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selenakWiki summary: In exchange for samples of their DNA, a genetic scientist offers the Moyans star charts to reach their respective homeworlds, but his demands become too extreme when he takes one of Pilot's arms and his experiments result in Aeryn mutating into a Pilot hybrid.
This was my first indication of just how dark Farscape would get. (Not, I'd argue, grimdark. There's a difference.) Back when I first watched the episode, I kept expecting the reveal that Zhaan and D'Argo at least if not Rygel had been influenced by Nam Tar's DNA-Fu. But no, it had all been themselves. On this rewatch, what I find striking is that the episode wastes no time setting this up as a dilemma. You'd think once the demand for Pilot's arm has been made, the next twenty minutes or so would be filled by the characters argueing among themselves about this, but no. A scene later, John is already told by Aeryn that the others will go for it, then we cut to Moya where Zhaan, D'Argo and Rygel all tear at Pilot as if they were in an intergalactic remake of Lord of the Flies in what is truly, even after all these years and knowing all that's to come, one of the most horrible scenes of the show. Precisely because our otherwise sympathetic regulars are doing this (without being magically influenced to do so), and they're doing it to Pilot, one of the kindest, most sympathetic characters in the entire show.
Of course, keeping the entire show in mind I'm also aware that the series is careful not to bring John Crichton into the position where he would have to face doing something like this. I mean, Crichton at this point, still so innocent and idealistic, would never have done it. Even much more battered, jaded and ruthless Crichton several seasons later wouldn't, but: he's not put in the position to. The closest to this is in the s3 finale, when the gentle and innocent fellow scientist he's befriended discovers the secret of wormhole travel. And here, not only can John convince him in record time of the danger to the rest of the galaxy ("it's never just science!"), but the man himself volunteers for Crichton to use the torture device on him which all the way back in s1 Scorpius used on Crichton in order to get rid of that knowledge. The show doesn#t let this be John's idea, or John's decision, but it clearly wanted him to do it to bring things full circle with Scorpius, which I always felt to be a bit narratively dishonest.
Back to this episode. Aeryn taking a stand for Pilot here is fascinating, because while they had a bonding moment several episodes ago when he guided her through operating on Rygel, this is stlil a clear ethical choice. When Zhaan and D'Argo call her out with the obvious Peacekeeper argument, Aeryn retorts that Pilot is a comrade. I.e. you may do this to your enemies and prisoners, but not, in her personal code, to your comrades. Now, we will later find out Aeryn did once sell out someone who trusted her and whom she cared for in order to get something she wanted as badly as Zhaan, D'Argo and Rygel want their way home, so her stand here might be additionally motivated by anger at her past self. Or it could simply be about Pilot, and standing up with a quintessentially helpless (at least in this regard) being who has done nothing but help them so far.
The episode then takes a dive in massive body horror, and becomes also one of the rare times where Aeryn unequivably becomes the damsel in distress saved by John. Possibly because of Aeryn before and after usually being an active character doing much of the saving and fighting, I don't mind this; also, her utter helplessness at the violation of her body changing against her will makes it even more horrible and visceral. And of course, that she goes to Nam Tar in the first place despite her better judgment so she could find a home for herself says something about how isolated she still feels on Moya, and how longing for the community she grew up with despite now increasingly seeing its flaws.
That Nam Tar turns out to have been a former lab rat and his Ygor-like female assistant really the original scientist who started it all by making him more intelligent until he turned the tables and started to experiment on her and her staff is on the one hand a neat narrative twist but on the other on this rewatch felt a bit wasted to me, i.e. if we'd gotten Nam Tar's double perspective as both the scientist and the lab rat, he might have been a more dimensional character instead of an evil (though very effective and chilling) plot device. Also, John making the Mengele comparison was really on the nose; I'd have gotten the idea without that, show. (Then again, John Crichton, pop culture reference addict, would make the comparison at this point, so it's ic.) Note that Mengele never was a lab rat, either.
