Farscape Rewind: Episode 1.21

[Mr. Infamous]

This week on Farscape rewind "Bone to be Wild", an epiode that's noteworthy mostly for being a giant gaping sinkhole that opens beneath the viewer while they're cruising down the tranquil stretch of quality that is the end of season one and start of season two.

It also contains probably the stupidest exchange of dialog in the entire series, fun lies ahead folks.

The episode opens up by giving us somewhat of a subtle hint of what's in store. We see the crew of Moya all sitting around a table apparently freezing because the ship's heaters have been powered down, while they hide from a peacekeeper scan. What's so bad about that, well nothing, until everyone starts whispering of course. You know because sound travels through space the same way it travels through water in Das Boot. I suppose it's possible that the PK scan can actually somehow detect the particular vibration of air molecules caused by a person speaking and then filter it out of the background noise and relay that data back to the command carrier via magic somehow, but even if that were the case this scene would still be an overused cliche. I'll give Rygel extra credit for being the only one to realize that whispering isn't necessary though.

Anyway, after a bit more whispering the crew picks up a distress signal that'll serve to set up the main plot of the episode. There's some kind of vaguely creepy and not so vaguely annoying alien woman screaming bloody murder about somebody trying to well, murder her. The crew, naturally deciding that the massive warship commanded by the raving lunatic currently trying to murder them isn't nearly pressing enough, agree to go ahead and position themselves between this woman and her problems as well. Much like in Nerve, the inherent absurdity of this is blown off with a joke as they again rush to the plot obligated rescue. Opening credits roll and we next move on over to the command carrier itself where we see the contrasting command styles of Crais, who throws PK paper at Braca, and Scorpius who actually knows what he's doing. To be fair to Crais though his plan's not that stupid, he just wants to reorient the carrier so they can scan the various blind spots they couldn't see before. What is stupid though is how he completely refuses to also implement Scorpy's plan pretty much entirely because it came from Scorpy and he's becoming worried that Scorpy's might just be bigger. It's Crais though so what would you expect, reason.

Neither one of these three comes to the shocking realization that the ship they're on is called a command carrier though, and thus probably contains thousands of fighters judging by the size of the thing. So if there's 20,000 asteroids out there big enough to hide Moya and it takes a prowler 10 minutes to fly to and look behind an asteroid and there are 5,000 prowlers... we can do the episode in real time 24 style! Ok, Scorpy's mainly a scientist not a fleet officer so he shouldn't really be expected to know this, Braca's not going to step out of line by actually suggesting a plan to Crais, and Crais is retarded so I guess it all lands on him again. We won't linger on this any longer though, this is small potatoes compared to what's on the way.

Next we get some medium sized potatoes when we see Zhaan, Dargo and John landing on the lush jungle like surface of the nearby asteroid from which the distress signal originated. Yeah most viewers don't care about science stuff like this but this is pretty goddamn bad. Nothing that you can describe as an "asteroid" is going to have a warm sunny surface covered in plants, breathable air, and enough gravity to make this all possible. The only explanation I can think of to plug the gaping hole here is that this is some kind of hollowed out asteroid with an artificial environment inside but then how'd the pod get in. We don't see any kind of airlock, on the contrary we see a view of open space with a sun off in the distance as the whole arrival scene starts.

So maybe some kind of forcefield, artificial gravity generators, heaters, atmosphere machines... etc, all meant to be run unsupervised for you'll see how many years shortly. Why not just do this on a real planet again?

Nope, there's no easy excuse here I'm afraid, and we're only about five minutes into this thing.

So Dargo, Crichton and Zhaan are walking around through this jungle that shouldn't exist, Zhaan's in awe of all the wonderful plants but Dargo's allergic to them all so his mood is decidedly less chipper. It's not long before they hear growling and screaming coming from nearby though so they're off to the rescue to find the girl from the distress call about to be smashed with a rock by some sort of giant treeguy. John takes a few shots at treeguy, missing all of them from a distance of about 10 feet, but causing him to run off back into the bushes from whence he presumably came. The girl's name is Mlee, she tells the crew that the treeguy ate her whole family already and that they have to not only protect her, but any ship they may have, because he'll destroy it.

Sure enough they run back to their ship next and, surprise of surprises, tree guy is already in there messing around with something. A fight ensues, Dargo somehow manages to sustain life threatening internal injuries from being bumped against the wall a bit, and him and John both collaborate to shoot plenty of holes into their own ship but again none into treeguy himself.

Meanwhile back on Moya it's B plot time. Seems Moya can't communicate with her offspring so well because he knows he was born a freak so now it's going to be up to Aeryn to go over there and tell him he needs to listen to his mommy like a good little animate killing machine.

So Aeryn heads over there, we get to see the new baby Moya sets which are all red and "a complete synthesis of leviathan and warship technologies" and well, I don't like them. They're not awful overall but there's just one main issue I have that just prevents me from ever taking them seriously and that issue is thus.



Yeah I'm not going to get to much into what's wrong with this picture, as I think the close captioning already covers it, but if you need a hint try to imagine that console actually being used for anything other than "looking cool and alien". Yep this is the "communications array" and it's a bunch of light up triangles with no information anywhere on the panel, no hint as to what any of the buttons actually do, if they even are buttons at all, and just a general feeling of horrible low budget cheesiness that really grinds badly against the usually high standards of set design and costuming effects you'll come to expect in this show.

This thing looks like something a high school girl would doodle in the margins of her notes during a particularly boring class, not an actual control panel used to operate anything, with I suppose the possible exception of if being used to monitor the status of a giant multicolored snowflake that shoots triangles and peanuts out both ears. Hey maybe that's what baby Moya's "sonic ascendancy cannon" does, because you'd have to be pretty retarded indeed to fit a ship that's going to spend most of its time in space with any sort of weapon that includes the word "sonic" in the description and actually means it literally. It'd be rather like fitting a flame thrower on a submarine. But hey, maybe the panel's just supposed to be a surrealist representation of sonic the hedgehog who lives on the ship somewhere and can be called upon to vanquish its enemies as needed. There you go, it ceases to be stupid if I can "explain" it by being even stupider you see.

Yeah so two paragraphs is me "not getting into it that much"... cope. It's awful and I hate it and it won't go away for literally years so consider this rant a time saver in the long run.

