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selenakIt's a rare show that can resist the challenge: one episode that takes place mostly in one character's head. Not every show does it well, and sometimes there are even examples of varying quality within the same show; for example, I'd say that DS9's "Distant Voices" isn't bad, but hardly stellar (there are episodes that tell us far more about Bashir, and I like it mainly because of the Garak/Bashir scenes both in and out of his mind), whereas the later Far Beyond The Stars and the Benji sections in Shadows and Symbols are excellent.
The three episodes of this type which impressed me most were most were Normal Again (BTVS), Won't Get Fooled Again (Farscape) and The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari (Babylon 5). In each case, the concept is used to advance the storyline of the character in question; you couldn't place it anywhere else in the show. (Not true for the DS9 ones or Trek's other foray in this this regard, the TNG Riker episode.) In each case, the minds we visit are anything but comfortable places to be, but they're fascinating.
Won't Get Fooled Again is set in the last third of Farscape's season 2. Up to this point, we've been given hints in the form of occasional hallicunations the main character, John Crichton, had, but these happened in episodes where there could have been several explanations. In this episode, however, the bombshell of the season is revealed; Crichton's nemesis, Scorpius, has installed a neural chip in his brain, complete with a neural clone who only reveals his existence to Crichton because Crichton is tortured by a mutual enemy bend on driving John insane. Till we get to this point, we and Crichton are subjected to an increasingly bizarre, alternatively hilariously and painfully distorted version of the people in his life. It's Farscape 's anarchic genius at its best, but it's also an emotional train-wreck; by the end, it's a miracle Crichton is still coherent.
Bizarro Aeryn and Chiana making out with each other, and Zhaan, and all three of them coming on to him is mostly funny, and not really surprising. (Come on, who didn't think he had had fantasies like that?) More interesting is that his mind also comes up with D'Argo not just smooching the girls but making a pass at him as well. For a good looking main male character these days, John gets rarely slashed (in comparison to the John/Aeryn hetfic, I mean), probably because of the weight the J/A romance has in the storyarcs. But the writers had fun with the occasional mindmessing like that, and not just in this literal case. (There is Scratch 'n' Sniff and the way John and D'Argo wake up, and let's not go into the entire obsessive John/Scorpius relationship jus tnow.) (And pray do notice I resist the temptation to bring up my Farscape OTP, which is, of course, John/Rygel. I mean, we do get another kiss and a S/M fantasy here.) The last scene with John's mother, however, makes you ask the above mentioned "why is he still coherent?" question. After comforting Leslie Crichton and dying Leslie Crichton, and Leslie quarrelling with Jack (foreshadowing Kansas as well as revealing that John's all-American-boy childhood left some deeper insecurities long before he got to the UTs) we get Leslie-as-Mrs-Robinson. Or should that be Leslie as Iocasta? (No. Poor Iocasta didn't know, after all.)
In other episodes, with the exception of Kansas, it's All About Dad for John; the father image stays with him throughout the show, it's his father his early messages are addressed to, it's the image of the father the Ancients choose, and even in the Unrealized Realities, there is an alternate version of his father waiting for him, not of his mother. I don't think this is just because scriptwriters tend to go for fathers rather than mothers in general; clearly, his mother's lonely death by cancer, the fact he couldn't be with her, (and the uneasy impression his father was a less than ideal husband) all combine to something which is massively surpressed because it's too painful to be faced. But it influences him, nonetheless. It dominates the way he bonds with Zhaan (long before he bonds with Aeryn); she's an elegant, serene mother figure (with erotic overtones) but she's also damaged and needs help. And he was there for her in season 1 when she went through her own sickness. But of course, Zhaan is only temporarily saved, and will die, after a painful illness, in the future.
The leviathan Moya, too, is a mother, complete with pregnancy storyline, and Moya's mother-ness defines her until Talyn dies in the season 3 finale. Aside from being litarally Talyn's mother, the ship with its oval shape and interior that would have made H.R. Giger happy is an immensely female motherly haven to the crew, all of them, but for John, as our pov character and the orphan stranded in the strange new world, most intensely. And Moya being infected, sick, is a topos that creeps up at least once a season.
Back to Won't get Fooled Again. Leslie who is not Leslie at all OR an Ancient but a fragment of her son's mind wonders where his sense of wonder and his innocence went. "You've grown callous," she says, "you killed." He says it was necessary to survive. "Yes," she says, "but did you have to lose so much?" It's the question of the show. "Innocent John," Zhaan calls him in her dying message. Innocence died bit by bit, mostly on the occasions his mind was invaded, and the supreme irony is that the supreme symbol of invasion, Harvey, who gets named in this episode but does not have his eventual personality yet, being still a copy of Scorpius, will be the vehicle into which John's lost sense of wonder and innocence will be pored.
Buffy Summers, like John Crichton, is another of those broken heroes who start out with joie de vivre, innocence and a sense of wonder. And then life, and the mess of being a hero, happens, and it's not the age of Star Trek: The Original Series anymore where you could get tortured by the bad guys without flinching or being affected, and where the death you deal out yourself never affects you, either. By the time Normal Again takes place, in the last third of season 6, Buffy has been scarred on the inside and on the outside as much as John (a fan of hers, let's not forget). So much so that she's filled with self-loathing, that the daily life seems hell, and that the ability to communicate with her friends and sister has all but broken down.
