Farscape Rewind: Episode 1.09

[Mr. Infamous]

This week we're looking at DNA mad scientist, an episode that plugs back into the whole "find our way home" arc for the various characters and shows us what might just be our first really obvious taste of character continuity between episodes.

DNA mad scientist starts off with our usual supects down on some sort of asteroid base getting fluid sucked out of their eyeballs, just in case you forgot what show it was you'd tuned in to. The guy doing the sucking here is Namtar, the "mad scientist" promised by the title. Namtar deserves special mention here because not only is he incredibly creepy, (only this time its on purpose, not like last week) he's also an example of some really excellent makeup work. Why do I say this, well, because Namtar stands about 7 or 8 feet tall and its entirely due to the second ankle he has in his legs. This is the sort of thing I've really got to take my hat off to because there was no reason why they needed that second ankle here. The much easier route would have just been to use the actor's normal legs because the rest of the costume was already so complicated, but they still pushed the envelope anyway and what came out of it was a really distinct character who towers over people in a very effectively ominous way as a result.

I bring this up here because so many sci-fi shows think that you can just slap a shitload of latex on an actor's face, and maybe hands, call it an alien and that's really all you need to do. What you end up with then is a universe filled with nothing but humans with funny heads. The head is all that makes the alien an alien, chop off the head and you'll be hard pressed to tell them apart from humans or each other.

Not with Namtar here though. There's an actor in there somewhere but you'll be in for quite a search looking for any human part of him that can actually be seen through the costume. He's also voiced by an entirely differant actor, and all this for only a guest villian in a single episode. This is also hardly the last time you'll see something like this on Farscape. I can't really think of any other sci-fi show that did better aliens than this one. People laugh and poke fun at the Jim Henson company but if they, plus any other FX house involved with this show I may have neglected to mention, were turning out stuff like this for single episodes back in the late nineties alongside lackluster "forehead alien" shows like Voyager, then well those sorts of comments are really worse than simply baseless, but you already knew that didn't you.

I'll just close up this little mini rant by once again reaffirming my preference for actual makeup and models over computer effects in most cases. Just because you can do it on the computer doesn't mean you have to do it on the computer. Newer isn't always better and the old style makeup and creature effects still have a very real and important role to play alongside more modern computerized methods. Use both methods together, not one over the other.

Ok now back to our episode. This week's episode is actually pretty good so maybe I should have used that rant to pad out last week's review. Then again though there wasn't exactly many nice things to say about the appearance of Maldis.

Ok so our guys are getting fluid sucked out of their eyeballs because apparently this is necessary to enable some sort of super advanced DNA testing that will enable Namtar to find their homeworlds. Everybody but Aeryn gets their eye sucked here in the begining and in exchange Namtar shows off how well his technique works by popping up a galaxy map and then finding Zhaan's homeworld on it. He explains that this system works because it's got 11 million species stored in its database and well, this did sort of raise an eyebrow for me unfortunately. Couldn't they just tell him to input Luxon, Delvian or Hynerian into the system and find their homeworlds that way? Why was genetic material from an eyeball needed? Was it strictly because he wanted it and that was the price to pay for the maps? That couldn't be it though because he demands further payment later, which I'll get to in just a minute. Now I know what Namtar's really after here, it becomes obvious later in the episode, but the characters don't at this point so why are they believing him when he's telling him he's got to suck juice out of their eyeballs just to look up their homeworlds in a pre-existing index of species? This could all easily have been bullshit at this point as far as they knew. If he knew Zhaan's species just by looking at her he could just have plugged that into the index and boom, up comes Delvia, the genetic material playing no actual role.

Anyway, objections aside, before Zhaan has too long to reminice about her homeworld Namtar gets to talking about his finder's fee. He wants one of pilots arms in exchange for the maps to the homeworlds of Zhaan, Dargo and Rygel. Turns out he couldn't find Earth, which isn't surprising since I doubt he has any human DNA on file.

