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selenakWiki summary: Crichton wakes up on Earth after crashing Farscape One. He believes it to be an illusion, as in "A Human Reaction", and tries to find a way out. As things become increasingly chaotic, he begins to lose his sanity.
This is hands down one of the most brilliant and one of the most painful Farscape episodes for me to watch. It unites different tropes - the one where everything takes place in the main character (of the episode's) head, the one where the character of the episode gets tortured relentlessly - and despite the anarchic hilarity of the ever more beserk imagery, it plays that part absolutely straight. The three scenes with John's mother - "normal", cancer-ridden and begging him to stay with her, and a Freudian caricature coming on to him - are each visceral (and Ben Browder's expression when John sees his mother for the first time really says it all. (This despite the fact the show until now only told us about Crichton's Dad and his feelings for same, and this at length.) And of course, the first time around, the other visceral moment is the big reveal scene which also counts as Harvey the neural clone's true debut, despite some earlier cameos. I remember how thoroughly creeped out I was the first time around, because mental takeovers while the other, original self is screaming inside are among my tried and true red buttons in fiction. It's slightly different during rewatch in that we know how Harvey develops, but otoh, the sense of incredible violation is not just still there but possibly even more powerful. It's a different type of torture than the one the Scarran puts John through in the episode, but it's there all the same, and the neural clone ensuring John can't speak of it at the end of the episode is one last kick in the stomach.
All this said: I bet both cast and writers had incredible fun in ths episode, with BDSM!Rygel perhaps the single most insane image they on a Doylist and Crichton's brain on a Watsonian level come up with. Claudia Black as Doctor!Aeryn is downright conventional by comparison, but her scene as seemingly real Aeryn with the tongue twister evoking the Scarran still puts her close to the top. And of course John's artificially stimulated brain imagines her and Chiana making out. Imagining Crais in red heels and eventually supercamp D'Argo coming on to him would, in a different show, feel homophobic, but in this one we've had the matter-of-factly "I'm with Chiana now, John" from a few episodes back to show how same sex relationships are dealt with in the Unchartered Territories outside of John's overstimulated tortured brain. (This said, John's tortured mind is dead-on with believing Chiana would want to watch Crichton/D'Argo, I'm sure.)
This time around, I spend a few seconds wondering how John's mind came up with the toilet-room-for-women interior since A Human Reaction in the continuity pleasing scene that provides us with the episode title, but then I thought it's more miraculous the Ancients didn't get this image from John's mind way back when, since well, John watches tv. A lot. Of the shows name-referenced by him, Buffy the Vampire Slayer certainly has scenes taking place in the girls' restroom at Sunnydale High.
The Scarran make-up looks slightly different on this Scarran in comparison to the last one, leaner and more predatory.
Something for native speakers to judge: how are everyone's US accents? This German just thought Lani Tupu's American Cop!Crais sounds a bit weird, but then, it might be the switch of accent, full stop, that accounts for the weirdness.
Lastly, in terms of world building: isn''t this a very time consuming and overly complicated way to interrogate someone, from an amoral, pragmatic pov? Especially since the last time a Scarran s howed up, he was able to do their thrall-fu on D'Argo and Chiana?
The Other Episodes
This is hands down one of the most brilliant and one of the most painful Farscape episodes for me to watch. It unites different tropes - the one where everything takes place in the main character (of the episode's) head, the one where the character of the episode gets tortured relentlessly - and despite the anarchic hilarity of the ever more beserk imagery, it plays that part absolutely straight. The three scenes with John's mother - "normal", cancer-ridden and begging him to stay with her, and a Freudian caricature coming on to him - are each visceral (and Ben Browder's expression when John sees his mother for the first time really says it all. (This despite the fact the show until now only told us about Crichton's Dad and his feelings for same, and this at length.) And of course, the first time around, the other visceral moment is the big reveal scene which also counts as Harvey the neural clone's true debut, despite some earlier cameos. I remember how thoroughly creeped out I was the first time around, because mental takeovers while the other, original self is screaming inside are among my tried and true red buttons in fiction. It's slightly different during rewatch in that we know how Harvey develops, but otoh, the sense of incredible violation is not just still there but possibly even more powerful. It's a different type of torture than the one the Scarran puts John through in the episode, but it's there all the same, and the neural clone ensuring John can't speak of it at the end of the episode is one last kick in the stomach.
All this said: I bet both cast and writers had incredible fun in ths episode, with BDSM!Rygel perhaps the single most insane image they on a Doylist and Crichton's brain on a Watsonian level come up with. Claudia Black as Doctor!Aeryn is downright conventional by comparison, but her scene as seemingly real Aeryn with the tongue twister evoking the Scarran still puts her close to the top. And of course John's artificially stimulated brain imagines her and Chiana making out. Imagining Crais in red heels and eventually supercamp D'Argo coming on to him would, in a different show, feel homophobic, but in this one we've had the matter-of-factly "I'm with Chiana now, John" from a few episodes back to show how same sex relationships are dealt with in the Unchartered Territories outside of John's overstimulated tortured brain. (This said, John's tortured mind is dead-on with believing Chiana would want to watch Crichton/D'Argo, I'm sure.)
This time around, I spend a few seconds wondering how John's mind came up with the toilet-room-for-women interior since A Human Reaction in the continuity pleasing scene that provides us with the episode title, but then I thought it's more miraculous the Ancients didn't get this image from John's mind way back when, since well, John watches tv. A lot. Of the shows name-referenced by him, Buffy the Vampire Slayer certainly has scenes taking place in the girls' restroom at Sunnydale High.
The Scarran make-up looks slightly different on this Scarran in comparison to the last one, leaner and more predatory.
Something for native speakers to judge: how are everyone's US accents? This German just thought Lani Tupu's American Cop!Crais sounds a bit weird, but then, it might be the switch of accent, full stop, that accounts for the weirdness.
Lastly, in terms of world building: isn''t this a very time consuming and overly complicated way to interrogate someone, from an amoral, pragmatic pov? Especially since the last time a Scarran s howed up, he was able to do their thrall-fu on D'Argo and Chiana?
The Other Episodes
no subject
Date: 2020-11-01 06:29 pm (UTC)(I admit I totally adore Lani Tupu and thus am not that objective about him, but I thought his Yank cop accent was great and I LOVE his red shoes.)
no subject
Date: 2020-11-03 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-14 07:31 pm (UTC)Also, note that Harvey stopping John from speaking about him is the end of the episode, with no group-hug scene at the end.
And the usual interview/convention anecdote is that the tongue scene required no special effects but was something Claudia Black can do in real life to show off, though probably with quite different intended effect...