Originally posted by Falcon Horus
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Prepare for Starburst: A Farscape Rewatch Thread
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*BOOM*
That was the sound of the world exploding.Heightmeyer's Lemming -- still the coolest Lemming of the forum
Proper Stargate Rewatch -- season 10 of SG-1
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Oo, er. I’m first this week. The pressure.
Back and back and back to the future
Yay! A timey-wimey episode! This is a biased review. I have a penchant for time travel and AU stories.
First and foremost, I am calling Crichton’s ‘Oh Boy’ line as a Quantum Leap reference. I have no evidence to back this up but I want it to be true (that’s how science works right?).
What Matala was doing to Crichton in the flashes was definitely…. not consensual. Oh my. I’ve mentioned before that in the UK, BBC 2 showed Farscape weekdays, 6:45pm. We’re talking family viewing, tea time slot after The Simpsons. And I don’t think they could have cut those bits, they’re kind of crucial to the plot….
…still 11 year old me and younger siblings must have watched it. We all turned out relatively fine. And at least I know to bill any future therapy needed to the Jim Henson Company.
From an editing point of view: the entire episode is ship-based, so no big, sweeping exterior shots like last week. Similarly, a lot of the ‘movement’ in the episode seem to be done by cutting tricks rather than physically shifting the cameras. This works well for all the time ‘leaping’ Crichton has to do, but doesn’t really help your fanvidder.
There are however some uber-cool pans/zooms when Aeryn is sparing with Matala. And the green light CGI light coming from the ship exploding looks awesome when you overlay it on other shots.
For the shippers: regrettably, Aeryn and John seem to have regained both their balance and observance of each other’s personal space.
Aeryn’s outfit rocks. I wish I had both it and the occasion to wear it.
My favourite bit: Crichton asking the girls to leave the room so he and D’Argo can discuss his ‘real crime’. He could have just blurted it out (and moved the plot on), but doesn’t want to embarrass D’Argo. Again, a very classic Farscape thing to do, holding up pace of the story for a sec to deal with the character all the angles and relationships.
In fact, I liked all the D’Argo /Crichton male empathising in this episode. They seem to get that on some universal level the other one will understand them.
Feeling isolated as a man and ‘the other’ in a feminine/alien world isn’t something you see much in TV and film, so it’s kind of interesting. I think I remember a later series 1 episode whereSpoiler:Crichton tries to bond/talk sports with Crais simply because he really misses masculine companionship…
However, I still think that Crichton should have just told Aeryn and Zahn what he was seeing. Because even if he is a bloke, when you’re having erotic flashes about a girl he likes, it’s probably best not to tell the Luxan with the hyper-rage about them.
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Back and Back and Back to the Future
At the risk of starting a fight with SQ, I generally don't like this episode. I try to be critical with my reviews and while the previous episodes may have parts I do not like, the overall impact has been I am entertained. That is not the case with this episode. I think the overall problem is this episode tries to do too much, It tries to do a precognition episode with John, but this fails because it does not make much sense. First we get John these visions of Matala killing John and then as the episode drags on we have John dying (I bet Crais wishes he could see that) multiple times where he time jumps backwards to a meeting with Zhaan. Poor Zhaan with her mask. To me the whole plot device is confusing and does not make any sense. Normally Farscape comes up with creative ways (Yes I said it SQ) of these traditional scifi concepts but I don't feel that is the case in this episode. And how does Crichton get cured of this problem? Are we suppose to believe that simply starbursting from the black hole stops the problem? Its a tough one for me to believe. I also find it hard to believe that the solution of Matala running away with the black hole is us starbursting away. Its just too easy. And what happened to Verell? Was he just injured or did he die? The other aspect of this episode is to make us feel sympatric to D'Argo. It gives us these little pieces of what D'Argo has gone through since being imprisoned on Moya without telling us exactly what is going on with D'Argo. It feels like they were using Verell as a father figure to explore into D'Argo and John's time jump to see these events was suppose to cement more of a friendship between the two. It doesn't work that well to me. I think ultimately this episode tries to much. Personally the time jumping part of Crichton is unnesscary. If it was a later episode (say S3 for example) I think the writers wouldn't feel the need the insert a scifi concept. The character would drive the episode. It would have been more interesting to watch the Moya crew convince D'Argo of Matala's deception which I think would have served better for character building. I will close by saying I do not know what the wardrobe was thinking with Aeryn's costumeOriginally posted by aretood2Jelgate is right
