Promises
Hi everyone!
Well the wait is over, and we finally have the return of Aeryn Sun. So now we have the return of the SACC review! As always this contains HUGE HONKIN’ spoilers for "Promises", and all ideas are my own. I didn’t morph into another reviewer to steal their ideas.
Overall:
Anyone who saw the preview for this episode or read the
teaser wasn’t surprised at the first 15 minutes or so. Aeryn being sick,
Scorpy being alive and her savior and wishing for asylum...all of that was
fairly easy to figure out, and cudos to the writers for realizing that and
not making a big deal out of it.
However this eppy continues the tradition apparently
started at the beginning of the season; pose important questions about the
lives of our crew and not give us answers. But it did it better then the
beginning of the season for two reasons. For one, we are given enough
answers to be able to follow along with an entertaining story. And for two,
we finally have some acknowledgment from the crew (Crichton in particular)
that there’s a lot of stuff that we don’t know and we really should find
out about. However not finding out for sure what’s going on with Aeryn’s
pregnancy (is she, isn’t she, or something else?!) is a sore point to
leave unanswered especially since Crichton was so close to finding out and
chose that moment to walk away.
Surprisingly though, the part of this eppy that struck me
the most was the death of Harvey. While I can completely understand Crichton’s
desire to be rid of him and all the practical reasons for him to die(hey,
Wayne is gonna be on Moya all the time now as Scorpy, he doesn’t need to
pull double duty!) I am VERY sorry to see him go and I believe it was a
mistake to kill him off. Of all the major characters introduced after the
show began Harvey has gone through the most amazing transformation, and was
not only a unique character in his own right but provided an astonishingly
wonderful literal glimpse into the psyche of Crichton. He’s had the
largest revolution in his personality and character from when he was first
introduced, and personally I will miss him as much if not more then many of
the other major characters we have lost along the way.
And Crichton:
Apparently Crichton only escapes physical harm when he’s taking a mental beating. His only possible injury was from Scorpy doing the stab in the back thing, but since from Crichton’s point of view it caused a positive result I’d hardly call it pain...so ladies and gentlemen we have finally had our first SACCer episode of the fourth season for the Charity Drive! I’ll give this a Kill The Clone But Spare The Human Rating.
At least he didn’t die...unlike Harvey.
Overall:
There are many reasons why Aeryn Sun has been sorely missed these past few weeks, but the main one has to be Claudia Black. She steals just about every scene she’s in with an amazing ability to emote, and with a cast this talented that’s quite an accomplishment! You never see Claudia acting, you only see Aeryn reacting, and who doesn’t miss that kind of presence and ability?
With Rygel practically asking if they’re there yet, and everyone complaining about the temperature and the food, it’s no wonder Crichton compares the gang on Lo’La to parents and kids taking a vacation!
That first shot of Moya is gorgeous, the CGI once again delivers. But the grins of relief and joy on everyone’s faces at the sight of her are even better.
From the way Pilot avoids answering the questions about what happened in the wormhole I wonder if it had something to do with Aeryn. When asked he says "I couldn’t say.", which could mean he knows but can’t talk...perhaps because it involves what happened with Aeryn and she’s made him promise to stay quiet?
Proof that you don’t need words to talk; watch Aeryn when she approaches Crichton at the beginning. Her face runs the gambit of emotions showing exactly what she’s feeling: anxious, relieved, overjoyed, worried, exhausted...finally breaking down when John tells her everything will be all right and she knows it won’t be.
"Asylum? What is with Peacekeepers? First they hunt us then they want to move in. What are we, a Bed and Breakfast? We have a sign outside that says ‘Free HBO’?"
Watch Crichton struggle with himself, deciding if he should attack Scorpius or make the promise to Aeryn not to.
Aeryn gives Chiana a wonderfully tender caress on her cheek as the Nebari comes over to help her. It’s a short and sweet hello in the middle of a situation where she can’t stop to say it.
"Kryptonite, silver bullets, Buffy...what is it gonna take to keep you in the grave?"
You gotta love Harvey doing Reservoir Dogs/MIB/Pulp Fiction in Crichton’s head, trying to convince John to finish the job started on Arnesk. I complained bitterly that we didn’t hear a peep out of Harvey in the first few eppys, and we FINALLY get to find out just what the neural clone thinks about his living self being dead.
When Crichton asks if he should "whack" Scoprius, Harvey replies "Without hesitation." It’s the exact same advice he gives as his last words when Crichton prepares to whack him.
Chiana has a great confrontation with Sikozu over Scorpy being alive. She starts off simple, flip, almost taunting, and slowly grows cold and dangerous.