Normal Again has an external trigger for Buffy's mindtrip - the poison the Trio injects her with - just as Won't get Fooled Again has the Scarran and The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari has the heart attack. It's a MacGuffin, to use a Hitchcock term, not really important in itself. What's important is both the alternate world it presents her with and what that world allows her to do.
It says something about Buffy's post-ressurection season 6 depression that the world her world conjures up, the "normal" world she used to long for in the early seasons, isn't normal or happy at all. (Compare and contrast Cordelia's alternate existence as a loved superstar in Birthday.) She's not the Slayer, her mother is still alive and her parents are together, and she never died, true, but she's insane, in an asylum, has to be tied up, and is barely coherent. (In a word, she's Dana.) It's a brightly lit world which is a pointed visual contrast to Buffy's usual nightly Sunnydale world, but it's still a prison.
As with several of Crichton's scenarios, it's at the same time a fantasy and a nightmare, a masochistic self-punishment and a liberating idea. "Warm, safe, loved", all those criteria with which Buffy described her "heaven" experience to Spike early in the season certainly fit with the hospital world. It's the world of a child which has no responsibilities, whose parents (who have no other children) long to take her home. There is no sister to care for, no desired and despised lover, because her sexuality is taken away along with any other adult attribute. But the reduction of power can only be accomplished by literal ties, and then by the annihilation of the other life, the horrible, messed-up, adult one.
Each of Buffy's hallicunations is triggered by something she longs to escape from - by the hated job in the fast food restaurant, by Xander and Spike quarrelling, by Xander coming close to discovering her secret affair (and it was his judgement she feared most of all), by Dawn demanding her attention. And certainly the grim, silent way she captures all of them and brings them in the cellar where the monster (can we call it Id?) waits is, among other things, a way of lashing out which she consciously never allowed herself, of acting in the resentment that they brought her back from the grave. (As the Doctor in her hospital world says, she nearly escaped for good, and then they pulled her back.)
But things aren't that clear-cut. The Scoobies provide help and strength as well as bitterness, and so does Dawn. When Buffy, in the climactic scene, chooses the nightmarish Sunnydale world with both power and responsibilities over the safe and embryonic existance of the hospital, even though the later is promising her her mother again, and a return home (but note that even as a fantasy, Buffy can't imagine that ideal home with a living mother and a caring father anymore), she has made the crucial step of the season as far as her own personal development is concerned. (The rest of the season deals with Willow's development.) And she had to do it in her mind first.
(Normal Again, of course, offers several other interpretations, notably because of the final shot which takes place not in Sunnydale but in the hospital world; alternate realities wouldn't be anything extraordinary in the Jossverse.)
The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari, by contrast to the other two, comes at the start, not near the ending of a season. And the character in whose mind we're taken, as opposed to John Crichton and Buffy Summers, is not the leading man of the show (though arguably its heart); he also had quite a different emotional journey, and the fact he's a middle-aged cynic with a not so hidden romantic streak when we meet him, not a young innocent with a sense of wonder, is just one of the differences.
Londo, at this point, could borrow a speech from Methos of Highlander fame. ("I killed. And I didn't just kill a hundred. I killed a thousand. I killed tens of thousands." Only in Londo's case, the number would be much higher.) Outwardly, things have settled quite well for him; he came to a truce with his old nemesis G'Kar in the previous season, he helped the show's heroes with their new alliance, he's prime minister of his world now. But there is still the undealt-with past, and this episode allows us to see how it haunts him and ultimately confronts him with what he tries to forget.
The first person Londo sees in his heart-attack induced coma dream is Delenn, triggered by the sound of her voice in the real world. But whereas in the real world, Delenn speaks word of encouragement and affection, the Delenn Londo meets is a stern, foreboding figure, wearing a veil, a black one, which associates her with the widow she will become. He sees her a seer, too, as she presents him with cards that show his life.
"My future?" he asks. "Your past," she replies, and when he takes up a card he can't see it at all. It's too much covered in blood. Delenn asks him three times whether he wants to live, and only the third time he replies in the affirmative. Which at this point of the show is intriguing; as I said, outwardly things are going rather well for Londo. Of course, there is still the vision of his death that won't leave him but that is nothing new. And throughout the show you'd hardly describe him as suicidal. And yet.
"Perhaps," he wonders, "it is better if I die here." Dream-Delenn, reflecting this harsh judgement, tells him in reply to the question of whether anyone would miss him if he were gone, "Almost certainly not." (Again, this is literal contrast to what Real Life Delenn says - "I'd miss him if he were to leave us, John.") And she points to the direction he refuses to face - G'Kar standing behind him, symbolizing the war Londo started, and the millions who died.
Next, his mind brings up Sheridan. (And takes the time for a little meta to snark on the metaphors getting a bit thick when he finds all the bottles at the bar are empty. This reminds me of the Doctor telling Buffy she used to hallucinate more impressive villains in Normal Again.) Sheridan starts out the sequence dressed in his old EarthForce uniform, as we met him in season 2, then transforms to season 3 Sheridan during Severed Dreams when he gave up the uniform, then turns up as Sheridan in the new alliance gear, finally as Sheridan in Ranger garb (which he'll wear at the end of his life) and then as Sheridan in a death shroud. This sequence led![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
andrastewhite to suspect it ties with Londo having some more of that Centauri precognition than is common for males, which very likely is true, but it also, after the stark glance at the unchangable past, symbolizes the possibility of change in life, and of course the future.
