a wee bit o' Farscape flailing

[pellucid]

Sometimes it's the little things about a show that make you love it. Like how you can take a fairly mediocre episode like "Thanks for Sharing" and throw in this gem of a scene that is among my favorites of the entire series.

Comments

[danceswithwords]

I actually really like "Thanks for Sharing," but I suspect it's for the same reasons I like "Taking the Stone"--not because it's an objectively good episode so much as because it hits some of my thematic kinks. Aeryn's reaction to seeing her mother is so wrenching, and played out in such an internal, low-key way by Claudia Black, as you so beautifully describe, and it's happening against this huge backdrop of family politics and John's division against himself. I suspect, based on nothing more than my own instinct, that Claudia decided how to handle that scene; from what I understand, the directors gave the actors a lot of leeway after a certain point, because they were so in tune with the characterizations, and Claudia was able to successfully argue writers away from a couple of directions the writers wanted to take the John/Aeryn estrangement in S4 that would have, in my opinion, tarnished their basic understanding rather badly.

When I saw the show for the first time, I viewed the two Johns very much as people who had parted experience at a certain point and were growing differently from there on out, but I have no preference for one over the other; they're two different possible outcomes in my mind. It was only after a friend started watching and debate heated up in her LJ over the two Johns that I became aware that a lot of people prefer one to the other, usually MoyaJohn, the underdog, and I find that really interesting. TalynJohn is such the fairytale outcome, and MoyaJohn is so lost without Aeryn. But I think that at the point where they parted, if MoyaJohn had been there when Aeryn was leaving, he would have done exactly what TalynJohn did and gone with her; it's after that moment, for me, when the difference starts.

[pellucid]

I know what you mean about TFS and TTS; both, I think, are potentially awesome eps that didn't quite make it to awesome. The themes are great, but something falls a little short. I still really enjoy both, though.

As for MoyaJohn and TalynJohn, I think the distinction in my mind, in the second viewing, started before they actually parted: as soon as I realized which John was which, I found that I was labeling them that way in my head. Of course, I didn't do that the first time I watched, and in fact I was very impressed the first time by how much BB sold both of them as absolutely John. I'm interested to see how I perceive the whole arc this time because I greatly prefer the TalynJohn episodes (sex! Xhalax! high drama!), which I think is by design, yet knowing how much it all breaks poor MoyaJohn's heart, I just want to cuddle him a little. I totally agree, though, that he would have done exactly the same thing had the two Johns' positions been reversed in TFS; they aren't different characters yet, but they feel different because this time I know the ending.