What comes next is where we get to that bit of character continuity I was talking about before, because Zhaan is, somewhat inexplicably, totally down with this shit. Chop his arms off, sure no problem, I'll even help hold him down. I would expect this from Rygel easily, and maybe Dargo if he was desperate enough and knew pilot would regenerate anyway, but Zhaan?! Isn't she suppossed to be all miss peace and love do no harm to others? Well there just so happens to be a scene at the end of last week's trainwreck that might just explain this strange new turn in her behaviour. You see throughout Black Magic she warned that if she started using her powers to hurt others again, even insufferable douchebags like Maldis who've got it coming, it might not be so easy to just put the bunny back in the box after all was said and done. Her earlier fears are proven true when in the final moments of the episode she runs into John and tells him she can still feel the power of the dark side within her and that she'll now have to eradicate it all over again. John tries to comfort her but she lashes out on him with the force or something and causes him to recoil in pain, while hissing that no one can help her, then she apologises abruptly and leaves with no further explanation.

It's probably the best scene in the last episode but now that I've told you about it you don't have to watch that one to see it, you should thank me.

So last week Zhaan was using her powers to smack around quasi godlike beings and this week she's chopping arms off pilot for her own selfish reasons. John is hugely hugely bothered by what her, Dargo and Rygel did to poor Pilot but he never uses her "I can't resist the power of the dark side" confession to totally cut her off at the knees on her behaviour. Maybe he's just trying to be a good friend or wants to still have a chance at getting into her pants later incase the whole thing with Aeryn doesn't work out, but I would have loved to have seen that confrontation play out. Big missed opportunity here, hell come to think of it Zhaan's early on buried superpowers were a big missed opportunity in general. I remember when I first watched these episodes years ago she was easily the most interesting character to me and I was just waiting for her to be placed into some sort of impossible situation that forced her to go full on evil party time and start blowing up people's heads for the ultimate greater good or something. It would have been awesome, both seeing the exploding heads (cause when is that ever not awesome) but also the character repercussions it would have had on her and the others once they actually saw what really lurked within her and why she'd been so afraid of it. Instead they kinda just dried her out and let her slowly whither away as a character though, becoming less and less interesting as time went on, shame.

Ok so Namtar gets his pilot arm and our three stooges get their crystal. There's a problem though, the map is so big in terms of overall data that Moya's computer's can't actually hold the whole thing to display it. This plot device (a single small crystal can hold more data than an entire starship computer ) means that two of the maps will have to be erased so the remaining one can be used, chaos predictably ensues. Rygel ends up getting the upper hand by stashing the Crystal and resisting both attempts to starve him from Dargo and attempts to seduce him from Zhaan. Nice little bit dropped here where Rygel comments that he's not a "body breeder", which is a nice little tie in to his amphimbian like species that most shows probably wouldn't even think of to mention. Not only do Zhaan's attempts at seduction and Dargo's attempts at starvation not work but things are made even worse for them as Rygel manages to lock both of them into his former cell and heads off to the bridge to happily delete their maps so he can use his own.

Meanwhile Aeryn's got a plot of her own as well this episode. It's really quite jam packed this one.

It starts with a conversation with John about how she didn't participate in the eye sucking because she knows where her home is but simply can't ever go back there, and how she'll eventually end up alone when they all leave for their respective homeworlds. John offers to take her to Earth but Aeryn instead does her own thing without telling anyone. It's obvious she doesn't like the idea of having to rely on someone else to make a place for her at this stage yet, she likely views it as dependancy or charity and thus as weakness. She instead heads back down to Namtar for an eye suck with the goal of finding other Sebacean colonies outside of PK juristiction, making the point in writing that's alluded to often in the series, not all Sebacean's are necessarily PKs. This is another nice extra touch of realism and deviation from typical sci-fi tropes where all people of a given species are sometimes even made to share the same haircut, let alone be allowed the luxury of subdividing into different political, ethnic and religious groups. That's a privlidge typically reserved only for humans, and even those are often grossly homogenised in many settings. It's really in part a lot of little touches like this adding up in the end and help to turn Farscape from a really good show into a great one.

