Prepare for Starburst: A Farscape Rewatch Thread

[Mr.Sun]

I remember this episode. They did a good job of convincing me the dog was actually the culprit and even though I knew there was a possible twist, I kept telling myself, "naah their double tricking us and it's gotta be the 'dog'." Also, i think they did a good job of offsetting the comical with some scenes that really scared me and horror inspired.

I do recall John telling Aeryn that Scorpius was in his head and I let out a breath of relief as he wasn't going to hold it in like you would generally think a show would do but was communicating with her and to me it showed me how real and trusting their relationship was and that they were going to find a way to work it out like in real life.

[Falcon Horus]

I think he needed to convince himself that Scorpius was in his head, especially since he actually fired his weapon at something right behind Aeryn in the hallway.

[jelgate]

Beware of Dog

SQ told me she is not reviewing this episode. If it doesn't have any shipping moments apparently its not worth reviewing in SQ's mind. As much as I mock her, I do have to agree. I really do not care for this episode. I think it was trying to be cute with the hound dog but the main story just fails. Maybe its my experienced scifi mind but I could tell that the "inner" dog was not the parasite. I really get bored when them chasing the dog around the majority of the episode. The actual parasite at the end that had copied Rygel was mildly interesting but I felt the writers rushed that in the favor of trying to give a humanity to the dog. I would have liked the actual parasites reveal to come earlier. The one redeeming quality of the dog is that I liked showing more of Pilot's species. I believe it was The Way We Weren't that showed how complex his species language was. So I liked that aspect. Besides that that was not much redeeming about the dog story Usually Chiana and D'Argo I quite like but CHiana's whinning as her loved one slipped away got annoying. Yes I understand she is in grief but can you honestly believe the others aren't doing as much as possible? What I did love was the slipping of John's mind. It was started in the Princess arc in how Scorpy did something to John's mind. The best part is the question of what is going on. We see John is not sure if he is just losing it or did Scorpy do something. That is what I love of how this is presented. Their are many ways to originally present this. John almost shot at Aeryn. No sane person would do that. Also as a amateur player, I loved John's chess board and the metaphor for his battle for the fake Scorpy. I don't have much more to say about this episode because I don't care for it. But next is Won't Get Fooled Again, a classic episode. Call Trixie everyone

[squirrely1]

A quick walk through the last pages to see if there's something that I feel the need to reply to, and I do.



You know me well enough -- this understudy business should be a walk in the park.



Well... if I had known how, I would have gone to the docs a lot sooner.

Thing is, I'm hyperflexible so when I overstretch my ligaments I don't feel that. They can stretch very far to begin with.

I vacationed in Northern-Ireland where they drive on the left so I had to shift gears with my left hand, which it's not used to. And the gearshift of the car was pretty new so hard to shift, and the roads are not straight either so my left arm and shoulder had to work extra hard. I think I overexerted the whole thing there.

Then I got home, and build my new Ikea wardrobe -- nice and heavy.

My muscles hurt so I thought a little stretching and some impromptu Wii Golf would loosen them up. But the pain wouldn't go away, and then on friday two weeks ago (three weeks after my vacation) I noticed something wasn't quite right in my shoulder, something was sticking out.
I couldn't get an appointment at the docs right away, so I added another 4 days to the dislocation instead.

It didn't really hurt that much, except when I tried to lift something, or lift my arm or lean on it. Doc put it back into place, and I was like -- hey, look at that. This is so funny. Made the doc laugh too, and just about freaked everyone else out with my "popping it back into its rightful place" story.

It's healing quite nice, but lifting my arm over my head is still not possible. So, making a ponytail (which I always have) is a challenge (my sister luckily doesn't mind helping me out).

Unfortunately, this will probably happen more often, but at least I know what's going on and perhaps I could learn to put it back myself.
Carrying my backpack also helps keeping it in place.



Totally forgot about that last scene...

I kinda like it - especially Aeryn's smile.



