Sorting Through the "Wild Tales"

Revenge is so overdone.  Vengeance, retribution, and the baser forms of justice have become terribly convenient excuses in films for characters to behave in all sorts of extreme and irrational ways.  So it's nice to find a movie with a sense of humor about it.

 

Damian Szifron's "Wild Tales" defies easy description.  It's an anthology film, made up of six stories about violence and vengeance. All can be classified as black comedies to some degree, but the style and tone of each short is a bit different.  Some are told in a pulpy, stylized manner full of outrageous moments, and others are more sedate.  "Wild Tales" hails from Argentina, where it was a smash hit last year.  The Academy gave it a Best Foreign Film nomination, despite the movie not having remotely the amount of gravitas that you'd imagine would be necessary to win such a distinction.  Frankly, I don't understand the level of acclaim, as there are a few duds among the six stories, and I think the only way to be fair to the whole of "Wild Tales" is to take each of the six parts on their own.

 

First we have "Pasternak," the best and the shortest of the segments  It's a pre-title stinger to get us warmed up, practically a gag, about passengers on an airplane.  Providing much more description would ruin it, but it's such a wonderfully dark, mean, absurd little joke of a short.  I fully expect this one to start circulating as a viral video at some point, and absolutely recommend a viewing even if you're not in the mood to sit through the whole two hours of the film. 

 

"The Rats" is out and out comedic, about a diner waitress (Julieta Zylberberg) and cook (Rita Cortese), debating over whether to poison a loan shark customer.  It's a little light on concept and underdeveloped, but executed well enough to earn some laughs.  "The Strongest," about two drivers (Leonardo Sbaraglia, Walter Donado) and a case of road rage, is also very bare bones, but the gusto with which the director and the actors unleash themselves on each other makes it a winner.  The escalation of the situation goes on exactly as long as it needs to, and lets the crazy hit right where it has the most impact.  There's a lot of very physical stuff going on in this one, and it's impressive to watch it all unfold.

 

Things take a turn for the worse when we reach the more serious material.  "Bombita" follows a man's troubles with his city's parking enforcement. This one rubbed me the wrong way, and I think it's because the main character, Simon (Ricardo Darin), is difficult to empathize with.  The story is fairly predictable and not nearly as well deployed as the previous segments, with an ending that is too pat and abrupt.  Then comes "The Bill," which is a better effort overall, but tonally and thematically feels like it belongs in a different film, or perhaps it would have been better being developed into its own feature.  After his young son causes a terrible car accident that will almost certainly mean jail time, a wealthy father (Oscar Martinez) conspires to pay an employee to take the blame instead.  A fairly serious domestic drama unfolds that isn't operating on remotely the same wavelength as any of the other stories, and it suffers the most for being confined to a short running time.  It's a shame because "The Bill" isn't a bad starting point, and I'd like to see more.

 

And so we come to the grand finale, "Til Death Do Us Part," where a bridezilla goes on a rampage and an extravagant wedding reception implodes.   The bride, Romina (Erica Rivas), discovers that her new husband Ariel (Diego Gentile) has been cheating on her, and decides to make him pay in the most humiliating and public ways available to her.  This is the longest segment of "Wild Tales," and one of the most polarizing, as it elicits more cringing than laughs.  I enjoyed it, because I had no idea where the story was going from one minute to the next, and because Erica Rivas gives Romina's emotional extremes some real pathos and fire as needed.

 

So all in all, more good than bad.  Some of the humor was awfully low-brow for my tastes, and it's definitely not for everyone, but "Wild Tales" is one of the most accessible foreign comedies I've come across in a long while.  After all, revenge is awfully satisfying, and everyone needs an excuse to let loose once in a while.

