odditycollector (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
odditycollector) wrote2010-05-27 02:12 am
odditycollector) wrote2010-05-27 02:12 am
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Last Farscapes
I've been meaning to write another Farscape post, and now I have a chance! We will see how much I've forgotten in the last few days.
•"You do realize that this is a damaged leviathan with a fraudulent Pilot and a crew of idiots, do you not?" Of course we do! It is the premise!
You know things are bad when your *ship* is demanding a command restructuring. Still, I missed having no Captain and a group of people who are only referred to a "crew" to save typing and destination courses which depended mostly on whim. I didn't lose *all* of that, but season 4 was a lot more focused.
•What does Moya eat?! Did we ever find out, and I just missed it? I don't recall anyone ever buying Leviathan fuel, or the show taking a time out while Moya grazes among the space berries. Ship was pregnant; you'd think Pilot'd be sending people on 50 ton runs for pickles and ice cream every planet they found.
(I am having flashbacks to Lexx, as its title spacecraft was *always* hungry, with terrible and/or hilarious results. ...Actually, I had a lot of flashbacks to Lexx during the Farscape marathon. If you told me Lexx and Farscape existed in the same, well, not *universe*, exactly, because I wouldn't wish that narrative promise on the Farscape worlds, but maybe a close parallel reality connected via wormhole, I wouldn't be wholly shocked.
nextian linked to this post, about colour schemes in sci fi shows. Lexx is the reddest red show ever to red.)
•Scorpius survives being drugged (maybe?), shot, buried (at least that would give him some protection from the solar radiation?), and abandoned... thanks to foresight and preparation! YOU GUYS! Scorpius is BATMAN!
I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. They do share the same tailor.
•So, by the end of the series, it is apparent John has become Pilot's *other* favourite person in the universe next to Aeryn. Yay for happy endings! Although I'd have no idea what to do with that as an OT3. Luckily, I think as long as they *stay on the ship* Pilot is happy.
•Baby!John: "Read the middle finger!" Yes, baby!John, but you do have to actually perform the gesture as well. *pats him on the head*
•Okay, see, I have already mentioned the writers are working their way down a list of fetishes. I *know* this. Yet it's not usually at the forefront of my mind when watching, until we get something like the piss drinking* episode. Piss. Drinking. Episode.
Has anyone tried to fill a kink bingo card with canon Farscape scenes yet? Or would that just be too easy.
*As one example. OUT OF MANY. I love it.
•The meta episode, where we see the Earth media narrative of Moya's crew, could have been 5 times as long and I wouldn't have complained any.
•Ah yes, the classic "taking out your enemy by gluing a vibrating rainbow dildo to their face" manoeuvre.
•After four seasons of wacky alien theme music, the Peacekeeper Wars go with classical-esque with horns. They are DOING IT WRONG. (Unless it's just that I watched the movie-version, and the separate episodes were better in this respect? Oh, how much do I doubt this, it is a lot.)
•CGI Rygel! And some incredibly unconvincing fish! It's amazing how much more presence the muppets have, although of course CGI technology has improved.
•Aeryn's pregnancy goes a hella lot quicker than Grayza's. OTOH, Grayza has the funky contacts of non-Sebacean-ness. So... with her and Scorpius, just how many aliens *do* they have up in Peacekeeper command?
•The PK Wars have a somewhat different tone than the rest of the series. I wonder how much of that is limitations of the condensed format, and how much is the change in the rightsholder. Anyway, it makes me glad the rest of the seasons were long enough to be so weird, even if I did lose twice as much sleep than I'd have otherwise.
•There were a couple people who told me Chiana shared a similar life philosophy to our friend Jack Harkness, but I didn't *really* see it until later on in the series. But... Chiana may flirt with the ladies, but it's all very *wink wink, nudge nudge*. She goes *home* with the dudes. There is one exception, who kisses Chiana, but we soon learn she is evil and creepy and I'll talk about her later.
There's also a male character who wants (...explicitly) to do John (who is in a dress at the time, but the dude knows it is John), and he is evil and creepy. There are some slashy/femslashy moments (ask me if I believe Braca and Scorpius have a purely platonic relationship), but queer representation really doesn't improve on this show.