Beer wenches are awesome -- in a renaissance fair kind of way obviously.

WOW FH! I had no idea you have this issue. That has to be annoying more than anything. I hope you can find a way to keep it from happening again. Sounds like you have a plan with your backpack but still that seems tenuous at best. Hang in there and I hope you're back 100% soon.

[squirrely1]

Beware of Dog

Ok Ok....geeze ....I'm feeling guilty that I didn't review this ep. It really lacked alot of meat but I do like the few nuggets jel mentioned above. Especially the bit with John's mention of him feeling like he's losing it. I like that they really are working on transforming John's character. At the time this was really cutting edge TV as many shows just didn't do that with their lead characters...not to this extent anyway...so I really applaud Farscape for this....so I'll give them grace on this crappy episode. IDK the dog reminded me of ET. Yes I know I'm showing my age here....but come on...you should know that movie...if not ....go watch it...it's a classic.

So instead of me babbling on about nothing here I decided I would just include in my review bits from the companion book instead....so here you go....

From the Companion Book:

"There's a very Lethal Weapon element to 'Beware of Dog', reckons Ben Browder. "Ben and I decided we should just focus on Crichton and Aeryn and create some banter," Agrees Claudia Black, "since there wasn't really the tension on the ship or a massive adversity for them."
David Kemper took inspiration from Nicolas Roeg's 1971 film Don't Look Nowto help set the mood of the piece. "It was the same sort of spooky feeling." he says. "we're haunted --we don't know what it is. It starts off fun, then in the Farscape tradition it ain't fun..."

However, as Tony Tilse explain, "Just through the very machinations of what we had to deal with, it became a romantic comedy." Tilse allowed some of the horror elements to play through in the final sequence where bugs squirm out of Rygel's eye sockets. "I had just seen the new version of The Mummy," he explains. "I loved that moment where the cockroach came out of the Mummy's skin and crawled through the hole in his cheek. I said, "Wouldn't it be great if we could do something like that? What if Rygel was made out of bugs?" By judicious use of sultanas with miniature legs glued on them to represent the dead bugs. Tilse freed up the budget to get the shot he wanted. "That's the joy of Farscape," he enthuses. "Lateral thinking led to that moment when Rygel's eye popped out."

The humour was also balanced with the appearance of the Scorpius clone in the final scene, although originally he appeared earlier in the episode. "I questioned that," Ben Browder remembers. "I said, 'It's the right scene, but it feels like it's in the wrong place.' We talked about it with the writers, and moved it to the tag so the chess game bracketed the piece."

Although Crichton had hallucinated Scorpius in the hallways during 'Crackers Don't Matter', writer Justin Monjo had intended that as simply a manifestation of the insanity caused by Traltixx. David Kemper realised that it was, in fact, a good way of making use of his main villain. "We have this tremendous character here, and I can't use him," he recalls thinking, "You can't just have Scorpius come in and not make a big impact, if that happens, he becomes a villain with no balls. So how could I get Scorpius into the show? This thing with him in the hallway worked so well, but that was just part of Crichton's delirium."

Thinking back to the end of season one gave Kemper his answer. "When Crichton was in the Aurora Chair and Scorpius was testing him, he put something in John's head. The audience thinks Crichton got away scot free, but actually, he's got something in his head and he's slowly going to go mad. The chip is going to take over Crichton, and at the end of the year we're going to have to deal with it. At that stage we didn't have a clue why or how, but we knew that during the year we could now have Scorpius coming out to have conversations with Crichton."
Ben Browder believes that this adds depth to the episode. "You have what is essentially a bug hunt on the ship, and the Scorpy stuff gives it a serious moment," he says. "The Scorpy-Crichton relationship is the grounding. There's actually a serious line, which we come back to in the tag, that Crichton is seeing Scorpius and he isn't going to go away..."

[Falcon Horus]

WOW FH! I had no idea you have this issue. That has to be annoying more than anything.