So Aeryn pretends to be able to understand the giant Simon Says in baby Moya for a little while more, then we're back to the command carrier with Scorpy dissing on Crais again. Scorpy's sitting in his chair, suggesting that his various war trophies are a visible symptom of his small dong, threatening to usurp his command openly and I've got to wonder, why doesn't Crais just try to kill him to? Sure you can debate whether he'd succeed or not but he's already crossed that line with an individual he seemed to actually like just to keep his recall orders secret, and now he's got this guy on his ship constantly insulting him and making it no secret that he intends to get rid of him at the first opportunity. It's not because Scorpius outranks Crais that he's afraid to do anything, because even in this conversation Crais reminds Scorpy that he's got some sort of "special rank" (probably owing to the fact he's not a full Sebacean) but that it doesn't entitle him to ignore Crais' own rank of Captain. Being that Crais is every bit the murderous renegade loon Scorpy thinks he is why doesn't Crais just live up to his reputation, whip out a pistol, and shoot him, stuffing his carcass into a closet somewhere in his quarters until he can eventually blast it out into space somehow. I'm sure he wouldn't find any trouble at all locating a few PK underlings who'd be more than happy to help him dispose of the body of a "traitorous halfbreed who attacked me" in a hush hush sort of way. PKs are pretty heavily indoctrinated not to question their superiors after all. Now it's true in reality that Scorpy probably has some sort of contingency in place that'll ruin Crais in the event of his death but is Crais really smart enough to consider this as a possibility, or coolheaded enough not to just give into his anger even despite doing so?

It also merits question why Scorpy is intentionally exposing himself to this kind of danger to. He already thinks Crais is a lunatic, he's watched Crais kill one of his own officers first hand, and he's going out of his way to provoke Captain crazy while the both of them are alone in his quarters and Scorpy's by all appearances unarmed?

Now Crais does actually try to physically attack Scorpy later in the episode but it's more of an outburst of rage/loss of control sort of thing. Maybe he'd planned to beat him to death or something but it didn't really look like the precursor to the sort of premeditated murder I'd be expecting from him by now given the constant barrage of threats and insults from Scorpius. Perhaps I need to work harder to understand Crais as a character, or perhaps this is just the sloppy characterization monster in it's latest iteration.

Anyway, Scorpy leaves Crais' room unharmed and we're back in the jungle that shouldn't exist with Zhaan trying to get Dargo to eat some sort of herb that's going to stop his internal bleeding so she doesn't have to cut him open and fix it. Yeah you know what, I'm all bitched out for the moment. Mlee's going around sniffing everyone while Zhaan talks to John about how she needs more herbs to heal Dargo, we get a bit of Mlee's backstory, that she was part of a group of 41 colonists that were all killed by treeguy, and Zhaan drops the bombshell that Delvians are actually plant not animal evolved and so even though she has a lot of characteristics that would indicate that she's somewhat mammalian she's actually not and well... yeah I'm still bitched out after the console thing. Honestly I could make this review last forever with this much material and I need to save my strength for later anyway.

So John's a little weirded out by the whole plant thing at first but quickly gets curious instead and Zhaan explains a little bit more about it while they look around with Mlee for the herbs that Dargo needs. Thing's don't stay peaceful for long though because Mlee hears something in the bushes and runs off after it like a bad dog for some reason, the three of them get separated as a result and treeman finds Zhaan despite her attempts to turn invisible to hide from him. Yep, Zhaan gets a new potentially plot breaking superpower in this episode, and like those that have come before it it'll naturally never be used again. Don't believe me, ok, then why does someone who's got mind rending psychic powers and enough pure physical strength and hand to hand combat ability to easily overpower a Tavlek warrior need to hide from treeguy anyway? Even John beats his ass later in the episode, as we'll see soon enough.

Oh Zhaan, sometimes I think you were the sloppy characterization monster's favorite flavor of them all.

John goes back to the pod with Dargo and Mlee minus Zhaan of course, and while Dargo chews him out a bit about not protecting Zhaan properly, again begging the question of why she needs the protection of a guy that can't hit a stationary treeguy 10 feet away. Mlee lets drop though that treeguy likes to take his victims to a particular place before he actually eats them. So now since Zhaan might not be dead yet John goes off to rescue her with Mlee tagging along only to find out when he reaches the "eating grounds" that he's the meal and Mlee's going to be the eater.

Yep it's the "evil alien in disguise" cliche again, we haven't had it for a while but there is a bit of a twist this time. I guess I'll take this time to point out the excellent makeup work done in this episode to. It's pretty much the highlight of the entire thing with both treeguy, who's real name we're about to find out, and Mlee really being fantastic makeup jobs. Mlee in particular is worthy of note as it'll become pretty obvious later on when we watch it that she was the predecessor or prototype of sorts for a really incredible makeup effort that goes into a simply fantastic character in the second season.

So Mlee's about to eat John but out of nowhere treeguy tackles him, gets his gun off him and starts shooting at her. He's not any better of a shot than John though and she runs off into the woods as he explains that he's not their enemy, she is.

We'll get more on that later but right now it's time for Scorpy to pee in Crais' Cheerios again, this time telling him that his command "begs question" after Crais calls him back to his room to ask him why he's ordered all the carrier's bridge officers to implement the plan Crais had earlier shot down in favor of his own. Crais has essentially completely lost control of his own shp to Scorpy now, as he's unable to get Scorpy to reverse himself and Scorpy indicates that the entire bridge crew agreed that his plan was better anyway, and went ahead and enacted it for him once he suggested it. Crais is now Captain in name only. Of course it goes without saying that his strategy of hiding in his quarters while Scorpy did everything was unlikely to have done much to stall the process of Scorpy squeezing him out.

Back on the planet we get some more back story on Treeguy, who reveals him name to be Br'nee, explains he couldn't communicate with them earlier because the thin atmosphere in the jungle that shouldn't be leaves him out of breath too quickly, and explains that Mlee is a "calcivore" that survives by eating the bones of other creatures. Hey, in a land without milk or cheese extreme measures are necessary to get your recommended daily intake.

Br'nee explains that he's a Botanist that harvests plants to create medicines and that his ancestors seeded this barren asteroid 300 cycles ago. Remember this bit, it'll be important later. John asks him what happened to the rest of his team, he confirms the obvious, that Mlee ate them 1 by 1 by pretending to be harmless the same way she was before to gain their trust, then picking them off one at a time while they were unable to figure out who was responsible for the killings. This is all pretty reasonable so far so I suppose we're overdue for a quick hit of stupid so that's what we get next. Br'nee goes on to explain that Mlee's weakness is that she returns to her dormant state after eating enough bones and suggests that one of the three of them will have to get eaten so the other two can then take that opportunity to kill Mlee when she becomes nice again.

You know, as opposed to just shooting her regardless of what color her head happens to be at the time.

We close out that scene with Mlee howling out in the jungle and the three hearing it, remember this for later to, and then we're back on baby Moya for more hot, hot, B-plot action. You know this probably isn't even the B-plot, that would be Scorpy and Crais wouldn't it. Anyway this little installment of filler has Aeryn teaching the ship how to not freak out from Scorpy's special scare scan and then the scene is over, exciting stuff. We do get a little bit of an update on Aeryn's current opinion of the Peacekeepers though so it's not a totally useless scene.

