Cult-TV Flashback: Farscape: "Different Destinations"

The Sci-Fi Channel series Farscape (1999 - 2003) remains one of the finest space adventure TV programs of recent decades, and the third season episode "...Different Destinations," which aired originally on April 13, 2001, is a good example of why that's so abundantly the case.

It's a time travel story -- a relative rarity on Farscape -- but much like so many series installments, "...Different Destinations" is absolutely unconventional in terms of genre TV tropes.  It's also cutthroat in nature, uncompromising in vision, and beautifully, emotionally depicted.

In the Farscape canon, "...Different Destinations" is apparently a stand-alone episode, one outside of the big story arc and larger narrative concerns, and yet -- despite the superficial "throwaway" status of the show -- it's an absolute gut-punch to John Crichton, Aeryn Sun and indeed, to the audience itself.

In "...Different Destinations," the living ship Moya delivers her rag-tag crew of bickering fugitives to a planet that houses an historical "Peace Memorial." Down on the planet surface five hundred years earlier, thirty Peacekeeper soldiers defended a band of innocent nurses and children from the Venek Horde, a barbarous army renowned for being "bloodthirsty and almost impossible to control." The last stand was inside an isolated mountaintop monastery.

According to Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black), a Peacekeeper herself, a heroic officer, Dacon (Dan Spielman)brokered a peace deal that saved the lives of the nurses and the young ones, but only at the cost of his own life. As Crichton (Ben Browder) describes Dacon, he's "Davy Crockett at the Alamo." Jool (Tammy McIntosh) contrarily argues that the story is militaristic propaganda, designed to prop up loyalty and patriotism.

Thanks to a pair of alien "tourist" goggles available at the cloisters, Crichton and the others can actually view the planet's final, historical battle unfold.

But something goes awry when the enigmatic Stark (Paul Goddard) views the events of the distant past.

When Stark watches, he somehow creates a "tear" in the fabric of time and space; a tear that transports Aeryn, John, Jool, D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) and himself back in time to the very day of the conflict.

Now trapped in the turbulent past, the shipmates debate the "elasticity of time" and whether or not it is a "brittle framework."

In other words, they wonder if their presence at the battle can change the course of history, and thus affect the future itself; the very "future" they dwell in. There's even a little arrogance in a conversation between Aeryn and John early on, as they wonder if there's a way they might actually "improve" the future.

This being Farscape and not Star Trek, no such improvement occurs. Not by a long shot. Quite the opposite in fact.

What "...Different Destinations" actually depicts is a kind of royal screw-up on the part of the Moya's argumentative crew. For instance, when Aeryn sees that Dacon is just a rookie -- and a cook, no less -- she does everything she can to shield the young man from his grim but pre-ordained fate. And unbeknownst to the others, John strikes a secret deal with the Venek General, one that ends in disaster when the general is murdered on the monastery ramparts by a nurse.

History recorded the military leader as a reasonable man who worked with Dacon to subdue the blood lust of the Horde. Now that he's gone, there's absolutely no buffer between the nurses and the violent warriors at the gates.

John notes after the death of the Venek leader: "I'm in a hell of a slump here.  Everything I do just makes things worse." 

Exactly. 

Before long, John is actually seeking the advice of the Scorpius implant in his head (Wayne Pygram).  That's how desperate he becomes to find a way out of this complicated temporal puzzle.

Meanwhile, D'Argo eschews the complexity of time travel theories and befriends one of the children in the monastery.

He informs her that the only way to make herself immortal is to be remembered. She takes his words to heart, and carves her name - Centrina -- into the walls of the fortress.

As a long night progresses, John and Aeryn make every attempt to right the time line in the absence of a key player, the Venek General. They even offer up Dacon. But this time when he dies, there's still no peace.  Now Aeryn feels even worse.  In this reality, Dacon died for nothing.

Back on Moya, Chiana, Pilot and Rygel watch in horror as the planet they orbit keeps changing.  The once-beautiful world becomes a burned out cinder and then, finally, disappears all together...totally annihilated in a conflict of hate and violence.

Down on the surface, with the Veneks swarming the monastery, the crew of Moya has no option left but to use their advanced pulse pistol weaponry and fight the conquering horde to a standstill. Making like an army, John, Aeryn and D'Argo fight for their lives and for the lives of the innocent. Then they escape through another "time tear" and return to the present in full belief that their combat efforts have made a truce possible.

But when they view the events of history through the tourist goggles, the time travelers learn a hard truth:  The Venek mob murdered all the nurses and children.  They were angry because they refused to give up the location of the Peacekeeper named...Crichton.

"I screwed up," a mourning John admits.

