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primeidealWe are officially halfway through the first season! And I think we've hit the point where the order of episodes is consistent, yay.
I'm not really a big TV person and I certainly wasn't watching a lot of multi-season dramas when this originally came out. So it's possible that I'm just easily impressed. But the sense of "they had a plan of where things are going, they had to rush some things at the end, but there's a throughline" is definitely working for me, it feels more than episodic, but the one-off characters have some depth and cleverness. Anyway, I'm definitely enjoying it so far! (And if there are more recommendations of things in this vein I should know about, let me know!)
Eep, the intro is a squick for me. Apparently for John too, poor guy.
Aeryn displays some concern for Pilot. The others ask "Is that compassion?!" Aeryn: "no it's not, I just don't want you to do the same thing to me!"
John: Aeryn, you're being weird. Is it your PMS? Me: dude, John, not cool. John: Peacekeeper Military-- Me: okay, that's pretty funny.
The contrived "only one of us can get the map" plot device artificially pits the aliens at odds. Zhaan's bribery method is...sex.
The visual of the galaxies briefly appearing as a hologram before the map explodes is a nice touch :(
More nods to the Sebacean heat problem. Again, continuity is fun!
Complicated alien backstory. Lab rats! Flowers for Algernon!
And we have to do the eye squick again but this time it's Symbolic for both John and Aeryn.
Luxans don't do apologies...but...here's my instrument. -D'Argo.
We start with D'Argo being sucked out into space and somehow alive when they manage to pull him back in. Some people who were disappointed with "The Last Jedi" refer to the "Leia Poppins" scene so that's where my head went.
"Jonah and the whale...okay, that's not the most contemporary reference...the horse and the rider...okay, we do kind of enslave them." -John
Even aliens need their inoculations! Timely. The stuff about "how much do you think about what the bacteria inside you are trying to communicate" was a cool visual.
And they mention the DNA edits from last episode, which confirms we're up to chronological order now. Specifically, Aeryn is able to very rudimentally fill in for Pilot because of her genetic manipulation!
D'Argo said early on he was about 30 cycles (seems to be equivalent to years) old, and he's been in jail for the last eight cycles. At first I thought his hallucinatory "Jothee" was a pet or something, but no, it sounds like he had a kid before he was 22.
The roombas are evil!
John and Zhaan play along with D'Argo's memories to help him work through it and get back to the present day, mentally. What a fic plot. Is there a name for this trope?
And now we learn about the real crime D'Argo was imprisoned for.
So is this kind of a catharsis thing? Needing to work through the emotional memories?
...ohhhh, but what it means for Moya's "immune system" response is something very different! The baby roombas...are protecting the baby. I had osmosed the fact that Moya was going to reproduce, but I did not expect that plotline to start so early, so the "twist" caught me off guard.
And at the end D'Argo comes back to Aeryn to say "by the way, thanks for saving me from the vacuum." Which, we've covered so much ground this episode, that actually feels like a while ago!
Episode nine saw a contrived "pit the crew against each other" plotline via the "only one map can survive" gimmick. Here, we have John wanting to explore the wormhole versus Zhaan...wanting to have some sexy times. Oh, Zhaan.
First glimpse of the planet--sand dunes with someone wearing protective robes. Fremen vibes.
Having seen the populated areas, it could also be Tatooine (those doors!) or Jedha (we're gonna broadcast a hologram of the wanted fugitives!)
John finally has a chance to do something "useful" with his human pop culture knowledge.
"Seventy-thirty? No, make it 80-30." "80-40, how's that." "Deal."
Crais uses everyone's titles. "Dominar Rygel XVI" not even his "friends" call him that!
"My oath as a Peacekeeper" which isn't worth much. John calls that out immediately.
How are they gonna pay for these repairs? I guess Rygel will just bargain for it...
The title drop comes in a scary moment, and it's a callback! Yaaaay continuity!
"There are lots of things I want at this moment, sand is not one of them." Aeryn/Anakin OTP.
"Oh, we're in a relationship now? That's probably why you want to kill me." John definitely establishing continuity with last episode, but also, oof, low blow.
And now they're immediately Butch and Sundance trying to go out in a blaze of glory. No cliffhangers, please.
The look on Aeryn's face when she sciences her way out of it, awww.
Oh, they actually do need to worry about the repair cost with all the issues John is having, nice call me of half an hour ago!
John whines about being parted from his tape recorder but then just hands it over. Is that the one with his recordings/messages to his friends back home? If not I don't see what the point of that complaint was.
At this point, my feelings on the characters are about the same as a few episodes ago: Rygel is a flat punching bag, Moya isn't really able to act as an independent person (although we saw more of that in episode 10), Pilot doesn't get that treatment either. With Pilot, we start to see a little more of who he is in episode 9, but it's kind of one of those "we know the story isn't going to end here, it has to revert to status quo somewhat," arm included. (The fact that Aeryn is taking on some of his powers gives me a little more hope it'll go somewhere?)
Learning that D'Argo wasn't telling the truth about his crime made me interested in the mystery, but right now "tragic backstory guy" plus "needs to be the alpha male" isn't really doing it for me. Zhaan, for her part, has gone beyond "magical empathy healing powers" to be "magical empathy healing powers, plus GREAT AT SEX," which, no.
But right now it's definitely worth it for the adventures of John, the scientist with sarcastic coping mechanisms, and Aeryn, the reluctant ex-Peacekeeper who swears she doesn't do compassion but is so happy when she defeats her impostor syndrome to solve problems with science.