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Night of the Living Cancellation, Part II

"Twin Peaks" is coming back in a limited Showtime series!  Yes!  With David Lynch and Mark Frost onboard!  Well, okay, there seem to be some squabbles going on behind the scenes, and Lynch probably won't be directing, but still - the return of one of the early touchstones of auteur-driven television is something to celebrate.  And "The X-Files" is coming back too!  With David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson!  The series didn't end well and that last movie was a bust, but Chris Carter's got to know this is his last shot, right?  Oh, and NBC's bringing back "Coach"?  Er, I never watched much of "Coach," but it was a consistent performer back in the day, so it must have had a pretty good fan base, right? How many of them are still around, though?  I mean, that audience skewed older to begin with so twenty years later -  And now Netflix wants to bring back "Full House"?  Huh.  Well.  Um.  I have no idea why anyone would want to see that.

 

Welcome to the hot new TV trend of 2015 - the revival.  I knew that the '90s were inevitably going to come back, but this is ridiculous.  It seems like every day someone has dusted off another old show or star in hopes of engineering a comeback.  These aren't reboots, mind you, though there have been plenty of those.  The new "Beverley Hills 90210" and "Melrose Place" have come and gone.  Revivals are trying to effectively create new seasons of old programs to the extent that they can, bringing back familiar stars, showrunners, writers, and other creative talent.  This has already been done with some success in TNT's "Dallas," which was designed to feel as if the original show had simply returned from a very long hiatus.  And honestly, that's not as farfetched as it used to be in an era where Netflix gave "Arrested Development" a third season seven years after FOX cancelled it.

 

Then again, revivals aren't new.  After reruns of the '70s black family sitcom "What's Happening!" did well in syndication, a sequel series, "What's Happening Now!!" came six years after cancellation and effectively doubled the number of episodes.  "Bevis and Butthead" returned to MTV briefly, after a fourteen year absence.  And of course there's "Doctor Who," which has had a lot of fun untangling the snarls in its continuity caused by a fifteen year break.  And when you move away from serialized television, you find people have tried to bring back just about everything from "The Mickey Mouse Club" to "The Twilight Zone" to "The Electric Company."  Reboots and reinventions are preferable when it comes to more well-known sitcoms and dramas because they're usually much easier to pull off.

 

So why this recent spate of high profile resurrections?  The "X-Files" revival is the result of a fan campaign that was actively encouraged by Gillian Anderson and others connected with the show.   The enthusiastic reaction it received seems to have been what prompted most of th others.  Note that all of these projects made a point of emphasizing that key original actors would be returning, which is their biggest selling point.  I suspect there would be more revivals if the talent involved were more receptive, but a lot of the time the successful stars of hit TV shows have no desire to sign on for a long television gig again.  However, these days a regular television season can be as short as seven or eight episodes, so the commitment isn't as great.  And Gillian Anderson can feasibly juggle her commitments to "The Fall" and "Hannibal" with shooting six new episodes of "X-Files."  

 

It's a lot of fun to think about what other beloved '90s shows might be candidates for revivals, but we should also keep in mind that these shows all went off the air for a reason.  Audiences lost interest, premises and formulas ran out of steam, and some just outstayed their welcome.  Frankly, there aren't many that I think would actually benefit from another season, except a couple that ended on cliffhangers.  The "Twin Peaks" series sounds the most promising because it's the most likely to actually be a quality piece of television on par with all the good shows that it'll be competing against.  Though it certainly helps, you need more than nostalgia to get ahead on TV these days,

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"The Homesman" Stakes Its Claim

Tommy Lee Jones' latest directorial effort, "The Homesman," has garnered very polarized responses.  There are some who love the unconventional period western unreservedly, and others who find it deeply flawed.  Much of the discussion about the film centers around a major spoiler that I won't reveal here, but let's just say that it works for some and not at all for others, and introduces a lot of questions about the film's aims.

