#this is such a fascinating episode so far I love this look into B'Elanna

[youngpettyqueen]

Janeway gently tilting B'Elanna's chin up to look her in the eye, and quietly going "now I know something's wrong" because B'Elanna didnt react to being taken off her project... excuse me I need to be in my feelings

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s4 ep18: The Killing Game pt 1

I love this one!! This has always been one of my favorite Voyager stories, and I never get tired of it. It's just so much fun. The entire crew having holodeck shenanigans in 1940s outfits? Heck yeah!!! Historical dress up play time is one of my favorite genres of Star Trek story, so I'm not gonna be super critical of the plot here. But I actually do think it was a cool concept to use the Hirogen taking over the ship, and using the holodecks for simulated hunts, as a device to get the crew into a 'safeties off' holoprogram, without just saying "whoops another malfunction!"

At first it seemed a little far fetched that the Hirogen would do that, but as the story went along, they show more of this particular Hirogen leader being more thoughtful than the other Hirogen we've seen. I actually thought it worked to have this forward thinking leader wanting to find a way to bring his people into the future, and save them from being scattered nomads obsessed with the hunt. The conflict between him and his more traditional second in command set up the ending well too.

I think dropping us in in the middle of the simulations already running really worked here, it lets the audience piece together what happened as more context is revealed to us, and kind of mimics the disorientation the characters themselves experience when they later realize what's really going on.

I absolutely love having the crew be resistance fighters in WWII France, and having them all think it's real is an even better stroke of genius, it's a like an alternate universe fanfiction, and all of them fit their holodeck personas so well. (Maybe a little too well, idk how the Hirogen knew Tom and B'Elanna were a couple to write them their little romantic subplot, but I don't even care! It's cute and I love it!! Star crossed lovers fated to be together in every reality is one of my favorite tropes, so I'm totally here for it!!)

I also love the sets in this episode- the nightclub run by Janeway's alter ego is a gorgeously atmospheric little spot I'd love to hang out in. The French village set is very pretty, and actually outside on a backlot rather than inside a soundstage, so it feels a lot bigger, and makes the story feel a little more epic. Despite it being a holodeck environment, there's always an extra aura of authenticity when they actually film things outside.

And of course, the fashion- everybody is serving looks in their 1940s clothes and hair the whole time. These are hot people to begin with, but the entire crew just becomes 1000% more attractive in these outfits. I mean look at this:

Captain Janeway in this white Marlene Dietrich suit?! MA'AM!!!

And then Tuvok in this white suit?! SIR!!!

Seven of Nine in this silver lame dress with her hair down?! A gift!!!

Even Neelix looks cute AF in his little French villager outfit:

Then they have dapper daytime outfits that are also major slays:

Ugh!! So much gorgeous!! (Apparently, my sexual orientation is just: Voyager Crew in 1940s Outfits)

And then Seven of Nine shows up in a cute little beret, and convinces me that she's actually adorable:

AND THEN we get American GI Tom and Chakotay:

Good lord, stop with all the hotness!! (Who knew a little brylcreamed hair was all it took to make Chakotay seem hot to me??)

It's fun to see them all subtly change the way they speak and act a little bit to fit the period and the setting- Roxann was a little softer and more refined as Brigitte than as B'Elanna, Tuvok and Seven show a little more emotion as their French personas than they usually do, Chakotay using the old-timey American slang that usually only Tom would know or use. (Tom, meanwhile, looks and acts pretty much the same- he's the very model of a wholesome middle american guy whether it's the 1940s or 2370s lol.) Yet they all still maintain their core character traits and relationship dynamics, even when they don't know who they really are. It's fascinating to watch and very thoughtfully done.

Meanwhile, poor Harry is left out of the simulation to try to hold Voyager together while the Hirogen divert all power to holodecks, and the Doctor is in charge of fixing up crewman who get wounded in the simulations. Harry secretly tries to find a way to disrupt the neural interfaces that keep the crew from realizing what's really going on, so that they can retake the ship.

The crew's holodeck personas plan to destroy communications at the German headquarters, and once again, we have fabulous outfits where they dress up all in black to sneak in:

Illegal levels of hotness going on here!! Rude!! How dare!!

Also Tuvok in this newsboy cap weilding a machine gun is just, like, hot damn:

(In real life guns are not cool, but in the story he's using it against nazis, so go off king!!)

So then, I forget what happens exactly, but the safeties are off, so when a bomb goes off, it doesn't stay confined to the holodeck, and it tears a hole through the ship's walls and reveals four decks worth of exposed corridors. I honestly don't remember Voyager's holodeck being that tall, the ceiling of the set we've seen was only like two decks tall, maybe 3, max, but maybe holodeck 1 is meant to be the bigger one, and maybe they've only ever shown us holodeck 2 up till now? Idk, but honestly, I don't even care, because it looks cool and I'm having fun!!

