Different Destinations

Hey everyone!

Well we have a new adventure, a new opening sequence sans Zhaan, and so a new review. As always this contains huge honkin spoilers for Different Destinations, and if you read this and get spoiled it won’t do you any good to go back in time and stop me from writing it!

Overall:

• OK I’ll admit I went into this eppy very biased because I hate time travel episodes. There are just too many improbabilities and impossibilities involved...the whole grandfather paradox being just one example. And yes there were problems with this eppy when it came to how and what exactly happened to our crew this week.

• However there is a bit more here then just ‘crew goes into past and mucks things up and has to fix it’. Decan presents another interesting idea; who are heroes and what do they do to be seen as a hero in the eyes of the past? And John’s streak of accidental bad luck continues as he inadvertently causes another dilemma. It’s not his plans that cause the problems as Aeryn thinks, its just him.

And Crichton:

• Wo ho! There are good things about the larger cast this season, Crichton doesn’t always have to take the injury! Score another for the SACCer side of the SACC Charity. This eppy gets a Tied To The Statue But Still OK rating.
  At least he didn’t die.

The Good:

• The shot of Moya gliding around the ringed planet was very beautiful!

• The opening sequence reminded me of family vacations, me and my sis would argue the entire time, my Dad would try and break us up and Mom would just roll her eyes and get exasperated at us all. Since Aeryn and Chiana are getting along much better now, Jool has turned into the new child for her to fight with. And D’Argo is always willing and able to play parent. Crichton just looks on knowing better then to try and stop Aeryn.

• Rygel lies better then Chiana about going into Zhaan’s quarters...they’re both trying to hide the truth, but eventually both admit they’re basically there ‘cause they miss Zhaan.

• Crichton checks out Stark’s new threads, "You look great, you look like Astro Boy!" It’s about time too, ‘cause even after coming back from being dispersed he was still wearing those rags from the Gammak base!

• Poor John...he tries to do something nice for Stark by showing him a lovely image of peace, and you can see his joy when he grins at Aeryn as Stark starts to say he can see the past. Then it all goes to Hell...

• I love how Aeryn knows the history of this battle so well from school that she can quickly and easily bluff the crew’s way into the past.

• "I’m not going to kill anyone...oh I might kill this one!"

• ...of course Crichton tries a bit harder not to kill and yet still ends up shouting, "Oh I’m sorry! Don’t die, don’t die!"

• Aeryn looks so devastated at first when she learns one of her PK heroes was actually just a cook. Of course she learns later that it’s what you do when it counts that makes you a hero, and she can once again have pride in her former childhood champion.

• Watch D’Argo roll his eyes and look exasperated as Stark obviously re-tells his story about the hundreds/thousands/millions dead.

• "Felling left out, D’Argo? We’re the only ones here not hearing voices."

• There’s lots of unfairness going on, but it all makes sense. It’s not far for Aeryn to simply dismiss Crichton’s plan as unworthy without even hearing about it, and then later be upset when he didn’t tell her what he was going to do! Then again with Crichton’s track record it’s understandable. Of course it’s unfair for Crichton to take matters of fate and history into his own hands and try to smuggle out the General on his own. With some help from his crewmates the General could have survived.

• It was wonderful watching Crichton work a truce with the General. Yes, it may be what history requires so Crichton can go back to his own time, but you can tell he also desperately wants the outcome he remembers because it’s a wonderful ending.

• "Why are you crying?"
  "Because of all the pain."
  ...there are some who don’t like Stark because of his tendency to be so spastic. Of course when you live in a world filled with death and pain like Stark’s, who wouldn’t be that way. This moment is such a powerfully quiet moment, as for once Stark succumbs to his grief in quiet tears. Then is consoled as well as consoles Citrina.

• Classic Aeryn: "And when the frell do you make decisions for me?"

• I think it’s in one of the DVD commentaries that Ben states that you should never make a vow or promise on Farscape cause it’ll come back to haunt you. This is definitely true for John in this eppy...first he promises the nurses that the Venik will make a truce if they offer it, only to immediately have the Venik send a flaming message proclaiming war! Then at the end he promises the nurses yet again that by them leaving and taking the weapons the Venik will agree to peace, only find out later that because they left with everything everyone was slaughtered.