It has its pro's and it's con's.
For example, I don't easily sprain any of my ankels or wrists. Flexible joints and ligaments can do that.
I can put my feet in my neck and I can bend myself to fit in a suitcase.

Con's -- I am prone to dislocating my jaws, which I know how to put back in place. And now I can add my collarbone to that list.

IDK the dog reminded me of ET. Yes I know I'm showing my age here....but come on...you should know that movie...if not ....go watch it...it's a classic.

I saw it on TV as a kid (when I was 10 maybe - 35 now) -- scared the living daylights out of me, never watched it again.

[Bluemeany]

Beware of Dog

Ok Ok....geeze ....I'm feeling guilty that I didn't review this ep. It really lacked alot of meat but I do like the few nuggets jel mentioned above. Especially the bit with John's mention of him feeling like he's losing it. I like that they really are working on transforming John's character. At the time this was really cutting edge TV as many shows just didn't do that with their lead characters...not to this extent anyway...so I really applaud Farscape for this....so I'll give them grace on this crappy episode. IDK the dog reminded me of ET. Yes I know I'm showing my age here....but come on...you should know that movie...if not ....go watch it...it's a classic.

So instead of me babbling on about nothing here I decided I would just include in my review bits from the companion book instead....so here you go....

From the Companion Book:

*waves at everyone* Catching up after manic work work. I too am going to skip reviewing this one, but yeah there were a couple of things to like.

As jel mentioned, increasingly paranoid Crichton works well. And I loved the bit where Aeryn tries to do 'nice' and talk to the the little thingy only to ask it directly if it's the parasite. The WTF look Crichton gives her is great.

[Bluemeany]

Won’t Get Fooled Again

Now this, this is my absolute favourite episode.

Ooo, would you look at that: we open with a pseudo ‘previously on Farscape’. Those are rare. Not that it’s going to help anyone much with this one…

…yes, there have been signs of the way things were heading for a while. But now the show finally takes the train all the way to crazy town, taking their lead character along with them.

I like how Crichton doesn’t fall for it being Earth again. Not even for a second. They’ve done some nice visual references to Human Reaction too: John’s in the same white shirt, the green hospital room.

Crichton says ‘Betina’ has prettier hair: sure sign he’s delusional. My hair does that curly thing naturally… it’s a nightmare. You get the Shirley Temple/ hobbit look (cute when you’re four, not so great when your twenty nine), up until it hits rain and then you look like Brian May. As I live in Britain, this means I spend an hour, three times a week straightening it flat.

And the arrival of Harvey proper! I love Harvey. Particularly ‘cause he’s a baddie who job is to help the hero out and basically keep him alive.

This being my favourite episode, it also contains my favourite scene: John’s dead mother showing up and then asking him to stay with her this time. It is just brutal. And they really don’t back away from how cruel it is.

Ben Browder is awesome in the whole thing. But that bit in particular when Crichton’s literally on the floor begging his ‘mother’ to stop just kills me every time.

Crichton’s mum and her death really is a weak spot for him isn’t it? And one that he never talks about. Not with Aeryn. Not with anyone. For a guy that never stops going on about his emotions and relentlessly encourages others to talk about theirs that’s…interesting.

‘Hush little baby, don’t say a word’ is a nice choice for Mama Crichton’s music cue. It’s a creepy lullaby given Crichton’s being interrogated and needs to keep his mouth shut. I really like it when they use ‘earth’ songs in the score, but they don’t do it very frequently.

The best one I think is the use of Loch Lomond (it’s somewhere in Season 4). Crichton’s standing on this alien world in his black leather with a gun. He looks so harsh and not human. And suddenly he sings a line, and the score picks it up. The clash of the two really drives home how much he’s had to leave behind.

I’m jumping ahead, so I'll stop. But, anyway my point was that I do like the effect putting earth music has in such an alien setting and I wish they did it more often.

