The Controversial Star Trek Episode That Even the Producers Hate

By Chris Snellgrove | Published 10 seconds ago

As big fans of Journey to the stars: VoyagerWe always love analyzing the production details of different episodes to find out how each of Captain Janeway’s adventures came about. More often than not, these are loving stories about how a great idea originated and became another memorable episode of Gene Roddenberry’s sprawling sci-fi franchise. But “Faces” is the rare case of a Star Trek episode where even the producers thought it was a terrible idea from the beginning.

“Faces,” like most Star Trek episodes, began very differently than what we ultimately saw on screen. This memorably split half-Klingon engineer B’Elanna Torres into two halves (one fully human, one fully Klingon) and, as executive producer Michael Piller said, the first story idea posited that this “could be the result of a horrible concentration camp. “kind of an experiment.” This didn’t exactly thrill the production staff: executive story editor Kenneth Biller stated that “the original idea was very melodramatic and cheesy”, and executive producer Jeri Taylor said “I wasn’t even in favor of buying this idea originally” and that “It was a tired idea” that “was too right for B’Elanna.”

“Faces” also didn’t impress famed Star Trek producer Brannon Braga, who admitted that “usually when a show introduces the evil twin, they’re on their last legs and they’re desperate.” He was initially on board with the idea of ​​removing this well-known television trope in Season 1, later saying, “I always felt like splitting it up was a mistake, like making Data human.” He questioned why the show felt the need to “resolve any of his feelings,” which is a fair question considering the tension between these dueling halves of his personality would extend throughout the entire series.

Regarding “Faces,” Michael Piller said, “This was a story that a lot of people had trouble with and was almost abandoned at one point.” However, the writers and producers stayed the course because they thought that a new version of the classic Trek trope of splitting a character in two (à la Kirk in The original series) had fun creative potential. The finished episode ended up being a hit and the credit seems to go entirely to Kenneth Biller.

As for the final “Faces” script, it incorporates the Vidiians, a tragic alien race that is always looking for a new way to cure the phage that constantly ravages their bodies. A Vidiian scientist ends up splitting B’elanna Torres into two parts as a crazy method to try to discover the cure. The brainiac alien ends up falling in love with his captive, Beauty and the beast style, and the two versions of Torres unite and escape captivity only to rejoin a single body on Voyager.

Biller is the sole writer of the “Faces” script and had the unenviable task of taking a Star Trek script that no one liked and turning it into something compelling. He brought in the alien Vidiians as a way to make the corps split work, and Piller later gushed that “it wasn’t until Ken Biller got the rewrite that he solved all the problems overnight.”

Meanwhile, executive producer and story skeptic Jeri Taylor admitted that “in the end it turned out a lot better than we had any right to expect.” He went on to say, “Ken Biller came up with the idea of ​​pairing that idea (of splitting B’Elanna) with the Phage aliens, and I think that’s what finally made it work and made it believable.

As you can see, “Faces” is one of those Star Trek episodes that had a very problematic production, and it’s a minor miracle that this story made it to air. It’s a good thing it did, though, as this episode’s themes of horror and identity make it one of the most memorable episodes of TravelerThe first days. The fact that it focuses on Torres (arguably the most interesting character on the show) serves as the icing on a replicated chocolate cake (we can only assume Deanna Troi would approve).