On the Weird Outskirts

I finally watched the first episode of Fringe. The 2008 series created by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci isn't bad so far, certainly better than what I've become accustomed to from Alex Kurtzman's work on Star Trek series.

The pilot episode centres on a beautiful FBI agent called Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv). After her partner is infected by a bizarre manufactured virus, she must enlist the aid of a mad scientist called Walter Bishop (John Noble). To spring him from a nuthouse, she needs the help of his handsome rogue of a son, Peter (Joshua Jackson).

After this first adventure, the FBI assigns them to "Fringe" science cases so it seems like the show's pretty much The X-Files except with Walter Bishop creating some of the strange phenomena from within the group.

The science feels legit enough to give stakes to the action and the emotional journey Olivia undertakes is pretty good, even if Anna Torv is a bit stiff. I like the show's use of a device that allows people to enter the dreams of others, including dead people. I can see that idea having a lot of potential.

Fringe is available on Amazon Prime.

Twitter Sonnet #1714

Withholding camel cars requires sound.
To hear again, the deafened mobster sang.
In choosing roles, the critic starts a round.
An endless loop requites the restless gang.
The glowing green delineation jumped.
Between the brains, a notice killed a dream.
In sweaty haste were punchy fluids pumped.
To scare mosquitos, trolls become a team.
The nose of Death was nostril black and deep.
Regress to foam or pay the sea with sand.
When giant bullets speak they do in "beep".
A golden butler lends the shell a hand.
Surprising snacks explode the plastic can.
Enriching Otter Pops have forged a man.

Another Bad Day for Belters

I did get some Wrath of Khan vibes from Friday's new episode of The Expanse. I'd be surprised if Keon Alexander isn't basing his performance of Marco Inaros on Ricardo Montalban. But while I can believe Khan as the leader of a group of genetically engineered radicals, I still don't buy Marco Inaros as the leader of the whole Belter civilisation.

Even Filip (Jasai Chase-Owens) stood up to him after his embarrassing failure to destroy the Rocinante. I'll admit, that was pretty satisfying, but I still remember when this show's big selling point was its realism.

The whole trap Inaros set up for Ceres station doesn't quite make sense, either. Sure, it is now the responsibility of Earth and Mars to care for the people Inaros abandoned, and this looks again like allegory for occupying U.S. forces in the Middle East. But once again, the analogy doesn't quite work. There's no religion tying the people on the station to Inaros' mission so he's just going to look like what he is, a madman who promised them victory and then scarpered. Even if Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) can't get supplies to the people, the Earthers will have to work extra hard at being assholes for Inaros' PR plan to work.

It felt a little out of place, but I liked Peaches (Nadine Nicole) expressing remorse for the mentor she murdered a few seasons back. And Bobbie (Frankie Adams) and Amos (Wes Chatham) eating together was cute. I still don't want to see them fight.

The Expanse is available on Amazon Prime.

Twitter Sonnet #1506

Departing feathers speak of frozen birds.
Beyond a veil of static crawled the sky.
Assorted lights reflect in liquid words.
Distinguished bells adorn the bold and shy.
A question formed in strings of Christmas light.
To step beyond a sleigh we need a boot.
We never ask the snow to win a fight.
We never grew a man from twisted root.
Our stars engaged the liquid fabric coat.
Recalling paint, the model plastic grew.
Replacing trees, we built a giant boat.
Across the seas, we taught the natives blue.
On morning three the puppy played a horn.
Beneath the douglas fir a cup was born.

Super Space

Although the absence of Alex continues to be a problem, I mostly enjoyed Friday's new episode of The Expanse.

I like the sub-culture of piracy among the Belters which borrows from romanticised visions of the golden age of piracy. The code of personal freedom extends to Drummer's (Cara Gee) crew being a dysfunctional polygamist family. Friday's episode saw a therefore tearful farewell to one of the members while they meet a pirate captain.

Meanwhile, Peaches (Nadine Nicole) is being slowly accepted among the Rocinante's crew. Even Holden (Steven Strait) calls her Peaches now. The scene where she and Bobbie (Frankie Adams) worked together was one of those cool, comic-bookish moments when two characters improvise coordinating their superpowers in a creative way. Holden chewing Peaches out for taking initiative didn't really make sense, though, which cut into the intention of the scene, which was to have Peaches glowing over the fact that Holden referred to her as a member of the crew.