Crichton may have screwed up, but Farscape certainly didn't, and "...Different Destinations" is an absolutely inventive hour of action and science fiction, one that remembers that people (even astronauts; even aliens...) are flawed and don't always make the right choices.  Even more so, the right choice in the moment may not be the right choice, historically-speaking.

John and Aeryn, in particular, face the ramifications of their interference.  Both young Dacon and the unlucky nurses die horrible deaths, and there's no sense of "heroism" or "glory" to be found anywhere.  

It's a decidedly unromantic, unglamorous view of war, and the episode ultimately confirms Jool's point about propaganda.  Aeryn realizes she's been living with a lie since childhood. 

But this Farscape episode remains a remarkable one because it's just so far astray of audience expectations.  In a latter generation of Star Trek, for instance, the men and women of Starfleet would have certainly repaired the time line and rescued the innocent nurses and children.  And there's almost zero chance they would have held the day by employing their advanced weaponry against primitives. 

But in Steve Worland's "...Different Destinations," there are no higher rules (like Starfleet regulations) to contend with, and furthermore no unity whatsoever amongst the time-traveling participants about how to proceed.   It's trial and error all the way, and John and Aeryn argue vociferously about what should be done.

Interestingly, D'Argo -- often a sort of father figure, given the loss of his son in the series -- befriends Centrina and sees immediately the human cost of failure.  While Aeryn and John talk tactics, he discusses mortality, memory and loss.  It's a potent contrast to the behavior of Crichton and Sun.  They're struggling on concepts: how do we fix this; how do we repair that.  But D'Argo looks at something else: at youth and innocence, and the death of both.  The final moment of this subplot, with D'Argo discovering Centrina's names carved in the monastery wall, is downright haunting.

I admire how "...Different Destinations" is gleefully politically incorrect in terms of genre standards.  The heroes fail egregiously.  The innocent die...horribly.  Standard methods of success (attempting to maintain the timeline; adhering to accepted time travel philosophy) prove counterproductive.   Most importantly, the temptation to "re-boot" the time line and tie everything up with a nice, neat ribbon is avoided. What we have instead then is a series interested in examining cliches and carving out new...and uncharted territory.

Economically shot -- almost entirely on one set, the monastery courtyard -- "...Different Destinations" is impressive in just about every way one can tally.   In particular, it very adroitly utilizes its pop culture references (a mainstay of Farscape), with John finally alluding to the last stand of Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in Brian De Palma's Scarface (1983).

There, Tony -- a gangster and thug -- fought impossible odds and lost, destroyed by his enemies but also by his own self-destructive nature. 

It's extremely interesting, then, that in this episode John goes from referencing Davy Crockett at the Alamo -- an example of great heroism in a last stand -- to Tony Montana, a man who has isolated himself through his bad behavior and went out not in a blaze of glory, but infamy.   The siege situation on the planet has descended from one of heroic last stand, then, to a purposeless battle to the death.  Again, this is a very unromantic, unglamorous view of war, and more trenchantly, of heroes.

What are the reasons for the crew's egregious failure in this episode?  Well, Stark says it well: "...different beliefs...different destinations."  John believes in one thing; Aeryn another, and they don't really work together until it is far too late.  Their different beliefs have created successively -- as we see from Moya's observation deck -- different destinations.  And all those destinations are increasingly horrible.   

In short, this is a story in which our heroes stumble into a tough situation...and make it infinitely worse through their involvement.

That's the kind of thing that didn't often happen to Captain Picard...

Cult-TV Flashback: Farscape: "The Way We Weren't"

Back in the day, I actually had the honor of writing original short stories for The Official Farscape Magazine (particularly "Make a Wish" and "That Old Voodoo" back in 2002)  and one of my greatest career disappointments remains the fact that Farscape was unceremoniously canceled just as the possibility arose that I might get to pen an epic series novel based on a proposal I wrote for Tor called "Dominar." 

Bummer.

Although the Henson/O'Bannon series is widely commented on and praised for the colorful, original and utterly wonderful presentation of aliens and other-worldly environments -- I just watched an episode called "Home on the Remains"  that took place entirely inside the carcass of a giant space creature -- Farscape nonetheless appears to  reach its apex of quality when focusing front-and-center on its very conflicted and very flawed dramatis personae.

Case in point is the jaw-dropping, heart-breaking "The Way We Weren't," a grim if thoroughly involving episode from Farscape's second season, which originally aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in April of 2000. 

"The Way We Weren't" moves with a relentless sense of urgency, pace and inevitability, and spares the main characters (and thus the viewer) no pain whatsoever.  There are no lengthy excursions to other worlds in this particular story; and no "new" alien creations, either.  Instead, the sharp focus is on...the intimate; on inner space, if you will.

