Archives for 2013

Season 1, Episode 5: “Back and Back and Back to the Future”
*** out of *****

“He says he is experiencing the future.”
“The future? He can barely function in the present!”

So it’s a bad idea to store a piece of a black hole in your glove compartment. It’s almost as bad to stick your hand into it. (Seriously, Crichton, even in episode 5 you should know better than to touch the sparkly green light!)

This episode isn’t great, but it was good enough to hold my interest the first time, as I recall. It doesn’t hold up too much to repeated watching, however, as figuring out what’s going on is a great deal of the episode’s charm. Nevertheless, the tone is actually a rather creepy, mostly because, like John, we don’t know what’s going on at first, and then when he does find out he’s the victim of “temporal dislocation,” everything he thinks of to try doesn’t seem to work. It clearly disturbs John, and Browder really sells that to the viewer.

So what’s it about? Moya rescues to Ilanic scientists named Matala and Verell. They’re genetic cousins to Luxans and at war with a race called the Scorvians[1] (er, Ilanics in general are, not just these two). But as it turns out, Matala’s a Scorvian spy, because hey, D’Argo’s not allowed to be happy, right?

Their presence affects D’Argo profoundly, from bending over backwards making sure Verell is comfortable to getting territorial over Matala’s affections. Like, really territorial. He even goes so far as to stab Crichton in the stomach in one particular future-flash. One can’t blame him TOO much. He’s been in jail and she’s the first compatible female he’s seen, really–plus I’m sure he misses others of his kind, even if the Ilanics are only “genetic cousins.” We also learn that he’s not been truthful about his reason for being a prisoner in the first place, and hints at his current situation being more complicated than he lets on.[2]

So D’Argo gets the most development, as does Crichton as he tries to figure out just what the hell is going on. Pilot gets almost nothing. Rygel spends most of the episode eating.[3] Aeryn’s mostly just Aeryn, though she does have a small role to play, figuring out that Matala’s a Scorvian. As for Zhaan, she’s the first to notice something feels out of balance with Moya. Zhaan takes it upon herself to question Verell and get to the bottom of it. With this and her helping take Moya’s pain in I, E.T., she’s already sliding into her role as Moya’s unofficial protector.

And speaking of Aeryn’s role, the martial arts form that Aeryn and Matala practice is rather kooky. Or maybe just bad. It seems to be brawling punctuated with flamboyant and pointless arm waving. (Scorvian “neuro-strike” notwithstanding.) Though I’m no expert. It also seems odd to me that Matala would be so foolish as to use her neuro-strike in such a way if it’s such a big indicator of her true nature. But hey, nobody’s perfect.

And damn, but Matala’s voice is irritating, both in tone and cadence. I’d forgotten that completely. It does a nice job of making her seem a little alien, but…it’s annoying.

Last line:
“Now that, I understand. Man, do I understand.”

Other Comments:
This is the first episode where D’Argo’s eyes are not green. In the first four episodes, Anthony Simcoe wore contact lenses, but they wound up irritating his eyes (I think he was actually briefly hospitalized), so they dropped that. I think he looks better without them anyway–or maybe I’m simply used more used to seeing him without them.

[1] And Crichton being Crichton, he will of course at one point refer to them as “Scorpions.”

[2] This is also the first mention that D’Argo’s building a shilquen, though we aren’t told what that is just yet…

[3] I wonder if the puppeteers needed a rest.

Season 1, Episode 4: “Throne for a Loss”
***3/4 out of *****

“If you must address me, do so as ‘Your Supreme Eminence.’ Which you should be doing anyway.” [1]

Rygel gets kidnapped and ransomed by the some aliens called Tavloids[2] who use specialized drug-injecting armband weapons. Had Rygel not swallowed an important gemlike circuit vital to Moya’s propulsion (note to the crew: pick up a spare on the next commerce planet!), he likely would’ve been left behind.

This is my favorite episode up to this point. Not too high of a bar yet, I admit, but it’s got a decent enough plot, action, humor, good character beats, non-humanoid aliens and, unlike I, E.T., a sufficiently alien-looking world. It’s curious how such a simple thing as tinting the leaves blue can have such an effect. All in all, very Farscapey. Especially because after all of the running around and fighting, John finally winds up getting Rygel back with a “Stop! We’re too pathetic to pick on!” argument.