"We're all dying, Londo," Sheridan comments as they talk about both knowing they will die in about two decades, and points out that what counts is what one makes of the rest of those years. But he, too, demands that Londo should turn around first, and again, Londo refuses. Throughout the Sheridan sequence, they've been sitting opposite of each other, then walking next to each other, but always divided (by the line that runs through the Zocalo). They are parallels and contrasts, but they never touch or cross over; Sheridan's storyline throughout the show only occasionally intersects with Londo's, and there is no emotional closeness. There is respect and some affection, but they can't really help each other.
Vir, however, can. Londo's dream version of Vir starts out standing as Vir does in Real Life, next to Londo lying on what could be Londo's death bed, but the perspective shifts and skips and suddenly they're standing facing each other. As opposed to the others, Dream!Vir does not just point out what Londo has to do. He gives Londo a reason for doing so. Londo and Vir have many touching scenes throughout the show, but three always make me misty-eyed; Vir's outburst in The Long Night, the silent hug in Into the Fire... and the dialogue here. When Londo again asks why he shouldn't die now, Vir says: "Because I'd miss you."
"And I suppose I would miss you," Londo replies and does what he refused to do when faced with past and change before - he turns around.
There is at least one teller of uncomfortable truths in all these episodes, conjured up by the respective minds which means they know but haven't been able to face it yet. For Crichton, it's his mother, with her summation of his emotional development. For Londo, it's G'Kar. And yet, you have to wonder. "And that's why you don't deseverve to be Emperor. And that's why you don't deserve to live," could be just as easily, given Londo's feelings about his prophecied fate, be rephrased as "and that's why you are doomed to be Emperor, and that's why do are doomed to live". In any case, Londo has made G'Kar into his judge, jury and executioner, and boy, does Dream!G'Kar step up to the task.
Bringing up the bombardment of Narn and Refa was to be expected. The restaging of the flogging from The Summoning, this time with Londo in the role of the flogged, was, too, but it's fascinating that Londo doesn't cast G'Kar in his own old role, as the bystander and witness, but in Cartagia's, as the one who orders the torture to begin with and wants to hear the scream.
Each of the three episodes offers a catharsis, but it's very different thing that is needed for it. For John Crichton, it's the revelation of a truth, the truth of what Scorpius has done to him; for Buffy Summers, it's the reconnecting with her mother, the love her mother symbolizes, and the ability to say goodbye to her - which she never could before - that allows her to choose the world of horrors and joys over the world of powerless sterile safety; for Londo Mollari, it is something that's easily recognisable as a Catholic ritual - repentance, confession, and penance. (Good old JMS - certainly, together with Joss, the atheist with the greatest fondness for religious metaphors and themes in show biz.) But that can't all take place in the mind, and so we get the sublime end of the climax when Londo, waking up from his coma, repeats what he said in his dream, and says it to real life G'Kar - "I'm sorry."
And all at once we're taken back to Emperor Turhan, who, dying, asked Franklin to give just this message to G'Kar. Complete with the prediction that there wouldn't be peace between their people until someone said "I'm sorry". In the episode Coming of Shadows, where Londo made his fatal final step towards Morden and started the Narn/Centauri war. They have come full circle.
You've got to love these episodes. I do.
The three episodes of this type which impressed me most were most were Normal Again (BTVS), Won't Get Fooled Again (Farscape) and The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari (Babylon 5). In each case, the concept is used to advance the storyline of the character in question; you couldn't place it anywhere else in the show. (Not true for the DS9 ones or Trek's other foray in this this regard, the TNG Riker episode.) In each case, the minds we visit are anything but comfortable places to be, but they're fascinating.
Won't Get Fooled Again is set in the last third of Farscape's season 2. Up to this point, we've been given hints in the form of occasional hallicunations the main character, John Crichton, had, but these happened in episodes where there could have been several explanations. In this episode, however, the bombshell of the season is revealed; Crichton's nemesis, Scorpius, has installed a neural chip in his brain, complete with a neural clone who only reveals his existence to Crichton because Crichton is tortured by a mutual enemy bend on driving John insane. Till we get to this point, we and Crichton are subjected to an increasingly bizarre, alternatively hilariously and painfully distorted version of the people in his life. It's Farscape 's anarchic genius at its best, but it's also an emotional train-wreck; by the end, it's a miracle Crichton is still coherent.
Bizarro Aeryn and Chiana making out with each other, and Zhaan, and all three of them coming on to him is mostly funny, and not really surprising. (Come on, who didn't think he had had fantasies like that?) More interesting is that his mind also comes up with D'Argo not just smooching the girls but making a pass at him as well. For a good looking main male character these days, John gets rarely slashed (in comparison to the John/Aeryn hetfic, I mean), probably because of the weight the J/A romance has in the storyarcs. But the writers had fun with the occasional mindmessing like that, and not just in this literal case. (There is Scratch 'n' Sniff and the way John and D'Argo wake up, and let's not go into the entire obsessive John/Scorpius relationship jus tnow.) (And pray do notice I resist the temptation to bring up my Farscape OTP, which is, of course, John/Rygel. I mean, we do get another kiss and a S/M fantasy here.) The last scene with John's mother, however, makes you ask the above mentioned "why is he still coherent?" question. After comforting Leslie Crichton and dying Leslie Crichton, and Leslie quarrelling with Jack (foreshadowing Kansas as well as revealing that John's all-American-boy childhood left some deeper insecurities long before he got to the UTs) we get Leslie-as-Mrs-Robinson. Or should that be Leslie as Iocasta? (No. Poor Iocasta didn't know, after all.)
