Comic Con Report, volume 5: Moon Edition

This year was the 50th San Diego Comic Con and it happen to occur on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, the latter landmark receiving a lot more attention, or so it seemed to me. The moderator at the panel for The Expanse made a point to note that, while the new season trailer was being shown, we hit the exact moment on July 20th in 1969 the Eagle landed. It was not an inappropriate trailer for the moment, featuring as it does the crew of the Rocinante setting foot on an alien world for the first time.

And here are the clips I got from the panel:

It's a good thing my camera has a good zoom but you can probably tell I was pretty far back in the Indigo Ballroom. The Expanse was the only panel I saw in there this year, which was kind of strange after the past couple years in which I've found myself in that room for most of at least one day. But I barely made it in for The Expanse because the panel preceding it was for The Good Place, which seems to be pretty popular.

On Sunday I was in a smaller room, room 32AB, inside the convention centre itself to see the panel for NASA and JPL. I think organisers underestimated the panel's popularity--the room completely filled up and time seemed to run out pretty quick.

Comic Con Report, volume 4: Artists Edition

Here several artists draw from cosplay life on Sunday. Among them, the white haired fellow obscured in the back, was Gary Gianni, whose booth it was. I'd spoken to Gianni the day before when I was perusing art open for display in artist alley and noticed his pencils for Hellboy: Into the Silent Sea:

Image by Gary Gianni taken from Mike Mignola's Twitter

I could immediately see Gianni had actually spent time studying ships. I asked him about his research process and he told me a ship modelling club had been a great resource. We talked about how it's easy to underestimate how complex the detail can be on ships from the age of sail. I'd spent enough time studying them myself for my own comic that I've gotten used to noticing the bizarre configurations of lines and tackle contrived by many artists who didn't bother to do research. So it was great to see an artist who'd shown such attention to real detail. And Gianni did so without making his work look like blueprints; the drawings show his artistic expression in their proportions and angles. You can see he's comfortable enough with his knowledge that he can use it as a tool without being a dull regurgitation of information.

I made the rounds in the independent/small press booths on Sunday. I was amazed by the inkwork of Scott E. Sutton--on seeing his book cover I said, "You drew all the leaves!"

He nodded and seemed pleased someone noticed, telling me his inkwork was influenced by great British illustrators like John Tenniel and Arthur Rackham.

Nearby I met another fantasy artist with impressive inkwork--Pug Grumble, who writes and illustrates a series about a character named Farlaine the Goblin.

He told me made the kinds of books he would want to read, something for someone tired of superheroes. I said, "We could all use a break from that now and then."

But I am happy I caught the panel for Jim Starlin on Thursday. Creator of several Marvel characters popular now on the big screen, including Thanos, Drax, and Gamora, he also co-created Shang-Chi, a character whose upcoming MCU entry was among the big reveals at Marvel's Hall H panel.

He talked about how Shang-Chi began life as a comic adaptation for the television series Kung-Fu. When Warners weren't interested in this comic, Starlin and Steve Englehart reworked the project and sold it to Marvel. When the comic was going to be connected to Fu Manchu, Starlin said he went and read the original 1930s Fu Manchu books and was horrified and embarrassed to be connected to essentially "yellow peril" style propaganda.

Starlin said he was surprised by the popularity of Thanos as he always regarded him as a challenging, niche character. He talked about how he never liked "simple" characters, that most of the characters he's created are as much villainous as they are good. He also said he liked to create abstract entities for which he felt comics and novels are more suitable media than movies.

I guess I've scratched the surface of everything I saw and did at this year's Comic Con. More to-morrow . . .

Twitter Sonnet #1259

A question waits in dark and dizzy hills.
Reflective swords reveal a spectrum bent.
The velvet borders set a doctor's frills.
Along the mountain path the heroes went.
A room of mirrors shows a whistle test.
The absent sails reveal the yards of bone.
A shorter route delivered worst to best.
Through muddy ponds the fish's lantern shone.
A name by other jacks diverts the ball.
A million pins construct the colour screens.
A tested rover graced a Martian hall.
A billion leaves construct galactic scenes.
The net of lines ensnare a pencil sketch.
A thrown balloon averts an easy catch.