I'm a little intrigued by the cattiness between Amos (Wes Chatham) and Bobbie. I can't remember if they had any kind of relationship before. I feel like they're being set up as lovers. I hope that doesn't mean they have to have a physical fight because there's no way the writers are going to be able to make it realistic (Bobbie would be required to win).

The Expanse is available on Amazon Prime.

A Smoggy Day in Kaiju Town

What a mess we've made of our planet. And who's going to clean it up? Godzilla! At least when the mess manifests as a giant monster as it does in 1971's Godzilla vs. Hedorah (ゴジラ対ヘドラ). Filled with strange jumps in the narrative and improbably lucky guesses from the humans that undercut the tension, this is still an extraordinarily stylish Godzilla movie with plenty of points of interest.

A beautiful singer (Keiko Mari) takes us through the opening credits with a groovy song in which she implores the fates to return our green forests and blue seas.

She reappears in a club scene later where a young man inexplicably hallucinates fish heads on her and the crowd.

The message about pollution is heavy handed, as it usually is, but the movie succeeds best when it's just plain weird. The villain, Hedorah, is actually an alien whom the scientist protagonist somehow deduces was created by a nuclear reaction before coming to earth and thriving on industrial waste. The old symbol of nuclear menace, meanwhile, Godzilla, is a hero at this point in the film series, sharing telepathic communications with the child protagonist (Hiroyuki Kawase).

In one scene, the kid watches his father, the scientist (Akira Yamauchi), go scuba diving to investigate the strange giant tadpoles that have been turning up. We see the man encounter Hedorah underwater and there's a cut to the kid vainly calling out for him on shore. And I thought, "Oh, the poor kid's lost his dad." But then there's a jump cut to the man in bed, back at home, with his son by his side, and there's a calm conversation about his injury. It feels odd, we definitely should have seen the man finally pulling himself out of the water. But half his face is disfigured, a little moment of horror that helps shore up emotional impact for the scene.

The movie also includes animated segments and altogether the production design is pretty good. The fight scenes are a little silly by this point, especially since Godzilla at this point had picked up a habit of wiping his mouth and bobbing and weaving like a boxer.

Godzilla vs. Hedorah is available on The Criterion Channel. Yeah, that's right.

Female Felines of Luna

With the world's attention diverted by the search for minuscule signs of life on Mars, few of us contemplate a secret civilisation of murderous lesbians on the moon. Fortunately, we always have 1953's Cat-Women of the Moon to remind us. Honestly, though, mocking this film feels so easy it feels cheap. There are some sincerely interesting things about it.

Yeah, it was probably put together by guys who had trouble getting laid and were bent out of shape about it. It begins with a curiously urgent narration, a shot of a star field while the narrator wonders why we have to wait to explore the stars, why not now? Already it sounds like a horny young man and the shot of a white rocket piercing the ether says plenty. But inside the rocket is a peculiarly casual bunch of astronauts.

One guy (Douglas Fowley) is all too eager to report back to Earth whose shirts he wears. He uses his precious time with the radio to plug a product. The only woman in the crew, Helen, played by the great Marie Windsor, uses her time to send a peculiar message to someone called "Alpha" and later claims not to remember saying anything.

Her boyfriend is in charge of the mission, an indecisive, passive older man called Grainger (Sonny Tufts). Another crewman, Reissner (Victor Jory), suspects Helen is really in love with him and that there's something wrong with her brain that makes her think she likes Grainger. We see that Reissner is much more decisive and aggressive--he's the only one who insists on carrying a gun to the moon, and of course it comes in handy. Interestingly, Helen makes the other unexpectedly useful decision to bring cigarettes and matches. They end up helping the crew determine if there's oxygen in the vicinity.

Few guys have their suspicions about the aloof girl confirmed so dramatically. It turns out it really isn't him, it's lunar hypnosis. It's even kind of sweet that the hypnosis goes through her hand and Reissner can break the spell by holding her hand.

