Television

XOXO, Puppet Girl #3

Farscape 1x05 & 1x06

This is the first episode that brings the sauce. Moya stops to explore a derelict Peacekeeper Command Carrier, thinking it’s Crais’ ship. It’s not, but one of Crais’ tech officers is aboard. Her name is Gilina and she’s kinda cute.

Aeryn hates her for bringing back memories of Aeryn’s lost Peacekeeper life. John likes her because…she’s kinda cute. Rygel is having a panic attack because this ship is where he was first imprisoned and tortured after his cousin’s coup.

Yes, the puppet possesses severe trauma.

Gilina reveals that she and her fellow techs were dropped off at the wreck by Crais some days ago to search for useful salvage. But partway through their investigation the Peacekeeper delegation was attacked by a ship full of Sheyangs. These are rotund fish-faced fire-breathing aliens. Their jowls astound.

Aeryn and John bully/recruit Gilina to help them try to salvage the valuables aboard the ship for Moya, but of course the Sheyangs return. With none of the weapons aboard the Peacekeeper wreck working and Moya completely unarmed, John and Gilina decide to extend the Peacekeeper shield over to Moya to protect her. This takes some time, so D’Argo and Zhaan call up the Sheyangs to menace and distract them.

You may be shocked to hear this, but working together on an engineering project creates sexual tension between John and Gilina. They literally kiss, and that’s obviously when Aeryn walks in. Aeryn storms off, John gives chase, and she’s forced to admit that she was a bit attracted to John when they first met. Yet she was so mean to him…

Rygel is fully tweaked out on his own flashbacks, so Zhaan encourages him to confront his dark memories. He roams the Peacekeeper wreck, looking for the corpse of Durka, the officer who sadistically tortured him. Rygel avenges himself on Durka’s remains.

Unable to shoot through the shields and afraid of D’Argo over on Moya, the Sheyang send one of their own to board the Peacekeeper ship. John and Gilina engineer another technobabble solution, while Aeryn has to defend them. Luckily, the Sheyang are very flammable, due to their gas bags.

The other Sheyangs flee, threatening revenge against Moya and D’Argo. John, Aeryn, and Gilina reconcile, but also determine that Gilina needs to return to Crais’ ship, which will return to pick her up shortly. John and Gilina say a heartfelt goodbye. Then he goes to talk to Aeryn. They discuss their twinned heartbreaks, forever severed from their homes and all familiar faces.

Many, many episodes of Farscape end sadly. The galaxy does not spare its unfortunates. This one ends especially sadly, because John and Aeryn both recognize paths out of loneliness, but do not possess the means to pursue them.

And that sadness? That sadness is the sauce. We’ll see Gilina again.

Thank God It’s Friday Again

This episode blows. When the first frames confronted me, I experienced a terrible shock of recognition. This may be the second worst episode in the entire series.

Conceptually, it’s no worse than a mediocre Star Trek episode. D’Argo, enduring an attack of Luxan hyper-rage (for him, toxic masculinity is a chronic condition), storms off to the nearest planet. When John, Zhaan, Rygel, and Aeryn follow him down to the surface, they discover D’Argo inexplicably blissed out and working on a massive collective farm. John and Zhaan stay to investigate, while Aeryn takes Rygel back to Moya for medical treatment: his excreta have suddenly become explosive.

Long story short: the people of the planet are forced to farm a magic root which the Peacekeepers use to fuel their weapons. The root is also a potent stoner serum, which seduces D’Argo and Zhaan, but not John, who gets a special worm from the local resistance. John helps the resistance convert the Peacekeeper-appointed overseer and prepare a rebellion.

I must identify a host of failings in this episode. The plot is so thin I’ve summarized the entire action in two paragraphs. Dopey filler scenes abound.

Where Farscape takes much worse inspiration from Star Trek, specifically the Original Series, is in the baffling casting and costuming decisions for the inhabitants of this planet. They are all white Australians with white contacts and bleached blonde hair in weird crypto-locs. They’re also covered in spray tan unto the point of redface, wearing stereotypical Asian conical straw hats. It is a cringe-inducing visual. The “white slavery” episode of any given science fiction show is nearly always its most embarrassing, and this is no exception. Today, semiotics is deadly.

Aeryn’s subplot provides a little relief: alone aboard Moya with only sick Rygel and Pilot, she must leave her combat comfort zone to perform the necessary tests to help Rygel. Pilot encourages her very sweetly. We lay the foundation for their dear friendship to develop later on.

I have nothing else to recommend this episode, unless you’ve always wanted to see a puppet piss green fire.