Comic Con Report, volume 3; (A) Doctor Who Edition

Here Pandora Boxx, dressed as the Thirteenth Doctor, looks a bit isolated as a surprise guest on the panel called "SuperheroIRL: Avengers of Bullying and Injustice". And she followed through sticking out like a sore thumb, her genuine chat about compulsively checking online comments stood in amusing contrast to the weird fervency of host Chase Masterson (Leeta from DS9). Coming off as very tightly wound, I could see Masterson's fury when Boxx dared suggest drag queens tease each other "out of love". Masterson seemed similarly unamused when Boxx declined to divulge more details of her suicide attempt, saying simply, "I don't know what else there is to say. I'm still here!"

The other panellists, including comedian Joe Gatto and two members of the anti-bullying organisation, Brandon Matsalia and Vanee Matsalia, seemed like nice folks. A psychiatrist named Janina Scarlet who wrote a book called Superhero Therapy; Therapy Quest seemed like she had teeth grinding competitions with Masterson, though.

I've seen several other cosplayers dressed as the Thirteenth Doctor this year but Doctor Who hasn't had a big presence at the 2019 Con. On Friday I went to see a "Classic vs. Current Doctor Who" fan panel.

This was simply a group of cosplayers, moderated by CNN's Sandro Monetti, who conducted the affair in an affable and professional manner I would have thought well above the requirements of a little, non-celebrity panel shunted off to one of the smaller Marriott ballrooms. He began by mentioning what he felt were the weaknesses of both eras--the bad special effects of Classic Who versus, he added somewhat sheepishly, the political correctness of the most recent season. No-one else mentioned political correctness for the rest of the panel but everyone was unanimous in not liking the latest season. Several said they loved Jodie Whittaker but thought Chris Chibnall did a terrible job. A few panellists praised Chibnall's work on Broadchurch and Torchwood, though. In fact, the guy in the middle, dressed as the Fourth Doctor, said Torchwood would be, in his opinion, the best entry point for any new potential fan of Doctor Who. He was a bit of an oddball, appropriately enough, I guess. He consistently misinterpreted questions--when asked for opinions on "the best and worst costume", his answer was "Adipose" because he thought the question was about monsters.

One woman mentioned Diana Rigg's costume in "The Crimson Horror" as best. Several people mentioned Adric's as worst. Two of the women on the panel said they didn't like Clara's outfits because they were too youthful for her. One of these same two women disliked Lalla Ward's costumes for the same reason.

Quite far from complaining about political correctness, these same two women--one dressed as River Song, the other as the Sixth Doctor--complained the newest season wasn't feminist enough. River Song said she wanted to see Whittaker take the lead more, use her "power", and not refer decisions to "the gang." Both women agreed Thirteen ought to behave more like Leela.

It was nice to see several panellists really love Twelve and everyone seemed to want Missy back. The panel was evenly divided between people who preferred Classic and Modern but all of the panellists were older--the youngest looked to be at least fifty and his favourite episode, bizarrely, was the Paul McGann TV movie. The panel was filled with idiosyncratic opinions but I was surprised when nearly all of them agreed that "Vincent and the Doctor" was one of the best episodes ever. Though "Blink" was strongly endorsed as an entry point episode.

A couple young people from the audience were invited to express opinions. One teenage girl complained Peri's outfit in Caves of Androzani was too revealing. When Monetti called for competing cheers to settle the question once and for all between Classic and Modern at the end of the panel, Modern seemed to win handily. Though, as one of the people who cheered for Classic, I will say my throat was very dry and I was tired and wonder if this wasn't the case for many other Classic fans in the audience.

Comic Con Report, volume 2; A Moment in Cosplay

I decided I was going to expend minimal effort getting cosplay pictures at this year's Comic Con. Every site always has an exhaustive series of photos every year now so there doesn't seem to be any point. But I went outside to eat some sandwiches I packed for myself yesterday and happened upon one of the big group photos. I think these are all Marvel cosplayers.

I also figured I'd take pictures of any really remarkable cosplay or cosplay not likely to be covered on other sites. I figured this one at least fit into the latter category;

To grab this person's attention I yelled, "Hey, Blondie!" with my best Tuco impression but I wasn't heard. Finally I said, "Hey, Clint Eastwood!"