Back on the planet Br'nee has pointed out the obvious, Mlee will attempt to eat Dargo since he's by himself and wounded, Zhaan seems unusually chipper about the whole situation again as they prepare to head out, and John gets stuck guarding the plants while they're gone. Before Zhaan and Br'nee leave though we get a demonstration of Br'nee's shrinking machine that he uses to store full sized plants for transport, and we get to see John threaten our helpful treeguy friend regarding what will happen to him if he doesn't come back in an hour as promised.

John's new job as guardian of some other guy's shrunken plants doesn't stay boring for long though because as soon as Br'nee and Zhaan leave Mlee shows herself and get this, she's been there the whole time she says, and has heard everything that Br'nee said about her. You know all those things that he said right before the three of them heard Mlee howling off in the distance yeah, oh but wait, it gets better.

Mlee decides not to eat John right away, that she'd rather tell him the truth about how she really ended up there and that goes like this. Br'nee's ancestors dumped her ancestors there to eat all the herbivores that used to live on the asteroid, wiping them and eventually each other out until only the plants survived. What's so wrong with that, well a lot so lets go point form this time.

-Br'nee says his ancestors seeded the "barren" asteroid with life in the first place so apparently they seeded it with the herbivores to eat their plants to.

-When they decided that hey, we don't want unchecked herbivores roaming in our giant space greenhouse after all, rather than poison them or introduce some sort of normal predator they went out and found a sentient predatory species and used them instead.

-When Br'nee's team arrived they welcomed M'lee into their midst and couldn't figure out why their people kept disappearing even though they were sent on a mission specifically to harvest the plants put their by their ancestors. So they knew about the plants and the harvesting, and as we'll see later Br'nee himself even knew about the plan to use Mlee's people to kill the herbivores. What no one apparently knew though was how to pack a photo of what Mlee's people actually looked like, nor did anyone suspect that the only sentient left on the asteroid when their team arrived might just be one of the sentient predators they put there in the first place, even after members of their team began to mysteriously vanish.

-Guess what, this still isn't the worst part of the episode.

So here's our twist on the "evil alien in disguise" cliche, both Br'nee and Mlee are evil aliens in disguise only Mlee isn't really evil at all, just hungry, leaving Br'nee as the only solid contender for asshole of the week. In something you'll only see on Farscape Mlee next explains to John that she's well aware that even if she eats him and all the others it'll only prolong her starvation so instead she asks him to take her back to her home planet and promises not to eat him along the way. The "you'll only see it on Farscape" part is when John actually is able to realize that, despite being a dangerous predator by her very nature, Mlee is also a true victim here and so he actually does help her, this as opposed to just popping off a smarmy response and filling the "evil monster" full of holes like you'd see on something like Stargate. A show that actually had its "heroes" torture, trick and kill a very similar character in a very similar situation in two separate episodes.

It's back to the exciting not even a B plot next with Aeryn somehow managing to power up baby Moya's weaponry by pushing buttons at random on those useless consoles. Chiana points out that baby Moya is the only actual weapon they've got right now and that Aeryn should stay there for the time being just in case. She complains a bit but seems to agree in the end.

Back on the planet though IT's TIME for our main event of the evening. John comes back to the transport pod with Mlee, Br'nee confirms that he knew exactly what she was and why she was there, sealing his team's status as the stupidest people on this side of the galaxy, and then it's the moment we've all be waiting for. I opened this review by saying that this episode contains what's possibly the single stupidest exchange in the entire Farscape series and here it is. John gets understandably irate with Br'nee once he admits full knowledge of and tries to justify what was done to Mlee's people, Zhaan gets involved in the argument on Br'nee's side and John accuses him of "murdering sentient beings to save a bunch of stinking plants". Zhaan's reply "how animal centric of you John". Ok so she just said something incredibly stupid right, so maybe it's just meant to be in character and... nope sorry. The script makes John apologize for offending her next and she gets all pissy about him implying that she's just a "stinking plant" instead of a "sentient being". You see because apparently now, despite her huge spiel at the beginning of the episode about how a lot of sentient species are flora evolved, she doesn't actually consider herself such a creature and instead prefers to more closely identify with grass and twigs rather than with other sentient beings, but ones that are animal evolved, like John and Mlee.

And she's accusing John of bigotry.

The kind of bigotry she's displaying here defies even classification as mere bigotry. It's some sort of freakish nuclear mutant Godzilla bigotry that all the tanks and soldiers in Japan, or even giant moths from outer space, wouldn't have a hope in hell of stopping. She's basically putting forward an argument that would equate spraying a park for dandelions to the holocaust, completely straight faced, and the script is being sympathetic to her while she's doing it.

Yeah, so there it is. Worthy of note here to is that this wasn't some guest written episode done by some guy who never wrote another one after this. No, this episode, and therefore presumably this scene, was co-written by none other than Rockne S. O'bannon and David Kemper, pretty much the 2 guys responsible for creating and running Farscape throughout its 4 years on the air.

Everybody can half an off day I guess, but I gotta say that as off days go that scene goes well beyond managing to pump diesel into your gas tank, into the territory of mistaking your new puppy for the frozen Thanksgiving Turkey and not realizing your mistake until it actually hits the table to a chorus of screams and vomit.

Anyway as we at last begin to enter the final stretch of this disaster Zhaan persuades John to let her go back with Br'nee to get some star charts from his lab that will help them escape the asteroid field, and we get easily the most hilarious Crais dis yet. Scorpy comes into his quarters again, finds him eating a meal at his desk, presses some kind of button on the wall to lower his desk back into the floor then kicks his whole tray across the room. There's just something about the sort of nonchalant way he does it that just had me absolutely busting a gut laughing. This is what it takes to finally snap Crais though and he attacks Scorpy, bouncing him off a few walls until Scorpy shows off how strong he actually is and just puts an end to it effortlessly. This is probably the only time in the series that I can recall where we get to hear Scorpy's digitally altered scary voice though so enjoy it, or don't, while it lasts. Scorpy seems most upset here not so much because Crais attacked him, but because as a result of this he was forced to draw upon his superhuman (supersebacean?) strength to overcome him. It doesn't seem like he enjoys being reminded of his partly alien heritage all that much, as we can see by how quickly he pauses to regather his scary mad voice into the calm civil tone we've come to expect from him.

