How Batman was that
Babylon 5, somewhere around The Coming of Shadows: Space battles! The Big Story continues on, with lots of talk of coming darkness. Londo is compelling despite starting a war, and G'Kar manages to sell a battle-hewn warrior wearing his heart on his sleeve. I still don't know how I feel about Garibaldi. I mean, he's fine, but he hasn't made much of an impression on me so far. However, I like the idea that he is linked by loyalty to a friend and leader, and that Delenn is, too.
SG-1, Emancipation: Oh, there are so, so many things wrong with this episode, and yet I love it, because Carter is fantastic in it. She's feisty and tough and wins a duel and inspires women to do what they want and enchants the rest of the team wearing "local dress" and manages to turn her rescue into a triumphant escape.
The Broca Divide went by in kind of a blur, except for laughing hysterically over both Daniel being immune to the virus because of his allergies (and there really just weren't enough jokes made about it,) and caveman-like old men running out of the dark towards their princessed-up offspring in the light.
Farscape, Look at the Princess: OMG. I am so in love with these episodes. I love how many people there are in them - how many new characters, and yet they're all so distinct that we remember. I love the world-building, the balmy breeze of this planet, the introduction of a local custom that becomes a plot device and later, a deeper symbol. I love an old enemy returning (and it kills me that John calls him Scorpy) and how he ends up not being the most pressing threat to the crew. I love that it's not three episodes of John debating whether or not to marry Princess Katralla - it's an engagement, death threats, escaping, a wedding, statue-making, more death threats, more escaping, and then, finally, a tearful parting with one potential life-partner and child, and a difficult reunion with another, with the potential for a child to come.
What I love best about these episodes is that they're about John and Aeryn, and not just the two of them as a couple, but about who the two of them are as people, how they decide to do the things they do and how they hide from themselves, and how, in the end, they're not just compatible where making healthy children are concerned. I love how the timing of John's arrival and betrothal in this new world coincides with Aeryn's confused formula of courting and rejecting him. John decides to stay and marry the princess because he's lost hope in Aeryn being able to get over herself and accept his affection, but also because he's lost enough hope about ever returning home that his life's become this mixed up mess of travelling nowhere forever. He's trying to make a new life with Aeryn, to make Moya and the crew and this strange life his own now, since he may never return, and he won't give up searching but he's trying to settle down, to settle in with these friends, this family. And then Aeryn acts as alien as when he first met her and D'Argo tells him that maybe this is his new destiny and Scorpius, this nightmare creature who wants inside John's brain, lurks around just outside and if John just marries this princess and has beautiful children and forgets everything he's ever known, he might be happy.
Aeryn can handle physical pain, has been trained to endure and to rescue herself and move on, to fight or to run away, but she doesn't care for the unpredictability of emotions, the pain of emotional hurt that she doesn't know how to endure, and so she rejects Crichton and yet still expects him to give up a cozy yet end-of-the-road life as a regent on this planet and risk certain death and nightmare monsters and run away with her because it's her. And the thing is, that's exactly what John's done up to this point, so while I think Aeryn's reasoning is faulty, her expectations are sound, and that's why it works so well that John stays because it surprises everyone.
The subplot even, was compelling. Zhaan has to prove her worth to Moya's deity, except she doesn't know it yet, and I liked the smoking god, and Moya's voice gave me chills. It was well done and is impressive, well-rounded and completely separate to the planetside drama and yet following the same theme of what direction life is supposed to take, what, in the end, is enough to fulfill us.
Now, the end, part one, where, with almost all the ends nearly tied up, John declares he's leaving, and then the empress tells him it's all for the best because she wouldn't want a man who would leave his child so capriciously to stay. And that stops John short, because he wouldn't leave his child, not that adorable little girl who says she loves him, except he has to, because he can't become a statue again and probably he won't live until she's born and despite the fact that Tyno and Katralla love each other and will live happily and the good guys win for once (give me a day like this!) it stings for John to say, as he's walking out the door, "You take care of my little girl" and turn his back on this settled life that, despite having people be statues for 80 years, is about as near to normal as he may ever get again.
And the end, part two, where John is back repairing his module is Aeryn is doing some super-tough reverse-push-up and everything is where it was at the beginning of this trilogy, except that John feels awkward telling Aeryn that he was worried about her when she didn't show up to his wedding, because, well, who wouldn't feel awkward saying that after all this? Everything's back to normal, except that Aeryn isn't speaking, and both we and John are worried it might be a new, indefinite thing, and then she produces one of the vials that caused all sorts of trouble in the first place, except it's sort of an apology for Aeryn, a gesture of reparation, but one that's barbed, one that could go horribly wrong and make things even worse, but possibly better, too, because if the answer is no, then it cleans everything up, there's an excuse, there's a reason for Aeryn to push John away. They touch tongues and they kiss and it looks as though Aeryn was right the whole time, she and John aren't compatible and she can't be blamed for pushing him away and so she pulls back abruptly and turns her back on him and she looks stony-faced and closed off and then - and then! - her eyes light up and this brilliant, glorious smile transforms her face and she's never said a word in this whole scene but she's said everything, perfectly, with that one look. John's expression is just as fantastic, soft-eyed and awestruck and he touches his thumb to his lips savoring the taste that's sweet, like molasses, like hope, like an answer he's been waiting to hear forever.
