Season of Languages

I went back to the archives to trace back the trend of repetition of lines, themes and scenes from previous episodes in season four. It goes all the way back to Crichton Kicks, and I've brought it up pretty much every week since then. I can't tell what it means, or if there is really anything to see. It's a common psychological effect. If you've been thinking about green Volkswagen Beetles, you can be sure that you're going to come across green Volkswagen Beetles for days afterwards, and you'll say 'what are the odds?' In fact, you haven't improved the odds of coming across a green Beetle, it's just that you're unconsciously on the lookout for them now.

So I did, again, pick up on echoes. 'I love a man in a uniform' brought me back to Nerve, just like Harvey's 'Without hesitation' had brought me back to LaTP in Promises, the clams' effect was reminiscent of the Yensh bracelets, we've seen piss-as-medicine in Different Destinations, the doctor's eyepiece looked like Tocot's apparatus, John's in feminine garments showing off his legs was all Scratch 'N Sniff, and the big one must be the red chair from the same episode, right there in the club. I don't know what those echoes mean, if anything at all.

I'll pass on a deeper analysis of empathy, identity and political unrest, if that's all right with you. Someone will no doubt have it covered. I'm sure I'll think about John again later, just -- not right now.

Random bits.

Season of Languages. It's less tower of Babel, but the issue is still floating around. Aeryn's English, and whatever Scorpius used on Pilot. What was up with that?

You can be the psychoanalysts on this one: as soon as the whatever-it-was started to vibrate in the central chamber, I knew where that scene was going... 'Think about baseball.' Yeah, I'll have to try that sometimes.

Why the brain scan? What was the purpose of that? What is it with aliens and John's brain?

Chiana's scenes with the mechanic were sweet, with just the right kind of ambiguity, and perhaps taught Chiana a little more about political consciousness.

It's the Return of the Ass. This time it's a man coming on to John. You know it was bound to happen. Scorpius is going to be jealous. Although nazi guy gave me the creeps. 'Interrogation.' Brrr.

Scorpius snapping the guard's neck was an excellent reality check. He is not the crew's harmless pet, not a joke, no matter how John talks to him. However, that last scene of Scorpius vomiting was a bit overly dramatic, or was the ceremonial-like set up meant to convey something more? What would Scorpius stop at to safeguard John? I do love this. Scorpius is clinging to John's destiny ['How many men have a goal? A challenge, a destiny as clear as yours?'], and in doing so, might make this destiny possible.

At first, I thought the doctor was pregnant, the way he held his tummy.

'Who cares?' says D'Argo, echoing John in A Prefect Murder. They are becoming so blasé -- and the writers are laying it in with the we're-not-Trek-no-technobabble message.

Doesn't look like addiction to me, if he can go that long without reaching for laka. Although, that would have made for an interesting-- something, if Sikozu had experienced laka along with him.

Doctor Rygel was hilarious. The little guy is having too much fun these days. 'I wear that color all the time.'

'Out with the evil spirit.' Great reaction shot from Rygel. Heh.

Rygel makes a better girl than John, and Browder is shameless. But I still think he needs about a week worth of sleep. Well, needed. It's a little late now.

I feel that this episode could end up branded as really annoying, not on the basis of its value, but because of its placement in the season. There's only one episode left before the hiatus, and we would like everything to mean something. It was the calm before the Perfect Storm.

No previews for next week? That says it all. Life and death, John and wormholes, warped realities, could-have-beens and choices? Pretty please? Perhaps, if I'm very lucky, even a glimpse of Earth.

Kansas weighs on my mind, probably a little too much.

Out Of Their Minds season two review

I'm busy. Farscape style writing post is going to be short. Some things I laughed at, others I didn't. I guffawed at times, I hid my eyes behind my hands at other times. The writing was a bit weak but all right, the direction was competent, and the political situation was very Farscape. No good guys, men or women; the resistance is as ruthless as the oppressors; come back in a few years and it would be the men in the women's position. The guest performers were a definite improvement over last week. The mechanic was very sympathetic. [Although, were we really to believe that she could pass herself off as a man?] The doctor was appropriately disgusting. Reminded me of Danny De Vito as The Penguin in Batman Returns -- must have been the nose. It was that season's Out Of Their Minds. Not in terms of quality or even humor, no, but it was a strong ensemble episode which relied on cooperation and a twisted kind of forced empathy between crew members. If anything, this season could do with a little less emphasis on John [not that I'm personally complaining], or John and Aeryn, and this episode served to reaffirm, or establish for some, the team spirit -- often reluctant -- of Moya's crew. While CBC provided little individual development, except perhaps for Chiana, and in a way Scorpius, it provided dynamical development. The crew worked as a unit, no one was left floating out in space or locked in a cell. Most everyone contributed a part to the plan and saved the others; everyone did their bit [shed some fluid]. The emphasis was on the intimacy enforced by their day-to-day lives on Moya, something we don't get to see often enough. I would gather that travelling through Tormented Space will soon call for cohesion. They're about to get kicked in the ass. TS almost drove Moya mad, and they don't have the luxury of a filter. That said. What was to be taken from John's new look [I'm not talking about the drag -- the duster], or the complete absence of laka? To tell you the truth, I'm too tired to think about it. Today's not the day. I got the impression that John was just having an 'okay' day -- well, before the dren hit the atmospheric scrubbers. His 'Would you quit speaking English' was interesting however -- voice almost raised. I'm not sure what bothers him the most: that Aeryn's trying too hard, that it reminds him of how perfect she had it with the other guy and that they were about to head off for Earth without him, or that he's trying to get himself under control, but the reminders are testing his resistance. Perhaps all three. I do believe that sharing the load, the responsibility of the 'plans', looking to D'Argo as he did in the opening scene, is good for John. It allows him to be more focused. Less burdened, perhaps not across the board, but in little ways that matter. As for John and Aeryn, I wouldn't mind if they were hitting one of the status quo/denial stages they were accustomed to in season two. Although, that's no doubt wishful thinking on my part; sooner or later, they'll have to address the pregnancy. He did seem to spend a lot of time with his back turned to her, or not looking at her. No wasted body language there.