Trying again to get into Farscape

[Ar-Pharazon]

And with 22 eps per season, it's OK to have a clunker here or there.

It's a little more disappointing when it's a British series with 6-12 eps per year.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Taking The Stone:

Basically a 'One character acts wacky for an episode' episode. None of this episode makes a whole lot of sense. Include a B plot about Rygel robbing a grave and then getting all Telltale Heart about it. I thought Farscape wasn't the kind of show that tried to 'teach' you.

Grade: C-

If I was going to give up on a show because of a few clunkers I wouldn't have made it through any Star Trek. But I really hope it picks back up soon.

They also seem to have made changes to Rygel for the second season. His emotional range seems different and he seems to have more shots that aren't just from the neck up or on his mobile throne.

 

[RoJoHen]

If it helps, "Taking the Stone" is usually considered by most fans to be the show's worst episode.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

I didn't like "Taking the Stone" all that much but I think it's slightly better than "John Quixote" in season 4. i just watched it again last night. That was weeiirrd.

 

[RoJoHen]

Aw man, "John Quixote" is one of my all-time favorites!

 

[JirinPanthosa]

On a note not related to a specific episode, does anyone find it odd that D'argo applies human standards of beauty?

His wife is a Peacekeeper who is beautiful by human standards, but he's repulsed by the affections a female alien who looks like a human male.

Are there ever any aliens in any scifi who are monstrous by human standards and don't apply human standards of beauty? Quark loves women who are beautiful by human standards, so does Neelix so does Jabba the Hutt. Has there ever been a monstrous looking male who truly finds women humans consider beautiful to be repulsive? I suppose Rygel fits that description.

 

[fireproof78]

I was going to say that Rygel does. Um, Scorpious has some interesting relationships later on.

 

[Forbin]

Well, there's Lrrr, ruler of Omicron Persei 8 in Futurama, who loves his wife Ndnd, who both look like giant froggy things.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Kryten decided to date an amorphous green blob (pleasure GELF) in Red Dwarf - Camille.

Rimmer: "Look, if Kryten wants to take an amorphous green blob for a discreet tete-a-tentacle, I say good luck to him."

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Crackers Don't Matter:

An episode where everybody is mentally affected in a way that makes them fight against each other. I like the villain and the final scene where he's sneaking in cloaked. I'm a little disappointed the mental conditions only amounted to some creative insults and no real exploration of the characters' minds like most shows do with that premise. I liked the way they made the point that Crichton was only the least affected because he had the worst vision, although that is a little bit of a cheat. They're trying to avoid and maybe satirize the usual case in scifi that humans are the ones running the universe because of their intangible qualities. But Crichton is usually the one who realizes first when something strange is going on, and he usually doesn't have some kind of external reason like inferior vision.

Grade: C+

 

[Lindley]

There's actually a huge reveal in that episode, but it's structured so that you don't realize it's a reveal until later.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The Way We Weren't:

Great episode. First it's an Aeryn ep and she's the best actress in the show. But we also are sternly reminded that Aeryn did terrible things as a peacekeeper and finally get depth to Pilot's character. Hopefully the rest of the season is more like this.

Grade: A

 

[kirk55555]

The Way We Weren't:

Great episode. First it's an Aeryn ep and she's the best actress in the show. But we also are sternly reminded that Aeryn did terrible things as a peacekeeper and finally get depth to Pilot's character. Hopefully the rest of the season is more like this.

Grade: A

I love this episode. Even though my feelings on Farscape are mixed, I still count this as one of the best episodes of a Sci Fi show that I've seen.

 

[RoJoHen]

The Way We Weren't is an absolutely fantastic episode.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Picture If You Will:

Comes off more like an episode of that Nickelodeon show 'Are You Afraid Of The Dark' than a science fiction show. Really magicky with no logic connecting one plot event to the next.

And Maldis is the most boring type of villain. Any path to defeating him will necessarily involve Zhann thinking real hard and then him screaming. I'm starting to speculate that this is how Zhann dies, she somehow has to sacrifice herself to destroy him for good.

Grade: D

 

[RoJoHen]

If it makes you feel better, that is the last time Maldis ever appears on the show.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Home On The Remains:

I like the idea that people set up mining colonies on giant space creature corpses. Also it's good to have episodes where the big danger is just running out of food instead of some weird mind-warping space anomaly. They did a good job in this episode making aliens seem more alien with Zhann's reaction to being starved. A lot of science fiction resigns to treating their aliens just like different ethnicities of human very quickly. Babylon 5 for example paid a lot of lipservice to aliens being different but basically they were all humans with different anatomy and in some cases arcane cultural rituals.

On the other side of that though, although I like the idea of starting a D'argo/Chianna relationship, you have to wonder about biological compatibility just like with him and his Peacekeeper wife. I mean, what if they're kissing and she gets poked with his tongue-stinger?

I was a little bit disappointed when the episode didn't end with Zhann hunting down the monkey creature as she described to Crichton.

Grade: B+

 

[RoJoHen]

I mean, what if they're kissing and she gets poked with his tongue-stinger?

Maybe she's into that.

Incidentally, these issues do get addressed. Maybe not quite in that close of detail, but the issue of alien compatibility gets brought up on more than one occasion.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Dream A Little Dream:

This is one of those weird episodes that swings wildly between sincere emotional development and outright cartoonishness. The costume designers aren't that great in general but in this episode they really outdid themselves in terms of sheer unmitigated ridiculousness. The legal system on this planet seems to combine the silliest aspects of Tribunal, Matter of Perspective, Devil's Due, and Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, and then this culture that is supposedly devoted to legalisms is fooled easily by a magic trick.

Grade: C

 

[RoJoHen]

Incidentally, "Dream a Little Dream" was my very first Farscape episode ever. I was flipping past the SciFi Channel and stopped on Farscape because it just looked so weird and I had to figure out what the hell it was.

But yeah, pretty crappy episode. In many cases I find the beginning of Season 2 to be significantly worse than Season 1.

In my opinion, the upcoming "Look at the Princess" trilogy is where Farscape truly finds its footing and becomes consistently awesome.