How To Seduce Someone Into Farscape In 48 Hours

[selenak]

That was a question, by the way. Okay, here is what material I have to work with:

1) Box Set DVDs of season 1
2) Season 3 individual DVDs from "Incubator" onwards till "Dog with two Bones"

Mind you, I also have the other episodes, but they're on CD Rom (and were my own introduction to the show, courtesy of the estimable hmpf). Hence not available for TV consumption.

I also have a friend who is going to visit me over the weekend and whom I will be trying to convert. So I ask you, oh fellow fans, which episodes shall I pick? The premiere of course, but then? Shall I go for a Scorpius arc and start with "Nerve/The Hidden Memory"? But isn't "A Human Reaction" also crucial to the show? Do the final TalynJohn episodes stand enough on their own that I should include them during the marathon I'm planning? Please, advise.



In other news, I've given in a while ago and aquired the season 6 BTVS DVDs despite owning the videos already. I mean, how can one resist the Once more, with feeling karaoke? All those episodes in pristine DVD quality? (As you know, big later seasons of BTVS fan here.) Audio commentaries? I just heard Joss on OMWF, and will listen to Drew Greenberg on Smashed next. The Jossian ramblings are entertaining and enlightening as always. Something which I find particularly endearing is the affectionate and proud way he talks not just of his actors but his production crew (from the choreographer to the three guys who play everyone from the vampires in Buffy's graveyard scene to the window cleaners to Sweet's minions) and fellow writers, in this case, for obvious reasons, David Fury and Marti Noxon, "my partner in crime", as he calls her. (And he did write that Parking Ticket lady bit to showcase her voice.) There were earlier shows where I paid attention to the writer/producers (i.e. DS9 - loved Ira Behr for his Ferengi episodes, and Ron Moore for his dark, arc-oriented eps, plus Peter Fields for several of the Cardassian-centric shows), but none where I fangirled the lot of them the way I do for BTVS and AtS. Which presumably is why the casting changes over the years, including the newest ones, aren't that big a deal to me. It's really the writing I am in love with.

Comments

Re: Speaking from experience ...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Considering that when Roy Batty broke Deckard's fingers, I was more empathising with Roy than with Deckard, I never had a problem there, either.*g*

Scorpius doesn't quite forget that Crais exists in ItLD - he did leave orders that Crais was not to be allowed anywhere near Talyn - but he certainly underestimated him right to the very end, and Family Ties is the first example of this continuing trend. (Whereas Crais proves in FT that he does have insight in Scorpius, correctly predicting Scorpius would be willing to sacrifice the Gammak Base rather than let John be killed.) It would be interesting to speculate why. Any ideas?

Re: Speaking from experience ...

[andraste]

Considering that when Roy Batty broke Deckard's fingers, I was more empathising with Roy than with Deckard, I never had a problem there, either.*g*

That's pretty much Blade Runner for me. Roy's interogating technicians? Poor Roy! Roy's putting out his master's eyes? Poor Roy!

(I mean, apart from anything else, I doubt that anyone had ever introduced him to the concept murder is wrong. In fact, just the oposite - four years old, and built to kill. And then die before he could become an inconvenience ...)

Scorpius doesn't quite forget that Crais exists in ItLD

I was thinking, specifically, of the distraction itself, where the lure of a ride through a real live wormhole overcomes his natural suspicion. He left guards, but ... well, they're PK guards. We know how effective they usually are *g*. I think he'd ceased to see Crais as a serious threat.

(Not to mention that Crais got away with misleading the hybrid with the inbuilt lie-detector, no doubt by very carefully telling the literal truth. I swear, if he hadn't been otherwise occupied during Thanks for Sharing they could have sent Crais to deal with the truth-sensing lobster test and he'd have walked away alive ...)

It would be interesting to speculate why. Any ideas?

Enough to make an essay out of :-). What it boils down to is that Scorpius hold Crais in contempt. He sees him as a man who is less intelligent than himself, who allows his emotions to drive him, who has no loyalty to his species or the oganisation that raised and trained him, who led his followers carelessly and with no respect for their potential use. And, above all, as a man is ideologically uncommitted: he can be bought.

All of those things are, in fact, an accurate description of Crais. Scorpius sees the evidence -but then he draws an erroneous conclusion.

He thinks that, because he is more intelligent than Crais, he can easily outwit him. He thinks that, because Crais can be appealed to emotionally, he won't notice that his ex-girlfriend has been sent to spy on him. He thinks that, because Crais has a price, he can buy him off with the promise of a restored comission.

He underestimated both Crais's intelligence (which is considerable) and his desire for revenge, but more than that I think Scorpius failed to understand Crais's capacity for love, in this case his love for Talyn. I'm reasonably sure that if Crais thought Scorpius could give him Talyn (whole and sane) and freedom to take his ship wherever he wanted, then he would have turned on John and, yes, even Aeryn.

But by then Crais has come to the conclusion that, even if Talyn could be repaired, he shouldn't be. Indeed, he should never have built the thing he loves most in the world ... that's his tragedy. The terrible weapon he keeps out of Peace Keeper hands by dying isn't wormholes - it's Talyn.

Scorpius has no grasp at all on any of that. To Scorpius, everything is about a) defeating Scarrans or b) wormholes or c) John.

As for why Crais has insight into Scorpius, well, he did rise through the ranks in spite of being a mere recruit - he understands the priorities of people in power.

(He also can't afford to let his intense hatred of Scorpius prevent him from understanding the hybrid. I mean, Crais habours at least a mild dislike for almost every sentient being in the universe, but it doesn't stop him reading them quite well most of the time.)

Re: Speaking from experience ...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much Blade Runner for me. Roy's interogating technicians? Poor Roy! Roy's putting out his master's eyes? Poor Roy!

(I mean, apart from anything else, I doubt that anyone had ever introduced him to the concept murder is wrong. In fact, just the oposite - four years old, and built to kill. And then die before he could become an inconvenience ...)

Exactly. Heck, when Tyrell smugly made his "sorry, old chap, but you're toast anyway, so look at the things you've accomplished as our slave and cheer up!" statement, I was rooting for his demise! Incidentally, at the time I also thought that scene was the best rendition of Frankenstein's Creature, as written by Mary Shelley (as opposed to the movie versions), confronting his maker we had in cinema.

Given that the replicants only had four years and were programmed as killers and sex slaves respectively, the fact they could come up with their own emotions and - Roy at least, in the end when he saves Deckard - ethics is amazing.

Scorpius and Crais: yes, that makes sense.