•thingswithwings warned me to expect another moment of transfail, so I was waiting for the moment of transfail. Was it that VR game episode, where a beautiful woman is trapped in the body of a fat man, and you have to set her free by slicing up the fat man with a sword, and only then can you (a dude) kiss her properly? (Maaaaybe, I pondered, crossing it off my mental list of things to expect, but I was expecting something more--)
Or, no, perhaps it was the episode with the war of the sexes planet, where Chiana unzips the jacket of a woman passing (...claims the show) as a man against her express wishes, so Chiana can point at her boobs and be all, "then what is that in your pants!?" (...socks?) and then they are BFFs and there's some other stuff that happens. (Maaaaaybe, I thought, this is it, although it didn't seem like the character was actually trans, just crossdressing for the Cause.)
But no! It must be the episode with the alternate universe where the actor who usually plays D'Argo is playing a female character, and Scorpius is all, "Shoot him!" and John is like, "Um, actually, she's a her," and Scorpius is like, "WTF ever, shoot IT," and then they do, and it's meant to be hilarious? (I've found it! Fail for everyone!)
Anyway. Farscape is maaaaaybe not a great example of trans issues presented thoughtfully or respectfully.
•It took a while for it to occur to me, but Scorpius is a disabled character. He uses technology to allow himself to function... however, we keep running into people who feel he should have willed himself into not requiring it. It's a weird theme, as one thing you can say about Scorpius is he's not short on determination, so I guess the takeaway is even space people are dumb.
•POC in space tally (I may be missing someone, I was not very organized this time): Crais shows up for a couple cameos. Then there's a Peacekeeper pilot played by Damian Hunter (about whom I can find *no information*). He gets a couple lines, including, "I'm the best damn pilot there is!" though we don't get to see his skills in action.
In the unconvincing lava effects episode, one of the regulars distracts the bad guys via a strip-tease, thanks to a magic powder that makes her look like a woman who is much younger, sexier, less clothed... and darker skinned. The dancing woman has a bright blue wig and facial prosthetics giving her an insectoid appearance. She's not credited I can find.
Back in the past in America, a police officer is unnerved by D'Argo, even after he's told D'Argo's just wearing a Halloween mask. So Our Heroes hypnotise the officer to see "exactly what he expects to see" when D'Argo "takes off his mask", and the officer has a vision of a black dude! Hahaha! Way to make a statement about race, show!
Also this season, we have a couple characters with actual real speaking roles that are plot-relevant! Both are bug-related villains. First is Jason Chong, playing a very scarred, tattooed mercenary on a planet of white people with corded mats instead of hair. There's a hive...thing on his neck which produces mind control bugs which make people assassinate each other. A picture?
The next character, though, gets a disclaimer first. I'm coming to this from a North American perspective, and I suppose it's possible an Australian wouldn't have the same voice in their head going WTF on repeat. (Though they are marketing the show to an American audience, so maaaaybe they should have pretended they did anyway.) Talikaa, played by Paula Arundell, is our first black character who actually matters to the plot since the planet of the brown people way back when. And she's a slave the Farscape people buy/rescue from a trading ship crewed by horny white guys. And then Chiana takes Talikaa to her quarters and dresses her up.
"You look so sexy!" Chiana tells Talikaa, though it soon hits her this is a crappy sort of compliment, considering. Talikaa seems less than bothered, and correctly interprets this as Chiana would like makeout times! Makeout times happen, only to be interrupted by Aeryn Sun telling Chiana off. Good on you, Aeryn.
Anyway, it turns out that Talikaa is less a victim, and more an emotional energy eating giant vampire spider thing. There was some worthy lol in this episode, but it's marred by the context. Does the black girl *have* to be a sex slave who turns out to be an evil inhuman *thing* that it takes a good hearted white dude to destroy via sticking his giant weapon down her throat (and then they eat her in soup)? :/
And that is ALL THE FARSCAPES! Worth the price of admission, my friends.
I expect I shall poke a bit around the fandom tomorrow, but if you've got recs for fic or vids or meta or whatever, I would love them! And I didn't come out of the Farscape experience shipping anyone very hard, so whatever's good is gold.
•"You do realize that this is a damaged leviathan with a fraudulent Pilot and a crew of idiots, do you not?" Of course we do! It is the premise!
You know things are bad when your *ship* is demanding a command restructuring. Still, I missed having no Captain and a group of people who are only referred to a "crew" to save typing and destination courses which depended mostly on whim. I didn't lose *all* of that, but season 4 was a lot more focused.
