:: a toe in the water... ::

:: Thursday, March 20, 2003 ::

all my bags are packed

But not quite ready to go. I wonder what airport security is going to make of the John figure that insisted on coming along for luck.

I really could have picked a better time to go to the States, but it's been planned for months, and I'm stubborn that way. Also, good people await me on the other end, and that's always been the best reason to go anywhere.

Interesting times, indeed.

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:: fialka 1:23 AM [+] ::

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Too much blather for YACCs


This really belongs in the comments for the last entry, but it was longer than allowed. Tazey said: "What I meant was, since you were at odds with the writing and the writer of La Bomba, that perhaps some of the writing choices had been overruled by editing/production choices on which the writer himself had little if no influence."

Answer: Ah, I see what you mean.

*thinks seriously about that*

No, I don't think so. The lack of climax and the characterisation quibbles (ooh, watch Aeryn disappear again!) are so deeply embedded in the script that I'm not sure further pre-shoot doctoring or post-production choices could have significantly changed it one way or the other. They'd have had to start again from scratch, and I'm sure there was no time for that.

Yes, the direction didn't much help in parts -- I would have been much happier if Jellyglow!Sikozu had been shot in a less ridiculous manner, but then I'd hardly have noticed if it hadn't been scripted as such the arsepull Superpower-ex-machina. My antipathy needs a much larger generator than that.

Saracini may not be responsible for some of the larger arc-related plot elements (I don't blame *him* for sending Aeryn to the doctor, for example), but his downfall is choosing the shallow, easy way to accomplish those objectives, rather than looking deeper, looking for the truth, the flaws, the history to give the characters impetus to do what the story needs them to do. 'Get John and Aeryn back together' was certainly part of the production brief for Twice Shy, but it couldn't have been done in a more hamfisted manner. That really was a shame because the rest of the ep showed a good understanding of who these people are, as does A Prefect Murder (although that one has similar structural flaws). Unfortunately, I can't tell you if Saracini's brief was 'get Stark back on Moya' and this is how he chose to do it, or if he was told 'make Stark a bioloid', but his name is on the ep and it came out of the blue, so it looks like the former.

See, there's the thing, and then there's the execution (and the execution has a number of levels -- writing, directing, editing, design). Yes, you can use pyrotechnics to liven up a dull ep -- Scratch n Sniff is a great example. The editing saved it, but if that story had not had certain elements going for it -- the world-building, the comedic moments, the characters (especially Raxil) and the underlying allegory to rape via Rohypnol -- no amount of brilliant snippage could have made it anything more than a lesser MOTW.

I'd still disagree with the presumed need to reconcile John and Aeryn, but had they actually fought about the thing that was presumably keeping them apart and come to some sort of understanding they didn't have six minutes ago -- had their words actually been based on the revelations brought out by the personality reversal and not some idiotic out-of-the-blue 'Scorpius listens on the comms, but we'll just be real quiet and I'm not really mad at you, honest' scenario, I wouldn't have minded anywhere near as much.

I guess my feeling as a writer is that it's up to you to get it on the page, because if it's not there, the next step has to work twice as hard to get half as much. Which means you haven't done your job, or haven't done it well. Hot to Katrazi plays better than La Bomba because it's a better script. Full stop.

Here's one part of the problem -- Saracini's eps hit reset on the whole thing when he gets to the tag. It all seems to come from somewhere else, some other ep. And his characterisation has gotten progressively thinner with each outing, which makes me wonder how much doctoring was needed on each script.

However, that might just be indicative of the problem with this season -- it's hit reset on character development at the beginning of pretty much every ep. The uberstory continued to develop in a fairly straightforward manner, but the characters didn't, so by the time we got to the Scarran arc the characterisation was so wildly divergent from the larger story that -- sorry to say it -- only the old hands seemed capable of pulling the two together. Prayer, for example, is not the most interesting story that could have been told about that situation (plot not being Monjo's gift), but it was recognisably John and (thank you!) recognisably Aeryn, which is more than I can say about Fetal Attraction.