In other episodes, with the exception of Kansas, it's All About Dad for John; the father image stays with him throughout the show, it's his father his early messages are addressed to, it's the image of the father the Ancients choose, and even in the Unrealized Realities, there is an alternate version of his father waiting for him, not of his mother. I don't think this is just because scriptwriters tend to go for fathers rather than mothers in general; clearly, his mother's lonely death by cancer, the fact he couldn't be with her, (and the uneasy impression his father was a less than ideal husband) all combine to something which is massively surpressed because it's too painful to be faced. But it influences him, nonetheless. It dominates the way he bonds with Zhaan (long before he bonds with Aeryn); she's an elegant, serene mother figure (with erotic overtones) but she's also damaged and needs help. And he was there for her in season 1 when she went through her own sickness. But of course, Zhaan is only temporarily saved, and will die, after a painful illness, in the future.
The leviathan Moya, too, is a mother, complete with pregnancy storyline, and Moya's mother-ness defines her until Talyn dies in the season 3 finale. Aside from being litarally Talyn's mother, the ship with its oval shape and interior that would have made H.R. Giger happy is an immensely female motherly haven to the crew, all of them, but for John, as our pov character and the orphan stranded in the strange new world, most intensely. And Moya being infected, sick, is a topos that creeps up at least once a season.
Back to Won't get Fooled Again. Leslie who is not Leslie at all OR an Ancient but a fragment of her son's mind wonders where his sense of wonder and his innocence went. "You've grown callous," she says, "you killed." He says it was necessary to survive. "Yes," she says, "but did you have to lose so much?" It's the question of the show. "Innocent John," Zhaan calls him in her dying message. Innocence died bit by bit, mostly on the occasions his mind was invaded, and the supreme irony is that the supreme symbol of invasion, Harvey, who gets named in this episode but does not have his eventual personality yet, being still a copy of Scorpius, will be the vehicle into which John's lost sense of wonder and innocence will be pored.
Buffy Summers, like John Crichton, is another of those broken heroes who start out with joie de vivre, innocence and a sense of wonder. And then life, and the mess of being a hero, happens, and it's not the age of Star Trek: The Original Series anymore where you could get tortured by the bad guys without flinching or being affected, and where the death you deal out yourself never affects you, either. By the time Normal Again takes place, in the last third of season 6, Buffy has been scarred on the inside and on the outside as much as John (a fan of hers, let's not forget). So much so that she's filled with self-loathing, that the daily life seems hell, and that the ability to communicate with her friends and sister has all but broken down.
Normal Again has an external trigger for Buffy's mindtrip - the poison the Trio injects her with - just as Won't get Fooled Again has the Scarran and The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari has the heart attack. It's a MacGuffin, to use a Hitchcock term, not really important in itself. What's important is both the alternate world it presents her with and what that world allows her to do.
It says something about Buffy's post-ressurection season 6 depression that the world her world conjures up, the "normal" world she used to long for in the early seasons, isn't normal or happy at all. (Compare and contrast Cordelia's alternate existence as a loved superstar in Birthday.) She's not the Slayer, her mother is still alive and her parents are together, and she never died, true, but she's insane, in an asylum, has to be tied up, and is barely coherent. (In a word, she's Dana.) It's a brightly lit world which is a pointed visual contrast to Buffy's usual nightly Sunnydale world, but it's still a prison.
As with several of Crichton's scenarios, it's at the same time a fantasy and a nightmare, a masochistic self-punishment and a liberating idea. "Warm, safe, loved", all those criteria with which Buffy described her "heaven" experience to Spike early in the season certainly fit with the hospital world. It's the world of a child which has no responsibilities, whose parents (who have no other children) long to take her home. There is no sister to care for, no desired and despised lover, because her sexuality is taken away along with any other adult attribute. But the reduction of power can only be accomplished by literal ties, and then by the annihilation of the other life, the horrible, messed-up, adult one.
Each of Buffy's hallicunations is triggered by something she longs to escape from - by the hated job in the fast food restaurant, by Xander and Spike quarrelling, by Xander coming close to discovering her secret affair (and it was his judgement she feared most of all), by Dawn demanding her attention. And certainly the grim, silent way she captures all of them and brings them in the cellar where the monster (can we call it Id?) waits is, among other things, a way of lashing out which she consciously never allowed herself, of acting in the resentment that they brought her back from the grave. (As the Doctor in her hospital world says, she nearly escaped for good, and then they pulled her back.)
But things aren't that clear-cut. The Scoobies provide help and strength as well as bitterness, and so does Dawn. When Buffy, in the climactic scene, chooses the nightmarish Sunnydale world with both power and responsibilities over the safe and embryonic existance of the hospital, even though the later is promising her her mother again, and a return home (but note that even as a fantasy, Buffy can't imagine that ideal home with a living mother and a caring father anymore), she has made the crucial step of the season as far as her own personal development is concerned. (The rest of the season deals with Willow's development.) And she had to do it in her mind first.
(Normal Again, of course, offers several other interpretations, notably because of the final shot which takes place not in Sunnydale but in the hospital world; alternate realities wouldn't be anything extraordinary in the Jossverse.)
