A Prefect Murder

Hey everyone!

Welcome to this week’s review of an episode I wasn’t sure I was spelling correctly for weeks. Was it a clever play on words or just a typo of perfect? I trusted what I saw and came out correct, so I bring to you the SACC review of A Prefect Murder! As always this contains HUGE HONKIN’ spoilers for that eppy, and most of these thoughts should be my own. I watched the show with Lynn again so I’m sure she helped with some of these ideas. Yeup, we’re the Siskel and Ebert of the Farscape world! :-)

Overall:

• The plot is pretty straightforward for the most part; Moya, in need of rest in this Tormented Space, kicks most of the crew onto a habitable yet tense planet full of brink-of-war clans where peace is new. Aeryn suddenly kills a whole mess of people, including the leader of one of the clans. Fairly quickly we figure out how and why and who and then go kick some ass.
  
  What makes the show interesting in the beginning is not the plot but the telling. We follow each character in turn to find out what they were doing leading up to the shooting, piece by piece figuring out who’s doing what and getting a good idea of the history of this planet in the process. Short scenes with one character are longer and more involved with another when we get to hear the whole conversation, or visa versa, and once you get used to jumping back and forth in time and place it starts to fall together in a fun way.

Unfortunately this approach is abandoned after the second commercial break and the rest of the story is told in a fairly straightforward manner. It makes the episode suddenly feel off; just as I got into the rhythm and feel of getting various "camera angles" it’s all abandoned for liner storytelling. I could get over the sudden shift in style if it wasn’t for the fact that the second half isn’t terribly exciting. It doesn’t take long for everyone to figure out who’s the bad guy and how he’s doing it, and then we’re left with Crichton and Aeryn running off to save the day while fighting the implanted suggestions to kill each other...as if that would happen, remember we’re down to one Crichton again.

The moral of the story is if you’re gonna make an eppy interesting by doing something engaging style-wise, don’t stop doing it in the middle of the hour.

And Crichton:

• I tried, I mean REALLY tried to make this a SACCer episode. He’s half-strangled by Bug Man and I thought it wasn’t a big deal. Then he’s wacked hard enough to knock him down by a rival Clan leader and I thought I could still get away with this eppy not being so bad. But then he’s swarmed by nasty bugs and punched twice by D’Argo. Sorry gang, it’s a WACKer eppy. I give it a Hit Me Again, Hit Me Again, Harder Harder! Rating.
  At least he didn’t die.

The Good:

• As mentioned above, I liked the style in the first 25 minutes. Once I got into it I was enjoying the way the story was told and trying to figure out who we were following and when we’d jumped to.

• After 20 planets of nothing, who really is surprised that Chiana went after the first cute boy who showed an interest?

• "I see that Elvis has left the building."

• "I’m getting a really bad bribe."
  "Oh God, she’s speaking English. Vibe, it’s a really bad vibe."

• "This place is run by tight-asses!"

• There’s a great moment when D’Argo discovered Chiana back on the planet with Sikozu and Zerbat. He’s furious, and she does everything to deflect his anger; first sarcasm, then sultry, and finally pissed off herself. Watching the two of them spar in the way only ex-lovers can is both wonderful and painful.

• Gotta love Crichton’s ever so graceful exit from the conversation with the Prefect, "Right...well...have a nice day."

• Crichton does a good job accepting leadership from D’Argo. He’s not a blind follower, when D’Argo wants to send them back to the ship he gives some good reasons against it, but when D’Argo makes sense he’s quick to accept the decision with an "Aye captain". Now we just need to work on Chiana and Sikozu.

• I was impressed with how mature Zerbat handles his sudden responsibility. He takes a moment or so to get over the shock at suddenly being declared leader of his tribe, and then stands up for himself to take that role with authority. He also does a fairly good job of accepting advice from those he trusts without too much stubbornness. It’s nice to see that not all young people are portrayed as whinny, irresponsible teenagers.

• (singing) "You take the high road and I’ll take the low road, and I’ll be in Scotland before you!" I actually figured Crichton would change the last line to, "And I’ll go find Aeryn before you!" What I especially liked was how the music in that bit continues with the clarinet carrying on the melody until Aeryn asks if she killed the Clan leader, and then it turns minor and sour.

• Check out the shocked, confused look Aeryn gives when Crichton tells her she shot D’Argo along with many many others.

• The animatronics on the Priest were so good that until I looked closely I thought it was a real person with a lot of prosthetics! He almost made up for a lack of Rygel and Pilot!

• "They have no attraction to this particular alien species."
  "Everybody likes me!"

• Poor Chiana sounds so scared when blind...every time she uses her sight it gets worse, and every time she goes blind she gets more and more visibly afraid as it lasts longer and longer.