In fact, this particular installment points to the reason I deeply admire Farscape so much, even on a second viewing a decade later.  The overall stance/philosophy here is realistic rather than overtly operatic, idealistic, or heroic. 

This creative approach boasts two distinct advantages. 

One: the sense of realism in terms of character interaction and history grounds the far-out proceedings.  Farscape is visually dazzling in a fashion that few science fiction series have ever achieved (Space: 1999 is another notable example of such an achievement), and if the characters in Farscape were all perfect, idealized beings (as is the case on TNG, for instance...), there would be nothing to hold onto; no way to identify with the adventures or their participants.  The colorful world of Farscape and its inhabitants would seem remote.

And two: the realistic, fully-dimensional approach to the colorful characters makes their eventual bonding and infrequent unions of purpose and mission seem all the more grand and inspiring. 

The main characters on Farscape are exiles, thieves, cheats, a fish-out-of-water, and even an ex-fascist.  When this motley crew gets it together and somehow beats the Powers that Be, you not only sigh with relief, you actually cheer.  

In short, the series' writers keep setting the main characters at each other's throats, separated by their divisions and differences, experiencing set-backs and then -- at just the right time -- they bring everyone back together.  It can be quite rousing, even rather emotional at times. 

Farscape brilliantly mastered this particular narrative structure.

But getting to specifics, in the second season's "The Way We Weren't," Chiana (Gigi Edgley) unexpectedly discovers a shocking video recording.  It depicts the brutal murder of Moya's first pilot by Peacekeepers...under the direction of draconian Captain Crais (Lani Tupu). 

This is a double shock, actually, because no one aboard the bio-ship even knew that Moya's current Pilot was not her first. 

Aeryn participates in the brutal murder of a Pilot.

The next surprise is that one of the Peacekeeper soldiers carrying out the brutal blaster massacre is none other than current Moya resident, Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black).  

Pilot and Aeryn have long since learned to get along, and even bonded, so this recording could be a huge problem.

And of course, it is.  As usual, Rygel makes trouble for his shipmates and sees to it that Pilot gets his hands (claws?) on the violent recording. 

Angry, Pilot promptly demands that Aeryn leave Moya permanently.  She is no longer welcome. 

The scenes involving Pilot's out-of-control rage and Aeryn's deep, sincere regret are incredibly raw and incredibly powerful in "The Way We Weren't.   You will swear, countenancing Pilot's unrestrained grief and rage, that this is a real alien being and not an accomplished special effect; not a "muppet."

Reluctantly, Aeryn agrees to depart from Moya, and no one seems eager to keep her around.  Only John (Ben Browder) is at all sympathetic

Still Aeryn asks for forgiveness from Pilot and Moya.  Importantly, she doesn't try to evade responsibility for her act of murder, she simply states that she is "no longer" the "same person" she was when she pulled that trigger so long ago.   To the others aboard Moya, this hardly seems like an excuse, given Aeryn's culpability. 

This dynamic amongst the crew (D'Argo, Chiana, Zahn, and Rygel)  powerfully illuminates an important issue in modern American culture vis-a-vis crime and punishment.  When a person has committed a crime, but changed in the years since that crime...do we punish that person for his or her initial deed, or honor the redemption?  When pronouncing punishment, do we consider good deeds or positive "change" as mitigating factors? 

Aeryn has no right to ask for mercy and understanding, especially seeing how -- in the episode's flashbacks -- she also callously betrays the man she loves, a Peacekeeper officer with deep feelings for her.  And yet Aeryn is right...she isn't the same person anymore. We've seen her save her ship-mates and Moya herself on more than one occasion.

Pilot wants to "see the stars."  Maybe too much.

"The Way We Weren't" is downright fascinating in its depiction of Aeryn during her Peacekeeper past, and in terms of revealing how limited a person she once was in terms of her connections to others, her aspirations, even in the simple terms of her imagination.

But then, commendably, the story goes one better and reveals, also via flashback, Pilot's original connection with Moya too.   

Shockingly, even this kindly creature -- a veritable rock of stability on the Leviathan since the series' premiere-- boasts a personal history that he is ashamed of too...and also keeping secrets about. 

Specifically, Pilot was never approved to be "joined" with Moya (or any Leviathan), and so teamed with the Peacekeepers to link with Moya outside of the hierarchy of his people and his laws.   Pilot was impatient.  He wanted to "see the stars" and he didn't want to wait. 

That burning desire,that impatience, led Pilot to commit a grievous error...a crime.

In this way, Pilot is as much responsible for the first pilot's death as is Aeryn...and he knows it.  The knowledge of this guilt, the memory of this betrayal, nearly destroys Pilot, in fact.  In an agonizing moment, he literally rips himself out of his piloting console, a suicidal act which immobilizes Moya, but also -- ironically -- frees Pilot of the pain he has always felt because of his actions, and also because of his "artificial" joining to the Leviathan.

