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Why I Never Felt the Need to Read Fanfic for Farscape...
Watched the Farscape episodes - Out of Their Minds and My Three Crichtons last night, was fascinated by the creative plotting of both. I've only seen fanfic writers do this sort of thing.
Out of Their Minds - involves all the characters switching bodies. A weapon is aimed at them and basically throws their spirits or essence into another body. It is hilarious, and unexpected. Crichton - predictably ends up in Aeryn's body, but Aeryn ends up in Rygel, and Rygel in Crichton. (Ben Bowder's portrayal of Rygel is side-splittingly funny) Aeryn also at one point ends up in Crichton, Cricton in Rygel, and Rygel in Aeryn. (Equally hilarious.) It gives us some brilliant character moments, along with the standard, albeit brief sex humor.
I've seen people write this sort of thing for Buffy in fanfic, but the writers never did it.
Which may explain why I've never needed to read fanfic for Farscape, which I was as fannish about as Buffy, if not more so. Buffy - always left me unsatisfied regarding its characters for some reason - I always wanted more - particularly in regards to Spike, who felt unfinished to me. Spike on Buffy fascinated me because here was an amoral character, evil, who went against his own nature (to be evil) in order to become a better man, a good man (counter to what he is and stands for) to gain the approval and love of a heroine. I wanted to see if it was possible, and if not, why not. And if someone could change to that point.
Farscape does more or less the same thing, but makes it far more complicated, and the characters are far more complex at the start. Chiana is introduced as a Spike-like character, amoral, yet, she is at times the most empathetic of the characters. And Aeryn is equally introduced as cold at times, cold enough to kill the ship's previous pilot and inform on her lover - ending in his death by torture. Yet, she changes. And Crichton starts out as the innocent, good guy, Buzz Lightyear hero astronaut in white, only to become increasingly darker, making at times amoral or immorale decisions. In short, Farscape in some respects is more satisfying in its exploration of similar character themes. What Buffy has that Farscape didn't was a female lead or main pov. Probably shouldn't compare the two, they are after all completely different genres. And I tend to veer from fantasy to science fiction depending on mood. Right now, bloody sick of gothic fantasy (yes, I think we've finally saturated the market on it), and am embracing science fiction with my whole heart.
This brings me to My Three Crichtons - which succeeds in doing two things that are very difficult to do in science fiction. Problem with science fiction - is the writers often sacrifice characters in favor of plot and world building. The characters becoming mere pawns to further whatever moralistic theme they have come up with. This has the overall effect of leaving the viewer feeling a bit hollow or as if they've just been to a lecture. The other problem - is too much focus on the character, and a silly plot. The plot is meaningless, let's just push the characters forward. (I'm looking at you, Lost).
My Three Crichtons manages to do both. We explore John Crichton, and his relationships with both Chiana and Aeryn, how these two women often perceive him. We also explore how he perceives himself and his species. The result of My Three Crichtons is to a degree a reminder of A Human Reaction - in which once again, Crichton is faced with the fact that his own species, himself, is capable of great evil in the name of science and knowledge, and opportunism. It goes back to his arrogance regarding the Farscape experiment. He's fought with his friend about it, his friend stating that there was something wrong or could go wrong. And the fact that he keeps pushing his superior mental capabilities. Suddenly he is faced with two versions of himself - Caveman Crichton, and Logic/Advanced Crichton. One is apelike. One Reptilian. He and his friends, except Chiana, reject Caveman Crichton as a monster or critter. While they seem to admire the logical Advanced Crichton - who sounds like a very dark Mr. Spock. One has emotion, empathy, one has nothing but brain, is all mind. Both have their problems. I've seen people play with the idea in fanfic for Buffy and other shows - which never examined this. Farscape, however, does it. No fanfic needed.
Crichton asks at the end of the episode - if this is the future of my race - do I want to see it? Do I want to evolve? The best me, the one who did the right thing? Was Caveman me.
The least advanced.
Chiana states - that is only one possibility. We don't know the others.
The other thematic, somewhat ironic, is biological sampling. Crichton is admittedly impressed by it - he thinks it is cool. He is a scientist. And taken his share of samples. If he entered space with a crew - he would be doing it if he could. Ironically, here, he is the sample.
And he comes face to face with the reality of it.
Much like A Human Reaction - Crichton looks in the mirror and does not like what stares back.
Ah, the US lost to Ghana. Oh well. Wonder if England will have better luck against Germany?
Out of Their Minds - involves all the characters switching bodies. A weapon is aimed at them and basically throws their spirits or essence into another body. It is hilarious, and unexpected. Crichton - predictably ends up in Aeryn's body, but Aeryn ends up in Rygel, and Rygel in Crichton. (Ben Bowder's portrayal of Rygel is side-splittingly funny) Aeryn also at one point ends up in Crichton, Cricton in Rygel, and Rygel in Aeryn. (Equally hilarious.) It gives us some brilliant character moments, along with the standard, albeit brief sex humor.
I've seen people write this sort of thing for Buffy in fanfic, but the writers never did it.
