A Human Reaction
Stan Rice, the husband of Anne Rice, has died of a brain tumor. It happened on December 9th, apparently. He was a painter and a poet, and while I didn't always groove with his style, he had a voice that could express inexplicable aspects of grief. This makes his own passing all the more sad.
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I actually turned on my TV tonight with the full intention of sitting through the original pilot of Firefly, because I felt bad about my recent sour grapes. I swear I gave it my best shot, despite the admitted Farscape bias. I mean, I thought the production design was awesome, the actors were energetic and attractive, and with the exception of "We're humped!" Joss seemed to be in typically fine form with the dialogue.
But it didn't grab me. Almost half an hour in I was thinking, "Am I really going to sit here for the full two hours?" Right at that moment, like a sign from above, I got a phone call. By the time I hung up FF was nearly over, and I happily switched over to "I Love the 80's" on VH1. Much more engrossing.
When that was done, I decided to re-watch "A Human Reaction," FS S1.
When looking for a place to begin with this episode, I keep getting drawn back to the ending. This is an ep that almost demands fanfic-ish speculation, because it presents so many questions and leaves so many threads hanging.
I'm a practical sort of person. I see a freeze-frame where John is walking through a doorway into a shimmering mass of water, and while I appreciate the beauty of the shot I want to know what he sees on the other side. How does he get back to his module? What happened to Aeryn after he left her on the promenade? What happens when everyone gets back to Moya, in that space of time before "Through the Looking Glass"?
When I was first getting into Farscape I kept having this feeling of, "Whowhatwhenwherehuh??" whenever an ep started. So many of them begin in medias res, and the audience just gets swept along into the action, with maybe a sliver of dialogue shot here and there to explain what the hell's going on. It's as if the storytellers have too much to cram into forty-five minutes, so they rev up the engines before the camera starts rolling, and then hit RECORD as soon as they let the car go -- perhaps even a bit after. There usually isn't a moment of peace until the last few minutes in the tag.
In AHR, it seems the reverse happens. At the beginning, John talks quietly, contemplatively into his tape recorder. We see the wormhole open, we see the goodbyes amongst the crew, we see John head home. He lands on an Australian beach and has a brief, bright moment of happiness at being on Earth again. We think, "Where can they go from here?"
The plot picks up when the welcome crew turns out not to be so welcoming. It gathers steam as John realizes the humans see him as a threat, and lights on fire when the others come and the humans do to them as humans will do. Emotionally, physically, intellectually, the story keeps rolling and rolling and rolling until finally John's striding out the door into the shimmering light, and then it just -- stops.
And so my first question about the ep is, oddly enough, how much of it was real?
I think it's explained, sure. Maybe. The setting was all created from John's memory, but his friends were real, and the Ancients were real. Yes? And yet I was still surprised when Aeryn asked in "Family Ties" if John's father is really like the man she met. My attention swung right back around to AHR: "But -- but if it was real, and they all remember it, why didn't they talk about it before then?"
I seem to keep asking this question, or variations of it. Why didn't they reference that event? Why didn't they bring it up again, since it ought to be important in context? How come we never hear about the time when blah blah blah? I mean, sure, Farscape trusts its viewers to connect the dots, but at what point do you start needing reassurance that they've carefully maintained the map, or that they've given us enough knowledge to do it on our own?
John leaves Aeryn behind. (I think that promenade is the one in front of the Opera House, am I right? It looks familiar -- I remember seeing some Brazilian Olympic athletes with bulging muscles in front of that same background when I was in Sydney a couple of years ago.) He leaves her behind when he's just figuring out that all is not as it should be. Runs off, runs back to the military base to talk to the "guy in charge." Suddenly he discovers that everything and everyone around them is wrong, and what does he do? He leaves her.
