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coalescentYep, more S4 Farscape thoughts.
The Farscape writers are getting better at these multi-part episodes, you know.
In the past, I've felt that the two-parters either have far too much going on ('Infinite Possibilities', especially 'Daedelus Demands'), or too little ('Self Inflicted Wounds'). The pacing within episodes has sometimes been jerky, as well, something which has not been helped by the use of Flash Gordon style literal cliffhangers.
Here, though, the cliffhanger is still literal, but in a different sense - and for my money, it works much better. It's not that it lends part one a sense of closure, but the ending feels appropriate - it's a confirmation of the story that's being told, rather than involving some monster that suddenly appears out of nowhere to generate tension ('Self Inflicted Wounds', again). And overall, the pacing is just generally much better; there's a touch too much padding in 'Resurrection', perhaps (the final twist with the creature from the black lagoon was somewhat redundant), but for the most part WWL feels like 'a feature-length Farscape', rather than two episodes that happen to follow on from one another. I think this, in case anyone was wondering, is a Good Thing.
(The episodes look a million dollars, too - the widescreen doesn't hurt, but the use of colour saturation is very effective. And that shot of the temple at the end; well, that's a proper sensawunda kick and no mistake)
An awful lot happens in these episodes - setting the stage for the rest of the season, I presume - and it's hard to know what's important and what's not (which is good). Some of it I like, some of it I don't. To start with the negatives first: Grayza. She's tacky, she's charmless, she's dull...I don't like her. Braca is interesting, but I could not care less whether we see Grayza again. Her interaction with Crichton was, at times, painful to watch. Also on the 'bad' list is D'Argo and Jool. Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic that Jool is leaving (or at least reducing her role), I just didn't buy the relationship because it developed offscreen, and without some kind of hint I can't understand what anyone would see in Jool. Oh, and the science was ludicrous, but I've pretty much decided that Farscape works much better if you take it as fantasy rather than SF.
Of the good, though...there's a lot, actually. The female pilot broke my heart - she was great. Sikozou is still kinda bland, but Noranti is rather fun - mad in a good way, unlike, say, Stark, who was mad in a really annoying way. And poor Crichton - between Noranti and Grayza, he was doped out of his mind for a good portion of the episode. I wonder if those bug-things he sniffed are addictive?
(The one niggle I have about the new characters is that they're both women - the crew is starting to look a little unbalanced, and it would be interesting to see a new guy have to try to break into the Crichton/D'Argo dynamic)
I loved the handling of Scorpius. Not because I wanted to see him beaten and degraded - that was unpleasant to watch - but because it was all so off-hand. It was a sidebar to the main story, not an important plot point. I only wish I could believe he was really dead, because that would be a great way to handle a character death.
I like the pacing of the season, so far, as well. Knowing fandom, I'm sure that at this point there was bitching about "where's Moya?" and "where's Aeryn?", but I'm quite happy to wait for the answers to those questions to turn up on their own, as long as there's interesting stuff happening in the meantime. And 'What Was Lost' was nothing if not interesting.
The Farscape writers are getting better at these multi-part episodes, you know.
In the past, I've felt that the two-parters either have far too much going on ('Infinite Possibilities', especially 'Daedelus Demands'), or too little ('Self Inflicted Wounds'). The pacing within episodes has sometimes been jerky, as well, something which has not been helped by the use of Flash Gordon style literal cliffhangers.
Here, though, the cliffhanger is still literal, but in a different sense - and for my money, it works much better. It's not that it lends part one a sense of closure, but the ending feels appropriate - it's a confirmation of the story that's being told, rather than involving some monster that suddenly appears out of nowhere to generate tension ('Self Inflicted Wounds', again). And overall, the pacing is just generally much better; there's a touch too much padding in 'Resurrection', perhaps (the final twist with the creature from the black lagoon was somewhat redundant), but for the most part WWL feels like 'a feature-length Farscape', rather than two episodes that happen to follow on from one another. I think this, in case anyone was wondering, is a Good Thing.
(The episodes look a million dollars, too - the widescreen doesn't hurt, but the use of colour saturation is very effective. And that shot of the temple at the end; well, that's a proper sensawunda kick and no mistake)
An awful lot happens in these episodes - setting the stage for the rest of the season, I presume - and it's hard to know what's important and what's not (which is good). Some of it I like, some of it I don't. To start with the negatives first: Grayza. She's tacky, she's charmless, she's dull...I don't like her. Braca is interesting, but I could not care less whether we see Grayza again. Her interaction with Crichton was, at times, painful to watch. Also on the 'bad' list is D'Argo and Jool. Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic that Jool is leaving (or at least reducing her role), I just didn't buy the relationship because it developed offscreen, and without some kind of hint I can't understand what anyone would see in Jool. Oh, and the science was ludicrous, but I've pretty much decided that Farscape works much better if you take it as fantasy rather than SF.
Of the good, though...there's a lot, actually. The female pilot broke my heart - she was great. Sikozou is still kinda bland, but Noranti is rather fun - mad in a good way, unlike, say, Stark, who was mad in a really annoying way. And poor Crichton - between Noranti and Grayza, he was doped out of his mind for a good portion of the episode. I wonder if those bug-things he sniffed are addictive?
(The one niggle I have about the new characters is that they're both women - the crew is starting to look a little unbalanced, and it would be interesting to see a new guy have to try to break into the Crichton/D'Argo dynamic)
I loved the handling of Scorpius. Not because I wanted to see him beaten and degraded - that was unpleasant to watch - but because it was all so off-hand. It was a sidebar to the main story, not an important plot point. I only wish I could believe he was really dead, because that would be a great way to handle a character death.
I like the pacing of the season, so far, as well. Knowing fandom, I'm sure that at this point there was bitching about "where's Moya?" and "where's Aeryn?", but I'm quite happy to wait for the answers to those questions to turn up on their own, as long as there's interesting stuff happening in the meantime. And 'What Was Lost' was nothing if not interesting.
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Date: 2002-08-25 10:42 pm (UTC)Ok, enough of me.
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Date: 2002-08-26 08:34 am (UTC)I don't dislike criticism per se, I just think fans have a tendency to get worked up over the wrong things sometimes. For instance, if 'What Was Lost' had been a two-part filler story - no significant character development, no relevance to the ongoing arc - then, sure, I'd be complaining about wasting time and not getting down to the interesting stuff. But it wasn't - we may not have had Aeryn, but we had a bunch of other stuff to keep us occupied instead. As long as they get to Aeryn eventually, I'll be fine.
Finally, I love Scorpius
Oh, I think he's great, too. It's just that in the past I've thought Farscape hasn't been great at handling character deaths (Zhaan and Talyn-Crichton last season, for instance), and this was just wonderfully low-key.