Just as the second season is shaping up to be a bust, we get one of the classics of the series. Janet Tyler is in the hospital for the 11th time to fix her face. It appears she was born with certain defects that make her stand out in a society that prizes conformity above all, and this is the last operation to save her. Unfortunately, certain characteristics mean she can’t have plastic surgery either, so this is it.
Shot mostly in shadows and from camera angles that obscure the faces, we don’t see until the end of the episode that she is in fact quite beautiful by most standards, and the hospital staff is grotesque, with pig-like snouts and disfigured mouths. In the same vein as Third From the Sun, we just assume that things are the other way around and she is trying to match our perceived normalcy, but that’s what makes it such a great episode.