The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari, by contrast to the other two, comes at the start, not near the ending of a season. And the character in whose mind we're taken, as opposed to John Crichton and Buffy Summers, is not the leading man of the show (though arguably its heart); he also had quite a different emotional journey, and the fact he's a middle-aged cynic with a not so hidden romantic streak when we meet him, not a young innocent with a sense of wonder, is just one of the differences.
Londo, at this point, could borrow a speech from Methos of Highlander fame. ("I killed. And I didn't just kill a hundred. I killed a thousand. I killed tens of thousands." Only in Londo's case, the number would be much higher.) Outwardly, things have settled quite well for him; he came to a truce with his old nemesis G'Kar in the previous season, he helped the show's heroes with their new alliance, he's prime minister of his world now. But there is still the undealt-with past, and this episode allows us to see how it haunts him and ultimately confronts him with what he tries to forget.
The first person Londo sees in his heart-attack induced coma dream is Delenn, triggered by the sound of her voice in the real world. But whereas in the real world, Delenn speaks word of encouragement and affection, the Delenn Londo meets is a stern, foreboding figure, wearing a veil, a black one, which associates her with the widow she will become. He sees her a seer, too, as she presents him with cards that show his life.
"My future?" he asks. "Your past," she replies, and when he takes up a card he can't see it at all. It's too much covered in blood. Delenn asks him three times whether he wants to live, and only the third time he replies in the affirmative. Which at this point of the show is intriguing; as I said, outwardly things are going rather well for Londo. Of course, there is still the vision of his death that won't leave him but that is nothing new. And throughout the show you'd hardly describe him as suicidal. And yet.
"Perhaps," he wonders, "it is better if I die here." Dream-Delenn, reflecting this harsh judgement, tells him in reply to the question of whether anyone would miss him if he were gone, "Almost certainly not." (Again, this is literal contrast to what Real Life Delenn says - "I'd miss him if he were to leave us, John.") And she points to the direction he refuses to face - G'Kar standing behind him, symbolizing the war Londo started, and the millions who died.
Next, his mind brings up Sheridan. (And takes the time for a little meta to snark on the metaphors getting a bit thick when he finds all the bottles at the bar are empty. This reminds me of the Doctor telling Buffy she used to hallucinate more impressive villains in Normal Again.) Sheridan starts out the sequence dressed in his old EarthForce uniform, as we met him in season 2, then transforms to season 3 Sheridan during Severed Dreams when he gave up the uniform, then turns up as Sheridan in the new alliance gear, finally as Sheridan in Ranger garb (which he'll wear at the end of his life) and then as Sheridan in a death shroud. This sequence led
andrastewhite to suspect it ties with Londo having some more of that Centauri precognition than is common for males, which very likely is true, but it also, after the stark glance at the unchangable past, symbolizes the possibility of change in life, and of course the future. "We're all dying, Londo," Sheridan comments as they talk about both knowing they will die in about two decades, and points out that what counts is what one makes of the rest of those years. But he, too, demands that Londo should turn around first, and again, Londo refuses. Throughout the Sheridan sequence, they've been sitting opposite of each other, then walking next to each other, but always divided (by the line that runs through the Zocalo). They are parallels and contrasts, but they never touch or cross over; Sheridan's storyline throughout the show only occasionally intersects with Londo's, and there is no emotional closeness. There is respect and some affection, but they can't really help each other.
Vir, however, can. Londo's dream version of Vir starts out standing as Vir does in Real Life, next to Londo lying on what could be Londo's death bed, but the perspective shifts and skips and suddenly they're standing facing each other. As opposed to the others, Dream!Vir does not just point out what Londo has to do. He gives Londo a reason for doing so. Londo and Vir have many touching scenes throughout the show, but three always make me misty-eyed; Vir's outburst in The Long Night, the silent hug in Into the Fire... and the dialogue here. When Londo again asks why he shouldn't die now, Vir says: "Because I'd miss you."
"And I suppose I would miss you," Londo replies and does what he refused to do when faced with past and change before - he turns around.
There is at least one teller of uncomfortable truths in all these episodes, conjured up by the respective minds which means they know but haven't been able to face it yet. For Crichton, it's his mother, with her summation of his emotional development. For Londo, it's G'Kar. And yet, you have to wonder. "And that's why you don't deseverve to be Emperor. And that's why you don't deserve to live," could be just as easily, given Londo's feelings about his prophecied fate, be rephrased as "and that's why you are doomed to be Emperor, and that's why do are doomed to live". In any case, Londo has made G'Kar into his judge, jury and executioner, and boy, does Dream!G'Kar step up to the task.
Bringing up the bombardment of Narn and Refa was to be expected. The restaging of the flogging from The Summoning, this time with Londo in the role of the flogged, was, too, but it's fascinating that Londo doesn't cast G'Kar in his own old role, as the bystander and witness, but in Cartagia's, as the one who orders the torture to begin with and wants to hear the scream.
Each of the three episodes offers a catharsis, but it's very different thing that is needed for it. For John Crichton, it's the revelation of a truth, the truth of what Scorpius has done to him; for Buffy Summers, it's the reconnecting with her mother, the love her mother symbolizes, and the ability to say goodbye to her - which she never could before - that allows her to choose the world of horrors and joys over the world of powerless sterile safety; for Londo Mollari, it is something that's easily recognisable as a Catholic ritual - repentance, confession, and penance. (Good old JMS - certainly, together with Joss, the atheist with the greatest fondness for religious metaphors and themes in show biz.) But that can't all take place in the mind, and so we get the sublime end of the climax when Londo, waking up from his coma, repeats what he said in his dream, and says it to real life G'Kar - "I'm sorry."