So in that sense, yes, perhaps Saracini is not so much to blame, but he was definitely the wrong writer for this ep. Even the most brilliant doctor can't save every patient, and I suspect the window for extensive treatment had long passed.

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:: fialka 2:00 PM [+] ::

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Once more, into the breach

I've seen La Bomba again since I wrote these comments, and I'm much more blase about it now that I know how it all ends. However, in the interests of honest critique, I post it here as written on the Wednesday after it aired.

=======

Bah bah bah bah La Bomba

I'm not exactly sure why I dislike this one so much. It's not the best FS ever, that's a given, but I'm not sure it's worth quite the amount of antipathy it's generated for me.

Part of it, the largest part, I'm sure, is that I was expecting to love it. Carleton Eastlake set the stage so beautifully last week with John and Aeryn galloping for the edge of the cliff, laughing like maniacs all the way. He managed to give almost all the regulars something necessary to do, threw a couple of seriously 'holy frell, batman!' elements into the mix, and ended it with guns blazing as everyone betrayed everybody else.

And we *learned* some things, even. Sikozu is a bioloid and always has been, Scorpius has been a Scarran spy all along, Stark has gone...well, stark raving even madder, in both senses of the word. Oh yeah, and John and Aeryn may have passed the point of no return.

Throw all that away, apart from the latter, and when I say the entire crew has no idea what they're doing anymore, I'm really not sure that was the writer's intent. I think the writer just didn't know what *he* was doing and the cameras were ready to roll.

I'm going to start with the point that's sticking hard in my craw, jabbing me every time I want to look somewhere else: John threw a NUCLEAR BOMB down a shaft they were SITTING ON TOP OF, without asking anyone if they wanted to DIE, and everything's just FINE??? (And yes, those caps are me shouting at the TV screen.)

Let me just ask TPTB a question -- was there a point to John worrying about radiating Aeryn and the baby in Natural Election if you're going to nuke them later? I can wave my hands pretty damn well by now, but I can't wave away exposure to two sets of fallout in ten minutes -- and are you telling me that everyone's immune to the radiation put out by both Jellyglow!Sikozu and LittleFatboy?

Next. John drops a nuclear device down a shaft and it doesn't occur to him to ask anyone else if they mind dying to pay his wormhole debt. They take a vote and half object (not that there's a point) but don't actually say anything, don't call him on making that decision for them. Everything's fine because we're all in our wee couples and we wuv wuv wuv each other literally unto death.

Excuse me? ExCUSE me?

I can tell you exactly what went wrong with this whole concept, and I really can't believe they let it slip -- just let him ASK. Let them agree to give up their lives for this, not to cancel John's wormhole debt, but because destroying the flowers really is that important, worth the lives of everyone John cares about. Worth Aeryn's life and the life of the four sprog cells that have taken over the whole damnn show. Then I'd care. Alternately, if he's not going to ASK, can they please get a little upset about the fact that he's just possibly killed them all, including Rygel and Noranti who have not one clue what's going on? Make John pay for what essentially looks like an afterthought, a gesture as careless as leaving the bomb in the lift.

What the hell is John thinking? Oh right. He's not. I can't even wave my hands and blame it on his Aeryn obsession, because he's just tossed her down the shaft along with the bomb.

And yeah, yeah, yeah, so they don't die, and apparently that unsealed elevator hatch protects them all from fallout and vacuum as well. Yeah. Right. I'm not going to wave my hands this time because if I did I'd have to wrap them around somebody's neck.

Yes, John feels mighty bad in the tag. You know what? I ain't buying it at this point. I don't care. I don't believe they have a clue what they really just did. Last time, when they blew up the carrier, John was also off the rails, dictatorial and not *listening* to anything anyone said, but he knew why he had to do what he did, and rest of the crew knew why they had to go along with it. Not here.

