Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About B'Elanna Torres

Through this writer's experiences with his own mental health, he knows just how once familiar comforts can lose their appeal and effect, as had banana pancakes for B'Elanna in Extreme Risk. At the same time, in certain forms of therapy, what is comfortably familiar in touch and sight and sound and smell may be placed in a box to help ground us during the more difficult times.

For this writer, all of Star Trek: Voyager was (and is) in that box, and, in that sense, so were banana pancakes. At the end of Extreme Risk, banana pancakes become a source of comfort for B'Elanna once more, or, at least, the symbol of a renewed sense of hope for the future.

What you may not know is that Roxann Dawson was instrumental in the creation of the episode. According to Cinefantastique (Vol. 31, no. 11), during a dinner with producers Brannon Braga and Kenneth Miller before the start of season five, the conversation turned to "the nature of depression," and Dawson shared her ideas for exploring that side of B'Elanna's character. As she later noted in the Voyager DVD extras:

I felt that she had a part of her that was very dark that maybe we hadn't touched on yet. A part of her that, if left unattended to, would become very self-destructive […] to the point of possibly injuring herself, and that injuring herself comes from a self-loathing, a self-hatred that she would need to explore.

Dawson hadn't expected the dinner conversation to turn into an episode, but we're forever glad it did. Extreme Risk remains to this day a powerful portrayal of the realities of depression (major depressive disorder), suicidal thoughts, and self-harm and the need for the utmost care, compassion, and understanding for all those who are going through it.