(BTW: in terms of 1990s sci fi tv, I can't help but thinking that Voyager did both a Mengele avatar - inevitably, it was a Cardassian occupation era doctor, albeit one only present as a hologramm reconstruction - so that the Doctor could reject him, and a Robert Oppenheimer avatar in one of the few really good Neelix episodes where Neelix isn't comic relief but basically a Japanese citizen meeting Oppenheimer a few years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Oppenheimer avatar as an example of a scientist going to far (or not, depending on your pov on scientists in war time) makes for a more interesting story if you want your scientist to be something other than Evil McEvil.)
Then again, as I said: despite the body horror going on with Aeryn, the most terrible scene to me remains not what Nam Tar does but what Zhaan, D'Argo and Rygel do To Pilot. That's the evil that stays with you.
Other than his earlier bonding scene with Aeryn mentioned above, this is also where Pilot for the first time really gets fleshed out as a character, I feel. Not so coincidentally, this is also when we see him most of the time not projected as a hologramm, which was most often the case until know, but physically present in the scene. His conversation with Crichton establishes his deep desire to travel through the stars (important a season later for the big reveal!) and the capacity for forgiveness, but his later scenes also bring out his snark and bitter sarcasm towards all three of his betrayers. Pilot is good, but he's not a saint, which makes his capacity to go on helping the gang all the more remarkable. His final scene with D'Argo, with D'Argo not apologizing but playing for him, has just the right balance.
That there's no such scene with Zhaan contributes to this being possibly the episode - in the entire show - where Zhaan comes across worst. Not just because of her willingness to sacrifice Pilot's arm - that's true for all three - but for not doing anything afterwards to make it up to him, while going as low as trying to manipulate Rygel sexually in order to get her hands on the crystal. (That the manipulation is way too obvious for Rygel not see through immediately doesn't help. Zhaan in light side mode is more clever than Zhaan at her most selfish.) Until this rewatch, though, I had never considered this episode comes right after Zhaan's encounter with Maldis and her Sith training montage, which we were meant to consider as Zhaan reconnecting with her darker impulses.
The Other Days
This was my first indication of just how dark Farscape would get. (Not, I'd argue, grimdark. There's a difference.) Back when I first watched the episode, I kept expecting the reveal that Zhaan and D'Argo at least if not Rygel had been influenced by Nam Tar's DNA-Fu. But no, it had all been themselves. On this rewatch, what I find striking is that the episode wastes no time setting this up as a dilemma. You'd think once the demand for Pilot's arm has been made, the next twenty minutes or so would be filled by the characters argueing among themselves about this, but no. A scene later, John is already told by Aeryn that the others will go for it, then we cut to Moya where Zhaan, D'Argo and Rygel all tear at Pilot as if they were in an intergalactic remake of Lord of the Flies in what is truly, even after all these years and knowing all that's to come, one of the most horrible scenes of the show. Precisely because our otherwise sympathetic regulars are doing this (without being magically influenced to do so), and they're doing it to Pilot, one of the kindest, most sympathetic characters in the entire show.
Of course, keeping the entire show in mind I'm also aware that the series is careful not to bring John Crichton into the position where he would have to face doing something like this. I mean, Crichton at this point, still so innocent and idealistic, would never have done it. Even much more battered, jaded and ruthless Crichton several seasons later wouldn't, but: he's not put in the position to. The closest to this is in the s3 finale, when the gentle and innocent fellow scientist he's befriended discovers the secret of wormhole travel. And here, not only can John convince him in record time of the danger to the rest of the galaxy ("it's never just science!"), but the man himself volunteers for Crichton to use the torture device on him which all the way back in s1 Scorpius used on Crichton in order to get rid of that knowledge. The show doesn#t let this be John's idea, or John's decision, but it clearly wanted him to do it to bring things full circle with Scorpius, which I always felt to be a bit narratively dishonest.