Great Scene 1: Crichton goes to see Aeryn in the cooling room and struggles to accept that she won’t tell him anything about what’s going on, as well as trying to deal with her physical resemblance to Scorpy in that outfit. Meanwhile Aeryn almost pleads with her eyes for Crichton to just accept her decision not to talk. Crichton is right, it’s not the reunion they wanted but when’s the last time fate gave them what they asked.
"You’re going to talk Olam into letting us aboard under
a flag of truce."
"Then we take that flag of truce and hit him over the
head with it."
Continued a bit from Lava, Are You Doing What The Audience Is Thinking About: just as Neranti is about to blow more dust Aeryn takes her out with one great punch.
Gotta love Rygel, being convenient for one of the first times in his life, knocking out Aeryn just as she goes to kill herself.
More praise for Claudia who does an amazing job portraying HarveyAsAeryn. She just nails his cadence and mannerisms!
Great Scene 2: Outside, Crichton is persuaded by Scorpy to trust him to remove the clone and help escape from the PKs. Inside, Crichton bullies a terrified Harvey into sitting in the execution chair. It’s one great last chance to see the dichotomy between Scorpius and Harvey, and a quick and brutal goodbye to everyone’s favorite neural clone.
Sikozu gives Scorpy a pleased grin when he announces he has a spy feeding him info...although it does turn a bit thoughtful when Crichton points out that doesn’t help Scorpy win trust.
"Well if it’s any consolation, I think you’ve had a
lot worse plans."
"Not by much."
"It’s the best part of the plan."
"Well it worked."
"Yea, it’s a first, isn’t it?"
Why am I not surprised, between neural clones and hands of friendship, that Crichton would hate direct control neural links!
Bracca spends most of his time trying to be the perfect PK. But you gotta love the small personal moment he has when firing the rocket and snarling about giving Crichton his rematch!
So Scorpy has knowledge Crichton wants to keep hidden, and Crichton has knowledge Scorpy wants to keep hidden. Mutual blackmail is always fun.
It’ll be interesting to see who actually becomes captain of Moya, considering how the last 4 years have proven that no one on the ship likes taking orders.
I loved Pilot’s reassurance to Chiana that he and Moya don’t want the crew to leave...the little "No not at all!" is said with such great feeling and inflection, and his claw pausing a moment to rest on Chiana’s knee provides a sweet moment.
Great Scene 3: Aeryn attempts to fit back in, asking to return, showing that she is truly happy to be back on Moya and hinting that she’s happy to be with John again. John restrains his enthusiasm, giving Aeryn every opportunity to open up about a possible pregnancy, then walks away in sadness when his question is met with an unreadable look...leaving Aeryn to stare out at the same nothing in particular John was moments before.
The Bad:
The puppetry on Pilot has always amazed me, and I’ve stated several times that I thought he was the most realistic animatronic character I’ve ever seen...mostly because of his mouth and how perfectly it appears to form all the words. However for some reason this episode looked like Pilot’s upper lip was damaged since he spends most of it baring bucked teeth, and overall his lip-synching ability was poor. I hope this was just a temporary problem.
Why WHY WHY could we not have found out if Aeryn was pregnant, and if so what was going on?! John asked the question, hung around for a few seconds to watch Aeryn giving unreadable looks, then took off! He’s been obsessing about this for months and now can’t wait a few extra minutes for Aeryn to get her thoughts together to say what’s going on?!
Just because Crichton speaks up to tell us about the obvious parallel between Crais and Scorpy, I’m still disappointed that the "Scorpy is disgraced and joins the crew he hunted for asylum" plot was used if only because it was so obvious. I’d seen it coming a long time ago and talked about it several times.
The Nitpicky:
Rejected Dialogue: Crichton, "Knock knock knock, candygram! Telegram! Flowers! Land shark!"
I’m assuming Crichton was smart enough to get a scan to make sure Scorpy didn’t just plant another chip in his brain...right?!
Why would that PK be a spy for Scorpy? It seams like an odd thing, putting him at great risk with not a lot of chance to profit from it.
The antidote looked like a worm from ‘Dune’ stuck on a zapper. I almost expected Olam to say Aeryn was cured by spice.
I might be completely wrong about this, but I THINK Crichton graced us with one of his most obscure Earth references to date. He calls Olam "Holly" right at the end. Now on the British SciFi show ‘Red Dwarf’, Holly was the name of the holographic character who ran a huge ship that only had a few actual life forms on board. Hrm...
"How can I leave your mind? It’s full of so many wondrous memories; cool jazz piano, chocolate ice cream, women’s perfume...WOMEN!" -Harvey
Lauren (OboeCrazy)
SACCer #1: The Most Vocal Defender