Back on the planet Br'nee's managed to somehow get the better of Zhaan and shrink her, perhaps by threatening to pull the leaves off a daisy until she dropped her pulse pistol and stepped into the machine, but in any case John can't find her when he returns, just Br'nee faking hurt on the floor. Br'nee tries to lie about it of course, telling John Mlee took her to eat. John does fall for it at first, but then remembers Zhaan has no bones and so returns to confront Br'nee a second time. While this is going on Dargo's trying to convince Mlee to eat the PKs on the command carrier instead, something she doesn't seem to have a problem with as long as they come sooooooooon because she needs FOOOOOOODDDDD because she's STAAAAARVING AND MUUUUSSST EEEEEEAAAAAAAAT FOOOOOOOOOOOOD. Yeah if you've ever heard a Farscape fan say that Mlee was an irritating character this scene is why.

Back in the lab John beats up Br'nee, though manages to lose his gun in the process, then leaves it on the floor as he goes to unshrink Zhaan so Br'nee can pick it up and almost shoot him. Try as he might though Br'nee still can't actually hit anything with that gun, especially not when John's pulled out the magazine, and so instead he gets the consolation prize of being sliced in two by falling into the shrinker beam.

The episode closes out with the crew returning to Moya with the star charts and some of the plants. Crais pouting in his quarters some more, and Mlee eventually getting picked up by Scorpy after having tided herself over until his arrival on what was left of Br'nee.

All in all Bone to Be Wild shows some signs that it could have been a potentially good episode, but in the end what it ends up as is a case study in how lots of little problems, that might be forgivable in isolation, can gradually pile up over the course of an hour to tear an episode apart. Just about every other scene in this I was finding something that was either, sloppy, inconsistent or irritating. First you've got the inexplicable asteroid with full gravity and atmosphere and also an open view of space, then the added Zhaan superpowers at the same time she's being depicted as weaker than ever, then the herbs that cure internal bleeding and broken ribs when you eat them, then the stupid consoles that could never work in baby Moya, then the inconsistent and nonsensical story about how and why Mlee's people were brought to the asteroid, then the horrible scene with Zhaan in the transport pod. It's just too much sloppy writing for one episode to support and so it buckles and we're all cast into a yawning chasm of eyerolls, cringes and checking the clock to see how much time is left till it's over. So while the core idea here might have been a good one and there are a few interesting elements to be salvaged, the overall sloppiness of the actual execution just trainwrecks the whole thing and we're left with the sort of episode you dread having to watch again.

Final Verdict: So many nits god himself could not hope to pick them all.

[Rustydogz]

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

This week on Farscape rewind "Bone to be Wild", an epiode that's noteworthy mostly for being a giant gaping sinkhole that opens beneath the viewer while they're cruising down the tranquil stretch of quality that is the end of season one and start of season two.

I was surprised to see Crais. They learned he murdered an officer, he should be under arrest. And ideally he would have died when Aeryn turned the Aurora Chair to full power and left him screaming. A fitting end. In any case, it makes no sense for Crais to still be in command, on the bridge, or even walking around free.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Neither one of these three comes to the shocking realization that the ship they're on is called a command carrier though, and thus probably contains thousands of fighters judging by the size of the thing. So if there's 20,000 asteroids out there big enough to hide Moya and it takes a prowler 10 minutes to fly to and look behind an asteroid and there are 5,000 prowlers...

Even if there were only a few hundred, it makes sense to use them.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Ok, Scorpy's mainly a scientist not a fleet officer so he shouldn't really be expected to know this,

I assumed Scorpius had some type of command rank. Otherwise he could not command as much authority as he does, given what we were told of PK society.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Next we get some medium sized potatoes when we see Zhaan, Dargo and John landing on the lush jungle like surface of the nearby asteroid from which the distress signal originated. Yeah most viewers don't care about science stuff like this but this is pretty goddamn bad. Nothing that you can describe as an "asteroid" is going to have a warm sunny surface covered in plants, breathable air, and enough gravity to make this all possible.

They could have at least attempted to connect the situation to real science. Maybe say the 'asteroid' is actually a moon, orbiting a planet like Jupiter in a single-sun system. I once heard a theory that Jupiter began its life as a star, but never 'ignited'. So they could imagine a scenario in which this Gas Giant was not a 2nd star (which creates more problems), yet generated enough heat to make one of its nearer moons very hot, but not enough heat or radiation to make the entire system uninhabitable in combo with the sun. The show would not have to say whether there were 'Earth-type' planets nearer the sun, the ep would concern only this Gas Giant far into the sun's system, generating heat sufficient to allow Br'nee's people's experiments.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Meanwhile back on Moya it's B plot time. Seems Moya can't communicate with her offspring so well because he knows he was born a freak so now it's going to be up to Aeryn to go over there and tell him he needs to listen to his mommy like a good little animate killing machine.

This sort of trauma is good for a few eps, even a few eps spaced well apart, but these writers just went on and on and on for years with this same theme.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Yeah I'm not going to get to much into what's wrong with this picture, as I think the close captioning already covers it, but if you need a hint try to imagine that console actually being used for anything other than "looking cool and alien". Yep this is the "communications array" and it's a bunch of light up triangles with no information anywhere on the panel, no hint as to what any of the buttons actually do, if they even are buttons at all, and just a general feeling of horrible low budget cheesiness that really grinds badly against the usually high standards of set design and costuming effects you'll come to expect in this show.

Those were not Talon Christmas lights? Their level of imagination and the quality of their work varied wildly in this series. That is very unusual.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Scorpy dissing on Crais again. Scorpy's sitting in his chair, suggesting that his various war trophies are a visible symptom of his small dong, threatening to usurp his command openly and I've got to wonder, why doesn't Crais just try to kill him to? Sure you can debate whether he'd succeed or not ... or coolheaded enough not to just give into his anger even despite doing so?

We know Crais isn't cool-headed. Maybe each is too important to just assassinate. They may also be hinting that Crais is a coward, and Scorpy knows it, so is deliberately pushing him until he breaks.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Perhaps I need to work harder to understand Crais as a character, or perhaps this is just the sloppy characterization monster in it's latest iteration.

Now you are getting it!

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

that she was part of a group of 41 colonists that were all killed by treeguy,

And later we are to believe that the one creature could kill 41 'treepeople' without anyone suspecting, or just gunning her down, or stabbing her or whatever.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Oh Zhaan, sometimes I think you were the sloppy characterization monster's favorite flavor of them all.

Yes, and yet there are so many other contenders. Sad really.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

it'll become pretty obvious later on when we watch it that she was the predecessor or prototype of sorts for a really incredible makeup effort that goes into a simply fantastic character in the second season.

Oh? Who?

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

So Mlee's about to eat John but out of nowhere treeguy tackles him, gets his gun off him and starts shooting at her. He's not any better of a shot than John though and she runs off into the woods as he explains that he's not their enemy, she is.

It's ... twisted, lame, stupid, when John later ignores that Br'nee saved his skinny ass and is prepared to self-righteously condemn Br'nee to death.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Br'nee explains that he's a Botanist that harvests plants to create medicines and that his ancestors seeded this barren asteroid 300 cycles ago.