I think my favorite bit is the B-plot (or maybe it’s more accurately the A.5-plot.) Zhaan helping the young Tavlek deal with his drug withdrawal and trying to get him to quit the gauntlet is an interesting show of how compassion and strength aren’t mutually exclusive things.[3] It truly seems to surprise the boy that she cares and doesn’t hate him.[4] In what we’ll discover is typically Farscape fashion, the boy doesn’t wind up listening, but Zhaan’s efforts are no less laudable for that.

This episode also gives us a couple of D’Argo firsts: He shows his Qualta blade is also a rifle[5], and we find out that you have to beat the crap out of an injured Luxan until the blood runs clear or he’ll die. How that particular quirk survives the evolutional process, I have no idea.

Last line:
“No sermons.”

Other Comments:
This episode has some weird alien-techno music punctuating some of the action, much like the pilot; it’s a hallmark of early episodes.

John has a plan, and it actually works! (Strange, especially given how unlikely it would be that D’Argo would happen to knock himself unconscious on a table.) Of course, he makes up for it later by accidentally overloading a pulse rifle when he’s trying to figure out how to shoot it…

I was going to rate this one 4 stars, but took off a quarter of a star for D’Argo’s line, “My head is pounding like a “Maxzillian Pilater Day parade.”

[1] I was originally going to use John’s Wile E. Coyote line, because it’s easily one of my favorite lines of the entire series. But that’s in the video clip, so I get to have my cake and eat it, too.

[2] TavLEKS!

[3] “Soft, yes. Weak? No.” If there were a Crew of Moya yearbook, I’m pretty sure this would be Zhaan’s quote.

[4] The scene in which she disrobes and shows him that he’s unable to shock her is classic Zhaan.

[5] One does wonder why he didn’t use it last episode, especially when he was scavenging a pulse rifle from the commandos.

Season 1, Episode 3: “Exodus from Genesis”
*** out of ***** 

“Rygel is NOT my sovereign!”
“He is today.”

I’ll start with something I keep meaning to mention in each of the last 2 episodes so far but keep putting off: I have a love-hate relationship with the theme music. It’s obviously linked to a show I love, so I like it by association, but that cat-yodeling or whatever at the end really drives me up a wall. Thankfully they tune it down in later seasons, but it’ll be a while before we get there.

This episode starts out with a bit of everyday Moya life. Rygel paints, while D’Argo teaches Crichton some Uncharted Territories dental care.[1] But things kick in soon after as Moya hides in a debris field to escape Peacekeeper detection and picks up a bunch of big-ass space bugs (who call themselves the Drak, and remind me a little of the Rachni from Mass Effect) that crank Moya’s temperature in order to breed. Tempers flare (no pun really intended) as the crew tries to figure out how to bring the heat down before Aeryn succumbs to Sebacean heat delirium. Complicating matters are the facts that the bugs can turn into replicants of the crew (complete with identical clothing) and a quintet of Peacekeeper commandos [2] decide to join the party.

This is the episode gives us our first look at Sebacean heat delirium. It’s curious how this particular weakness got into a race that we find out way down the road was actually bred to be a soldier class. I figure either it was an intentional Eidalon attempt to make sure they wouldn’t get out of hand, or it was something that developed later because the original genetic tampering decayed without maintenance over the centuries. But it makes for an interesting aspect of Scorpy’s character later on, too, so I’ll forgive.

This is a decent first season episode. It’s something of a standard sci-fi plot, but what makes this episode good—as seems to be the case with most Farscape episodes, so I’m going to have to watch that I don’t continually repeat myself here—are the character moments. Zhaan’s all over this episode, getting good moments with Crichton and Rygel especially. This is also the second episode in a row in which Rygel’s forced into a confined space to take care of something. But he also gets to play the regal diplomat. [3] Meanwhile, John chafes under not being cut any slack by the others as he adjusts to this new word. He also works on cracking Aeryn’s shell, and D’Argo begins to admit some concern for Aeryn’s welfare. As for Aeryn, she actually smiles for a moment! I can remember Claudia Black at some point mentioning how they’d decided that she wouldn’t smile too often for a while so that when she does, it really makes an impression.

Last Line:
“You know, all things considered, there are worse ways to end a day.”

Other Comments:
I like that John’s reaction to first seeing the Drak bug is to jump off the floor and get as far away as possible in rather non-heroic fashion. (Though he does capture one afterward.)