•What does Moya eat?! Did we ever find out, and I just missed it? I don't recall anyone ever buying Leviathan fuel, or the show taking a time out while Moya grazes among the space berries. Ship was pregnant; you'd think Pilot'd be sending people on 50 ton runs for pickles and ice cream every planet they found.
(I am having flashbacks to Lexx, as its title spacecraft was *always* hungry, with terrible and/or hilarious results. ...Actually, I had a lot of flashbacks to Lexx during the Farscape marathon. If you told me Lexx and Farscape existed in the same, well, not *universe*, exactly, because I wouldn't wish that narrative promise on the Farscape worlds, but maybe a close parallel reality connected via wormhole, I wouldn't be wholly shocked.
nextian linked to this post, about colour schemes in sci fi shows. Lexx is the reddest red show ever to red.)•Scorpius survives being drugged (maybe?), shot, buried (at least that would give him some protection from the solar radiation?), and abandoned... thanks to foresight and preparation! YOU GUYS! Scorpius is BATMAN!
I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. They do share the same tailor.
•So, by the end of the series, it is apparent John has become Pilot's *other* favourite person in the universe next to Aeryn. Yay for happy endings! Although I'd have no idea what to do with that as an OT3. Luckily, I think as long as they *stay on the ship* Pilot is happy.
•Baby!John: "Read the middle finger!" Yes, baby!John, but you do have to actually perform the gesture as well. *pats him on the head*
•Okay, see, I have already mentioned the writers are working their way down a list of fetishes. I *know* this. Yet it's not usually at the forefront of my mind when watching, until we get something like the piss drinking* episode. Piss. Drinking. Episode.
Has anyone tried to fill a kink bingo card with canon Farscape scenes yet? Or would that just be too easy.
*As one example. OUT OF MANY. I love it.
•The meta episode, where we see the Earth media narrative of Moya's crew, could have been 5 times as long and I wouldn't have complained any.
•Ah yes, the classic "taking out your enemy by gluing a vibrating rainbow dildo to their face" manoeuvre.
•After four seasons of wacky alien theme music, the Peacekeeper Wars go with classical-esque with horns. They are DOING IT WRONG. (Unless it's just that I watched the movie-version, and the separate episodes were better in this respect? Oh, how much do I doubt this, it is a lot.)
•CGI Rygel! And some incredibly unconvincing fish! It's amazing how much more presence the muppets have, although of course CGI technology has improved.
•Aeryn's pregnancy goes a hella lot quicker than Grayza's. OTOH, Grayza has the funky contacts of non-Sebacean-ness. So... with her and Scorpius, just how many aliens *do* they have up in Peacekeeper command?
•The PK Wars have a somewhat different tone than the rest of the series. I wonder how much of that is limitations of the condensed format, and how much is the change in the rightsholder. Anyway, it makes me glad the rest of the seasons were long enough to be so weird, even if I did lose twice as much sleep than I'd have otherwise.
•There were a couple people who told me Chiana shared a similar life philosophy to our friend Jack Harkness, but I didn't *really* see it until later on in the series. But... Chiana may flirt with the ladies, but it's all very *wink wink, nudge nudge*. She goes *home* with the dudes. There is one exception, who kisses Chiana, but we soon learn she is evil and creepy and I'll talk about her later.
There's also a male character who wants (...explicitly) to do John (who is in a dress at the time, but the dude knows it is John), and he is evil and creepy. There are some slashy/femslashy moments (ask me if I believe Braca and Scorpius have a purely platonic relationship), but queer representation really doesn't improve on this show.
•
thingswithwings warned me to expect another moment of transfail, so I was waiting for the moment of transfail. Was it that VR game episode, where a beautiful woman is trapped in the body of a fat man, and you have to set her free by slicing up the fat man with a sword, and only then can you (a dude) kiss her properly? (Maaaaybe, I pondered, crossing it off my mental list of things to expect, but I was expecting something more--)Or, no, perhaps it was the episode with the war of the sexes planet, where Chiana unzips the jacket of a woman passing (...claims the show) as a man against her express wishes, so Chiana can point at her boobs and be all, "then what is that in your pants!?" (...socks?) and then they are BFFs and there's some other stuff that happens. (Maaaaaybe, I thought, this is it, although it didn't seem like the character was actually trans, just crossdressing for the Cause.)
