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selenakWiki summary: After an attack by the Halosians, the crew of Moya find their minds and bodies switched. They must find a way to get their minds back into their own bodies before the Halosians can power up again and destroy Moya.
After a bunch of okay episodes, we're back to stellar and peak Farscape again. I had seen this one more than once back in the day, but not for years now, and so I had forgotten that the Halosians really are the Skekses from The Dark Crystal, with no attempt to disguise the puppets. Maybe the budget was tight? But who cares, since they really aren't in any way the point of the episode. The one interesting element of the scenes with the Skekses is the reveal about Crais and Talyn, which provides our heroes with the intel that Talyn is one trigger happy gunship but that Crais actually does not gallivant through the galaxy in insane military commander fashion, looking for targets, but attempts to get along with people (as long as they don't attack him first) and equally tries not to abuse the power Talyn gives him.
Meanwhile on Moya, our cast (including the puppeteers for pilot and Lani Tupu as his voice actor) get to show off their versatility like no one's business. I do love a well done body switch episode in general, and the best use the premise not just for the hilarity (although yes, bring it on! please!), but for some character exploration, which is what both BtVS (Buffy and Faith) and Xena: Warrior Princess (Xena and Callisto) did. Here, Claudia Black clearly wins the "who channels Rygel" stakes when it comes to the fun of it - her facial expressions as Rygel are all golden, way more so than Ben Browder's - but Browder-as-Rygel gets the big character scene with Simcoe-as-Chiana. Which underlines that for all his looking out for No.1 survival urge and obsession with food (after years of starvation, let's not forget), Rygel is currently kept going by vengeance and the dream to regain his throne. And Browder really sells that. At the end of a scene which is so very Farscape because let's be honest, any other show at this point in time would either have played the "Chiana comes on to Rygel while they are in different bodies" premise with bodies that maintain the gender difference, or would have let Rygel freak out and/or say something about "omg, so not into men!" Go team, say I, for playing it, well, straight instead. (And thus making it clear neither Rygel nor Chiana have hang-ups in that direction.)
I also really appreciate that we don't get just one body switch round but two, thus giving every regular cast member except for poor Virginia Hey the chance to play three characters within the same episode. Again, it's very funny, but it also makes character points. Thus John in Aeryn's body adjusts pretty quickly and is good at keeping focus and treating everyone in their new bodies as themselves (including Aeryn in Rygel's body as Aeryn)... but later, yes, he does respond to the fact he's in Aeryn's body. (Incidentally, I think this is one of those things where it comes in handy that John and Aeryn already had sex at least once at this point in the timeline, and are generally comfortable physically (see numerous s2 scenes of them holding each other) because if they hadn't, his delight at breast juggling would come off less amusing and more stalky.) (Also, the script is careful to point it with the final gag that Aeryn also, um, appreciated her time in John's body.) Again, Claudia Black: best comedian of the episode, hands down.
Chiana panicking and wanting to run away feels a bit season 1 like, but okay, it's an extra weird situation, and that she doesn't want to live alone again is also telling. Meanwhile, Gigi Edgley is really touching as Pilot, out of his body. Oh, and again: leave it to Farscape to include the non-humanoids - Pilot and Rygel - in the general body switch, thereby keeping up the emotional reality of them all instead treating the human regulars as special-er. I do wish Chiana and Pilot would have talked at the end of the episode as well as Pilot and D'Argo, though. Instead, the episode ends with D'Argo and Chiana becoming an item. Hindsight is 20/20, but it might be telling of their future troubles that they get together after having learned about each other's bodies, but not so much each other's personalities.
Next week: not "My Three Crichtons". On to the Princess!
The Other Episodes
After a bunch of okay episodes, we're back to stellar and peak Farscape again. I had seen this one more than once back in the day, but not for years now, and so I had forgotten that the Halosians really are the Skekses from The Dark Crystal, with no attempt to disguise the puppets. Maybe the budget was tight? But who cares, since they really aren't in any way the point of the episode. The one interesting element of the scenes with the Skekses is the reveal about Crais and Talyn, which provides our heroes with the intel that Talyn is one trigger happy gunship but that Crais actually does not gallivant through the galaxy in insane military commander fashion, looking for targets, but attempts to get along with people (as long as they don't attack him first) and equally tries not to abuse the power Talyn gives him.
