with the episode. I would put forward though that we can't really help it sometimes. For example, I used to love watching the Cosby show as a kid. Nowadays I just can't enjoy the show anymore, for obvious reasons. The show didn't suddenly get bad, I'm just thinking about what happened behind the scenes the whole time and that impacts my enjoyment. You guys are in a very unique position in that you can kind of view a lot of these things in a vacuum. But of course this isn't a first viewing for most of us, so having the whole context of the different star trek series and existing in that culture for years gives a very different perspective.

Well, at least that's over now

Sooooo is now a good time to talk about Jamake Highwater and the fake Native American ‘facts’ he gave to Voyager?

Hey now, Kes may not be a qualified doctor, but she's been training with the Doctor for over a year. She's at least a competent field medic, better than Tom Paris anyways.

I Doordashed a Burger King chicken sandwich during this. It was really good! I forgot how good those things are. That's all I took from this episode.

I would rather watch Sub Rosa and Genesis on an alternating 24 hour loop than sit through Tattoo even once. And I am not kidding!

Guys.... 68 IS almost 70!

Natural rubber does come from trees. I think I missed the joke of that patron take. Didn't hate the concept of this episode, but it could have been executed way better.

This would have been cooler had it featured Hervé Villechaize as the title implied. "Boss, de plane! De plane! I mean de shuttle!"

I do love the doctor and Kes stuff C

“We haven’t had a bad episode of Star Trek in so long!” Look what you did!

They should have gotten Cirroc Lofton to play young Chakotay that lightening was horrible too. And Tuvok wasn’t very Vulcan rushing up with a weapon

I agree that you've seen 13 good to great DS9 episodes in a row...Voyager only had 3 or 4 passable ones during that whole run IMHO...and then this stinker

Wait a minute Chakotay assigns Nelix and Tuvok to be the away teams botanical surveyors. Wow! Hopefully they never collect flowers again.

Well, we're finally here. Finally, a genuinely bad Voyager episode. It was a good run up to this point. So I'll let it slide. But damn, its a bad episode.

If you dont already know, the consultant who gave the writers the info for creating Chakotay was revealed to be someone impersonating an American Indian.

Words cannot properly express how much I loathe this epiosde. It's major offense to me is honestly that it was just boring and dull as dishwasher with zero lack of interest on my part. Focused on a character I already dislike. It's an E. (And I do NOT give E's out often even by my Voyager standards, and I make no secret that I don't love this show. This episode is just BAD television in every way.)

So when I first saw this I was new to Voyager and the broad plot interested me, that doesn’t mean today it is or then os what I would have written, still not as bad as some