When they condemn Br'nee, they act as though he is personally responsible for what his ancestors did. I started to wonder if I missed that his species was supposed to live for hundreds of cycles.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Remember this bit, it'll be important later. John asks him what happened to the rest of his team, he confirms the obvious, that Mlee ate them 1 by 1 by pretending to be harmless the same way she was before to gain their trust, then picking them off one at a time while they were unable to figure out who was responsible for the killings. This is all pretty reasonable so far

No it isn't, as you pointed out a few paragraphs hence.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

-When Br'nee's team arrived they welcomed M'lee into their midst and couldn't figure out why their people kept disappearing even though they were sent on a mission specifically to harvest the plants put their by their ancestors. So they knew about the plants and the harvesting, and as we'll see later Br'nee himself even knew about the plan to use Mlee's people to kill the herbivores. What no one apparently knew though was how to pack a photo of what Mlee's people actually looked like, nor did anyone suspect that the only sentient left on the asteroid when their team arrived might just be one of the sentient predators they put there in the first place, even after members of their team began to mysteriously vanish.

Amazingly bad writing.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

So here's our twist on the "evil alien in disguise" cliche, both Br'nee and Mlee are evil aliens in disguise only Mlee isn't really evil at all, just hungry, leaving Br'nee as the only solid contender for asshole of the week. In something you'll only see on Farscape Mlee next explains to John that she's well aware that even if she eats him and all the others it'll only prolong her starvation so instead she asks him to take her back to her home planet and promises not to eat him along the way. The "you'll only see it on Farscape" part is when John actually is able to realize that, despite being a dangerous predator by her very nature, Mlee is also a true victim here and so he actually does help her, this as opposed to just popping off a smarmy response and filling the "evil monster" full of holes like you'd see on something like Stargate. A show that actually had its "heroes" torture, trick and kill a very similar character in a very similar situation in two separate episodes.

She just realized that John was vulnerable to a sob story, especially when it is a woman giving it. Then once she had their trust she would have tried killing them one by one, Ridley Scott's Alien 1 style. But as a semi-sentient creature whose hunting technique is to mimic the behavior of its prey, she could not control her urges long enough, so she 'warned' John she was losing control. Or the alternate theory, that she was a nice creature who meant well but could not control those hunger pangs. I never saw the similar SG1 eps.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

John gets understandably irate with Br'nee once he admits full knowledge of and tries to justify what was done to Mlee's people

You couldn't call them people exactly, but John has a point.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Zhaan gets involved in the argument on Br'nee's side and John accuses him of "murdering sentient beings to save a bunch of stinking plants".

I noted the 'sentient beings' line. What sentient beings? I thought it was animals on the planet with the plants. Are we to believe there was a colony on this planet, and that they were all wiped out by this lame 'I grow spikes in my arm when I am hungry' being? Or did John mean Mlee's fellow what-evers? I wouldn't call them sentient exactly, but it was mean to leave them there to starve. Still, they act like Br'nee and his team were personally responsible and that Mlee is getting justifiable revenge, which was perplexing. Are we meant to blame 2009 scientists for the stupid destructive shit scientists of 300 years ago did? That is the message of this episode.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Yeah, so there it is. Worthy of note here to is that this wasn't some guest written episode done by some guy who never wrote another one after this. No, this episode, and therefore presumably this scene, was co-written by none other than Rockne S. O'bannon and David Kemper, pretty much the 2 guys responsible for creating and running Farscape throughout its 4 years on the air.

On the bright side, it means any of us could write or produce a tv series in the near future.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

This is probably the only time in the series that I can recall where we get to hear Scorpy's digitally altered scary voice though so enjoy it, or don't, while it lasts. Scorpy seems most upset here not so much because Crais attacked him, but because as a result of this he was forced to draw upon his superhuman (supersebacean?) strength to overcome him. It doesn't seem like he enjoys being reminded of his partly alien heritage all that much, as we can see by how quickly he pauses to regather his scary mad voice into the calm civil tone we've come to expect from him.

They use it a few times, and you are exactly correct. The actor has said that Scorpius does not like to lose control, because his hated Scarran half comes forward when he does so, and at those times his voice changes to the more Scarran tones.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Back on the planet Br'nee's managed to somehow get the better of Zhaan and shrink her, perhaps by threatening to pull the leaves off a daisy until she dropped her pulse pistol and stepped into the machine, but in any case John can't find her when he returns, just Br'nee faking hurt on the floor.

And all this nonsense to further justify Br'nee as the bad guy and kill him off. It makes no sense that he would blow his last chance to escape by attacking and experimenting on Zhann. He wasn't back safe on his homeworld, his life was in the balance, dependent on maintaining some goodwill from the Moya people.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Yeah if you've ever heard a Farscape fan say that Mlee was an irritating character this scene is why.

Actually the whole episode is why.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Br'nee ... instead he gets the consolation prize of being sliced in two by falling into the shrinker beam.

A good villain death.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

The episode closes out with the crew returning to Moya with the star charts and some of the plants. Crais pouting in his quarters some more, and Mlee eventually getting picked up by Scorpy after having tided herself over until his arrival on what was left of Br'nee.

And then later they cannot figure out what happened to the guard left with Mlee. Duh. Also, since we are told her species "eats bones"(!) there would be a pile of skin and muscle and guts and blood left over from her victims. The hint of sexual interest from Scorpius was amusing.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

All in all Bone to Be Wild shows some signs that it could have been a potentially good episode, ... So while the core idea here might have been a good one

That is all that was good, the core idea.

[Mr. Infamous]

Originally Posted by Rustydogz

I was surprised to see Crais. They learned he murdered an officer, he should be under arrest. And ideally he would have died when Aeryn turned the Aurora Chair to full power and left him screaming. A fitting end. In any case, it makes no sense for Crais to still be in command, on the bridge, or even walking around free.

I think Scorpy tried to work it so that he would end up with Crais' carrier. If he just reported him to his superiors he would probably get a pat on the back, Crais would get arrested and someone else would be brought in to take command of his ship. If Scorpy's on the ship though and he forces Crais off for fear that he'll get him executed, then the ship will just automatically fall to him as I don't see Braca challenging him for it.

I assumed Scorpius had some type of command rank. Otherwise he could not command as much authority as he does, given what we were told of PK society.

They never really get into what his rank is I don't think. Crais says in this that he's part of some other branch of the PKs though, probably something more science related.

