millahnna

Thanks. Kept thinking she looked familiar but hadn't gotten around to googling yet.

Started a John thread for us to discuss the twinning thing in. Fun!

So we were talking about the two Johns and copy vs. real one over in social talk and on the off chance we ever get an unspoiled person in there I figured we could use a character thread, since that seemed like the most logical place to talk about our various thoughts on the two Johns and such. So I've always thought of both Talyn and Moya John as copies of an original who got destroyed when he was "twinned" in Season 3's "Eat Me". The scientist whackamole who did the twinning made two points that brought me to that. The first is that bit of dialogue we all know so well when the topic of clones is brought up (distinct and original or whatever it is, this point is echoed by Jool in a later episode when she runs tests on both Johns). This dialogue really went out of its way to separate the concept of "twinning" from the more conventional sci fi theme of "cloning". The second is when the aforementioned whackamole notes that over time the twinning process caused various genetic defects, which we see in the cannibalistic former Peacekeepers running around like feral chimps all episode. Now this does go back to the classic sci fi cloning tropes; genetic weakness over time with each cloned generation. So cloning a clone of a clone of a clone and so could be bad news... It's a pretty common sci fi trope, right? One might interpret all of this as general but unspecified Farscape weirdness. But one thing Farscape showed a knack for on day one and never let up with was taking conventional sci fi themes (and those of more general fiction for that matter) and not just turning them on their ear but, if you will, sling-shotting them to the far side of the galaxy. I think that though it was never really spelled out, that was the intent here. You tie the "no it's not cloning it's twinning" thing to the "except these genetic issues are kind of like cloning side effects" and what you end up with, if you're me, is that twinning destroys the original to make two copies. I fully think that the literal, physical John Crichton we met in Premiere is dead by the end of Eat Me leaving his two perfect copies in his place. And since Chiana and D'Argo were also twinned that episode, I think it's true of them as well. Emailed David to fix thread title because I apparently can't spell the name of the lead character in my favorite show. Headdesk.

I guess, when comparing to the original series, I can see what some of you mean by the show seeming somewhat dumbed down but I think it might actually be necessary. Science and math scores are down, way down, since Sagan did the original (or at leas they were the last time I checked on those sorts of stats). To some of us, the show is going to seem dumbed down because we have an active interest in such topics and at least understand the basics from a laymen's perspective, if not a more professional one (not I, just a reasonably well read layman). But sadly, to a lot of people, a lot of this is really new information: and I mean outside of the creationist concept that we've been discussing. I mean sure some of the history of the scientists in the cartoons is new to me (or long forgotten by me, whichever) and I always have to look up the details and specifics if I find myself in a conversation about astronomy, evolution, geology, etc. But most of the basic scientific concepts are things I at least have a passing familiarity with. If the statistics are anything to go by, this is not the case for large numbers of the population, at least here in the States. The presentation is, in some ways, more simplified because it has to be. 20-30 years of really shitty education policies will do that to a society.

Grossly awesome? I believe it's been confirmed that Basset will be back. I'd love to have Bates back, too. How that crazy lady managed to make me feel sympathy for a character who was (even more so than her real life counterpart) a completely psychotic, tortuous racist is beyond me, but she did. I still want my spin off of her and Queenie road tripping to all of the regional chain drive thrus.

For me it's not so much that I can't bring myself to put in the DVDs but I do rarely do entire series rewatches anymore. I skip fairly large portions of early season one and then episodes here and there throughout the rest of the series, at large. Truthfully, I just don't have the time. I'd say I probably end up rewatching anywhere from 1/4 to 2/3 of the episodes, depending on my mood. Sometimes I just do a Skiffy style themed marathon and only do, say, shipper episodes or a couple of the trilogies. I find it kind of amusing to pick a theme and try to distill it to 10 episodes or less if I can. So the ten most important Scorpy episodes... family episodes, freakiest aliens, etc. Hmmm... thread idea? I'm a die hard John and Aeryn shipper (this is the show that turned me into any kind of shipper to begin with, really) but I love that stuff with Chiana and that's a good description of it. Also, regarding the Dargo bromance... tell him who his daddy is. I've always thought of the two Johns as both being copies. In my mind, I guess as a fanwank to the dialogue of the dude that made the copies (distinct and original or whatever it was), the original was destroyed to make the two copies. Do we have a better thread for that (episode, season 3, John as a Character, not sure which would be best here)? It's kind of an interesting logic train that lead me to that.

Six and Eight are my favorites (I lean a bit towards Six because of what an epic badass Tricia is), and I agree that Simon (what was his number anyway) was underused. But I have this weird soft spot for the Leisure Suit Larry one from the pilot miniseries. He was so convincing in his "I'm not a Cylon" schtick that I was genuinely surprised when it turned out Baltar had fingered the right guy. It's funny though; if you'd asked me this question at the end of the miniseries or even just halfway through season 1, I would have said the Sharons were my least favorite by a long shot, though not for lack of character potential. At the time, I thought Grace Park came off a bit cheesy in her line delivery. I particularly disliked the random Eight they used for the reveal that Boomer was a cylon at the end of the mini. I don't recall the line anymore but I'd been meh about her throughout the mini and then really disappointed in the line read at the reveal. It wasn't until Boomer started freaking out and we saw her eventually develop Athena that I appreciated how much of that was a character quirk and not an actress dysfunction. By halfway through season two, Boomer and Athena were easily two of my favorites on the whole show.

This one is so old school outer limits for me; I hated that it made me feel sorry for the main character once I found out what she'd done. Which is precisely what I loved about it. Good stuff.

Theory as a scientific term means something different than theory as a literary term. I think the pot shots are hilarious, though I find the fact that they're even warranted to be sad.

Question... think when the new season hits next year we could do Canadian and U.S. episode threads or something? This show usually has a big enough gap between original and U.S. airings that it's not like just waiting a day or two like Castle. EDIT: Nevermind. It occurs to me that with separate episode threads instead of just a general gabbery, that point becomes moot. Character threads could get ugly, though.

I've only played a little in the last week or two but they seem to still have a fairly active community. They were redoing some of the season one events, which I thought was cool.

I was trying to break my Mass Effect addiction so I put the Defiance game back in the tray thinking that the new season must be coming up soon, so maybe the game will have some new stuff going on. I don't know about all of that (and the game still has issues but it's improved a fair amount) but it's making me miss the show more. Even though it had some problems in the first season, I still really liked it for the most part. It could be so much better but it could be sooooooooo much worse.

It's got flaws but I like it well enough. Since it's sci fi, it would have to suck in a very specific way for me to quit. I quit Under the Dome but am still watching Revolution, if that makes any sense.

Pretty much been my favorite show since it aired. One of those "I notice something new on every rewatch" kind of shows so I'm always down to chat with new scapers. EDIT: Something I thought might be cool here, if the mods don't mind it and if the traffic to the section increases enough to warrant it, are separate episode threads for newbies vs. veterans. I was thinking of doing another rewatch soon and I know I have a hard time talking about earlier episodes without bringing up stuff that's foreshadowing to me, and spoilers to new Scapers. I had the idea when we did that big re-watch on TWoP a few years back and seeing how they are doing separate episode threads in the Game of Thrones forums for book readers and non-book peeps, it seems like it might work. Just tossing it out there. It's probably too early to tell if it would even be useful.

Plus in the original we had badly glued on mutton chops. Well drawn if sometimes somewhat ridiculous animation is a major improvement for me.

Somewhere to hang with Moya and her crew.