Back to this episode. Aeryn taking a stand for Pilot here is fascinating, because while they had a bonding moment several episodes ago when he guided her through operating on Rygel, this is stlil a clear ethical choice. When Zhaan and D'Argo call her out with the obvious Peacekeeper argument, Aeryn retorts that Pilot is a comrade. I.e. you may do this to your enemies and prisoners, but not, in her personal code, to your comrades. Now, we will later find out Aeryn did once sell out someone who trusted her and whom she cared for in order to get something she wanted as badly as Zhaan, D'Argo and Rygel want their way home, so her stand here might be additionally motivated by anger at her past self. Or it could simply be about Pilot, and standing up with a quintessentially helpless (at least in this regard) being who has done nothing but help them so far.
The episode then takes a dive in massive body horror, and becomes also one of the rare times where Aeryn unequivably becomes the damsel in distress saved by John. Possibly because of Aeryn before and after usually being an active character doing much of the saving and fighting, I don't mind this; also, her utter helplessness at the violation of her body changing against her will makes it even more horrible and visceral. And of course, that she goes to Nam Tar in the first place despite her better judgment so she could find a home for herself says something about how isolated she still feels on Moya, and how longing for the community she grew up with despite now increasingly seeing its flaws.
That Nam Tar turns out to have been a former lab rat and his Ygor-like female assistant really the original scientist who started it all by making him more intelligent until he turned the tables and started to experiment on her and her staff is on the one hand a neat narrative twist but on the other on this rewatch felt a bit wasted to me, i.e. if we'd gotten Nam Tar's double perspective as both the scientist and the lab rat, he might have been a more dimensional character instead of an evil (though very effective and chilling) plot device. Also, John making the Mengele comparison was really on the nose; I'd have gotten the idea without that, show. (Then again, John Crichton, pop culture reference addict, would make the comparison at this point, so it's ic.) Note that Mengele never was a lab rat, either.
(BTW: in terms of 1990s sci fi tv, I can't help but thinking that Voyager did both a Mengele avatar - inevitably, it was a Cardassian occupation era doctor, albeit one only present as a hologramm reconstruction - so that the Doctor could reject him, and a Robert Oppenheimer avatar in one of the few really good Neelix episodes where Neelix isn't comic relief but basically a Japanese citizen meeting Oppenheimer a few years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Oppenheimer avatar as an example of a scientist going to far (or not, depending on your pov on scientists in war time) makes for a more interesting story if you want your scientist to be something other than Evil McEvil.)
Then again, as I said: despite the body horror going on with Aeryn, the most terrible scene to me remains not what Nam Tar does but what Zhaan, D'Argo and Rygel do To Pilot. That's the evil that stays with you.
Other than his earlier bonding scene with Aeryn mentioned above, this is also where Pilot for the first time really gets fleshed out as a character, I feel. Not so coincidentally, this is also when we see him most of the time not projected as a hologramm, which was most often the case until know, but physically present in the scene. His conversation with Crichton establishes his deep desire to travel through the stars (important a season later for the big reveal!) and the capacity for forgiveness, but his later scenes also bring out his snark and bitter sarcasm towards all three of his betrayers. Pilot is good, but he's not a saint, which makes his capacity to go on helping the gang all the more remarkable. His final scene with D'Argo, with D'Argo not apologizing but playing for him, has just the right balance.
That there's no such scene with Zhaan contributes to this being possibly the episode - in the entire show - where Zhaan comes across worst. Not just because of her willingness to sacrifice Pilot's arm - that's true for all three - but for not doing anything afterwards to make it up to him, while going as low as trying to manipulate Rygel sexually in order to get her hands on the crystal. (That the manipulation is way too obvious for Rygel not see through immediately doesn't help. Zhaan in light side mode is more clever than Zhaan at her most selfish.) Until this rewatch, though, I had never considered this episode comes right after Zhaan's encounter with Maldis and her Sith training montage, which we were meant to consider as Zhaan reconnecting with her darker impulses.