From a vidding point of view, Wont Get Fooled Again has a lot of great shots. If you want footage of John in front of a space shuttle/clearly at NASA, I think this is your only option. The disco scene has moving colour shots of pretty much everyone. And the metallic filter they use for the real world at the end is really distinctive.

[squirrely1]

Won't Get Fooled Again

Blue, excellent review! And I'm with you... I loved this ep. It's an excellent way to show off everyone's exceptional range of acting abilities. Plus this is where, as Blue mentions, the story...and as John himself said it in the actual ep....it literally goes off the rails. I love how they can actually mix bizarre, funny, creepy, dramatic, sensual and just down right horrifying all in one ep and make it come together and make sense. I think they did such an excellent job directing and creating a way for the whole cast to play a very important part.

This also is a critical ep as it sets up some of the really important Story elements:

The Neural Chip Gets a Name - Harvey and the whole Scorpy Clone plot element is revealed and we are shown as the audience the reason why John couldn't kill Scorpy in the Princess arc. At the time that left the audience scratching their heads....now we get the answer. I think that is also another really brilliant story telling device the Farscape writing team uses to hold back little things like that (instead of tying up every little detail by the end of each ep) they are willing to leave some things unsolved so that they may revisit them as a revelation later. This again is another reason Farscape was ahead of alot of the other major TV series being aired at this time. ......So we have the establishment of "Harvey" ...notice how John debated on what name to use. He settles on Harvey. That shows his subconscious is now owning him as if he is a part of him or a "pet" and somewhat accepting him. This shows that unique sort of love/hate bond the two share. John's emotional mind realizes at some level that even though it's a bad thing to have Harvey in there, it's more or less going to keep him from dying so it's a protective device in a sense. His rational mind doesn't like it one bit though, so the writing team has to deal with that. So, by the end we see Scorpy making him forget all about it. I think that again was a nice way to allow John's crazy to be somewhat controlled so we aren't tuning in each week to watch John the Psychopath. Also, it again cloaks the chip from John's conscience mind so we can see him continue to sort of grapple with what's happening to his mind and questioning whether he's losing it or what. So it reintroduces the mystery of it...at least to John.

John's Humanity = His Weakness - As Blue mentioned my favorite scene was the one with his dying mother. That makes me cry every time I watch and Browder just nailed it perfectly. I don't think he could've done more than one take on that one because he literally poured his soul into that scene. I think through all this, we find that truly John's undoing is through the use of his humanity, his sense of guilt whether it was the fact that he didn't attend to his dying mother's death bed, to his sexual fantasies he's had of many of the crew....possibly including D'Argo. LOL His rage, guilt and frustrations in dealing with Crais and finally his complete loathing yet need to conquer Scorpy were all seen as weaknesses that were exploited. All these emotions and psychological issues that people tend to wall off so that no one (sometimes not even our conscience mind) can deal with them out in the open, these are all tapped into in order to crack John wide open. Poor John, he was really exposed in so many ways in this.

Moya = John's New Normal This is such an interesting turn now....all of season one and even into s2, all John wants to do is get back to Earth. It's all about Earth and returning to his old life his "normal". Now this episode sort of turns that back around to John wanting to get back on Moya....and establishes this and the "ship full of aliens" Is his new normal. He in so many ways has accepted that returning to Earth is no longer viable and he's made Moya his new home and the crew his new family and friends. This is distinctive because the underlying plot of the show now shifts from John wanting to seek to return to Earth and pine after his Earthly family to now dealing with Scorpy and the Worm Hole tech tucked away in his head. This formal shift in the series plot I think really drives it further into the dark side as we see John slowly losing more and more of his innocent Earthly humanity and taking on this dark almost ruthless "alien-like" almost "peacekeeper-like" character. This was highlighted when his mother first came into the room and was appearing to comfort him and made comment that he's lost so much....that innocence....that he's become calloused and has killed. This was an affirmation that our Sweet innocent astronaut Home town American boy is pretty much dead and now we have a new and improved Ruff and Tuff Outlaw and Space Cowboy. I think this marks a very important turning point for John's character.