And I had to get a photo of artist Joe Phillips, who always wears an amazing, completely different ensemble every day of the Con:

Comic Con Report, volume 1: Farscape Edition

I spent the day in room 7AB, getting there early so I could have a decent seat for the Farscape 20th anniversary panel. Here's the footage I got:

The section at the end where Browder describes the scene in "Durka Returns" was in response to a fan who asked if Crichton and Chiana had a "brother and sister" relationship. As Chiana herself points out in "Taking the Stone", their relationship wasn't so easily defined. But given that scene in "Durka Returns" and the kiss they share at the end of season one, if it's a sibling relationship, it would certainly be an incestuous one.

One of the most exciting moments, as you can see in the clip, was the hinting from Brian Henson that Farscape may return eventually. It sounds like Farscape being on Amazon Prime has introduced it to a lot of new fans. The impression I had is that Henson hopes a deal can be worked out with Prime to shoot a new season of Farscape. Considering Prime rescued The Expanse when it, like Farscape, was cancelled by the Sci-Fi Channel, I'd say that's not an unreasonable thing to hope for. I'll keep my fingers crossed. It'd be nice to see the show return at this point, especially since Crichton and Aeryn's child would be a teenager now.

I have no idea why Gigi Edgley managed to remain in focus in my photos more than anyone else.

I sat through several panels waiting for Farscape and I'll talk about them at length in a longer post after Sunday. For to-day there is more Con . . .

Twitter Sonnet #1258

A kitten face regards the silent stones.
A talking quake conveys a shaky term.
The earth records a dream in brittle bones.
A sudden plate arrests the drifting worm.
A door was glass or ice or nothing real.
The window drained its colour late at night.
A green or blue decides to-day it's teal.
A safty pin would signal throats to fight.
A purple planet grows a set of limbs.
A loop of pitches brought to trial die.
The piping dream of dragons hardly dims.
A ruler measures sev'ral inches high.
A heavy radish weighs the muppet down.
But healthy veggies built the Fraggle town.

Comic Con Prelude

Here a giant Picard poster grimly holds vigil across the street from the San Diego Convention Centre as though to say, "So. It begins." By which he'd mean Comic Con. Preview night was last night, Wednesday night, and to-day's the first official day. I feel like I'll probably be wandering the floor a lot this year, there are only a few panels I really want to see--the Farscape panel for certain. I'm going to have to choose between the Expanse panel and the Orville panel--they're both on the same day in different rooms. Both are also competing with the Star Trek panel, which wasn't much competition at all last year. Hardly anyone seemed interested in Disco. This year might be different with Picard since Patrick Stewart will be here.

If there's something you would like me to check out and report on and/or take pictures of, let me know.

The Pilot's Seat

The potential complications from Aeryn's past as a Peacekeeper finally come to the fore in an excellent episode of Farscape. The crew of Moya find the seemingly simple moral dichotomy of oppressor versus oppressed becomes much thornier in the reality of personal relationships.

Season 2, Episode 6: The Way We Weren't

This was the first episode to be written by Naren Shankar who'd previously worked on Star Trek: The Next Generation and who nowadays executive produces and writes for The Expanse. You can see in this Farscape episode a moral complexity similar to that which distinguishes the best episodes of The Expanse.

Digging around on Moya, Chiana (Gigi Edgley) uncovers surveillance tapes from years ago. They reveal Moya's original Pilot was not the current fellow voiced by Lani Tupu but a female member of the same species voiced by Melissa Jaffar, the actress who would go on to play the regular character Noranti in season three. Female Pilot is swiftly executed by order of Crais (also Lani Tupu) and among the Peacekeeper soldiers who carry out the order is a young Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black).

(This is a tough episode to pull useful screenshots from, there are so many close-ups).

All the former prisoners--Zhaan (Virginia Hey), Rygel (Jonathan Hardy), and D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe)--are enraged, though D'Argo later seems to be a little more understanding. Chiana is the only one to point out they'd known all along Aeryn was a Peacekeeper and what did they think she was doing? It's a small moment for Chiana but it makes sense given her background in a repressive culture where feelings and attitudes are forcibly regulated.

But it's different to see direct evidence of Aeryn harming a member of the crew, not just someone like a member of the crew. When Aeryn says, not in defence but in explanation, that she never even realised this was the same ship--she'd carried out assignments on dozens like Moya--it hardly seems to make it better.

Aeryn explains to Crichton (Ben Browder) how rigidly defined every person's role is among the Peacekeepers. A subplot told in flashback shows Aeryn falling for an officer named Velorek (Alex Dimitriades) who, like Crichton in the series première, had told her she could be "more" than a Peacekeeper--he sees she has the rare innate ability to look outside the box of Peacekeeper social engineering. More than an insight into Aeryn's character, though, it explains why she can't let herself off the hook. Claudia Black plays the character's torment very well.

