Prepare for Starburst: A Farscape Rewatch Thread

[squirrely1]

I'm falling behind I had to work today and it was a really hard week so I need to get moving I realize that. So I'll try to get caught up. Maybe I'll watch I Shrink tonight and post on it quick. If not soon.

[squirrely1]

I Shrink Therefore I Am
Another one of those "Not one of my favorite episodes" episodes. I guess it was so unremarkable to me that when I started watching it this time I didn't even remember watching it. Like jel says the plot wasn't all that unique, and actually it's pretty obvious it was a cross over between Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Die Hard (John even calls it that) LOL.
I'll be honest I watched it last night and fell asleep on parts of it. But the most memorable thing to me was the Chi Vision and how it is really starting to affect her now. I do like how they visually (No pun intended) show how her eyes change when she uses it.

I also like how Scorpy and John were working together and by the end of the episode John and D discuss how they may need to trust him....just a little. He did have their back and at one point Scorpy said under his breath..."Looks like I'm on the wrong side" LOL I also liked the bit when Scorpy recognized the one was speaking Scarran and so he figured it out and called him out on it.

Jel said that Chi was out of character, but personally I think John was OOC. I think the old s1 John would've just surrendered himself so he could save his friends, but this time he held back despite the dangers to them and worked out a solution. I did enjoy seeing 1812 in action and Aeryn riding the one DRD was that 1812? HILARIOUS!

I also thought Pilot's concerns for everyone was endearing and the way that Pilot covered in the beginning giving John outlandish information on how everyone was getting along which helped John realize something was strangely amiss. I think they just left Granny floating in space because it was obvious they didn't have anything to for her to do. I hate that. I really wish they would try to integrate the crew better in these eps something they did better in s1 IMO. Jel will just say it's because they were focusing too much on John/Aeryn but I think they did that alot in S1 too but they managed it, so I don't think that is it.

Anyway.... I have rambled on long enough. B+ ep and it gets the + rating for the shrinking thing because it was rather funny....other than that it was pretty much a meh ep.

[jelgate]

Coup by Clam

Hey SQ, I think we found a doctor who can help you out. I'm sure Dr. Rygel will be able to help you out. This is another one of the lets be crazy and have some laughs. Their isn't really a story arc going on and no characterization. I don't know why but I actually like this episode. Its just funny seeing the characters bonded and get really sick to another. I never really understood the motivation for Dr. Tunni to poison us. Was it just for money? Or was it something else. But before we get to the jokes (because it was mostly a humor episode), I want to be serious. It was clear from this episode we are supposed to believe from the society has females as lower class society. I don't want to start a sociological debate about male vs females status now. However I think we can all agree in the past at least women had less rights then males. I'm just wondering if maybe going for the humor they could explore the planet's society more. They could have used Chiana and her conformist people. This time I can't blame John/Aeryn as it wasn't even a part of this episode. Now that is out of way. This episode plays for humor. Specifically the bonding of the character with the mollusks . That is where the humor is at. We get to watch certain characters digestive problems pair with another. I'm looking at Sikozu and Rygel. I for one found Sikozu eating an enormous amount of food kind of hilarious. Just like I mentioned above the fact that Rygel posing as a doctor just as funny. A little bloodletting never hurt anyone, right? The story is quite forward of how we have to chase the doctor to the planet and force him to help us. I actually quite like the idea of neurally linked bacteria. Its something different for alien pathogen. Aliens pathogen hardly being new but I can't recall them ever being used for this reason before. I think Rygel might have been to Earth before. He was the one who suggested the old Bug Bunny trick of dressing up as a woman. I'm starting to think that is the only reason for the society difference. The tension causes Sikozu and Aeryn to go in who are attacked which results in John and Rygel to go in as women. Given the Farscape rules, hilarious hijinks occur as John has to outwit to get the mollusks and save the girls. I think their is a B plot in how Chiana discuses with the female mechanic about why she dresses as a boy. I can believe it as I have heard stories of how black men would dress as whites to escape persecution. The whole filter for Moya is just an excuse to get the mechanic on board since we never heard of this problem before, This leads into Scorpy killing a soldier to protect the mechanic. He also takes on the mollusks to share the pain of the colony. The obvious implication is that spreading 3 ways lessens the severity of pain between the other two to give them more time. Its to reinforce a point from two episodes in how Scorpy is slowly becoming our ally. Like Crais, he is doing the best in his way to help us. Interesting that the mollusks don't like his Scarran physiology. On a final note I found the D'Argo and Nooranti pairing to be hilarious. Speaking to her herbalist areas, she finds the whole mollusks fascinating and is a little too eager to share skin to skin. Notice how D'Argo and Nooranti compare a few arns.

