Random Farscape Ruminations

So, I've been watching through the latest batch of Farscape DVDs -- just got through "Incubator" last night -- and I had what I thought was kind of an interesting thought. (Warning: the next couple of paragraphs may contain third-season spoilers. Read at own risk!) Namely, it seems to me that there's an interesting symmetry between the alternating episodes during the period when the crew is split up. While they may be quite different on the surface, there's actually some very interesting points of commonality between each Talyn-based episode and its following Moya-based one.

OK, admittedly, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of similarity between "Green-Eyed Monster" and "Losing Time," except for both of them involving an encounter with a dangerous alien life form (or two) and the fact that they both feature an unusual amount of direct interaction with and an ususually strong role for their respective Leviathan characters. But the connection between "Relativity" and "Incubator" is very interesting. Both deal with violently dysfunctional parent-child type relationships, and both, I think, touch very strongly on something that I've always seen as a major theme running through the entire show: the issue of to what extent our enivronments, and the environments we grew up in, make us who we are. Compare Aeryn taking comfort in being told as a child that she was wanted and loved with Scorpius' knowledge that he was the product of a brutal rape and the fact that he spent his childhood being repeatedly told that he was weak and worthless. Those are major factors defining who these characters are, and the fact that they're explored back-to-back with two such wildly contrasting characters is interesting. Moving on, "Meltdown" and "Scratch'n'Sniff" don't bear a huge resemblence to each other, but when you stop to think about it, there are a number of similar plot elements: the drug-enhanced sexuality, the killing of innocents for commercial purposes... Then there's "Infinite Possibilities" and "Revenging Angel," two episodes which could not possibly be farther apart in tone, but which both feature John facing death.

I'm really rather curious, now, whether this was something the writers and producers did deliberately, whether it's something that they did without consciously intending to, whether it was sheer serendipity, or whether it's just me engaging in a little over-enthusiastic pattern-matching. I think I'd find any one of those possibilities entirely believable, actually.

(End Spoiler Section)

On an unrelated (or at least, only tangentially related) note, I just got this week's edition of TV Guide in the mail today, and the front cover features the words: "Forget Trek! Stargate SG-1 is now sci-fi's biggest hit!" Hmm, why, I wonder, does that leave me with the strange urge to start gnashing my teeth? I don't think it has anything to do with dumping on Trek, nor am I really all that hostile to SG-1. (I've only seen an episode or two, and while they didn't impress me greatly, I fully acknowlege that I don't have a solid enough basis on which to reasonably judge.) No, the reason for my annoyance is much better understood by looking at a couple of quotes from the article.

Here's SG-1 star Richard Dean Anderson giving his take on why his show's been successful: "You can only fool an audience for a few minutes with special effects. It's the stories that make them stick around." Now, I happen to agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment, but I can't help but wonder if it's meant to be a thinly-veiled dig at a Certain Other Show that didn't make it this season on Sci-Fi. If so, it's completely off base.

Sci-Fi's own Bonnie Hammer's much more pointed response hits considerably closer to the bone, which perhaps explains why it makes me so angry: "A lot of other science fiction series either become too complicated or start to take themselves too seriously. Sometimes shows are too smart for the audience. Stargate is smart, but it doesn't make people do homework."

God damn, but I'm getting tired of being told I'm too dumb to follow the storylines on a TV show. Or even that everybody else is too dumb, and that's the reason I'm not even being given the chance to try. Grrrr.