Of course, Moya's current Pilot gets ahold of the footage thanks to Rygel who hopes to use the deed as a bargaining chip one day. A lot of references are made to the season one episode "DNA Mad Scientist"--Pilot's rage at Aeryn is, as he says, even greater because the two of them share a connexion from Aeryn receiving some of Pilot's DNA in that episode. But also, both Aeryn and Crichton recall how D'Argo, Zhaan, and Rygel had torn off one of Pilot's arms to use for barter. Pilot had been upset and resistant but ultimately accepted it as part of his role as a servant. Now he unreservedly wants to see Aeryn dead or at least off the ship. He grabs her by the throat and lifts her off the ground, a startling moment for such a normally passive character.

Crichton surmises there must be more to this anger than what Aeryn had done and so indeed it turns out--Pilot's rage at Aeryn is the long repressed anger at himself for being party to the replacement of the old Pilot. Whether he deserves to feel any guilt is tortuously unclear. The dynamic between Pilot and Aeryn in this episode yields some incredible moments.

. . .

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will

Strangest Things

I finished the third season of Stranger Things on Sunday. In general, I liked it better than season two and I liked season two. But three's climax is much better, visually and storywise. Though I love how the outcry regarding the kiss between Eleven and Mike at the end of season two seems to have led the Duffer Brothers to having them make out constantly at the beginning of season three. It's so satisfying whenever a creator rebels against the peanut gallery moralising now.

Speaking of the political lens, I was sort of fascinated how Stranger Things 3 at turns reflected or rebuffed this year's morality model. I remember during the Bush era, depictions of torture as an effective means of interrogation were the domain of relatively right wing productions like 24. Now here's Hopper (David Hopper) beating the crap out of Alexei (Alex Utgoff) and Mayor Kline (Cary Elwes) and it proves to be a perfectly sound strategy.

This is part of how Hopper has emerged as an even more solid reproduction of the 80s action hero than he was in the previous two seasons. In his climactic fight against the Soviet assassin (Andrey Ivchenko), it's hard not to think of Harrison Ford when Harbour says, "I'll see you in Hell!"

There's another political shift--it was boring when the Soviets were the villains in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, now they seem relevant again because of Putin's sinister machinations and exploits. Nevermind Putin's mobster regime has no fondness for the Soviet era or ideology, it still works. That one assassin guy is a pretty effective heavy, wherever he's from.

Spoilers ahead, after the next screenshot

I've already said how much I love shopping malls and therefore loved that setting in the new season. It also made for a terrific finale, much better than the anonymous office corridors of season two. Instead we have environments bathed in contrasting neon light and showers of firecracker sparks in the background.

And, like season two, one of the most satisfying pieces of the climax was a conclusion of a bully redeemed or seen sympathetically, in this case Billy, played by Rob Lowe lookalike Dacre Montgomery. He doesn't quite get the complete turnaround Steve (Joe Keery) did in season two, but the fact that he's allowed only the tiniest opportunity to show a shift or another aspect of his personality makes it all the more effective. Even Darth Vader had time to talk after turning on the Emperor. But it's probably for the best that Billy's return to a primal sense of protectiveness isn't disappointed by some articulated explanation.

More than anything, the season left me feeling very satisfied at having gotten a good, well developed story. A lot of people have been talking about all the movie references this past season so I thought I'd conclude with my own ranking of ten of them, in case you wanted some advice on which to watch first:

10. Day of the Dead
9. The Thing from Another World
8. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
7. The Neverending Story
6. Return of the Jedi
5. The Thing
4. Back to the Future
3. The Apartment
2. Children of Paradise (available on The Criterion Channel)
1. The Hidden Fortress (available on The Criterion Channel)

Yes, the top three are all Robin's (Maya Hawke) picks. She really does have great taste. Ironically, none of these movies are on Netflix, at least in the U.S.

