Lava's A Many Splendored Thing

Hi everyone!

Our pre-Fourth of July party starts with a review of Lava’s A Many Splendored Thing, an episode with loads of fireworks. So strap in, remember this contains HUGE HONKIN’ SPOILERS for that eppy and all ideas are my own. Hey, I wouldn’t steal from any charity givers, I give to charity!

Overall:

• I really liked this episode. No it’s not gonna break my top ten or be an eppy I watch over and over again, however there was a lot of great stuff to enjoy. In a season rife with the incomprehensible this was a well written, tightly paced and fun episode that was easy to follow and yet kept you guessing on what was going to happen next. It had action, suspense, humor, intelligent yet off-the-wall solutions to problems, and loads of wonderful interaction between the crew. It wasn’t very deep, but it sure was a heck of a lot of fun.

In essence it was lot like a first season episode, and I mean that in the best way possible...since this had all of the qualities that made me fall in love with the series in the first place. These are the qualities that have been lacking in the huge honkin’ angsty story arcs recently, and I hope this eppy is a sign that those things are returning.

And Crichton:

• One thing that hasn’t changed since S1 has been Crichton getting the dren knocked out of him, and this eppy is no different. Starvation, forced vomiting, spit on by Grandma, tossed by D’Argo, burnt by lava, hit by Red Shirt and beaten by Rakeel all add up to another WACKer episode. Curiously enough he comes out of all of that without even a black eye, so this eppy gets a Beaten But Not Bloody rating.

At least he didn’t die.

The Good:

• "How inefficient is your body?"
  "How edible is yours?"

• Only Rygel would want portions of food handed out by number of stomachs rather then heads.

• "Hey, Mikey likes it!" If only it really was cereal they were eating.

• Gotta love Crichton asking the infamous question, "How come everything tastes like chicken?" It’s a glitch in the Matrix that...oh wait... :-)

• You can tell the stuff Noranti gave them won’t sit well just by listening to the tense, almost sarcastic music playing in the background as everyone chews away.

• Only Farscape can make vomit an important plot point.

• "My bowels hate me, I hate you!"

• The best thing about this episode, hands down, is the great interaction between Crichton and D’Argo. Most of the third season was spent patching their relationship, and they’ve been too busy since to get back to what we see now but it’s a wonderful sight to see again! The friendly banter, the way they can work together and yet still argue on details, the easy understanding and trust...Crichton is right to reference Abbot and Costello, or any other great buddy team, and watching Anthony and John do that is a joy to watch!

• Are You Saying What The Audience Is Thinking About Noranti part one:
  "We may have to stick Granny in a home."
  "I think we should burn her."
  "You burn your old folks?"
  "No, just sounded like a good idea."

• To Rygel’s credit he does try to cover for D’Argo, Crichton and Noranti when they hide from the thieves.

• Are You Saying What The Audience Is Thinking About Noranti part two:
  "She’s gonna get shot!"
  "And that would be bad?"

• Are You Saying What The Audience Is Thinking About Noranti part three:
  "Can’t cook, won’t bathe, and now she’s narcoleptic? Triple threat!"

• Gotta love D’Argo using his Super Tongue to grab hold of Noranti and stop his fall. Still ya figure the last person he’d want to wrap his tongue around is Granny!

• Crichton calls himself Lou Costello, but with the way he blasts through the kinetic energy science lecture (that was all correct BTW, and Crichton as a Rocket Scientist should know! :-) ) and D’Argo’s response of "I just have one small, little question." it’s more like D’Argo is playing Costello and Crichton is Abbot.

• There’s a wonderful little moment as Sikozu tries to take over pressing Lo’La’s buttons and Chiana fends her off with a handful of vomit. For a moment Sikozu is just scared and grossed out, and Chiana is almost happy with throwing around vomit like her own personal shield.

• "I am the one who put my hands in the vomit. You want a turn, go get your own vomit!"

• I loved Crichton and D’Argo’s coordinated turn and flinch at naked Granny!

• For a moment there’s a genuine grin of pleasure on Sikozu’s face when she says "It’s really quite simple." and Chiana compliments, "For a great mind like yours." It was almost a relief to see a real smile instead of that superior smirk she’s been throwing around.

• "It’s gotta be the girls, but how’d they get your bodily fluids?"
  "Don’t go there."

• While I’m still pissed that he’s been missing the last two eppys, it was quite good to see Harvey make an appearance! Of course he has to show up in that wonderfully ridiculous heat suit, continuing the grand tradition of Harvey dressed in completely nuts incongruous outfits.

• "OK at least we know I’m insane." Uh, Crichton? We figured that out seasons ago! :-)

• "Damn this has got to be bad for the sperm count!"

• I liked how you saw Crichton dive down to get Rygel, expecting him to surface with the amber-entombed Monarch only to have Rakeel appear instead. It was a nice little change and quite effective.

