Farscape meta
Mar. 4th, 2006 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
minxyFARSCAPE META
2.03 Taking the Stone. Um.
Chiana has something bad happen and randomly takes off for a scary planet full of people dressed in leather and mud.
Actually, I thought the opening scene in which Chi stumbles around Moya was emotionally moving, in a ‘why doesn’t anyone help her?’ kind of way, and when she touched down on the stone planet of graves and the mudkids on ‘shrooms surrounded her in a scary-looking ‘fade-to-black-for-the-gang-bang’ I was really worried, but that was about it for the emotional impact for me. Once she started messing around with creepy tripping ‘shroom boy it took away from the possibility that she’d been traumatized by the gang, and then all her motivations got fuzzy and the whole thing got simultaneously confusing and pedantic.
I do get that she has the option to go cultish, get hooked on ‘shrooms and the thrills that only the young who are hyper aware of their own mortality can seek, but the themes were academic; free will and working through it on her own vs. Daddy coming in there and taking her away for her own good was kind of flat, although it’s reinforcing what feels like a deliberate set-up for the idea that there is more wrong with John than just his hair (and great, now he’s doing ‘shrooms on a dare. John. Where is your head?)
Chi’s reasons for jumping seemed to have a lot to do initially with the rush, with wanting to feel less pain, then they got jumbled in with wanting to die, and the confusion about whether she would automatically die if she jumped or if it was a test of her own will, which still confuses me, and it all kind of took away from... whatever the hell the point was.
Plus, Bluey and D’Argo looked seriously bored all episode.
Anyway, Chi with mud in her hair was weird. I kept thinking that the mud was likely to be radioactive if the rocks were (rocks are amplifying the radioactivity? *rolls eyes*) and the mud caking off of everyone’s head was creepier than the dreads or the transparent pregnant tummy.
There seems to be a running hallucinogenic drug theme going on here. I'm just sayin'.
2.04 Crackers. (I’ve been led to believe this one’s going to be interesting, but fortunately, I haven’t been spoiled.)
Hook: So far I like it. Discussion of the practicalities of food and being fugitives and possibly recognized. The crackers make me laugh and once again we have really nice alien prosthetics and I like the fact that an engineer would have acute hearing. Appeals to the idea that they’re listening to the hum of an engine or something.
Oh, that’s patently ridiculous. They’re trying to avoid em scans but the machine the alien brought on board and set up in 5 minutes is going to make the module INVISIBLE to the naked eye? Do you have any idea how much that wouldn’t work according to the laws of physics? Nevermind, I got over it on Stargate I can get over it here.
Except, invisible according to an instrument I would have believed. If there was a monitor they were looking through and reading heat signatures as well as sonic or electromagnetic handwavey something or other, I would buy that. But I’ll just snicker now and get over it. Moving on... Nothing to see here... *snicker*
Act I:
When, my good people, did Zhaan and D’Argo kiss? It’s in the credits, and I totally don’t remember that bit.
Okay, so now people are getting paranoid and Zhaan is tripping out. Guess that explains her reaction to light in other eps, eh? Also guess this isn’t a ‘lower species’ thing so much as anyone with good eyesight gets paranoid and violent (that food-rape scene with D’Argo and Rygel was genuinely disturbing. And could be the first time I stopped thinking of Rygel as a puppet.)
Huh. I thought for a minute Aeryn and John were sort of immune but now I think they’re just as paranoid as everyone else maybe. John is certainly being a little big, but then, he’s been nearly off his rocker for this whole season, and the hair gel is getting to be a serious situation.
How much does it sadden me that Pilot says he doesn’t like his crew? *is sad* They’re all being snippy and tactless with each other now, aren’t they? I think the alien guy did this on purpose, the meany.
AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The alien guy is TOTALLY FREAKY! I so called that. Nice lead up. MMMmmmmm.
Rydra? This is a totally cool episode. Good call.
Act II: I can’t believe the alien guy lit up his eyeballs and nuked a DRD. That’s just harsh.
D’Argo and Chiana in cahoots is marvelous, especially since it really seems like D’Argo is just doing it to get into her pants. And that’s totally in character for both of them. Hope there’s some sex in this ep. Beyond D’Argo tonguing Bluey, I mean.
