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selenakWiki summary: Moya is hijacked by two Nebari who administer a mind-cleansing drug to the entire crew, and plan on taking Chiana back to Nebari Prime. Crichton and Rygel, who are immune, must figure out a way to stop their captors before the Nebari reach their rendezvous.
It has been said by many people elsewhere, but it bears repeating: the Nebari with their mind cleansing are by by far the creepiest of the Unchartered Territories powers, and it's interesting that TPTB basically only used them in Chiana's introduction episode and in this one. Perhaps because the full grey-blue makeup was more expensive and took more time than PK leather? Then again, the Scarrans. Or maybe the Nebari never became a seasonal big bad because the mind cleansing loses its fear factor if it can be overcome within an episode. They were careful to provide excuses - Durka's conditioning breaks down under special circumstances, and here we're told that what is done to the Moyans isn't the "real" mind cleansing but a drug caused temporary version - but if the Nebari had shown up on a regular basis, it would have been another matter.
Anyway. This is one skin-crawling episode, and Farscape goes out of its way with the eyeballs this time in the scene where John gets given the treatment. The scene where Mindcleansed!Aeryn puts the control collar on Pilot is perhaps the most painful in terms of what we get to see one under-the-influence crew member do to another, because of the relationship between these two. Otoh, this is a very good episode for the relationship between Chiana and Crichton. Even before the Nebari come on board, when he gives her advice re: D'Argo and manages to do so in a way that doesn't sound judgmental on his own part. And then she teases him about Winona. (BTW- I think this is the first time the name for the gun is given? Unless it was in one of the episodes I skipped?) It's one of those episodes where Gigi Edgley gets to act her heart out again, too, between Chiana's terror, despair, rage, that moment when she learns Neri is still alive and you can see in her face what this means even under the circumstances, and later how hard it is for her that she can't reunite with him. And John is a solid friend throughout, never mind his own issues.
Speaking of: this is the second episode where Harvey comes in handy as an insurance against someone else hijacking John's mind, as bitterly ironic as that is given what's about to happen very soon. It does make me wonder why Scorpius - given the Aurora chair and the neural chip all being of his own design - never tried to acquire the Nebari mind cleansing method, but maybe he's aware that once you provide a government with the means to brainwash an entire population, that's what it will do, and there's no way to guarantee your own mind won't be on the line as well.
I think one reason why we see the least of mind-cleansed Zhaan is that mind cleansed Zhaan doesn't come across as too differently from Zhaan bent on the path of enligthenment in the opening s2 episode, and because the second season has shown far more of Zhaan's vulnerable than of Zhaan's fierce side in general. Which is a shame; they could have easily have used Zhaan's experience with mind takeovers and with fighting against inner urges as an excuse why she can defeat the drug mind cleansing, and let her instead of Rygel be the third mutiny member. Now I'm incredibly fond of Rygel and his selfish soul, but I know we don't have that much Zhaan left, and that's why I retrospectively wish she'd been given an outing here.
Another thing: as with the Durka episode, A Clockwork Orange is an obvious influence on the Nebari mind cleansing concept, but the addendum here of the Nebari using bio weapons and letting their people (unwittingly) spread a virus today feels different from when the show was originally broadvcast for obvious reasons. Today, in a new show, I'd wonder whether one of the scriptwriters is a right wing conspiracy theorist wh wants the Nebari to stand in for the Chinese. This evidently wasn't intended in an episode broadcast at the start of the new millennium. But I do wonder whether anyone in the scriptwriting team thought of the general logistic (not moral) problem with using a virus as a bioweapon - there's no guarantee your own people won't get infected as well, even if they should be immune to its effects at first, because a virus mutates.
Lastly: so, never mind Doylist reasons why the Nebari never made it to show Big Bad - what could be Watsonian reasons why neither Peacekeepers nor Scarrans seemed to see them as competition? And the Nebari, did they intend to wait for PKs and Scarrans to duke it out and weaken each other first before striking?
The Other Days
It has been said by many people elsewhere, but it bears repeating: the Nebari with their mind cleansing are by by far the creepiest of the Unchartered Territories powers, and it's interesting that TPTB basically only used them in Chiana's introduction episode and in this one. Perhaps because the full grey-blue makeup was more expensive and took more time than PK leather? Then again, the Scarrans. Or maybe the Nebari never became a seasonal big bad because the mind cleansing loses its fear factor if it can be overcome within an episode. They were careful to provide excuses - Durka's conditioning breaks down under special circumstances, and here we're told that what is done to the Moyans isn't the "real" mind cleansing but a drug caused temporary version - but if the Nebari had shown up on a regular basis, it would have been another matter.