I'm not really a big TV person and I certainly wasn't watching a lot of multi-season dramas when this originally came out. So it's possible that I'm just easily impressed. But the sense of "they had a plan of where things are going, they had to rush some things at the end, but there's a throughline" is definitely working for me, it feels more than episodic, but the one-off characters have some depth and cleverness. Anyway, I'm definitely enjoying it so far! (And if there are more recommendations of things in this vein I should know about, let me know!)
Eep, the intro is a squick for me. Apparently for John too, poor guy.
Aeryn displays some concern for Pilot. The others ask "Is that compassion?!" Aeryn: "no it's not, I just don't want you to do the same thing to me!"
John: Aeryn, you're being weird. Is it your PMS? Me: dude, John, not cool. John: Peacekeeper Military-- Me: okay, that's pretty funny.
The contrived "only one of us can get the map" plot device artificially pits the aliens at odds. Zhaan's bribery method is...sex.
The visual of the galaxies briefly appearing as a hologram before the map explodes is a nice touch :(
More nods to the Sebacean heat problem. Again, continuity is fun!
Complicated alien backstory. Lab rats! Flowers for Algernon!
And we have to do the eye squick again but this time it's Symbolic for both John and Aeryn.
Luxans don't do apologies...but...here's my instrument. -D'Argo.
We start with D'Argo being sucked out into space and somehow alive when they manage to pull him back in. Some people who were disappointed with "The Last Jedi" refer to the "Leia Poppins" scene so that's where my head went.
"Jonah and the whale...okay, that's not the most contemporary reference...the horse and the rider...okay, we do kind of enslave them." -John
Even aliens need their inoculations! Timely. The stuff about "how much do you think about what the bacteria inside you are trying to communicate" was a cool visual.
And they mention the DNA edits from last episode, which confirms we're up to chronological order now. Specifically, Aeryn is able to very rudimentally fill in for Pilot because of her genetic manipulation!
D'Argo said early on he was about 30 cycles (seems to be equivalent to years) old, and he's been in jail for the last eight cycles. At first I thought his hallucinatory "Jothee" was a pet or something, but no, it sounds like he had a kid before he was 22.
The roombas are evil!
John and Zhaan play along with D'Argo's memories to help him work through it and get back to the present day, mentally. What a fic plot. Is there a name for this trope?
And now we learn about the real crime D'Argo was imprisoned for.
So is this kind of a catharsis thing? Needing to work through the emotional memories?
...ohhhh, but what it means for Moya's "immune system" response is something very different! The baby roombas...are protecting the baby. I had osmosed the fact that Moya was going to reproduce, but I did not expect that plotline to start so early, so the "twist" caught me off guard.
And at the end D'Argo comes back to Aeryn to say "by the way, thanks for saving me from the vacuum." Which, we've covered so much ground this episode, that actually feels like a while ago!
Episode nine saw a contrived "pit the crew against each other" plotline via the "only one map can survive" gimmick. Here, we have John wanting to explore the wormhole versus Zhaan...wanting to have some sexy times. Oh, Zhaan.
First glimpse of the planet--sand dunes with someone wearing protective robes. Fremen vibes.
Having seen the populated areas, it could also be Tatooine (those doors!) or Jedha (we're gonna broadcast a hologram of the wanted fugitives!)
John finally has a chance to do something "useful" with his human pop culture knowledge.
"Seventy-thirty? No, make it 80-30." "80-40, how's that." "Deal."
Crais uses everyone's titles. "Dominar Rygel XVI" not even his "friends" call him that!
"My oath as a Peacekeeper" which isn't worth much. John calls that out immediately.
How are they gonna pay for these repairs? I guess Rygel will just bargain for it...
The title drop comes in a scary moment, and it's a callback! Yaaaay continuity!
"There are lots of things I want at this moment, sand is not one of them." Aeryn/Anakin OTP.
"Oh, we're in a relationship now? That's probably why you want to kill me." John definitely establishing continuity with last episode, but also, oof, low blow.
And now they're immediately Butch and Sundance trying to go out in a blaze of glory. No cliffhangers, please.
The look on Aeryn's face when she sciences her way out of it, awww.
Oh, they actually do need to worry about the repair cost with all the issues John is having, nice call me of half an hour ago!
John whines about being parted from his tape recorder but then just hands it over. Is that the one with his recordings/messages to his friends back home? If not I don't see what the point of that complaint was.
At this point, my feelings on the characters are about the same as a few episodes ago: Rygel is a flat punching bag, Moya isn't really able to act as an independent person (although we saw more of that in episode 10), Pilot doesn't get that treatment either. With Pilot, we start to see a little more of who he is in episode 9, but it's kind of one of those "we know the story isn't going to end here, it has to revert to status quo somewhat," arm included. (The fact that Aeryn is taking on some of his powers gives me a little more hope it'll go somewhere?)
Learning that D'Argo wasn't telling the truth about his crime made me interested in the mystery, but right now "tragic backstory guy" plus "needs to be the alpha male" isn't really doing it for me. Zhaan, for her part, has gone beyond "magical empathy healing powers" to be "magical empathy healing powers, plus GREAT AT SEX," which, no.
But right now it's definitely worth it for the adventures of John, the scientist with sarcastic coping mechanisms, and Aeryn, the reluctant ex-Peacekeeper who swears she doesn't do compassion but is so happy when she defeats her impostor syndrome to solve problems with science.
