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sshbpodcast · 5 months ago

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Character Spotlight: B’Elanna Torres

By Ames

Get ready to have an honorable day as we swivel our character spotlight over to the Voyager’s chief engineer this week on A Star to Steer Her By. Every day is an identity crisis for B’Elanna Torres, whose half-Klingon, half-human pedigree serves to frequently explore mixed heritages, familial disputes, and issues of self loathing as the series goes on. But mostly, Torres is just a wildly creative and intelligent character who is so frequently pushed to the brink, as is this show’s wont.

So grab a fork and dig into a whole freakin’ blood pie as we take a deep dive into Torres’s complex character and rich backstory. Read on below for some choice moments and listen to our recitation of the Klingon plea for the dead over on this week’s podcast episode (warp over to 54:21). Qapla’!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Did we just become best friends? Early in the series, Torres has a lot to prove, both as one of the Maquis terrorists that joins the integrated crew and as a character who clearly has a permanent chip on her shoulder about all things Starfleet. So it’s a wonderful moment of bonding with Janeway when they work together in ��Parallax” to escape the event horizon of a quantum singularity using science!

Me, myself, and identity crisis It always amazes me that “Faces” is slotted in season one of Voyager because it is so successful at exploring the dual nature of Torres’s makeup while her character is still getting her footing. When she is split into her Klingon and human halves, she really gets to take a closer look at herself (literally!) and how her two identities make her whole (also literally!). Early character work for the win!

Nothing, just talking to myself For the first (but not last) time Roxann Dawson voices a homicidal computer, we are treated to Torres figuring out how to disarm the Dreadnought in “Dreadnought.” She’s prepared to sacrifice herself to stop this weapon from taking out a planet, but it’s a triumph to listen to her argue with herself until she succeeds, even if she did create the weapon in the first place…

Prototype Unit 0001 is ready to accept programming We totally missed mentioning this one on the podcast, so I’m squeezing it in now because it’s such good work from Dawson. In “Prototype,” she tries so hard to help the automated units find a way to reproduce, creating sentient life in Prototype Unit 001, which is impressive on its own! So that makes it all the more devastating when she has to deactivate him, her first child.

A more honorable Klingon than Worf We gave Worf some stink for refusing to donate blood to the dying Romulan in “The Enemy,” and in “Lifesigns,” Torres goes the other way. When Danara Pel needs some of her Klingon tissue, Torres looks past the trauma that Vidiians inflicted on her and sees that Danara is an individual. Lumping everyone of a species together is not the Starfleet way. Worf, take note.

Learn the truth for yourself There’s a lot that we like about “Remember,” and a lot of that comes down to some stellar acting from Roxann Dawson. Torres won’t stand by quietly as the Enarans sweep their problematic history under the rug and pretend they’ve been a moralistic society all along. She steps up for learning from the past, acknowledging where we’ve come from, and being better for it.

You’re not going to learn anything from being with these lollipops Another instance of Torres not letting someone take the easy way out comes when she meets the Doctor’s The Sims family in “Real Life.” She reprograms his bubblegum characters to have something closer to agency of their own, challenging the Doc to learn to compromise with and respect his fake wife and fake kids. Ya know, skills that he can use with his actual crew!

B’Elanna and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Honorless Day I’m a sucker for the quiet reflection and character study that we see in “Day of Honor” when Torres and Paris are on the brink of death, floating in space helplessly in EV suits. In confronting what could be her final moments, Torres finds some clarity in her existence. And it’s just a touching admission for her to voice her love for Tom, kicking off their romance arc.

I’m going to have to deactivate you It’s telegraphed from pretty early in the episode, but it’s still impressive when Torres takes out Dejaren with an isomimetic conduit in “Revulsion.” We do give her credit for trying to help the wayward hologram in the first place, but she’s also smart enough to see through his facade and keep herself alive when he predictably goes nuts and tries to kill her because she’s corporeal.

Where’s the boob tube? This is a smaller detail but it’s indicative of the Torres-Paris relationship. When Tom returns from a two-week away mission, B’Elanna surprises him with a classic TV set in “Memorial.” It’s surprising Tom didn’t already have one, so it’s a good touch to see that B’Elanna knows exactly the kind of thing that would make his day, like a loving and thoughtful partner would.