In "The Way We Weren't," Aeryn's and Pilot's personal stories mirror and parallel one another in unqieu artistic fashion.  Aeryn once committed a betrayal against her lover to get what she wanted (an assignment flying prowlers, for heaven's sake), and Pilot essentially did the same thing.  He let himself be manipulated by Crais and the Peacekeepers so that he could achieve his dream of joining with a Leviathan.  He was a willing pawn.

As John Crichton notes in the episode, everyone has secrets in their past; secrets that they don't want exposed, and "The Way We Weren't" is a beautiful and edgy excavation of Aeryn and Pilot's deepest, darkest skeletons.  

The episode works so well because it never candy coats what these characters did in the past.  It never makes excuses for their mistakes and behavior.  It just reveals that Pilot and Aeryn have made mistakes, and that, today, they truly are different people.  That's a lot like real life, no?

"The Way We Weren't" also features several stand-out scenes and visualizations.  The flashback moments are rendered in a kind of bleached-out, de-saturated palette, which lends a deeper feeling of "colorlessness" to the milieu of the Peacekeepers; who all march in lock-step and don't deviate from rigid behavior and personal emotional repression. 

It's a world without real love -- as Aeryn describes it to John -- and in one of the episode's most interesting scenes, Aeryn leverages what authentically seems like true love for a simple job transfer.  This is an unheroic, unflattering view of Aeryn. She was once so limited, so parochial, she didn't even know how to value love -- the human (okay, Sebacean...) connection -- over an assignment she liked.  You feel pity for her.

The second scene from the episode that I find deeply affecting finds Aeryn's lover, Valerek, visiting Pilot on what I assume is Pilot's home world.  Pilot is ensconced in a planetary surface of heavy mist...as though sitting in a swamp or a bog.  High above him, the black, clear sky is filled with bright stars.  A shooting star even races by overhead.  In this moment, you can understand the young Pilot's yearning and impatience to be free. 

To escape from the restraining fog below and touch those distant constellations above... 

If you're a fan of space adventures, or even just science fiction in general, you've likely felt this simple tug before: to leave behind the mundane environment of terra firma and touch the magic and mystery of the stars. 

I admire how this scene looks; and especially how it plays.  And again, I must state how endearing, how emotionally-resonant the performance by Pilot (voiced by Lani Tupu) truly is in this moment.  You look at those big expressive, alien eyes and you don't see a technician's carefully calibrated creation; you see a fully-realized alien being longing for an escape from his earthbound existence.

Without ever being preachy or pushing hard some kind of overt "moral" message, "The Way We Weren't" engenders real viewer sympathy for Aeryn and Pilot through these two powerful sequences. 

With Aeryn for following her ambition instead of her heart. 

And with Pilot for letting his impatience to achieve a dream get the better of him. 

But the important thing to consider is this simple fact: the mistakes these aliens make are easily ones we could see ourselves making.  Following orders we shouldn't have followed. Or skipping a crucial step to get ahead of someone else.

Once more, the point is that in a heightened world of lasers, starbursts, alien wizards, monsters, and incredible fantasy, Farscape gives us a peek at recognizable, flawed individuals.   So we identify with them.   We like them; even when they make poor choices.  Rygel is actually my favorite character on the program, and I think the series' realistic approach is another reason why. He's such a thorn-in-the-side and a royal (literally...) pain-in-the-ass, but Rygel's motives (if not stomachs) are entirely human.

Pilot is lowered into Moya's command console...for the first time.

"The Way We Weren't" dispatches with larger  Farscape story arc concerns like Scorpius's pursuit, blossoming romances, and the desperation for provisions. 

It simply and elegantly reveals characters who have made terrible mistakes and, who -- more than anything, --wish they hadn't.

In this episode, Aeryn and Pilot both get second chances.  Aeryn gets to stay aboard Moya, and Pilot -- putting all the years of pain and guilt aside -- finally achieves his dream: a natural joining with the Leviathan he clearly loves.

It's silly to write this, but this Farscape denouement may just bring a tear to your eye.  We all hope for forgiveness.  So we relate.

CULT TV FLASHBACK #138: Farscape: "...Different Destinations" (2001)

The Sci-Fi Channel series Farscape (1999 - 2003) remains one of the finest space adventure TV programs of recent decades, and the third season episode "...Different Destinations," which aired originally on April 13, 2001, is a good example of why that's so abundantly the case.