 

Hilary Swank stars as Mary Bee Cuddy, a hardy Nebraska homesteader who manages her own farm, but has been unable to find anyone willing to marry her.  A harsh winter strikes her small farming community, and three women (Grace Gummer, Miranda Otto, and Sonja Richter) lose their minds after various hardships.  With no one else willing, Cuddy agrees to take the women to Iowa, where arrangements can be made to send them back East.  The trip will require several weeks travel through dangerous country, so Cuddy recruits a questionable claim jumper, George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones), after saving him from being lynched, to aid her on the journey.

 

At first glance this seems to follow the basic template of your modern western: take the bones of an exciting adventure story from a classic western and add unconventional heroic figures, an emphasis on the hardship of the American pioneer experience, and overtones of social progressiveness.  The journey through hard terrain full of dangerous Indians and criminals goes all the way back to "Stagecoach," but here our heroine is an oddball, unattractive, unmarried woman trying to wrangle three insane charges and an untrustworthy hired hand.  Modern conventional wisdom suggests that she win the day through significant personal sacrifice, and help to redeem her travelling companions along the way. The Coen brothers' "True Grit," is be a good model.  But this is not what happens in "The Homesman." 

 

I keep coming back to "No Country For Old Men" as the more appropriate Coens' move to compare "The Homesman" to, which Tommy Lee Jones also starred in.  The most vital and important part of "Homesman" is actually the long denouement after the more exciting chapters of the film have concluded, where Jones' character takes center stage and major themes are recontextualized from his point of view.  I think I can say without giving anything away that both films are ultimately about failure, displacement, loss, and grappling with terrible events that may be ultimately meaningless.  And the deliberateness and the candidness of how these ideas are handled sets the film apart, even if the film itself isn't quite up to snuff.

 

Now, there's plenty to like about the filmmaking here.  Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography is always stirring, particularly the night and interior scenes, and the quiet montages of the three women descending into madness, one by one.  Marco Beltrami's score is a standout.  The performances are excellent, with Hilary Swank at the height of her powers as the tough but warm-hearted Cuddy.  She has excellent chemistry with Tommy Lee Jones, and their sharp back-and-forth alone is worth the price of admission.  The cast is populated with familiar faces, many of whom turn in fine smaller performances - James Spader as a pompous hotel owner, John Lithgow as a sympathetic reverend, and Meryl Streep and Hailee Steinfeld in roles I think it's better to let the viewer discover for themselves. 

 

The film falters in its final third, however, and that all-important denouement.  The pacing slows to an interminable crawl, the narrative becomes oddly episodic where it hadn't been before, and the direction turns awfully ham-handed.  The scenes with Meryl Streep are just awkward and feel like they belong in a different movie.  Tommy Lee Jones never loses the plot here, and gets his points across, but there are some serious tonal and narrative problems that threaten to undermine the whole venture.  I suspect a lot of it comes down to George Briggs not being nearly as interesting onscreen here than the other major characters, and Jones' performance being tasked with supporting more than it could handle.

 

"The Homesman" is still a very impressive sophomore effort for Jones, and there's so much in it that I find myself still thinking about in very positive terms.  It's a beautiful character piece, a subversion of a subversion of a genre, and really makes me wish Hilary Swank would get more work. 

 

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Mad Men: "Severance"

It's my intention to write up analysis posts for each episode of this last season (or half season) of "Mad Men," like I did for "Breaking Bad," but a quick warning first.  My available time to consume media is still fairly limited, so the posts aren't going to conform to a standard schedule.  I hope I'll be able to get them up before the next episode airs, but honestly I doubt that's going to happen. 

 

Spoilers ahead.

 

"Severance" was a mostly agreeable premiere, a place setting episode that situates us in early 1970.  Initially everything seems to be back to the original status quo for Don - he's attending casting calls and tomcatting with Roger, master of the universe again.  But now there's no Megan to make him feel old and out of date, and no Betty to remind him of his responsibilities.  He's reasserted himself at work at things are looking up.  However, Don isn't out of the woods, not by a long shot.  Multiple portents of death still haunt him, the bloody wine stain on his apartment floor and a vision of a dead woman in furs, presage the passing of Rachel Katz nee Menken, the client we were introduced to in the very first episode of "Mad Men," who Don of course had an affair with.