The moon women themselves in their black leotards seem like caricatures of lesbians and/or Beats. The point is, they ain't natural. I guess counterculture can be pretty scary. Nowadays they just look cool.

Cat-Women of the Moon is available on Amazon Prime.

Twitter Sonnet #1445

To where the moon disrupts the black we fly.
To where the air is thin and light as thought.
We talked for years about the endless sky.
We levelled metal behind the empty lot.
Devices rendered flat devise a guard.
The money spread between the shaky men.
It wasn't cake but never really hard.
We sorted scripts to stuff the oldest bin.
With crumbly scones, the night succeeds the tea.
About the table, hammers beat the meal.
With gleaming shields, the knight commands the free.
Around the stable, hamsters eat the peel.
When bread's a hybrid, eggs become a joke.
When rocks are white, the magma makes the yolk.

A Skywalker by Any Other Name

So I'm the one who liked Rise of Skywalker. I know, not everyone hates it, the abysmal Rotten Tomatoes score just makes it seem that way. But while I have some clear problems with the film, I really got caught up in the momentum, the chemistry between the characters, and the story about family and the repetitive cycle of revenge. I love some of the locations and visuals. I loved how Rey's parentage unfolded. And Emperor Palpatine was terrific. My main complaint, in fact, is that there needed to be more.

Spoilers after the screenshot

People talk about a rivalry between this film and Last Jedi but the relationship between J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson seems friendlier than that to me. Johnson took down a few things that came across unintentionally silly in Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker picks up on good bits from Last Jedi--particularly the relationship between Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), and minimises some of the less effective aspects, like Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran). Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) was supposed to be a scary Nazi in Force Awakens but he came off more like a Spaceball so Johnson turned him into more of an intentional joke whom his subordinates laugh at behind his back. Abrams took the lesson and continued portraying Hux in this vein, leading to one of the funnier, almost meta-moments in the film when Hux is revealed as a the spy and Poe (Oscar Isaac) immediately tries to claim he knew it all along. Abrams' strength is with the good guys, he's lousy with bad guys. Kylo Ren worked in Force Awakens because of Adam Driver's performance so Abrams relies on veterans Ian McDiarmid and Richard E. Grant here, the latter essentially playing the Great Intelligence from Doctor Who but functioning a little like Admiral Piett from Empire Strikes Back. Though while Piett was the intriguingly credible and understated professional, Grant's character is more like a tired elder statesman, worn down by decades of bitter resentment.

I sure loved Palpatine in this. Garth Franklin at Dark Horizons complained about how we get no explanation for the Emperor's return but I didn't really mind because he's so spooky in this. I loved his zombie makeup, the weird, impossible huge building he dwells in on a stormy world, and the eerie fleet of perfectly arrayed Star Destroyers rising from the soil. It's like the resurrection of a damned pirate fleet. A little more explanation might have been nice but I love the mystery which is effectively supported by the almost Indiana Jones-ish plot of our heroes seeking artefacts. I loved the moment when Rey (Daisy Ridley) raises the dagger and it perfectly aligns with a jagged, wrecked edge on the Death Star. What are the odds she'd be standing in that exact spot, that the Death Star would break apart in exactly that way? The accumulation of coincidence puts it on that satisfying border between a rational puzzle and pure madness. That's what a holy, or unholy, quest should be like.

The reason Kylo Ren has been more interesting than Rey up to this point is the conflict between dark and light so it makes sense Rey should acquire that same conflict. It worked great for me from the moment she accidentally blew up that transport and was a great way of making her peculiarly easy grasp of the Force make sense. Ultimately, I feel the film takes it in the wrong direction but I loved the build up. When she healed Kylo, I thought, "Oh, that's so great--because she's a Palpatine, she has the same unholy power over life and death as her grandfather." She would have to face the same hard test Anakin failed in Revenge of the Sith but the film doesn't go that way. Though I do like the idea that Kylo Ren dies like Gandalf the Grey to be reborn as a different persona. It was intriguing that he uses the same line about not knowing if he has the strength--this time when contemplating accepting himself as Ben Solo instead of contemplating killing his father. Both moments took courage and were acts of self-realisation so could the argument be that the experience of being Kylo was an essential part of being a better Ben Solo? Han Solo's ghost (Harrison Ford) significantly says Kylo Ren is Ben's memory.