And all at once we're taken back to Emperor Turhan, who, dying, asked Franklin to give just this message to G'Kar. Complete with the prediction that there wouldn't be peace between their people until someone said "I'm sorry". In the episode Coming of Shadows, where Londo made his fatal final step towards Morden and started the Narn/Centauri war. They have come full circle.
You've got to love these episodes. I do.
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-24 06:21 pm (UTC)Great review!
Date: 2004-06-24 06:36 pm (UTC)It was a nice surprise, though, to see a Farscape essay, especially since I just started rewatching the series, from the first episode, last night! My goal is to get through all four seasons by the time the miniseries airs this fall, so I can get as close as possible to watching the whole epic straight through. The early episodes are very cool to watch, as you see how far the characters have come. And right from the start, it has its trademark strange brand of humor. I remember that as soon as I first saw a muppet (namely Rygel) in the second episode bite a human (Aeryn) on the arm, ripping off some skin and then swallowing it, I realized that this was not going to be the typical soap opera, or Jim Henson production, come to think of it! Rewatching these episodes are such a great reminder of how brilliant (and brilliantly deranged) this show is!
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Date: 2004-06-24 08:59 pm (UTC)Re: Great review!
Date: 2004-06-24 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-24 11:46 pm (UTC)Thanks for sharing!
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Date: 2004-06-24 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-25 01:36 am (UTC)She's not the Slayer, her mother is still alive and her parents are together, and she never died, true, but she's insane, in an asylum, has to be tied up, and is barely coherent. (In a word, she's Dana.)
Yikes, so she is. Normal Again is a fascinating episode in so many ways, and the implication that it could actually have been Buffy's heaven is chilling. Warm, safe and loved certainly apply but in such a twisted way.
Wonderful essay!
Date: 2004-06-25 03:29 am (UTC)What interests me is that there are other Jossverse episodes which go into characters' minds - Restless of course, this year's rather disappointing Soul Purpose, but the one that really interests me is Awakening. It's quite unique compared to the others you mention, because we get no actual self-examination at all, but rather a total wish-fulfillment fantasy. But that fantasy also sums up so many of Angel's positive and negative parts.
Re: Wonderful essay!
Date: 2004-06-25 05:09 am (UTC)Awakening, as you point out, is basically Angel writing fanfiction about his life (and the dialogue shows why he was impressed with Spike's poetry *g*), but it also has another gimick the others do not - the audience is not let in on what is happening the first time around.
Farscape: absolutely, do try the DVDs. I'd be fascinated to read your commentary. It took me a while to become a fan because by bad luck I caught those first season episodes that weren't stellar at first, but from Nerve onwards, I knew I was going to continue.
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Date: 2004-06-25 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-25 06:03 am (UTC)*waves cheerily and blearily from Boston*
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Date: 2004-06-25 06:20 am (UTC)*waves back*
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Date: 2004-06-25 05:37 pm (UTC)I heard somewhere that it was actually Ben Browder who observed that John never talked about his mother, and thought that there had to be something going on there. (He was also the one who first demanded that John be seriously affected by the torture he suffered in Nerve/The Hidden Memory, IIRC.)
It dominates the way he bonds with Zhaan (long before he bonds with Aeryn); she's an elegant, serene mother figure (with erotic overtones) but she's also damaged and needs help. And he was there for her in season 1 when she went through her own sickness. But of course, Zhaan is only temporarily saved, and will die, after a painful illness, in the future.
Oooooo, great point. I'd never thought of that, but you're right - that's probably the main reason he accepts guilt for her death, even though it isn't really his fault. Reminds him too much of his mother.
Buffy has been scarred on the inside and on the outside as much as John (a fan of hers, let's not forget).
I've often wished that someone with more interest in writing John would do a story about him seeing the later seasons of BtVS when he got back to Earth. He would have only seen the first couple of seasons before he fell through that wormhole, after all. Poor guy would probably have hated to see Buffy get all damaged and jaded over time, so I hope he eventually saw all the way through to Chosen.
Which at this point of the show is intriguing; as I said, outwardly things are going rather well for Londo. Of course, there is still the vision of his death that won't leave him but that is nothing new. And throughout the show you'd hardly describe him as suicidal. And yet.
Yes - and yet. One of the most fascinating things about this episode is its placement in the series. A lesser writer than JMS would have put it in the last half of Season Four and made this Londo's true turning point, the moment he turns away from the darkness and back to the light, the moment G'Kar stops seeing him as an enemy.
But by early Season Five he's already turned back to the light; what he has to do now is take a long, hard look at the darkness behind him. And his relationship with Dream!G'kar is all the more fascinating because in the real world they've become friends.
Throughout the Sheridan sequence, they've been sitting opposite of each other, then walking next to each other, but always divided (by the line that runs through the Zocalo). They are parallels and contrasts, but they never touch or cross over; Sheridan's storyline throughout the show only occasionally intersects with Londo's, and there is no emotional closeness. There is respect and some affection, but they can't really help each other.
That's a really good point. When I first saw the episode, I wondered if having Garabaldi in this role would have worked better, but I decided that Sheridan seemed to feel right for the part. You've just explained why *g*.
As opposed to the others, Dream!Vir does not just point out what Londo has to do. He gives Londo a reason for doing so.
Yes - Londo's answer to the question Lorien asked John ('do you have anything worth living for?') turns out to be Vir. Also love, but agape rather than eros.
