The Star Trek Couple That Got Naked Behind The Scenes
In many ways, the romance between Chakotay and Seska was the most problematic relationship in all of Star Trek: Voyager. They were terrible together for many reasons, including the fact that she was a secret Cardassian who manipulated Chakotay by claiming that she was pregnant with his love child. That makes it that much more ironic that this couple got naked behind the scenes in the weirdest possible way: while shooting a scene for “State of Flux,” Chakotay actor Robert Beltran’s uniform kept splitting open, giving Seska actor Martha Hackett a good look at his entire (as Chakotay might say) “akoocheemoya.”
The Worse Relationship On Voyager
Before we can discuss this naughty behind-the-scenes detail in “State of Flux,” it’s important to recap the relationship between these two characters. Originally, Seska appeared to be a Bajoran, and like the human Chakotay, both were members of the Maquis, a resistance group who opposed the Cardassian occupation of former Federation planets. They served together on the Maquis ship Val Jean, and after getting tossed into the Delta Quadrant along with Voyager, they and the rest of the surviving Maquis joined Captain Janeway as Starfleet officers.
A Secret Agent
In some ways, Seska was one of the only realistic former Maquis on the show. Rather than neatly integrating into Voyager’s crew like Chakotay and the others, she frequently disdained Starfleet’s rules, which is why she agitated for mutiny, tried to steal alien technology, and blatantly violated the Prime Directive by hooking the primitive Kazon up with replicator technology.
In “State of Flux,” we discover that her hatred of Starfleet rules went beyond being a former Maquis…she was, in fact, a Cardassian operative made to look Bajoran so she could infiltrate Chakotay’s crew.
New Uniforms, New Problems
Now, how does all this backstory add up to these actors having some unexpected naked time in “State of Flux?” At one point during production, they were filming on location at Bronson Caves in Bronson Canyon. Nothing was new for the Chakotay or Seska actors about shooting on location, but what was new was their uniforms: according to Martha Hackett, she and Beltran were wearing uniforms that had only been worn in one or two previous episodes, and these new duds led to a weird (but hilarious) wardrobe malfunction for Robert Beltran.
The Full Chakotay
In the special features for the Voyager Season 2 DVD, Hackett was giggling like a schoolgirl while describing this malfunction during the filming of “State of Flux.” According to her, “Robert’s [uniform] kept splitting, just the whole thing, you know, stem to stern, every time we did this little run into the cave.” As for how much of her fellow actor she saw when this kept happening, she alluded to seeing the full Maquis: “everyone got to know each other rather quickly after that!”
On-Screen Weirdness, Off-Screen Friendship
Obviously, the tale of any Star Trek actor’s uniform splitting during filming would be relatively funny, but this tale is doubly amusing because Seska and Chakotay were previously a couple, and even after she was revealed as a Cardassian spy, she stole his DNA and tried to have his love child. In other words, these two had a seriously weird relationship when the cameras were rolling, and the Seksa actor even got to see the Chakotay actor in various states of undress behind the scenes.
Chakotay himself might have been fine with this, though. After all, we can only assume his spirit animal has seen him naked on more than one occasion.
