Loving the Alien: Star Trek, Babylon 5, and Farscape
Several things on my friends list recent months, from the serious to the not so serious, made me rethink what TV (and some movies) offer us on alien sex loving the alien.
Obviously, in the original Star Trek Kirk's urge to get laid by every attractive female in view (well, most of them anyway) was about ratings as much as anything else, but the relationship arguably at the core of TOS, the one with Spock, was about human/alien friendship which was strong enough to be called love (and K/S in the slashy sense is not my cup of Earl Grey). Spock himself, of course, was presented as the product of a human/alien union. Butterfly in a recent entry says that John/Aeryn on Farscape never felt quite real to her because Aeryn was so completely human looking and thus the logical choice to hook up with the show's leading man; my own problems with J/A are all season-4 related, and this isn't one of them, but I do see her point, I think. Spock, too, pointy ears aside, is entirely human. One can blame limited TV make-up of the 60s, and at any rate the show does its bit to establish the Vulcans as having their own culture. Still, I could go Edward Said on TOS and complain that the silent assumption always is that human culture, with its "express your feelings" imperative, is the superior one and what character arc there is concerns alien Spock becoming more human, not human Kirk becoming more alien.
Moving on to TNG, Deanna Troi as one of the nominal resident aliens on board was of course as human-looking and behaving as they come. (In emotional terms, Data was the alien, but the fascination with androids is another essay.) And the Betazoids never really got developed as an "alien" culture. The other resident alien, Worf, was another matter; he started out as a bit player, evolving into a major character, and did with the Klingons what Spock had done for the Vulcans - allowed the writers to develop their culture. Considering he had been mostly raised by humans, his character arc wasn't to become more human, but to discover and balance his Klingon heritage, and the show allowed him to act according to his own ethics now and then, as when he killed Key'lahr's murderer. But with the exception of the not-too-convincing tentative romance with Troi in the last season 7 episodes (which thankfully never got resurrected again), the show didn't make any attempt to pair him up with one of the "human" regulars. The great human/alien relationship on TNG was arguably the one between Picard and Q, and Q showed up once or sometimes twice a season. Interestingly, though, there was give-and-take here; certainly Q was presented as having to learn something about human values, but the show equally made a point of occasionally showing him in the teacher position to Picard, and using him as sarcastic commentator. In the show's finale, it's Picard who has to think in a way not yet accessible to humans to find the required solution.
DS9, with its different setting, had a better possibility than both previous shows to really develop alien cultures, and took to it with a vengeance. Bajorans, Cardassians, Ferengi, Trill - they all had been introduced on TNG, certainly, but DS9 was where they really aquired depth. And the aliens DS9 came up with on its own, the Jem'Hadar, the Vorta, and the Founders got the same treatment. As a matter of fact, if you look at the regulars, the humans (Sisko, Bashir, O'Brien, and Jake) and the non-humans (Kira, Dax, Quark, Odo) were equally numbered. If we take the recurring guest stars like Nog, Rom, Garak, Dukat and Kai Winn into account, the humans become a distinct minority. Moreover, in a distinct break with the Kirk-and-Riker tradition, the aliens were getting nearly all of the romantic action. Sisko, the show's hero, had a single girl of the week, and otherwise a steady, ongoing relationship with another human starting in season 4. Bashir had (officially) about two girls of the week, I believe, Melora and Serena, and Leeta as a regular girlfriend for a brief while, but we certainly didn't see them as a couple very often on screen (I think the most Bashir/Leeta scenes were in the episode they broke up, Let He Who Is Without Sin, and that was a Worf/Dax episode anyway). Meanwhile, Dax and Kira had their share of men of the week, plus in Kira's case three long-term relationships, in Dax' case one (plus Dax of course also had a girl of the week!). The character, however, who I think gets the most girls of the week, and is most often seen in sexual situations is… Quark. (What with all the ear-stroking.) On the show, mind you. In fanfic it's probably Bashir who gets the most action.
The DS9 long-term (eventual) romantic relationship which gets the most narrative weight is Odo/Kira, a relationship where neither party is human, though both look humanoid. Klingon fondness for rough sex notwithstanding, Odo's relationships - both with Kira, with the female Founder and with the male Changeling in a season 7 episode - are the only ones where the writers make an effort to show that alien sexuality might function differently from human sexuality; I'm thinking specifically of the season 7 episode Chimera, in which it does get pointed out that the usual humanoid thing might be more satisfying for Kira than it is for Odo, and at the end Odo for the first time unites with Kira in a non-solid way. The image of him surrounding her in fluid form was quite arresting and imo the most successful visualisation of two different species mating that Sci-Fi came up with.