 

He's drawn to a waitress who reminds him of someone - perhaps many someones - she resembles several of his past encounters including Rachel.  Or maybe she doesn't.  Don's fixation on her reveals a need for closure, a need to process the loss.  Despite falling into his old behaviors, on some level Don instinctively seeks to acknowledge the passage of time.  Over the past few seasons we've watched Don disconnect and reconnect, destroying and rebuilding his image.  Here, he's faced with the unpleasant reality that Rachel moved on after their affair, likely to a much greater degree than Don did.  He seems torn between trying to reaffirm the connection and trying to distance himself - he tells Rachel's sister that he's been through a second marriage, but seems unsure how to parse it.

 

So the old conflict is still very much alive in Don Draper.  Even after grappling and reconciling with his demons for the past several seasons, confirming he's better off with this job, with this lifestyle, and without a long term romantic commitment, he's still trying to figure out how to live with being himself.  He's still obsessed with lost opportunities and looking backward - he's not grieving for Rachel, as it's made clear that he didn't really know her anymore - but the life he might have had with her.  The waitress insists that the loss doesn't mean anything, not really, but Don has always had a terribly hard time admitting defeat and letting go.  Here he's forced to, as he was forced to let go of Bert Cooper last year, and perhaps he'll be forced to let  go of far bigger things in the weeks to come.

 

Other characters were busily trying to break out of the status quo this week, as time quietly slips by in the background - look at the facial hair on Roger, Ted Chaough, and Stan.  Part of me was really hoping that Ken was going to make it out of the advertising business with his soul intact and go off to write his Great American novel.  But despite a supportive wife and a helpful kick out the door from Roger and Pete, Ken follows his pride instead of destiny, and gets himself even more fully entrenched in the advertising world.  And while I love seeing Ken get the upper hand, it still feels like our favorite tap-dancing cyclops has lost and lost badly.  I don't think there are any characters left on the show that I can remain remotely idealistic about - well, except maybe Bobby and Gene Draper.

 

Peggy is still Miss Lonelyhearts and getting bitter about it, but this is really starting to get repetitive.  After Abe and Ted, Peggy's love troubles have gone from mostly entertaining to a worrisome slog, even if it's to prove a point.  And I still love Peggy, so it irks me that her personal life is such a bore and that she's turning into a sourpuss.   We don't know if the lawyer is going to be Peggy's new beau or only a only a single date, but he's certainly not distinguishing himself so far.  With only so many episodes left to go, are we going to be left with Peggy the brilliant workaholic grump?  Compare with Joan, who is understandably frustrated at being on the receiving end of more catcalls, but happily indulges in a little retail therapy to soften the blow.

 

Even if she's more unsatisfied about where she is than Peggy, at least she's better at pretending to be happy.  And that's probably why she's going to come out of the series better than anyone else when the series wraps up.

 

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The Rise of the Video Film Essayists

Initially I was planning to do this post in a list format, spotlighting some of my favorite online film critics and commentators who create digitally distributed videos to discuss films and filmmaking.  However, upon reflection I decided that the topic really needed more of a proper write-up.

There have been online movie reviewers with their own web programs for a while now, and various film commentary web series that analyze films, mostly comedically.  The popular Red Letter Media dissections of the "Star Wars" prequels are a good example.  They're often described as reviews, but are really analysis pieces.  They go into far more depth and detail than you'd want for an opinion piece meant to inform the viewer about whether or not they're likely to enjoy watching the films.  I was never much of a fan of Red Letter Media because I wasn't too fond of the serial killer persona he adopted as his main gimmick.  However, his basic arguments and his nicely edited presentations of them appealed to me.  This was somebody who was really using the looser, free-form web video format to its fullest.   