Anyway. This is one skin-crawling episode, and Farscape goes out of its way with the eyeballs this time in the scene where John gets given the treatment. The scene where Mindcleansed!Aeryn puts the control collar on Pilot is perhaps the most painful in terms of what we get to see one under-the-influence crew member do to another, because of the relationship between these two. Otoh, this is a very good episode for the relationship between Chiana and Crichton. Even before the Nebari come on board, when he gives her advice re: D'Argo and manages to do so in a way that doesn't sound judgmental on his own part. And then she teases him about Winona. (BTW- I think this is the first time the name for the gun is given? Unless it was in one of the episodes I skipped?) It's one of those episodes where Gigi Edgley gets to act her heart out again, too, between Chiana's terror, despair, rage, that moment when she learns Neri is still alive and you can see in her face what this means even under the circumstances, and later how hard it is for her that she can't reunite with him. And John is a solid friend throughout, never mind his own issues.
Speaking of: this is the second episode where Harvey comes in handy as an insurance against someone else hijacking John's mind, as bitterly ironic as that is given what's about to happen very soon. It does make me wonder why Scorpius - given the Aurora chair and the neural chip all being of his own design - never tried to acquire the Nebari mind cleansing method, but maybe he's aware that once you provide a government with the means to brainwash an entire population, that's what it will do, and there's no way to guarantee your own mind won't be on the line as well.
I think one reason why we see the least of mind-cleansed Zhaan is that mind cleansed Zhaan doesn't come across as too differently from Zhaan bent on the path of enligthenment in the opening s2 episode, and because the second season has shown far more of Zhaan's vulnerable than of Zhaan's fierce side in general. Which is a shame; they could have easily have used Zhaan's experience with mind takeovers and with fighting against inner urges as an excuse why she can defeat the drug mind cleansing, and let her instead of Rygel be the third mutiny member. Now I'm incredibly fond of Rygel and his selfish soul, but I know we don't have that much Zhaan left, and that's why I retrospectively wish she'd been given an outing here.
Another thing: as with the Durka episode, A Clockwork Orange is an obvious influence on the Nebari mind cleansing concept, but the addendum here of the Nebari using bio weapons and letting their people (unwittingly) spread a virus today feels different from when the show was originally broadvcast for obvious reasons. Today, in a new show, I'd wonder whether one of the scriptwriters is a right wing conspiracy theorist wh wants the Nebari to stand in for the Chinese. This evidently wasn't intended in an episode broadcast at the start of the new millennium. But I do wonder whether anyone in the scriptwriting team thought of the general logistic (not moral) problem with using a virus as a bioweapon - there's no guarantee your own people won't get infected as well, even if they should be immune to its effects at first, because a virus mutates.
Lastly: so, never mind Doylist reasons why the Nebari never made it to show Big Bad - what could be Watsonian reasons why neither Peacekeepers nor Scarrans seemed to see them as competition? And the Nebari, did they intend to wait for PKs and Scarrans to duke it out and weaken each other first before striking?
The Other Days
no subject
Date: 2020-11-22 10:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-23 02:57 am (UTC)And yes, that's certainly the Nebari plan, because they're way smarter than either the Peacekeepers or the Scarrans.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-23 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-23 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-28 07:29 pm (UTC)I notice at one point you wrote "Minbari" instead of Nebari, and the comparison isn't that out of order. Although in B5 it's the humans who have something akin to the Nebari mind-cleanse technology, and even the democratic government of the first season and most of our heroes have no moral problem with it.
One thing I did feel about the episode was that Rygel's characterisation seems to have regressed a bit - not so much his willingness to collaborate with the Nebari but his glee about shocking D'Argo and Aeryn and his taunting of the formerly mind-cleansed characters at the end.
Peacekeepers versus Nebari - according to Salis in "Durka Returns", a single Nebari battleship destroyed the Zelbinion, supposedly the most powerful ship in Peacekeeper history, although he might have been exaggerating. We don't know if Peacekeeper command knew about this and kept it from the ranks to avoid admitting to a crushing defeat.
And the episode reminded me of something I thought of years ago - the species in Farscape refer more to stereotypical fantasy "evil" races than most other archetypes - Luxans are orcs, Scarrans are lizard people, Delvians are the mind-clouding Fair Folk, Hynerians are goblins, and Nebari with their complexions and torture habits are obviously Dark Elves.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-29 07:46 am (UTC)Although in B5 it's the humans who have something akin to the Nebari mind-cleanse technology, and even the democratic government of the first season and most of our heroes have no moral problem with it.
*nods* That, and the fact both Sheridan and Sinclair seem to have had no problem with the apartheid like status of telepaths per se until it became personally bothersome for them, instead of seeing it in the same category as the measures increasingly authoritarian Earth undertakes in s2 and s3, is something that isn't often brought up in fandom.
Rygel regression: you have a point.
Luxans (looks-wise) as Orc inspired? Hm, can't see it with the Jacksonian LotR ones, but these were later, of course, and I honestly don't know how the D & D ones of the 1990s looked like. Otoh, Nebari = Dark Elves: absolutely!
no subject
Date: 2020-11-29 01:16 pm (UTC)