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Originally posted by jelgate View PostBack and Back and Back to the Future
At the risk of starting a fight with SQ, I generally don't like this episode. I try to be critical with my reviews and while the previous episodes may have parts I do not like, the overall impact has been I am entertained. That is not the case with this episode. I think the overall problem is this episode tries to do too much, It tries to do a precognition episode with John, but this fails because it does not make much sense. First we get John these visions of Matala killing John and then as the episode drags on we have John dying (I bet Crais wishes he could see that) multiple times where he time jumps backwards to a meeting with Zhaan. Poor Zhaan with her mask. To me the whole plot device is confusing and does not make any sense. Normally Farscape comes up with creative ways (Yes I said it SQ) of these traditional scifi concepts but I don't feel that is the case in this episode. And how does Crichton get cured of this problem? Are we suppose to believe that simply starbursting from the black hole stops the problem? Its a tough one for me to believe. I also find it hard to believe that the solution of Matala running away with the black hole is us starbursting away. Its just too easy. And what happened to Verell? Was he just injured or did he die? The other aspect of this episode is to make us feel sympatric to D'Argo. It gives us these little pieces of what D'Argo has gone through since being imprisoned on Moya without telling us exactly what is going on with D'Argo. It feels like they were using Verell as a father figure to explore into D'Argo and John's time jump to see these events was suppose to cement more of a friendship between the two. It doesn't work that well to me. I think ultimately this episode tries to much. Personally the time jumping part of Crichton is unnesscary. If it was a later episode (say S3 for example) I think the writers wouldn't feel the need the insert a scifi concept. The character would drive the episode. It would have been more interesting to watch the Moya crew convince D'Argo of Matala's deception which I think would have served better for character building. I will close by saying I do not know what the wardrobe was thinking with Aeryn's costume
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This will be the shortest review ever in the history of reviews.
Back and Back and Back to the Future
Boring episode, and yes I fell asleep so there. That is all.Heightmeyer's Lemming -- still the coolest Lemming of the forum
Proper Stargate Rewatch -- season 10 of SG-1
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I'm first so everything is back to normal
Thank God Its Friday, Again
This one is an improvement from the previous episode but it is not without its faults. I actually did not remember this episode that well. Maybe I had some of that tannot root? An argument I have with SQ the first time I watched Farscape, is why does everything have to be Cricheton? Yes I understand he is the lead but sometimes it would be nice if he was affected by " the weekly adventures of Moya" and the crew had to rescue him. As much as I love this show sometimes it feels the other get sidelined into the background. Their seemed no purpose for Zhaan to be affected by the tannot root. Once she gets swayed she disappears for the rest of the episode. It just feels she could of helped in the quest of what is wrong with these people. Okay rant over. This episode reminds me of those cults that worship a person with the façade of peace. Their is no physical deity but their zen of peace reminds me of these societies. The stuff on the planet is kind of slow going until John gets implanted by the worm and finds out another alien species forced them to plant it. I think we kind of knew that the Peacekeepers were behind this. I remember thinking I don't really understand why the Sebecceans allow us to eat this if they need it. Is it just to make us more agreeable? I so loved the other story. I think it had great little developments for Aeryn and Pilot (Pilot does so little). It was something I enjoyed to see Aeryn outside her comfort zone and do something she was not familiar with. This was great when compounded by Pilot who is also uncomfortable and we see them bond on doing something they are familiar. Although I think some of us might have preferred that Rygel stay frozen Speaking of Rygel, I remember cracking up when urinating. Its kind of comedy Farscape is known for. It was interesting to me that the root is used for Peacekeeper weapons. I just wished they would have shown why the natives are allowed to eat. It wouldn't be above Peacekeepers to force the aliens to grow it. Remember how I compared the natives to a cult? I think this is further shown when even after the people are shown the truth, they still continue on their present course. Cults are known to follow this. Finally, I really liked the final scene. It shows just how much pain and suffering D'Argo has gone through and how much he wishes for a normal life.Originally posted by aretood2Jelgate is right
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Back and Back and Back to the Future.... AGAIN!
I agreed with alot of what you guys are saying so far...even Falcon cuz on my first attempt to watch this last night I fell asleep so I had to forgo and watch it this morning.