SG-1, Emancipation: Oh, there are so, so many things wrong with this episode, and yet I love it, because Carter is fantastic in it. She's feisty and tough and wins a duel and inspires women to do what they want and enchants the rest of the team wearing "local dress" and manages to turn her rescue into a triumphant escape.
The Broca Divide went by in kind of a blur, except for laughing hysterically over both Daniel being immune to the virus because of his allergies (and there really just weren't enough jokes made about it,) and caveman-like old men running out of the dark towards their princessed-up offspring in the light.
Farscape, Look at the Princess: OMG. I am so in love with these episodes. I love how many people there are in them - how many new characters, and yet they're all so distinct that we remember. I love the world-building, the balmy breeze of this planet, the introduction of a local custom that becomes a plot device and later, a deeper symbol. I love an old enemy returning (and it kills me that John calls him Scorpy) and how he ends up not being the most pressing threat to the crew. I love that it's not three episodes of John debating whether or not to marry Princess Katralla - it's an engagement, death threats, escaping, a wedding, statue-making, more death threats, more escaping, and then, finally, a tearful parting with one potential life-partner and child, and a difficult reunion with another, with the potential for a child to come.
What I love best about these episodes is that they're about John and Aeryn, and not just the two of them as a couple, but about who the two of them are as people, how they decide to do the things they do and how they hide from themselves, and how, in the end, they're not just compatible where making healthy children are concerned. I love how the timing of John's arrival and betrothal in this new world coincides with Aeryn's confused formula of courting and rejecting him. John decides to stay and marry the princess because he's lost hope in Aeryn being able to get over herself and accept his affection, but also because he's lost enough hope about ever returning home that his life's become this mixed up mess of travelling nowhere forever. He's trying to make a new life with Aeryn, to make Moya and the crew and this strange life his own now, since he may never return, and he won't give up searching but he's trying to settle down, to settle in with these friends, this family. And then Aeryn acts as alien as when he first met her and D'Argo tells him that maybe this is his new destiny and Scorpius, this nightmare creature who wants inside John's brain, lurks around just outside and if John just marries this princess and has beautiful children and forgets everything he's ever known, he might be happy.
Aeryn can handle physical pain, has been trained to endure and to rescue herself and move on, to fight or to run away, but she doesn't care for the unpredictability of emotions, the pain of emotional hurt that she doesn't know how to endure, and so she rejects Crichton and yet still expects him to give up a cozy yet end-of-the-road life as a regent on this planet and risk certain death and nightmare monsters and run away with her because it's her. And the thing is, that's exactly what John's done up to this point, so while I think Aeryn's reasoning is faulty, her expectations are sound, and that's why it works so well that John stays because it surprises everyone.
The subplot even, was compelling. Zhaan has to prove her worth to Moya's deity, except she doesn't know it yet, and I liked the smoking god, and Moya's voice gave me chills. It was well done and is impressive, well-rounded and completely separate to the planetside drama and yet following the same theme of what direction life is supposed to take, what, in the end, is enough to fulfill us.
Now, the end, part one, where, with almost all the ends nearly tied up, John declares he's leaving, and then the empress tells him it's all for the best because she wouldn't want a man who would leave his child so capriciously to stay. And that stops John short, because he wouldn't leave his child, not that adorable little girl who says she loves him, except he has to, because he can't become a statue again and probably he won't live until she's born and despite the fact that Tyno and Katralla love each other and will live happily and the good guys win for once (give me a day like this!) it stings for John to say, as he's walking out the door, "You take care of my little girl" and turn his back on this settled life that, despite having people be statues for 80 years, is about as near to normal as he may ever get again.
And the end, part two, where John is back repairing his module is Aeryn is doing some super-tough reverse-push-up and everything is where it was at the beginning of this trilogy, except that John feels awkward telling Aeryn that he was worried about her when she didn't show up to his wedding, because, well, who wouldn't feel awkward saying that after all this? Everything's back to normal, except that Aeryn isn't speaking, and both we and John are worried it might be a new, indefinite thing, and then she produces one of the vials that caused all sorts of trouble in the first place, except it's sort of an apology for Aeryn, a gesture of reparation, but one that's barbed, one that could go horribly wrong and make things even worse, but possibly better, too, because if the answer is no, then it cleans everything up, there's an excuse, there's a reason for Aeryn to push John away. They touch tongues and they kiss and it looks as though Aeryn was right the whole time, she and John aren't compatible and she can't be blamed for pushing him away and so she pulls back abruptly and turns her back on him and she looks stony-faced and closed off and then - and then! - her eyes light up and this brilliant, glorious smile transforms her face and she's never said a word in this whole scene but she's said everything, perfectly, with that one look. John's expression is just as fantastic, soft-eyed and awestruck and he touches his thumb to his lips savoring the taste that's sweet, like molasses, like hope, like an answer he's been waiting to hear forever.