[squirrely1]

I Shrink Therefore I Am - From the Companion Book

"We wanted to do a story where the bad guys weren't idiots," David Kemper recalls. "The initial concept was Die Hard. The book for the audience was that when Crichton arrives, these guys have already subdued Aeryn and D'Argo. They're that good!"

In the early drafts of the script, the whole bodies of the alien bounty hunters opened up, and their captives, still full size, would be put inside. "The problem was that we would only be able to build one mechanical body that could take a person," Kemper notes. "I was looking at the script up on the board in the writers' room and then said, 'What if we did shrinking people?'" The episode immediately changed direction, paying homage to the classic 1960's TV series, Land of the Giants. "That was the clever twist," director Rowan Woods comments. "It scared the life out of everyone when David suggested it though!"

"We didn't know how it was going to work while we were shooting it" Ben Browder says. "It's a sci-fi cliche', and we don't normally do those on Farscape." "I was concerned about that," Woods adds, "and I was concerned about the simplicity of the main story, with Crichton overcoming these battlebots. But it started to come together, and we worked out a simple CGI formula to do the shrinking shots, because it would have looked pretty hokey."

The subplot to the episode, as Crichton and Scorpius reluctantly team up to combat the invaders, was "In a weird way what made it work," Woods considers. "Ben and Wayne create an amusing and diverting little tag team. It became a fun ride -- they didn't take it too seriously."

Wayne Pygram felt uncomfortable with the idea of Scorpius having a working gun. "Ben and I said,'Would it be okay if it didn't have any bullets in it?"' he recalls, "and boom, there was the solution." Browder adds, "I love Wayne's reaction when Crichton gives him the weapon. Giving him a dud weapon wasn't in the script, but I was thinking Crichton had promised Aeryn that he wouldn't kill Scorpius. He didn't promis that he wouldn't let someone else kill him! It was a perfect set up. John could get him killed, but was still keeping his promise."

The battle between Crichton and the Scarran Asikor as they kept switching size was "the most complicated fight sequence we have ever done," Browder comments. "We shot it so quickly,, and if Duncan Young hadn't been so capable, able to cope with the prosthetic, act and do all the fights, we never would have got it finished."

"If you aren't used to working with Ben, and you've got a chunk of metal over your head and a huge suit, it isn't easy to keep up with him," Claudia Black notes. "Duncan was so dextrous and adaptable. It was an inspiration to see someone dealing with the suit better than any of us could."

One of the most memorable sights from the episode is Aeryn riding on top of a DRD. "That was going to be quite a long sequence," Black remembers, "but I was sick that day, so they modified it." "It was cute," Guy Gross says of the resulting sequence. "I think it got about as silly as I ever got in the music with her call to arms as she hops on top of the DRD."

"I'm Pollyanna," David Kemper jokes. "Everyone said this would stink, but I thought it would be the best episode of the year. We took Land of the Giants and did it the Farscape way!"

[squirrely1]

A Prefect Murder

I quite liked this episode and totally did not remember it. I love when that happens. I sorta remember the creepy (Puppet) guy but that is about it. I must've been rushing through this last season because I don't remember s4 as well as I do the other seasons.

Any...hoodle...(that's for FH...I miss her...and Blue ) So we finally get an off world ep (little field trip) and we're in tormented space. That just sounds cool. I imagine it would be rather forboding...just the name....I'd sure as hell stay away from it and apparently according to last ep and the previouslies Aeryn may have some experience with it.

I actually thought due to her initial flashes I thought they were flashbacks of some sort, but they were actually hallucinations which then drove her to her actions. I liked the Sgabba Flies and that whole concept...it seemed really pretty creative and even though we've seen alien things control our team before, this had a different feel to it. What I found to be a bit of a stretch is we only see one or two of them flying out but John and Aeryn are immediately swatting at what appears to be many of them....and how are they to get there and hone in on them so quickly. Don't they have the equivalent of OFF or some type of bug repellent on the Farscape world? Just sayin!