@jel - I agree with the confusion aspect of the way this ep is laid out and filmed. I think the production staff struggled with grounding the "real" timeline and so this ep seems too timey whimey and confusing. Being a Doctor Who fan let me just say Rowan Woods should stay out of the Time jump business.
I think where they went wrong is they failed to ground the real time line. If you notice they started off having John in the black tshirt. Later about halfway through the ep he stars wearing his IASA vest. This odd shift in costuming mid episode seemed like they were experimenting with maybe using the vest/no vest as a way to ground him in the present/future, but then they maybe got lazy in keeping it all straight. I honestly don't know when we were seeing a flash forward and when we were back to the real time line. At first the flashes merely seemed like visions of some sort of telepathy and later John did at least verbalize that they were indeed future flashes when he met Aeryn in the corridor again and we heard Aeryn's comment of D'argo being the "personal servant" of the Ilanic's.
I think they finally got onto a successful device with the whole Zhaan mask breaking thing. But at this point it was a little too late as again it seemed confusing when you were watching an AU time sequence or Real time. So as far as a successful out of time episode that part of it was weakly constructed.
The other aspect of the ep I found grating was the voice of Matala and how she spoke to John and D'argo when she was in her "seductress" mode. This was too obvious and for Farscape seemed a tad trite and not the usual creative covert concept. (Say that three times )
I disliked that they didn't use the women more (Aeryn and Zhaan) as it was clear Matala didn't have the same effect on them. And they both, especially Aeryn when they were sparring, realized Matala was using some form of manipulation on John and D'Argo...and Rygel if you really want to get technical as he was basically tempted by his greed and gluttony of food. Aeryn even verbalized the bit during their match that at least she didn't have to seduce male after male after male in order to get what they want more or less. Aeryn had it figured out, but I guess because she couldn't remember maybe she was not able to retain information from previous cycles or whatever you want to call it so she couldn't be of help.
So it brings me to the fact the John was the only one to remember that he was experiencing some sort of time distortion. This reminded me so much of the Stargate SG1 ep "Window of Opportunity". It's funny how similar these eps are in concept but again Farscape came first airing in 1999 and Stargate aired in 2000. But in Window of Opportunity again Jack was the only person who seemed to remember what was going on in this endless loop he was experiencing. I felt that ep was more successful in how it was set up though.
So for what I actually liked about the ep. Yes there were some bits I really enjoyed.
Male bonding between D'argo and John
If anything this ep was important to further establish the bond and bro ship between John and D'argo. It was also necessary to bring out the bit about D's true crime. Gotta love a mystery and now John has one and it will eat him up until he finds out. I think John really wants to pal around with D, but up to this point D really tries hard to keep John and everyone at a distance. This ep works to soften D up alot. I loved some of the banter John says to D. "Open up your ears or your tentacles or whatever orifice you listen with!"
then later at the end that touching scene they have where John admits to "mocking all of us"....and that D..."is not the first male to have his head snapped off by a chick". I truly wonder if any TV series would be so brazen to say a somewhat sexist comment such as that today. But I for one liked this camaraderie that John and D were building by having this moment of good old boy talk. And then finally the ultimate in that talk came down to D admitting that "It's been so long" (since he's been with a woman) to which John resoundingly agrees. This had to spark connection with many of the male (hetero) viewers out there.
Differences in Female Power
So this ep there was no doubt they focused on the Female power of seduction and again like I said earlier it was a bit too trite and obvious the way in which they played it out. I do like the contrast it set up for Aeryn though. Talk about a fish out of water here. I think Aeryn sat up and took note here. She has had little to no experience in this area that came out when the two women were sparring. I loved how Aeryn's answer was to just use her typical no nonsense response and punch Matala out, but then when Matala realized she couldn't beat Aeryn on a physical level she had to use the Neural Strike. It wasn't clear if this killed Aeryn or just how this neural strike works. I half worried or wasn't clear if that was the future I was seeing and she had killed Aeryn, but then became clear later when Aeryn came around to explain that because of the neural strike it proved that Matala was a Scorvian. I enjoyed seeing how the two women (in contrast to the men here) worked through their problems. Aeryn more on the physical and Matala more on the mental. I think like D'argo growing in becoming more soft....this also softened Aeryn not physically but mentally. I think at the end of the day she came to see the value in that secret weapon of seduction. Not that she would use it anytime soon, but it was truly an eye opening experience for her.