However, recently we've seen a new crop of content creators whose first goal is to inform rather than entertain, while using many of the tools of the mashup culture.  The most prominent of these is Tony Zhou, creator of Every Frame a Painting.  The series is about analyzing filmmaking techniques, mostly cinematography and editing.  Some of the early entries had snarky voice-over and digs at bad filmmakers, but over time the commentary has been refined and focused so that the explanations and examples of various filmmaking concepts remain center stage.  Zhou is excellent at breaking down films into their basic components and showing how they work.  Each installment is devoted to a particular artist or element of film.  My favorite of his videos so far is his look at the work of Jackie Chan, particularly where he compares Chan's Hong Kong films to the ones he's made in Hollywood.

Then there's Kyle Kallgren, whose webseries Brows Held High initially started out as a more typically comedic commentary series, meant to poke fun at the pretensions of arthouse films.  However, over time the videos became less about mocking the arthouse and more about exploring it.  With an academic background in film, Kallgren creates videos that are well researched with lots of cultural and historical context to back up his analyses.  I knew he was someone to watch when I found one of his early videos on the notoriously vile exploitation pic, "A Serbian Film," contained an impressive rundown of the history of Serbia as part of the commentary.  Kallgren still employs his share of gimmicks, but it's all in service of bridging the gap between casual film viewers and the often alienating world of highbrow cinema.  His more recent  videos have been his better ones, including an analysis of Gus van Sant's "Gerry" that turns into broader look at how recent films have started incorporating the visual language of video games. 

However, the video that really got me excited was something completely different from the traditional web series   It was the latest installment of critic David Ehrlich's annual top 25 countdown of his favorite films from the past year.  Countdown videos are extremely popular, and they're a common first project for new web talents trying their hand at making web videos.  Ehrlich is the Senior Editor of Film.com and writes text reviews like a traditional critic.  However, his countdown video is in the style of the year-end movie supercuts created by amateur editors like Matt Shapiro and Gen I.  There's no voice over and barely any onscreen text at all in this thing - just the names of the films and a few title and credit screens. What drives it is almost solely the editing - films clips and music.  And it's so much fun to watch.  Clips of the Japanese comedy "Why Don't You Go Play in Hell" set to Redbone's "Come and Get Your Love," recently heard in the opening of "Guardians of the Galaxy," were a better recommendation for the movie than Ehrlich's text review.  He completely reinvigorated both the supercut and the year-end critic's top ten list by mashing them together.

The term "video essay" has popped up to describe the new crop of informative film-related web videos in this vein, and they're quickly becoming popular with my fellow media nerds both as an educational resource and as conversation pieces.  Pop culture comedy commentary like "How it Should Have Ended" and "Honest Trailers" are still a lot of fun and have plenty of fans, but I really like the new trend of more substantive content that's been emerging.  We have so much more access now to the classics and to world cinema, and it's great to see more informed, more thoughtful pieces starting to emerge, reflecting that.

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A Director Fit For a Franchise

Neil Blomkamp's plans for an "Alien" sequel recently surfaced, and drummed up enough attention to get him placed at the forefront of a bona fide new "Alien" project.  This set off the usual round of debates over what that meant for the franchise, particularly in light of Ridley Scott's existing plans for his "Prometheus" sequel.  There was also some smaller discussion of what it meant for Blomkamp, whose latest original science-fiction film "Chappie" has been floundering at the domestic box office.  It used to be that a promising director taking on a big, franchise film was seen at best as a stepping stone to something better, or an unfortunate detour at worst.  Unless they originated the franchise, it was inevitable that the directors of James Bond films and "Superman" films and even "Star Wars" films would be lower-profile talents, who would often end up being best known for those lesser sequels.