When Palpatine wanted Rey to kill him it seemed a moment that retroactively made Return of the Jedi better, better explaining why he wanted Luke to strike him down. But the solution shouldn't have been for Rey to kill Palpatine. I realise the explanation as to why she could was that he needed the ritual to transfer his soul into her body, but from a thematic sense, in which killing Palpatine represents perpetuating the cycle of revenge, there's just no good way for Rey to kill Palpatine. The solution should either have been redeeming Palpatine or subduing him. Neither one may suit the satisfying blockbuster format, though.

I watched Force Awakens again a few days ago and found I'd forgotten how charming the dialogue was between the leads, particularly between Rey and Finn (John Boyega), a kind of dialogue Rian Johnson just has no ear for and is satisfyingly returned in Rise of Skywalker. Poe, who infamously came off badly in Last Jedi, gets a whole lot of mojo back in Rise of Skywalker and his chemistry with a too briefly appearing Keri Russell is captivating. I love how her visor raises just once in the movie and it's only to show him her pretty eyes.

I also liked C-3PO's (Anthony Daniels) subplot though I was kind of hoping R2 would restore his prequel era memories, too, and that 3PO's maker being Anakin would have some significance. Oh, well. This movie was a sweet ride, in any case.

Twitter Sonnet #1310

A cookie waits in apple cider mug.
The rusty bark enhances rolls and toast.
A stable shell invites the wayward slug.
A letter pool contains a metal post.
In velvet coats the trees progressed in state.
A timer glanced in glasses clear and real.
Behind the working clock we left the bait.
An orange reminds the pulp of naked peel.
The questions pile food and drink at need.
The timely watch confirmed a heavy chain.
A heedless wheel endorsed increasing speed.
The dial bled to build increasing gain.
Does yellow mean the end of red and blue?
Is green a sword just goblin things can do?

Interminable Progress of the Doctor

Whenever you're slogging through some seemingly hopeless, endless task, just remember the time on Doctor Who when the Doctor was stuck in a castle for billions of years. I found myself in the mood for the Twelfth Doctor episode "Heaven Sent" last night, an episode with an impressive, almost entirely solo performance from Peter Capaldi as he tries to work out the nature of his strange, shifting castle prison.

Following the death of Clara in the previous episode, the Doctor finds himself forced to deal with that loss while also dealing with his strange, solitary predicament. It's an appropriate story for grief with the two-fold sense of isolation in the absence of a loved one and the absence of anyone who can truly appreciate the depth of feeling in the loss.

Much of the performance, of course, is monologue, though in some of it the Doctor pretends to be talking to Clara in his mind. He remarks on how no-one remembers their birth or their death, a comment, like many other comments he makes throughout the episode, that will take on another significance when the mystery of the place is revealed.

A story about living with grief becomes a story about living with living as the Doctor discovers just how difficult his task is. The fact that it doesn't drive him mad is surely a testament to his fortitude. He claims at the end of the episode to remember all the time he spent in the prison in spite of a key point in the plot being that he constantly has to perform the same investigation over and over, make the same confessions over and over, because he doesn't remember. I wonder if the memories all came back in an instant at the end, which must have been like a cannonball to the head, or if he just discovered a part of his brain where they'd been accumulating.

I like the idea of the Doctor having to expend the energy of a past self to create a new self who is very like the old self, and I like that undergoing this process seems to cause a subtle, accumulating strain. In the modern conversation about the past needing to die to make room for a future, it's nice to see a story that shows, whether that's really necessary or not, the exchange is painful and comes with profound, incalculable loss. At one point the Doctor wonders why he can't just rest, just lose this once. I can hardly blame him for feeling that way which makes his success all the more admirable.

Never Get Off the Boat

Assassination attempts, marriage, intrigue, the value of material possessions, the nigh-vacuum of space, and living spacecraft euthanasia are just some of the things that factor into one very busy episode of Farscape.

Season 2, Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think

This episode also has one of Aeryn's (Claudia Black) best lines. When a handsome local still won't stop flirting with her, she tosses away his vial of kissing sauce and says, "It's not you, it's me. I don't like you."