Given that DS9 is also the show where instead of the Bajorans joining the Federation, the Starfleet Captain basically becomes Bajoran, it's really not surprising that the romantic scenarios tend to be more on the alien side, and with a lack of missionary position, too.*g*
Babylon 5, my other favourite space station, has of course a Human/Minbari romance as one important storyline. Since originally the Minbari were supposed to be androgynous, with Delenn only becoming female once she transforms into a half-human (the pilot was still shot on that assumption, hence Delenn's slightly deeper voice and more "male" appearance), it would have even been transgressive. But apparently while it's okay for Commanders and Captains to fall for aliens, it's not okay with networks for the leading man to fall for aliens without a specific (female) gender. In any case, Minbari fondness for rituals notwithstanding, the Sheridan/Delenn romance does not play out any differently than it would were Delenn completely human. All the other characters, with one exception, remain within their own species when it comes to romantic and/or sexual relationships, and while JMS gets a lot of humour out of G'Kar's penchant for non-Narn women, those relationships aren't that important to G'Kar and his storyarc.
(Interruption: of course to me Londo/G'Kar is the true romance of B5, but hey. Trying to stay canonical here. You didn't see me rave about Bashir/Garak on DS9, either, did you?)
Farscape makes a point of John Crichton, the human, being the true alien in a universe that might be strange to him (and us) at first but is the status quo for itself. It's a modern, dark version of the human abducted by the fairies. He's Tom the Rhymer, he's Richard Mayhew in London Below. Consequently every relationship he enters is human/alien…or, from another perspective, alien/alien. Now as mentioned above, Butterfly pointed out the non-alienness of utterly human (and gorgeous) looking Aeryn to John (and us), her very different culture notwithstanding. I remember a review of Terra Firma wondering how Jack Crichton had reacted if it had been Chiana John had an obvious involvement with, considering that Chiana might be humanoid but does look, move and behave in a way which to a new aquaintance has the alieness Aeryn lacks. And then again, Farscape, which has considerable more sexual text and subtext than any of the other shows named above, does display Scorpius and Natira (of two different species), and in a not-so-serious way Rygel and fellow Hynerian in sexual "alien" situations. And that's not delving into the entire Scorpius/John or John/Harvey subtext, or the ongoing theme of mental and physical alien invasion which starts long before John meets Scorpius. Compared with the optimism even DS9 as the darkest of the Treks, let alone the others, displays, or Babylon 5 with both the Minbari/Human and Narn/Centauri relationships starting out from a background of bitter enmity and ending up as if not eros then agape, Farscape, it seems to me, takes a considerably more jaundiced view on the union of the species. By the time the fourth season ends, the ongoing angst fest with John and Aeryn and more importantly the unrealistic solution in that infamous tag scene appears to be an example of two people, no matter how good their intentions, bringing each other pain more than anything else. Chiana and D'Argo would be a more positive example of two different species uniting, and they're back together on her terms, but given their history, for how long? And then there are Scorpius and Sikozu, who only started to become lovers (and if you like your subtext, Braca and Scorpius, though Braca does not look too happy about Sikozu when last we see him); in comparison to J/A by season 4, they look downright relaxed and happy, but given that Sikozu hasn't had a real chance yet to see Scorpius in full obsessive mode, and given that his obsession with John is far from over, you've got to wonder how long that's going to last.
Speaking of Scorpius, alara_r once paralleled him, quite effectively, with Spock. If, you know, Spock were the product of a rape instead of a marriage, and Vulcans and Terrans were intending to wipe each other out. Which brings us full circle, because Scorpius would be the most drastic, physical example of the, to use a euphemism, union of the species Farscape has to offer, as Spock was TOS, at the start of all Trek. And while John does affect him (compare and contrast Scorpius in Nerve to Scorpius in Into the Lion's Den: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing), John is not Kirk (as he himself puts it, and Farscape does not nearly play by TOS rules (except with the girl of the week thing) - it's John who goes through the most radical changes, brought about by, among other elements, metaphorical and not so metaphorical rape. We've definitely arrived at the darkest spectrum of the union with aliens.