This changed as franchise films became blockbusters, of course, and we started seeing longer film series lke "Harry Potter" and reboots of older series like "Star Trek" and "Planet of the Apes."  Since Jim Cameron made "Aliens" back in 1986 it was recognized that a director could turn out a good, memorable sequel with their own personal stamp on it, but it wasn't until you had well established names like Alphonso Cuaron making "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" and Ang Lee doing a "Hulk" movie without any discernible negative impact on their careers, that the stigma of sequel work really dissipated.  While franchise films and reboots are still often handed to newcomers like Colin Trevorrow ("Jurassic Park") or dependable workhorse directors like Martin Campbell ("Casino Royale," "Green Lantern"), these days we've also got Sam Mendes directing the latest Bond films and Kenneth Branagh getting his best notices in years for "Cinderella."  And it feels like a mutually beneficial development when Rian Johnson gets to make one of the highly anticipated new "Star Wars" films, or Paul Feig agree to help revive the "Ghostbusters" series. 

While "Alien" fans might not have Neil Blomkamp as their first choice to be helming a new "Alien" movie, and Blomkamp fans might be wary of the director choosing a franchise project over something original, as someone with some experience on both sides it looks like a pretty good match of talent and material to me.  More importantly, the timing is right.  Though "Prometheus" has its defenders, and everyone appears to be committed to making "Prometheus 2," it didn't galvanize much passion from general audiences, leaving the "Alien" movies in a bit of a slump.  Also, "Chappie" is Blomkamp's second disappointment after the massive critical and financial success "District 9."  He's certainly capable of putting a good looking science fiction movie together, but he might do better working off of other people's scripts and concepts for a while.  So Neil Blomkamp making "Alien 5" (or is it "Alien 7"?) could help both the franchise and the director. 

There have been many cases where similar pairings haven't worked out, of course.  Guillermo Del Toro wasted far too much time on "The Hobbit" and Edgar Wright deciding to part with "Ant-Man" is downright tragic.  The "Alien" franchise has been a notoriously difficult one, resulting in the worst films on the resumes of David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.  Then again, neither of those directors had much experience with science-fiction and have mostly stayed out of the genre since.  Neil Blomkamp cut his teeth on the best alien-themed film in a decade.  What gives me more cause for concern is his ability to maintain the darker horror/thriller tone, and possibly insisting on bringing along Sharlto Copley.  Well, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.  Copley would make a good successor to Paul Reiser as a slimeball Weyland-Yutani suit. 

Best case scenario is that Blomkamp's "Alien" movie goes well, and he gains the experience and the clout to move on and make more original projects like Paul Greengrass after the "Bourne" sequels or Christopher Nolan after rehabilitating Batman.  Crossing paths with a major franchise can be a good career choice, and it's become impossible to discuss the work of some major directors without also discussing their contributions to the blockbuster culture. A sad sign of the times?  Maybe sometimes, but not always.

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My Top Ten Farscape Episodes

It took me a while to get on board with "Farscape," since I found the first season very bumpy (oh, those awful dutch angles) and the appeal of various characters was not immediately apparent.  Frequent cast changes and recurring production issues didn't help either.  However, "Farscape" turned out to be one of the most unique space adventure shows, and I genuinely miss it.  Below are my top ten favorite episodes in chronological order, and as as always I will totally cheat and count multi-parters as single entries.  Minor spoilers ahead.

 

"Premiere" - The first episode of the series had a lot of flaws.  Ben Browder's lost astronaut John Crichton was still a work in progress, and frankly didn't come off very well.  The villains were all pretty dull.  The aliens and the effects work though, were awesome.  The level of the makeup and the costuming and other practical effects were very inconsistent throughout the run of "Farscape," but in the first episode, everyone was clearly giving it their all.   "Premiere" does a great job establishing the look and feel of this universe, and distinguishing it from similar shows. 

 

"Through the Looking Glass" - The fun of science-fiction series is that they can do very high concept stories that other shows don't, in ways that they often can't.  The premise of "Through the Looking Glass" is wild enough on its own - Moya is fractured into four different dimensions that all require navigating in different ways.  However, it's the depictions of these different dimensions, and the use of color and sound and space that really caught my attention.  Learning the rules and figuring out the puzzle along with Crichton is a lot of fun to experience.    

