Chakotay (Robert Beltran) from Star Trek: Voyager had one interesting thing in common with Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Voyager aired well after TNG had ended its run, but took inspiration from the previous show’s tone and style as all the 1990s-era Star Trek series did. However, TNG and Voyager were very different from each other in terms of their main casts, with Voyager representing a greater diversity of women and people of color, one of which was the ship’s First Officer, Chakotay.
On the surface, Chakotay and Picard had nothing in common as characters. They were not even the same rank, with Chakotay being Voyager‘s Commander while Picard was a Captain. Their personalities and the roles they played on their respective ships were also very different; while Chakotay was a respected authority figure on Voyager, he was always second to Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) by nature of his rank, whereas no one outranked Picard on TNG. Despite all this, Chakotay and Picard actually did have one common thread that could have tied them together.
Chakotay And Picard Had One Thing In Common
Both Chakotay and Picard shared a love of archeology (and anthropology in Chakotay’s case) as one of their hobbies. Chakotay’s interest in anthropology was first introduced in Voyager season 1, episode 9, “Emanations” when he was part of an away team to investigate an asteroid that turned out to be burying ground for an alien race. From there, Chakotay’s expertise in the field was mentioned enough that it became one of his defining character traits. In fact, Chakotay stated in season 3, episode 9, “Future’s End, Part 2” that he could see himself pursuing archeology full-time if he wasn’t in Starfleet.
Unlike Chakotay, who wasn’t shown to have a lot of other hobbies, Captain Picard’s interest in archeology was one of many he maintained on TNG. However, it did end up being the interest that the series showed him engaging in most often, likely because it made for some interesting episodes. One of the earliest episodes that cemented Picard’s archaeological fascination was season 3, episode 19, “Captain’s Holiday,” but from there the hobby reappeared throughout the series at different times. Star Trek: Picard even kept the interest alive with small reminders, like certain artifacts that the now Admiral Jean-Luc Picard had discovered or been given in the background of scenes.
How Chakotay And Picard’s Hobby Helped Them In TNG And Voyager
The ways in which Voyager and TNG used Picard and Chakotay’s shared hobby ended up being very different. For Chakotay, his knowledge was often used to advance the plot of an episode. His suggestions would either help the USS Voyager get out of a tricky situation or aid the crew in respecting an alien race’s customs. In “Emanations” for example, Chakotay’s insistence on respecting the alien dead led him to suggest they stop using tricorders to scan the bodies. His general knowledge about ancient cultures was also vital when Voyager became trapped in orbit around a rapidly evolving pre-warp planet in season 6, episode 12, “Blink of an Eye.”
In contrast, TNG mainly used Picard’s archeological interest for the character’s personal growth. One of the ways this manifested was the fact that Picard’s archeological pursuits in “Captain’s Holiday” led him to meet one of his main TNG love interests, Vash (Jennifer Hetrick) on Star Trek‘s pleasure planet Risa. Unlike Chakotay, Picard’s hobby didn’t often overlap with helping his crew, and was usually more of a fun aside or the subject of a one-off episode rather than a way to advance a main plot. In this way, Star Trek: Voyager still managed to differentiate Chakotay from Picard even with a shared hobby.