Although the exchange with John about faking the light orgasm was kind of hysterical, I love tripping!Zhaan, she’s so cute! And John and Pilot are having a great discussion too, with John biting his arm and not defending human behavior, and Pilot being very driven to explain how little he thinks of them. That was ramped up nicely, I was just losing patience myself when John jumped up and climbed over the console and laughed at Pilot being all aghast and prissy. The timing in this episode is really nice.
Um, that can’t be good. *blink*
In fact, that’s possibly the creepiest thing to happen yet in this episode.
I mean, I know they’re all shooting at each other and escalating the violence aspect and Aeryn laughing and pointing guns at herself and at John an’ all, but Scorpius just walked out of the hologram and told John everyone was stealing crackers.
Seriously. That’s a bad sign. Really bad sign. Whole new level of crazy, right there.
*blink blink* *pets John*
Act III: What the hell is the freaky lying alien guy DOING, anyway, and is he killing all the DRDs or just the ones that might report back that he’s crawling up walls where he oughtn’t? Creepy alien guy.
Wow, creepy Scorpy in John’s head! And John’s all drooling and saying things like ‘I hate it when villains quote Shakespeare’ in a really loopy way and aaaiiii! This is soooo surreal. (I love it. This is possibly my favoritest episode ever.)
“Go on John, shoot him and then we can go to the beach! We can go the place with the naked Sebacean girls and the margarita shooters.”
Ooooooh, dirty Scorpy! Do it again! (This is so nuts.)
“Is that it? Oh, don’t stop! Why don’t you make another speech you self-important inefficient little man, all you ever do is TALK!”
Wow, the insults are grand. Biting. And Scorpius is obsessed with margarita shooters. And John is quite right that they wouldn’t work with pizza at all.
Act IV.
Hold the phone. John beat Aeryn? WTF?
Aaaaaand, we’re still all crazy! And Aeryn just got tons of crackers down her shirt. Poor girl.
Reason #4521 why I love Aeryn (and Claudia Black): she just ate a cracker out of her shirt.
Loved John’s lines about having blue eyes.
CRAP! DVD is scratched just as John is getting slathered with a mud mask. *tries to clean DVD*
‘Kay, I think I may have missed a few lines, but I caught John striking a ‘Humans Are Superior!’ superhero pose and that is going to be endlessly amusing. Hee! And, hey, I totally forgive the ridiculous science at the beginning because they paid it off, so that’s cool. And he got to use D’Argo’s sword! Awwwww, that probably means something very Freudian.
This is a great episode.
D’Argo and Rygel. Huh, almost forgot about the food-rape scene. I’m really glad they get a moment at the end. And I’m sorry I made the crack about John and D’Argo having a Freudian moment, because this episode was clearly all about D’Argo and Rygel. Rygel hiding and then hiding behind Aeryn, D’Argo having all kinds of frustrated ‘needs’…
Great. Episode. They even had the apologies, which t.v. NEVER DOES. Like, in Alias, there was a ‘Syd goes crazy’ episode, but it was all in her head, so she was hearing her greatest fears from the mouths of those she loved most, but she had nothing to actually reproach them with.
Farscape isn’t taking the easy way out, though, are they?
Yeah. This clinched it. I’m in love with this show now. *LOVES* *A LOT*
Must… watch… commentary. Laters.
2.03 Taking the Stone. Um.
Chiana has something bad happen and randomly takes off for a scary planet full of people dressed in leather and mud.
Actually, I thought the opening scene in which Chi stumbles around Moya was emotionally moving, in a ‘why doesn’t anyone help her?’ kind of way, and when she touched down on the stone planet of graves and the mudkids on ‘shrooms surrounded her in a scary-looking ‘fade-to-black-for-the-gang-bang’ I was really worried, but that was about it for the emotional impact for me. Once she started messing around with creepy tripping ‘shroom boy it took away from the possibility that she’d been traumatized by the gang, and then all her motivations got fuzzy and the whole thing got simultaneously confusing and pedantic.
I do get that she has the option to go cultish, get hooked on ‘shrooms and the thrills that only the young who are hyper aware of their own mortality can seek, but the themes were academic; free will and working through it on her own vs. Daddy coming in there and taking her away for her own good was kind of flat, although it’s reinforcing what feels like a deliberate set-up for the idea that there is more wrong with John than just his hair (and great, now he’s doing ‘shrooms on a dare. John. Where is your head?)