I confess that on my first viewing of the episode, at that point I thought Aeryn wasn't real, either. If John thought she was, wouldn't he have dragged her along, since two heads are better than one? And also since he still didn't really know what happened to D'Argo and Rygel? (And what does it mean that she wasn't with D'Argo and Rygel later, when all was revealed?)
The second time around, I see again that moment of understanding with Jack Crichton at the safehouse, when he says, "Thank you, Aeryn Sun," even though he really shouldn't have had any idea what she said. And there I think she must be real. Otherwise, why show a moment like that with John out of frame, so that it's completely her own experience?
Naked, John wakes up to find her poring over maps, and he wants to talk about what happened. She says simply, "It's fine," and gets back to business. Later, she holds Jack at gunpoint and Jack asks his son, "Is she ever going to put that down?" John says, "Don't think so."
Did it happen? Do they remember it happening? Can you see, in later episodes and interactions, that it happened? I don't know. I have to watch the eps again. But I was surprised to see it the first time, because I would have had no clue, otherwise. How does this knowledge then change the John/Aeryn relationship for me, if at all? (And the map bit is an added scene, right? How does it change US viewers' perspectives?)
Tangentially related: the show introduces a species like the Ancients, who have the power to fabricate reality and draw others into that fabrication. They in a sense kidnap D'Argo, Rygel, Aeryn and John, and make them believe terrible things have happened to them. It doesn't only happen to John, even though it all comes from John's head. But at the end, the only person we see in the doorway is John. And the only person who I can ever recall bringing the Ancients up in conversation in later episodes is John.
What am I asking for here? To bring it back around to my opening paragraphs, I think, basically, I'm asking for a tag. An extra ten minutes or so, to reassure us about what would be remembered. Something to ground me, so that when someone asks if John and Aeryn have ever slept together, or what Rygel or D'Argo might think of humans who aren't Crichton, I'll know what to say.
John's turning point from brains-over-brawn guy to leatherclad Winona-wielding guy. It's in "A Bug's Life" as Shaye says, but there's a chunk of it in AHR, too. He pulls that piece on Cobb and clocks him across the face with it, kicks him hard for Rygel. He snaps to violence at that point and it's with (what he believes to be) his own kind. He reaches a breaking point because of what's been done to the "creatures," the "aliens."
It's his own memories and subconscious this scenario originates with. John can't go home again, not as the same John Crichton anyway, and as early as this he knows it. You can't re-connect with Earth when you've connected so strongly elsewhere. When you can bring a ship of "aliens" to tears because you're leaving. When, of their own accord, they decide to follow you into the unknown. You can't re-connect with home, and so their unknown becomes your unknown. You're with them, not the humans.
John was naive and thought he could have both. By Dog With Two Bones, he sees it as an impossibility in any permutation.
Random thoughts:
- Translator microbes. Now, I know the science is crap, but how are these supposed to work, truly? Do you hear the other species' languages as they are, and simply understand, or do you hear their speech translated into your own native language? If the latter, given that translator microbes are supposedly injected into everyone at birth, how do the microbes determine what your native language is? Especially if you're surrounded by a bunch of other species as you're growing up and learning to speak, with all of their various tongues and dialects sounding exactly the same to you?
- Speaking of science, Aeryn tasting the rain is cute and all, but are we supposed to believe she's never encountered rain before? Water evaporates. Gravity makes precipitation in the form of clouds and eventually rain. Planets have mass, and therefore have gravity. Any planet with water will therefore have rain.
- The whole alien-as-father testing the lesser species is so Contact. And, I'm sure, other scifi. Score one for the magpies.
- Didn't like, and probably will never like, what they chose for the Ancients' true form. Call me shallow, but they look like dog-insect things, and it undercuts the majesty of it all.
- Wilson, however, was perfectly cast. He's got the kind of slimy triumphant look you just love to hate. The earrings were also a nice touch.
- And the episode itself was just gorgeous. Slowly swinging camera angles, grainy photos of John, closeups of tears and kisses. I think it was one of the first episodes, along with "Through the Looking Glass," where I began to see real cinematographic beauty in the first season.
