Episode Report Card Jacob: B- | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT Mothers & Fathers and Brothers & Suns
By Jacob | Season 1 | Episode 10 | Aired on 1999.06.25
Look, it's Moya's belly! Yeah, it's that one. Biomechanoid spermatozoa. Abominations and horrible forthcoming progeny. Jothee, sure, but Talyn too. And yeah, I guess a conventional family needs a few of those. This is another light one, but at least it foregrounds D'Argo's stuff, which is rare, and leads nicely into next week, when his butt-sniffing weirdness with John finally chills out for awhile. I forgot how much D'Argo you get in the first season. I was reading today about how SciFi originally decreed at the beginning that the episodes all had to be stand-alones, which is interesting considering it immediately turned into the most continuity-heavy show this side of the universe. But the other interesting thing O'Bannon said was that in the beginning it was hard working with new writers because they kept trying to put John in the center of everything, giving orders and stuff, because he's the human and the male.
I wonder if all these D'Argo episodes and all the weird mirroring that goes on between him and John (and Aeryn) isn't just the line of best fit for getting around that proclivity. Making D'Argo the unstable element in all these stories, even when he's actually the most solid character, makes the rest of them look fucking normal. Not to mention (see next week) making John sensitive and out of his depth without being a pussy, which is maybe the trickiest thing about writing this show. Except it turns out this episode is actually about Aeryn and D'Argo, which is smart.
Aeryn is perched on John's shoulder doing tool things and sending shocks through them both as she works. There's a sex joke there but whatever, John's like, "You know, I could get you something to stand on," and Aeryn ignores that altogether, because who wouldn't? It's some kind of "Peacekeeper comms enhancer" she's dealing with, which was poorly installed: "Moya must have been called into service as prison transport before it was finished." Called into service, she says. Oh, Condi.
D'Argo's sweeping Moya's systems and bitching, but Pilot is insistent. I bet he's calling in favors left and right this week. Pilot tells him to keep working until they find all the PK junk on board, and tells D'Argo he's spared him two DRDs. Which is not much, D'Argo whines. "How much longer do you expect this to take?" Pilot deems this a less-than-legit question, "Considering I have just stated I have no data on how many Peacekeeper devices may still be concealed." Also I'm down an arm, dick. Don't question me. "It will take as long as it takes."
To John's complaint that they're in the middle of nowhere and this tech is pretty useless for the PKs, Aeryn snarxposits that Crais -- "You might have noticed" -- is determined to track them down no matter where they are. Okay, but you might also have noticed that he's, again, wicked crappy at it. It took an actual vampire sorcerer to provide him with even a tiny bit of a clue, and that's sad from every angle. Consider, instead, prolonged contact with the deltoids of Commander John Crichton; or, if you like, Aeryn Sun wrapped around your neck. Chills multiplying and whatnot. They're complaining but not really.