24 Oct 2014 02:30 pm
Farscape and Fray
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frayadjacentFarscape: I have just one episode left! Well, I think so anyway, I've been avoiding looking up lists of episode titles in case there are spoilers. I realize I've hardly posted about the show even though I've liked it a lot and I love love love Aeryn Sun. So here is an unsorted and unformatted selection of my thoughts.
I didn't give this show the attention it deserves and requires. I watched it over the course of something like 2 1/2 years -- I watched the first half dozen episodes of season 1, waited more than a year, watched up through the start of season 4 off and on over about six months, hated early season 4 and took at least six months to get through the first 12 episodes, and have watched the rest of season 4 this week. Furthermore, I often had one eye on Twitter or something else while I watched, which is not my normal way of watching tv AT ALL, but I developed the habit during some boring/bad S1 episodes and never fully shook it. So now I feel like there's a lot I missed, thematically, character-wise, and in terms of plot. I already feel like I need to rewatch.
I was thinking the other day about what it takes for me to fall in love with a show, and at what point in the show that happens. My favorite shows are Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena, and Friday Night Lights. I fell in love with the last of these immediately, and the love uh, *almost* never faltered (coughmurdersubplotcough). Conversely, Xena was a show I enjoyed, but no more, until the final season, when I really fell hard for the Xena/Gabrielle pairing. Now I see the entire series through the lens of what the last season did in terms of their relationship (and what seasons 3 & 4 did for Gabrielle's character) and I love it all. Buffy was somewhere in between. I loved it a lot the first time I watched, but it wasn't until I started rewatching (and rewatching and rewatching) and discussing it that I got really into it.
I bring this up because I suspect that Farscape, like Xena and to some extent Buffy, will be a show that will impress me most when viewed as a whole. There has been a ton of narrative follow-through in these last few episodes. Like people told me when I started, shit *matters* on Farscape. I've been enjoying that a lot.
In terms of character, some of my favorite things include the radiant Aeryn Sun, as well as the way the show has depicted the impact of imprisonment and homesickness on the characters. I've mostly enjoyed their interpersonal dynamics. Relationships are fraught and tenuous, but for good reason. The plotlines with Crais, Scorpius, and Talyn have been interesting and I've liked them quite a bit.
However, I do wish the show was more of an ensemble, because I don't really connect to John Crichton the way I'm supposed to. I feel for his homesickness, I like his sense of humor and kindness. But I was also endlessly frustrated with everyone insisting that he was ignorant, that his ideas were bad and always went wrong, that he wasn't the hero we the audience were expecting him to be, when the narrative quite frankly kept making him pretty much exactly the hero we expect. The show put a lot of effort into telling us that John wasn't your usual sci-fi hero, but it did not succeed at showing it. Like even though he didn't earn or want it, he still spends most of the show as the most important single person in the known universe, and it just grates on me.
Also, I know this is pretty random, but remember in an early episode where there's a flashback to John's life on Earth, and a moment when he was about to propose to his girlfriend, but then she told him she was going to grad school or medical school or something instead of following him and building her career around his? And so he gets the super sads and is totally betrayed and doesn't propose and we're all supposed to feel bad for him? I cannot emphasize enough how much I fucking hated that, how close to home that shit is for me, and I think it's why I basically didn't like John for a long time thereafter. I know it's not a particularly strong argument, but the point is that so much of the show revolves around John, a character I've come to care about and like, but it took a damn long time due to some basic smart white guy tropes that the show fell into that I find particularly annoying. And I wish I'd seen more time spent on other characters, especially Aeryn (though she got a fair amount) and Chiana and D'Argo. Also I really, really liked Jool and her brattiness and ridiculous scream and super smartness. I'd have really loved more Jool.
Anyway this is not my final word on Farscape, I obviously, I know there's a lot to it that I've straight up missed and I'm looking forward to exploring it deeper through vids and some meta and rewatching certain episodes. I'm happy to take recommendations for fanworks including meta! And to know other people's thoughts.