• Gotta love Crichton running to find BugMan, only to skid to a stop with a "Oh Hell!" as he enters. And that was quite a nice jump tuck and roll over the table and the girls!

• "I’m not sure I have the strength to miss next time."
  "I think I’m just a bad shot."

• There’s a great moment as Crichton and Aeryn fight to keep from shooting each other while essentially saying they’re good-byes by admitting the outcome of the coin toss sucked. They have this wonderful way of expressing their love in non-standard sentiments...the coin toss conversation would make no sense without understanding the backstory, but with that understanding those last lines take on quite a bit of sentiment.

• Best Long Overdue Advice: The Priest, to Chiana about the vision problems, "Then stop using the vision, twizzit!"

• Once again we get a silent last few minutes that speak volumes, as Crichton give Aeryn some un-drugged comfort. It’s a start, and nice to see Crichton is still there emotionally for Aeryn and doesn’t have to sniff the glue every time he see’s her.

The Bad:

• I really really REALLY HATE this friggin' drug Crichton is taking! For all the reasons already stated in previous reviews, but on top of that they missed out on a perfect opportunity to actually use the drug for a GOOD use...don’tcha think if Aeryn and Crichton had sniffed a bit of Granny’s drug they might have been able to ignore the subliminal "kill them!" suggestions a bit more?! Plus it would’ve been a good excuse for the rest of the crew to find out about Crichton’s little habit and finally possibly do something about it. Here’s a thumbs down to a missed opportunity.

• Bug Man states that he’s "puzzled by off-worlders"...but isn’t he an off-worlder as well? That’s how the bugs got on the planet since several clansmen stated bugs are not native to this world, and he’s obviously a different species then the clansmen. But if aliens are so mistrusted and hated on this planet why do they let one hang out with the Prefect all the time?

• Why, once Crichton realized the bug caused him to start to target the Priest, did NO ONE think to grab the bug for evidence? Considering how strongly the Priest had talked about needing more evidence to prove that Aeryn was being controlled, wouldn’t having possession of something that’s not normally found on your planet be important?!

• How did Chiana get captured? And why did they leave her unguarded and unbound in the castle while Bug Man was making bugs? If she was smart she would’ve kicked, kissed, or cried her way out of that building to go tell the others about the Prefect and Bug Man’s plot!

• When Crichton begs D’Argo to knock him out, why didn’t D’Argo just stun tongue him? What’s with all the punching?!

The Nitpicky:

• Oh dear, it’s the planet of the yarn-heads! What’s worse, they all have Princess Leia buns!

• I really liked the music at the very beginning, although I could’ve sworn the kid was humming a Gregorian Chant.

• Crichton, about Aeryn, "Man, you should’ve met her Mother." Well wait a sec, this Crichton didn’t really meet her mother, the dead one did. This one KNOWS about Xhalax, but didn’t get the face to face...who’s he to talk about Aeryn’s momma!

• The make out scene between Sikozu and Zerbat came <---> that close to showing nipple and bumping the rating up to R!

• Crichton’s Scotty impressions to D’Argo, while very funny, are also quite bad. Then again you can’t really blame him, how many Scotts do you know living south of the Mason-Dixon line?

• Poor Rygel is reduced to a voice cameo, and Scorpy, Granny and Pilot don’t even get honorable mentions...although I’m not too unhappy about no Granny.

• I got the impression that Sikozu and Zerbat knew each other before this eppy, or was it simply open-minded boy meets off-worlder girl and sparks fly?

• When Zerbat says he’s going to hunt down Aeryn, the Priest announces, "We have another duty first, the burial sacraments." But the scene immediately shifts to Zerbat and Crichton looking for Aeryn. Wow...short burial sacraments.

• Aeryn announces, "I killed them all." and I had a ScaperCon 2002 flashback. Fortunately Aeryn said it with much more emotion then Annikin ever could in Attack of the Clones.

• Crichton hands Wynnona (a name I’m still not sure how to spell correctly) to Aeryn and walks off to prevent himself from killing the Priest. Back from commercial suddenly Aeryn and Crichton are being fumigated and the Priest has Wynnona. He says he got her "Peacefully, for the most part." Wait, did he fight with Aeryn? What happened?!

• Bug Man’s eyes, with one black and one white, made me think he’d spent time on that planet from White Dwarf.

• For a blind girl, Chiana certainly tackles Aeryn spot on.

• Chiana growls out "You lie!" to the Prefect...did anyone else think it sounded like she was the Energy Rider from "Loosing Time"?

• So what kept Sikozu from hanging around with Zerbat for a while if she wants nothing more then to be off Moya?

"So is it true what they say about Priests? They give great Religious experiences?" -Chiana

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