• I was so confused at first why we were suddenly hearing a harmonica play "Home on the Range" till I saw NeuroScorpy! You know as much as I hate Scorpious, NeuroScorpy is turning out to be a ton of fun, and the scene’s between him and John are getting more and more interesting. Both have come to accept they are stuck with each other, and might as well work together so that John can live a "normal" life and NeuroScorpy won’t have to be locked up forever.

• "I’m in a Hell of a slump here. Everything I do just makes things worse."
  "Well then, do better!"

• Great Scene 1: Crichton and Aeryn discuss Decon’s fate/future, and if he really has to die to make things right. Neither wants to see the poor kid die, but in the end Crichton convinces Aeryn that’s the way they have to play out the past. We don’t really find out, but I wonder if Decon is still considered a hero by the PKs.

• I thought the small moment between D’Argo and Citrina, where he tells her to mark the stone so she’ll be remembered forever, was a very touching moment and played beautifuly by Anthony. He brings a wonderful tenderness to D’Argo when dealing with children.

• "Keep firing, running forwards and backwards making it look like an army."

• In between all her pissing (*snicker*) and moaning, Jool delivers this lovely line detailing some of my problems with time travel eppys, "I was just there 2 arns ago, I got shot, I drank piss."

• The fight scene was rather fun to watch, with Aeryn and D’Argo in their element and Crichton having a heart attack on the wall.

• Great Scene 2: the tag where everyone has to deal with the consequences of their actions. Yes Aeryn’s plan worked and their future is restored, but it’s no longer the happy memorial they remember. Crichton and Aeryn look gutwrenchingly depressed as they sit regretting the past, and Crichton’s misery hearing the nurses scream his name is awful! Fortunately D’Argo gets a last bittersweet moment as he finds Citriana’s mark on the wall and gives a little sigh of relief.

• It was very symbolic for Crichton to be sitting letting sand fall from his hand...like sands through the hourglass those are the days of our lives. :-)

The Bad:

• OK, here’s the paradoxes I hate but I gotta mention. If the crew went back and changed the past, NONE of them should remember the "old" past. They should only remember was is now the past. Aeryn should only remember the battle as it happened after they changed it, since now that is history and that’s what she would have learned. No one should remember the old past, ‘cause none of it now happened.

• PLUS I don’t think Pilot could be watching the planet go through these changes as the past changes...the past should happen instantaneously to them...in other words they should have seen the planet just stay the same the entire time.

• Jool is turning into the slapstick comedy element on the ship, and I don’t like it. OK seeing her get an arrow in the arm is bad, but then Aeryn knocks her out and even John is happy, D’Argo has no regret about slamming her into a wall and into a mudpuddle, Chiana makes a point just by whacking her injured arm...yes Jool is annoying but we don’t need this.

The Nitpicky:

• So were they just down sightseeing while Moya was recuperating? Were they there so Moya could get better, ‘cause after last week she needed a vacation!

• If they needed Stark to pull them through the riff in the first place (him yelling while blinding the rest of them) then how could D’Argo just push Jool through? If it’s that easy to go from one time to another why haven’t others fallen into the past?

• I knew the General was gonna get killed, but I figured with him dressed as a nurse that one of his own men would end up shooting him down.

• I kept waiting for one of those flaming message arrows to hit someone and then hear a British voice say "Message for you, sir!"

• Look real close at NeuroScorpy’s cowboy boots...on the bottom you can clearly see "ANDY" written there! And the "N" is even backwards! Someone must be a Toy Story fan...although in a twisted way it makes sense, since NeuroScorpy is now a toy for Crichton to play with. Not quite as friendly as Woody though...

• So the nurses claim there are thousands of Veniks in the Hoard outside...and yet a handful of nurses and our 4 hero’s hold off an entire army?!

• These people live for 700 cycles? Are humans the only Sebecian-like race in the galaxy that live less then 80 cycles? What makes them live so long?

"It is possible we could improve the future."
"With our track record, do you think that’s likely?"
"Probably not."
-Aeryn and Crichton

Lauren (OboeCrazy)
SACCer #1: The Most Vocal Defender