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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no subject
I have little patience for manpain, as well, (uh, again, except when Xena is having it), but I was thinking about the end of "We're So Screwed", when John is deeply upset about having set off the nuclear bomb. That doesn't feel like manpain to me so much as basic empathy...it somehow seemed different to me. I'm curious what you think of that?
Yeah, for me — John cares about people, but his caring is never more important than the people themselves. If that makes sense? Which is the difference between manpain and empathy for me: when empathy starts to be about the person feeling it instead of the person the empathy is for then it’s no longer empathy and it’s manpain. Though I have to admit that I don’t remember much of “We’re So Screwed” — I mean, I remember the basics, I remember the nuclear weapon, but I don’t remember his reaction specifically. So I could be off on that one.
I don't remember DaLD or Thanks for Sharing very well -- what about those made you dislike Aeryn?
Well, I should be clear: I do really love Aeryn! It just took me a while to get to that place with her. She’s never going to be My Character in the way that Moya and Chiana are, but I do love her. The Choice is one of my favorite episodes because of Claudia Black being amazing.
But! First impressions: in DaLD she appears only as Zhaan’s hallucination and she’s very critical and mean to Zhaan, because she’s just a manifestation of Zhaan’s guilt at leaving them. So because of that, for a long time afterwards, I read her as more antagonistic towards the crew, and specifically towards Zhaan, than I think she really is. I really like Zhaan, though I don’t always love the choices that the writers made with her, so that was a hold-up for a while.
I also don’t really love the stoic warrior trope or the trappings of "strong female character" which is very much how I read her at first, largely because of the hallucination’s coldness and the millitaristic bent to her character. Aeryn’s much more than that, obviously, but both stoicism and warrior play a part in her character make up and that's not my thing, no matter if the character is male or female, so there was a bit of disinterest there. And, you know, there are reasons she shows up on a lot of people's "strong female character" lists; unfortunately many of the traits that put her on those lists tend to be the traits I'm least interested in. (D’Argo didn’t work for me in DaLD for many of the same reasons, sans "strong female character" obvs. He also seemed very stoic warrior. Though I ALSO thought that D’Argo/Zhaan was a thing based on DaLD and that confused me for a long time when it turned out to not be the case.)
Thanks for Sharing is the first full episode with the two Crichtons before the Talyn/Moya split so … that was just confusing as all hell. It make me really curious about the show, but in a very confused way! Aeryn was just so fed up with everything in that episode that, without knowing the context, she seemed like a really angry person, which fed into my thinking that she was nothing more than a fighter or a "strong female character" archetype. Going back and watching that episode she’s great and no kidding she’s fed up! But going in to the episode without the backstory or knowing the characters it was just a skewed, weird way to be introduced to everyone.
(Thanks for Sharing did help sell me on D’Argo though because there’s an exchange at the end where D’Argo is talking to Moya!Crichton after the split and he’s trying to cheer him up and it goes something like:
D’Argo: At least you have him out of your nose. [Referring to Talyn!Crichton]
John: Hair
D’Argo: Right, at least you have him out of your nose hair.
That exchange makes me laugh every time.)
But even once I got beyond my first impressions of Aeryn, there were things that distanced me from her. There’s the John/Aeryn focus, which I talk about above and the stoic warrior/"strong female character" … which I also just talked about … but then there's also the fact that she never really gets to have friendships with other women and she’s sort of presented as “one of the guys”. She’s never close with Zhaan, Chiana, Jool, etc, but she does have relationships with John, Crais, Pilot, even D’Argo. That makes me really sad. It’s also something that I tend to not relate to with female characters. When female characters hang out with men more than woman, particularly when other women are around and available to hang out with … it just doesn’t tend to work for me. Particularly when they eschew female companionship for romantic relationships with men I get annoyed. Again, I don’t think that’s entirely what’s going on with Aeryn & John/Aeryn but there’s just enough of it that I get frustrated. Whereas Chiana often got scenes with Jool and Sikozu, etc in addition to her romantic relationship with D’Argo and her friendship with John. Chiana still doesn’t get as much girl time with other women as I’d like, but she gets more than Aeryn and I really appreciated that. This is why, FYI, the Moya episodes of season three tend to make me happier than the Talyn episodes, even when the Talyn eps are probably objectively better. Aeryn is on a ship full of men! Crichton, Stark, Crais, Rygel, Talyn. Even though I like all of those characters, the lone women in a sea of men leaves me cold.
