primeideal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
primeideal) wrote2023-03-22 10:59 pm
primeideal) wrote2023-03-22 10:59 pm
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Farscape live-ish blog: Season 4, episodes 7-10
Thinking back to last episode and fridge horror moment. The Peacekeeper MO is to implant long-term contraception in women, so that if and when they do get pregnant, they don't necessarily know when they were inseminated, it could have been any time in the last few years. That's...the same thing they did to Moya. D:
John's chess set!
The instructions for the fairy tale quest are a sonnet, very nice. The kind of thing I might not have caught without subtitles, but, someone in the writers' room was showing off and having fun. I approve.
Rygel as the Black Knight is another "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" allusion. (I actually think I saw a parody of this scene before I saw the film itself, in a kids' book about goofy time travelers called "Knights of the Kitchen Table." Lucky that that film is still a geek culture touchstone!)
John writing in blood, too extra.
John realizes that the lovey-dovey domestic Aeryn is fake and he must still be in the game. Like Rand with Egwene in Wheel of Time episode 1.8!!
The two Chianas, what a twist!
"What's going on?" "Aeryn is writing poetry and Rygel isn't hungry." Nice work by Pilot on the "signal that something is very wrong without the hostage-takers freaking out" gambit.
"Who does he care for most?" Rygel: "Me." Rygel being brave?
Sikozu: "These frelling cuffs." Chiana: "Those what cuffs? I am so glad we extended your vocabulary." I am the Sikozu of my friend groups, haha.
Scorpius: "And I'm gonna help you with the ambush?" John: "You think our relationship has progressed that far?" Ah, yes, the "helping with an ambush" stage of relationship. More fodder for Tumblr.
John mentions cylons, who are from Battlestar Galactica...but this is a couple years too early to be from the 2004 BSG, so he must be citing the 1978 version! And then immediately follows it up with "klaatu barata nikto."
The weapon John gave Scorpius wasn't actually loaded, which resets their relationship status somewhat.
Scorpius counts DRDs in powers of two.
The subtitles identify Pilot as Rygel, oops. (There's another issue later on where they confuse John and Scorpius!)
18 minutes in and we finally get to the shrinking promised in the title, I'd kind of forgotten about it.
Sikozu points out that shrinking everyone down and having their brains stay functional shouldn't be possible, which even Rygel calls out as being a pretty stupid thing to say in the face of the evidence. Yeah, I'm definitely Sikozu this episode.
And we're back to Chiana's visions?? Why now??? Apparently they make her go temporarily blind as a side effect.
The DRDs' plan is a "laser guillotine," shades of the climax to the first "Three-Body Problem."
Aeryn riding 1812, the special effects are not great but this image makes the whole episode worth it tbh :D (also if it took us this long to have a DRD with a unique identity we should definitely be blasting the 1812 Overture even more, just saying.)
Next stop, "Tormented Space," sounds pleasant.
Is this D'Argo scene just repeating? Or same drama, different clan?
John quotes Loch Lomond, so the Scottish vibes are deliberate, heh. I'm not sure how I got "Scottish" from "dudes with weird hairstyles and lots of clan-based squabbling trying to kill each other all the time," that feels a bit reductive. But I played the board game "Isle of Skye" last month so maybe Scottish clans were just on my mind.
"I never hit the child" False memories?
They mention that it has to be an offworlder stirring up trouble, which should cast suspicion on Zerbat, because he studied offworld. But no, it just cuts to some evil dudes plotting. Was there anything to signal this?
They're trying to appeal to the established John/Aeryn relationship drama (and John doing drugs to make the pain stop) to make this melodramatic, but...it's fake. We know they're mind-controlled. This doesn't really work.
"Hit me harder you big sissy" is this another meme line?
Sikozu breaks up with Zerbat because...he needs to be with his own people and she'd just be too much "offworlder" influence? Eh.
Yeah, this was just not a good episode, between the confusing time loop/false memories/flashback setup, and the cheap drama of "oh no they're mind controlled and trying to kill each other."
Pilot complaining about how Tormented Space is terrible...yeah and the Uncharted Territories weren't? I understand this is to have a couple episodes away from the main Peacekeeper plotlines but it's like, more of the same.
Pretty audacious protection racket scheme: make sure everyone is negative for the terrible disease and then poison them with a similar-appearing disease until they pay up!
Everyone's aching and passing gas collectively, great episode to watch coming out of a stressful doctors' appointment. :/
Pilot to Sikozu: "I don't need your help." Yeah, again, she's a Leviathan hunter!
"Your ship is female?" Scorpius: "Yeah, but she's piloted by a male." "Oh, that's fine then."
According to the subtitles the cross-dresser's name is Mujombre, seems a little on point.
"The doctor's at a colon convention" ouch, like I said.
Blade Runner noir aesthetic, just for a couple seconds though.
Scorpius saves Chiana, what's his game?
And now he's trying to "protect" John by eating the mollusks...yeah, this is a stretch. I mean, if John dies from the poison, then wormholes are safe, right? The Scarrans will never get them! Just feels like more contrived "eh we're all on this ship so we're all friends now."
