Dream a little dream (2.08.)
Sep. 27th, 2020 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakWiki summary: When Zhaan and Crichton are stranded in a transport pod, Zhaan recounts the story of her time with Chiana and Rygel after "Family Ties". They landed on a planet where 90% of the population are lawyers, and Zhaan was framed for murder.
Aka the episode filling us in as to what happened that put Zhaan in such a state in Family Ties. By the way, the timeline still does not work for all the plots - it does for Team Moya as well as Crais and Aeryn co-parenting Talyn, but D'Argo being subconscious for fifteen to twenty days and John during that time doing nothing but sit by his side defies belief. But that's besides the point here.
The lawyers' planet as a concept feels oddly old school Star Trek, including the fact our heroes do win the day in that the big honcho gets arrested for his misdeeds, and Zhaan freed. (Otoh, it's clear he's a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself, and whether or not a revolution will happen is not of interest to our lot once their difficulty is solved.) In terms of character stuff for Zhaan, Chiana and Rygel, it offers quite a lot. Zhaan, both in the framing narration where she tells current day John this story, and through the episode, is in bad shape, feeling guilty for leaving John, Aeryn and D'Argo behind in the s1 finale, and overwhelmed with responsibility, even before she gets framed for murder. It's also Zhaan at her most openly needy in both timelines, telling John she draws her strength from him, and imagining D'Argo - who's "sweet D'Argo" once more - telling her how strong she is and kissing her. When one of her hallucinations points out she's not alone, she has Chiana and Rygel, Zhaan rejects this, saying they are like children.
Given the trouble Chiana and Rygel can get to, it's easy to see her point, but the audience has also seen, and Zhaan should know, that both, if pressed, have considerable survival skills. Chiana at this point has just decided to throw her lot in with Team Moya for good, and Rygel after seeing how much worse the alternative is switched his sell-out attempt to returning to Moya as well; in this episode, they both come through for Zhaan. Not just by playing Perry Mason and employing showy trickery to save the day, but in the unobserved moments, too; Chiana's desperate bargaining with Pilot and Moya, out of earshot of her comrades, so that they don't leave; Rygel holding Zhaan's hand silently (and quickly ending this when Chiana returns to see it). Even Moya, who - all kudos to Farscape for that - is a character on this show, not just a transport vehicle, and, lest we forget, at the point the flashback takes place frantic with worry for her son. Moya deciding to stay after hearing Chiana's encounter with the episode's main villlain, deciding she can't leave Chiana, Zhaan and Rygel in this situation is a major commitment because at least Chiana and Rygel are, at a guess, Moya's least favourites of the crew members.
On a meta level, the show doesn't quite have the courage of its convictions in terms of letting Chiana, Rygel and Zhaan carry the episode on their lonesomes, hence the framing scenes with Zhaan and John, but I find I don't mind, because I'm a sucker for hurt/comfort scenes between these two. Or perhaps they realised the episode wasn't long enough after shooting the flashback scenes and hastily added the framing scenes. The result is a slightly off balance episode, but I like it.
The Other Episodes
Aka the episode filling us in as to what happened that put Zhaan in such a state in Family Ties. By the way, the timeline still does not work for all the plots - it does for Team Moya as well as Crais and Aeryn co-parenting Talyn, but D'Argo being subconscious for fifteen to twenty days and John during that time doing nothing but sit by his side defies belief. But that's besides the point here.
The lawyers' planet as a concept feels oddly old school Star Trek, including the fact our heroes do win the day in that the big honcho gets arrested for his misdeeds, and Zhaan freed. (Otoh, it's clear he's a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself, and whether or not a revolution will happen is not of interest to our lot once their difficulty is solved.) In terms of character stuff for Zhaan, Chiana and Rygel, it offers quite a lot. Zhaan, both in the framing narration where she tells current day John this story, and through the episode, is in bad shape, feeling guilty for leaving John, Aeryn and D'Argo behind in the s1 finale, and overwhelmed with responsibility, even before she gets framed for murder. It's also Zhaan at her most openly needy in both timelines, telling John she draws her strength from him, and imagining D'Argo - who's "sweet D'Argo" once more - telling her how strong she is and kissing her. When one of her hallucinations points out she's not alone, she has Chiana and Rygel, Zhaan rejects this, saying they are like children.
Given the trouble Chiana and Rygel can get to, it's easy to see her point, but the audience has also seen, and Zhaan should know, that both, if pressed, have considerable survival skills. Chiana at this point has just decided to throw her lot in with Team Moya for good, and Rygel after seeing how much worse the alternative is switched his sell-out attempt to returning to Moya as well; in this episode, they both come through for Zhaan. Not just by playing Perry Mason and employing showy trickery to save the day, but in the unobserved moments, too; Chiana's desperate bargaining with Pilot and Moya, out of earshot of her comrades, so that they don't leave; Rygel holding Zhaan's hand silently (and quickly ending this when Chiana returns to see it). Even Moya, who - all kudos to Farscape for that - is a character on this show, not just a transport vehicle, and, lest we forget, at the point the flashback takes place frantic with worry for her son. Moya deciding to stay after hearing Chiana's encounter with the episode's main villlain, deciding she can't leave Chiana, Zhaan and Rygel in this situation is a major commitment because at least Chiana and Rygel are, at a guess, Moya's least favourites of the crew members.
On a meta level, the show doesn't quite have the courage of its convictions in terms of letting Chiana, Rygel and Zhaan carry the episode on their lonesomes, hence the framing scenes with Zhaan and John, but I find I don't mind, because I'm a sucker for hurt/comfort scenes between these two. Or perhaps they realised the episode wasn't long enough after shooting the flashback scenes and hastily added the framing scenes. The result is a slightly off balance episode, but I like it.
The Other Episodes
no subject
Date: 2020-09-27 08:16 pm (UTC)My favourite bit of the episode is Chiana absolutely tweaked out on Rygel's hangover cure, but all of it is enjoyable. My only problem is the climax with the faked miracle, which is a bit too unpleasantly reminiscent of the "hero uses a coincidental solar eclipse to frighten the ignorant natives" cliche for Farscape's usual avoidance of "Mighty Whitey" stuff.
One question that the framing narrative raised for me on this viewing - Zhaan clearly understands John singing "Dream a Little Dream of Me" at the beginning. So how do translator microbes handle songs and poetry - do they provide a translation as mental "subtitles", or are they incredibly gifted enough to translate the verse idiomatically while retaining the rhymes and meter?
no subject
Date: 2020-09-28 12:17 pm (UTC)Good call. I mean, it's a solid episode, but not really suited as a season opener.
So how do translator microbes handle songs and poetry - do they provide a translation as mental "subtitles", or are they incredibly gifted enough to translate the verse idiomatically while retaining the rhymes and meter?
At a guess, they provide literal translations of the text, which means John gets incomprensible again when he sings something like "I'm feeling blue".