Twitter Sonnet #1256

The pieces changed to putty worms at once.
A time for section grids removed the fear.
A signal hat explodes the cornered dunce.
A number bucket claims our ev'ry tear.
Receding sod could fill the kitchen yet.
A spinning Slinky sliced the ragged stairs.
A burglar makes a safe and metal bet.
The healthy milk was filled with breakfast bears.
The care behind a picture puts it back.
As ice'll melt the cubes contain the spheres.
A thousand monkeys race inside the sack.
For ev'ry nose a hundred thousand beers.
A standard takes the shape of smithy feats.
Reminders take the form of standard streets.

Life's Replacement Shadows

Shadows and ugly new buildings menace people in the new Sirenia Digest released on Sunday, in a new story from Caitlin R. Kiernan, "Untitled 44". Kiernan's stories for the Digest, which have for most of the publication's history focused on wonderfully weird Lovecraftian horror and erotica, have increasingly mined plentifully sinister and weird contemporary issues. But I imagine there are few people who aren't in some way personally impacted by gentrification in the U.S. at this point. "Untitled 44" reflects Caitlin's own experiences moving back home from Rhode Island to Alabama to find so much of her old home replaced and she evokes the troubling, elusively defined sense of violation with the images of disconnected dreams and strange shadows.

Set in an art gallery, the story consists of a dialogue between two characters, viewing an exhibition of photographs apparently influenced by the work of Andre Kertesz--his photograph of strange, long shadows of people featured at the top of this entry also appears in the Digest. There's no mathematical allegory here--the strange shadows aren't precisely the menace of useless, hard, expensive buildings displacing the more human and familiar and the shadows aren't precisely the ghosts or lives of those displaced. They're both and neither, the sense of the whole loathsome economic digestion in one appropriately difficult to pin down concept.

With so much of popular art being derived from the soma of heroic plots where the threat is a concrete, eventually conquerable foe, it's always refreshing to read a story like this. The real threats in life are so often things that happen around you, constructed of perhaps even truly innocent or at least benign components, but something terrible accumulates into a cloud or a shadow, strange forces that can't be checked any more than they can be solidly defined.

The Perfect Symmetry of the Crocodile

The Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller travel to a world where most everything, even the people, are blue in the 2008 Doctor Who audio play "The Skull of Sobek". I still haven't heard any audios from the Eighth Doctor's series that are anywhere near as good as his stories in the monthly range but "The Skull of Sobek" is one of the best I've heard so far.

Upon arriving on the planet, the Doctor (Paul McGann) explains to Lucie (Sheridan Smith) how it rains one day in a regular interval of decades and a bright red flower blooms when it does, which puts a pretty image in the listener's mind. But the main plot involves an abbot and nun belonging to two sides of the local religion, one which emphasises the need for balance between perfection and imperfection. The Doctor explains how in the distant past, these people had a society that was too perfect and it caused problems so this "Order of Imperfect Symmetry" arose. Which is an intriguing concept. Since it's one of the really short audios, only fifty minutes, writer Marc Platt can't explore it too far but in one amusing development it turns out the people responsible for the past perfection were talking crocodiles, which becomes apparent when one, a general, returns from the grave.

I guess I can see how crocodiles might be sort of obnoxiously perfect. The important thing here is that they're vicious carnivores and also apparently hypnotists as Lucie is somehow bewitched into joining the side of the crocodile. She mentions having a fear of crocodiles early in the story, which I liked--the idea that she's susceptible to becoming something because she fears it.

Divided Rose

I finally finished watching Rose of Versailles this morning, a 40 episode anime series that premièred in 1979. Following the exploits of Oscar, a fictional French noblewoman who dresses like a man to lead Marie Antoinette's Royal Guard, the source manga by Riyoko Ikeda was a popular work and remains profoundly influential. I gather the manga goes in a completely different direction than the anime series and I suspect it's a superior work. I loved the first half of the series, which was directed by Tadao Nagahama, but the second half, directed by Osamu Dezaki after Nagahama's death, seems like it was made by someone completely uninterested in the series' original concept. A story focused on women in the French court is kind of abruptly shoved aside for a story about men loving and putting up with women during the French Revolution. It's particularly disappointing because so many of the looming dramatic conflicts built up in the first half are completely ignored in favour of bland cliché.

No longer satisfied with her insulated position as the head of the Royal Guard, Oscar (Reiko Tajima) requests a transfer to command a small rural unit of the regular military. We meet Alain (Keaton Yamada), the roguish leader of the rough unit whose tragic story eventually earns Oscar's sympathy. And Oscar's childhood friend, Andre (Taro Shigaki), also enlists in the unit. Andre gets an eye shot out, which is helpful for those of us trying to tell Andre apart from Alain or from Bernard (Akio Nojima) or Fersen (Nachi Nozawa), other competitors for Oscar's and/or Marie Antoinette's heart.