No one should have let Mark Saracini do an ep this important, and for god's sake keep that man away from episode tags. But maybe my collosal disappointment with this ep isn't completely Saracini's fault. It's part of a season that has pulled its punches at every step, that has let everyone, especially John, get away with the most outlandish behaviour without ever having to pay for it. It's a season in which both John and Aeryn promised to sell their soul to the devil and the devil never appeared to take them up on it. It's a season where John seems to have simply stopped giving a shit, even about the one thing that's supposed to mean something, because I don't think he's actually *seen* Aeryn since she took off at the end of DWTB. Which is no wonder, because for most of the season nothing I recognised as Aeryn was there.

Last year at this time John and Aeryn sat side by side and a universe apart, so weighed down with the enormity of what they'd done that neither could find one word to say about it, and my heart broke for both of them. This year I don't care that John feels bad, because I don't believe it's going to make him change, and I don't think he's going to pay for it. And if Aeryn turned that freaking baby on...bite my tongue, but I might be glad that there isn't a fifth season after all.

So 422 is rocketing down, and in Kemper I trust and I love this show and I want to end loving it. I want to end wanting to know how the story really ends, and I'm holding on to that so tightly my nails are going to go through my palms before Monday night. The thing is, I don't know if even Kemper can pull this out of freefall before the show hits the ground and is gone forever. How can a season that started out so fascinating, that was so full of mystery and wonderful ideas end on such an unfulfilling note?

God, if ever a show needed another year, this is the one, because however down I feel about it all right now, I still believe they would have pulled it out next year. Mistakes were made, big ones, quite a few of which -- the tag of Twice Shy as prime example -- were about not trusting the audience to stick with it. It was about tossing us a box of crackers to keep us from leaving the table before the meal, but the thing is, we have never minded being hungry. We've always believed we'd get our banquet in the end.

Well, we got the banquet, I guess. Maybe being stuffed with crackers left us with no room to truly appreciate it. Or maybe it really was thin and bland compared to other years. All I can say is that it hurts to go into the finale fully expecting to find the table already emptied and the chairs being carried away. It's not exactly the kind of dread I was supposed to feel.

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:: fialka 3:22 AM [+] ::

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and so it goes

Comments on 421 written, but not posted. I don't know if I'll do comments on 422 at all. There are holes, of course, but tonight I'd prefer not to see them. Tonight, let me go with what I've been given. Let me raise a glass of single malt, and snuffle into my handkerchief and remember exactly how much I love this show.

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:: fialka 2:35 AM [+] ::

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Bonnie and Clyde ride again

420: We're So Screwed Pt 2: Hot to Katratzi. (in four parts, because once again, I have to)

Last week I said it felt like Prayer/Fetal Attraction should have been the two-parter. This week I'm absolutely certain of that. Hot to Katrazi jumpstarts itself with a *huge* leap from the end of Fetal Attraction, where we left Aeryn still semi-prostrate, and John with a reawakened Harvey demanding he go back for Scorpius. If I'm not mistaken that's a complete departure from the way they usually do the multi-parters. Even the Earth trilogy began each ep exactly where the last one left off.

This is one of those frustrating moments where there's twenty minutes of essential material left out, and no time left in the schedule to wrap a MOTW around it to make a bridge. The real shame is that Prayer and Fetal Attraction had no more than 35 minutes of ep in them; had they really been a two-parter, everything might have condensed down to make room for the knock-down, drag-out fight I would have expected from the rest of the crew when Crichton put forth his bright idea.

Then again, maybe there was none. My only real complaints about Hot to Katratzi are these: Aeryn's in better fighting form than ever, which seems impossible given the amount of recovery time she's had; and everyone seems astoundingly compliant considering they were dancing with joy over having got rid of Scorpius the last time we met.