We’re still alive and I’m still asking Star Trek overall is hit or miss when it comes to character relationships (one day, we’ll cover them all!), but Tom and B’Elanna just work. Sure, they both do stupid things sometimes, and you’ll see them in our Worst Moments lists, but Torres marrying Paris in “Drive” is weirdly right. It’s a joy to see how much they complement and expand each other’s characters. <3

Not every Cardassian is arrogant and cruel Wow, Torres gets held hostage by holograms a lot, doesn’t she? The thing I like most about “Flesh and Blood” is Torres’s interaction with the Cardassian hologram engineer Kejal. As we’ll see below, Torres has a bit of a tiff with Cardassians, but like she did with Danara Pel in “Lifesigns,” she’s able to treat this one like an individual and work together to save the day!

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Worst moments

I know this weapon very well You know I love it when the same episode pops up on two lists. Even though Torres did a great job disarming the Cardassian missile in “Dreadnought,” don’t forget that it was her fault that this thing was careening around in the Delta Quadrant in the first place. She knows this thing like the back of her hand because she was the one that reprogrammed it for the Maquis!

No means NO! I will shit on pon farr every opportunity I get, the same way I shit on oomox jokes. So even though Torres herself isn’t to blame for contracting pon farr in “Blood Fever,” it sure is the writers’ fault. It’s just so gross to watch this strong character lose her agency because of that creep Vorik, and it’s even worse that she tries to rape Tom even when he rightly tells her no.

No PDAs next to the warp core The Torres-Paris relationship is quite cute, as we stated up above, but their constant making out in the middle of engineering in “Scientific Method” is unprofessional. Guys, your coworkers on the first floor can totally see and hear everything, and we know how loud Klingon mating is, so keep it in your quarters when you’re off the clock before Tuvok writes you up.

If thoughts could kill… Even compared to other Klingons, Torres’s temper is substantial. The strength of the violent mental image she concocts in “Random Thoughts” pushes the Mari who experience it into committing murder. So really, how bad must it have been if it had such an exaggerated effect on people that their police force wanted to lobotomize her? Nightmare fuel, no doubt.

Try to remember that we are not just a bunch of drones Ever since Seven of Nine first joins the crew in “The Gift,” Torres is a major bitch to the former Borg. She’s opposed to working with her in “Day of Honor” because of her background even though Seven is recuperating, and it’s not until Chakotay orders her to chill out on the poor woman in “Message in a Bottle” that Torres shows her any respect at all.

Where’s Counselor Troi when you need her? We will say on the podcast that Voyager badly needed a counselor until the cows come home, and “Extreme Risk” is the perfect example of that. Torres is clearly coping with trauma, among a lot of other stressors, but instead of coping with it in a healthy way, she opts for the dangerous solution of getting herself injured in the holodeck all the time. At least program a Freud puppet!

As far as I’m concerned, they’re all cold-blooded killers Somehow, even though Torres was able to put racism aside in “Lifesigns” to help Danara Pel, she won’t give an inch to Cardassians in “Nothing Human” to save herself. And this Cardassian isn’t even real! It seems like a weird hill to literally die on for Torres to be so stubborn and willfully naive to refuse care. At least ask the Doc to reprogram Moset’s face first!

You must learn to master your emotions So most of “Juggernaut” is a Best Moment for B’Elanna but I ran out of slots above, so here we go. Even though she successfully figures out the whole Malon ship problem and discovers the true identity of the Vihaar, so much of the episode feels like a regression because Torres spends so much of it angry and violent – a backpedal for how far she’s come as a character.

Death becomes her Speaking of character regressions. This show can’t seem to decide where Torres ever stands in her relationship with her Klingon culture, and “Barge of Dead” goes all in on mystical claptrap. Despite five previous seasons of keeping her roots at an arm’s length, Torres uncharacteristically jumps into this dangerous death ritual with both feet. What the Gre’thor?

Such a Mary Sue It’s sweet that Torres is so nice to Kellis the playwright while he writes his Voyager fanfiction in “Muse.” But she crosses the line when she decides to improv an ending for Kellis’s play just because she’s so egotistical that she doesn’t want him to kill her character off, beaming out in front of the whole audience. It might be the most selfish reason for breaking the Prime Directive yet!

I’d say you’re capable of a lot more than delivering PADDs, if you know what I mean I blame this one more on the writers than on B’Elanna, but it still made me uncomfortable. Icheb gets it into his hormone-fueled head that Torres has taken a romantic interest in him in “Nightingale,” which is just peak adolescent boy fantasy. Unknowingly, she leads him on, and what I’m sure was supposed to be a joke just feels cringe. Really, she should’ve decked him.

