Summary
- Star Trek: Voyager's "Faces" borrowed from TOS, exploring the concept of split personalities and showcasing B'Elanna's struggle with her mixed heritage.
- Unlike TOS, "Faces" didn't portray B'Elanna's Klingon side as evil, instead presenting her internal conflict as she confronted her identity.
- Both episodes concluded that the split selves needed each other to survive, but only B'Elanna had gained a deeper understanding of herself after reintegration.
A Star Trek: Voyager episode took Star Trek: The Original Series' good vs. evil Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to the next level. Voyager borrowed from TOS more than once in its first season, reworking concepts or exploring themes that TOS had first introduced but with a twist that always made them more interesting. One example of this was Voyager season 1, episode 14, "Faces," which dealt with the idea of a character being split into two separate beings, something that TOS had done in season 1, episode 4, "The Enemy Within."
During the TOS episode, as a result of a transporter accident, Captain Kirk was split into two different versions of himself. The "evil" version of Kirk began running rampant on the USS Enterprise, terrorizing the crew and attempting to take control of the ship. As the crew attempted to capture Kirk's evil doppelgänger, it soon became clear that the "good" Kirk's decision-making was impaired as a result of the accident, and that both Kirks' mental states were deteriorating rapidly without the opposite side of their personality backing the other up. Ultimately, the accident was reversed, and both Kirks were merged into one being again.
