yoooooo it's time to watch Farscape's first trilogy, "Look at the Princess", eps 2.11-13

Aeryn is teaching John how to fly better! They start making out! She is so uncomfortable with her own feelings that she blows the top off the module and jumps out, then blames everything on his hormones!

I like that their relationship keeps stopping before it starts, not for ridiculous external reasons, like in a bad romcom, but because they are at the wrong point in both their lives to make anything work

One of Farscape’s greatest strengths is that it has a very mature grasp of its very immature characters

the premise is that Moya arrives at a group of Sebacean colonies that hate the Peacekeepers. the colonies are ruled by a monarchy and palace intrigues ensue when it’s discovered that John is the only person capable of having a child with the heir apparent, the titular princess

the princess’s brother “poisoned her genes” so that no Sebacean was compatible with her, but humans are just far enough away that, uh, their twain shall meet
then of course Scorpius shows up and things get more complicated

then the Scarrans show up and things get worse

(Maybe it’s the other way around but regardless, as in all the best Farscape episodes, every new plot development is another twist in a fractal of chaos)

Oh also we get to meet the creators of the leviathans, which…is fine but mostly exists to get Moya away from the planet so John and the others can’t escape

I appreciate the colonies’ practicality in just calling their capital the Royal Planet
It is not in itself ruthless and calculating but the lack of any faff around the name feels like a foreshadowing of the way their culture functions

“I want to talk”
“I want to talk less”
“We tried that. It leads to kissing”

I love this proto-Coruscant

the little bottles in the foreground are such a Farscape thing. you put a drop from one on your tongue, then put a drop on the tongue of someone you are interested in, banging-wise, then you kiss. if it tastes sweet, you're genetically compatible. if it's bad: no kids for you

where a lot of other scifi would have a simple scan or blood draw be the means of determining compatibility, Farscape turns it into an intimate, closeup thing, centering flesh and fluids and physical contact

It’s such a beautiful touch that when Zhaan is alone on the ship, she sings for Moya and Pilot

The way Moya responds to her singing by opening interior doors so the sound travels farther

this is such an important episode

FRANCESCA BULLER SIGHTING

for those who don't know, Francesca Buller is Ben Browder's wife, and always plays characters who are either trying to kill him, or trying to betray him

John: “You’re saying I should get married?”
Rygel: “*I* would.”
John: “You’re a *polygamist*”

I wish more plots involved Rygel trying to solve things by either getting married or trying to marry others off

as much as I love this trilogy I DO take issue with the palace looking like a spa where Frasier and Niles get wrapped in bespoke seaweed

The Empress is such a good character

When John marries the princess they will be turned into statues for 80 years so they can observe the imperial government and learn how things work

I’m not saying we should try that for all potential leaders

But

“There’s never been anything we couldn’t overcome together.”
“…Except each other.”

John: “I want you to be my best man.”
D’Argo: “…I’m with Chiana now”

Part one is over! Time for part two!

Yet again John’s butt is saved by a powerful woman

his shapely leather-clad butt

In this episode we learn that the Peacekeepers have a branch of Disruptors whose role appears to be covert meddling in the affairs of neutral cultures

Rygel's voice actor, playing one of the Leviathan builders

I would be lying if I said I didn't want this quasi-laurel headpiece

“Don’t feel bad. It’s not you, it’s me: I don’t like you.”

One of the all time classic Farscape lines and the disdain with which Aeryn delivers it is so pure and scathing you could scour a tub with it

I love that even in guest quarters in a foreign palace Scorpius manages to be the Most Dramatic

(drama aside I really love that shot, with the combination of blood red and poison green)

maybe it's because I imprinted on the Wrath of Khan at an early age, but I am a SUCKER for starships adrift in space clouds

I could do without the Katralla/Jenavian conversation being so catty, it just feels off-key somehow

love John bluffing Braca by pretending if he gets shot ANYWHERE that he’ll bleed out and die, this is a universe where biology varies so extremely that Braca has absolutely no way of knowing any different

Braca has such power bottom energy

It seems like Farscape, weirdly enough, has a fairly realistic depiction of surviving a few seconds in a vacuum, though I’m not a physicist so it could be as out there as the rest of the show

stuff that grinds John down to a helpless emotional lump in this set of episodes will later be just another Thursday by season four

Chiana: “I love you”
John, giddy at the chance to finally Solo somebody: “I know”

if a blog of scifi exercise clothes doesn't already exist, someone needs to create one

Fashion It So has some excellent coverage of TNG exercise stuff but that's the closest thing *I* know of

the guy's name in the above screenshot is "Carzenova", which if you say it in a non-rhotic accent,,

absolutely love Scorpius talking to Crichton’s severed statue head like Hamlet talking to a skull

this is the episode where Zhaan uses a starship engine to vacuum up a god, I love Farscape so much

it must be rough being Aeryn Sun and being at least five degrees more competent than anyone else around you

this is not the last time we'll see a Peacekeeper woman with blades literally implanted in her wrists