People who don't watch anime often complain all the characters look alike. Here it's a fair cop. I'd swear this is a clone army.

The first half of the series featured stories where Oscar rescued Marie Antoinette, foiled dastardly plots, or got involved with complicated court drama involving Madame du Barry or the poor orphan woman, Rosalie (Rihoko Yoshida).

Rosalie, who'd served as a dramatic link between the world of the court and the common people suffering during the lean times preceding the Revolution, becomes essentially a face in the crowd as Bernard takes over that role in the second half of the series.

All along through the first half, I wondered how the show was going to address the complicated issues surrounding the Revolution since Marie Antoinette was placed at the centre of the drama. How was this character we're designed to love going to fit in in this world of people holding her lifestyle responsible for widespread poverty and hunger? The show simply removes her from centre stage while Oscar is shuffled into a position as a rebel leader. There's one scene where Oscar asks Marie Antoinette not to dissolve a meeting of democratically elected representatives but otherwise the show is devoid of any moments where Oscar is forced to confront a former ally, finding themselves now at opposite sides of an ideological gulf. Instead, there's some pretty thin drama about Andre and Oscar admitting their love for each other and a really embarrassing scene where Oscar commands her troops to join the rebels because she thinks it's what Andre would want her to do. A shot of him nodding smugly behind her confirms this for her teary eyes looking to him for guidance.

I might not have expected a story about a woman actually making decisions and strategies from a 70s anime except the first half of the series gave me exactly that. It really feels like two different series and the first half really feels frustratingly unfinished.

Twitter Sonnet #1255

The etchings rose upon the covered stair.
A ring of watching shades devour tongues.
A giant tusk was hid behind a flare.
A million years collect and weight the lungs.
The verdant brains were placed in plastic bowls.
On station walls the pictures paint the day.
A team of snails observe through tiny holes.
A fleet of squid approached the secret bay.
A team of moths rebuilt an ancient coat.
A winding chain composed a ticking hitch.
A hundred sheets collect within the boat.
Below the crew began at last to stitch.
A boulevard of broken stones is sharp.
The fleet of foot are sure to play a harp.

Don't Trust Strange Pictures

It's too bad Chiana's never seen or read Macbeth. Otherwise she might have known the portrait she picks up, which seems to tell the future, isn't the valuable artefact it seems to be for "to win us to our harm the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray's in deepest consequence." And so, of course, it proves to be, even on Farscape.

Season 2, Episode 5(6): Picture If You Will

This episode is placed after "The Way We Weren't" in many episode lists but it was produced first and if you watch the two together it makes no sense for "Picture If You Will" to come after "The Way We Weren't". So if you're watching through the series, I highly recommend considering "Picture If You Will" the real fifth episode of the second season.

Chiana (Gigi Edgley), Aeryn (Claudia Black), and Rygel (Jonathan Hardy) are conducting some trade on a glass space station with a shady dealer as the episode opens. Rygel takes home a Hynerian tiara he's surprised to find is genuine and Chiana brings home the portrait. First it helps her find a missing favourite necklace and then it foretells a broken leg she gets when she trips over a DRD.

I love Chiana's outfit but I do kind of wish the characters changed clothes often enough to support the idea Chiana has a "favourite" necklace among others she wears from time to time. I bet this was mainly a budgetary issue, though, and maybe related to the logistics of applying makeup to Chiana, D'Argo (Anthiny Simcoe), and Zhaan (Virginia Hey). Crichton (Ben Browder) and Aeryn still have wardrobe changes often enough at this point though it's in this episode that I first noticed Aeryn wearing the leather vest with nothing underneath. I remember this as being her signature outfit for the rest of the series. Or maybe I just really like it.

But the heroine of this episode is Zhaan whose powers as a priest make her the only one equipped to deal with the malevolent portrait. It soon starts predicting fatalities for everyone and Chiana, D'Argo, and Crichton fall prey to deadly accidents. Or so it seems--in fact, they all end up trapped in what looks like a Man Ray painting.