Which may explain why I've never needed to read fanfic for Farscape, which I was as fannish about as Buffy, if not more so. Buffy - always left me unsatisfied regarding its characters for some reason - I always wanted more - particularly in regards to Spike, who felt unfinished to me. Spike on Buffy fascinated me because here was an amoral character, evil, who went against his own nature (to be evil) in order to become a better man, a good man (counter to what he is and stands for) to gain the approval and love of a heroine. I wanted to see if it was possible, and if not, why not. And if someone could change to that point.
Farscape does more or less the same thing, but makes it far more complicated, and the characters are far more complex at the start. Chiana is introduced as a Spike-like character, amoral, yet, she is at times the most empathetic of the characters. And Aeryn is equally introduced as cold at times, cold enough to kill the ship's previous pilot and inform on her lover - ending in his death by torture. Yet, she changes. And Crichton starts out as the innocent, good guy, Buzz Lightyear hero astronaut in white, only to become increasingly darker, making at times amoral or immorale decisions. In short, Farscape in some respects is more satisfying in its exploration of similar character themes. What Buffy has that Farscape didn't was a female lead or main pov. Probably shouldn't compare the two, they are after all completely different genres. And I tend to veer from fantasy to science fiction depending on mood. Right now, bloody sick of gothic fantasy (yes, I think we've finally saturated the market on it), and am embracing science fiction with my whole heart.
This brings me to My Three Crichtons - which succeeds in doing two things that are very difficult to do in science fiction. Problem with science fiction - is the writers often sacrifice characters in favor of plot and world building. The characters becoming mere pawns to further whatever moralistic theme they have come up with. This has the overall effect of leaving the viewer feeling a bit hollow or as if they've just been to a lecture. The other problem - is too much focus on the character, and a silly plot. The plot is meaningless, let's just push the characters forward. (I'm looking at you, Lost).
My Three Crichtons manages to do both. We explore John Crichton, and his relationships with both Chiana and Aeryn, how these two women often perceive him. We also explore how he perceives himself and his species. The result of My Three Crichtons is to a degree a reminder of A Human Reaction - in which once again, Crichton is faced with the fact that his own species, himself, is capable of great evil in the name of science and knowledge, and opportunism. It goes back to his arrogance regarding the Farscape experiment. He's fought with his friend about it, his friend stating that there was something wrong or could go wrong. And the fact that he keeps pushing his superior mental capabilities. Suddenly he is faced with two versions of himself - Caveman Crichton, and Logic/Advanced Crichton. One is apelike. One Reptilian. He and his friends, except Chiana, reject Caveman Crichton as a monster or critter. While they seem to admire the logical Advanced Crichton - who sounds like a very dark Mr. Spock. One has emotion, empathy, one has nothing but brain, is all mind. Both have their problems. I've seen people play with the idea in fanfic for Buffy and other shows - which never examined this. Farscape, however, does it. No fanfic needed.
Crichton asks at the end of the episode - if this is the future of my race - do I want to see it? Do I want to evolve? The best me, the one who did the right thing? Was Caveman me.
The least advanced.
Chiana states - that is only one possibility. We don't know the others.
The other thematic, somewhat ironic, is biological sampling. Crichton is admittedly impressed by it - he thinks it is cool. He is a scientist. And taken his share of samples. If he entered space with a crew - he would be doing it if he could. Ironically, here, he is the sample.
And he comes face to face with the reality of it.
Much like A Human Reaction - Crichton looks in the mirror and does not like what stares back.
Ah, the US lost to Ghana. Oh well. Wonder if England will have better luck against Germany?
no subject
And I have to admit to not remembering much of My Three Crichtons, so I'm looking forward to that one since I don't really, really remember what it was about.
no subject
no subject
I, too, never felt the need to read Farscape fanfic (though I've read a few crossover fics that combine it with BtVS or other universes), but starting in mid-season 6 of Buffy I had to find online BtVS fanfic and start devouring it, because what was happening with Spike and Buffy on the series was raising all sorts of intriguing and exciting possibilities, but not following up on them in the way that I wanted or needed to see.
no subject
Buffy, unlike Farscape, had gaps in continuity which resulted in a somewhat choppy plot structure, and a lot of explaining or deux ex machina in later episodes to fix. The comics have the same problem. And I got this not just from watching them, but listening to the commentaries. On Buffy - they freely admit in the commentaries that they are making it up as they go, that a lot of the stuff we analyzed really was just thrown in, and the plot kept changing. Whedon for example - admits to Marsters that he has no clue what he is going to do with Spike in S7, outside of killing him. And Espenson states they had no clue who Robin Wood was until the episode First Date, or whether he was a good guy, or even what his relationship or motivations were. While in the Farscape DVD's they mention that they not only knew where they were going, they plotted every character arc and progression down to the last detail. Scorpius was created before the series started. When they introduced Chiana, they admittedly weren't sure how she'd work, but they do craft an arc.
In Buffy - the lack of knowledge regarding supporting character motivations or what to do with them, and just pulling stuff out of the hat, resulted in not following up on interesting bits. And losing characters. The writers instead ended up repeating themselves. Scorpius is actually a far more interesting and well-rounded villian than ANY of the villians on Buffy. At times Whedon was far too worried about hammering whatever metaphor he was playing around with into the audience's head or cool narrative style/film gimmick he'd picked up, than he was with his characters arcs. Granted they were cool film./narrative styles - but, characters come first.