It's a time travel story -- a relative rarity on Farscape -- but much like so many series installments, "...Different Destinations" is absolutely unconventional in terms of genre TV tropes.  It's also cutthroat in nature, uncompromising in vision, and beautifully, emotionally depicted.

In the Farscape canon, "...Different Destinations" is apparently a stand-alone episode, one outside of the big story arc and larger narrative concerns, and yet -- despite the superficial "throwaway" status of the show -- it's an absolute gut-punch to John Crichton, Aeryn Sun and indeed, to the audience itself.

In "...Different Destinations," the living ship Moya delivers her rag-tag crew of bickering fugitives to a planet that houses an historical "Peace Memorial." Down on the planet surface five hundred years earlier, thirty Peacekeeper soldiers defended a band of innocent nurses and children from the Venek Horde, a barbarous army renowned for being "bloodthirsty and almost impossible to control." The last stand was inside an isolated mountaintop monastery.

According to Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black), a Peacekeeper herself, a heroic officer, Dacon (Dan Spielman)brokered a peace deal that saved the lives of the nurses and the young ones, but only at the cost of his own life. As Crichton (Ben Browder) describes Dacon, he's "Davy Crockett at the Alamo." Jool (Tammy McIntosh) contrarily argues that the story is militaristic propaganda, designed to prop up loyalty and patriotism.

Thanks to a pair of alien "tourist" goggles available at the cloisters, Crichton and the others can actually view the planet's final, historical battle unfold.

But something goes awry when the enigmatic Stark (Paul Goddard) views the events of the distant past.

When Stark watches, he somehow creates a "tear" in the fabric of time and space; a tear that transports Aeryn, John, Jool, D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) and himself back in time to the very day of the conflict.

Now trapped in the turbulent past, the shipmates debate the "elasticity of time" and whether or not it is a "brittle framework."

In other words, they wonder if their presence at the battle can change the course of history, and thus affect the future itself; the very "future" they dwell in. There's even a little arrogance in a conversation between Aeryn and John early on, as they wonder if there's a way they might actually "improve" the future.

This being Farscape and not Star Trek, no such improvement occurs. Not by a long shot. Quite the opposite in fact.

What "...Different Destinations" actually depicts is a kind of royal screw-up on the part of the Moya's argumentative crew. For instance, when Aeryn sees that Dacon is just a rookie -- and a cook, no less -- she does everything she can to shield the young man from his grim but pre-ordained fate. And unbeknownst to the others, John strikes a secret deal with the Venek General, one that ends in disaster when the general is murdered on the monastery ramparts by a nurse.

History recorded the military leader as a reasonable man who worked with Dacon to subdue the blood lust of the Horde. Now that he's gone, there's absolutely no buffer between the nurses and the violent warriors at the gates.

John notes after the death of the Venek leader: "I'm in a hell of a slump here.  Everything I do just makes things worse." 

Exactly. 

Before long, John is actually seeking the advice of the Scorpius implant in his head (Wayne Pygram).  That's how desperate he becomes to find a way out of this complicated temporal puzzle.

Meanwhile, D'Argo eschews the complexity of time travel theories and befriends one of the children in the monastery.

He informs her that the only way to make herself immortal is to be remembered. She takes his words to heart, and carves her name - Centrina -- into the walls of the fortress.

As a long night progresses, John and Aeryn make every attempt to right the time line in the absence of a key player, the Venek General. They even offer up Dacon. But this time when he dies, there's still no peace.  Now Aeryn feels even worse.  In this reality, Dacon died for nothing.

Back on Moya, Chiana, Pilot and Rygel watch in horror as the planet they orbit keeps changing.  The once-beautiful world becomes a burned out cinder and then, finally, disappears all together...totally annihilated in a conflict of hate and violence.

Down on the surface, with the Veneks swarming the monastery, the crew of Moya has no option left but to use their advanced pulse pistol weaponry and fight the conquering horde to a standstill. Making like an army, John, Aeryn and D'Argo fight for their lives and for the lives of the innocent. Then they escape through another "time tear" and return to the present in full belief that their combat efforts have made a truce possible.

But when they view the events of history through the tourist goggles, the time travelers learn a hard truth:  The Venek mob murdered all the nurses and children.  They were angry because they refused to give up the location of the Peacekeeper named...Crichton.

"I screwed up," a mourning John admits.

Crichton may have screwed up, but Farscape certainly didn't, and "...Different Destinations" is an absolutely inventive hour of action and science fiction, one that remembers that people (even astronauts; even aliens...) are flawed and don't always make the right choices.  Even more so, the right choice in the moment may not be the right choice, historically-speaking.

John and Aeryn, in particular, face the ramifications of their interference.  Both young Dacon and the unlucky nurses die horrible deaths, and there's no sense of "heroism" or "glory" to be found anywhere.  

