The Vidiians are back, and this time they've split Torres in two: a Klingon B'Elanna and a Human B'Elanna. Looks like they just wanted to develop her a bit more, and the Vidiians were a convenient excuse to do so. Back during Phage I expressed my interest in the Vidiians returning, so I guess I got my wish. They are an interesting concept for a villain, but they're just such jerks that is it hard to sympathize with them the way the writers want us to. This time they have abducted crew members (and other aliens) to work as slave labor in mines, be walking organ banks, and have disfiguring genetic experiments performed upon them. It's tough to believe that the Vidiians were ever even remotely good guys.
Well, okay, I guess humans do bad things too, and there are still human good guys. It is just frustrating that all these Vidiians have all been so evil; though, to be fair, we've only actually known three of them by name. And at the same time, we have Torres acting wildly differently based on whether she is composed of human or Klingon DNA. It annoyed me at first, but the actress gradually softened her performance(s) as the episode went on. It makes sense, I suppose, to have her need to adjust to the presumably very different brain chemistry/neurotransmitter composition of a very alien noggin.
Part-way through we meet our second Talaxian. He's obnoxious, squirrelly, and strangely noble, and I like him. I can't help but think: what if this were Neelix? Neelix could sure use some mystery. Currently he is used as the painfully stupid crewmember who needs everything explained so that other characters can engage in boring exposition. He wears everything on his sleeve and I never want to know anything more about him. I like this new nameless Talaxian better.
The head Vidiian researcher takes a turn for the macabre when he, in order to appear more attractive to Torres, takes the face of the redshirt who was with her and Paris when they got captured (played by the guy with the cellular entertainment center in DS9) and grafts it onto his own. I know I just got done saying that I wish the Vidiians weren't so evil, as long as they are going to be evil, this is the way to do it. It is a pretty haunting scene, this guy being so out of touch that he thought that mutilating an acquaintance of Torres' would endear him to her.
Resolution: Torres discovers that she needs her Klingon half to be whole, rescues the captives (with Chakotay-disguised-as-a-Vidiian's help), and the Doctor restores her to normal. It is trite, but not badly done. I like Torres in general, and this wasn't a terrible way to progress her character.
Watchability: 3/5
Bottom Line: Torres gets some character development and we see more of the Vidiians, which is almost enough.
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