Note: I did not actually watch an entire season in one day.

[odditycollector]

I am on the tail end of season 3 of Farscape and the episode next in line isn't working right, so I will catch up on my babbling while I fix that.

They changed the title sequence on me! I can understand why - Crichton (whose name I still cannot spell without assistance) is no longer quite the panicked newbie of season 1, so the urgent WTFery no longer quite fit. It took me a couple episodes to get used to the new theme music, which I rate as okay, but not as head-sticky as the original, and I still do not like the new voice over. Anyway, I skip over it now if I can.

Luckily, I'm enjoying the show more now. I always like the cracky episodes, and this show is upwards of 80% cracky episodes. I just watched one where everyone was a Looney Tunes for a while (and for once, this isn't a euphemism). Do I have a musical episode to look forward to? I am not expecting one where people randomly turn into muppets, because people are muppets in *every* episode. Besides, I figure that ground was covered with the body switching episode, where the muppets were some of the bodies switched.

Also, the writers are still clearly checking off a list of fandom porn cliches as they go along. We've had at *least* two sex pollen episodes now, and I got to see the live action use of "So, uh. I really enjoyed being inside your body" as a pickup line.

(Shocking News: odditycollector enjoys the crackfic show.)

I'm intrigued by a writing decision that played through a large part of this season. TPTB quantum cloned John Crichton, and so the cast could split down the middle and carry two storylines - each with their own version of the show's anchoring character. It changed the stakes, and caused relationship drama, and fit in nicely with all the other crack that happens in this show... But it seems the purpose plot-wise was to give us a glimpse of the potential of John's wormhole info, without letting us keep the info itself.

The characters are frightened by that potential; enough to drive us into the ending arc of season 3. (Which I have queued next.) It's not a bad trick.

(Non-meta note: so Aeryn has left Moya for storyline 1, and Pilot grows increasingly bitchy, to the point of throwing a tantrum and kicking everyone else off the spaceship for a while. ...I may ship it.)

Farscape has long, long seasons by today's standards, and definitely you could have pruned the storyline down to 13 episodes a year. But the thing is... a lot of the parts I enjoy from this show are the non-essential tangents. Distilled Farscape would be very different, more intense, probably, and certainly less weird- even if you kept the same rate of weird per second, you'd lose the panoramic view that the weird is *everywhere*.

I'm not sure what my point is. I guess that I've come to believe that distilled storytelling is somehow best... but maybe I've just forgotten there's tricks to doing long form in a satisfying way.

Something which continues to surprise me about Farscape is the muppets! I knew forever there were muppets in this show, but it was not exactly an *enticement* for me. But the muppets work extremely well. They are well... animated? Enough to give the illusion of life, anyway. And they are *solid*. It's hard to get *solid* with CGI. It's hard to get the illusion of life without falling into the uncanny valley, and that's not even with live actors in the same shot. So... puppetry: not to be underestimated as a mature technology? You'd think I'd have already picked that up from Being John Malkovich.

I've mentioned this before, but as a (white, cis) woman, Farscape is kind to me. The female characters on this show are complex, deeply flawed people who face moral dilemmas and are changed by the things they experience. Oh, Aeryn is a kickass heroine with mother issues, but that would mean little without the prior statement. The women in this show are allowed to be hardass, or to be intelligent, or to be kind, or to be horny, or to be frightened, or to be selfish assholes, or to succeed or fail utterly... and the show does not judge them for it. (Well. Mostly.)

It is not anything like a "safe space"... but some of the ways it isn't are interesting. In "Crackers Don't Matter" (a title which, as a North American, I assumed had entirely different and hilarious connotations) there is a ray which heightens the crew's inner assholeness into craziness, and Our Hero tracks down, overpowers, and has every intention of raping one of his crewmates. Did this bother me? Yes, but I got the sense the reasons it bothered me were the reasons it was supposed to bother me. (Later, in the awkward denouement, Chiana asks, "Some of the things you said. How did you come up with all that crap?" "I don't know," Crichton tells her. "It's just there.") William Adama would not have been allowed that story. Jean-Luc Picard would not have been allowed that story. John Sheppard? Not outside of angstfic, I will tell you.

(Oh, PS, considering standard business practises in this part of the galaxy seem to be screwing over the other party, usually via gunfire, how does any sort of useful commerce happen? Knowing that the Peacekeeper motto is "No Witnesses" why do people of other species work with them? Mysteries.)

Re: PoC in space... Crais grows more interesting as time moves forward, but I'm sure this surprises no one who travelled these parts before. Beyond him, I've noticed 2, both with very small speaking roles. (I have noticed maybe a couple people as extras, but I could have overlooked someone.)