The Drak look pretty decent. The CGI is apparent when they’re up and walking on their legs, but not distractingly so. The moment when Rygel walks, however, is…less convincing.

Crichton tries to use the replicants as an excuse to get the commandos to tell Crais he can’t be killed and scare him off. Judging by the upcoming episodes, this has absolutely zero effect.

[1] “Never. Swallow. The dentic!”

[2] All of whom wear weird eye make-up–the only time we see this in the series. Either this is an idea they dropped (thankfully), or this particular squad of commandos just decided, “What the hell. Mascara.”

[3] Of course, he has to walk into a Drak birthing sac to do so, but diplomacy can be a slimy business sometimes.

Season 1, Episode 2: “I, E.T.”
** out of *****

“Aquatic? That’s water, not mud! Mud is…mud! You can’t breathe in it. You can’t move in it. It holds you, it grabs you, it sucks you down! You want to know about mud? I KNOW about mud!”
“The guy knows mud.”

This is one of my least favorite episodes of the season. My absolute least favorite is–well, I’ll mention that when we get there. Any guesses? The Peacekeepers put a LoJack on Moya, so our favorite group of escaped prisoners take her down into a nearby planet’s swamp to muffle the signal and search for a numbing agent that will allow them to cut the LoJack out without killing Moya[1]. Along the way, John gets caught by an alien mother and son who get their first ever close encounter with what they view as “alien” life. It’s an interesting reversal, with John being pretty much just a week or so ahead of the woman in terms of discovering she’s not alone in the universe (and he seems to be really amused at the irony) but the episode’s rather mundane setting (the house has venetian blinds and a Persian rug!) makes things feel rather bland. Plus the kid bothers me.

Still, it’s not all bad. Mary Mara, the actress playing the alien woman Lyneea, brings a lot of life and wonder to her role. We’re also treated to a lot of good character development. I like Rygel’s mud-panic (quoted above) as well as the turn that while he doesn’t much like being shoved into small spaces, what’s really bothering him is that he might screw up because he’s not used to having to do things like that himself.[2] Aeryn’s showing some vestige of loyalty to the Peacekeepers in her conflict about helping escaped prisoners–or is she just homesick and regretting having gotten herself into this mess? Her walls are up for pretty much the entire episode, though she does bond just a tiny, tiny bit with D’Argo as they bicker in a tree and make fun of Crichton. Zhaan gets to show off her pa’u pain-sharing (and coach Rygel through a tough time the way only she can do), and Pilot gets a lot more to do. We see some of his feelings for Moya, the responsibility he places on himself as her bonded pilot, and–for those of us who know about their past–hints of his feelings of inadequacy and guilt over how good of a match he is for her.

Oh, and Crichton continues to be physically assaulted by the Uncharted Territories, from getting headaches and weird facial twitches from the signal to getting blasted numb by an alien stunner.[3]

Final Line(s):
“Don’t tell me you’re going to miss that rock.”
“No, not that rock.”

Other Comments:
This episode features the first instance of “hezmanna” and the first time we hear Crichton’s voice-over in the opening.

How do Lyneea and her son understand Crichton without translator microbes?

[1] Moya is scared. If I ever get around to making a Farscape drinking game, it would involve drinking every time Moya is scared. Or in pain.

[2] He also bites (and eats! Gah! I’d forgotten that!) a chunk out of Aeryn’s forearm when she tries to send him back in. This is so very much NOT the Muppet Show!

[3] I do find it a little amusing in that Crichton likely draws on alien visitation movies from Earth in spinning a story to Lyneea about having selected her when he really just wants to charm her to avoid being turned in.

Season 1, Episode 1: “Premiere”
*** 1/2 out of *****

“Compassion? What is compassion?”
“Compassion? What, you’re kidding, right? It’s a feeling you have when you see someone else’s pain and instead of taking advantage of their weakness you help them?”
“Oh, I know this feeling.”
“Yeah, well, it is a fairly common human feeling.”
“I hate it.”

Perhaps the least imaginatively titled episode of Farscape[1], it nevertheless managed to get the series going on a creative enough note to hook me the first time I saw it. Now that I’m re-watching, the opening shot of John Crichton watching the sun rise behind the Space Shuttle at Cape Canaveral feels iconic to me, given how much we seem to see it later in the series in flashback form. The orange sky at sunrise somehow lends a bit of an alien feel to things already.