They could have at least attempted to connect the situation to real science. Maybe say the 'asteroid' is actually a moon, orbiting a planet like Jupiter in a single-sun system. I once heard a theory that Jupiter began its life as a star, but never 'ignited'. So they could imagine a scenario in which this Gas Giant was not a 2nd star (which creates more problems), yet generated enough heat to make one of its nearer moons very hot, but not enough heat or radiation to make the entire system uninhabitable in combo with the sun. The show would not have to say whether there were 'Earth-type' planets nearer the sun, the ep would concern only this Gas Giant far into the sun's system, generating heat sufficient to allow Br'nee's people's experiments.

Setting the episode in the rings of a huge gas giant with several near Earth sized moons and enough proximity to the sun would have solved all the problems and even better advanced the whole hide and seek story. Real asteroid fields don't actually look anything like that at all.

Those were not Talon Christmas lights? Their level of imagination and the quality of their work varied wildly in this series. That is very unusual.

It's not just that one panel either, it's all of them, and they stay the same for the entire time Talyn is on the show.

We know Crais isn't cool-headed. Maybe each is too important to just assassinate. They may also be hinting that Crais is a coward, and Scorpy knows it, so is deliberately pushing him until he breaks.

Yeah I know he's not cool headed. I was suggesting he'd try to murder Scorpy because I see it being hard for him not to given his established character. It's definitely possible he's just personally afraid of him though.

And later we are to believe that the one creature could kill 41 'treepeople' without anyone suspecting, or just gunning her down, or stabbing her or whatever.

I don't think Br'nee's team was quite that large. The 41 people was M'lee's people.

Oh? Who?

Her makeup is proto Natira. It's the same sort of full body exoskeleton type suit. It's a really unique look you don't really see anywhere else.

It's ... twisted, lame, stupid, when John later ignores that Br'nee saved his skinny ass and is prepared to self-righteously condemn Br'nee to death.

I don't think John ever intended to condemn him to death. He was pissed of when he learned what Br'nee was involved in as it related to what was done to M'lee's people but he only killed him at the end to save Zhaan and even then the actual killing was basically half accidental.

When they condemn Br'nee, they act as though he is personally responsible for what his ancestors did. I started to wonder if I missed that his species was supposed to live for hundreds of cycles.

He presumably joined up for this mission and carried it out knowing what it was so he's definitely a willing collaborator in the whole thing. He also defends the whole thing when he's called on it so it's not like he had any sort of ethical conflict over standing M'lee's people on that asteroid.

No it isn't, as you pointed out a few paragraphs hence.

At this point in the episode chronologically it still makes some sense. The way he tells it they just landed there, found the innocent looking alien who probably fed them a similar "help me" story to gain their trust and then gradually picked them off. It doesn't fall apart until later when we hear M'lee's side of it and learn that he knew there were dangerous predators there and should know exactly what they look like.

Amazingly bad writing.

I think it's easily some of the worst thus far. Jeremiah Crichton was bad, but it was bad mostly because of all the horribly lame cliches. In terms of crimes against consistency this one definitely wins. The plot literally does not make sense, the setting should be impossible, and both the guest characters and main characters display some of the most irritating behavior yet witnessed.

She just realized that John was vulnerable to a sob story, especially when it is a woman giving it. Then once she had their trust she would have tried killing them one by one, Ridley Scott's Alien 1 style. But as a semi-sentient creature whose hunting technique is to mimic the behavior of its prey, she could not control her urges long enough, so she 'warned' John she was losing control. Or the alternate theory, that she was a nice creature who meant well but could not control those hunger pangs.

John is definitely vulnerable to a sob story but she certainly has a good one to tell. Br'nee's people basically gathered up however many of her kind either by force or by tricking them and stranded them on that asteroid deliberately because they knew that they would consume all the herbivores. This is already bad enough but it gets even worse. Rather than come back for them when this task was completed and return them to wherever they nabbed them from, they just left them there indefinitely which forced their descendants to eventually kill and eat each other when all of the other food was gone.

They'd planned to return back when the last Calcivore was dead from starvation but somehow M'lee outlived their expectations.

It's a pretty ghoulish process and I have a hard time finding any sympathy for someone who'd be a party to that considering how totally unnecessary and stupid the whole thing was. Like I pointed out, why were their herbivores their in the first place, why not just poison or hunt them to extinction, why not use some type of predatory animal as opposed to a predator with a human like sentience. It's like they went out of their way to be assholes.

I never saw the similar SG1 eps.

It was Stargate Atlantis actually. It just struck me how similar the plots and "moral conundrums of the week" were, and yet how radically different the resolutions and reasoning pushed by the respective scripts. In SGA for example there was no moral conundrum period. The alien predator that was stranded was simply the enemy and got no sympathy for its situation either from the characters or the writing at large. I should probably stop making comparisons to other shows though. I actually edited out another one I'd made with trek but left this in.

You couldn't call them people exactly, but John has a point.

I noted the 'sentient beings' line. What sentient beings? I thought it was animals on the planet with the plants. Are we to believe there was a colony on this planet, and that they were all wiped out by this lame 'I grow spikes in my arm when I am hungry' being? Or did John mean Mlee's fellow what-evers? I wouldn't call them sentient exactly, but it was mean to leave them there to starve.

I'm not really sure where you're coming from with this. Aside from the fact her species eats bones rather than food cubes and fried dentecs M'lee seemed every bit as sentient to me, Zhaan, Dargo, Br'nee or any number of other aliens we've seen. She's got language, higher reasoning, emotions, the whole bag.

Still, they act like Br'nee and his team were personally responsible and that Mlee is getting justifiable revenge, which was perplexing. Are we meant to blame 2009 scientists for the stupid destructive shit scientists of 300 years ago did? That is the message of this episode.

For me it was less about them trying to push any kind of justified revenge angle and more about them just trying for the triple fake out with the two guest aliens. At first it seems like Br'nee is the villain, then it's M'lee after she tries to eat John, but then we learn that while M'lee is still dangerous it's basically something in her nature she actually tries to fight against, where as Br'nee chooses to be an asshole and keep the company of the sort of assholes who strand people on asteroids to starve so their plants can grow better. This was actually the small part of the episode that was good to me. If it had made more sense this could have been one of the better "unique Farscape moral lesson" episodes as most shows wouldn't even attempt to make a creature that eats people's bones be the more sympathetic one of a pair of aliens the team encounters. Nor go out of it's way to show that even such a nasty creature can also be a victim of cruelty.

On the bright side, it means any of us could write or produce a tv series in the near future.

Maybe someone else did when they both came down with the flu and they just signed it without reading it. If you went through this again and did a lot of cleaning and editing it could be a decent episode. It just feels like the script was rushed out as a first or second draft before anyone had time to really proofread it properly. The episode after this is fine though so it's not like it was some kind of end of the reason rush. It's really weird.

They use it a few times, and you are exactly correct. The actor has said that Scorpius does not like to lose control, because his hated Scarran half comes forward when he does so, and at those times his voice changes to the more Scarran tones.