It's a decidedly unromantic, unglamorous view of war, and the episode ultimately confirms Jool's point about propaganda.  Aeryn realizes she's been living with a lie since childhood. 

But this Farscape episode remains a remarkable one because it's just so far astray of audience expectations.  In a latter generation of Star Trek, for instance, the men and women of Starfleet would have certainly repaired the time line and rescued the innocent nurses and children.  And there's almost zero chance they would have held the day by employing their advanced weaponry against primitives. 

But in Steve Worland's "...Different Destinations," there are no higher rules (like Starfleet regulations) to contend with, and furthermore no unity whatsoever amongst the time-traveling participants about how to proceed.   It's trial and error all the way, and John and Aeryn argue vociferously about what should be done.

Interestingly, D'Argo -- often a sort of father figure, given the loss of his son in the series -- befriends Centrina and sees immediately the human cost of failure.  While Aeryn and John talk tactics, he discusses mortality, memory and loss.  It's a potent contrast to the behavior of Crichton and Sun.  They're struggling on concepts: how do we fix this; how do we repair that.  But D'Argo looks at something else: at youth and innocence, and the death of both.  The final moment of this subplot, with D'Argo discovering Centrina's names carved in the monastery wall, is downright haunting.

I admire how "...Different Destinations" is gleefully politically incorrect in terms of genre standards.  The heroes fail egregiously.  The innocent die...horribly.  Standard methods of success (attempting to maintain the timeline; adhering to accepted time travel philosophy) prove counterproductive.   Most importantly, the temptation to "re-boot" the time line and tie everything up with a nice, neat ribbon is avoided. What we have instead then is a series interested in examining cliches and carving out new...and uncharted territory.

Economically shot -- almost entirely on one set, the monastery courtyard -- "...Different Destinations" is impressive in just about every way one can tally.   In particular, it very adroitly utilizes its pop culture references (a mainstay of Farscape), with John finally alluding to the last stand of Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in Brian De Palma's Scarface (1983).

There, Tony -- a gangster and thug -- fought impossible odds and lost, destroyed by his enemies but also by his own self-destructive nature. 

It's extremely interesting, then, that in this episode John goes from referencing Davy Crockett at the Alamo -- an example of great heroism in a last stand -- to Tony Montana, a man who has isolated himself through his bad behavior and went out not in a blaze of glory, but infamy.   The siege situation on the planet has descended from one of heroic last stand, then, to a purposeless battle to the death.  Again, this is a very unromantic, unglamorous view of war, and more trenchantly, of heroes.

What are the reasons for the crew's egregious failure in this episode?  Well, Stark says it well: "...different beliefs...different destinations."  John believes in one thing; Aeryn another, and they don't really work together until it is far too late.  Their different beliefs have created successively -- as we see from Moya's observation deck -- different destinations.  And all those destinations are increasingly horrible.   

In short, this is a story in which our heroes stumble into a tough situation...and make it infinitely worse through their involvement.

That's the kind of thing that didn't often happen to Captain Picard...

CULT TV FLASHBACK 122: Farscape: "The Way We Weren't" (2000)

I've been re-visiting Farscape (1999 - 2003) for the last several weeks, and am very much enjoying this second look at one of the greatest space adventures in TV history.  

Back in the day, I actually had the honor of writing original short stories for The Official Farscape Magazine (particularly "Make a Wish" and "That Old Voodoo" back in 2002)  and one of my greatest career disappointments remains the fact that Farscape was unceremoniously canceled just as the possibility arose that I might get to pen an epic series novel based on a proposal I wrote for Tor called "Dominar." 

Bummer.

But long story short: as much as I was heavily into Farscape when it originally aired -- and I absolutely loved writing original fiction in that universe -- the DVD sets were cost-prohibitive until about a year ago, so I never went back to re-visit a space adventure program I positively adored on first run. 

Then I purchased the more affordable Complete Series DVD set last Christmas, and finally -- only in the last month or so -- got around to screening the series again from the very beginning.  And it's already been an amazing ride; each episode brings up strong memories of why I fell in love with the series back in 1999.

Although the Henson/O'Bannon series is widely commented on and praised for the colorful, original and utterly wonderful presentation of aliens and other-worldly environments -- I just watched an episode called "Home on the Remains"  that took place entirely inside the carcass of a giant space creature -- Farscape nonetheless appears to  reach its apex of quality when focusing front-and-center on its very conflicted and very flawed dramatis personae.

Case in point is the jaw-dropping, heart-breaking "The Way We Weren't," a grim if thoroughly involving episode from Farscape's second season, which originally aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in April of 2000. 

