The Usual Farscape Episode Discussion, A Little Later Than Usual (WARNING: Spoilers for episode 2.14, "Twice Shy")

I had really mixed feelings about this one... It's a ship-bound, character-based ep, which is generally something I'm in favor of. But the premise here -- that a bite from an alien creature robs Our Heroes of their strongest personality traits after first augmenting them -- is rather contrived and silly, something that feels a lot more like it belongs on Star Trek, where they often resorted to this kind of gimmickry as a means of character exploration. But Farscape generally doesn't need to use character-exploration gimmicks, since characterization has always been one of its strong points, even in the most plot-based of episodes. Still, having an external influence which causes characters to act in atypical ways, no matter how implausible the explanation for it, can be worth doing if it does show us new and interesting things about the characters.[*] Unfortunately, we really don't get that here. Anyone who's been watching the show this long already knows these characters' personality traits perfectly well by now, and nothing new is revealed about any of them. Oddly, the only characters who really need more definition, newcomers Sikozu and Noranti, are the only ones who aren't affected. It seems like a hell of a missed bet to me.

I was rather curious to see what they were going to do with Scorpius, though, since he's such a complex character, with a number of personality traits that could have been emphasized in interesting ways. The fact that the bite's effect on him mainly seemed to involve making him snarl a lot was a tiny bit disappointing. Slightly more disappointing was Noranti's comment that Sikozu had only seen "his Sebacean side" and that his "Scarren side" was now coming to the fore. This notion of warring "sides" in a half-breed character is very Star Trek, and it's something that worked well as characterization for Spock but has annoyed me mildly in every Trek character it's been applied to since. Scorpius is, in my opinion, one of the most complicated and unique characters in SF TV, and attempting to reduce all those complexities to a simple "Sebacean half vs. Scarren half" dichotomy is just, well, wrong.

On the plus side, this episode did feature some very fine performances by almost everybody. Gigi Edgley is particularly good, hitting all the right notes, from outraged compassion to steamy sexuality to a complete (and amusing) lack of steamy sexuality. Ben Browder does a very nice turn as Defeatist John; he's annoying as hell, but it's clear that he's meant to be annoying. Claudia Black does a surprisingly good job of taking Aeryn completely out of character without making her feel any less like Aeryn. Anthony Simcoe's mellow version of D'Argo is oddly believable, even likeable. And, previous complaints aside, Wayne Pygram does snarl quite beautifully.

In larger story-arc terms, the main item of interest in this episode is the way in which it develops certain of the character relationships. To begin with: Scorpius and Sikozu. I'm finding this relationship particularly interesting, in large part because I'm not at all sure exactly what's going on between them. Oh, in Sikozu's case it seems clear enough. She admires Scorpius greatly because of his keen intellect. She sees him as a kindred spirit, the one person on this ship full of goofballs who is "on her own level." And she very much wants his attention and approval, because coming from him (as opposed to from the other goofballs), attention and approval genuinely mean something to her. It's Scorpy's side of things I'm totally unsure about. He certainly seems to regard her as physically attractive, but as for the rest of it, I've so far been very much inclined to believe that he's simply been using her, happily stringing her along because of her potential value as an ally. There are some hints here that his feelings may be a bit deeper than that, though... Personally, I'm not sure what to make of this, as I kind of prefer to think that he'd have somewhat better taste. I don't dislike Sikozu as a character, mind you; she's got the potential to be very interesting. But it does seem to me that her self-image as a thinker and schemer on the same level as Scorpius is wildly inaccurate. When it comes to the Machiavellian stuff, she comes across as little more than a wannabe. Then again, the fact that she's clearly recognized at this point that Scorpius is keeping things from her might well be an indication that she's not nearly as naive as she seems... In any case, I'm very interested to see in what directions her characterization and their relationship go in whatever time the series has left.

The other relationship that gets some major development here, of course, is John and Aeryn's. And, I must admit, it's just left me even more confused than ever. John seems to be implying that the main reason he's been pushing Aeryn away of late is that he fears that Scorpius will somehow use her and the baby against him if he lets his true feelings show. If so, it seems to me that this must be a fairly new development; his mistrust and hurt earlier in the season could not, in my view, have possibly been anything but genuine. So, when did this change, and why? Damned if I know. We've been very much distanced from what's going on in John's head this season, and frankly it's getting a little old. I'd very much like to start getting some of these gaps in characterization filled in. (And that goes for Aeryn, as well. Her attitude towards John seems to have changed radically in the time she was away, and we've been given no explanation for that at all. I don't doubt that there is one, but I'd really like to be able to see it!) I also have absolutely no idea just what John thinks Scorpius is going to do. Threaten Aeryn unless John gives him the wormhole tech? Scorpius has already seen how badly a threat to harm something John loves can backfire. I sincerely doubt it's a mistake he'd make again. I also very much doubt that Scorpius is likely to be fooled, unless Harvey taught John that little energy-signature-alteration trick before John kicked him out. At the moment, it's looking rather like the writers are finally beginning to get a bit desperate in their continual attempts to draw John and Aeryn together while simultaneously pushing them apart. Whether this latest contrivance actually works or not, I strongly suspect, is going to depend a great deal on how it's handled over the course of the next few episodes.


[*]In fact, Farscape's already done that twice, with "Crackers Don't Matter" and "Meltdown." "Crackers Don't Matter," despite having a premise even goofier than "Twice Shy"'s, is widely recognized as a standout episode. And personally I quite liked "Meltdown," despite finding the John/Aeryn bits more than a little annoying. Unfortunately, I think that very familiarity is one of the things working against "Twice Shy" being completely successful...