Another thing I noticed yesterday, while grabbing bits of Dust to Dust for vid-making purposes, is how the staging of G'Kar's vision in that episode is repeated in The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari - right down to the turning around. (Although G'Kar sees a vision of G'Lan and Londo ends up getting tormented some more. But then, the universe is easier on G'Kar *g*.)
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Date: 2004-06-25 08:58 pm (UTC)He struck me as a very intelligent (and good) actor throughout the show. (BTW, just watched the commentary for Won't Get Fooled Again and was very amused when the director, Rowan Woods, asked Richard Manning whether he hadn't been worried that the audience would be bored by the exposition scene in which Harvey explains to John what's going on, and Manning replied no, for two reasons - by that point, the audience really, really wanted to know the same thing, and also, "with Ben and Wayne, you could have them read the phone book at each other and it still would be fascinating".
I'd never thought of that, but you're right - that's probably the main reason he accepts guilt for her death, even though it isn't really his fault. Reminds him too much of his mother.
I also thought that this was the reason why he didn't bear a grudge towards Stark for the Don Quichotte thing - because he accepted the guilt.
I've often wished that someone with more interest in writing John would do a story about him seeing the later seasons of BtVS when he got back to Earth. He would have only seen the first couple of seasons before he fell through that wormhole, after all. Poor guy would probably have hated to see Buffy get all damaged and jaded over time, so I hope he eventually saw all the way through to Chosen.
In my personal fanon, his sister recorded all the episodes for him, and he watched them on that TV they brought on Moya, but during his visit in Terra Infirma, the show would still have been running, so one hopes Pilot didn't just record bizarre documentaries from Earth but also the remaining BTVS episodes, yes. And you're right, Buffy's personal development certainly would have struck a nerve.
A lesser writer than JMS would have put it in the last half of Season Four and made this Londo's true turning point, the moment he turns away from the darkness and back to the light, the moment G'Kar stops seeing him as an enemy.
One of the reasons why Londo's development is emotionally realistic - it doesn't happen all in one step. Recalling the Spike wars, though, I'm amazed in retrospect that nobody railed at JMS between Into the Fire and The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari that Londo got off the hook too easily, hadn't really repented etc.
Although G'Kar sees a vision of G'Lan and Londo ends up getting tormented some more. But then, the universe is easier on G'Kar *g*.)
Which he would deny, but it is.*g*
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Date: 2004-06-26 01:16 am (UTC)From what I've heard, he had more input into the show than is common for an actor, and not just because he wrote two episodes. (Which, unlike most actor-written episodes, are important for the season arc rather than stand-alones that could drop in anywhere.) It's good to have intelligent actors with a strong investment in the series.
"with Ben and Wayne, you could have them read the phone book at each other and it still would be fascinating".
Heh. Yes, indeed. Those two just have great chemistry together.
And you're right, Buffy's personal development certainly would have struck a nerve.
Yeah - I imagine he'd have found Season Six (up to and including Normal Again very hard to watch. Chosen, on the other hand, is one I think he'd love - the hero overcomes the burden of her destiny without giving up the power it granted her.
Recalling the Spike wars, though, I'm amazed in retrospect that nobody railed at JMS between Into the Fire and The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari that Londo got off the hook too easily, hadn't really repented etc.
I get the impression that people had more faith in JMS than in Joss, although that may be because I arrived in the fandom after the fact, when people could see the whole structure of the show. Also, Londo inspires less passionate reactions among fans than Spike - well, outside a handful of devoted Centauriphiles, of course *g*.
Which he would deny, but it is.*g*
One of the interesting things about the Londo/G'Kar epic (which is back in progress now that I have my own computer again) is that it puts G'Kar in a position where he has to aknowledge, to himself if no-one else, that his life in recent years has been infinitely more pleasant than Londo's.
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Date: 2004-06-26 02:55 am (UTC)Quite possibly. I think what was more important was that, firstly, we'd seen Londo suffer a great deal in Season One, and the situation had never been a straight moral divide, and secondly, the portrayal of Londo vs the universe didn't have the explosive gender and sexual violence implications that Season 7 Buffy/Spike dead.
Also, we never saw Londo beat a Narn to a bloody pulp and tell him that he didn't give a piss about his family ;-)
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Date: 2004-06-26 10:26 pm (UTC)It is. A counter-example would be Kevin Sorbo. I've never watched Andromeda, partly because before it was even shown on German TV, I read how Sorbo, who played the lead, had them fire Ron Moore, he of the fabulous TNG and DS9 episodes, because Moore was writing too intelligently and was going for an arc instead of standalones. No really, I kid you not, that was the official justification. Are we ever lucky with Mr. Browder, or what?
Those two just have great chemistry together.
Another stroke of luck, and one of those things you just can't predict. It's good when a show uses it after noticing, like TNG did with John de Lancie and Patrick Stewart, too, or DS9 with Kira and Dukat before (spoiler).
So, when can we expect the Londo/G'Kar epic?
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Date: 2004-06-27 04:32 am (UTC)What a terrible story. It's one thing when the networks cripple or fire writers or producers for being too smart, but the actors? Yikes. I new there was a reason I never liked Hercules *g*.
Another stroke of luck, and one of those things you just can't predict. It's good when a show uses it after noticing, like TNG did with John de Lancie and Patrick Stewart, too, or DS9 with Kira and Dukat before (spoiler).