Because they only had an hour to work with, the episode doesn’t have much time to get us into the Uncharted Territories. After a few brief moments with (the eventually doomed) D.K. and some good character moments establishing John’s relationship with his dad[2] (with some “something big is about to happen!” subtext that’s only a little heavy-handed), John’s up in the Farscape module and about to try an experimental slingshot maneuver.[3] Then, before you can say, “That’s not a space helmet!”, some “sort of wave” hits the module mid-maneuver and knocks it into a wormhole that flings John across the galaxy into the middle of a big ol’ space-kerfuffle where he commits the grievous sin of floating there and causing Crais’s brother to swerve into an asteroid.

The rest of the episode introduces us to Moya’s “crew” (such as they are), hints at their interpersonal conflicts and separate agendas, and sets up Crais’s personal vendetta that will drive the show for most of the first season. Along the way we’re treated to some darned high-quality FX[4] as well as set design that I’d never really seen anything quite like at the time. On my first viewing, I especially loved Pilot’s den, and, for me, it still holds up.

John spends much of the episode in a state of either terror or amazement as he tries to get his bearings–something that arguably (and, I think, realistically) continues for the rest of the season. Everyone else gets a good bit of starting characterization, too–at least enough to catch my interest–save for D’Argo and Pilot. Pilot gets a little with an occasional frustrated grunt directed at the others, but he’s mostly just functional for this episode. But the fact that he’s something of a non-standard-looking alien for TV adds a little, too. D’Argo comes off as a bit one-dimensional: just a Klingon with tentacles.[5] Zhaan feels Zhaanish from the start. At her most confident. She’s complex: Caring, mature, but playful and, given her imprisonment and comment about being her planet’s “leading anarchist,” likely dangerous beneath the surface.

Officer Aeryn Sun[6] first appears to be only a space-Nazi antagonist. Her first action on-screen is to beat John up in almost annoyed fashion (with Aeryn, beating up John is kind of a defining character trait), but she also shows sticks up for him with Crais later, which gets her deemed “irreversibly contaminated” and shows that she’s got a bit of conflict going on under the surface, too. And Rygel…well, Rygel’s Rygel. Arrogant, scheming, and remarkably expressive for a puppet. He also farts helium for some reason.[7]

By the end, they escape into starburst with the help of the Farscape maneuver. As the episode comes to a close, John tries to come to grips with his situation. Death threats from D’Argo, theft threats from Rygel[8], and warnings about Crais and trusting people from Aeryn serves to let us know that everything in the Uncharted Territories is very weird and very dangerous. While John may be out of immediate danger, he’s still adrift in unknown waters.

Final line:
“And there’s life out here, dad. Weird, amazing…psychotic life. In technicolor. You know those rattlers in the stomach we talked about? Well I got ’em now.”

Other comments:
At one point Crais tells Lieutenant Teague to “peel back the image” in order to let them see through the Farscape module’s opaque canopy and John’s helmet. And you thought CSI’s “zoom and enhance” was nuts. Then again, alien tech. Also, Crais looks like he’s wearing a bicycle seat on his head.

[1] I could have sworn it used to be called “Pilot,” which would’ve been a little more clever.

[2] Though we’ll see Kent McCord numerous times over the next few seasons, this is, technically speaking, the last time we’ll see Kent McCord playing Crichton’s father for a long while. …And it was a trout!

[3] Given John’s character’s knowledge of geek culture, I suddenly wonder if he was inspired by Captain Kirk’s preferred method of time travel in coming up with the idea in the first place.

[4] Something true about the whole series. Occasionally the background puppets/creatures can look a bit stiff. On the other hand, seeing the giant merchant in this ep who looks like a Starcraft hydralisk on a promo was the thing that got me to tune in way back when.

[5] We’ll later learn that the tough Luxan warrior gig is something of a façade D’Argo’s putting on, though the meta-explanation is that this is a pilot episode and both the actors and writers are still figuring some things out.

[6] “Special Peacekeeper commando, Ikarian company, Plaizar regiment!”

[7] How his body produces a noble gas is something I’m sure people on Earth would like to find out. (Hey, he’s a dominar and he farts noble gasses. It’s been over a decade and I just now got that. Think it was intentional?)

[8] Rygel’s smile as he floats away after asking “Are you a sound sleeper?” is one of my favorite moments of the episode and proof that Farscape knows how to make those puppets real.