Genetic modification is the treatment of choice Close to the end of the show, we’re back to Torres’s fraught view of her Klingon genes when she learns her unborn daughter will have head ridges in “Lineage.” Torres falls yet again into a spiral of self-loathing, assuming Tom will leave her the way her father did, and she tries to trick the EMH into surgically altering the fetus to remove any Klingon attributes. That is without honor!

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Let’s restore some honor to this post before we move on to our next character spotlight. Keep watching here as we go through the whole Voyager crew and also keep following along as we’ve finally reached season 4 of Enterprise over on the watchalong podcast at SoundCloud or whatever listening app you like best. You can also bond with us about science over on Facebook and Twitter, and if you’ve got Klingon rage problems, maybe talk to the EMH about it.

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sshbpodcast · 2 years ago

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Good, bad, or somehow both? The [simultaneously] best and worst of S6 Voyager

by Ames

We’re nearing the Alpha Quadrant in our watchthrough of Star Trek: Voyager and the episodes are leveling off to come in for a landing. Most of season 6 of the show is middle-of-the-road, with thought-provoking elements AND missed opportunities abounding simultaneously, often in the same episodes. This was a tricky season for your hosts at A Star to Steer Her By to pick top and bottom episodes for, and our individual tastes really colored our selections more than usual.

So much so, in fact, that for the first time since our coverage of The Animated Series there are multiple episodes featured on both the tops and bottoms lists! There’re also a good number of episodes we just found solidly good or solidly bad, so see where they’ve fallen in our picks below and listen to this week’s podcast coverage (season wrap starts at 1:00:03) which features extra picks from guest star Liz!

[images © CBS/Paramount]

Top Three Episodes

While we weren’t as wowed as we were for previous seasons, the episodes of season six tended to be more character-driven, personal, and driven by the hope that drives the Voyager closer on its journey home. There’s some good stuff in these quieter, more overlooked episodes that we want to shout out to.

“Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy”: Jake Every so often, Star Trek gets comedy right, and surprising no one, it’s usually when the Emergency Medical Hologram is involved. Robert Picardo just brings so much to even his smaller moments that it’s commendable, and good to see his turn as the Emergency Command Hologram to showcase a bunch of good jokes. Too many jokes perhaps? You be the judge since we’ll hear more about this episode shortly…

“Spirit Folk”: Chris Another episode we see multiple sides of is the sequel to the earlier episode “Fair Haven” (more on that in a moment). Again, it’s one of those comedy episodes that you find yourself either laughing or groaning at, but this one had some really fun moments. From the townspeople turning from NPCs to protagonists, to the Kathryn-Michael relationship feeling more right, to the zany witchcraft, there’s something to giggle about.

“Life Line”: Caitlin What’s better than one Bob Picardo being a diva? Two Bob Picardos being divas, of course! The relationship between the EMH and his creator Lewis Zimmerman is so fraught that it’s almost too familiar (you’ve seen our Parents in Star Trek blogpost, right?) and yet so nice to watch them grow together and come to understand each other, even if it’s just a little bit.

“One Small Step”: Ames Much of this episode is hauled up by some really lovely scenes from frequent Trek face Phil Morris as Commander John Kelly. We get to see this doomed astronaut’s final logs after he was lost in a space ravioli, and they’re so touching that they warm the cold heart of a former Borg drone. Seven gets to see firsthand why we honor historical milestones and the amazing people behind them.

“Child’s Play”: Jake We also talked in our Parents blogpost about Icheb’s monstrous mother and father who are very firmly in the worst category of parents, but this episode itself is also a bit of a fascinating story. The Brunali are a people constantly attacked by the Borg and they are willing to create and sacrifice their own children to take them down. What we get is a great ethical dilemma for Seven to solve when she herself becomes a protective parental figure and it’s lovely to see.

“Pathfinder”: Chris Finally, a moment of hope for the Voyager crew after their attempts to get home keep getting dashed over the course of the previous seasons. It’s a lovely victory for Barclay, and we also get to rejoice in watching him concoct a plan to get in touch with his latest obsession, with the help of a holographic recreation of its crew and also Troi, who is useful for a change! Sure, Reg’s holo-addiction is still a problem, but he’s using it to his advantage.

“Memorial”: Ames, Caitlin This episode is bound to elicit a response because of how much (and how well!) it depicts how people react to trauma. The PTSD that the whole crew ends up suffering from is something that’s so important to see as a focus, and it’s so very human (or Talaxian a little). On top of that, we get a unique perspective on how people spread their histories, and the way they go about it is about as messed up as histories themselves tend to be. No species will ever learn.