Aeryn's ongoing trouble with her feelings of attachment are backgrounded a little bit, though, as this episode focuses more on the attempts to kill Crichton (Ben Browder). The previous episode ended with some thugs using a weird ray to try to scramble his skull. This episode begins with an unexpected rescue by Prince Clavor's fiancée, Jenavian (Bianca Chiminello), who turns out to be a Peacekeeper agent sent to ensure Clavor (Felix Williamson) doesn't take power, which would give an edge to the Peacekeeper rivals, the Scarrans.

She must be a particularly good agent, too, since, in addition to her martial arts expertise (I bet she could even beat Bruce Lee!) we now know she managed to maintain her cover under the effects of the Scarran ambassador's (Thomas Holesgrove) heat ray.

This attempt on Crichton's life being foiled, he immediately stirs up trouble by not pretending Clavor hadn't been behind it, an unheard of breach of etiquette. This angers the woman Crichton's being forced to marry, Katralla (Felicity Price), until a floating sphere intrudes on their conversation with an attempt to kill both Crichton and Katralla together.

Rescued this time by Ben Browder's real life wife, Francesca Buller, playing the seemingly meek servant ro-NA, Crichton's soon after sent into orbit as per a scheme hatched by Rygel (Jonathan Hardy), who still commands an atypical degree of respect in this episode. He's even able to convince the Empress (Tina Bursill) his ideas are good.

The voice of Rygel, Jonathan Hardy, pulls double duty in this episode, also playing an ethereal being whom Moya and Zhaan (Virginia Hey) encounter. In a subplot unrelated to anything else in the episode, Zhaan is unsuccessfully attempting to prevent Moya's builders from decommissioning her--forcing her to commit suicide--because Moya's shown she's capable of giving birth to war ships like Talyn. This will be resolved in the third episode so it may be best to talk more about it then but in this middle episode it's perhaps the most thematically resonant portion in a story otherwise devoted to plot and action.

Though this episode has some really nice character moments for Crichton. Going into what turns out to be his very temporary exile from the planet, he has a conversation with ro-NA about material possessions, something ro-NA's people apparently don't believe in (though ro-NA herself will shortly prove to be a bit of an ill-starred maverick). I felt Crichton's pain as he suddenly realises he's millions of miles away from access to the nearest recording of Charlie Parker. Maybe all this contributes to the first proper instance of Crazy Crichton business.

Sure, he'd acted a bit loony in "Crackers Don't Matter", but he was under the influence of exterior forces. Here, arguably the strain of his new life finally gets to him when he realises Braca (David Franklin), holding a gun on him to keep him prisoner for Scorpius (Wayne Pygram), can't actually kill him because Scorpius needs him alive. Still, it's a gutsy move to do what Crichton does, effectively taunting Braca to kill him using quotes from Blazing Saddles and Aliens. He seems to have to untether himself from rational behaviour slightly, something he finds all too easy, and he develops it into a positive talent in future episodes.

This leads to some desperate EVA in which Crichton, without a helmet, uses a gun as a makeshift thruster, a bit remarkably similar to a scene in Cowboy Bebop (from the episode "Heavy Metal Queen"), though I don't know if it was an intended reference or just a coincidence. Though it's worth noting Spike Spiegel is also a big fan of Charlie Parker.

. . .

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
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss

A Mile in Someone Else's Brain

It's one of those perennial hazards of a sci-fi world--getting your brain switched with someone else's. On Farscape, it's just one more weird problem on a whole pile of weird problems.

Season 2, Episode 9: "Out of Their Minds"

While Zhaan (Virginia Hey) is aboard a hostile ship, dealing with some aliens who suspiciously resemble Skeksis from Dark Crystal, the rest of Moya's crew are scrambling to get the ship's scavenged defence screen up and running. When the Skeksis fire on Moya, the combination of energy from the hostile shot and the defence screen at 62% power results in everyone aboard Moya turning up in someone else's body.

There's something kind of sweet about Pilot in the body of Chiana (Gigi Edgley) patiently and sadly explaining to D'Argo in the body of Pilot (Lani Tupu) how to communicate with Moya. And Rygel in the body of Crichton (Ben Browder) is hilarious but I think the prize for acting versatility has to go to Claudia Black.