I think my love of Aeryn is also tempered by my love of Moya. This is probably me just holding a grudge and isn’t fair to Aeryn, but I have to admit to it being a factor. For one, Crais. I think Crais is an interesting character and I love watching him, but I HATE him. Hisssss. Even when he is “redeemed” I still think he’s a slimy evil motherfucker. Which is great to watch (less great when he’s woobified in fandom — tbh I think Crais gets the manpain that Crichton misses out on; D’Argo too), but Aeryn’s relationship with Crais and the way that she relates to him … it makes sense, it does, but … he murdered Moya’s first Pilot, he impregnated Moya against her will, and he stole her fucking baby. Hisssssss. Crais is EVIL and Aeryn’s forgiveness of him, while totally in character, gets a knee-jerk HELL NO from me. And then Aeryn’s relationship with Talyn, which is in part motherly, makes me really sad on Moya’s behalf. As does Aeryn’s relationship with Pilot. Basically: at times Aeryn was a stand-in to replace Moya because it’s easier to show relationships between human actors and puppets and CGI ships than it is between a puppet and a CGI ship or two CGI ships. But I’m just not as interested in Aeryn-as-stand-in for Moya; I’m interested in *Moya*. This was always something that was in the background for me — when people coo’ed over Aeryn’s relationship with Pilot or Talyn I never entirely understood the appeal; they were well-written relationships, but they never grabbed me. It was only when I made my Moya vid I realized just how much those relationships are developed as substitutes for Moya’s relationships with the same and that crystallized for me exactly why I didn’t connect with them as much as other people do. I’m too much a Moya girl to be into that and I don’t want Aeryn-as-substitute for anyone. I want Aeryn as Aeryn and Moya as Moya.
But despite these things Aeryn did win me over. First, because Claudia Black’s face <3<3<3. But also because Aeryn can be funny and sort of fed up with everything and I really like that. And I really like how competent she is and how kind she is — her kindness doesn’t come from Crichton, it’s hers and I appreciate that. Also she can be a snarky jerk sometimes and I appreciate that in characters/people, so long as there is a level of decency and kindness underneath. And she and John do make good partners in crime and I appreciate that as well — that more than the lovey-dovey stuff is what really makes their relationship tic for me. I love the Butch and Sundance part of their relationship, that level of trust and respect. And the few times Aeryn and Chiana do get to hang out: LOVE SO MUCH. WANT MORE. AERYN & CHIANA BFFSSSSSS, whyyyyyyy is this not the direction the show took. DDDDD: I want all the Aeryn & Chiana episodes.
no subject
YES. I agree!
OMG I have no memory of the "nose hair" exchange, but I can just hear the characters saying it in my head and it is perfect. Hee hee!
It was only when I made my Moya vid I realized just how much those relationships are developed as substitutes for Moya’s relationships with the same and that crystallized for me exactly why I didn’t connect with them as much as other people do.
Wow, I definitely didn't realize that but now that you say it I can totally see it. Also: YOU MADE A MOYA VID????!!!!1!! OK I am off to snoop through your Farscape tag.
she never really gets to have friendships with other women and she’s sort of presented as “one of the guys”.
Totally, this bummed me out too. I remember very clearly an early S4 episode, where Aeryn tells Chiana about the pregnancy/paternity thing, and at first I was like "oh yay, Aeryn and Chiana are hanging out!" and then I was like "oh nevermind this interaction is 100% about furthering a plot that I hate". D: D: D:
I loved Chaina and Jool's relationship in particular (which is a big reason why I was so bummed when Jool left).
no subject
I've only made one Farscape vid, which is the Moya vid, which is here: http://ghost-lingering.dreamwidth.org/145940.html It's basically all my Moya feelings in vid form.
no subject
I am very excited to watch your Moya vid. :D