Or Garak and Bashir, for that matter.
It's disturbing, sometimes, to think 'what if X hadn't been cast in that role?' I'd love to know what order Andreas Katulas and Peter Jurasik were cast in, for example, and if JMS knew in advance that they'd have the necessary chemistry.
So, when can we expect the Londo/G'Kar epic?
Check my livejournal *g*.
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Date: 2004-06-27 09:00 am (UTC)Exactly! BTW, now that you've done B5, you can watch some more DS9.*g*
I'd love to know what order Andreas Katulas and Peter Jurasik were cast in, for example, and if JMS knew in advance that they'd have the necessary chemistry.
Me, too. I suppose it must be in the background books - at least the first question - but I don't have those. And I'm so glad neither of them ever considered leaving the show - they really would have been irreplacable.
Check my livejournal *g*.
I did, and squeed appropriately, I hope.
Hehe...
Date: 2004-06-28 02:11 pm (UTC)I love you. ;-)
Re: Wonderful essay!
Date: 2004-06-28 02:14 pm (UTC)Oh, how I do love you. LOL
>It took me a while to become a fan because by bad luck I caught those first season episodes that weren't stellar at first, but from Nerve onwards, I knew I was going to continue.
*resists urge to say 'I told you so!'* *g*
(Why does nobody take my recommendations seriously???)
Moya & art
Date: 2004-06-28 05:05 pm (UTC)Hmm... nah, Moya's not creepy enough for Giger. Everything Giger does feels more than a bit like a nightmare. I think Moya's design is based more on the architecture of GaudÃ, perhaps - some parts of the inside of the Casa Milà have a distincly Moya-esque feel, and the arcades and collonades of the Park Güell even more so:
http://arch.ou.edu/arch/2423/Chapter%2026/Casa%20Mila.jpg
http://www.i-mf.com.tw/G_download/album/casa%20mila/images/6_jpg.jpg
http://web.mit.edu/dchou/www/gallery/02-12-24milaAttic.jpg
http://www.gaudiallgaudi.com/images/G_Park_Guell_Viaducte_Bugadera_5.JPG
http://www.gaudiallgaudi.com/images/G_Park_Guell_Viaducte_Bugadera_7.JPG
http://www.gaudiallgaudi.com/images/G_Park_Guell_Viaducte_Inferior.JPG
(Yes, I'm procrastinating. I've filled two stupid British boxes (tm) with my books and am now failing to see a way to tape them shut in any way that will ensure my books won't fall out halfway to Germany.)
Re: Moya & art
Date: 2004-06-28 10:07 pm (UTC)Re: Wonderful essay!
Date: 2004-06-28 10:09 pm (UTC)And I love you too.*g*
If I may intrude...
Date: 2004-06-29 03:56 pm (UTC)I think that if you enjoy the Jossverse there's a very big likelihood you would also enjoy Farscape. To me, Farscape and the Joss Whedon shows have quite a few similarities. They are all very aware of the genres that gave birth to them, yet subvert them, as well; they are all based more on character than on plot (although plot is not neglected, either); they are all very good at portraying believable psychological reactions to extraordinary situations. And they all have a very weird humour that often makes use of pop culture references.
There are several main threads to Farscape. For many people, it is mainly a love story, and it is that, no doubt. For me, though, it has always mainly been an examination of what would happen to an ordinary enough human if he were thrown into a situation that is so alien that none of his accustomed responses work anymore. Even the less stellar season one episodes that Selena mentions fulfill an important purpose: throughout season one we see John Crichton trying to adapt (and, mostly, failing) to an utterly hostile, bizarre world. The show is very good at showing us his confusion, helplessness, fear - and later on, his traumatisation and the psychological 'hardening' that follows. Fascinating stuff. And good angst, if you're a sick angst junkie like me. ;-)
Anyway... you know, if you don't want to buy the DVDs right away, you could still rent them at Blockbusters, or you could check your local library. The Save Farscape campaign is trying to equip as many American and British libraries with Farscape DVDs, and we've already 'scaped' quite a few! :-)
Okay, I'll stop being a scary fanatic now. I'll try, anyway.
Re: Wonderful essay!
Date: 2004-06-29 04:00 pm (UTC)Beware the rabid Scaper! ;-)
Date: 2004-06-29 04:06 pm (UTC)http://www.livejournal.com/users/selenak/87714.html?thread=901026#t901026
;-)
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Date: 2004-07-04 04:34 am (UTC)Yes; assuming I can find it. The place I rented B5 from doesn't have Season Four, for some reason, and neither does the other video rental outlet near my place. I'll have to jump on a train and find somwhere that does have it.
And I'm so glad neither of them ever considered leaving the show - they really would have been irreplacable.
JMS proved talented at working around actors who left, but I don't think he could have pulled off the end of the show without either of those two. Season Five without the resolution to that arc doesn't bare thinking about.
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Date: 2004-07-04 04:55 am (UTC)True on both counts. Londo started out as a sympathetic character, and even when he was effectively a bad guy, the audience's sympathy for him is mostly maintained. And he never tried to rape anyone, either.
Also, we never saw Londo beat a Narn to a bloody pulp and tell him that he didn't give a piss about his family ;-)
No. The beating (and - telepathic - rape) was done by G'Kar. The pattern in B5 is that Londo does horrible things to a lot of faceless Narns, and G'Kar does horrible things to Londo.
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Date: 2005-01-18 04:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-18 01:19 pm (UTC)