Scorpy = John's Nemesis This relationship by far takes on such a great role for the remainder of the series. Jel wants to complain that the John/Aeryn romance trumps screen time and plot, but all that aside..it's the Scorpy/John Frenemy/Bromance that occupies the majority of plot as well. I think it could actually be split. Again accolades to the writing team for creating such a great adversary as Scorpy that you love to hate him or hate to love him....whatever the case is....John needs him and really John builds such a rapport with him only because he's on a ruthless ride to vanquish him. But lets face it...as many nemesis' turn out to be a dark side of our own psyche so by killing them off in a sense we are killing a part of ourselves. This is I think where they were trying to go with this. It's no doubt though that Scorpy is a real villian in our story, but I think the Harvey Clone really does take on that bad part of John that sets up the dichotomy we all struggle with ...our inner demon ...something that slowly drives us mad if we allow it to and have to constantly work to suppress or root out when it's trying to control us. I think you could probably run a whole psych class (Freud vs Jung) and the like with the material you get from this show.

I loved so many bits in this episode, everything from the cool headed Pychologist Zhaan, to the cigar smoking tycoon Rygel, to Disco Chi, Doctor Aeryn (with her hair references) I think Blue is right....John does become obsessed with her hair....haha...and notice her hair changes in the ep so much and once even with the huge rollers. LOL I think this shows that John uses her hair as almost a sort of security blanket. I know that's weird but it's soft and smells nice and it just gives him a good feeling. He holds onto this when he's out of his element. Maybe it gives him a familiar feel of old Earth, his mother? A soft blanket he had as a child? Who knows but he definitely has a thing for Aeryn's hair. Yes jel I hope you had your barf bucket handy...that one snuck up on you didn't it? LOL

I could go on and on about the awesomeness of this ep....but I'll let jel talk about Crais in high heels now.

[squirrely1]

I'm gonna wait to post the Companion Book bits until everyone has had a chance to post about this ep.

[Falcon Horus]

Won't Get Fooled Again

Not quite sure what to think of this episode -- not sure I like it, not sure I dislike it. It's somewhere in between, I think.

I did like how all the characters get to play a role in this crazy subconscious world inside John's mind. Especially fond of Pilot's bongo-beats.

D'Argo is high-larious. When he's coming onto John -- LOL -- D'Argo/John shippers must go crazy with that scene.

It's the arrival of Harvey, but beyond that -- I have not much to say.

No, loved the appearance of all the characters in some form or another, but not a fan of the episode. A few bits also hit way too close to home so ... err... yeah, no. Next.

[Bluemeany]

Won't Get Fooled Again

Not quite sure what to think of this episode -- not sure I like it, not sure I dislike it. It's somewhere in between, I think.

I did like how all the characters get to play a role in this crazy subconscious world inside John's mind. Especially fond of Pilot's bongo-beats.

D'Argo is high-larious. When he's coming onto John -- LOL -- D'Argo/John shippers must go crazy with that scene.

It's the arrival of Harvey, but beyond that -- I have not much to say.

No, loved the appearance of all the characters in some form or another, but not a fan of the episode. A few bits also hit way too close to home so ... err... yeah, no. Next.

An unbeliever! Persecute! Kill the heretic!

[Falcon Horus]

An unbeliever! Persecute! Kill the heretic!

An unbeliever?
Of what?

[jelgate]

Another week. Another me playing as FH.