"The Way We Weren't" moves with a relentless sense of urgency, pace and inevitability, and spares the main characters (and thus the viewer) no pain whatsoever.  There are no lengthy excursions to other worlds in this particular story; and no "new" alien creations, either.  Instead, the sharp focus is on...the intimate; on inner space, if you will.

In fact, this particular installment points to the reason I deeply admire Farscape so much, even on a second viewing a decade later.  The overall stance/philosophy here is realistic rather than overtly operatic, idealistic, or heroic. 

This creative approach boasts two distinct advantages. 

One: the sense of realism in terms of character interaction and history grounds the far-out proceedings.  Farscape is visually dazzling in a fashion that few science fiction series have ever achieved (Space: 1999 is another notable example of such an achievement), and if the characters in Farscape were all perfect, idealized beings (as is the case on TNG, for instance...), there would be nothing to hold onto; no way to identify with the adventures or their participants.  The colorful world of Farscape and its inhabitants would seem remote.

And two: the realistic, fully-dimensional approach to the colorful characters makes their eventual bonding and infrequent unions of purpose and mission seem all the more grand and inspiring. 

The main characters on Farscape are exiles, thieves, cheats, a fish-out-of-water, and even an ex-fascist.  When this motley crew gets it together and somehow beats the Powers that Be, you not only sigh with relief, you actually cheer.  

In short, the series' writers keep setting the main characters at each other's throats, separated by their divisions and differences, experiencing set-backs and then -- at just the right time -- they bring everyone back together.  It can be quite rousing, even rather emotional at times. 

Farscape brilliantly mastered this particular narrative structure.

But getting to specifics, in the second season's "The Way We Weren't," Chiana (Gigi Edgley) unexpectedly discovers a shocking video recording.  It depicts the brutal murder of Moya's first pilot by Peacekeepers...under the direction of draconian Captain Crais (Lani Tupu). 

This is a double shock, actually, because no one aboard the bio-ship even knew that Moya's current Pilot was not her first. 

Aeryn participates in the brutal murder of a Pilot.

The next surprise is that one of the Peacekeeper soldiers carrying out the brutal blaster massacre is none other than current Moya resident, Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black).  

Pilot and Aeryn have long since learned to get along, and even bonded, so this recording could be a huge problem.

And of course, it is.  As usual, Rygel makes trouble for his shipmates and sees to it that Pilot gets his hands (claws?) on the violent recording. 

Angry, Pilot promptly demands that Aeryn leave Moya permanently.  She is no longer welcome. 

The scenes involving Pilot's out-of-control rage and Aeryn's deep, sincere regret are incredibly raw and incredibly powerful in "The Way We Weren't.   You will swear, countenancing Pilot's unrestrained grief and rage, that this is a real alien being and not an accomplished special effect; not a "muppet."

Reluctantly, Aeryn agrees to depart from Moya, and no one seems eager to keep her around.  Only John (Ben Browder) is at all sympathetic

Still Aeryn asks for forgiveness from Pilot and Moya.  Importantly, she doesn't try to evade responsibility for her act of murder, she simply states that she is "no longer" the "same person" she was when she pulled that trigger so long ago.   To the others aboard Moya, this hardly seems like an excuse, given Aeryn's culpability. 

This dynamic amongst the crew (D'Argo, Chiana, Zahn, and Rygel)  powerfully illuminates an important issue in modern American culture vis-a-vis crime and punishment.  When a person has committed a crime, but changed in the years since that crime...do we punish that person for his or her initial deed, or honor the redemption?  When pronouncing punishment, do we consider good deeds or positive "change" as mitigating factors? 

Aeryn has no right to ask for mercy and understanding, especially seeing how -- in the episode's flashbacks -- she also callously betrays the man she loves, a Peacekeeper officer with deep feelings for her.  And yet Aeryn is right...she isn't the same person anymore. We've seen her save her ship-mates and Moya herself on more than one occasion.

Pilot wants to "see the stars."  Maybe too much.

"The Way We Weren't" is downright fascinating in its depiction of Aeryn during her Peacekeeper past, and in terms of revealing how limited a person she once was in terms of her connections to others, her aspirations, even in the simple terms of her imagination.

But then, commendably, the story goes one better and reveals, also via flashback, Pilot's original connection with Moya too.   

Shockingly, even this kindly creature -- a veritable rock of stability on the Leviathan since the series' premiere-- boasts a personal history that he is ashamed of too...and also keeping secrets about. 

Specifically, Pilot was never approved to be "joined" with Moya (or any Leviathan), and so teamed with the Peacekeepers to link with Moya outside of the hierarchy of his people and his laws.   Pilot was impatient.  He wanted to "see the stars" and he didn't want to wait. 

That burning desire,that impatience, led Pilot to commit a grievous error...a crime.

