Faces

Voyager Revisited: Faces
Jules -- 2 Dec 2001, 20:54 GMT

"What exactly have you done to me?" -- B'Elanna Torres (or her Klingon half, anyway)

"I have reconstituted your genome. You are now purely Klingon." - Sulan

"That's not possible." - B'Elanna

Jules

Ahh, will be back tonight...
Deb47 -- 3 Dec 2001, 13:14 GMT

After I rewatch it!

(Such a chore. )

D47

My favorite scene
Nina -- 3 Dec 2001, 13:32 GMT

is the last one. I love Chakotay standing near B'Elanna in sickbay, trying to get her to open up to him about what she's feeling. That's not due to happen for a long, long time to come, but he's there in case she's ready - and he hesitates as he starts to leave, still hoping. Their friendship is one of my favorite Voyage relationships.

Then B'Elanna, all by herself, is seen fingering her "human" forehead. The cranial ridges she's always hated are gone, and she can't decide whether she misses them or dreads getting them back. Or both.

Beautiful performance, Roxann!!!

Re: Voyager Revisited: Faces
Monday -- 3 Dec 2001, 15:36 GMT

Roxann Dawson always gave great performances and this was here first real episode to shine. I liked the scene with her bonding with Tom and this was the first time I realized that those two had a lot in common and could be friends and possibly more. This was also the episode that brought me to the internet in search of other fans. I found the PT collective and found this site through their links page.

The episode that made me like Tom
david g -- 3 Dec 2001, 17:24 GMT

Tom is so kind and sensitive in this episode that I--for the first time--relaly felt for and liked him...I also like the fact that his wryness shines through even within his sensitivity: "I guess you got what you wanted," he says, as B'Elanna talks about always having wanted to be human.

But this is the best Torres episode and one of the high points of the series. I showed this one recently to my Multiculturalism class and they loved it. Dawson does a great job, as does Kolbe in his direction.

I loved Klingon Torres so much that i often wish we'd gotten to see more of her. Bryan Fuller's nifty idea of the Viidian pregnancy--though S7 handled her pregnancy w/Tom beautifully--wouldve been fascinating and allowed for that, perhaps.

i always wonder about Durst. Is the actor playing Durst the same actor playing the Viidian? I suspect not...but i have always wondered. Im also so used to seeing that Durst-actor in eveil roles it's surprising to see him as an average Federation guy...he recently played a good doc on DARK ANGEL.

david g

One of my favorite episodes.
D -- 3 Dec 2001, 19:08 GMT

Dawson did a great job with both versions of Torres. Considering she didn't even know what a Klingon was until she took the job she certainly made a convincing full-blooded Klingon with reason to be angry. This really was a turning point for B'Elanna. She may not have really reconciled her two halves until the end of the series, but her experiences here, particularly the conversation between her two selves when they stop to rest and her statement in sickbay in the last scene, are the beginning of the process. Rather than just blaming her Klingon side for her problems she finally acknowledges that she needs both halves, that the Klingon part has good qualities too.

Seems the Viidians get worse with each appearance. I assume the doctor experiments on any new species they capture, and that he knew she was mixed race because some of her DNA read the same as the humans she was with. But he obviously didn't realize just how strong Klingons are. It was rather convenient that she was dressed, complete with boots, and not in a hospital gown, though.

Now if they'd just remembered to free the other prisoners, especially the Talaxian, ...

Yes, david, that is the same actor playing both Durst and the Vidiian doctor
Terry -- 3 Dec 2001, 23:58 GMT

(Sulon?). I always thought that was a cool idea.

Agreed, a great acting job
CAM -- 4 Dec 2001, 02:53 GMT

Dawson really softened herself for the human B'Elanna, with some help from the makeup. I wish she had referred back to this episode when she was altering her child's DNA, but that would be non-Voyager. Tom does strike just the right note when he is talking to her. Going back over these shows makes me appreciate the first season a lot more.

Thanks terry. you almost feel for the Viidian--almost! NIM
david g -- 4 Dec 2001, 05:52 GMT

I remember thinking at the time...
D'Alaire -- 4 Dec 2001, 11:44 GMT

...that it was too soon to do that much digging into a character. Only the first season and they were excorcizing such a demon. I was scared (while incredibly impressed with the ep) that they were doing too much, and would ignore her later.

But, I was glad to have seen too shortly about the possible depths of her character. RD put it very well a couple years later, that B'Elanna's character was like an onion, and cutting into it, you would find layer after layer after layer. That and recalling the final scene in sickbay, how it ended barely concluding B'Elanna's thought on living with both sides, helped a lot.

Faces is still one of my favorites for B'Elanna (though I love all of her eps, of course ), and while it finally showed Tom as the character I'd hoped he could be (I thought the rougue was a bit cliched and empty), it was also what nailed down my P/T'ism, too.

But in the middle of all this character plotting was simply a fabulously performed episode. RD simply knocked my socks off with the expression of her bewilderment, confusion and hurt--and the determination and recklessness of Klingon B'Elanna, and their coming together to escape. Even if that in itself was a bit of usual plot course, she did it so well I barely noticed that it's been done before.

RDM finally had a chance to come off well with his Tom, too--just as determined, but saying a lot with only a little, and just being there. I fell in love with that side of his character, and craved it after. It suited him, IMHO, felt more natural to me.

