Farscape Rewatch: Twice Shy (4.13)
Wiki summary: Back in the Uncharted Territories, Moya and crew pick up a mysterious passenger who is much more than she seems.
...yeah. The days of my dislike for this episode are definitely coming to a middle. I don't hate it with the fire of ten burning suns anymore, but I do think that it doesn't just demonstrate how the writers had written themselves into a corner with the entire latest round of John/Aeryn angst starting with last season's finale, but also how they chose the laziest, most audience-intelligence-insulting way possible to solve this problem.
And it didn't have to be this way. Even after the bad decision to pile on the romantic angst for this season, they could have simply resolved this by building on the last few eps which saw solid team work from John and Aeryn and felt like they were rebuilding trust. They could have simply had an open conversation and decided to try again. Like adults. But nooooo. Instead, the audience gets told that John only ever pretended with the lakka and the keeping Aeryn at a distance because he doesn't want Scorpius to find out Aeryn is the key to all things John. Because naturally, nothing Scorpius witnessed in the last few years could have already lead him to this amazing, far-out conclusion. And Aeryn, who only happens to be the person to bring Scorpius on board in the first place because he saved her life in order to make that bargain, is so delighted by this amazing news that she playes along and we get treated to a reconciliation kiss.
Excuse me while I vomit, was my reaction the first time around. Upon rewatch, it's not that bad; the main difference being that the Peacekeeper Wars managed to make me like Aeryn and John as a couple again and that sticks, whereas upon first watching this abonimation of a scene they became firmly entrenched in NOTP territory and had me actively root against them for the remainder of the reason.
So, aside from this very last scene, this episode was an avarage horror heavy Farscape episode. The show had done the "seemingly harmless passenger causes crew to go bonkers" plot before, more than once though most memorably in Crackers don't Matter, and John lampshades this even with a line. Talika the werespider gets one point for her matter-of-fact, remorseless line to John "you're food, I eat" by way of explanation near the end, but otherwise is a one note menace of the week, and her bringing out single traits of the regulars and enhancing them to the nth degree - anger for D'Argo, greed for Rygel, sex drive for Chiana, optimism and the ability to not give up for John and self discipline/focus for Aeryn - before robbing them of said qualities is the kind of thing that might have worked as character revealing in a season 1 episode when the regulars are still relatively new to the audience, but not this late in the game. Note that the actual newbies, Noranti and Sikozu, are respectively unaffected and physically torn apart/put together again, not psychologically. The one character for whom the episode gimmick teases some actual possible psychological issues with is Scorpius due to Talika's influence becoming increasingly stripped of his "Sebacean side", as Noranti deems it, and reduced to his Scarran half. Leaving aside that defining Scorpius' inner Scarran as the one providing the temper and the Sebacean as the one providing the self control is a bit, err, odd, given we've seen plenty of uncontrolled Sebaceans in the past, Sikozu talkijng with him about the experience in the last but one scene and asking him whether he hated more becoming all Scarran or the others seeing him like this, to which he gives a non-answer, was by far the most interesting scene of the episode to me. Something I also liked was that the entire episode shows Noranti on top of her game and all competence. She immediately deduces something is off, she keeps it together instead of wandering off in distractions (note her third eye is open throughout the episode once Talika is on board), she comes up with a good counter plan and makes Sikozu and John go through with it. You can see how Noranti survived this long in this episode.
Something I didn't notice the first time but do now: Chiana initially feels sorry for Talika the (seeming) slave and wants to free her, which turns out to be only possible via purchase. Later, when werespider Talika starts to enthrall her, this leads to them kissing and almost having sex when Aeryn interrupts them. Unlike me decades ago, the episode writer(s) actually are aware there's a potential problem here in that as far as Chiana knows, the girl is a frightened SLAVE, and even if Talika initializes the kiss, this could be - again, as far as Chiana knows at this point - simply due to fear and survival policy. So the episode lets Aeryn challenge her on this ("did you free her just to be your toy?"). Now, of course Chiana is not in her right mind already anymore (Talika's effect in the episode starts the moment she focusses on and touches someone), but it's still good that on a Doylist level, someone in the writing department was aware that if she had been, this would not have been cool behavior comparable to Chiana's other flirting with whomever she likes.
...would there had been similar care with the "solution" to all the gratitious John/Aeryn angst. Okay, now I'm letting the deceased equine go.