Chi’s reasons for jumping seemed to have a lot to do initially with the rush, with wanting to feel less pain, then they got jumbled in with wanting to die, and the confusion about whether she would automatically die if she jumped or if it was a test of her own will, which still confuses me, and it all kind of took away from... whatever the hell the point was.
Plus, Bluey and D’Argo looked seriously bored all episode.
Anyway, Chi with mud in her hair was weird. I kept thinking that the mud was likely to be radioactive if the rocks were (rocks are amplifying the radioactivity? *rolls eyes*) and the mud caking off of everyone’s head was creepier than the dreads or the transparent pregnant tummy.
There seems to be a running hallucinogenic drug theme going on here. I'm just sayin'.
2.04 Crackers. (I’ve been led to believe this one’s going to be interesting, but fortunately, I haven’t been spoiled.)
Hook: So far I like it. Discussion of the practicalities of food and being fugitives and possibly recognized. The crackers make me laugh and once again we have really nice alien prosthetics and I like the fact that an engineer would have acute hearing. Appeals to the idea that they’re listening to the hum of an engine or something.
Oh, that’s patently ridiculous. They’re trying to avoid em scans but the machine the alien brought on board and set up in 5 minutes is going to make the module INVISIBLE to the naked eye? Do you have any idea how much that wouldn’t work according to the laws of physics? Nevermind, I got over it on Stargate I can get over it here.
Except, invisible according to an instrument I would have believed. If there was a monitor they were looking through and reading heat signatures as well as sonic or electromagnetic handwavey something or other, I would buy that. But I’ll just snicker now and get over it. Moving on... Nothing to see here... *snicker*
Act I:
When, my good people, did Zhaan and D’Argo kiss? It’s in the credits, and I totally don’t remember that bit.
Okay, so now people are getting paranoid and Zhaan is tripping out. Guess that explains her reaction to light in other eps, eh? Also guess this isn’t a ‘lower species’ thing so much as anyone with good eyesight gets paranoid and violent (that food-rape scene with D’Argo and Rygel was genuinely disturbing. And could be the first time I stopped thinking of Rygel as a puppet.)
Huh. I thought for a minute Aeryn and John were sort of immune but now I think they’re just as paranoid as everyone else maybe. John is certainly being a little big, but then, he’s been nearly off his rocker for this whole season, and the hair gel is getting to be a serious situation.
How much does it sadden me that Pilot says he doesn’t like his crew? *is sad* They’re all being snippy and tactless with each other now, aren’t they? I think the alien guy did this on purpose, the meany.
AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The alien guy is TOTALLY FREAKY! I so called that. Nice lead up. MMMmmmmm.
Rydra? This is a totally cool episode. Good call.
Act II: I can’t believe the alien guy lit up his eyeballs and nuked a DRD. That’s just harsh.
D’Argo and Chiana in cahoots is marvelous, especially since it really seems like D’Argo is just doing it to get into her pants. And that’s totally in character for both of them. Hope there’s some sex in this ep. Beyond D’Argo tonguing Bluey, I mean.
Although the exchange with John about faking the light orgasm was kind of hysterical, I love tripping!Zhaan, she’s so cute! And John and Pilot are having a great discussion too, with John biting his arm and not defending human behavior, and Pilot being very driven to explain how little he thinks of them. That was ramped up nicely, I was just losing patience myself when John jumped up and climbed over the console and laughed at Pilot being all aghast and prissy. The timing in this episode is really nice.
Um, that can’t be good. *blink*
In fact, that’s possibly the creepiest thing to happen yet in this episode.
I mean, I know they’re all shooting at each other and escalating the violence aspect and Aeryn laughing and pointing guns at herself and at John an’ all, but Scorpius just walked out of the hologram and told John everyone was stealing crackers.
Seriously. That’s a bad sign. Really bad sign. Whole new level of crazy, right there.
*blink blink* *pets John*
Act III: What the hell is the freaky lying alien guy DOING, anyway, and is he killing all the DRDs or just the ones that might report back that he’s crawling up walls where he oughtn’t? Creepy alien guy.