For this episode, though, I'm happy to wave my hands. I'll even jump up and down and wave them in the air. Hot to Katrazi is quintessential FS; it crackles and spits with exactly that sense of restless, manic energy the show seemed to be trying to manufacture all year. It makes me furious that they waited so long to get to this, but I forgive them because they didn't know that this was as far as they would be allowed to get. It's exactly what I was afraid of when I said back in November that thinking they had two years was going to stand us in the worst stead. *This* is the real story, and this, break my heart, is the one they may never have a chance to tell.

Farscape is usually seamless enough that if I don't know the writer of a specific ep beforehand, I'm not always able to guess. Kemper's episodes are usually the most cerebral, Manning's have a high body count, after that it's all up for grabs. Carleton Eastlake hasn't written that much for Farscape, and if ever there was a production oversight, it has to be that. Eastlake's episodes have a distinctive snap I'd recognise anywhere, a 'frell it all' insouciance in the face of rapidly worsening circumstance, and a "John and Aeryn in love and war" that's a rhythmic symphony all by itself.

There's no coincidence that Hot to Katrazi feels very much like Daedalus Demands, and in terms of choosing which homage should be paid to which ep when, the timing couldn't have been more perfect. For very different reasons, John and Aeryn have returned to roughly the same emotional place as they were in Infinite Possibilities -- they're just a little more ragged, a little closer to mad. The aura of coldly logical insanity that surrounds them is perfect considering where they've been, where they are, and what they must do, or die in the attempt.

The emotional impetus behind The Relationship in IP was that of surrender -- to each other, to the truth that time -- like opportunity -- would not be a lengthy visitor. But IP also allowed them to surrender to hope, the dream of a future, a home on Earth they might make together. Their strength was in their surrender - it made them into a balanced unit, working against impossible odds with an almost psychic precision.

In Hot to Katrazi the impetus, and their unifying strength, is defiance. Piss on fear, piss on the future and piss on the fate that always frells them in the fine print. There is no home, there is only this -- him, her, here, now. If a dance wrapped around armageddon is all they're going to get, then damn it all, they're going to dance.

And yet...and yet. At the end of John's rope, there is still hope. Of escape, of life, of (perhaps) even peace to bring a child up in. There must be hope or why would they be here? Deluded? Yes. Mad? Very likely. But hopeless? No. Not now. John's hope standing by his side for all to see, and that makes all the difference.

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:: fialka 3:59 AM [+] ::

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...continued

Maybe that's why the others have gone along as well. Though this is also homage to Into the Lion's Den 1 in many ways, the feeling on Lo'la is nothing like it was on the way to the command carrier -- a move that read more like a suicide pact. This reads more like a party and it's both thrilling and terrifying, because if there is any action more suicidal than walking beside the man with the nuclear bomb, it's only being the one carrying it.

I really have no quibble with *how* John made the device -- fissionable materials can't be that hard to come by out here, and John's smart enough to figure out how to make a nuclear bomb (the technology is far simpler than you really want to know). Nope, I'm scared by the fact that John Crichton is traipsing about wearing a nuclear device slung over his shoulder like my kid's paper route bag, Aeryn thinks it's fun, and no one else seems inclined to question the idea.

This is an Aeryn we've never seen, but one that -- oddly -- makes perfect character sense. Because this is *Talyn* John, this is 'let's get this done and we'll make a frelling wormhole and go home' John -- times ten. This is Butch and Sundance, back together at last, and I make that comparison with my heart in my throat, because I know how those stories always end.

IP did not begin with the desperation of foxes in a hole, but Hot to Katrazi does -- further cementing the feeling that Fetal Attraction is really the second half of Prayer. This point in the season, there's just no time left to slow down and show us the steps, so I wave my hands, and Aeryn is (mostly) well. Eastlake and Black do give us the repercussions of her captivity in the tiny moments; Aeryn laying her head against John's shoulder, the look on her face when she sees Scorpius in the cage. If we never saw the argument John had to make to get her here, it doesn't really matter. The details are in John's arm around Aeryn's waist, tugging her away before sympathy makes her blow their elaborate setup and though much of what they do here is an elaborate performance, her identification with Scorpius seems painfully real.