Last but not least, let's take a look at the movies and the obvious couple: Ellen Ripley and, well, the Alien. (With the ever so discreet phallic look - thanks, Giger.) ('Twas artfully done, though.) Within four movies, we got from sexual subtext to main text complete with pregnancy, suicide, and rebirth as part-Alien. It occurs to me that Ripley and John Crichton are soulmates, sort of, since the Alien universe definitely has a Farscapian slant. (It also occurs to me that Ripley's horror at being cloned and resurrected, not quite human anymore, was written by a certain Joss Whedon.) There is one obvious difference to most but not all of the TV shows (DS9 would be the exception) where we usually have a male human and a female alien. Does a female human protagonist have a different resonance with the audience? And in any case, voluntary union with the Alien - that brief moment between Ripley and her "son" notwithstanding - is out of the question. It's so completely other, so completely deadly to all other life, that any utopian ideal must break down. And yet the four films insist on reuniting the two - human and alien. It's as if they can't do without each other…
Obviously, in the original Star Trek Kirk's urge to get laid by every attractive female in view (well, most of them anyway) was about ratings as much as anything else, but the relationship arguably at the core of TOS, the one with Spock, was about human/alien friendship which was strong enough to be called love (and K/S in the slashy sense is not my cup of Earl Grey). Spock himself, of course, was presented as the product of a human/alien union. Butterfly in a recent entry says that John/Aeryn on Farscape never felt quite real to her because Aeryn was so completely human looking and thus the logical choice to hook up with the show's leading man; my own problems with J/A are all season-4 related, and this isn't one of them, but I do see her point, I think. Spock, too, pointy ears aside, is entirely human. One can blame limited TV make-up of the 60s, and at any rate the show does its bit to establish the Vulcans as having their own culture. Still, I could go Edward Said on TOS and complain that the silent assumption always is that human culture, with its "express your feelings" imperative, is the superior one and what character arc there is concerns alien Spock becoming more human, not human Kirk becoming more alien.
Moving on to TNG, Deanna Troi as one of the nominal resident aliens on board was of course as human-looking and behaving as they come. (In emotional terms, Data was the alien, but the fascination with androids is another essay.) And the Betazoids never really got developed as an "alien" culture. The other resident alien, Worf, was another matter; he started out as a bit player, evolving into a major character, and did with the Klingons what Spock had done for the Vulcans - allowed the writers to develop their culture. Considering he had been mostly raised by humans, his character arc wasn't to become more human, but to discover and balance his Klingon heritage, and the show allowed him to act according to his own ethics now and then, as when he killed Key'lahr's murderer. But with the exception of the not-too-convincing tentative romance with Troi in the last season 7 episodes (which thankfully never got resurrected again), the show didn't make any attempt to pair him up with one of the "human" regulars. The great human/alien relationship on TNG was arguably the one between Picard and Q, and Q showed up once or sometimes twice a season. Interestingly, though, there was give-and-take here; certainly Q was presented as having to learn something about human values, but the show equally made a point of occasionally showing him in the teacher position to Picard, and using him as sarcastic commentator. In the show's finale, it's Picard who has to think in a way not yet accessible to humans to find the required solution.
DS9, with its different setting, had a better possibility than both previous shows to really develop alien cultures, and took to it with a vengeance. Bajorans, Cardassians, Ferengi, Trill - they all had been introduced on TNG, certainly, but DS9 was where they really aquired depth. And the aliens DS9 came up with on its own, the Jem'Hadar, the Vorta, and the Founders got the same treatment. As a matter of fact, if you look at the regulars, the humans (Sisko, Bashir, O'Brien, and Jake) and the non-humans (Kira, Dax, Quark, Odo) were equally numbered. If we take the recurring guest stars like Nog, Rom, Garak, Dukat and Kai Winn into account, the humans become a distinct minority. Moreover, in a distinct break with the Kirk-and-Riker tradition, the aliens were getting nearly all of the romantic action. Sisko, the show's hero, had a single girl of the week, and otherwise a steady, ongoing relationship with another human starting in season 4. Bashir had (officially) about two girls of the week, I believe, Melora and Serena, and Leeta as a regular girlfriend for a brief while, but we certainly didn't see them as a couple very often on screen (I think the most Bashir/Leeta scenes were in the episode they broke up, Let He Who Is Without Sin, and that was a Worf/Dax episode anyway). Meanwhile, Dax and Kira had their share of men of the week, plus in Kira's case three long-term relationships, in Dax' case one (plus Dax of course also had a girl of the week!). The character, however, who I think gets the most girls of the week, and is most often seen in sexual situations is… Quark. (What with all the ear-stroking.) On the show, mind you. In fanfic it's probably Bashir who gets the most action.
The DS9 long-term (eventual) romantic relationship which gets the most narrative weight is Odo/Kira, a relationship where neither party is human, though both look humanoid. Klingon fondness for rough sex notwithstanding, Odo's relationships - both with Kira, with the female Founder and with the male Changeling in a season 7 episode - are the only ones where the writers make an effort to show that alien sexuality might function differently from human sexuality; I'm thinking specifically of the season 7 episode Chimera, in which it does get pointed out that the usual humanoid thing might be more satisfying for Kira than it is for Odo, and at the end Odo for the first time unites with Kira in a non-solid way. The image of him surrounding her in fluid form was quite arresting and imo the most successful visualisation of two different species mating that Sci-Fi came up with.