She never quite gets Crichton's American accent but her incredulous reaction when Chiana (Anthony Simcoe) and Aeryn (Jonathan Hardy) catch Crichton in Aeryn's body playing with said body is priceless. "I'm a guy. A guy. Guys dream about this sort of thing." Of course, women may as well--as Crichton suspects and is later confirmed, Chiana has been up to similar hijinks in D'Argo's body. A smirking comment from Aeryn at the end of the episode leaves the impression that a whole lot of sex occurred after the episode's close.

Black is also exceptional as Rygel when everyone's places are scrambled again later in the episode. Something about her big eyes, I think, helps convey his attitude. Though it's hard to top Rygel finding the need to urinate in Crichton's body and then, later, when finding a Skeksi he's leading around the ship suddenly needs to puke, saying grandly, "That's all right, we do that sort of thing all the time here on Moya. I just peed in the maintenance bay."

One thing the episode makes clear about the crew dynamics is that, despite the basic idea of there being no captain, by this point everyone seems instinctively to regard Crichton as being in charge. When a Skeksi comes aboard, everyone assumes he's going to want to talk to Crichton--when Zhaan needs information at the end of the episode, she won't listen to Crichton in Rygel's body, she'll only trust Aeryn in Crichton's body. Something Rygel remarks on with no small bitterness.

. . .

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
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream

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

Death and the Stone

Now for another story about youth versus age. Or relatively young versus somewhat older. I'm not sure how old Chiana is on Farscape (the Farscape wiki doesn't know either) but it's pretty clear she's much younger than everyone else, maybe late teens. It's enough to make for a nice episode about two generations misunderstanding each other.

Season 2, Episode 3: Taking the Stone

We learn a little bit more about Chiana's past, namely that she had a brother she looked up to. I say had because she learns in this episode, thanks to an implant in her belly, that her brother has suddenly died.

Crichton (Ben Browder) blows her off when she says she needs to talk, not catching on that it's an urgent topic from her tone. So runs away and falls in with a gang of misfit youths, apparently about the same age as her, who live on an otherwise deserted planet. They live in caves below the tombs of their dead ancestors, one of whom Rygel (Jonathan Hardy) expeditiously robs.

This leads to an amusing subplot about cursed loot, though the funniest part is when Rygel discovers a worm in the decayed face behind a jewelled mask. Instead of screaming in horror, he gasps and says, "Bonus!" and promptly puts the critter in his mouth. We'll never have another Rygel.

Meanwhile, Crichton and Aeryn (Claudia Black) play Chiana's surrogate parents. Crichton is the dad who doesn't like the dangerous games she's been playing with her friends and Aeryn is the wiser mother who continually reminds Crichton his aggressive techniques are going to backfire.

Chiana directly tells him he's not her dad or her lover or even her "tralk". We return to the series' thematic premise about lost people bonding as a new kind of family--it's not unlike Rebel Without a Cause, really. One of the main problems with a new kind of family is that it lacks the reinforcement of tradition so when trouble arises there's no device to keep anyone from splitting when they feel like it, even if staying is ultimately in their best interest. We've seen this already with Talyn.

The episode also follows on from "Vitas Mortis" in contrasting physically appealing youth with unappealing age. Here, Crichton eventually discovers the "lost people"--people older than 22--among the tribe Chiana's fallen in with are people shamed into hiding because their flesh shows signs of damage from the local radiation.

The young dislike age because it reminds them of death, it's an indication that they might not be as indestructible as they think they are. The priestess in the previous episode was almost ready to sacrifice Moya just to forget about being old. In "Taking the Stone", the kids defy death with crude extreme sports, most prominently a free fall down a chasm only to be caught by a "sonic net" created by their own carefully tuned screams.

Use the wrong intonation and you're dead. And Chiana's raring to give it a go herself--no wonder Crichton's worried about her. But is she really disgusted by age or does she really want to kill herself or is there some other issue that Crichton just can't understand? It's a good episode for her character--not her best, but good, though I think anything Chiana touches is gold on Farscape.

. . .

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