Some bonding with Zhaan and Aeryn too! Some great lines from them:
Aeryn: about Crichton "What's the matter with him?"
Zhaan: "He is Crichton"
Zhaan: "He's experiencing bits of the future"
Aeryn: "The future? He can barely function in the present"
I also loved Zhaan's attempt to deter Matala from trying to figure out Crichton as he is far too complex and she would never be able to do it within the short time frame they were going to be there. This was a nice juxtaposition between Zhaan's reserved quiet observant ways in which she approaches getting to know individuals. Where as Matala and Aeryn just move in for the kill and tear down the walls to get at them. Again both in their own ways (Matala mentally/sexually tempting) and (Aeryn physically/tussling and fighting).
So at the end of the day this ep was all about juxtaposition and stark contrasts between male/female strengths/weaknesses and differences in physical/mental powers. I thought all in all it was pretty good but only to serve to move along character development of our beloved characters.Originally posted by jelgateThis brings much pain but SQ is right
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Originally posted by squirrely1 View Post
Differences in Female Power
So this ep there was no doubt they focused on the Female power of seduction and again like I said earlier it was a bit too trite and obvious the way in which they played it out. I do like the contrast it set up for Aeryn though. Talk about a fish out of water here. I think Aeryn sat up and took note here. She has had little to no experience in this area that came out when the two women were sparring. I loved how Aeryn's answer was to just use her typical no nonsense response and punch Matala out, but then when Matala realized she couldn't beat Aeryn on a physical level she had to use the Neural Strike. It wasn't clear if this killed Aeryn or just how this neural strike works. I half worried or wasn't clear if that was the future I was seeing and she had killed Aeryn, but then became clear later when Aeryn came around to explain that because of the neural strike it proved that Matala was a Scorvian. I enjoyed seeing how the two women (in contrast to the men here) worked through their problems. Aeryn more on the physical and Matala more on the mental. I think like D'argo growing in becoming more soft....this also softened Aeryn not physically but mentally. I think at the end of the day she came to see the value in that secret weapon of seduction. Not that she would use it anytime soon, but it was truly an eye opening experience for her.
So at the end of the day this ep was all about juxtaposition and stark contrasts between male/female strengths/weaknesses and differences in physical/mental powers. I thought all in all it was pretty good but only to serve to move along character development of our beloved characters.
The stories and language treat the two concepts the same though so there’s academic debate on which power – attraction or brute force - he uses to ‘win’ her over.
Of course, this being the ancient Greeks, Zeus is also disguised as a bull the whole time. Farscape weirdness never reaches the same kind of levels.
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Originally posted by Bluemeany View PostThat's interesting because in Greek mythology, Matala is the name of the island Europa wakes up on after Zeus has either a.) seduced her or b.) violently abducted her.
The stories and language treat the two concepts the same though so there’s academic debate on which power – attraction or brute force - he uses to ‘win’ her over.
Of course, this being the ancient Greeks, Zeus is also disguised as a bull the whole time. Farscape weirdness never reaches the same kind of levels.Originally posted by jelgateThis brings much pain but SQ is right
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Originally posted by Bluemeany View PostOo, er. I’m first this week. The pressure.
Back and back and back to the future
Yay! A timey-wimey episode! This is a biased review. I have a penchant for time travel and AU stories.
First and foremost, I am calling Crichton’s ‘Oh Boy’ line as a Quantum Leap reference. I have no evidence to back this up but I want it to be true (that’s how science works right?).
What Matala was doing to Crichton in the flashes was definitely…. not consensual. Oh my. I’ve mentioned before that in the UK, BBC 2 showed Farscape weekdays, 6:45pm. We’re talking family viewing, tea time slot after The Simpsons. And I don’t think they could have cut those bits, they’re kind of crucial to the plot….
…still 11 year old me and younger siblings must have watched it. We all turned out relatively fine. And at least I know to bill any future therapy needed to the Jim Henson Company.
From an editing point of view: the entire episode is ship-based, so no big, sweeping exterior shots like last week. Similarly, a lot of the ‘movement’ in the episode seem to be done by cutting tricks rather than physically shifting the cameras. This works well for all the time ‘leaping’ Crichton has to do, but doesn’t really help your fanvidder.