I didn't give this show the attention it deserves and requires. I watched it over the course of something like 2 1/2 years -- I watched the first half dozen episodes of season 1, waited more than a year, watched up through the start of season 4 off and on over about six months, hated early season 4 and took at least six months to get through the first 12 episodes, and have watched the rest of season 4 this week. Furthermore, I often had one eye on Twitter or something else while I watched, which is not my normal way of watching tv AT ALL, but I developed the habit during some boring/bad S1 episodes and never fully shook it. So now I feel like there's a lot I missed, thematically, character-wise, and in terms of plot. I already feel like I need to rewatch.
I was thinking the other day about what it takes for me to fall in love with a show, and at what point in the show that happens. My favorite shows are Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena, and Friday Night Lights. I fell in love with the last of these immediately, and the love uh, *almost* never faltered (coughmurdersubplotcough). Conversely, Xena was a show I enjoyed, but no more, until the final season, when I really fell hard for the Xena/Gabrielle pairing. Now I see the entire series through the lens of what the last season did in terms of their relationship (and what seasons 3 & 4 did for Gabrielle's character) and I love it all. Buffy was somewhere in between. I loved it a lot the first time I watched, but it wasn't until I started rewatching (and rewatching and rewatching) and discussing it that I got really into it.
I bring this up because I suspect that Farscape, like Xena and to some extent Buffy, will be a show that will impress me most when viewed as a whole. There has been a ton of narrative follow-through in these last few episodes. Like people told me when I started, shit *matters* on Farscape. I've been enjoying that a lot.
In terms of character, some of my favorite things include the radiant Aeryn Sun, as well as the way the show has depicted the impact of imprisonment and homesickness on the characters. I've mostly enjoyed their interpersonal dynamics. Relationships are fraught and tenuous, but for good reason. The plotlines with Crais, Scorpius, and Talyn have been interesting and I've liked them quite a bit.
However, I do wish the show was more of an ensemble, because I don't really connect to John Crichton the way I'm supposed to. I feel for his homesickness, I like his sense of humor and kindness. But I was also endlessly frustrated with everyone insisting that he was ignorant, that his ideas were bad and always went wrong, that he wasn't the hero we the audience were expecting him to be, when the narrative quite frankly kept making him pretty much exactly the hero we expect. The show put a lot of effort into telling us that John wasn't your usual sci-fi hero, but it did not succeed at showing it. Like even though he didn't earn or want it, he still spends most of the show as the most important single person in the known universe, and it just grates on me.
Also, I know this is pretty random, but remember in an early episode where there's a flashback to John's life on Earth, and a moment when he was about to propose to his girlfriend, but then she told him she was going to grad school or medical school or something instead of following him and building her career around his? And so he gets the super sads and is totally betrayed and doesn't propose and we're all supposed to feel bad for him? I cannot emphasize enough how much I fucking hated that, how close to home that shit is for me, and I think it's why I basically didn't like John for a long time thereafter. I know it's not a particularly strong argument, but the point is that so much of the show revolves around John, a character I've come to care about and like, but it took a damn long time due to some basic smart white guy tropes that the show fell into that I find particularly annoying. And I wish I'd seen more time spent on other characters, especially Aeryn (though she got a fair amount) and Chiana and D'Argo. Also I really, really liked Jool and her brattiness and ridiculous scream and super smartness. I'd have really loved more Jool.
Anyway this is not my final word on Farscape, I obviously, I know there's a lot to it that I've straight up missed and I'm looking forward to exploring it deeper through vids and some meta and rewatching certain episodes. I'm happy to take recommendations for fanworks including meta! And to know other people's thoughts.
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Okay so first - just to check, when you say you have one episode left do you mean the final episode of series 4 or the mini series that follows? I would recommend the mini series because it finished the story after the cancellation but it was made a while later and, well, I'm glad it exists but I think it has some flaws. Some brilliant, perfect moments, but...also some clunky ones. (Huh, like season four in general I guess?)
But I'm SO GLAD you like it. I know what you mean about shows where the ultimate payoff is what makes them overall worth it. That wasn't the case for me with Farscape, but then, it was one of my first serious fandoms when I was 16 and was just so awed by the beautiful puppet world they'd created. I grew up as SUCH a huge Henson fan it was like Christmas. Like my childhood came back but hilarious and twisted and gross and funny and dark.