Either way I quite enjoyed the Paroos (puppet creature) Even at the expense of stowing Rygel away for this ep, I'm sure team Rygel had to work this creature instead. It was refreshing and I felt this creature didn't have as "muppety" a look and wasn't as stiff. The creature shop continues to amaze me. What I would give to have an opportunity to work in such a creative environment! Must've been amazing.

I had originally remembered jel's comment about Chi being out of character for the last ep when in fact it was for this one and I tend to agree to a point. But I think ever since the affair, Chiana has sort of been on a slow decent spiraling down and without D'argo she just doesn't care as much as she did. I think when she and D were hooked up she learned to restrain herself somewhat, now she just doesn't care so I think a good bit of her character development has slipped. I really wish she and D could bury the hatchet once and for all.

I never understood why Sikozu chose not to stay with Zerbat she didn't really tell him why. She has such contempt for the Moyans (bill me jel) and obviously it was because she's a regular and they needed her back on Moya but the way the story was written she didn't really have good reason to just shrug her shoulders and leave Zerbat. But meh.... I think once she realized he was only Prefect for half a cycle he would be a nothing and she can't be hooked up with a nothing.... I think she's saving herself for Scorpy LOL. She has to be with someone who has some sort of power in order for her to be really happy IMO. So that's my take on it.

Another ep without Granny and well but John is making use of his crack. I really now sort of hate that he has been reduced to this....it seems rather silly but if it's gonna clear his mind so be it.

Ok rambling again. All in all I give this ep a solid A. I enjoyed the sets the planet looked really interesting. I liked the way they edited the ep together so that it replayed bits with a different perspective so you could glean different information even though it was the same scene. I enjoyed seeing the different creatures and use of the bugs and how it affected them. My shipper heart was happy at then very end when John went over to Aeryn and placed his hand on her while she was leaning down paying her respects and weeping over those she had killed. I thought that was well done. I love when they can do simple shippery things like that, that doesn't require any dialogue or fancy love scenes just a simple loving gesture caught casually ...to me means so much and helps to mend their relationship. Oh also one more shippy bit... (hehehehehe *gives jel the bucket*) After Aeryn and John were jumped as they were holding the guns on each other....once they were on the ground and disarmed Aeryn reached out and held John's hand there. *swoon* I loved that. Such a little thing but so important for them to work through their issues.

Ok I'll shut up now!

[Bluemeany]

Coup by clam

Hi all Sorry I missed last week’s write ups, my work went manic. I think things have settle down now, so doing some catching up now.

Coup by clam

I think I’ll just jump right in like nothing’s happened and review Coup by Clam with jel… I need a fun episode to watch and A Prefect Murder is a little down beat.

As jel said, pretty much a two gag-episode. Number 1: being bonded together by molluscs Number 2: cross dressing. But it all pelts along at a fair pace and its weird and a little bit icky. I too thought Noranti and D’Argo feeling…*cough happy cough* was particularly funny.

Given what we’ve seen over the past four seasons, I have my doubts as to whether some of the more psychotic Moyan’s (clams none withstanding) would have passed the test for space madness… Crichton and Noranti in particular.

I like John’s boredom at the technobabble, “Please don’t explain. We give up. We’ll pay”. And the baddy’s pretty good, he’s got this whole ‘child catcher’ from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang going on. From an editing pov: not much going on in this episode really.

Edit: I've just noticed, you Amercians spell molluscs with a 'k'. That's fun: makes them read less slimy.

[squirrely1]

YAY Blue's Back!! Glad you got caught up even if you just *cough*skipped ahead*cough*

A Prefect Murder - From the Companion Book

"I like what this episode was, and I like what it could have been," David Kemper comments. "It represents what I like about Farscape: it took a risk. When people see an episode they don't like, it's because we took a risk. But equally, if they see an episode they do like, it's because we took a risk."

Mark Saraceni's debut script for the series took a very challenging central concept. "Mark had the vision of telling the story in multiple flashback," Kemper says. "It's a great story device, but very hard to do. As time went on, we realised it was going to be tougher than we thought."

"Apparently the intention of those scenes was to expedite matters on set, and make it easier to film because we'd be doubling up on a lot of stuff," Claudia Black recalls. "Unfortunately they were all different, and we couldn't possibly schedule them that way. Ben and I had to lock down our performances which took out a lot of the tension and creativity."

Going on location with the puppets is always difficult, but the puppeteers enjoyed working with Paroos, the alien priest. "He was based on the character Father Jack from the British comedy show Father Ted," Dave Elsey confirms. "David Kemper wanted another creature that flew around on a thrown sled, like Rygel."