In the horrified fascination category, can I tell you how much I loved John's brash, arrogant monologue in the conference chamber? I could wax rhapsodic for the next 22k, but I'll just mention two moments: "John Crichton." "And partner." Partner in crime, partner in business, partner as spouse -- yeah, only Farscape could tacitly marry John and Aeryn and send them to blow up a Scarran base for their honeymoon. (They gave the accommodations a glowing review, heh heh .) And "I'm an American" -- cue patriotic bandswell while the rest of the company looks around, wondering what the frell is an amurkin, and why they're supposed to care. (Oh hell, let me have 2b: "What do I want? Democracy? Capitalism!" Sometimes, I love this show enough to hug my television.)

On another show, I might have objected to Aeryn being placed in so obviously subservient a position to John, but the look on her face tells me she's delighted to be there, and considering her upbringing that makes perfect sense. Aeryn's not bred for leadership, though she's capable of assuming it under duress. She's bred to be commanded, and in this sense, serving as John's right hand (erm, nope, not going there), as bodyguard (hmm, not much better), as...well you get the picture ...it's YouCanBeMore!Aeryn's ideal assignment, to protect what she loves, to love what she protects. Despite the fact that she's always literally standing behind him, the attitude both project is truly that of equal partners, each doing the job they do best.

The lack of ensemble work has been disheartening this year, a natural complication of having so many regular characters. Kind of a chicken-and-egg conundrum whether that's been the fault of bringing the relationship too far forward, or it simply got dragged to the foreground because the show became All About John. Whichever, the result has been to pretty much obliterate the other characters for most of the season, including Aeryn, who got mentioned a lot, but seemed to have lost all existence independent of Vessel of John's (Probable) Spawn. HtK manages to circumvent that, thank god, returning to Aeryn both her heart and her soldierly soul (and the frelling proto-fetus didn't get mentioned once!), and allowing most of the others to play an integral part in the charade.

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:: fialka 3:58 AM [+] ::

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...continued

The very large scheduling problems are solved here by breaking John's plan into bite-size morsels and having people communicate over the comms. It's a trick that FS has often relied on in the past and could have used more often this year. Combined with fast cuts, it does give the illusion of everyone being together, although it can't quite overcome the fact that with 8 crew, even doling them out in pairs doesn’t make their contributions quite balance out. This time, there's so much pressure from outside that it's a relief to at least feel like everyone's there, even if I can't for the life of me imagine *why*. And Chiana and Granny get the short end, once again winding up with nothing terribly concrete to do -- though they're faring better than Pilot and Moya, who dropped out of the narrative a long time ago. It's indicative of overpopulation that this season has often given up on the Moya B plot entirely because with so many characters the A plot -- as here -- already had a B plot of its own.

Random observations:

-Rygel and D'Argo are reminiscent of their pairing in IYYY, helped along (I suppose) by their bonding in MAA. To be honest, I kept thinking this is the point at which we'd see what that ep was meant to be setting up, but I suspect we won't. Scorpius is being tortured in the usual manner, and as I said last week, the heat ray seems to play more havoc with his physiology than a pregnant Sebacean's. (Dunno, maybe Wayne just enjoys spewing for the camera and Claudia doesn't.) I guess MAA gave Rygel his moxie and let Scorpius resist the interrogation, but the situation doesn’t demand any qualities I wouldn’t have believed they didn’t already possess. All in all, MAA still reads like just another red herring crowding the pond.

-Again in the 'if I were still looking for clues' category: John and Aeryn seem to be speaking for an audience in the scene where he winds up nuzzling her and the bomb responds. Talking so Harvey/Scorpius would hear seems odd, since Scorpy would then hear it all (ahem). If they're putting on a show for the Scarrans, it's a pretty good one, I guess, since I'm having a hard time telling the difference. I just really hope they're not putting one on for each other. At this point, having managed to get that sticky, bitter, sharp-edged excuse for a tag down my throat, these two had better be literally madly in love.