So Aeryn goes down for a eyesuck but what she gets instead is an eyefull of pilot DNA, and yes I realise how totally wrong that sentance can sound. I tried it with substituting "injection of" and "facefull" and that hardly made it any better. The effect this has anyway is to gradually turn her into another pilot. This is when we begin to get a real taste of what Namtar's really all about. You see Namtar's not actually a real scientist, he's a test subject himself, but one that became so powerful do to the experiments performed on him that he took over charge of the entire research facility and instead began to experiment on the staff. His ultimate stated goal is to make himself into the perfect being by taking all the best traits from all the various lifeforms he encounters, which explains his eyesucking side business and why he's done what he's done to Aeryn... Well it almost does. I've got to wonder here why he doesn't just get all the pilot DNA he needs from the arm he got, and how dilluting it into Aeryn could possibly be better, but they do show another horrible mutant pilot thing in the episode so maybe he already tried it that way before and it was a no go. I'm not a DNA mad scientist myself so I can't say for certain. What we do get as a result of his experimenting on Aeryn though is some nice scenes and development for her over the course of the episode and another awesome makeup job.

As events draw to a close John makes contact with Namtar's mutant assistant, actually the former head of the facility, who explains to him what happened and the true nature of Namtar and the crystal they were given. Acting on the new info John then stops Rygel moments before he can plug the crystal into Moya, which as it turns out would have completely wiped all of her computers making it impossible for them to ever leave the asteroid, which was exactly what Namtar wanted... more test subjects.

Namtar meets his match in the end though as John distracts him with a nice bedtime story about Dr. Mengele and his mutant assisstant jabs him with a syringe full of concentrated plot when he starts to get drowsy. The injection reduces him to some sort of cross between Rygel and a hairless rat, his original form, they give the same stuff to Aeryn and well that's pretty much all she wrote. Oh and Dargo plays some Luxon tunes on his newly made Luxon chello thing as a way of saying "sorry I lopped of your arm with a sword dude" to pilot.

Overall DNA mad scientist is another top notch Farscape episode. It holds a somewhat special place for me because I'm reasonably certain it was actually the very first Farscape episode I ever saw. It's a good thing to, had I tuned in just one episode earlier I can say with confidence I would not be writing this internet review now and might instead be doing something actually worthwhile with my life.

See you next week.

[Rustydogz]

Farscape writers had a bit of an eye fetish. This is the first of I think three or four times they had a scene of some device being stuck into an eyeball. The trick here is, when the scene begins we think it is torture, but we see they actually volunteered to have this done to them.

Logically, DNA from a blood sample would be sufficient, but there is more visual effect, and that reversal of expectations, with the needle into the eye.

I believe rationale behind the procedure was that Namtar had a catalogue of DNA samples and planets, but not a catalogue of species names or nations. So he had to do the detective work of letting the comp tell him where each DNA originated from. Maybe that makes him a sloppy scientist, but we learn he isn't a scientist, and the map is phoney, so the point is moot.

Namtar seems to be a 'cool alien scientist' until he asks for the arm. Then he becomes 'creepy bad guy'. Interestingly, only Rigel, of the three, looks distressed at the thought of giving Pilot's arm for payment. You can see his ears flatten out and his face frown. Of course, he changes his mind quickly.

One nice thing about this ep is the dialogue used to punctuate each plot turn. For example there is Namtar's line about the arm, then in the Aeryn and Crichton scene, her line: "What makes you think they are going to ask him." or something like that. Then follows is a cut to mid-scene of the attack on Pilot. The entire episode was very well constructed and written in that way. Ok, perhaps the Mengele speech was too long, the references out of date, and basically hitting our heads with the story moral; but that was a minor blip.

I agree that Namtar was a well designed alien. I think all the Treks were guilty of the head makeup business. Often, even that was merely changing the forehead. Lazy work. The few exceptions prove the rule. But Farscape almost always did a detailed creative job with their aliens.

But this whole 'lost' business. Only Crighton is lost. Since when are the others lost? Sure, the Uncharted territories are ... uncharted, but the worlds of Zhann, etc, are known worlds. They were prisoners of the Peackeepers, not wanderers lost in space. Perhaps the story idea was that they wanted a chart of the Unknown Territories so they could find a safe course through it, but it was never stated that way. They acted like they had no idea where their home planets were at all, which is nonsense.