The Other Days
no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 08:23 am (UTC)That is nice. I apologize if I have made this observation in your direction already, but Galen Erso in Rogue One (2016) struck me strongly as an Oppenheimer avatar, albeit crossed fascinatingly with Heisenberg, if Heisenberg had actually had the ability to deliver on a bomb.
(I wrote a story featuring Oppenheimer some years ago, so I have something of an interest in portrayals/analogues.)
no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 10:30 am (UTC)Galen Erso: no, you hadn't yet, but yes, I can definitely see that, on both counts (Oppenheimer and Heisenberg).
Your story: *does a Darth Vader voice* Most intriguing!
no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 07:08 pm (UTC)I have read that! It was probably the first fictionalization of Oppenheimer I encountered. I've never seen it staged. (As opposed to Copenhagen, of which I saw two local productions within ten years. Go know.)
and the tv series Manhattan which puts fictional scientists in the centre but where Oppenheimer is a supporting character who in the first season just has a bland cameo but in the second gets some actual characterisation.
I never got into that—it unfortunately hit the sour spot of heavily fictionalizing material whose reality I found compelling enough on its own—but I did like the visual casting of its Oppenheimer, so I'm glad the show gave him something to do. I am also familiar with Morton-Smith's Oppenheimer only by reputation, although it got on my radar at the time of its premiere because of both Oppenheimer and John Heffernan. Dwight Schultz as Oppenheimer is an interesting choice.
I recall David Strathairn doing a good job in The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2009), one of those documentaries which mix academic interviews and archival footage with reenactments, specifically of the AEC hearings. I do not under any circumstances recommend the disingenuously falsified The Beginning or the End (1947) unless you have a masochistic impulse toward American propaganda and then you could just glance at the news these days; its Oppenheimer was the excellent character actor Hume Cronyn and I've still never managed to make myself finish the thing. I feel as though I have an obligation to, but not today, Satan.
Your story: *does a Darth Vader voice* Most intriguing!
Thank you! Like most of my historical fiction, it involved falling into a research K-hole, but I like the results.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 10:42 am (UTC)True. It could have backfired in the audience never having a shred of sympathy for any of these characters again. I mean, I remember how in Torchwood, people kept returning the the s1 episode Combat as the be all and end all of all Gwen Cooper characterisation. No matter what happened afterwards, how Gwen developed, how, for that matter, her relationship with Rhys developed, whenever someone bothered with explaining their Gwen hate they used this particular episode as justification.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 10:47 am (UTC)On a more flippant note, I've watched a number of old B grade "mad scientist" movies over the past few years and the moment Namtar called his assistant in I knew he was up to no good. It's practically obligatory for mad scientists to have physically grotesque servants. Since John is from Earth and has undoubted watched some of the same movies I have, I was surprised he wasn't a bit more genre-savvy!
no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 12:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-11 12:45 am (UTC)On a still more serious note--though "DNA Mad Scientist" saw Zhaan, Rygel and D'Argo tearing themselves--and more literally, Pilot--to bits, it also saw a tentative bond developing between Aeyrn, John and Pilot. Aeryn even indicate that she saw Moya and her passengers as "comrades". So in a way the crew is starting to come together, though they have a long way to go before they bond as (a somewhat dysfunctional) family.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 11:07 am (UTC)The map effect is gorgeous but compared to the puppets it's very obvious that Virginia Hey is interacting with something that's not there.
I'd forgotten, but of course it's Rygel who gets them into this to start with. But oddly, it's Rygel who has the most obviously 'oh fuck' reaction to Namtar's demand for Pilot's arm...
And Aeryn sees it coming when Crichton doesn't.
Zhaan's dark side comes through much more convincingly here than in 'That Old Black Magic' - just because you're providing anaesthetic doesn't make stealing someone's arm a thing you do, Zhaan! But I like that it wasn't one and done. She is far more compelling as a character with the capacity for great compassion and self-sacrifice who can also do this and justify it to others and herself.