I do suspect that if you watch it with more focused attention (though I empathise with not doing so; I can be terrible about that these days) you'll pick up more. There is a lot of nonvisual stuff in there. I think John and Aeryn particularly convey a lot through body language and what they don't always say or do.
Thinking about my experience watching it is interesting because it basically spanned my, well, growing up I suppose. Both in human and fannish terms. We're talking 16 - 22, and discussions about the show certainly helped with my education on fan culture stuff, feminism, media representation, etc.
I do remember some fairly interesting meta about why there was really not that much slash in the fandom, comparatively speaking, considering how, well, kinky it was. Like I'm not saying it was nonexistent, but even John/Scorpy was...not really a thing? I have never been much of a guyslasher so I don't think I'm qualified to offer an informed opinion but I wish I could find some of the meta from that time. I know that some people argued that the gender dynamics of John/Aeryn replicated the slash dynamics much more closely than many straight couples of the era. But...as I said, I'm not sure how accurate others would think that is.
For myself, I think the reason I loved John (because Aeryn was my favourite, but I do love John) had a lot to do with the excellent reasons given by
On the other hand, his emotional arc? Wow. It's this classic, recognisable, "I must learn to kill to survive. I must become hard and dangerous." And even though I want to say "but it shows the cost!" it is romanticised. I think the difference, though, is the way it's romanticised. The way it's rendered dramatically fascinating.
The simplest way to explain it, I guess, is that he gets a more traditionally feminine exploration of these issues. Or at least one that at times actively undermines the masculinity you might expect from it. Like in the second season when he starts acting more and more "crazy cool" and out of control and then there's this sudden revelation that he is actually losing it, he is actually suffering from hallucinations and he's terrified. Like the way the third season ended with a white wedding fantasy from his perspective. The way every time he runs around screaming about pop culture references, there's this powerful undercurrent that he is doing this as a desperate coping mechanism so he doesn't fall apart and start crying, not because he's having such a great time thumbing his nose at authority.
Which is an undercurrent that feels far less false because we do see him crying. For himself. Because he's scared and lost. Not angry tears because ~someone took his property~, you know?
It means that when you get to that part at the end, that speech about the nuclear bomb in a field of flowers? The destruction and spectacle and surreal contradiction? It gives it space for Ben Browder to offer a performance that genuinely doesn't come across as manpain. It comes across as reflective and sorrowful.
Plus, of course, the fact that he leaves Earth. And that it doesn't take him going home to realise that's what he'll be doing. When he finally gets back he's already decided he's not staying.
Gah, sorry, I went on a bit of a John tangent. tl;dr I think that even though they gave John a tradition Man Becomes Violent arc, they were more honest, or at least less aggressively masculine, about showing the emotional cost.
(Finally I feel sort of like a dork recommending my own fanworks, so I won't, but I mostly wanted to warn you off the first Farscape vid I made because it was actually my first vid ever and it sort of shows... I mean it IS still on my website if you're deathly curious but yeahhhh. The other two are better, I think!)
no subject
When I posted this I had finished "We're So Screwed" and so I had one episode in S4 left, but now I've watched that. I do plan to watch The Peacekeeper Wars, hopefully sooner rather than later.
I like your point about distinguishing between John's "humans are chumps" stuff and his emotional arc. For a not small part of the early seasons I was distracted by the former (and also by Twitter, oops) and so didn't give enough attention to the latter. But what you're saying makes lots of sense!! The space I seem to be in is intellectually agreeing with people who love John but not really feeling it emotionally. But when I make the Aeryn vid that I super want to make I wonder if my mind -- or, uh, heart? -- will change.
I feel sort of like a dork recommending my own fanworks, so I won't
DUDE you are such a dork because: (1) you are like one of my favorite vidders! Of course you should rec your stuff, far and wide! and (2) you are one of my favorite vidders! I already downloaded your Farscape vids and once I have seen TPKW I will watch them all. EVEN THE ONE YOU WANT TO WARN ME OFF OF. *Cackles with glee*
BTW that is a really, really great icon.