Wow, creepy Scorpy in John’s head! And John’s all drooling and saying things like ‘I hate it when villains quote Shakespeare’ in a really loopy way and aaaiiii! This is soooo surreal. (I love it. This is possibly my favoritest episode ever.)
“Go on John, shoot him and then we can go to the beach! We can go the place with the naked Sebacean girls and the margarita shooters.”
Ooooooh, dirty Scorpy! Do it again! (This is so nuts.)
“Is that it? Oh, don’t stop! Why don’t you make another speech you self-important inefficient little man, all you ever do is TALK!”
Wow, the insults are grand. Biting. And Scorpius is obsessed with margarita shooters. And John is quite right that they wouldn’t work with pizza at all.
Act IV.
Hold the phone. John beat Aeryn? WTF?
Aaaaaand, we’re still all crazy! And Aeryn just got tons of crackers down her shirt. Poor girl.
Reason #4521 why I love Aeryn (and Claudia Black): she just ate a cracker out of her shirt.
Loved John’s lines about having blue eyes.
CRAP! DVD is scratched just as John is getting slathered with a mud mask. *tries to clean DVD*
‘Kay, I think I may have missed a few lines, but I caught John striking a ‘Humans Are Superior!’ superhero pose and that is going to be endlessly amusing. Hee! And, hey, I totally forgive the ridiculous science at the beginning because they paid it off, so that’s cool. And he got to use D’Argo’s sword! Awwwww, that probably means something very Freudian.
This is a great episode.
D’Argo and Rygel. Huh, almost forgot about the food-rape scene. I’m really glad they get a moment at the end. And I’m sorry I made the crack about John and D’Argo having a Freudian moment, because this episode was clearly all about D’Argo and Rygel. Rygel hiding and then hiding behind Aeryn, D’Argo having all kinds of frustrated ‘needs’…
Great. Episode. They even had the apologies, which t.v. NEVER DOES. Like, in Alias, there was a ‘Syd goes crazy’ episode, but it was all in her head, so she was hearing her greatest fears from the mouths of those she loved most, but she had nothing to actually reproach them with.
Farscape isn’t taking the easy way out, though, are they?
Yeah. This clinched it. I’m in love with this show now. *LOVES* *A LOT*
Must… watch… commentary. Laters.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 04:05 am (UTC)*rubs hands together evilly*
Hey, cool, you can read fic now! Awesome! Like, um, Maayan's Asystole (if you can find it), and a couple of my first-season stories, and stuff. Some of Max's stuff too.
Some day I really need to do a recs page by season, but that... would be work. Ergh.
And now you get my Crackers Don't Matter icon.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 04:13 am (UTC)I shall, I totally shall go search out fic! Marvelous stories! But not tonight, as I am tired now. *sadly, is tired*
Have a question for you, though. Wasn't Chiana's shirt all ripped up in the Stone one? That's how they tracked her down into the tunnels, because she kept leaving pieces of her shirt behind? And in Crackers it was untouched?
*is confused*
I had another question for you... but I can't remember what it is now.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 04:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 05:24 pm (UTC)Answers to nearly all your Farscape questions can be found at The Snurcher's Guide. It's sorted by episode, so you can avoid spoilers.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 04:17 pm (UTC)Still deeply love her for the cracker schtick, but I was hoping for more love in the commentary, alas.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 11:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 07:53 am (UTC)Pretty much...yep.
Oh, just you wait. There's some fantastic stuff coming up. Season Two was such a great run of eps for them.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 10:53 am (UTC)As in "the writers get a superior brand of crack in Australia", yes.
Do you have any idea how much that wouldn’t work according to the laws of physics?
This is Farscapeworld, in which the laws of physics are special.
Seriously, what I love is that they don't even try to technobabble and make it sound like it makes any sort of sense. They just go, "it's a widget, it makes things invisible, go with it". Froonium-powered.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 04:28 pm (UTC)I like that they needed it to break all the laws of physics. If they only did it for that one scene I would have continued to be *meh* about it, but I can totally embrace special physics as a story point.
But honestly, I've been a physicist a while now, and I've been a scifi fan longer, and Farscape is the first show that really sets me back every once in a while (usually laughing) going "oh, they didn't." *snicker* That's gotta be blatant, but I'm starting to believe they know, first of all, that they know they have muppets and they aren't going for realistic science, and that they don't do it for stupid reasons.