Piloooooooooot. :( And they took one line from this episode and built it into a whole backstory in Season 2.
Welp, at least D'Argo's upfront about being willing to turn on anyone (though possibly he's trying to convince himself as much as Aeryn). Zhaan trying to patronise Aeryn...doesn't go down well after the way Aeryn bonded with Pilot in 'Thank God It's Friday...Again'. She calls him a comrade and she means it, and Zhaan doesn't get that.
Aeryn's - it's not even a fear, it's an inability to process the concept of being alone - is an interesting note. Somebody remembered the worldbuilding.
Another of those conversations I love, between characters for whom Crichton is at most a side thought at the moment, showing their personalities, their desires and their conflicts. D'Argo and family, community, peace - it's notable that he talks about his parents and a festival, tangible things, where Zhaan doesn't reference anything beyond the concept of 'home'. Do we ever hear anything from her about people other than the lover she killed? I can't remember.
And I love that - no matter how it ends - Aeryn takes action to find a possible place for herself where she can be one-among-many again rather than depending on Crichton and Moya for a home. As we've had Crais's backstory, the existence of these Sebacean colonies isn't a retcon, and they're a logical place for her thoughts to go. Unfortunately, well, Namtar.
Pilot bringing the bad news with great relish here. I love that his capacity for snark can tip over into active malice when malice is called for. It gives the character power that, as a stationary being without defensive capacities, he might not otherwise have had.
D'Argo = not stupid, but unhelpfully short-tempered! It's interesting to think that in a few seasons' time he'll mature into someone who can be elected Moya's Captain.
And Aeryn not only figures out that something's wrong but again, tries to solve her own problem (because now she knows it's a thing she can do), and when it doesn't work she goes to her comrade: Pilot.
Rygel being tricky and smart, always welcome. Zhaan attempting to seduce a puppet is a phenomenal bit of acting that just couldn't be done with the CGI of the time, and thankfully the setup means that it maintains Zhaan's dark edge rather than just being 'sexy blue Priest alien is sexy'.
For all the carry-on with eyeballs the show is very tactful about the body horror Aeryn's experiencing, which helps to avoid any unintentional (or otherwise) sexualisation of her suffering.
Crichton observing a scientist who's way beyond his level is nice - his fascination coupled with his uneasy awareness of being out of his depth.
...and the two plots tie together at last. Nice structuring. And the source of conflict may be gone but the underlying conflict remains, meaning that crew bonding is still a work in progress.
And again Farscape goes for the scientific rather than the violent solution - they don't kill Namtar in cathartic fashion to rescue Aeryn, but Crichton gives him a good telling-off and then they undo him and the damage he's done.
Aeryn, watching, scared: is that's what will happen to her too? But she still comes forward, still asks for help. And it's not a pretty and quick and beautiful salvation; she looks like she's dying. Again the avoidance of sexualisation of suffering.
Now she has a concept of inner life - of selfhood, which means that sooner or later she'll be able to be alone, too.
I love so much that it's D'Argo who comes to Pilot, not Zhaan. D'Argo with his home-made shilquin. Pilot understanding that D'Argo is, insofar as he can, offering an apology. D'Argo playing for Pilot (family, community, farming, creativity, peace...). So unexpected, and so right.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 12:05 pm (UTC)Hah, I hadn't thought of that before! But I really like it.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 05:19 pm (UTC)I think that's because in That Old Black Magic, it's Fantasy Evil. (Also she does it to save her comrades, i.e. the narrative presents her as noble.) What she does here is rl evil, never mind Zhaan and Pilot both being Aliens. The rationalisation, the selfishness, the not admittance of responsibility (unlike D'Argo in the final scene) - that's all utterly familiar human every day evil.
For all the carry-on with eyeballs the show is very tactful about the body horror Aeryn's experiencing, which helps to avoid any unintentional (or otherwise) sexualisation of her suffering.
