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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 2369504" data-attributes="member: 5171">I don't necessarily know that I applaud him. I'm glad he did, because that lets us talk about Farscape some more, but I don't think people should continue to watch stuff that doesn't do it for them. Don't get me wrong: I don't want Crothian to stop if he's enjoying it and just pointing out flaws. But watching stuff you don't like because other people think it's good is never going to make you happy. (This explains why I don't go to movies very often. I vote with my dollar, and I vote hard.)I think that the reason I loved Farscape was that it was the anti-Trek -- at least, anti-Modern Trek. I remember seeing the episode... blanking on the name, but it was early second season, when the guy comes onto the ship and causes all kinds of weird light-effects that make everyone crazy and homicidal except Zhaan, who gets, uh, 300+ happy personal moments? (If I recall correctly, it also marks an early apperance of Harvey, passed off as a hallucination because we don't know about the chip yet in the show.)Anyway, in that episode, which Crothian has seen by now, so no spoiler worries, everyone has figured out that it's the alien's fault they're crazy, and John, the sanest of the group because of his poor eyesight ("Hey! I've got 20/20 eyesight, and they're blue!"), is chosen to go in and defeat the alien, who has laser-beams and some kind of heat wave.As I recall correctly, he gets D'Argo's sword, Aryn's prowler-plating-shield, a cloaking field from some other source, a heat resistant goo that Zhaan regurgitates for John, and a goofy helmet. He dashes into the room humming "The Ride of the Valkyries" runs around hacking up the alien's devices, and finally runs the creepy bastard through.I looked at the screen and said, "If this were one of today's Star Trek episodes, the alien device would be uncovered, the alien would be stunned by some kind of feedback, and he'd end up surrounded by a force field. And then the captain of the show would say, 'We're onto you. We're putting you back in your ship and leaving a warning beacon in this region of space so that nobody else falls for your schemes.' And the alien would stalk off, growling."And that was when I fell in love with Farscape. The show doesn't pretend to have a civilized morality when it's set in an uncivilized world. It ain't Deadwood, but if someone tries to kill one of the crew, that someone is probably going to end up dead unless they're truly incompetent or have a really good explanation.I remember watching Stargate:Atlantis, one of the first season episodes, the one where some group of humans has found a serum that they can inject into themselves that makes them poison for the Wraith. Or at least, they think so. And they spend 40 minutes of the hour talking about whether it's ethical to use their Wraith prisoner as a test subject, whether it's ethical to use a volunteer as a victim for the Wraith's attack, and whether this will really work and should we I don't know it's not very nice this isn't the polite way to do it... and I looked over at my wife and said "If this were Farscape, they'd have fed the volunteer to the alien about twenty minutes ago." And she nodded and sighed. I ended up watching the rest of the episode with captions on at x4 fast-forwarding -- slow enough to read captions and follow actions easily, fast enough to get through a dull episode faster.I'm not saying that such a moral dilemna couldn't be interesting. I'm saying that in such a situation -- aliens that suck the life out of you for food, with your group cut off from the rest of your country and planet, desperately looking for friends and help against the life-sucking aliens... that kind of moral whinging did not feel realistic. Or, if it was realistic, it was realistic for people who aren't going to survive.</blockquote>

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