• And now for Crichtonisms So Good They Deserve Another Episode, "Can I get a ‘Hell yea’!"

• He waited all eppy to get relief, and it was grossly wonderful to hear Rygel finally pass his discomfort with all the joy of someone extremely constipated suddenly having diarrhea.

*pause*

Normally I’d apologize for a statement like that, but considering the context I won’t. :-)

• Who says happy endings are bad? The relief on everyone’s faces as they realize they’ve found Pilot and Moya and are going ‘home’ is wonderful! I especially loved the grin Crichton gives as he realizes it’s Pilot on the answering machine.

The Bad:

• Noranti is the most annoying plot device I’ve ever seen. Every week she’s plunked information down that the crew didn’t want, didn’t need, or could and should have been able to get on their own simply to keep the plot going. This week she suddenly develops narcolepsy out of nowhere that just happens to manifest itself at the most inopportune moment. It felt like a lame plot device so Crichton and D’Argo had to flee some more.

• The snippy banter between street-smart, quick-witted Chiana and arrogant, super-intelligent and bitchy Sikozu would be fun...if only it wasn’t a repeat of the snippy banter between street-smart, quick-witted Chiana and arrogant, super-intelligent and bitchy Jool. At least we can hope that, like Jool, Sikozu will develop beyond this boring base.

A side rant: I don’t enjoy sounding like I hate all the new characters. One of the things I love about Farscape is the rotating cast of recurring beings, and I welcome new and interesting personalities for us to enjoy. However when I try to play devil’s advocate for Sikozu and Noranti they still fail. You can argue that I must not like change, I want to stick with the familiar...my problem is these characters are nothing new. You can say I’m not giving them enough time...but with a show renown for it’s fast pace exactly how long should I give? You can say they’re not supposed to be likable characters, life is full of people we don’t like but that doesn’t make them poorly written...but Farscape is filled with wonderfully written personalities I love to hate (Rygel, Crais, Scorpius, Braca). You can even argue that I simply don’t want to see characters get in the way of the core group (Crichton, Aeryn, D’Argo, Chiana, Rygel, Pilot and Moya at this point)...but there have been plenty of temporary beings who’ve joined the crew that I enjoyed; Stark, Jothee, Crais, Harvey (if you count him), and even Jool towards the end. Farscape set my high standards when it comes to new and interesting alien life, now I just expect them to live up to those standards. End of side rant.

• I, and a lot of Scapers, were royally pissed that Crichton got raped several times last eppy and there’s no reaction, sympathy or concern. Even if I accepted the argument that rape is just one more thing to happen to Crichton, it wasn’t the worst by far, and he’s dealing with it the way he’s delt with everything - with humor - I’m still completely shocked and sickened he’d joke this week, "Don’t touch my ass, that’s sexual harassment." It’s inappropriate any way you justify it, and in the middle of an otherwise innocently wonderfully fun episode that line made my stomach boil.

The Nitpicky:

• No wonder everyone vomited up that stuff...Granny SPIT on it! Eeewww...

• While most of the robbers looked like mostly bald human construction workers and failed miserably in the ALIEN department, the Tarkin insect-like things were very cool and great fun to watch.

• The ultimate Eeeww moment of the eppy of course delt with vomit...it was Chiana TASTING some to make sure it was D’Argos. Remind me not to eat for the next few days.

• You gotta wonder about the bellydancer they got and how they explained to her exactly what she’d be doing..."You’re an sexy alien bellydancing stripper who’s really a powder-induced hallucination of an old nuts woman enticing two human-looking aliens to distract them so they can be hit by rocks."

• You’d think aliens would have different responses to a stripper then the human clichés of "Oh yea baby take it off!"

• Hey look! Crichton DID take 1812 with him! I don’t know how...

• Isn’t it convenient that D’Argo and Crichton just happen to stand right in the center of a ring of trap-lights?

• When we come back from commercial to start the scene where Crichton and D’Argo are ‘interrogated’ by Rakeel there’s a brief shot of the ship as if we’re gonna check in on Chiana and Sikozu. But, confusingly, we don’t.

• "Mr. Red Shirt." Well yea, I guess those thieves are the equivalent to easily killed Star Trek underlings! :-)

• Sikozu snaps "Damnit!" a few times. Picked up swear word from Crichton or bad placement of Earth slang from a character who shouldn’t be using it? You decide!

• Crichton announces that the melting gun is "out of juice" but you can clearly see in the storage container on the gun quite a bit of green fluid.

• At least, after that whole misadventure, Crichton and D’Argo get some nifty belts out of it. Crichton’s demand for body armor actually is fulfilled!

"Same dren, different planet."
"We’re trapped."
"Again!"
-D’Argo, Crichton, and then both together