“Blink of an Eye”: Caitlin, Jake Speaking of histories, “Blink of an Eye” tells the story of a whole society’s development over eons in a single sitting. It’s one of those episodes that is told in such a fascinating manner that it captures your attention and your imagination. Each little vignette from the hyperfast aliens is a perfect little bite from their society, exactly the right size to entice. And ending the whole thing with a moving performance from Daniel Dae Kim? Delicious.

“Riddles”: Ames, Chris Wrapping up our list is a true dark horse candidate, the surprisingly moving and delicately handled episode of rehabilitation and recovery, told in a way that is supportive but strong – just like the Neelix-Tuvok relationship. These two may be most frequently paired together as the comedic odd couple, but when Tuvok is impaired and Neelix is there for him, it reminds you how sweetly their characters fit together. I love their weird love.

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Bottom Three Episodes

Not a ton of truly bad stuff this season, which is where disagreements in our lists tend to come from. When there’s not a lot to choose from, we get nitpicky. And when we get nitpicky, we get pedantic. The real missteps that were made this season… well, you’ll see those too.

“Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy”: Ames While this episode made one tops list, there’s also some squicky characterizations that drag it to the bottom as well. The Doctor is shown to be conceited, lewd, and downright gross in many of his fantasies, making us all cringe through scenes of him painting Seven in the nude, fondling Janeway’s bottom, and combating every female crewman’s insatiable thirst. And the alien antagonist Phlox, whom we’re supposed to unwittingly forgive for his earlier scenes, is just a power-hungry fascist. There, I said it.

“Spirit Folk”: Caitlin One more substantial disagreement is that other comedy episode that we mentioned above since so much of the funny gags and jokes are just downright stupid. Everything is way too convenient, we miss all the opportunities to explore the rights of these holopeople, and, frankly, “Who Watches the Watchers?” did the premise better. But that was another episode that we disagreed on back in the day, so who even knows anymore? And we’ll never hear from this holoprogram again anyway! Ack!

“Fair Haven”: Ames, Jake But we’re not done shitting on Tom’s little Irish village just yet! Why literally everyone on the crew was SO into a simple open sandbox Ireland world in the holodeck was beyond us, for one thing, but the romance between Janeway and Sullivan was just as perplexing. We were stumped where the conflict in this episode was even coming from because the only way for it to work was to turn the captain into a lovelorn, giggling schoolgirl and that doesn’t make sense. Delete the episode.

“Good Shepherd”: Chris, Jake We loved the TNG episode “Lower Decks,” and this cobbled-together mess is no “Lower Decks.” The three minor characters are boring at best and utterly obnoxious at worst. When Janeway decides to take them under her wing, anyone watching can’t help but wish she just left them in the bowels of the ship where they belong. And making matters even worse, any chance any of them has to grow as a character is negated when Janeway practically single-handedly saves the day anyway!

“Barge of the Dead”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris Like with “Sacred Ground” which we disliked so much several seasons ago, any exploration of religious faith just doesn’t work on this show. So Gre’thor is just a real place you can consistently visit by having a near-death experience? That’s a thing that this show has now established, and I’m personally peeved off by it. And Torres, who doesn’t even believe in this stuff in the first place, is completely out of character all episode long! Today was NOT a good day to die.

“Fury”: Caitlin, Chris, Jake Another of our good friends who’s entirely out of character is Kes, who returns from a perfectly good farewell and shits all over “The Gift” for no good reason. It’s like the writers forgot what kind of person Kes was in order to make this episode work. We don’t get to know why she became so embittered and scornful, but someone just decided it was so and dragged poor Jennifer Lien in to act in “Gaslighting: The Episode.” Things were great for you, Jennifer, because we say so.

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So who’s right and who’s wrong and how is it simultaneously everybody? That’s how middle of the road this season was. We’ll be back home on Earth in no time at all, so make sure you’re keeping up with us here and on the podcast over on SoundCloud or your favorite podcast app, hail us on Facebook and Twitter, and stay out of Fair Haven. It never ends well.

#star trek #star trek podcast #podcast #voyager #tinker tenor doctor spy #spirit folk #life line #one small step #child's play #pathfinder #memorial #blink of an eye #riddles #fair haven #good shepherd #barge of the dead #fury #top three #bottom three

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