There are however some uber-cool pans/zooms when Aeryn is sparing with Matala. And the green light CGI light coming from the ship exploding looks awesome when you overlay it on other shots.
For the shippers: regrettably, Aeryn and John seem to have regained both their balance and observance of each other’s personal space.
Aeryn’s outfit rocks. I wish I had both it and the occasion to wear it.
My favourite bit: Crichton asking the girls to leave the room so he and D’Argo can discuss his ‘real crime’. He could have just blurted it out (and moved the plot on), but doesn’t want to embarrass D’Argo. Again, a very classic Farscape thing to do, holding up pace of the story for a sec to deal with the character all the angles and relationships.
In fact, I liked all the D’Argo /Crichton male empathising in this episode. They seem to get that on some universal level the other one will understand them.
Feeling isolated as a man and ‘the other’ in a feminine/alien world isn’t something you see much in TV and film, so it’s kind of interesting. I think I remember a later series 1 episode whereSpoiler:Crichton tries to bond/talk sports with Crais simply because he really misses masculine companionship…
However, I still think that Crichton should have just told Aeryn and Zahn what he was seeing. Because even if he is a bloke, when you’re having erotic flashes about a girl he likes, it’s probably best not to tell the Luxan with the hyper-rage about them.
Originally posted by Bluemeany View Post*Giggles* Our two views are pretty much the mirror opposite of each other. Even down to our opinions on Aeryn’s outfit.
Originally posted by Falcon Horus View PostThis will be the shortest review ever in the history of reviews.
Back and Back and Back to the Future
Boring episode, and yes I fell asleep so there. That is all.
Originally posted by squirrely1 View PostBack and Back and Back to the Future.... AGAIN!
I agreed with alot of what you guys are saying so far...even Falcon cuz on my first attempt to watch this last night I fell asleep so I had to forgo and watch it this morning.
@jel - I agree with the confusion aspect of the way this ep is laid out and filmed. I think the production staff struggled with grounding the "real" timeline and so this ep seems too timey whimey and confusing. Being a Doctor Who fan let me just say Rowan Woods should stay out of the Time jump business.
I think where they went wrong is they failed to ground the real time line. If you notice they started off having John in the black tshirt. Later about halfway through the ep he stars wearing his IASA vest. This odd shift in costuming mid episode seemed like they were experimenting with maybe using the vest/no vest as a way to ground him in the present/future, but then they maybe got lazy in keeping it all straight. I honestly don't know when we were seeing a flash forward and when we were back to the real time line. At first the flashes merely seemed like visions of some sort of telepathy and later John did at least verbalize that they were indeed future flashes when he met Aeryn in the corridor again and we heard Aeryn's comment of D'argo being the "personal servant" of the Ilanic's.
I think they finally got onto a successful device with the whole Zhaan mask breaking thing. But at this point it was a little too late as again it seemed confusing when you were watching an AU time sequence or Real time. So as far as a successful out of time episode that part of it was weakly constructed.
The other aspect of the ep I found grating was the voice of Matala and how she spoke to John and D'argo when she was in her "seductress" mode. This was too obvious and for Farscape seemed a tad trite and not the usual creative covert concept. (Say that three times )
I disliked that they didn't use the women more (Aeryn and Zhaan) as it was clear Matala didn't have the same effect on them. And they both, especially Aeryn when they were sparring, realized Matala was using some form of manipulation on John and D'Argo...and Rygel if you really want to get technical as he was basically tempted by his greed and gluttony of food. Aeryn even verbalized the bit during their match that at least she didn't have to seduce male after male after male in order to get what they want more or less. Aeryn had it figured out, but I guess because she couldn't remember maybe she was not able to retain information from previous cycles or whatever you want to call it so she couldn't be of help.
So it brings me to the fact the John was the only one to remember that he was experiencing some sort of time distortion. This reminded me so much of the Stargate SG1 ep "Window of Opportunity". It's funny how similar these eps are in concept but again Farscape came first airing in 1999 and Stargate aired in 2000. But in Window of Opportunity again Jack was the only person who seemed to remember what was going on in this endless loop he was experiencing. I felt that ep was more successful in how it was set up though.
So for what I actually liked about the ep. Yes there were some bits I really enjoyed.Originally posted by aretood2Jelgate is right
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