 

"Nerve" - Along with the preceding episode "A Bug's Life," and following one, "The Hidden Memory," this is where "Farscape" really kicked into high gear.  The main villain Scorpius is introduced here, along with Stark the complicated madman, and we get the beginnings of all sorts of fun plot arcs that will carry through the rest of the series.  Crichton gets a lot of development during these episodes too, taking big strides toward becoming the badass action hero he'll eventually become.  And he finally ditches the spacesuit for cooler Pecekeeper duds.

 

"Crackers Don't Matter" - One of the early "mind frell" episodes, where all the usual rules go out the window due to alien elements messing with the characters' perceptions and mental processes.  The crew becomes paranoid and turn on each other, finally culminating in a very silly showdown between Crichton and the monster of the week.  "Crackers" is a fan favorite because of its humor and tone, which the show was finally getting a handle on.  There would be similarly nutty jaunts into the absurd in the future, but few that were as much fun as this.

 

"Won't Get Fooled Again" - We've already had one episode where Crichton wakes up back on Earth, so when it happens again in the second season, we know it's just aliens messing around  in his head, and the premise can be played for laughs.  To some degree this episode is an excuse for the writers to come up with outrageous, off the wall things to do with the characters - Rygel in bondage gear! - but it's also one of the most important in terms of the ongoing story with Scorpius's neural clone, Harvey, who plays a big part here.

 

"The Ugly Truth" - I love "Rashomon" episodes because they're so much fun to pick apart.  Here, the whole crew get captured and interrogated about a crime that, or course, they all remember differently.  The different accounts offer a glimpse of how the various characters view one another, but then there's a twist at the end that puts everything into an entirely different light, so you can rewatch it with the new motives in mind.  I always love it when an episode clearly done quick and cheap outshines the bigger, fancier installments around it.

 

"Liars, Guns and Money" - Then again, there's plenty to be said for gorgeous effects, big action scenes, and putting a lot of money on the screen.  "Liars, Guns, and Money" is a three-parter that helps bring the excellent second season to a close.  What starts as a big mission to rescue D'Argo's son turns into a showdown with Scorpius with all kinds of complications.  This was the biggest thing that the show had attempted at this point in its run, and boy did they pull it off.  Also, quick kudos to my favorite one-shot character, Scorpy's gal-pal Natira.

 

"Infinite Possibilities" - I loved the double Crichton storyline in the third season and everything that it let "Farscape" do, but it's difficult to single out specific episodes for praise.  So to represent the whole arc, I'm highlighting the two-parter "Infinite Possibilities," where a lot of the big climaxes happen and we wrap up a few of the ongoing plots.  The Crichton-Aeryn relationship in particular is handled just right, cementing the pair as one of my favorite science-fiction power couples.  And this was without question the best use of Rygel ever. 

 

"Terra Firma" - Another big warning for spoilers here, because it's impossible to talk about this episode otherwise.  So one thing leads to another and the crew of the Moya end up on present-day Earth.  For real this time.  "Farscape" gets to speculate as to what humanity's reaction to the aliens would be, while Crichton has to come to terms with certain uncomfortable realities about his relationship with Aeryn and about his place in the universe.  It's a big turning point for the show, which leads us to the unfortunate reality of...

 

"The Peacekeeper Wars" - The cancellation of "Farscape" was harsh and mashing an entire season's worth of story into one miniseries was definitely not ideal.  However, the fact that we got an ending at all was something of a miracle, and there's plenty in "The Peacekeeper Wars" to love.  With amped up production values, big goodbyes, big hellos, and just about everybody getting the spotlight one last time, this is a love-fest of epic proportions.  And sure, it's a bit of a mess, but "Farscape" was always a bit of a mess anyway.  So it was an appropriate way to go out.

 

Happy watching.

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