OVEG: Faces

Description: I've gone after the teasers a bit in the recent reviews, and I feel that's with some justification. They've been proving to be filled with pointless drivel, run far too long, or both. Much like the way the end of a serial needs to draw us towards the next episode, the teaser is supposed to grab us and make us tune in after the credits and commercials are over, but Voyager's apparently assumed that the audience isn't going to stick around, and I suppose that's fairly valid. Lord knows Janeway drinking tea with a sideburned hologram is not the stuff that gets you by the throat and doesn't let go.

This episode, however, is different. The teaser lasts a scant thirty-three seconds, and we have the pan of a laboratory, and we gradually see the face of a Klingon... a fully Klingon Torres. And that's the teaser. And you know what, that's what we need. We don't need to follow it up with crap to get our attention, you've got it! Good on ya!

After the commercials, we come back to seeing Neelix serve Tuvok some authentic Vulcan soup he whipped up. Naturally he had to mess with the recipe so that Tuvok couldn't even take more than one bite. Since this is his only scene, this is the Stupid Neelix Moment... and it is rather stupid if you see the whole thing play out. Fortunately we get into things quickly; Torres, Paris, and Durst (also known as Ensign Expendible) aren't back at their rendezvous point (that's two episodes in a row now; they need to pick better rendezvous points). It turns out the tunnels shifted while they were down there. Chakotay suggests that they might have been cut off and volunteers to go down there after them, on the grounds that it would be really dangerous and foolish, and that's his job. Janeway, however, points out that he's used up his stupid points already this season and they're actually going to have to go in there with a plan to get out that actually has a reasonable chance of working. Obvious for you and me, but believe me, this is practically a paradigm shift for Voyager. I'm afraid of what might happen next... with working brains, Voyager could actually become dangerous.

And now on the planet we see Klingon Torres, again in bondage. If loving this is wrong, I don't want to be right. Her captor comes into view, and he's a Vidiian, one of those pasta-faced guys from Phage. Apparently, despite Janeway's brutal tactic of shaking her finger at them and sending them on their way with pilfered organs, they haven't stayed away from her crew. I'm shocked, it had seemed like a fool-proof plan to me. The chief surgeon explains that he used some techno-BS to make her fully Klingon, so that he can test her resilience to the phage. If she's resistant, then there's a chance it can be used to cure his people. To test this, he's infected Torres already... no pressure.

Elsewhere, Paris and Durst are part of a group led back into the barracks. For no reason one of the Vidiians shoves Durst so that he shoves back... so typically Voyager, a manufactured conflict. Paris intervenes and keeps Durst from getting his expendable ass kicked, and the two start plotting at their bunk. An alien nearby starts laughing in a grating manner and says that it's hopeless. Then he comes into view, and it seems this highly annoying alien is, in fact, Telaxian. Wow, there's a surprise. I'm not sure my heart's going to take much more of these jolts. The Telaxian explains that these Vidiians use humanoids to dig in the tunnels because they themselves are too weak to do it. When the slaves become less effective workers, they're sent to organ processing, where, well, the obvious happens.

Too good for 'em, I say!

Harry, Tuvok, and Chakotay explore the cave (Star Trek, where if you've seen one cave, you truly have seen 'em all) and find a toy tricorder. Tuvok says that he reads at least five life forms. Harry says that there were only three in the away team, winning him the "no shit?" award. Back in the Vidiian base, Klingon Torres is suffering from the pain of the phage, but she is suffering in the manner of a Klingon, of course. The surgeon says that it looks like she's going to win and defeat the phage, and then they can cure themselves. Torres is less than thrilled at that thought, spouting the usual Klingon crap. Cut down to the barracks, and a human female is dragged in, and it's also Torres. Now that's a new kind of weird.

Human Torres says that the Vidiians extracted all the Klingon DNA from her body, now she feels weak and sick. She fills us in on her back story, which I won't mock because it's actually not bad, though I am reminded of Mike Wong's "Freak! Look at the freak!" comments on Voyager's approach to character development. Still, it's pretty well handled, in spite of Paris, who seems to have turned into a retard. Torres talks about trying to cover up her ridges to try to blend in with the other people, and Tom says he used to wear hats to cover up bad haircuts. Sometimes he's such an ass.

Back down in the universal cave, Chakotay and the pips come across a wall that Tuvok thinks is a forcefield. And then we see some events that you wouldn't expect to see on Voyager. One, they actually remember a previous tactic that worked and try it, but far more importantly, they recognize the danger and beam out at the first sign of trouble rather than waiting until they've gotten their asses kicked. They always say they'll do something at the first sign of trouble, but this time they actually did it. What the hell? Between this and the fact that they actually put together an escape plan, this is seriously questioning Voyager's reputation as the shortest short bus in all of Starfleet.

Back in the lab, Klingon Torres is making progress escaping from her bonds. She tries making the moves on the surgeon, who is obviously seriously turned on by her manners. Then he again shows that the players aren't completely morons with: "Please, don't condescend. I may have a grotesque appearance but I assure you my instincts are finely honed, and I do have feelings." I said in Cathexis how the absence of logic puts a magnifying glass over the story and reveals the absence of logic that is a necessity - in other words, to get people to overlook the fantastic and/or absurdity of the situation, the rest has to be grounded in reality, or at least have a consistent logic to it. Because everyone (with the exception of Tom "oo shiny!" Paris) is actually thinking and the behavior is for the most part reasonable, the little details can be overlooked. For example, it took me quite a ways into the episode before I realized that what the Vidiians did to Torres threw the whole harvesting bit into question: if they can take one person and make two out of them, then wouldn't they have a limitless supply of organs? We can fill in the continuity gaps if we want to, but the matter is never addressed. And yet, I'm far more willing to give this a pass because for the most part the story is fairly reasonable. If you're willing to accept that Torres can be split and fill in the gaps around that, everything else stands up. Compare this to Cathexis where there was stupidity piled on top of absurdity so that by the end the viewer isn't even going to tolerate the "oh and we stopped and picked up the warp core" line and you see what a difference it makes.