The first is Stephanie Jacobsen in freaky blue hair and contact lenses. Which is odd b/c she's playing a Peacekeeper nurse, so you'd think she'd be Sebacean, but the whole point of Sebaceans is they look exactly like humans. Freaky contact lenses are how FS indicates Alien! on a budget (without using makeup that poisons people), so maybe she'll return and tell us an interesting story? (It'd be nice, she certainly did nothing interesting so far.)

The second is our very first dark skinned character off the planet with the sabotaged spaceships! She's wearing freaky pale contacts and appears to be a refugee (I'm assuming. She's on a refugee planet. They have those). Despite everyone in this universe being fitted with "translator microbes", she doesn't speak in an understandable way (ie, Magic English). When one of the regular characters continues to try to talk to her anyway, she goes "Ahh!" at him until he goes away. I can't find her credited. Maybe she's an extra, as technically she didn't have speaking *words*?

I am making an expression with my face right now. Hint: It is not the one that indicates "impressed".

Also, another of the guest characters is an intersex woman. Well, alien, but who isn't. I'm not sure I've ever seen an intersex character on a sci-fi show before (androgynous species do not count, TPTB interviews after cancellation maaaaybe count) She's on the run for... coming from a poor world, she claims, and she winds up dead by the end of the episode (though it's true a lot of people wind up dead on this show). Unusually for Farscape, she seems the quiet, thoughtful type, though I would like to know what's up with the people in this galaxy who'd pick "Other" out of the options "Male" and "Female" introducing themselves by taking off their pants.

Comments

[aka]

It has clearly been too long since I re-watched, as I am failing to place almost everything you talked about, except the Loony Toons. /o\

There is a Black Sebacean in S1, "A Bug's Life," just before they reach the episodes with the Gammack Base. He has a few lines and then dies, but that whole squadron dies, so. *hands* Despite the fact that I have seen this series several times, this is my first re-watch with an eye on race, and I am feeling very icky and privileged that I had never before noticed how *terrible* the race issues really are.

(And I also made the same assumption about Crackers Don't Matter.)

[odditycollector]

There is a Black Sebacean in S1, "A Bug's Life," just before they reach the episodes with the Gammack Base.
I am glad to hear it despite the inevitable ending; I was thinking unkind things about the Sebaceans. I don't remember him, but then I was paying way less attention in S1, before the WTF had hit a tipping point for me.

(And I also made the same assumption about Crackers Don't Matter.)
I am going to continue to read it that way, regardless, as I think "Crackers Don't Matter" is the theme of the first season. (Or. Supposed to be.)

I had never before noticed how *terrible* the race issues really are.

I'm primed to it, because of my issues with the future of the Legion of Super-Heroes. After taking Photoshop to pages and pages of background crowd scenes, there's a tiny part of my brain still judging on a scale of how many brown crayons I would need.

[rojir.livejournal.com]

Couple things you might not have noticed...

Lani Tupu, the actor for Crais? Also is Pilot.

As for people who basically look like Sebaceans, there are LOADS of Sebacean offshoots in the Farscape mythos.

I gotta say, I really agree with you a lot on this series, having just recently watched it myself.

[angiv.livejournal.com]

I was going to say just the same thing about Crais/Pilot.

And did I, or did I not, tell you that Crais kicks ass?

Hmm, I know I fwed a bit about Farscape a few (read, lots of) years ago. I must have a look and see if I said anything of note...'tis unlikely.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

And did I, or did I not, tell you that Crais kicks ass?
You did indeed. :)

I knew that Pilot and Crais shared a voice, but don't really know how to account for that on my tally... Pilot is a purple lobster thing, which doesn't affect the in-show demographics, though from a casting level it certainly counts. *confused*

I must have a look and see if I said anything of note...
Let me know if you did - one thing you don't get when mainlining a show years after the fact is fandom discussion.

[angiv.livejournal.com]

I didn't, and most of what I did say would be spoilericious for you at this point. Or pointless drooling over the coat. Or both.

Also? 7 years ago. Seven! SEVEN.

I'm so old. I didn't even realise I'd been on lj that long.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

As for people who basically look like Sebaceans, there are LOADS of Sebacean offshoots in the Farscape mythos.
Is that the official story? I know they mention it once or twice in season 1, but at this point it just seems like funky contacts are to Farscape as funky ears are to Star Trek. I mean, you can have a character ask if anyone's seen someone who looks like a Sabacean on a planet full of people who look like Sebaceans except for the contacts, and have them sneer "No".

OTOH, it's currently my theory that the reason the Sebaceans are so worried about their genetic purity is their unique ease at cross-species mating, so I guess having lots of colonies of *almost* Sebaceans would make sense. (...And I bet Sebacean sheep-fucking jokes are very different than ours.)

I gotta say, I really agree with you a lot on this series, having just recently watched it myself.
I'm curious, was it what you expected? It's so not what I expected!

[rojir.livejournal.com]

I really walked in with no expectations, other than my friends saying it was a great show, and I would love Rygel, cause I'm an obnoxious pompous shit as well. :)