Oh yeah, once we learn about his horrific back story it all makes sense, I'm just forcing myself to play dumb a little with the initial review posts because I don't want to load them full of spoilers for episodes that are still years away.

And all this nonsense to further justify Br'nee as the bad guy and kill him off. It makes no sense that he would blow his last chance to escape by attacking and experimenting on Zhann. He wasn't back safe on his homeworld, his life was in the balance, dependent on maintaining some goodwill from the Moya people.

Having him abduct Zhaan didn't make any sense at all. It was just to over the top and you're right in saying that it's main use was just to make sure the audience understood that he was supposed to be the real bad guy now.

Actually the whole episode is why.

I don't know what it is about this particular character that makes her so irritating. I definitely agree that she is though. It's just funny because the same actress (actually Ben Browder's wife) has several other similar characters later on and they all manage to be similarly weird but also likable. I already pegged it as the shrillness and screaming but I think the neediness can claim a big chunk of the credit to.

A good villain death.

I've got to wonder why it sliced him though. Or were we supposed to conclude that that's what would happen if only one half of you got shrunk at a time.

And then later they cannot figure out what happened to the guard left with Mlee. Duh. Also, since we are told her species "eats bones"(!) there would be a pile of skin and muscle and guts and blood left over from her victims.

Some people actually credit her as being the reason we never saw Niem again.

The hint of sexual interest from Scorpius was amusing.

Well she does remind him of an old flame.

That is all that was good, the core idea.

And the makeup, I've got to give them that one to.

[Rustydogz]

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I was suggesting he'd try to murder Scorpy because I see it being hard for him not to given his established character. It's definitely possible he's just personally afraid of him though.

It does make more sense for them to be arranging one another's death than trading insults.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I don't think Br'nee's team was quite that large. The 41 people was M'lee's people.

I assumed she was taking treeman's story and pretending it was her own.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Her makeup is proto Natira. It's the same sort of full body exoskeleton type suit. It's a really unique look you don't really see anywhere else.

It is one of their more imaginative ideas.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I don't think John ever intended to condemn him to death. He was pissed of when he learned what Br'nee was involved in as it related to what was done to M'lee's people but he only killed him at the end to save Zhaan and even then the actual killing was basically half accidental.

There was that whole 'lets leave him for Mlee' line of discussion, began I think by DArgo, but seconded by Crichton. They behaved as though treeman was personally responsible, but there was a three hundred cycle (year) gap, So the moral rage was misplaced. To be effective, the writers had to have all the relevant events happening within the same generation, with Brnee the actual guilty party. The way they wrote it, sure he defends the historical act, but he is just some poor schmuck sent to the asteroid to collect plants.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

John is definitely vulnerable to a sob story but she certainly has a good one to tell. Br'nee's people basically gathered up however many of her kind either by force or by tricking them and stranded them

Hey, that's how Canada was settled. haha just kidding. Yes her story is a sad one. I was saying that another interpretation is that she, or her species, are akin to sociopaths. We were told her hunting technique is to first gain the trust of her victims. So like a sociopath she can read other people and find their weaknesses, then feign the appropriate emotions and tell just the right story to manipulate them and gain trust. Then she kills them. Of course, the episode did not give us this degree of ambiguity, she is meant to be a creature who means no harm but cannot control herself once she gets hungry. Not the girl you want to take on a long camping trip.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Like I pointed out, why were their herbivores their in the first place, why not just poison or hunt them to extinction, why not use some type of predatory animal as opposed to a predator with a human like sentience. It's like they went out of their way to be assholes.

That's another thing to blame on the writers, not the characters. You don't need herbivores to start a greenhouse, and we are told the whole point of this asteroid was to be a giant greenhouse where plants could evolve without interference.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I should probably stop making comparisons to other shows though. I actually edited out another one I'd made with trek but left this in.

No, go ahead. Some readers will know the references, others will not, that's just the way it goes.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I'm not really sure where you're coming from with this. M'lee seemed every bit as sentient to me, Zhaan, Dargo, Br'nee or any number of other aliens we've seen. She's got language, higher reasoning, emotions, the whole bag.

She has language ... my impression was that her portrayal was more animal than human, but with language. She was the science fiction version of a ghoul.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

If it had made more sense this could have been one of the better "unique Farscape moral lesson" episodes as most shows wouldn't even attempt to make a creature that eats people's bones be the more sympathetic one of a pair of aliens the team encounters. Nor go out of it's way to show that even such a nasty creature can also be a victim of cruelty.

I prefer that sf stays away from 'moral lessons'. But presenting both sides of a moderately complex argument and encouraging the audience to think for themselves is ok. Farscape did have the grains of a good idea in this ep, but as you say, they messed up.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

The episode after this is fine though so it's not like it was some kind of end of the reason rush.

Well ....

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I don't know what it is about this particular character that makes her so irritating. I definitely agree that she is though. It's just funny because the same actress (actually Ben Browder's wife) has several other similar characters later on and they all manage to be similarly weird but also likable. I already pegged it as the shrillness and screaming but I think the neediness can claim a big chunk of the credit to.

Plus the character's ghoulish aspect, and the subtext (intentional or not) of a sociopathic or psychopathic element of the character. Of Francesca Buller's other characters, Akhna was the best one, Raxil was annoying, Ro-na (I think was the maid?), was a good character.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I've got to wonder why it sliced him though. Or were we supposed to conclude that that's what would happen if only one half of you got shrunk at a time.

Maybe they thought the sight of a helpless tiny treeman being chased around the lab by Mlee would be too pathetic.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Some people actually credit her as being the reason we never saw Niem again.

haha, nasty. What a horrible thought. The line does say that it is a 'guard', so my assumption is a soldier. Niem I assume stayed on the base.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Well she does remind him of an old flame

True, so we know his taste before he met Sikozu.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

And the makeup, I've got to give them that one to.

Ok.

[Mr. Infamous]

Originally Posted by Rustydogz

It does make more sense for them to be arranging one another's death than trading insults.

I just figured Crais would snap and shoot him in anger. He's anything but a poster boy for self control and I've got to wonder what Scorpius expected to get out of constantly antagonizing him the way he did.

I assumed she was taking treeman's story and pretending it was her own.

I think Br'nee gives a different number for his team though. I'm remembering 26.

There was that whole 'lets leave him for Mlee' line of discussion, began I think by DArgo, but seconded by Crichton. They behaved as though treeman was personally responsible, but there was a three hundred cycle (year) gap, So the moral rage was misplaced. To be effective, the writers had to have all the relevant events happening within the same generation, with Brnee the actual guilty party. The way they wrote it, sure he defends the historical act, but he is just some poor schmuck sent to the asteroid to collect plants.