It was good that the characters are still a little hostile and mistrustful (for good reason!) this far into the season. That they would only gradually become friends seems to make sense, and made for better stories. It was great irony that Aeryn, the Peacekeeper, was the moral one in this ep, disgusted that the other three would chop off a comrade's arm. The way she stood, pistol shown prominently, gave the impression she was ready to gun them down. This was another reversal of expectations, given what we viewers have learned of Peacekeepers. Now we learn that other species in this Galaxy are no better and perhaps worse.

They went a little overboard with DArgo's hostility and self-serving attitude in this ep. Then at the end he tells Pilot he would do it again, and plays a tune on his space violin. That seemed inadequate and a little cheesy to me.

Pilot took the lopping off of his arm a little too lightly, though he did make some sarcastic accusatory comments later in the ep. But I didn't buy his attitude. He's the pilot, cutting off his limbs is not part of serving the crew.

I think a Pilot's regenerative abilities was a concept added much later. In this ep we get lines about "now having three good arms", and at the end DArgo asks: "how is your arm healing" which I took to mean they retrieved the arm from Namtar's lab and had it grafted back on.

I enjoyed this episode more the second time than on my original viewing. I think that's because I know now that D'Argo isn't going to be such an unlikable a*** in every episode. I was able to get more enjoyment from the good things the episode had to offer.

[Wa11z]

I agree Namtar is a great looking alien. And I hate on certain shows that they put a couple of ridges on an actors nose or chin and bam!, they're an alien. That irks me to no end.
As for Namtar's questionable practices with eye-sucking, I took it that he was an extortionist, and would get dna and payment, and limbs, and anything else his unwary customers would give him.

Having said that, if you look at my avatar you will see a great example of how you can use very little makeup on an actor and still get a convincing alien. Especially in this case, the look was story-specific and an obvious metaphor for a theme explored in this episode.

[Mr. Infamous]

Originally Posted by Rustydogz

But this whole 'lost' business. Only Crighton is lost. Since when are the others lost? Sure, the Uncharted territories are ... uncharted, but the worlds of Zhann, etc, are known worlds. They were prisoners of the Peackeepers, not wanderers lost in space. Perhaps the story idea was that they wanted a chart of the Unknown Territories so they could find a safe course through it, but it was never stated that way. They acted like they had no idea where their home planets were at all, which is nonsense.

I had trouble with this to. Are the expecting us to believe that nobody can point say, dargo, in the direction of Luxon space? His species has been spacebourne for generations and has control over not just a single planet but a whole territory large enough to apparently serve as a meaningful speedbump to the Scarrans later on. They also have high end technology on par with PKs and others, just they're not as big in terms of scale.

Rygel is in the same boat, people know he's a Hynerian, they know of Hynerians, Hynerians have a large civilization spanning multiple planets but no one knows what direction it's located in?

Zhaan is not quite as bad since the Delvians seem to be smaller in scale and she's looked at as semi mythical by at least one character later this season (Yes I've been watching ahead). It's still pretty bad though, she's in the high hundreds of years old and has never spoken about things like her people taking to space for the first time so you'd think that they've been there for more than a while.

It was good that the characters are still a little hostile and mistrustful (for good reason!) this far into the season. That they would only gradually become friends seems to make sense, and made for better stories. It was great irony that Aeryn, the Peacekeeper, was the moral one in this ep, disgusted that the other three would chop off a comrade's arm. The way she stood, pistol shown prominently, gave the impression she was ready to gun them down. This was another reversal of expectations, given what we viewers have learned of Peacekeepers. Now we learn that other species in this Galaxy are no better and perhaps worse.

It's actually funny how as the series moves further and further along the PKs start to seem more and more justified in their xenophobia and general paranoia. [spoilers]You can at least see how after the Eidolon magic peace powers went away their society would eventually descend into ultra militarized paranoia as they tried to continue on in their original role. [/spoilers] The Farscape universe is actually a pretty hostile and unforgiving place where things are often not as they appear and good intentions hardly always guarantee good returns.

I think a Pilot's regenerative abilities was a concept added much later. In this ep we get lines about "now having three good arms", and at the end DArgo asks: "how is your arm healing" which I took to mean they retrieved the arm from Namtar's lab and had it grafted back on.

I think they did drop a line about him being able to grow it back here to.