Oh absolutely. No H.R. Giger aesthetic here. (Not that I have anything against Alien.)
Aeryn seeing Pilot as her comrade - yet another great aspect of this is that Pilot is a) a non-Sebacean, b) a non-warrior, and c) a being who (as far as Aeryn at this point knows) is not capable of hurting another and defending himself. What they primarily share is being pilots and the love of flying, plus the ability to go beyond what's expected of them, but my point is, someone like Pilot would a year earlier not have registered on Aeryn's radar as a person who could be her comrade. And now she sees him, even before seeing herself in him (and vice versa).
I do love the final scene as well for all those reasons. This why D'Argo is his own character, not a Walking proud space viking stereotype.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-11 08:48 am (UTC)Yes, exactly - it's so mundane, and therefore far more chilling.
I do love the final scene as well for all those reasons. This why D'Argo is his own character, not a Walking proud space viking stereotype.
Zhann's archetype/stereotype gets subverted in one way and D'Argo's get subverted in another, in the same episode. It's a nice, understated, clever element of the episode.
I also noticed, though I didn't talk about it in the first comment, that the subgroups established in 'Thank God It's Friday...Again' re-emerge here. Aeryn-Pilot and D'Argo-Zhaan connect again (though in completely different ways), while Rygel and Crichton are still mostly on their own. Crichton by the end is starting to get closer to Aeryn-Pilot, but Rygel if anything is further away than he ever has been.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-11 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-11 10:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-11 02:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-13 01:29 pm (UTC)Oh definitely, it's clear from the Durka episodes that he used that to help himself survive his imprisonment and torture. But I think it's also a way of asserting power on Moya - in a situation where he's frequently the most physically vulnerable person in the room, even when he has escape routes and backup plans and a weaponisable ThroneSled, he uses his status to claim space and authority.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 01:57 pm (UTC)I personally wonder if they were already planning the revelations of "The Way We Weren't" while this episode was being written. I suspect not, but it gives a whole extra shade of meaning to Pilot's characterisation here.
I've said this before, but I would have been even happier if John, as a scientist, had explained the gross misunderstanding of evolution by natural selection that "evolution aims at perfection!" is, as well as protesting at Nam-Tar's lack of ethics.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 05:23 pm (UTC)Very true. Mind you, if I were without any background knowledge I'd be sure at least some of the writing staff had it planned. But ever since I heard, all those years ago, that they didn't have the neural chip planned as late as Crackers Don't Matter and only with that episode decided on what turned out to be a key storyline for the remaining show, I'm tempted to regard this particular series as a masterpiece of non stop improvisation. :)
Oh, good point about the the Pop Darwinism.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-10 10:13 pm (UTC)I feel like some of the tension of the episode is lost when Pilot reveals so early that his arm will grow back. I don't recall if we see in subsequent episodes that it visibly does, although John refers to it in TTBRC. The horror of the episode is the lack of consent, the lack of even attempting to gain consent. If Pilot can grow his arm back, and this is known, then why not just ask him? Given that he told John he thought it an equitable price, would he have volunteered if told the cost? If he had volunteered, Zhaan could have provided painkilling as she attempted in IET, or if they had any more of that powder. Could a DRD have surgically amputated, as one later cauterized the wound? Or would D'Argo still have used the Qualta Blade, but with a feeling of gratitude?
If Pilot had been asked, and had consented, what kind of scene would it have been? Would all the crew gather to witness his sacrifice? Would the bonds that develop later be even stronger earlier for this acknowledgement of what Pilot would do? How would it contrast with the crew's efforts and arguments about saving Moya and Pilot in S3's Self-Inflicted Wounds?
On a completely different note, I'm still impressed with Namtar's blaster wound just re-knitting itself. Like Wolverine, is he effectively immortal? What if someone shot him in the head? He doesn't have an adamantium skull, after all.