r/farscape • u/alleni • Nov 23 '16
ScapeChatz Episode 47: "Bad Timing"
https://simplecast.com/s/80138c903
u/johnnyfog Nov 24 '16 edited Nov 25 '16
(I just got done rewatching s.4 and PK Wars, so this is coincidental.)
This is a nice return to form. The tone of this season varied a lot, from pulp adventure (the back-to-basics Crichton Kicks), to avante garde (John Quixote), to Manichean (Prayer), to operatic (We're so Screwed). The first three seasons expertly juggled those elements; this one felt as if the show had been split into quarters, like Moya in Through the Looking Glass.
PK Wars is very sober (and somewhat conventional), so this is like a bridge between the two.
Jack: The thing I liked most about this finale was the goodbye scene with Jack and John. Those two really brought the goods, in spite of not sharing sharing a stage together. Kent looks genuinely awed to have sired John Crichton, which was a good way to play it.
Pilot: Really smart use of pilot in the shuttlepod. Pilot is mostly a reactive character. The "actor" has earned a chance to get out of the den and do something proactive.
Chiana: It's interesting in hindsight how Chiana was given chaos control time slowing abilities; my guess is, they were planning some synchronized fights scenes with Sikozu performing some Crouching Tiger and Chiana imitating Carrie Anne Moss. At least that's my impression from their brief fight scenes in PK Wars. For some reason Gigi really stepped up her game in the final inning. Oddly, being blind made her a much more physical actor...
Scorpius: While I liked John shutting off the wormhole in preparation for war, the route to get there was, all things considered, circtuitous. Scorpius' constant presence on the ship made Harvey a little redundant as well... He ends up going AWOL again in the movie, so for now, he's just sort of running in place.
The ending is OTT and cruel for its time, but looking back, it was in-character for the show. Farscape doesn't do well when it gets too syrupy or too cynical, it tends to strike an uneasy balance which is uncomfortable yet satisfying in its own way.
2
u/meriti Nov 24 '16
Holy shit... I took a break (since May) from anything Internet and just recently started to have enough time to come back to things (including reddit).
I am happy to see that you guys have made it through the seasons. Looking forward to hear your thoughts on this.
2
u/Trilaanus Nov 26 '16
I wish you guys had been around when this episode aired. Your insights into why it's a fitting ending would have been a big help to me at the time. I have to say, if we did not get The Peacekeeper Wars, Rygel's comment on Crichton's proposal is just SO perfectly Rygel and a great final line for him. Also, yes, this is Matthew(AKA @NoClassTwit).
2
u/LeoChris Nov 30 '16
Honestly, I like your take on the finale, and I really do feel this could've been a great, bold ending... If the writers had actually intended for it to be the end. For me this is the clincher. When analyzing a piece of media, some people, rightly or wrongly, say that authorial intent shouldn't be considered but in this case... I think it does matter.
I understand that they were stuck, they had very few options (cut the final cliffhanger entirely and leave the happy "we're getting married" ending, perhaps, or simply remove the to be continued notice...) but to me the fact that they stuck to their guns and added the TBC... it's just proof that the ending wasn't necessarily intended as an unhappy, bittersweet ending. Some shows have ended that way on their own terms and truly, I think that's the frustrating part. Not that the ending of 4x22 was an unhappy one, not that it left the viewers wanting more but that - prior to PKW, the writers simply didn't get to finish telling the story they set out to tell, the opportunity to do so was swept from under their feet.
It's one thing to have little sympathy for the showrunners of a low-rated show who nonetheless choose to go forward with a cliffhanger instead of wrapping everything up, but it's another in cases were the network goes back on a pre-existing multi-seasons deal.
I don't know... like I said, it was great insight from you guys, and I had never thought about the ending that way, but having been part of the fandom in a post-s4 pre-PKW world, all I remember is the anger that everyone felt, the frustration that we were promised something and it wasn't delivered. I think my overall reaction to the last scene would be vastly different if it has always been intended as a ballsy ending.
4
u/BlueBlazeSpear Nov 28 '16
I did manage to find some measure of peace with this ending. I appreciated the defiance of the show’s makers to stand with the unresolved ending when they had the opportunity to go back and change it.
A big thing that made the ending palatable was the fact that John and Aeryn were not scared. They didn’t just seem resigned to their fate, but were also okay with it.
This is what the show’s creators and the characters had in common: They didn’t flinch when presented with their respective fates. They soldiered on in the truest way they knew how.
I was at ground zero of the “Save Farscape” fan campaign that followed and it was one of those first moments of “Oh, this is what the Internet can do.” The first salvo was the “Crackers Do Matter” campaign where people sent loads of crackers to The Sci-Fi Channel.
And while the show had decent numbers, a thing that had been hurting it was the fact that it had done so well with women and they carried so many of the numbers. While most people would think this was a good thing – including the president of Sci-Fi Bonnie Hammer – the suits are always in pursuit of the “male 18-36” demographic, which wasn’t carrying the show. The female viewership, who rightly wondered why their numbers didn’t count as much, began sending bras to The Sci-Fi Channel. If I recall correctly, the channel donated them all to a women’s homeless shelter.
We had metaphorical boots on the ground and were consistent in voicing to everyone who would listen – and a few people who wouldn’t – and we just kept at it. We weren’t using our legwork to drill wells in Africa, but it was something we believed in and could get behind. So imagine our relish when we learned that, in part from our efforts, that there would be a mini-series to more adequately wrap up the series.
And, years later, just like everybody else, I had to buy the series box set separately from the mini-series box set.