Meanwhile on Moya, our cast (including the puppeteers for pilot and Lani Tupu as his voice actor) get to show off their versatility like no one's business. I do love a well done body switch episode in general, and the best use the premise not just for the hilarity (although yes, bring it on! please!), but for some character exploration, which is what both BtVS (Buffy and Faith) and Xena: Warrior Princess (Xena and Callisto) did. Here, Claudia Black clearly wins the "who channels Rygel" stakes when it comes to the fun of it - her facial expressions as Rygel are all golden, way more so than Ben Browder's - but Browder-as-Rygel gets the big character scene with Simcoe-as-Chiana. Which underlines that for all his looking out for No.1 survival urge and obsession with food (after years of starvation, let's not forget), Rygel is currently kept going by vengeance and the dream to regain his throne. And Browder really sells that. At the end of a scene which is so very Farscape because let's be honest, any other show at this point in time would either have played the "Chiana comes on to Rygel while they are in different bodies" premise with bodies that maintain the gender difference, or would have let Rygel freak out and/or say something about "omg, so not into men!" Go team, say I, for playing it, well, straight instead. (And thus making it clear neither Rygel nor Chiana have hang-ups in that direction.)
I also really appreciate that we don't get just one body switch round but two, thus giving every regular cast member except for poor Virginia Hey the chance to play three characters within the same episode. Again, it's very funny, but it also makes character points. Thus John in Aeryn's body adjusts pretty quickly and is good at keeping focus and treating everyone in their new bodies as themselves (including Aeryn in Rygel's body as Aeryn)... but later, yes, he does respond to the fact he's in Aeryn's body. (Incidentally, I think this is one of those things where it comes in handy that John and Aeryn already had sex at least once at this point in the timeline, and are generally comfortable physically (see numerous s2 scenes of them holding each other) because if they hadn't, his delight at breast juggling would come off less amusing and more stalky.) (Also, the script is careful to point it with the final gag that Aeryn also, um, appreciated her time in John's body.) Again, Claudia Black: best comedian of the episode, hands down.
Chiana panicking and wanting to run away feels a bit season 1 like, but okay, it's an extra weird situation, and that she doesn't want to live alone again is also telling. Meanwhile, Gigi Edgley is really touching as Pilot, out of his body. Oh, and again: leave it to Farscape to include the non-humanoids - Pilot and Rygel - in the general body switch, thereby keeping up the emotional reality of them all instead treating the human regulars as special-er. I do wish Chiana and Pilot would have talked at the end of the episode as well as Pilot and D'Argo, though. Instead, the episode ends with D'Argo and Chiana becoming an item. Hindsight is 20/20, but it might be telling of their future troubles that they get together after having learned about each other's bodies, but not so much each other's personalities.
Next week: not "My Three Crichtons". On to the Princess!
The Other Episodes
no subject
Date: 2020-10-04 06:02 pm (UTC)The graphic vomiting and the urination joke are very Farscape, as Rygel-as-John acknowledges with his line about other people on Moya vomiting.
This is another episode where Zhaan is forced to resort to violence when all her efforts at peacemaking fail.
And we also get a rather saddening view on Pilot, with confirmation that he doesn't see the crew as his friends. Although surely he'd view his relationship with Moya as love?
Another trivia thing - apparently Anthony Simcoe put himself in the emergency room by hyperventilating while trying to emulate Gigi Edgley's speech patterns, which may explain why Pilot-in-D'Argo spends most of the final portion of the episode unconscious.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-04 10:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-05 06:11 pm (UTC)How serious were Zhaan's efforts, though? I couldn't decide whether she meant it until late in the episode or whether she was playing for time because even before they chained her up, she was in a situation with the Halosians where she was unarmed they were could have easily killed her.
Pilot: I took him to mean love as not just in the sense that he loves but that he is loved - and since he still feels he does not (yet) deserve Moya's love, because of his share in her former pilot's fate, he wouldn't assume or accept that she loves him back, at least not yet.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-05 06:32 pm (UTC)And I agree now about what Pilot meant, I misunderstood it as being that he'd never felt either emotion.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-06 11:37 am (UTC)