"We reconstruction the physical operation rig from Rygel," Mat McCoy recalls. "Paroos floated better than Rygel did, and was a wounder puppet. The animatronics were fantastic --it's face could move from grotesque to subtle in a moment."

Gigi Edgley agrees: "I thought the animatronics were amazing. I had a great time shooting this episode. I had just done a convention in England, and returned to the set, after spending four days travelling, rather dazed and confused. I allowed the alien to seep through, and I danced with her. The Location was great to shoot in although it was very hot --we constantly collided with challenges with the charcoal trees and the make-up.

'A Prefect Murder' benefited from some of the most stunning location work seen on Farscape, as the unit visited an area which had been burned in brush fires the previous year. "I think that was the most successful exterior forest we did on the series," post-production supervisor Deb Peart says. "It gave the environment those people were living in a rustic, washed out, burned out look."

The post-production crew worked hard to help explain to the audience the nature of the hallucinations. "We put a treatment on all those scenes," Peart notes. "The editor, Wayne Le Clos, made them black and white, which gave a defined distinction between what was real and what was not."

Guy Gross contributed musically. "I liked scoring the melody for the child," he says. "It's there at the opening when Aeryn is by her ship, and then we used it as a way to remind the audience about the flashback nature of the episode. I then returned to it when he returns to his mother." Gross even sang the tun himself. "It's amazing what you can do with software!"

"I always try to make a big effort for a director's first episode,"Time Ferrier explains, "and make sure they get all the facilities, bells and whistles that they possibly can. That didn't quite happen on Geoff Bennett's first episode ['Promises'], so 'A Prefect Murder' was a bit of a payback. We made some huge sets: we cut the dome set from 'John Quixote' in half, put a big glass window in it and that became the eyrie of these people!"

"Ultimately it came together," David Kemper concludes. "We had some great performances, But it was a challenging piece of work."

[squirrely1]

Coup by Clam

Ok there is not alot more I can say about this ep that jel and Blue have not already said....but you know me, I'll find something to ramble about!

So I don't really know why they had to show (in the previouslies) the deal about Aeryn and John and the pregnancy and the baby....since it didn't even come up in this. That would've been my biggest question...maybe they were going to try to bring in something about Aeryn's pregnancy but then for lack of time didn't do that? I thought that was strange. I for one would've thought or at least John would've worried how this whole deal with the clams could've affected the baby but alas we may never know. I think, as jel mentioned it was an interesting twisted ala Farscape style to do something like this. As I was watching the ep I was thinking towards the end "Gee this illness doesn't seem to be progressing all that much" and just about that time Aeryn and Sikozu started seizing and having their reaction. I thought it came on rather suddenly, like they were fine and then BAM here it comes. It was interesting that John and Rygel weren't equally affected but maybe male physiology reacts differently??

IDK totally speculating here and well speaking of male physiology.....Ben Browder makes a horrible woman. LOL I think this writing team can say they just about covered every weird possible topic they could think of. But this one was pretty comical if anything. I'm sure it offended some.....maybe IDK But any guy who would hit on the cross dressed John Crichton is pretty much desperate in my book!

As for Scorpy's sacrificial move in the end. He's almost adorable in this!! LOL I mean you almost want to forget all the horrible things he's done when he makes this move. I think again you have to remember that it's all about preserving John and so he feels he has to do this in order to give them more time, but honestly it was quite noble of him. I did love how this scene rolled out....

(Taken from Farscape Transcripts):

Pilot: Scorpius - consuming the remnants of the discarded mollusks seems a risky plan. Are you certain that once you've linked with the others you can endure the symptoms and - delay their deterioration?

Scorpius: Certain? No. Confident ? Yes. (he seems a bit fretful himself as he shuts his cell door and kneels on the floor with the clams in front of him)

Pilot: I tried once more to contact them - but there's still no response from- (if there's anything the half -Scarran hates it's someone fretting over him. He rolls his head up and speaks in his evil Scarran voice)

Scorpius: Throg noth-ay! (that sounds more like Pilotish than Scarran and we take it to be a strong form of "Shut up." Pilot sighs, shuts up, and slumps at his station. Fine. Eat the clams and drop dead then)

I actually LOVED Scorpy's line of "Certain? NO Confident? Yes!" I seriously think that could be Scorpy's bi line, this is how the man/beast has survived all these arns and continues to do so. His air of confidence is always so compelling to watch in action. That is why he makes such a great bad guy. I'm loving that we get to ally with him and watch this transformation of his character before our eyes.

