He even gave her the "Rock Bottom"!! :(

[Colonel Green]

Was Tsunkatse the worst moment in Trek history?

I mean REALLY! The Rock as a guest star? Okay, I can deal.

He is playing an alien gladiator? Pushing it, but I'm okay.

The Rock gives a main character his signature wrestling move?

So Trek is pretty much SNL at this point or what?

 

[Caprica_Six]

No, Tom taking his toungue out in Threshold was one of the worst though

They should have warned people eating their dinner that was going to happen, gross!

 

[Evil Twin]

By all rights "Tsunkatse" should have been one of the worst but nah, it's not that bad. It's fairly entertaining and besides, you've got Jeffrey Combs and J.G. Hertzler guest starring! :thumbsup:

 

[BriGuy]

Coulda been worse.

The Delta Flyer could have been a Nissan Versa.

NISSAN VERSA!!!

 

[doubleohfive]

I kept waiting for Harry Kim to rush the Rock, only to be clotheslined. Over and over and over again, while Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris, and The Doctor shouted out "YOU SUCK! YOU SUCK!"

Actually, I'm kind of bummed they didn't do that...

 

[Ro_Laren]

Evil Twin said:
By all rights "Tsunkatse" should have been one of the worst but nah, it's not that bad. It's fairly entertaining and besides, you've got Jeffrey Combs and J.G. Hertzler guest starring! :thumbsup:

I too found the episode entertaining.

 

[The Borg Queen]

If I was Seven of Nine I'd have assimilated them all...

"Take us prisoner and hold us captive?! Unacceptable. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE."

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Rock has done some movies these days so we know that to one degree or another that he "can" act. Everything he says in wrestling is from a script, so I have no idea why anyone would ever doubt that he can memorize lines and act them out. Did Dwayne get any lines in this (*&&^? I mean that's always been my problem, how can you elect to bring in a relatively famous person and then have absolutely no faith in him to be an actor that the crowd who'd come to see the the Rock as a Spaceman get no joy. He might as well have been a card board cut out.

And, after saying the Rock was underused in this freakshow, can you imagine the more ultimate disappointment I felt at seeing Jeffery Combs given such a "marginal" role? I know, there are no small roles, only small actors, but frankly, some writers can be fracking small.

 

[Jack Bauer]

I liked it. It entertained me and I like The Rock.

 

[Smiley]

"Tsunkatse" had the potential to be horrible, but it turned out to be a very enjoyable episode.

 

[Vic Sixx]

I liked it too. I just wish 7 and the Rock had wrestled more of an extended match.

 

[RaulMacca]

I never loved it but I enjoyed the episode myself, it was the best fight scenes I've seen on trek.

And having no real idea who this ROCK was him being in it never ruined the episode for me, Plus he looked the part, if someones going to beat a Borg in a fight it has to be someone who looks the part and how many people look hard enought o take on a Borg and win, as we know Seven could beat Tuvok, a Vulcan security officer in like 3 seconds flat and Vulcans are like the toughest folk in Starfleet, so whoever was going to beat her had to look ROCK solid, and whom better than the Rock.

Much is made of how bad ths episode is, and yet so many folk seem to ignore Nana Visitor beating up 7ft tall Klingon 'warriors'

 

[Pegaritaville]

Evil Twin said:
By all rights "Tsunkatse" should have been one of the worst but nah, it's not that bad. It's fairly entertaining and besides, you've got Jeffrey Combs and J.G. Hertzler guest starring! :thumbsup:

For the most part, I agree. Yeah, it was a promotional gimmick, but it wasn't so blatant that you couldn't enjoy the episode itself.

But I do have a bit of a problem with Seven's prowess in this episode. I like the character, but here I felt like they were pushing it: It's the one episode where all of those complaints about her being a "Mary Jane" sort of seem justified.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Imagine American Soldiers were kidnapped from American Military bases and forced to play "The Running Man" in Cuba between being locked up in cages and fed gruel.

This episode should have been about slavery, but the writers seemed to ignore that as if no one minded being a slave much. It all became about dignity in death without mentioning much about freedom or escape or a adjuustment of civil rights that Football players are not allowed to hold dog fights in their back yard.

It was a poor rehash of VOY The Chute which was the quintessence of Hopelessness. Even Ent Detained followed the issue of captivity and forced labor with more clarity. The most evil elements of this story became a negligible cloaked backdrop.

The pieces were in play for a truly frightening story which never appeared.

 

[Navaros]

Colonel Green said:
Was Tsunkatse the worst moment in Trek history?

Of course not. It's one of the very best VOY episodes. Compared to the vast, vast majority of VOY episodes, Tsunkatse is masterpiece. I'd say it's the third best VOY episode after The Void and Think Tank. If one wanted to find the worst moment in Trek history, there are some moments in VOY close to Tsunkatse in the series which are infinitely more qualified. One example of a multitude of possible examples: The Doctor spending a whole episode singing opera to aliens with mental difficulties whilst in a Bozo the clown uniform.



The Rock's appearance on VOY was handled in a classy way. Anyone who didn't watch wrestling wouldn't really know he's the Rock, or that he performed a rock bottom on her. That is to say, the Rock's appearance didn't do anything to detract from the context of the show. Not even a little bit. Besides that, the Rock's acting was on par with or better than any of the main actors on the show. Therefore, his appearance was fine.

Guy Gardener said:
He might as well have been a card board cut out.

And, after saying the Rock was underused in this freakshow, can you imagine the more ultimate disappointment I felt at seeing Jeffery Combs given such a "marginal" role? I know, there are no small roles, only small actors, but frankly, some writers can be fracking small.

I would say main characters on the show such as Harry Kim or Tom Paris - and almost all of the "guest alien of the weeks" from other episodes - resemble cardboard cut-out characters even moreso than the Rock did in his one appearance. So for the company he's in in this episode, the cardboard-cutout writing behind the Rock's character here is just fulfilling the long-standing tradition of such before he came on. But, at least the Rock is a lot more fun to watch than Harry Kim or Tom Paris or any other of his cardboard character bretheren. My point here is that the Rock's cardboard character did not lower the bar of the show at all, so any criticism against his character for being cardboard is merely a microcosm of a series-wide problem, not a Tsunkatse-episode-specific problem.

I agree with you that both the Rock, and Jeffrey Combs, were vastly under-used in this episode and that was not-so-good writing to use them so little. However, I noticed that in their brief, under-used roles, they still managed to inject more spirit, screen presence, personality, and compelling performances into their small characters than most of the main cast do. Or most of their "one-shot" guest star counterparts from other episodes do. Which just makes me appreciate their performances all the more as a boon to Voyager as a show. Ditto for J.G. Hertzler, who also elevated the Tsunkatse episode far beyond Voyager's usual level of quality.