Eat Me

Hey everyone!

Trust me to fall in love with a show that enjoys frelling with my mind.

And with that cheery intro, let’s get right to the review! As always this contains huge honkin’ spoilers for Eat Me, and all ideas are my own. I didn’t twin anyone and suck out their brains for info.

Overall:

• Farscape dives into Horror with relish, and the first half of this episode is absolutely excellent. Everything came together perfectly to create the flawless atmosphere, a gut wrenching ship of abominations that, in classic horror fashion, our heroes stumble into and now must escape from before they are eaten alive. The first half hour was absolutely outstanding...I was sucked in and scared out of my mind.

  If only the whole show had stayed that way.

  Unfortunately the second half wandered a bit away from that mood. The secondary story involving Talyn felt thrown in, as if we needed to know what was happening with the rest of the crew ‘just because’...and it disrupted the tone set. And while the twining idea certainly allowed us to actually kill off characters (where in a horror movie you’d just have minor characters filling the zombie bait role) it changed the focus as the crew struggles to comprehend if a person twined is really now complete copies or an original and a clone. An interesting idea, but one that I wish was left alone just so we could have some good scary fun.

And Crichton:

• I’ll say it here, I’m not happy there are two Crichton’s now on the ship. Yea, you’d figure with me being the ultimate Crichton fan I’d be ecstatic, but it just rubs me the wrong way. And of course, now there’s TWO of them to protect!

• Anyway this eppy firmly falls on the WACKer side. He’s attacked by a cannibal, wacked hard enough twice by Karvok to knock him out, beaten up AGAIN by Karvok a bit later, and then twinned. This eppy gets a Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Pain rating.

At least he...they...either didn’t die.

The Good:

• I do wana AGAIN praise the horror atmosphere created by the cast, crew and FX people. From how the dead Leviathan looked and sounded (the psycho string background music, the dying and demented whale sounds, the buzzing noises), to how the cast reacted, to the dark and creepy atmosphere, it was just perfect.

• "Burnt, battered, busted, ding dong the pod is dead."

• Great Scene 1: Crichton and D’Argo argue about if they should go to the Pilot or the Tier with the cable they need. Both have good reasons why they are right, but what’s interesting is to watch these two friends argue. They’ve had a strained relationship since the LGM series, and it’s almost gutwrenching to watch how two friends who used to back each other up no matter what now can’t compromise on a plan of action.

• Ultra Disturbing Part 1: What they did to that poor Pilot! Cutting off his arms as they grew back just to eat them, trapped on a dead Leviathan unable to move or defend himself...no wonder this Pilot was a traumatized wreck. Watch him rock back and forth like a scared child as he tries to talk with Crichton.

• The horror on Crichton and Chiana’s face as they turn in time to see Karvok suck D’Argo’s brain out is just terrifying. And then watching them react to this latest tragedy...John looses it first as he starts to blame himself and then viscously attacks the PK’s eating the ship. Chiana is a bit better at holding herself together, trying to tell John it wasn’t his fault and then giving D’Argo last rites. Later the roles reverse a bit as the whole situation finally overwhelms Chiana.

• Jool finally makes one of the first good decisions since we’ve met her and stays with the transport pod the entire time. As much as it was fun to see her trying to talk some courage into herself, in this case retreat is the better part of valor.

• Great Scene 2: Crichton and Chiana find out from the Pilot what happened to this ship and it’s crew, Chiana gives D’Argo the last rites to protect his body from being eaten, and both spend a touching moment to mourn as his body falls into darkness.

• I do like how we don’t find out that at least one D’Argo is alive until after we discover about this whole twin thing.

• Ultra Disturbing Part 2: Chiana trying to convince herself that she really is Chiana. The terror as she tries to come to grips with what’s happened to her, and her inner fear that she’s not the ‘real’ Chiana is terrifying to watch.

• I love the sudden and absolute confusion on D’Argo’s face when Karvok says "We’re going to make babies."

• Ultra Disturbing Part 3: Karvok’s following line, "All I need is more food, family....is there a difference?"

• Ultra Disturbing Part 4: D’Argo is chained to Belina (the dog-like PK leftover from too many twinning) so they can breed. Eeewww...

• Chiana looks so happy when she finds D’Argo alive that she can’t help but try and hide it with a bit of joking at his expense. Seconds later she turns frantic as D’Argo is going to split up with her again, and her terrified "Please please please please..." as he walks off is true to her fear of loosing D’Argo again.

• "I don’t think so brain sucker! I can arrange my own death!"

• And now for the Silent ‘Aw Crap’ Moment of the eppy: John turns around to see...John. Just look on BOTH their faces to hear it.

• So how do you know if you’re the original or the copy? Well if you’re Crichton you play Rock Paper Scissors for it. Looser...what, eats a pulse riffle? I did like how the two Crichton’s never really try to speak with each other...they both know that they’re just gonna say the same thing, so they don’t even try.

The Bad:

• The Subplot about Talyn, while not bad in itself, deserved to have it’s own show since it obviously has just begun...plus it was so small in this eppy that it just distracted me away from the main story on the dead Leviathan.

• Why did everyone think Jool was dead? Crichton seams surprised to see her alive at the end, even saying at one point they don’t know where she is. Did they just assume she went wandering off and got killed?

• On top of that, how did Jool know that the ship was full of cannibals? She’s gonna shoot herself to keep from being eaten, but she never saw what was going on all over the ship.

The Nitpicky:

• Once again John makes a decision that ends up biting him in the ass. Not just his decision to land on the dead Leviathan (that one I understand...chance of surviving or death, hrm....) but the one where he splits up with D’Argo to go off and see Pilot.

• So what were Crichton, D’Argo, Chiana, and Jool doing in a transport pod so far from Moya in the first place?

• They’ve stumbled onto The Ship of Dr. Moreau?

• "He’s got the matience bay, he’s got the doors, he’s got the windows, he’s got the smoke on the water!" ...but does he have the fire in the sky too?

• Poor D’Argo get’s chained to Belina so they can breed...I thought we were watching Farscape, not that new reality show "Chains of Love".

• I believe the reason Crichton knew the sequence for starburst was because of "Through The Looking Glass"...remember how he had to memorize it to pass it on to everyone?

"Rygel, if you try anything while I am gone, whatever you have in the place of mivonks and wherever they are, they will be gone when I get back." -Aeryn

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