Anyway...YEP I rambled. Oh and one final note. I can't not mention the whole D'Argo/Nooranti orgasm scene. LOL I rarely laugh out loud when watching a show but that was HILARIOUS!!

[squirrely1]

Coup by Clam - From the Companion Book

"We don't know how life is going to turn out. It's the same with this script. Just go with it," was Ian Watson's advice to his cast on the first day of shooting of this light-hearted episode, which the director describes as "one of my personal favourites."

'Coup by Clam' centred on renowned Australian actor Barry Otto's performance as Doctor Tumii. "He's a wonderful actor, and fulfilled the brief beautifully," Watson says. "He went completely over the top, and created a character that made the episode really work." "Once I saw the costume and I had make-up tests, I went with a certain sort of voice," Otto recalls. "The Dickensian thing was in my subconscious a lot."

The idea of characters swapping emotions had been discussed by Watson and David Kemper some time previously. "He always said that he wanted me to direct the epiose when we did it," Watcon notes. "They came up with the idea of these molluscs, and had some good gags, like Noranti pleasuring herself and people experiencing the same thing on different sides of the planet!" Anthony Simcoe enjoyed the chance to play for laughs one more: "I love doing all that stuff! I'm always looking for opportunities like that, and D'Argo lends himself to some great moments of comedy."

"We wanted to have fun with this episode," David Kemper says. "We knew 'A Prefect Murder' was very dark, and I knew 'Unrealized Reality' needed to be darker and more mysterious because it ws going to be the mid-season cliff-hanger. I wanted to slot in a comedy before the end of that first half of the season."

The scenes in the nightclub went through various changes along the way. "I saw that a little differently from the way it ended up being," Kemper notes. "It was meant to be like Some Like It Hot." Ben Browder laughs when he recalls the filming of those scenes. "I had to walk from the trailers down the road to the club," he says. "I was fully in drag, with my hair blowing in the wind. The construction workers were whistling at me, and I realised as I walked along that I was being passed by another guy who looked better than me --which wouldn't have been difficult."
Filming took place in the King's Cross area of Sydney, where the cast didn't look particularly out of place.

"When I had some time off, my make-up artist and I went to a cafe in the street parallel to where we were, and I was sitting wearing my full leathers!" Claudia Black recalls. "It felt like we were jumping over the school fence to play hooky!"

To emphasize the strangeness of the episode, Ian Watson played with the camera angles. "Every shot has a tilt to it," He points out. "If the camera is on a deliberate angle, it makes the frame more dynamic and more bizarre. The more the characters became affected, the more the angle of the camera dipped"

Puppeteer Fiona Gentile has a bizarre memento of the episode. "I have Barry Otto's nose on my windowsill," she says. "When Rygel bites Doctor Tumii's nose off, I had to do this sleight of hand trick during the take. I brought Rygel's hand down, and slid the end of the nose off his glove with my own hand. I stuffed the nose into the pocket of my jeans, and a few days later, after my jeans had been through the wash, my husband came up to me holding this thing and asked me what the hell it was!"

[Bluemeany]

YAY Blue's Back!! Glad you got caught up even if you just *cough*skipped ahead*cough*

A Prefect Murder - From the Companion Book

Re. A Prefect Murder, I think I mentioned in a much earlier episode review that it's got one of my favourite music cues in it.

When Crichton's standing on the alien world in black leather and a gun. He looks so harsh and not human. He sings a line of Loch Lomond and the score picks it up and plays the next part. I love that: the clash of the alien visual and the familiarity of the song, really drives home how much he's changed, hasn't changed and how far away from home he is.

[Bluemeany]

On a different note, I may have failed miserably on keeping up on the reviews recently, BUT I have managed to make another video with all the nice new clips I’m getting from the re-watch.