- Comments on TtLG to follow in a later entry. That one I liked A LOT.
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I actually turned on my TV tonight with the full intention of sitting through the original pilot of Firefly, because I felt bad about my recent sour grapes. I swear I gave it my best shot, despite the admitted Farscape bias. I mean, I thought the production design was awesome, the actors were energetic and attractive, and with the exception of "We're humped!" Joss seemed to be in typically fine form with the dialogue.
But it didn't grab me. Almost half an hour in I was thinking, "Am I really going to sit here for the full two hours?" Right at that moment, like a sign from above, I got a phone call. By the time I hung up FF was nearly over, and I happily switched over to "I Love the 80's" on VH1. Much more engrossing.
When that was done, I decided to re-watch "A Human Reaction," FS S1.
When looking for a place to begin with this episode, I keep getting drawn back to the ending. This is an ep that almost demands fanfic-ish speculation, because it presents so many questions and leaves so many threads hanging.
I'm a practical sort of person. I see a freeze-frame where John is walking through a doorway into a shimmering mass of water, and while I appreciate the beauty of the shot I want to know what he sees on the other side. How does he get back to his module? What happened to Aeryn after he left her on the promenade? What happens when everyone gets back to Moya, in that space of time before "Through the Looking Glass"?
When I was first getting into Farscape I kept having this feeling of, "Whowhatwhenwherehuh??" whenever an ep started. So many of them begin in medias res, and the audience just gets swept along into the action, with maybe a sliver of dialogue shot here and there to explain what the hell's going on. It's as if the storytellers have too much to cram into forty-five minutes, so they rev up the engines before the camera starts rolling, and then hit RECORD as soon as they let the car go -- perhaps even a bit after. There usually isn't a moment of peace until the last few minutes in the tag.
In AHR, it seems the reverse happens. At the beginning, John talks quietly, contemplatively into his tape recorder. We see the wormhole open, we see the goodbyes amongst the crew, we see John head home. He lands on an Australian beach and has a brief, bright moment of happiness at being on Earth again. We think, "Where can they go from here?"
The plot picks up when the welcome crew turns out not to be so welcoming. It gathers steam as John realizes the humans see him as a threat, and lights on fire when the others come and the humans do to them as humans will do. Emotionally, physically, intellectually, the story keeps rolling and rolling and rolling until finally John's striding out the door into the shimmering light, and then it just -- stops.
And so my first question about the ep is, oddly enough, how much of it was real?
I think it's explained, sure. Maybe. The setting was all created from John's memory, but his friends were real, and the Ancients were real. Yes? And yet I was still surprised when Aeryn asked in "Family Ties" if John's father is really like the man she met. My attention swung right back around to AHR: "But -- but if it was real, and they all remember it, why didn't they talk about it before then?"
I seem to keep asking this question, or variations of it. Why didn't they reference that event? Why didn't they bring it up again, since it ought to be important in context? How come we never hear about the time when blah blah blah? I mean, sure, Farscape trusts its viewers to connect the dots, but at what point do you start needing reassurance that they've carefully maintained the map, or that they've given us enough knowledge to do it on our own?
John leaves Aeryn behind. (I think that promenade is the one in front of the Opera House, am I right? It looks familiar -- I remember seeing some Brazilian Olympic athletes with bulging muscles in front of that same background when I was in Sydney a couple of years ago.) He leaves her behind when he's just figuring out that all is not as it should be. Runs off, runs back to the military base to talk to the "guy in charge." Suddenly he discovers that everything and everyone around them is wrong, and what does he do? He leaves her.
I confess that on my first viewing of the episode, at that point I thought Aeryn wasn't real, either. If John thought she was, wouldn't he have dragged her along, since two heads are better than one? And also since he still didn't really know what happened to D'Argo and Rygel? (And what does it mean that she wasn't with D'Argo and Rygel later, when all was revealed?)