- I've given up speculating on the answers, but I reserve the right to formulate the questions: what the frell is up with Grayza's makeup? If it's meant to mean something she looks like she's on her last legs, if it's the result of Riggs' makeup artist having smoked too much loofah or just feeling particularly creative (read bored) that morning, well, I'd sack the bugger. It looks like dren.

-While I'm on the subject of things I'm having a hard time with: lose the Pocahontas wig, by all means, but CAN IT STAY FRELLING LOST? Never mind that the length has kept changing since 417, but Claudia's hair is a completely different texture, making it obvious even in mid-shot whether she does or doesn't have it on. If using the wig was getting time-consuming or otherwise problematic, two lines -- "You cut your hair." "Nice of you to notice." -- could have fixed all that. (And I swear, I wasn't *looking* for this. Way too many other things going on.) If it’s supposed to mean something, well, tell us already, because we’re long past the point of my believing it does.

-I would very much like to believe that Crichton's offhand statement that the flowers can be found in Mom's garden would have bit him in the arse bigtime next year. That's the kind of seeding I expect from FS.

-Willem DaFoe, now Anthony Hopkins. Well, if you're going to steal mannerisms, at least Scorpy has good um, taste.

-Stark is back, and he's maddest of all! (The Guiding Light can torture. *Nice* turnaround.)

-Hey, even bioloids do the UT forehead kiss. Fantastic CG on the eyes, btw.

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:: fialka 3:57 AM [+] ::

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...continued

-Aeryn and John's tiptoe through the tulips is as mad as their little dance-at-the-end-of-the-world, and just as delicious. (Anyone not snortle at the sound of the zipper? Spot the homage to what I still think is one of FS's funniest episodes: The Flax)

-Scorpius: spy, double agent, triple agent? Or just looking out for number one, whichever odd fellows he must lie in bed with?

-In the odd moment of veracity dept: Aeryn moves her lips ever so slightly when she reads the tablets.

-I take back what I said about Aeryn not being a very good liar. Obviously, for these purposes at least, she is. The reptile part of my brain was screaming for them to kill Scorpius and I was really surprised it was all a trick. Stupid, however, to give him the info about Moya hiding as a freighter. Aeryn really has to stop trusting people just because they’re ex-Peacekeepers.

-Add another superpower to Sikozu's arsenal. Never knew she had slayer-strength before.

-Braca is Scorpy's boy, but...I suddenly remember Braca trying to kill Moya in Promises. Since Scorpy knew everything that was going on in the command carrier at that point, if Braca was the source, wouldn't he have known he was about to kill Scorpius as well? Perhaps the student has learned more than one lesson from the master -- loyalty to the self, above all.


Hot to Katrazi ends on the kind of cliffhanger I'd expect from Eastlake -- truth, doubt, and imminent death. This time, I fully expect part two (oops, I mean three) to pick up exactly where this one leaves off. And I am out of breath. More than anything, I have wanted to love these last eps, and I do love this one. The pacing is relentless, the humour superb and the characterisation so dangerous it's something of a shock, yet they still remain recognisably twisted around their own axis. As Ricky Manning did with Terra Firma, I'm amazed by how much story Eastlake manages to pack into 45 minutes.

Sadly, though, it's eps like this that make the overall rhythm of the these last 11 feel so uneven. If Farscape is a conscious (or even an unconscious) reflection of John Crichton's mental state throughout each season, then I doubt too many would argue if I called season 4 manic-depressive.

So, where do we go from here? John and Aeryn are outlaws finally embodying their own legend, and you know that’s got to turn out bad. Knowing TPTB, all I can imagine is large flaming objects plummeting down down down.

I'll start filling all available buckets and hoarding kleenex now.

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:: fialka 3:56 AM [+] ::

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Don't you love it when someone you admired in another life (fandom) turns up in your new one?

Friends, I present Loligo. I don't have to write my own comments anymore, I can just point and say "what she said."

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:: fialka 10:16 AM [+] ::

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