Not the Federation's Universe...an upside down OZ. (Farscape meta)

Still hot outside, with a touch of balmy. Seriously, sometimes I wonder if I'm living in Florida. Rained today, possibly will all day, but still hot.
Looking forward to the family trip to Maine.

Yes, still obsessing over Farscape. It plays with your head for a bit after you watch it. The Wizard of OZ motif alone could provide enough fodder for a book full of essays. But there's more - the pop culture references actually have a purpose. John Crichton is in an alien world. Completely different from his own. Upside down and sideways. ( cut for spoilers up to and including Peacekeeper Wars )

Culture Clash...diverse characters get along - Farscape Meta.

Balmy day not helped by the air conditioning going off in a portion of our office - I gave up finally and pulled out the fan. Was going to sleep. Now debating whether want to work on editing this week's church newsletter today or tomorrow - thinking tomorrow would be best. Burnt out. And all I want to do is write in lj about Farscape. Watching Momster's and my soap, which has taken an odd turn in that about 80% of the characters are starting to feel well irredeemable comes to mind, and gotten a bit dull. Note: James Franco is highly overrated. Maybe I've just read and seen too many of these things, but serial killer story lines on tv are becoming cliche.

Farscape. Which, if you haven't figured it out yet, has managed to replace Buffy, finally, as my current cultural obsession. I finally got burnt out on Buffy and all things Whedon - it only took ten years. Not that anyone is counting or anything. We'll see how long it lasts.

The interesting thing about Farscape is that they threw together a group of characters from diverse backgrounds and cultures - who do not appear to have much in common outside of the fact that they are all stuck on ship and fleeing from an insane military commander. This isn't necessarily a new set up. LOST is also about a bunch of people thrown together - but they are more or less from the same culture and language and species. The writer, Rockne S. O'Bannion - is fascinated by culture clash and alienation themes - which he focused on heavily in the tv series Alien Nation. He is equally interested in what people do in a pressure cooker situations. As stated in previous post on Farscape - the series actually has more in common with Frank L. Baum's Wizard of OZ novels than it does with sci-fi serials. OZ in many ways is a tale about the loss of innocence and how violence can inform and change you. It is also about culture clash. Other series have tried to play with this theme - but don't quite manage it - Star Trek was almost too optimistic, Bab 5 too political, and BSG too bleak.

In Farscape, we have the following characters thrust together:
( vague spoilers about the characters, you may not want to read if you haven't seen all of S1. )

(no subject)

Just finished watching the commentary for Kansas - in S4 Farscape. And I'm amazed, they actually duplicated the blocking for the beginning of this episode from an episode way back in S1 - Human Reaction. And at the end of Kansas - Crichton's last line is a direct reference to a line in A Human Reaction. This isn't the first time they do it either - Bad Timing does a copy of the blocking from Dog with Two Bones. The scene is one between Aeryn and Crichton. The first sequence is Crichton telling Aeryn he's going to go with Aeryn when she's about to leave in her proller. That's in Dog. In Bad Timing - it's Aeryn telling Crichton she's going with him in his module. The attention to small details, and continuity in this series astonishes me - because you do not do that in tv shows, particularly not in 1999-2002.
( cut for spoilers on S4 Farscape and yes, still squeeing over the brilliance of this series. )