The other episodes This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1456129.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
...yeah. The days of my dislike for this episode are definitely coming to a middle. I don't hate it with the fire of ten burning suns anymore, but I do think that it doesn't just demonstrate how the writers had written themselves into a corner with the entire latest round of John/Aeryn angst starting with last season's finale, but also how they chose the laziest, most audience-intelligence-insulting way possible to solve this problem.
And it didn't have to be this way. Even after the bad decision to pile on the romantic angst for this season, they could have simply resolved this by building on the last few eps which saw solid team work from John and Aeryn and felt like they were rebuilding trust. They could have simply had an open conversation and decided to try again. Like adults. But nooooo. Instead, the audience gets told that John only ever pretended with the lakka and the keeping Aeryn at a distance because he doesn't want Scorpius to find out Aeryn is the key to all things John. Because naturally, nothing Scorpius witnessed in the last few years could have already lead him to this amazing, far-out conclusion. And Aeryn, who only happens to be the person to bring Scorpius on board in the first place because he saved her life in order to make that bargain, is so delighted by this amazing news that she playes along and we get treated to a reconciliation kiss.
Excuse me while I vomit, was my reaction the first time around. Upon rewatch, it's not that bad; the main difference being that the Peacekeeper Wars managed to make me like Aeryn and John as a couple again and that sticks, whereas upon first watching this abonimation of a scene they became firmly entrenched in NOTP territory and had me actively root against them for the remainder of the reason.
So, aside from this very last scene, this episode was an avarage horror heavy Farscape episode. The show had done the "seemingly harmless passenger causes crew to go bonkers" plot before, more than once though most memorably in Crackers don't Matter, and John lampshades this even with a line. Talika the werespider gets one point for her matter-of-fact, remorseless line to John "you're food, I eat" by way of explanation near the end, but otherwise is a one note menace of the week, and her bringing out single traits of the regulars and enhancing them to the nth degree - anger for D'Argo, greed for Rygel, sex drive for Chiana, optimism and the ability to not give up for John and self discipline/focus for Aeryn - before robbing them of said qualities is the kind of thing that might have worked as character revealing in a season 1 episode when the regulars are still relatively new to the audience, but not this late in the game. Note that the actual newbies, Noranti and Sikozu, are respectively unaffected and physically torn apart/put together again, not psychologically. The one character for whom the episode gimmick teases some actual possible psychological issues with is Scorpius due to Talika's influence becoming increasingly stripped of his "Sebacean side", as Noranti deems it, and reduced to his Scarran half. Leaving aside that defining Scorpius' inner Scarran as the one providing the temper and the Sebacean as the one providing the self control is a bit, err, odd, given we've seen plenty of uncontrolled Sebaceans in the past, Sikozu talkijng with him about the experience in the last but one scene and asking him whether he hated more becoming all Scarran or the others seeing him like this, to which he gives a non-answer, was by far the most interesting scene of the episode to me. Something I also liked was that the entire episode shows Noranti on top of her game and all competence. She immediately deduces something is off, she keeps it together instead of wandering off in distractions (note her third eye is open throughout the episode once Talika is on board), she comes up with a good counter plan and makes Sikozu and John go through with it. You can see how Noranti survived this long in this episode.
Something I didn't notice the first time but do now: Chiana initially feels sorry for Talika the (seeming) slave and wants to free her, which turns out to be only possible via purchase. Later, when werespider Talika starts to enthrall her, this leads to them kissing and almost having sex when Aeryn interrupts them. Unlike me decades ago, the episode writer(s) actually are aware there's a potential problem here in that as far as Chiana knows, the girl is a frightened SLAVE, and even if Talika initializes the kiss, this could be - again, as far as Chiana knows at this point - simply due to fear and survival policy. So the episode lets Aeryn challenge her on this ("did you free her just to be your toy?"). Now, of course Chiana is not in her right mind already anymore (Talika's effect in the episode starts the moment she focusses on and touches someone), but it's still good that on a Doylist level, someone in the writing department was aware that if she had been, this would not have been cool behavior comparable to Chiana's other flirting with whomever she likes.
...would there had been similar care with the "solution" to all the gratitious John/Aeryn angst. Okay, now I'm letting the deceased equine go.
The other episodes This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1456129.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.