I enjoyed this episode more the second time than on my original viewing. I think that's because I know now that D'Argo isn't going to be such an unlikable a*** in every episode. I was able to get more enjoyment from the good things the episode had to offer.

Yeah I've got to admit I've also been surprised at the portreyal of early Dargo hus far. I didn't remember him being as much of an as as he often comes across here.

[Mr. Infamous]

Originally Posted by Wa11z

I agree Namtar is a great looking alien. And I hate on certain shows that they put a couple of ridges on an actors nose or chin and bam!, they're an alien. That irks me to no end.
As for Namtar's questionable practices with eye-sucking, I took it that he was an extortionist, and would get dna and payment, and limbs, and anything else his unwary customers would give him.

The forehead aliens are one of my major sci-fi peeves, not as bad though as the "we all dress alike and have the same haircuts, cloths and politics" ones though. Trek was again the worst of all offenders there. For a show that actually started out making episodes like the one in your avatar that argued against racism, it was pretty jarring the way this sort of over the top and blatent pigeonholing of virtually every single species of any note was done so casually.

It's like the equivalent of doing an episode where they come up here to Canada and we come out in our uniform red and white toques to attack them with Hockey sticks before retreating to our igloos to eat timbits and maple syrup, or where they go to Ireland and everyone there is dressed in green, drunk and fighting, all of this being presented 100% straightfaced of course.

Once you notice it's there it's hilarious how bad it is.

[Thyme Laird]

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I had trouble with this to. Are the expecting us to believe that nobody can point say, dargo, in the direction of Luxon space? His species has been spacebourne for generations and has control over not just a single planet but a whole territory large enough to apparently serve as a meaningful speedbump to the Scarrans later on. They also have high end technology on par with PKs and others, just they're not as big in terms of scale.

And he didn't even bother to ask directions when he met up Verell and Matala.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Rygel is in the same boat, people know he's a Hynerian, they know of Hynerians, Hynerians have a large civilization spanning multiple planets but no one knows what direction it's located in?

As much as Rygel boasts of the size of his empire, it's sure hard to find.

If Starburst is as random as it appears early on (likely due to Pilot's inexperience),
then getting a fix could get increasingly harder as they keep jumping.

And yet, how can the ship not have charts?
What would it do if it needed to separate from the rest of the Peacekeeper fleet for some reason?

Also...notice how D'Argo, Rygel, and Zhaan can't really decide if they really want to go home after all?

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Yeah I've got to admit I've also been surprised at the portreyal of early Dargo hus far. I didn't remember him being as much of an as as he often comes across here.

It seems to me that he can't bring himself to trust the others until Season 2.
Yeah, I tend to think of Farscape in terms of Season 2 and on myself.
Season 1 seems mostly like a prologue to the real adventure.

[Wa11z]

I agree. I think Voyager was probably the worst offender in that sense. I can see it with the Vulcans, and even buy it with the Romulans and the Peacekeepers, and obviously the Borg, but after that it strains the limits of the imagination.
But after some consideration I thought about it. Say humankind were to send out a group of ambassadors to visit an alien race for the first time. There would be certain behavioural protocols that would be strictly adhered to and any deviation from that would be considered threatening behaviour. I'm certain the writers weren't thinking of that in retrospect, they were simply trying to create the illusion of a certain species that behaves a certain way. But it got me thinking about it. Any thoughts? Anyone?

[Thyme Laird]

Originally Posted by Wa11z

I agree. I think Voyager was probably the worst offender in that sense. I can see it with the Vulcans, and even buy it with the Romulans and the Peacekeepers, and obviously the Borg, but after that it strains the limits of the imagination.

I think the writers addressed that by explaining that the galaxy was seeded by a race of progenitors DNA sequences that allowed humanoids to spring up from various worlds.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 6 (The Chase)

Originally Posted by Wa11z

But after some consideration I thought about it. Say humankind were to send out a group of ambassadors to visit an alien race for the first time. There would be certain behavioural protocols that would be strictly adhered to and any deviation from that would be considered threatening behaviour. I'm certain the writers weren't thinking of that in retrospect, they were simply trying to create the illusion of a certain species that behaves a certain way. But it got me thinking about it. Any thoughts? Anyone?

What does their behavior have to do with their humanoid appearance? You lost me.

