"The Choice"

[shipperx]

ww1614 has recently been tivo-ing Sci-Fi's insanely out of order re-runs of Farscape and I've been giving my opinion on certain eps prior to their airing. I don't know how useful that is since people have different tastes in shows, for instance I really liked AtS's "A Hole in the World" and Wendy really couldn't stand it. Anyway, while giving her the rundown of the Farscape eps coming up in the immediate future on Sci-Fi, I noticed that "The Choice" is scheduled to air Friday morning. Remembering the ep, I went and pulled my DVD copy of it. I still love this episode in all its bleak, dark, grungy, soapy glory. I know that nutmeg3 loves "A Dog with Two Bones" which also airs on Friday morning (and I also love "A Dog with Two Bones"), but somehow I think I prefer "The Choice" for all its insanely dysfunctional, operatic angst.



The episode is both incredibly ugly and at rare moments gorgeous. The planet is made to look like a giant crackhouse complete with the homeless, druggies, and so much filth that you think that anyone who visits that planet must need to bathe for weeks to get the stench off their skin. Aeryn, quite frankly, looks like hell.


And she's either drunk or high for most of the episode. (I have to admit that on first viewing I thought she was high. In the DVD commentaries Claudia Black refers to the drink as the equivalent of beer, so I think it's a legitimate interpretation to say that she's merely dead drunk through most of the episode. On first viewing I really thought that the reasons people saw visions of the dead on this planet was because they were taking sci-fi drugs. On second viewing, I think we were supposed to think it was a planet of mystics who might communicate with the dead.)

I find Claudia Black to be simply incredible during this episode. In the DVD commentaries she discusses how she tried to tone down and underplay the scenes. The woman has great instincts. Aeryn remains restrained most of the time giving her performance a tension which is wonderful (see, SMG. that is how it's done). You know that she's furious and in incredible pain. . . and that she's simply too damn strong and too damn stubborn to actually break. . . though she's very close.

Despite all the times Aeryn stands on the ledge in the ep, I never thought she was actually suicidal. In some ways it's worse than that. I think she's too empty to actually despair. She doesn't give enough of a damn to actively try to kill herself.


However, her lack of reaction when Zalax holds a gun to her head tells a great deal about Aeryn's mental state.


My favorite moments in the episode are:

1) When Aeryn confronts Stark and Crais in the hallway where they tell her that her mother is alive, and Aeryn laughs it off, talking about the other ghosts she has seen. I loved her physically grabbing Crais and demanding that he "do her" right here, right now, and whispering in his ear that maybe if she closed her eyes tightly enough she could pretend he was someone else. Great scene. It so perfectly encapsulates her anger, her pain, and how close she actually is to breaking. I also loved the moment she turns on Stark saying that what makes him worse than Crais is that he thinks he's so much better. I have to think that an actress has to love being given a scene like this to play. I believe Claudia Black said in the commentaries that she the one who suggested the line about "If I close my eyes tightly enough. . ." Whatever and however it came about, I still think it's a great scene.

2) I also love the overlay of the flashback kiss from "A Human Reaction" with the daydreamed kiss.

and how the daydreamed kiss slips away to find Aeryn alone. I thought the editing was quite well done and gave the scene a nice dream-like quality that was appropriate to the moment.

In fact, though in general the ep is so deliberately ugly and grungy (with a bit of Bladerunner aesthetic thrown in as well), there were some moments of really good art direction where I simply liked the framing of the shots.


3) Who the hell knew that a puppet could be so complex? But I loved the little slug not only for saying to the bleeding eye guy "That blood is so fake it's laughable." (So true, Ryg. So true. ) And how he is the one who speaks quiet sense to Aeryn. "I'm not Stark, and I'm not Crais. I don't want to 'save' you or 'recreate' with you. But Crichton loved you, and he wouldn't want this." Sniffle. Wonderful old green puppet.


Of course the plot itself is like some cross between Greek Tragedy and a soap opera with Aeryn's mother trying to kill her and blaming Aeryn for having ruined her life. Then there's Aeryn's "father" back-from-the-dead. . .or is he just a con-man? Oh, big old soapy plot turned a bit more homocidal than usual, but then Aeryn was a step ahead and had long since figured out what was going on. "What? Killing my father wasn't enough? You had to do it in front of me?"

In general the episode is completely bleak, from Aeryn's "We do nothing for love," to Zalax's "I killed your father for love," to Aeryn's "choice" to turn away from love at the end. Not an ep with a happy ending or any happiness at all, really. And its aliens are just egregiously ugly and disgusting. And yet. . .I still think it's one of my favorite episodes of the series. It's grief from beginning to end. . . but then, she had just watched the man she loved die, so it only seemed right that she (and the audience) be allowed to wallow in grief for an episode. And Claudia Black is simply a gifted actress. She did a beautiful job.

Comments

[patschmitz.livejournal.com]

holy cow, that was a hellofa a write up

I always liked Farscape, but it took off so much on the last couple seasons, that i wasn't able to keep up...now im trying to catch up on the re-runs and still don't know what all happened with it

[patschmitz.livejournal.com]

so i just looked at that farscape site you have linked on your top page..holy cow, there is going to be a farscape mini-series?? i thought this show was dead..that is amazing

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I'm I'm really looking forward to it. I snagged some scans of the TV Guide article on the upcoming mini-series (warning: a bit spoilery)

Farscape Mini-Series LJ Entry (http://www.livejournal.com/users/shipperx/67336.html?mode=reply)

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

Totally, totally agree with you on this assessment (which was wonderful, btw). Claudia Black is a marvel, and never more so than in this episode. I felt terrible for her the whole time, and of course her reactions in DWTB were even more painful and understandable after watching this ep. Damn, but I love Farscape.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think Aeryn has matched and perhaps even passed Scully in my "Favorite Female Heroine" category. And I positively adored Scully.