And behind it all is none other than Maldis (Chris Haywood), the nigh-omnipotent being, first introduced in season one's "That Old Black Magic", who feeds on fear. And there's certainly plenty for the characters to be afraid of in this episode, much of it very effective. But once again its the moments of character interaction that make this show really shine.

Maldis, whom I've seen described as a more malevolent version of Star Trek: The Next Generation's Q, has some sadistically funny interactions with Crichton. The human's usual ability to keep psychological distance with his Earthly colloquialisms is undermined when Maldis returns them with the familiarity of someone who's been reading Crichton's mind for a long time--"No, [Zhaan] kicked my ass. And saved yours."

A moment between Zhaan and Crichton, where they telepathically communicate, refers back to a first season episode and is a nice bit to touch base with their relationship. This is also the first episode to make it really clear Chiana and D'Argo are attracted to each other and Crichton and Aeryn have a partly amusing, partly foreboding scene in the kitchen where Aeryn asserts how quickly she would get rid of some of the more useless members of Moya's crew, like Chiana and Rygel. Maybe Aeryn needs some more contamination after all.

. . .

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter

Arsenic on Her Hands

In 1857 Glasgow, a man was murdered by arsenic which led to the sensationalised trial of Madeleine Smith, his lover. Her trial concluded with the uniquely Scottish verdict "not proven", a conclusion the viewer may also reach from 1950's Madeleine, an adaptation of the story by director David Lean. Drenched in black shadows and shining surfaces, this fascinating film is more interested in the psychology of its central character than on whether or not she committed the crime.

Lean's wife at the time, Ann Todd, plays Madeleine, a young, unmarried woman of a wealthy, prestigious family. The film begins with her, her sisters, and her parents moving into an expensive terraced house in Glasgow and Madeleine claims a bedroom for herself and her youngest sister below street level. We soon see why as this enables her to make easy, clandestine meetings with her lover, a Frenchman named Emile L'Angelier (Ivan Desny).

She carries on with this affair even as her strict, class conscious father (Leslie Banks) arranges a suitable match for her with a kind gentleman named William (Norman Wooland). Madeleine promises Emile she will tell her father about him and marry him but for now she stalls, asking the amiable William not to tell her father that he had proposed marriage to her so that she wouldn't have to report that she'd turned the offer down.

Finally, at one late night meeting, Emile decides to force the issue and demands that Madeleine tell her father about him. This becomes the best scene in the film as Madeleine agrees and then Todd brings a series of changing expressions to her face that clearly show just how hard consciousness of what that means hits her for the first time. We see in her startled, and startling, reaction just how impossible it seems to her that the world where her father exists could ever connect with the one where Emile exists.

Lean had made it clear that Emile and Madeleine had a physical relationship. Earlier, alone on a hillside, the two overhear a country dance. Madeleine impulsively starts to dance and urges Emile to join her but he only stiffly participates, not knowing how to dance to the bagpipes. But she lies down anyway and waits for him--a cut to the lusty dancers indoors followed by a shot of Emile retrieving her forgotten shawl clearly enough communicates what had occurred in the interval. But it also shows that Madeleine's physical attraction to Emile is given priority over the lack of cultural and temperamental familiarity. It's sex she wants from him.

It's a relationship she'd entered instinctively when the opportunity arose and only too late does she consciously process the ramifications. And of course it turns out Emile won't accept elopement. He may really have affection for Madeleine but his own top priority is and always was her father's money and he's willing to use her letters as blackmail to get his way.

Lean cleverly avoids making it clear whether Madeleine deliberately poisons him or if some manner of accident occurs with arsenic in the kitchen. He does this without ever stepping away from her point of view so it's possible for the viewer to watch the film with either interpretation. Andre Morell appears as her defence council and makes plenty of very stirring and reasonable arguments as to why it couldn't be her. If she didn't want the letters found, surely she wouldn't have killed him without retrieving them--the timeline of her purchase of arsenic and his poisoning don't match up--the autopsy revealed the arsenic wasn't of the particular kind Madeleine was on record as purchasing for, she says, cosmetic use, believing arsenic to be good for her skin. But on the other hand, if she didn't kill him, who did?

But the film appropriately fixates more on the relationships that put Madeleine in this position. Murder obviously wasn't a useful solution but she was clearly in a bad, unfair situation. One might ask if the solution would be for a society to be more open about casual sex or if it would be healthier for people to be allowed to carry on private dalliances without fearing risk of exposure. Madeleine is available on The Criterion Channel.