Two Vidiians walk into the barracks and Tom and Torres discuss strategy. Human Torres thinks she should play sick so they leave her behind and she can try to work the console, but Tom thinks it's too dangerous, that they might take her to organ processing. However, the point is moot, because they've come for Durst. Tom tries to stop them, but Human Torres is left cowering on her bunk in terror the whole time. Durst elects to go with them... yup, I'm sure we'll be seeing you again, Lieutenant Goldshirt. Back on Voyager, the gang is working on finding ways to breach the forcefield.

And now, this is the scene from this episode I like, and it wins Best Moment, even though it might seem an odd choice. The surgeon comes in, and he's excited. "B'Elanna? I have something I want to show you," he says with excitement. Then we see that he's grafted Durst's face onto his own. "I thought [this] would make you more comfortable with me." Why do I like this? First, killing a man for his face is so un-Trek that I can't help but smirk. But more than that, they nicely underplay the whole thing. This is such an alien way of thinking, that he could think that Torres would actually be pleased -maybe even aroused- that he cut off her shipmates face and put it on speaks volumes about their entire mindset without him having to expound upon in the typical Voyager manner. Indeed, it sheds a macabre light on Vidiian mating, of men and women putting on new body parts as a way of showing their willingness to get it on. Subtlety in Voyager is a rare and precious pearl, and I realize the irony of me using it to describe someone who's sliced off someone's face and is preening about in it.

Klingon Torres breaks out of her restraints and starts strangling him, but the arrival of more Vidiians prompts her to take off. Back on Voyager, they've studied the forcefield and found tiny holes that appear to allow the Vidiians in and out. They figure they can beam someone inside through one of them when they form, but it raises the question of how to have that person avoid getting caught (atypical of Voyager; usually they would just skulk about in their uniforms and count on the bad guys being blind morons). To deal with that, the Doctor surgically alters Chakotay to look like a Vidiian, and appropriate clothes are replicated. You mean he's not going to knock one of them out and steal their one size fits all uniform? What program am I watching here?

Down below, Paris and human Torres are working in the mines. She's weak compared to what she used to be, physically and emotionally. She feels like a coward now. Before any more can be said, one of the Vidiians takes her back to the barracks, since she's too weak to work - bad sign. Chakotay gets beamed down, then it's back to the cave with the annoying Telaxian (pardon the redundancy). Klingon Torres shows up and threatens to break his neck - Huzzah! She interrogates him about Tom, and the Telaxian spills about human Torres. Down in the barracks, she slips over to the console and tries to use it to escape, but the Vidiians catch her. "Where are you taking me?" she asks in terror. "A shower and a hot meal," the guard says. Again, what I like about this episode is that the characters tend to behave in a more believable manner; the guard doesn't cackle evilly, but he says the line the way you might expect any jailer would when something unpleasant is about to happen to an unliked prisoner. And that's part of the disappointment I have; this isn't a great Voyager episode by any means, but it actually stands out as an anomaly that the people aren't cartoon characters and idiots.

Klingon Torres shows up and beats the shit out of the guards, then carries the unconscious human Torres off to safety. Human Torres eventually is woken up and given a cooked rodent to eat. Eventually the two Torreses start arguing about the best way out, an external representation of the internal argument that's always a part of Torres. Intriguingly, Dawson plays both parts, and neither really seems like the real Torres. Klingon Torres is, well, what you'd expect, brutish and forceful in her tones, sitting at the fire like an ape. Human Torres is soft-spoken, compromising, even her verbal punches are pulled. Seeing them together you can see that the whole is somewhere in between; she doesn't play the Human Torres as just regular Torres, she does seem just as different going the other way. Together they put together a plan: human Torres can use the computer to lower the forcefield so Voyager can beam them back, but she needs Klingon Torres to secure the computer and keep her covered while she works. Klingon Torres examines the tactical situation and devises the best place to make it work.

Down in the barracks, Chakotay meets up with Paris, but is confronted by a Vidiian guard. The guard is very suspicious of Chakotay, and questions the fact that he looks so unfamiliar, but Chakotay says that his face was just grafted. The guard looks him over carefully, checking his story, and finally accepts it. Again, it's so sad that I feel the need to point out people acting reasonably, but there it is. Over in the medical lab, the two Torreses get to work, but the surgeon ambushes them. Luckily, the jerkied Chakotay is on hand to rescue them, and the shield is lowered. However, the surgeon has pulled out a small weapon and fires, but Klingon Torres steps in, causing him to blast the one person in the room he didn't want to. Sucks to be you, lasagna face.

Back on the ship, Klingon Torres dies from her wounds, and over in Sickbay, human Torres is getting looked at by the Doctor. You know the magic reset button's going to have to be employed, and the Doctor explains how he'll reintegrate the Klingon DNA back into the human version. Torres is visibly unhappy with this prospect, which was good; I was so expecting so kind of schmaltzy sort of answer. The Doctor's explanation is also rather reasonable, that with her DNA f*cked up her cells can't synthesize proteins properly, which beats thinking light bulbs and defeating energy beings with magnets in my book. Torres is conflicted, she feels incomplete, but she also feels at peace. When she's done, Chakotay for once is speechless; he tries to offer some words of wisdom, but he's got nothing, no pat answers for the situation, not even a little nugget on the god of the hornet snot. "I came to admire a lot of things about her. Her strength, her bravery. I guess I just have to accept the fact that I'll spend the rest of my life fighting with her."

Rating: 7 (including a +1 for people not being morons)

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