Farscape S3: Fractures

[moonshayde]

I popped in the next episode that I needed to watch.



Great episode. Okay, I could have done without the puppets banging each other, but I just pretend that never happened.

While I enjoyed The Choice, I do feel like this was a far better episode and the perfect follow-up. The premise wasn't so great, but the character interactions were interesting.

I don't have much to say except for whatever reason, I loved Crais in this episode. John and D'Argo continue to make me smile and the cool distance between John and Aeryn was well played.

I have to say that I do believe this show really did need the threat of Scorpius to work. While I liked episodes on and off during S1, the show never really grabbed me. And I hate the crack episodes with undying passion.

One of the problems I had with this show initially was Crais. Crais never really worked as a full out main villian for me. He works so much better as this gray area character, a person who is self-serving but will do the right thing when necessary but will quickly resort back to betrayal and underhandedness when he can. Scorpius, while not a black and white villian either, just exudes that type of urgent threat that was lacking with Crais. And this is why I've enjoyed most of S2 and S3, and why I feel the end of S1 worked better. I still don't see this show as the greatest show that hit television, but it's enjoyable. And it's angst free for me since I'm watching after the show has ended.

I'll see what I think come the next episode. I don't have much of S3 left to go.

*sigh* I am in cleaning mode so I guess I should get back to that. I am tossing soooo much stuff. And I want to get rid of a ton of stuff too. Maybe I'll figure out how ebay works and put some fannish stuff up there and then if I have other stuff that people want, I might just announce it here and give it away. We'll see. I have tons of crap.

Comments

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

It's natural for me to like an episode like Fractures over The Choice. I'm very much an ensemble person. I adore character growth, development, and trials, but I like those issues within an ensemble structure. And while Claudia Black did a fantastic job in The Choice, I just found it too singular. I don't tend to enjoy episodes for any show that has one character that dominates too strongly. So the Xhalax and Aeryn stuff was great--the rest was too drawn out for me.

Fractures was the reverse. The story itself was not very strong but the emotional interplay between characters sold me on it.If the cast had not reunited in this one, then I probably wouldn't have liked it as much.

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

So the Xhalax and Aeryn stuff was great--the rest was too drawn out for me.

This is a common complaint--and a justified one. I salute them for giving Aeryn's grief its own episode, but on the other hand, there's not enough in "The Choice" to really hang an episode on. All of the fake Talyn Lyczak stuff really annoys me (but some of that may have to do with how I feel about the idea of the real Talyn Lyczak). But with all its flaws, "The Choice" remains one of my top five eps (in many ways probably my second-favorite), just because I love Aeryn and Xhalax So. Frelling. Much. :)

And what I like about "Fractures" is exactly the ensemble-ness of it all, the uneasy reunion, the emotions simmering below the surface. minervacat has just fallen hard for Farscape and was talking about how much it's a show about home and family--finding and making those things. And she's only seen through season 1, so she won't know this yet, but it's also a show about what breaks home and family apart, and what it might take to put them together again. And "Fractures" hits at those things so well. But forasmuch as I love the special Farscape crack, there's a bit too much silly in this episode: the muppet sex, Jool and Crais and the Boolite. The lows are lower for me than the lows of "The Choice," and the highs aren't as high. But I can absolutely see why it would appeal more to you.