Good news jel, it’s not a shipping video Rather, it’s Crichton’s character journey from idealistic spaceman to well… something altogether more fractured. Spoiler warning: this runs through PK Wars.

https://youtu.be/u7pZk8pWswE

[jelgate]

We have all failed miserablely with reviews. I don't even know why FH stopped. My job keeps me pretty busy. I just pulled 47 hours for a week. Which is also why I am finally doing one on Sunday night. Its also going to be a short one

Unrealized Reality

Basically this is what known as an infodump episode. It answers many if not most of the questions about wormholes. It tells us more about the Ancients. In that we learn Jack was a group of Ancients that were changed to live in our space and that most of the wormholes. Einstein and the others are worried the threat that John poses. And since he is crazy I don't blame. The real shocker to me what that wormholes travel through space. The Stargate fan in me knows this is true. But different shows means different rules. And this is the first time we get an indication that traveling through a wormhole gets us to a new time. The whole episode is about coming to that realization and the fact that messing with the past creates alternate timelines. Come on its a staple of time travel that when you miss with time that it creates alternate timelines. That is what I gathered an unrealized reality is. When a person (like John) misses with time it creates changes to history that results in an unrealized reality. I'm not quite sure what tampering with time would create Aeryn as a Nebari. But can I say I loved Gigi as Nooranti. Besides their isn't a whole lot to say about this episode. Its mostly talking about Einstein trying to teach John and so their isn't action. Its all about the relation time has on wormholes and how careful you have to be when traveling as you get clos to the destination. And of course like always John screws up I did think the fake interviews was kind of pointless. Felt like it served little purpose

[squirrely1]

Blue great Vid!! And we're all falling down on the reviews but we just have to hang in there. It's almost over. We can end strong!! Plus I really do want to do a vid but now as I get into the time when I'm going to have to devote a ton of time to my school yearbook I may have to wait til summer to do a vid so I will do it, but may be well after our review....so check back everyone!! LOL However, in the meantime we could adjust the schedule to reflect where we are so we're not killing ourselves. Either way...here is my review of

Unrealized Reality

As jel mentioned this is all about an info dump and techno babble. This is about the time when Doctor Who does the whole "timey whimey" references because it's gets rather too complex for your average viewer. Long story short: The Ancients and Mr. Anderson (Einstein) are basically checking in with John to ensure he's going to protect what's in his head at all cost. They wanted to hear that he's afraid of it. They want to be sure that he realizes the full magnitude of the power of what he knows and that he will not just give it away willy nilly. If we look at what we know happens in PK Wars and work our way back to this point....we now know in retrospect just how dangerous this information is and why now the ancients are a tad nervous that they have given up that information. It was sorta like giving Trump the nuclear launch codes WHOOPS did I say that out loud?

Either way....it was nice to see a Zhaan, Stark and Jool again. But I'm with Jel that it makes little sense that on one of those alternate realities the players are all mixed up...how can that be? I mean maybe John would hook up with Chiana or I could buy that he hooked up with the Peacekeepers, but to have Aeryn as Chiana and Chiana as Nooranti makes no sense whats so ever. I think maybe they just did that to portray just how frelled up things would be as a sort of metaphor for that. *shrugs*

The interviews were I think meant to show how what he does in these different time lines actually impact what people think of him as a person and what he had achieved and how he had treated everyone in that alternate reality. They take a wild swing from he's a the greatest hero of all time to he's a jerk and selfish pig. I think they were meant to demonstrate how the slightest ripples in time could alter such perceptions of people. That I think scared him a bit too, not only that but trying to get back just at the right time so that he wasn't in some frelled reality.

That is about all I can ramble about this one...probably cuz jel will say much of it went over my head....but I'm use to Doctor Who so I'm good!

[squirrely1]

Unrealized Reality - From the Companion Book

"'Unrealized Reality' is essentially David Kemper's vision of the world," Ben Browder maintains, "a billion different ideas." Kemper agrees. "For one episode, I put some theories out there," he says. "I had this theory of Unrealized Reality -- the permutations of life are so myriad, and as interconnected to everything that is out there. I don't believe in predestination -- that would be boring."

Although 'Unrealized Reality' is a roller-coaster ride, it was actually a money saving exercise. "We had to do an episode that shaved a day or two off the schedule," Kemper recalls. "We had one new guest star, and one new set. It worked minimal CG -- just a wormhole and a laser blast. We threw some of the money we saved at the Creature Shop and decided to make it a physical production."

"Very early in the season," Tim Ferrier recalls, "David ripped the front cover off a New Scientist Magazine showing an iceberg with three turrets on it, and told me it was the set for episode eleven. He knew then that Crichton's confrontation with this character would be a seminal point in the season."