"Hey, ladies, any of you have one of these under your skirt?" *pulls out the pistols* Okay that's a twist.
But yeah, this episode was really dumb. Not "insufficiently progressive uwu" dumb, just "body humor is not enough to sustain a plotline" dumb.
John's chess set!
The instructions for the fairy tale quest are a sonnet, very nice. The kind of thing I might not have caught without subtitles, but, someone in the writers' room was showing off and having fun. I approve.
Rygel as the Black Knight is another "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" allusion. (I actually think I saw a parody of this scene before I saw the film itself, in a kids' book about goofy time travelers called "Knights of the Kitchen Table." Lucky that that film is still a geek culture touchstone!)
John writing in blood, too extra.
John realizes that the lovey-dovey domestic Aeryn is fake and he must still be in the game. Like Rand with Egwene in Wheel of Time episode 1.8!!
The two Chianas, what a twist!
"What's going on?" "Aeryn is writing poetry and Rygel isn't hungry." Nice work by Pilot on the "signal that something is very wrong without the hostage-takers freaking out" gambit.
"Who does he care for most?" Rygel: "Me." Rygel being brave?
Sikozu: "These frelling cuffs." Chiana: "Those what cuffs? I am so glad we extended your vocabulary." I am the Sikozu of my friend groups, haha.
Scorpius: "And I'm gonna help you with the ambush?" John: "You think our relationship has progressed that far?" Ah, yes, the "helping with an ambush" stage of relationship. More fodder for Tumblr.
John mentions cylons, who are from Battlestar Galactica...but this is a couple years too early to be from the 2004 BSG, so he must be citing the 1978 version! And then immediately follows it up with "klaatu barata nikto."
The weapon John gave Scorpius wasn't actually loaded, which resets their relationship status somewhat.
Scorpius counts DRDs in powers of two.
The subtitles identify Pilot as Rygel, oops. (There's another issue later on where they confuse John and Scorpius!)
18 minutes in and we finally get to the shrinking promised in the title, I'd kind of forgotten about it.
Sikozu points out that shrinking everyone down and having their brains stay functional shouldn't be possible, which even Rygel calls out as being a pretty stupid thing to say in the face of the evidence. Yeah, I'm definitely Sikozu this episode.
And we're back to Chiana's visions?? Why now??? Apparently they make her go temporarily blind as a side effect.
The DRDs' plan is a "laser guillotine," shades of the climax to the first "Three-Body Problem."
Aeryn riding 1812, the special effects are not great but this image makes the whole episode worth it tbh :D (also if it took us this long to have a DRD with a unique identity we should definitely be blasting the 1812 Overture even more, just saying.)
Next stop, "Tormented Space," sounds pleasant.
Is this D'Argo scene just repeating? Or same drama, different clan?
John quotes Loch Lomond, so the Scottish vibes are deliberate, heh. I'm not sure how I got "Scottish" from "dudes with weird hairstyles and lots of clan-based squabbling trying to kill each other all the time," that feels a bit reductive. But I played the board game "Isle of Skye" last month so maybe Scottish clans were just on my mind.
"I never hit the child" False memories?
They mention that it has to be an offworlder stirring up trouble, which should cast suspicion on Zerbat, because he studied offworld. But no, it just cuts to some evil dudes plotting. Was there anything to signal this?
They're trying to appeal to the established John/Aeryn relationship drama (and John doing drugs to make the pain stop) to make this melodramatic, but...it's fake. We know they're mind-controlled. This doesn't really work.
"Hit me harder you big sissy" is this another meme line?
Sikozu breaks up with Zerbat because...he needs to be with his own people and she'd just be too much "offworlder" influence? Eh.
Yeah, this was just not a good episode, between the confusing time loop/false memories/flashback setup, and the cheap drama of "oh no they're mind controlled and trying to kill each other."
Pilot complaining about how Tormented Space is terrible...yeah and the Uncharted Territories weren't? I understand this is to have a couple episodes away from the main Peacekeeper plotlines but it's like, more of the same.
Pretty audacious protection racket scheme: make sure everyone is negative for the terrible disease and then poison them with a similar-appearing disease until they pay up!
Everyone's aching and passing gas collectively, great episode to watch coming out of a stressful doctors' appointment. :/
Pilot to Sikozu: "I don't need your help." Yeah, again, she's a Leviathan hunter!
"Your ship is female?" Scorpius: "Yeah, but she's piloted by a male." "Oh, that's fine then."
According to the subtitles the cross-dresser's name is Mujombre, seems a little on point.
"The doctor's at a colon convention" ouch, like I said.
Blade Runner noir aesthetic, just for a couple seconds though.
Scorpius saves Chiana, what's his game?
And now he's trying to "protect" John by eating the mollusks...yeah, this is a stretch. I mean, if John dies from the poison, then wormholes are safe, right? The Scarrans will never get them! Just feels like more contrived "eh we're all on this ship so we're all friends now."
"Hey, ladies, any of you have one of these under your skirt?" *pulls out the pistols* Okay that's a twist.
But yeah, this episode was really dumb. Not "insufficiently progressive uwu" dumb, just "body humor is not enough to sustain a plotline" dumb.