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Switching Allegiances
Yep, still watching Farscape. (VERY slowly...)
And this show really does an incredibly good job of confusing me about whose side I should be on.
And this show really does an incredibly good job of confusing me about whose side I should be on.
Take an episode in season one (name concealed to protect the spoiler-phobic. I'll just call it Hungry Skeletons.):
Sweet Little Sally finds the crew, and begs them to help protect her from Nasty Ugly Man.
Now, if we were six years old and had never seen a plotline more complex than Goldilocks, we might be inclined to think that Sweet Little Sally was good, and Nasty Ugly Man was, well, nasty. We are not six, however (or I hope not - the show's rated M for a reason), so we promptly guess that Sally will not be as innocent as she seems, and Man will, while Ugly, also be Good Hearted.
And we're right! Scary Sally starts attacking the crew, and Ugly But Good Hearted Man explains that she killed his wife and is now hunting him down, too.
Enter show-writers with leet confusion skillz. While we are sitting there feeling smug about predicting the plot, we suddenly discover that Sally, while Scary, is also traumatised - due to Ugly And Not Nearly As Good Hearted As We Thought Man's neglect.
Nice bait and switch, writers. But we're onto you now.
I'm now up to season three, and last night reached an episode which I'll call In Need Of A Clock.
Wise Old Judge finds the crew, and asks for help retrieving Destructo Boy, who has concealed himself on the ship, and will become... um... destructive, unless Wise Old Judge finds him soon.
We have by this time seen over two seasons of the show, so we're pretty canny.
"Ah-hah!" we think. "The devious writers want us to smugly decide that we should be on Destructo Boy's side, and then somehow reveal that we should have been on Wise Old Judge's side all along. Just like they did in Hungry Skeletons! Well, we won't be fooled again. We'll support Wise Old Judge in his cause. Destructo Boy is obviously horrible."
Like I said, canny.
And we're right. Destructo Boy pleads that he's innocent, and Wise Old Judge is out for his blood. And yet we know perfectly well that the Destructo Kid is lying. Which he is - and Wise Old Judge finds the Lying Destructo Guy, and kills him. Good for Judge! Woo!
Except... although W.O.J. was in the right, he now decides that this whole Destructo lifestyle actually looks kinda cool, and he starts wreaking all the havoc he was afraid the Lying And Now Tragically Deceased Boy was going to cause.
Clever, clever writers.
In the same episode, we get more development of the ongoing plot featuring Hero Dude and Evil Guy. Now, we have spent over a year watching Evil Guy try to get information out of Hero Dude, and we have cheered on Fantastic Heroic And Oh So Muscular Dude as he thwarted Evil Nasty And Somehow Irresistable Guy's plans.
And now, after all this time, we discover why Evil Twisted And Deranged Guy wants the information from Studly Hero Dude. He's trying to stop a very nasty war.
The thing is, he's still evil. He's tortured and killed heaps of people, including Heroic Manly And Possibly Scrumptious Dude to get this info. (Yes, Hero Dude has been tortured and killed. Don't ask.) And he made a guy bite off half his own hand - not only evil, but gross.
And yet...
We really want them to win this war.
Some day, I'm going to track down this show's oh-so-devious writers, and either congratulate them, or smack them.
Sweet Little Sally finds the crew, and begs them to help protect her from Nasty Ugly Man.
Now, if we were six years old and had never seen a plotline more complex than Goldilocks, we might be inclined to think that Sweet Little Sally was good, and Nasty Ugly Man was, well, nasty. We are not six, however (or I hope not - the show's rated M for a reason), so we promptly guess that Sally will not be as innocent as she seems, and Man will, while Ugly, also be Good Hearted.
And we're right! Scary Sally starts attacking the crew, and Ugly But Good Hearted Man explains that she killed his wife and is now hunting him down, too.
Enter show-writers with leet confusion skillz. While we are sitting there feeling smug about predicting the plot, we suddenly discover that Sally, while Scary, is also traumatised - due to Ugly And Not Nearly As Good Hearted As We Thought Man's neglect.
Nice bait and switch, writers. But we're onto you now.
I'm now up to season three, and last night reached an episode which I'll call In Need Of A Clock.
Wise Old Judge finds the crew, and asks for help retrieving Destructo Boy, who has concealed himself on the ship, and will become... um... destructive, unless Wise Old Judge finds him soon.
We have by this time seen over two seasons of the show, so we're pretty canny.
"Ah-hah!" we think. "The devious writers want us to smugly decide that we should be on Destructo Boy's side, and then somehow reveal that we should have been on Wise Old Judge's side all along. Just like they did in Hungry Skeletons! Well, we won't be fooled again. We'll support Wise Old Judge in his cause. Destructo Boy is obviously horrible."
Like I said, canny.
And we're right. Destructo Boy pleads that he's innocent, and Wise Old Judge is out for his blood. And yet we know perfectly well that the Destructo Kid is lying. Which he is - and Wise Old Judge finds the Lying Destructo Guy, and kills him. Good for Judge! Woo!
Except... although W.O.J. was in the right, he now decides that this whole Destructo lifestyle actually looks kinda cool, and he starts wreaking all the havoc he was afraid the Lying And Now Tragically Deceased Boy was going to cause.
Clever, clever writers.
In the same episode, we get more development of the ongoing plot featuring Hero Dude and Evil Guy. Now, we have spent over a year watching Evil Guy try to get information out of Hero Dude, and we have cheered on Fantastic Heroic And Oh So Muscular Dude as he thwarted Evil Nasty And Somehow Irresistable Guy's plans.
And now, after all this time, we discover why Evil Twisted And Deranged Guy wants the information from Studly Hero Dude. He's trying to stop a very nasty war.
The thing is, he's still evil. He's tortured and killed heaps of people, including Heroic Manly And Possibly Scrumptious Dude to get this info. (Yes, Hero Dude has been tortured and killed. Don't ask.) And he made a guy bite off half his own hand - not only evil, but gross.
And yet...
We really want them to win this war.
Some day, I'm going to track down this show's oh-so-devious writers, and either congratulate them, or smack them.
no subject
I do like the titles you give our characters :-)
Just wait for the episode I choose to hereby call "Drugs are Baaaad for You"...some nice allegiance-confusion there. And some great screentime for Lobsterboy :-D
no subject
no subject
But yes...here's your pop-quiz for tonight: List all the names that Leather-wearing Southern Demigod has called Rygel over the years...bonus points for episodes he did so in.
And a gold star if you can name the episode in which Rygel said "I'm nobody's puppet!!"
no subject
"Sparky, Spanky, Fluffy, Buckwheat the Sixteenth..."
For any other names, I'd have to cheat and use wikipedia.