Director Andrew Prowse had the challenging task of realizing the different realities. "David writes cool sequences," Ben Browder notes, "The difficulty sometimes is integrating all the cool stuff that he writes. Andrew, working in conjunction with David, seems to find the best ways to do that. What he did in the edit became an almost associative style of film-making. He was pulling clips from the future, the past and out of thin air! He did an amazing job, and John Bach was tremendous, delivering very difficult exposition over long periods of time. His presence and ability was really the unifying force in that episode."

The Creature Shop had fun with new versions of familiar characters. Anthony Simcoe jokes that he wanted to play Jool because "I wanted breasts, OK? Jook is so different from D'Argo, plus I thought I wasn't going to be under so many prosthetics. But the costume was so uncomfortable that by the end of that coupld of days shooting, I was praying to go back into the D'Argo make-up!"

"There were aliens running left, right and center, getting tips off other aliens," Gigi Edley recalls. "It was bizarre seeing another Chiana prancing about. I gained even more respect for the prosthetic characters and the Creature Shop after playing Noranti. It was a very intense feeling -- people speak to you different, and you hold yourself in a different way."

"The most horrifying element of that episode was the costume department assuming I'd be able to fit into Gigi's costume!" Claudia Black says. "It took a while for them to refine her costume so that I was wearable for her, and they didn't have the same amount of time for me, so I just had to get into it and shoot."

Raelee Hill normally did all her own stunts, but let her double do the run across the wall when Sikosu is fleeing Peacekeeper Captain Crichton. "That was the only one I didn't do," she admits. "We only had one lot of glass, and it was very expensive. I was terrified of screwing it up!"

Ben Browder didn't relish the prospect of diving onto a concrete floor to recreate the fight in the cell from the premiere episode, but sustained a real injury when Black, as Chiana, jumped into his arms. "I bent his finger back when I jumped onto him," Black winces. "I was just devastated -- he's taken so many wounds from that show, and I'm always distraught when I'm in any way responsible for them!" "You can hear the snap in the rough cut," Browder remembers. "But, hey, a couple of times a year I would get something like that!"

Filming the documentary sections triggered an idea in David Kemper's fertile mind: "I got everyone together and said it was so much fun to see people talking about Crichton, we had to do a documentary with our people and 'real' people. That was the genesis of the documentary episode. 'A Constellation of Doubt'."

[jelgate]

Kansas

When Farscape creates a problem they really frell it up. This is your classic time travel story since we learned in part 1 that wormholes are able to travel through time. They seem to go with the self-fulfilling method of time travel. In that I think these events played out because of the Moyans. Young John almost feel until the coma because of the Moyans the first and second time. In that way its your classic time travel story where we force the fire to keep history on track. Because as we all know what happens when you alter time and well John is kind of important. That alone their is nothing special about the episode. What makes this episode so hilarious is the fish out of water aspect we get from the other characters. We get these crazy reactions from the characters like how Chiana thinks that flipping a person off is a Earth greeting. We are not even going to discuss how John lost his virginity to her since its disgusting. I for one love Rygel getting high on candy and then scaring children as a puppet so he can get more candy. While John is trying to figure out a way to correct the timeline, their kind of a second story going on in how these aliens ignorant of Earth culture have to outwit these police officers. Its fun watching D'Argo use limited English only for Nooranti to blow the police officer with dust. These people can fly advanced spaceships but still struggle with a car. Its hilarious. Their others but this side story is what sells the episode. I have a blast watching these aliens struggle with Earth life. I've probably missed some jokes but their are so many hilarious ones. I did forget to mention something is this time travel gets us some insight into John's family. We often thought that he and his father get on great terms but it shows how much they butted heads when John was a child. It gives another perspective we are unaware of it also makes Terra Firma more clear. But we will get to that later. I also loved the scenes about John's mother. If I am being truthful I find tarot cards and that psychic stuff to be a bunch of bull dren. That said we get insight into John's relationship with his mother and how much cared for and misses her. This is most obvious when ghost John tries to warn her about to not ignore the pain. The stuff on Moya is random and the insert of an invisible assassian is clearly here to foreshadow Terra Firma. I told you SQ, we will get to it later. All in all, I like this episode mostly for the humor. Speaking of humor, I forgot to mention the cop adversary is in a government black site at the end because we all think his alien seeing is crazy. I almost feel bad as he was only doing his job.

EDIT: I thought it was kind of obvious that Scorpy's yes man was the mole