Won't Get Fooled Again

I don't know about but I want whatever the writers were smoking when they wrote this episode. This is like Crackers where its let be insane and go crazy. I thin it works because it starts off normal. Their is a gradual aspect at first. We see these aliens playing off as humans but to everyone else is normal. Zhaan does look and act like a real psychologist. At first I do see Rygel as a money centered businessman. If we ignore her character, their is nothing to discredit Aeryn as a doctor. Things just go slowly downhill. At first everyone is in shock when John throws Rygel off a parking garage. I think that is what makes the episode so believeable is that their is a slow descent into madness. At first we think its a trick then we see John get a little crazier. SQ was mentioning to me about John's mother in another place. Its a powerful scene that I think is suppose to show his further descent into madness. John's going insane causes him to be unable to separate reality from fantasty. Because he can't see what is real I think John's mother allows us to see John is unable to process who is what in this realiity The problem with this episode is the same problem I had with Crackers. Its a great episode that is hilarious. But its just watching the characters go insane with a bunch of great bits. Besides telling you what jokes I like their isn't a whole lot to say since we already discussed the fake scenes become more random to demonstrate John's fracturing mind. The story is pretty simplistic in that a Scarran is probing John's mind and the insanity is a result of that probe I like the story because it answers questions about John's insanity and why he couldn't kill Scorpy. It further demonstrates my point of just how intelligent Scorpy is. When the Aurora chair didn't work, he had a backup plan. I also loved it for the same reason I love Scarran fights. We have to be creative (I really hate you about this SQ_ in killing theme as regular tactics don't work. That interior skin must be weak in comparasion So really besides having fun with insanity, this episode is really about showing us what is in John's head which is really two folded in that we have the Harvery chip and is going isnanity. I leave you with this in showing Cop Crais was my favorite insanity bit.

[squirrely1]

Won't Get Fooled Again - Companion Book

"I think 'Won't Get Fooled Again' should come with a government health warning because it's such a freaky thing," Rockne S. O'Bannon warns. "Initially the plan was for me to write the Earth episode," David Kemper explains. "That's what I wanted to do. Then Ricky Manning ended up doing the episode, and he did a better job than I think I would have done. He gave it a level of madness that it needed. Then Rowan just pulled out all the stops."

"It often annoys me," director Rowan Woods says, "that people read into that episode a certain flippancy, a certain joke-telling aesthetic which, of course is running rampant through the story. But it is a very serious, dark, emotional piece at the same time. For Ricky to wrap his jokemeister ways around those sort of themes was really putting it on the line. I tend to want to shake people up, not just about alien worlds but their own world. I want to make them ask questions about themselves. Ricky's script demanded that the director didn't do that, it would have been a disservice to a wonderful piece of writing."

The cast are unanimous in their praise for the episode. For Anthony Simcoe, it was a "chance to break out of how I've defined D'Argo as a character. We take the work seriously, we take the storytelling seriously, but we're always poking fun at ourselves."

"We knew when we were shooting it, that it was good," Ben Browder adds. "Ricky was walking along the parking lot, and I literally prostrated myself in front of him and said it was a beautiful script. With a director like Rowan who you trust, you can do the most outrageous, stupid things and know that he's going to make it work."

"There is a very perverse sexual undertone, which becomes a lot more apparent in the Freudian slip scene with Crichton and his mother," Claudia Black comments. "That's the scene which disturbs most people," Browder agrees. "It does touch a nerve with the audience, and from that point on the Scarran has won. We don't know that it's a Scarran yet, but we just know that this happy jaunt that we're on took a really serous turn."

The episode contains numerous reference back to the first season's 'A Human Reaction', with Crichton checking the ladies' restroom, which didn't exist in the earlier hallucination. It also moves the second season towards it's climax, as the Scorpius clone reveals that his mission is partly to protect Crichton. "It's good at that point in the story, and at that point in the season, to tell the audience what's going on, and now they have a context," Ben Browder explains. "This plays for the rest of the season. John is going bonkers: why?"

Amongst the visual highlights of the episode is Lani Tupu in red high heels, carrying a small dog. "I put the heels on, tottered around and fell against the car twice," he recalls of the filming at the Olympic stadium. "We had no idea of the impact of that image, until one of the extras walked around the back of the car, saw me, cracked up and fell about laughing."

Gigi Edgley sums up the feelings of everyone who worked on the episode: "The writer was really pushing it, and some colours came out from every cast member that never existed before."