The impression I got was that he was part of some kind of organization that basically did this sort of thing all over the galaxy with these little hidden greenhouses. It's not like he was surprised to find out what they'd done either since he was clearly told about it beforehand. Despite that though he had no trouble with the idea that a bunch of these Calcivores were shipped over there to die as the second stage in the plan he was now signing up to become a part of.

Maybe I'm just not seeing the sympathetic side to him because I find him very nearly as annoying as M'lee.

Hey, that's how Canada was settled.

Not too far off, only we don't consider the French to be sentient here.

Yes her story is a sad one. I was saying that another interpretation is that she, or her species, are akin to sociopaths. We were told her hunting technique is to first gain the trust of her victims. So like a sociopath she can read other people and find their weaknesses, then feign the appropriate emotions and tell just the right story to manipulate them and gain trust. Then she kills them. Of course, the episode did not give us this degree of ambiguity, she is meant to be a creature who means no harm but cannot control herself once she gets hungry. Not the girl you want to take on a long camping trip.

She's definitely dangerous to be around, and obviously lies and tricks others so she can eat them, but I don't think that in itself can really declassify her as sentient. Sentience is more about a certain level of cognitive ability than it is about motives or what's on the lunch menu.

That's another thing to blame on the writers, not the characters. You don't need herbivores to start a greenhouse, and we are told the whole point of this asteroid was to be a giant greenhouse where plants could evolve without interference.

I'd say that I'd really like to know how those herbivores got there, but that would basically amount to asking for a sequel to this episode.

No, go ahead. Some readers will know the references, others will not, that's just the way it goes.

Sometimes I just feel like it's an unnecessary side track or that it comes off as me constantly repeating "Farscape is better than all these shows see" in a fanboy like way. It is true though that a big part of why I like Farscape so much, as well as why I grew to dislike Stargate, just boils down to the fact that Farscape tried to break with convention as much as it could and surprise the viewer with unexpected outcomes to situations they might have seen before, where as Stargate, particularly Atlantis, embraced some of the worst genre cliches out there, slapped on a generous coat of "America, fuck yeah" and tried to play it all straight and like it was new. The entire show can basically be condensed into the scene in Independence Day where Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum bring down the shields of an entire fleet of alien ships with a computer virus so that heroic American fighter planes can blow them all up while heroic music plays, heroic speeches are given, and cheesy wisecracks are made. Since you said you've never seen it, that's Stargate Atlantis, only with a lower budget and somehow stretched out to last 5 years.

I prefer that sf stays away from 'moral lessons'. But presenting both sides of a moderately complex argument and encouraging the audience to think for themselves is ok. Farscape did have the grains of a good idea in this ep, but as you say, they messed up.

Yeah "moral lesson" might have been a bad choice of words since I don't really find Farscape, even this episode, to be preachy in the way those words imply. Rather they just give you a balanced take from both sides, like you said, where as in many other shows the bone eating monster would never get an argument made by the script in it's favor. It would be a given that it was the villain.

Well ....

You didn't like Family Ties?

Maybe they thought the sight of a helpless tiny treeman being chased around the lab by Mlee would be too pathetic.

That scene alone would have caused me to bump this episode up big time. It would be much better if it was Crichton though, with those big Pk commando boots.

[Rustydogz]

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I just figured Crais would snap and shoot him in anger. He's anything but a poster boy for self control and I've got to wonder what Scorpius expected to get out of constantly antagonizing him the way he did.

I think he wanted Crais to snap, but without the shooting.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I'd say that I'd really like to know how those herbivores got there, but that would basically amount to asking for a sequel to this episode.

I wouldn't be surprised if in an earlier draft of the script, Brnee's people found an unpopulated, uncolonized planet, and decided to kill off the animals and turn the place into a giant greenhouse. Several script drafts later, the planet became an asteroid on which the treepeople placed the plants and animals then killed off the animals, but the writers lazily left the contradictions intact.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Sometimes I just feel like it's an unnecessary side track or that it comes off as me constantly repeating "Farscape is better than all these shows see" in a fanboy like way. It is true though that a big part of why I like Farscape so much, as well as why I grew to dislike Stargate, just boils down to the fact that Farscape tried to break with convention as much as it could and surprise the viewer with unexpected outcomes to situations they might have seen before, where as Stargate, particularly Atlantis, embraced some of the worst genre cliches out there, slapped on a generous coat of "America, fuck yeah" and tried to play it all straight and like it was new. The entire show can basically be condensed into the scene in Independence Day where Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum bring down the shields of an entire fleet of alien ships with a computer virus so that heroic American fighter planes can blow them all up while heroic music plays, heroic speeches are given, and cheesy wisecracks are made. Since you said you've never seen it, that's Stargate Atlantis, only with a lower budget and somehow stretched out to last 5 years.

If they could have cast Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith they may have had a better show. I tried to watch Atlantis, but my favorite character was the colonel they killed off in the first episode. And I found the whole 'space vampires' thing stupid. I haven't seen the new SG show. Any good?

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

You didn't like Family Ties?

It was ok. I had a crush on Mallory for several years. 'rim shot'

Seriously, that ep has faded in memory, I'll see if I can rent the dvd and rewatch it.

[Mr. Infamous]

Originally Posted by Rustydogz

I wouldn't be surprised if in an earlier draft of the script, Brnee's people found an unpopulated, uncolonized planet, and decided to kill off the animals and turn the place into a giant greenhouse. Several script drafts later, the planet became an asteroid on which the treepeople placed the plants and animals then killed off the animals, but the writers lazily left the contradictions intact.

That sounds pretty plausible actually. I said that this thing felt like an unfinished draft but it's equally possible that it was actually something they just couldn't get the way they wanted it for whatever reason, leading to it being partly rewritten piecemeal so many times one given part of it no longer made sense with another.

If they could have cast Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith they may have had a better show. I tried to watch Atlantis, but my favorite character was the colonel they killed off in the first episode. And I found the whole 'space vampires' thing stupid. I haven't seen the new SG show. Any good?

The new one hasn't started yet but apparently it's going to all be different this time and they're going to fix all the problems and make it much more deep and about the characters... Yeah, given that they said basically the same thing between every season of Atlantis as the show got progressively worse I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Rustydogz]

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

The new one hasn't started yet but apparently it's going to all be different this time and they're going to fix all the problems and make it much more deep and about the characters... Yeah, given that they said basically the same thing between every season of Atlantis as the show got progressively worse I wouldn't hold my breath.

If we can judge the new Stargate by how they choose to advertise it in publicity photos, then by 'deep and about characters' they mean the guys spend half the day in the gym and wear t-shirts to show off their biceps, and the women all have big boobs, wear push-up bras and low-cut t-shirts to show off max cleavage.

It looks like it may have more in common with 'Defying Gravity' than with 'Stargate'.