So I'm onboard, really, I'll just be making funny faces at the screen sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 04:49 pm (UTC)and the aliens are *very* alien.
*veg*
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 07:37 pm (UTC)*g*
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 10:16 am (UTC)Dave Elsey and his gang did the Farscape miniseries back to back with Star Wars III (which they got an Oscar nomination for).
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 07:27 pm (UTC)I handwave most things...I fully expect aliens in the future (or indeeds aliens of any era) to be able to say "Science? Shmience!" And oddly, never yet have they let me down ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 07:35 pm (UTC)I really gotta upload all those other FS icons I obsessively collected over the weekend...
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 06:30 pm (UTC)*g*
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Date: 2006-03-06 07:33 pm (UTC)Puppy piiiiiile!
Date: 2006-03-06 06:51 pm (UTC)Re: Puppy piiiiiile!
Date: 2006-03-06 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 05:04 am (UTC)In the meantime... your icon! She has served me well, thank you.
*joins in the puppy pile!*
Date: 2006-03-06 09:17 pm (UTC)Hallucinations and perception wrt points-of-view, human or otherwise, and the mental shock that results from them, is a major theme running through the entirety of Farscape. There are so many culture-shock moments and points where even the characters have to admit the situation is completely and totally over their heads, it's like the other person pointed out - it becomes practically a running gag.
I have . . . issues with some of the character choices made in later seasons, but season 2 is awesome and you will love it.
(Amusingly enough, regarding "Crackers," the SciFi preview for that episode was advertised with the tagline "The crew of Moya trips the light fantastic." Or something like that. Heh.)
Re: *joins in the puppy pile!*
Date: 2006-03-07 05:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 05:08 am (UTC)Thank you for your, um, enthusiastic greeting!
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Date: 2006-03-07 08:59 am (UTC)See, I tried to tell you ... *g*
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Date: 2006-03-07 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 12:21 am (UTC)I adore the fact that Farscape doesn't take the easy way out. Can you imagine Stargate SG-1 actually having a tag where the hero asks another character, "How do we take it all back?"
Go listen to the commentary for not only Family Ties but if you are watching the Starburst version, listen to Premiere and then listen to Jeremiah Crichton (when good eps go bad). These guys are on such good drugs.
I love a puppy pile.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 05:12 am (UTC)I think it's the internal consistency that will win me over in the end, but you see, I *am* a scientist, so old habits die hard when someone says something clearly ridiculous. lol. But I'm here for the emotions, and John and Aeryn in particular really hold my attention, even when they're just walking through the frame...
I predict at some point I'll get my hands on the Starburst DVDs, though, for the commentaries (I love commentaries) if nothing else.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 05:07 am (UTC)I'm so excited for you that you have all those great eps ahead of you.
seva
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Date: 2006-03-07 05:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 07:59 am (UTC)To answer your question about D'argo and Zhaan: in They've Got a Secret, when D'argo thinks Zhaan is Lo'Laan.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 03:42 pm (UTC)Buuut, I think the rest of your message was written in code, so I'm going to come back after I see They've Got a Secret and decipher the whole thing.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 01:07 am (UTC)Is that the one you're thinking of? 'Cause I've seen that one episode.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 06:14 am (UTC)No, that's Nerve/Hidden Memory. Stark isn't even in They've Got a Secret at all. But yes, he does come back.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 02:48 pm (UTC)*joins the puppy pile*
Welcome aboard the crazy train!
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Date: 2006-03-08 06:14 pm (UTC)We're going to need more pillows. I'll have to look into that.
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Date: 2006-03-08 04:55 pm (UTC)I love John so much in this episode -- oh, wait, no, that's every episode. *g*
And man, the best thing about Aeryn? Are all these small moments, the things she does while not even in the spotlight, and their utterly practical approach. (I love Aeryn Sun, I really do.)
Look, you get my rainbow icon -- it's the equivalent of a cookie -- for loving Farscape. & ;-)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 06:16 pm (UTC)Yes, Aeryn and John, how lovable they are. I think I loved Aeryn like *snaps fingers* THAT, you know, instantly? John I love more and more the more fragile and broken and Anti-hero he gets. It's just fascinating, watching these episodes.