Faces (VOY)

I have seen this episode more times than any other episode of Voyager. I wrote a paper on it for my Feminism in Theatre class in college, and later adapted that paper into a panel which I ran at Connecticon last year. Both of these focused on B'Elanna's racial identity and her expression of gender, looking at the Klingon/Human split as a metaphor for the masculine and feminine aspects of her personality, and also delving into racial stereotypes of Latino women (its easy to forgt B'Elanna's human half is named Torres and from South America.) As fascinating as that discussion was, I don't really feel like rehashing it. I'd like to look more at the craft of this episode, and how despite an absurdly cheesy premise it still manages to shine as one of the gems of the first season.

This is basically only the second B'Elanna episode we've had -possibly third, if we count her sub-plot in Prime Factors, which at least that gave her some good characterization. But the point is we don't know her that well, which makes splitting her in two kind of a risky proposition. This isn't "The Enemy Within" - neither B'Elanna is evil, and in fact the episode is really about B'Elanna being forced to confront the fact that while she may not like her Klingon heritage, it is a part of her she can't deny. But turning a character's internal conflict into an external one is very difficult to do without a certain amount of ham-fistedness.

The use of the Vidians is a really smart way of making the whole concept easier to swallow. The fact that they can essentially clone B'Elanna but can't, you know, grow themselves some organs instead of stealing them from people seems a little off, but other than that the idea of Klingons being resistant to the phage creates a perfect justification for Sulan making the split and also fits perfectly with what we know of Klingons from previous Trek episodes. The Vidians are also interesting characters, and Sulan's scenes with B'Elanna give us more insight into why they do what they do than we got in "The Phage". Finally, it means the episode can do a cool, sci-fi concept, and develop an under-developed character, and develop a recurring villain all in one episode without it feeling crowded, which is quite impressive.

Sulan grafting Durst's face onto his own is the creepiest moment on the show so far. Partially this is because of the inherent creepiness of face-stealing, but part of it is definitely the fact that Sulan genuinely thinks this will make it easier for B'Elanna to trust him. This just shows how warped and bizarre Vidian culture has become. When Sulan says that Durst's organs will save dozens, there's almost a reverence in his voice, like he actually buys this "greater good" idea. The Vidians are extremely evil, but they are also extremely pitiable.

Back to B'Elanna - we learn about her childhood here, and I think that scene is worth looking at. The story she tells Paris here will be told in greater detail in "Lineage", with flashbacks, but its all laid out in the first season, and will inform B'Elanna's character as we go along. Even though each show has had a character of mixed human and alien heritage, B'Elanna is kind of a backwards approach. Spock had occasional flashes of conflict, but ultimately had chosen to embrace his Vulcan side. Deanna Troi lives a well-balanced life, leaning more towards her Betazoid side. Worf struggles to be more Klingon. But B'Elanna has grown up hating her Klingon side, for reasons both political and personal. She blames her Klingon side for her fighting spirit and her uncontrollable temper, but really her temper comes from her self-loathing and inability to find peace with her own identity. It's a struggle that will keep coming around, and it makes her one of the most compelling characters on the show.

Random Observations:

Love the little Neelix/ Tuvok scene at the beginning. Those two are too much fun.

Durst becomes our first real casualty since the pilot.

Minor Character Watch: Lt. Ayala's name is mentioned for the first time in this episode.

The Doctor has some of that amazing Starfleet Plastic Surgery in his programming.

The lies that the Vidian guards tell when they take someone to Organ Harvesting are hilarious. "Where are you taking me?" "A shower and a hot meal."

It's a little weird that Voyager doesn't even try to rescue the other prisoners. Like, even the Talaxian who helped them.

This is the beginning of the Tom/B'Elanna ship.

Tom does that thing that men/ white people like to do in discussions of gender/ race where they compare some negative experience they've had with the other person's experience of oppression even though its totally unrelated, and it really gets on my nerves. It feels like he's belittling her experience by comparing it to his bad haircuts.