But no! It must be the episode with the alternate universe where the actor who usually plays D'Argo is playing a female character, and Scorpius is all, "Shoot him!" and John is like, "Um, actually, she's a her," and Scorpius is like, "WTF ever, shoot IT," and then they do, and it's meant to be hilarious? (I've found it! Fail for everyone!)
Anyway. Farscape is maaaaaybe not a great example of trans issues presented thoughtfully or respectfully.
•It took a while for it to occur to me, but Scorpius is a disabled character. He uses technology to allow himself to function... however, we keep running into people who feel he should have willed himself into not requiring it. It's a weird theme, as one thing you can say about Scorpius is he's not short on determination, so I guess the takeaway is even space people are dumb.
•POC in space tally (I may be missing someone, I was not very organized this time): Crais shows up for a couple cameos. Then there's a Peacekeeper pilot played by Damian Hunter (about whom I can find *no information*). He gets a couple lines, including, "I'm the best damn pilot there is!" though we don't get to see his skills in action.
In the unconvincing lava effects episode, one of the regulars distracts the bad guys via a strip-tease, thanks to a magic powder that makes her look like a woman who is much younger, sexier, less clothed... and darker skinned. The dancing woman has a bright blue wig and facial prosthetics giving her an insectoid appearance. She's not credited I can find.
Back in the past in America, a police officer is unnerved by D'Argo, even after he's told D'Argo's just wearing a Halloween mask. So Our Heroes hypnotise the officer to see "exactly what he expects to see" when D'Argo "takes off his mask", and the officer has a vision of a black dude! Hahaha! Way to make a statement about race, show!
Also this season, we have a couple characters with actual real speaking roles that are plot-relevant! Both are bug-related villains. First is Jason Chong, playing a very scarred, tattooed mercenary on a planet of white people with corded mats instead of hair. There's a hive...thing on his neck which produces mind control bugs which make people assassinate each other. A picture?
The next character, though, gets a disclaimer first. I'm coming to this from a North American perspective, and I suppose it's possible an Australian wouldn't have the same voice in their head going WTF on repeat. (Though they are marketing the show to an American audience, so maaaaybe they should have pretended they did anyway.) Talikaa, played by Paula Arundell, is our first black character who actually matters to the plot since the planet of the brown people way back when. And she's a slave the Farscape people buy/rescue from a trading ship crewed by horny white guys. And then Chiana takes Talikaa to her quarters and dresses her up.
"You look so sexy!" Chiana tells Talikaa, though it soon hits her this is a crappy sort of compliment, considering. Talikaa seems less than bothered, and correctly interprets this as Chiana would like makeout times! Makeout times happen, only to be interrupted by Aeryn Sun telling Chiana off. Good on you, Aeryn.
Anyway, it turns out that Talikaa is less a victim, and more an emotional energy eating giant vampire spider thing. There was some worthy lol in this episode, but it's marred by the context. Does the black girl *have* to be a sex slave who turns out to be an evil inhuman *thing* that it takes a good hearted white dude to destroy via sticking his giant weapon down her throat (and then they eat her in soup)? :/
And that is ALL THE FARSCAPES! Worth the price of admission, my friends.
I expect I shall poke a bit around the fandom tomorrow, but if you've got recs for fic or vids or meta or whatever, I would love them! And I didn't come out of the Farscape experience shipping anyone very hard, so whatever's good is gold.
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I remember 409! It is the one I swore at b/c I thought I had ended up with a bizarrely corrupted version.
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Considering how often they successfully conveyed to the viewer the characters' hallucinations, it's almost impressive how badly they screwed it up.
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Speaking as an Australian...
I would have found it rather cringeworthy if she'd been Asian. As a black character, I barely even noticed.
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I'm pretty sure that the producers are all American though, so yeah I was surprised at that. In the season 4 companion they talked about how they really stuck their necks out to get her cast in that role. Apparently in season 3 she had previously been considered for Grayza, and also for the villain from Wait For The Wheel, and there was talk about fighting to find a role for her for a while there. So it does like there were issues coming from somewhere at the idea of casting her
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Huh. That is so odd to me I'm having trouble processing it. I was assuming Farscape was a failure of "colourblind" casting, rather than actual policy.
(I honestly would have had issues with her being cast as Grayza - some of the same issues, even, what with the stereotype of black women and their *dangerous* sexuality - but even so it would have been *better*.)
I'm going to have to watch the DVD extras one of these days, aren't I?