Indulging in some shore leave, the crew of Voyager discover the wonder of Tsunkatse, a fighting game. However, when Seven and Tuvok are captured, the former Borg is forced to fight for her life.
I was dreading this episode, and for that reason it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Of course, having said this, it is actually pretty awful. The idea is to continue Seven's journey of discovery by giving her the opportunity to kill and seeing how she'll react. Unfortunately, because this is Star Trek, we never get to find out what she would have done, as she is beamed back just in time to save her having to make the decision.
Two things in this episode's favour are Jeffrey Combs and JG Hertzler, fresh from Deep Space Nine. Sadly, Combs has very little to do and Hertzler, although playing the main role of a Hirogen, mainly has to fight and train Seven to not let up on an opponent rather than having a particularly strong character. It all seems designed to make use of the WWF guest star, The Rock, although even he has hardly anything to do except say a couple of lines and raise an eyebrow.
On top of this, the dialogue is awful. There's a particularly painful scene in the mess hall where the Tsunkatse-watching crewmembers share a series of extremely unfunny jokes with peals of fake laughter ringing out, and everything Seven says comes straight from the cliché corner. And that's not to mention how easy the wrap-up is. Once again a Voyager crewmember gets beamed up despite shields being raised, and despite Penk's (Combs) protestations that his ship is well-armoured, Voyager has no trouble shooting out the appropriate areas so that it can shut down all the systems it needs to. Convenience doesn't make up for plotting.
For those who just want to see Seven in a tight leather costume (and you can get something pretty similar most weeks anyway), this is the one for you. Otherwise, there's nothing beyond some rather tedious fighting. There's certainly no plot to speak of.
**
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