The second time around, I see again that moment of understanding with Jack Crichton at the safehouse, when he says, "Thank you, Aeryn Sun," even though he really shouldn't have had any idea what she said. And there I think she must be real. Otherwise, why show a moment like that with John out of frame, so that it's completely her own experience?
Naked, John wakes up to find her poring over maps, and he wants to talk about what happened. She says simply, "It's fine," and gets back to business. Later, she holds Jack at gunpoint and Jack asks his son, "Is she ever going to put that down?" John says, "Don't think so."
Did it happen? Do they remember it happening? Can you see, in later episodes and interactions, that it happened? I don't know. I have to watch the eps again. But I was surprised to see it the first time, because I would have had no clue, otherwise. How does this knowledge then change the John/Aeryn relationship for me, if at all? (And the map bit is an added scene, right? How does it change US viewers' perspectives?)
Tangentially related: the show introduces a species like the Ancients, who have the power to fabricate reality and draw others into that fabrication. They in a sense kidnap D'Argo, Rygel, Aeryn and John, and make them believe terrible things have happened to them. It doesn't only happen to John, even though it all comes from John's head. But at the end, the only person we see in the doorway is John. And the only person who I can ever recall bringing the Ancients up in conversation in later episodes is John.
What am I asking for here? To bring it back around to my opening paragraphs, I think, basically, I'm asking for a tag. An extra ten minutes or so, to reassure us about what would be remembered. Something to ground me, so that when someone asks if John and Aeryn have ever slept together, or what Rygel or D'Argo might think of humans who aren't Crichton, I'll know what to say.
John's turning point from brains-over-brawn guy to leatherclad Winona-wielding guy. It's in "A Bug's Life" as Shaye says, but there's a chunk of it in AHR, too. He pulls that piece on Cobb and clocks him across the face with it, kicks him hard for Rygel. He snaps to violence at that point and it's with (what he believes to be) his own kind. He reaches a breaking point because of what's been done to the "creatures," the "aliens."
It's his own memories and subconscious this scenario originates with. John can't go home again, not as the same John Crichton anyway, and as early as this he knows it. You can't re-connect with Earth when you've connected so strongly elsewhere. When you can bring a ship of "aliens" to tears because you're leaving. When, of their own accord, they decide to follow you into the unknown. You can't re-connect with home, and so their unknown becomes your unknown. You're with them, not the humans.
John was naive and thought he could have both. By Dog With Two Bones, he sees it as an impossibility in any permutation.
Random thoughts:
- Translator microbes. Now, I know the science is crap, but how are these supposed to work, truly? Do you hear the other species' languages as they are, and simply understand, or do you hear their speech translated into your own native language? If the latter, given that translator microbes are supposedly injected into everyone at birth, how do the microbes determine what your native language is? Especially if you're surrounded by a bunch of other species as you're growing up and learning to speak, with all of their various tongues and dialects sounding exactly the same to you?
- Speaking of science, Aeryn tasting the rain is cute and all, but are we supposed to believe she's never encountered rain before? Water evaporates. Gravity makes precipitation in the form of clouds and eventually rain. Planets have mass, and therefore have gravity. Any planet with water will therefore have rain.
- The whole alien-as-father testing the lesser species is so Contact. And, I'm sure, other scifi. Score one for the magpies.
- Didn't like, and probably will never like, what they chose for the Ancients' true form. Call me shallow, but they look like dog-insect things, and it undercuts the majesty of it all.
- Wilson, however, was perfectly cast. He's got the kind of slimy triumphant look you just love to hate. The earrings were also a nice touch.
- And the episode itself was just gorgeous. Slowly swinging camera angles, grainy photos of John, closeups of tears and kisses. I think it was one of the first episodes, along with "Through the Looking Glass," where I began to see real cinematographic beauty in the first season.
- Comments on TtLG to follow in a later entry. That one I liked A LOT.