In this way, Pilot is as much responsible for the first pilot's death as is Aeryn...and he knows it.  The knowledge of this guilt, the memory of this betrayal, nearly destroys Pilot, in fact.  In an agonizing moment, he literally rips himself out of his piloting console, a suicidal act which immobilizes Moya, but also -- ironically -- frees Pilot of the pain he has always felt because of his actions, and also because of his "artificial" joining to the Leviathan.

In "The Way We Weren't," Aeryn's and Pilot's personal stories mirror and parallel one another in unqieu artistic fashion.  Aeryn once committed a betrayal against her lover to get what she wanted (an assignment flying prowlers, for heaven's sake), and Pilot essentially did the same thing.  He let himself be manipulated by Crais and the Peacekeepers so that he could achieve his dream of joining with a Leviathan.  He was a willing pawn.

As John Crichton notes in the episode, everyone has secrets in their past; secrets that they don't want exposed, and "The Way We Weren't" is a beautiful and edgy excavation of Aeryn and Pilot's deepest, darkest skeletons.  

The episode works so well because it never candy coats what these characters did in the past.  It never makes excuses for their mistakes and behavior.  It just reveals that Pilot and Aeryn have made mistakes, and that, today, they truly are different people.  That's a lot like real life, no?

"The Way We Weren't" also features several stand-out scenes and visualizations.  The flashback moments are rendered in a kind of bleached-out, de-saturated palette, which lends a deeper feeling of "colorlessness" to the milieu of the Peacekeepers; who all march in lock-step and don't deviate from rigid behavior and personal emotional repression. 

It's a world without real love -- as Aeryn describes it to John -- and in one of the episode's most interesting scenes, Aeryn leverages what authentically seems like true love for a simple job transfer.  This is an unheroic, unflattering view of Aeryn. She was once so limited, so parochial, she didn't even know how to value love -- the human (okay, Sebacean...) connection -- over an assignment she liked.  You feel pity for her.

The second scene from the episode that I find deeply affecting finds Aeryn's lover, Valerek, visiting Pilot on what I assume is Pilot's home world.  Pilot is ensconced in a planetary surface of heavy mist...as though sitting in a swamp or a bog.  High above him, the black, clear sky is filled with bright stars.  A shooting star even races by overhead.  In this moment, you can understand the young Pilot's yearning and impatience to be free. 

To escape from the restraining fog below and touch those distant constellations above... 

If you're a fan of space adventures, or even just science fiction in general, you've likely felt this simple tug before: to leave behind the mundane environment of terra firma and touch the magic and mystery of the stars. 

I admire how this scene looks; and especially how it plays.  And again, I must state how endearing, how emotionally-resonant the performance by Pilot (voiced by Lani Tupu) truly is in this moment.  You look at those big expressive, alien eyes and you don't see a technician's carefully calibrated creation; you see a fully-realized alien being longing for an escape from his earthbound existence.

Without ever being preachy or pushing hard some kind of overt "moral" message, "The Way We Weren't" engenders real viewer sympathy for Aeryn and Pilot through these two powerful sequences. 

With Aeryn for following her ambition instead of her heart. 

And with Pilot for letting his impatience to achieve a dream get the better of him. 

But the important thing to consider is this simple fact: the mistakes these aliens make are easily ones we could see ourselves making.  Following orders we shouldn't have followed. Or skipping a crucial step to get ahead of someone else.

Once more, the point is that in a heightened world of lasers, starbursts, alien wizards, monsters, and incredible fantasy, Farscape gives us a peek at recognizable, flawed individuals.   So we identify with them.   We like them; even when they make poor choices.  Rygel is actually my favorite character on the program, and I think the series' realistic approach is another reason why. He's such a thorn-in-the-side and a royal (literally...) pain-in-the-ass, but Rygel's motives (if not stomachs) are entirely human.

Pilot is lowered into Moya's command console...for the first time.

"The Way We Weren't" dispatches with larger  Farscape story arc concerns like Scorpius's pursuit, blossoming romances, and the desperation for provisions. 

It simply and elegantly reveals characters who have made terrible mistakes and, who -- more than anything, --wish they hadn't.

In this episode, Aeryn and Pilot both get second chances.  Aeryn gets to stay aboard Moya, and Pilot -- putting all the years of pain and guilt aside -- finally achieves his dream: a natural joining with the Leviathan he clearly loves.

It's silly to write this, but this Farscape denouement may just bring a tear to your eye.  We all hope for forgiveness.  So we relate.

I realize I'm just a season-and-a-half in re-screening Farscape at this point, but "The Way We Weren't" is certainly the best, most powerful episode I've seen thus far.  It's one hell of an episode, in one hell of a series.