Given that DS9 is also the show where instead of the Bajorans joining the Federation, the Starfleet Captain basically becomes Bajoran, it's really not surprising that the romantic scenarios tend to be more on the alien side, and with a lack of missionary position, too.*g*
Babylon 5, my other favourite space station, has of course a Human/Minbari romance as one important storyline. Since originally the Minbari were supposed to be androgynous, with Delenn only becoming female once she transforms into a half-human (the pilot was still shot on that assumption, hence Delenn's slightly deeper voice and more "male" appearance), it would have even been transgressive. But apparently while it's okay for Commanders and Captains to fall for aliens, it's not okay with networks for the leading man to fall for aliens without a specific (female) gender. In any case, Minbari fondness for rituals notwithstanding, the Sheridan/Delenn romance does not play out any differently than it would were Delenn completely human. All the other characters, with one exception, remain within their own species when it comes to romantic and/or sexual relationships, and while JMS gets a lot of humour out of G'Kar's penchant for non-Narn women, those relationships aren't that important to G'Kar and his storyarc.
(Interruption: of course to me Londo/G'Kar is the true romance of B5, but hey. Trying to stay canonical here. You didn't see me rave about Bashir/Garak on DS9, either, did you?)
Farscape makes a point of John Crichton, the human, being the true alien in a universe that might be strange to him (and us) at first but is the status quo for itself. It's a modern, dark version of the human abducted by the fairies. He's Tom the Rhymer, he's Richard Mayhew in London Below. Consequently every relationship he enters is human/alien…or, from another perspective, alien/alien. Now as mentioned above, Butterfly pointed out the non-alienness of utterly human (and gorgeous) looking Aeryn to John (and us), her very different culture notwithstanding. I remember a review of Terra Firma wondering how Jack Crichton had reacted if it had been Chiana John had an obvious involvement with, considering that Chiana might be humanoid but does look, move and behave in a way which to a new aquaintance has the alieness Aeryn lacks. And then again, Farscape, which has considerable more sexual text and subtext than any of the other shows named above, does display Scorpius and Natira (of two different species), and in a not-so-serious way Rygel and fellow Hynerian in sexual "alien" situations. And that's not delving into the entire Scorpius/John or John/Harvey subtext, or the ongoing theme of mental and physical alien invasion which starts long before John meets Scorpius. Compared with the optimism even DS9 as the darkest of the Treks, let alone the others, displays, or Babylon 5 with both the Minbari/Human and Narn/Centauri relationships starting out from a background of bitter enmity and ending up as if not eros then agape, Farscape, it seems to me, takes a considerably more jaundiced view on the union of the species. By the time the fourth season ends, the ongoing angst fest with John and Aeryn and more importantly the unrealistic solution in that infamous tag scene appears to be an example of two people, no matter how good their intentions, bringing each other pain more than anything else. Chiana and D'Argo would be a more positive example of two different species uniting, and they're back together on her terms, but given their history, for how long? And then there are Scorpius and Sikozu, who only started to become lovers (and if you like your subtext, Braca and Scorpius, though Braca does not look too happy about Sikozu when last we see him); in comparison to J/A by season 4, they look downright relaxed and happy, but given that Sikozu hasn't had a real chance yet to see Scorpius in full obsessive mode, and given that his obsession with John is far from over, you've got to wonder how long that's going to last.
Speaking of Scorpius, alara_r once paralleled him, quite effectively, with Spock. If, you know, Spock were the product of a rape instead of a marriage, and Vulcans and Terrans were intending to wipe each other out. Which brings us full circle, because Scorpius would be the most drastic, physical example of the, to use a euphemism, union of the species Farscape has to offer, as Spock was TOS, at the start of all Trek. And while John does affect him (compare and contrast Scorpius in Nerve to Scorpius in Into the Lion's Den: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing), John is not Kirk (as he himself puts it, and Farscape does not nearly play by TOS rules (except with the girl of the week thing) - it's John who goes through the most radical changes, brought about by, among other elements, metaphorical and not so metaphorical rape. We've definitely arrived at the darkest spectrum of the union with aliens.
Last but not least, let's take a look at the movies and the obvious couple: Ellen Ripley and, well, the Alien. (With the ever so discreet phallic look - thanks, Giger.) ('Twas artfully done, though.) Within four movies, we got from sexual subtext to main text complete with pregnancy, suicide, and rebirth as part-Alien. It occurs to me that Ripley and John Crichton are soulmates, sort of, since the Alien universe definitely has a Farscapian slant. (It also occurs to me that Ripley's horror at being cloned and resurrected, not quite human anymore, was written by a certain Joss Whedon.) There is one obvious difference to most but not all of the TV shows (DS9 would be the exception) where we usually have a male human and a female alien. Does a female human protagonist have a different resonance with the audience? And in any case, voluntary union with the Alien - that brief moment between Ripley and her "son" notwithstanding - is out of the question. It's so completely other, so completely deadly to all other life, that any utopian ideal must break down. And yet the four films insist on reuniting the two - human and alien. It's as if they can't do without each other…