[Rustydogz]

Originally Posted by Thyme Laird

I think the writers addressed that by explaining that the galaxy was seeded by a race of progenitors DNA sequences that allowed humanoids to spring up from various worlds.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 6 (The Chase)

What does their behavior have to do with their humanoid appearance? You lost me.

The second observation was that they had the same haircut, clothes, and politics. Consider Klingons, their personalities and dialogue were interchangeable. And Vulcans, and Romulans, and Ferengi, etc. There was only one personality for each species. I don't recall any exceptions, but if there are, that's what they were, exceptions to the rule. One set of personality traits was used for entire species.

As for humanoids having a common ancestor, that if fine, but to differentiate them by sticking some plaster on their foreheads or with goofy ears was lazy. ST TNG did this constantly, but maybe Voyager and Deep Space Nine were worse. They certainly were no better.

Back to Farscape. At first we see groups like the Peacekeepers all dressed alike. This is ok, since they are all military. The same applies to Romulans or Klingons. But when we see more Peackeepers, we get the sense that there is a variety of personalities there. This is similar to Wa11z's ambassador example. The first few might act and dress in a certain formal way, but as you get to know them, and meet others, there has to be variation in the personalities and the (non-working?) clothes and politics, etc. BB5 did this well. There were several ambassadors on the station, and from the first we see that each, even in the same species, had his/her unique personality. I don't see why Star Trek could never do this, or why they did not bother.

[Mr. Infamous]

Originally Posted by Wa11z

Say humankind were to send out a group of ambassadors to visit an alien race for the first time. There would be certain behavioural protocols that would be strictly adhered to and any deviation from that would be considered threatening behaviour. I'm certain the writers weren't thinking of that in retrospect, they were simply trying to create the illusion of a certain species that behaves a certain way. But it got me thinking about it. Any thoughts? Anyone?

It doesn't really work as an explanation for Trek, since we regularly see these aliens in "home" type settings or only interacting with each other and nothing changes.

I'm willing to grant that some things like the cloths and even some of the haircuts could be military mandated but even that can only stretch so far. Even civillian Vulcans and Romulans sport the haircut and military enlistment has nothing to do with all Ferangi being depicted as greedy cowards.

Originally Posted by Thyme Laird

I think the writers addressed that by explaining that the galaxy was seeded by a race of progenitors DNA sequences that allowed humanoids to spring up from various worlds.

For me that really just amounted to little more than an after the fact excuse for their unimaginitive makeup jobs. I'll give TNG more of a pass on this because it was an older show but even then their seeding explanation only serves to poorly explain why every alien looks semi human. It doesn't explain why all Romulans have the same haircut, why all Klingons live for war and honour, or why all Ferangi are greedy. Virtually every major alien society in star trek is basically what would typically be considered a racial stereotype, only brought to life and then played straight.

Originally Posted by Rustydogz

Back to Farscape. At first we see groups like the Peacekeepers all dressed alike. This is ok, since they are all military. The same applies to Romulans or Klingons. But when we see more Peackeepers, we get the sense that there is a variety of personalities there. This is similar to Wa11z's ambassador example. The first few might act and dress in a certain formal way, but as you get to know them, and meet others, there has to be variation in the personalities and the (non-working?) clothes and politics, etc. BB5 did this well. There were several ambassadors on the station, and from the first we see that each, even in the same species, had his/her unique personality. I don't see why Star Trek could never do this, or why they did not bother.

Farscape takes it even further. "Peacekeepers" are not a species, they're a political group. Sebaceans are a species, many of which are also Peacekeepers. Not all Sebaceans are PKs though and not all PKs are Sebaceans. We see lots of Sebacean people in the show and Sebacean like people that are not affiliated with the PKs in any way. We also see a few aliens who are, though because of the PKs exclusionist policies, not very many. In other words this is actually played out a lot more like reality.

As you noted to there's also wildly diverging personalities within the PKs themselves. You cant even come close to saying the Crais, Scorpius, Grayza, Aeryn and Braca are anything alike really, but they all are or were Peacekeepers, and aside from Scorpy are all Sebaceans.

It works for Aliens as well. Chiana is nothing like the other Nebari we see, and Dargo is nothing like Jothee.