Sulan was perfectly creepy in his being a good, rationalizing but disturbingly deluded Vidiian. I dare say that Durst had the best redshirt end of all the redshirts--you knew something would happen to him, but...Lecterism, Eeew! But at the same time, his delusions were given a little feeling and reason. Good stuff.

Like so many others, I had a hard time believing that Janeway would leave the rest of those prisoners behind--but tried wildly to rationalize that maybe she nabbed them offscreen. Still, that was a boo-boo that even Jeri Taylor admitted to.

But the rest made up for that, made the rationalization easy.

Re: Knocking off socks.
Deb47 -- 4 Dec 2001, 12:20 GMT

Like D'A... this ep simply blew me away.

The scene that grabs me everytime I watch it, is when Klingon B'Elanna first meets Human B'Elanna in the prison barracks.

She's crouching to pick up the weapon, and just looks at her human counterpart... stands... and then reaches out her hand. Human B'Elanna not prepared to meet a Klingon version of herself... takes it, is pulled up and then just passes out as the Klingon version dips down to catch her on her shoulder and march out of the room.

To me, that scene like the character of B'Elanna herself, means so many things on so many levels.

The human being courageous to try to find a way out of the prison, while the klingon being brave just "punching her way through" is an obvious one.

Less obvious, however, is the apparent understanding on the part of the Klingon that the Human distrusts?disrespects? her in some way... and that she must "reach out" to her in those first minutes lest she lose an ally.

My next fav scene, naturally, is in the cave over the campfire with the smell of rodent roasting in the air. Again, we see them harping at each other, and yet as I watch it I see the Klingon asking for such simple things from the Human... namely respect. A "simple acknowledgment" that without her the Human would have never gotten this far... and yet Human B'Elanna is so tied up in her past battles with the Klingon she doesn't "thank" her for what she's down so far. She just starts in on old complaints from getting kicked out of the academy "because" of the Klingon, to her fears that her Klingon savior will eventually get her killed in the Vidian prsion.

This was SUCH an awesome episode... and what pleased me the most was... in the end... TPTB didn't leave everything tied up in a wonderful bow.

In the end, B'Elanna came to understand "some truths"... like her Klingon half HAS qualities she Could admire, that her Klingon half saved her not just twice in the prison but also in sickbay, that her Klingon Half DID respect her Human accomplishments...

Yet...

With all the baggage she's carried with her since age 5 and under... she "missed" the obvious truth.

A truth that would escape her until season 6's "Barge of the Dead" and season 7's "Lineage" peeled her being quite a bit further.

B'Elanna DIDN'T have to "accept the fact that I'll be fighting with 'her' for the rest of my life".

All she had to do... was look up and take 'her' hand.

As Chakotay had told her... TOGETHER they made a formidable team.

What a piece of work.

And I never even got a chance to mention the P/T moments that opened my eyes to this possibility. The fact that their two backstories meshed more than I previously realized. That my opinion of him was immediately raised when he was counseling her in the prison or in the cave.

But... I have to save "something" for later... right?

D47

Re: One of my favorite episodes.
Sherry -- 5 Dec 2001, 23:31 GMT

Mine, too--and one of the top Torres episodes in the series. I was trying to think how to describe what I saw as the turning point in B'Elanna, but you said it better than I could: she finally acknowledges that she needs both halves.

Sherry

Lessons...
janey -- 6 Dec 2001, 06:14 GMT

This is one of the few episodes that affected me on a more personal level rather than one of entertainment or intellectual or whatnot. Not that is wasn't one of those as well, but this one cut a bit deeper.

Taking the Klingonness/humaness aspect away and focusing on the basic character traits I found this to be an intruiging examination of a person's self-examination of herself and the way she makes decisions, reacts to certain situations, and learns to deal with the way she can be indecisive and learn from the analysis, however slowly and carefully. And seven years we watched how all the pieces from this one episode came together bit by bit. It wasn't a quick fix plot line. It was a long journey. And if we meet up with B'Elanna again we'd probably see it isn't ending anytime soon.

Which is why I think B'Elanna's character, while underrated by the writers in later seasons, was the most realistic in terms of life lessons and growth.

This episode aired when I was getting ready to go to college and be more or less on my own for the first time. I watched it a lot leading up to leaving for school and through the first year or two. It is one of the episodes I pull out when I am feeling particularly torn in two directions or I am feeling uneasy with myself.

It's a great episode.

Re: Acknowledgments and cliffs of fall.
Deb47 -- 6 Dec 2001, 23:54 GMT

True, she acknowledges she needs both halves... but she also shows us her achilles heel..

"I just have to accept the fact that I'll be fighting with her for the rest of my life."

It was always the Human fighting... not the Klingon.

B'Elanna didn't "have" to fight at all... something she FINALLY came to realize in "Barge of the Dead" when she threw away the Batleth and collapsed on the deck.

She just had to "let herself be".

What a marvelous ride this character took us on all these years!

D47

B'Elanna is the most consistently developed character on VOY
david g -- 7 Dec 2001, 14:07 GMT

I think VOY triumphed in its characterizations of Janeway, the Doctor, Neelix (though see the "problem" hread above), Seven, and Torres--but Torres had the most satisfying arc.

david g