So that's where the cliffhanger leaves us, with Harry and the Doctor only having disconnected Seven and Janeway so far. I remember watching this for the first time as a kid and being totally enthralled by it. I was already a history nerd, and I grew up watching old Hollywood movies from the 40s, so this was very much my jam, even as an eleven year old. And by golly, I've never gotten tired of it in all these years, despite it being one of the few I would always rewatch whenever it popped up on a re-run.

Tl;dr: One of the most fun and genuinely exciting holodeck adventure stories in all of Trek, featuring the whole cast looking hot as hell in 1940s outfits, and shooting nazis. What more can you ask for, really?

[mirrorfalls]

Lego Liveblogs ST: TOS, part 27 (of who-the-hell-knows-how-many?)

Well, “Errand of Mercy”. To it we owe Worf, we owe B'Elanna, we owe the only other Geek Conlang that can actually catch up to Elvish (speaking of, anyone compiled a Complete Elvish Shakespeare yet?). But do we owe it praise in itself? All contemporary and modern reviews say yes, but let’s see for ourselves, shall we?

* A D- in Culture? Sounds like my kinda planet. * Ahh, the ‘60s, back when “Belgium” and “weak innocents” belonged in the same sentence... * And we’re right into the Action. Everyone yell and throw yourselves! * I applaud your “Don’t turn this into a shooting match even if there is a Klingon fleet” instincts, Kirk. Less your “Spock and I are all we need for this vital diplomatic mission!” instincts. * Ah, now I remember what the Big Twist behind this one is supposed to be. Let’s see how well it holds up without the element of surprise. * “Captain, that goat is most Fascinating. Permission to observe?” * And the Cold War metaphors kick into high high gear. I don’t really mind how on-the-nose all this is (and by all accounts the IRL Soviets were kinda this bad), but you’d think Kirk would’ve brought some photos or recordings of all this shit the Klingons - supposedly - get up to. * “There is no evidence of any progress as far back as my tricorder can register.” “Awww shit, are we back on Gothos’ planet? Or the Purge planet? Or-” ** In all seriousness, though, the planet not having any public facilities does sound like cause for alarm. * And now, in all their glory... Les Klingons Originales. Less racist-looking than I was told they’d be, real- ** Ooohh. Nevermind. * Three lines in and this guy’s already made my shortlist of smartest Trek villains. * “I don't trust men who smile too much.” Okay, extra points for preserving at least one genuine aspect of Russian culture. ** (Yes, even if Kor smiles more than anyone else in this ep.) * That mock-salute. Classic Kirk. * “Vulcans never lie?” “Never,” Spock lied. ** In all seriousness: I’m glad we now have an answer to how Spock would’ve done against that brain-probe from “Dagger of the Mind”. * This is a pretty strong moment and all (with more-than-decent-for-the-time effects), but given where the episode’s ultimately heading, might it not have been stronger still if Kirk had gotten something along the lines of, “Captain, do you realize you set off your kaboom ten feet from a nursery?!” or something similar? * Well, in any case, time for the real main course: the We’re Not So Different, Really dialog with Kor. The series has used this kind of scene to humanize The Enemy before, of course, but this is its first concentrated effort at “You’re Not So Different... and that’s Bad, you idiots!” - and all these decades later, it still has more than enough punch to it. ** The “minor ideological differences” jab in particular - at first blush it seems like a stereotypical Evil Cannot Comprehend Good bit, but as you get older and learn a democracy is capable of pretty much any atrocity a dictatorship is... ** (Also: the Eyes they make at each other...) * Ah yes, the bouncy rubber floor. A must for any self-respecting dungeon. * Holy Plot Twist! * Honestly, with what he knows (and doesn’t know), Kirk’s being remarkably gracious in his judgment. These guys aren’t defenseless - they vanished his and Spock’s Phasers without them even noticing. They’re just not interested in defending you. ** ... or are they? * Phasers-to-Stun all you like, Kirk, but that fall looks like it’s gonna kill ‘em all the same. * This... is one easily-reached Boss Chamber, but we’ve only got eight minutes left so I’ll let it slide. * “If someday we are defeated...” Yep, Kor’s my new favorite baddie for sure. * Oh, so that’s how they pull everyone apart... on-the-nose it may be, but I kinda love how this tactic amounts to “You want a Hot War? Enjoy!” ** All told, though - you should just be glad these guys didn’t stick you in an arena like those other peace-loving Alien Gods. * “Well, no one wants war-” *Head Turn* * “It is true that in the future, you and the Klingons will become fast friends.” There’s no shortage of TNG jokes to be cracked at this, but speaking strictly without hindsight, I find it interesting to wonder whether he’s talking in hope or pure horror. Who’s to say, after all, they won’t bond over their worst instincts? Like Kirk and Kor are doing right now, really? * Aaaaand there you have it. A Lasting Peace... over this tiny corner of the galaxy, anyway. You guys better hope they don’t hook up with any of the other Alien Gods floating around. * “Even the gods did not spring into being overnight.” What kinda theology have you been reading, Spock?

Subtle it ain’t, and the ending’s more than a little rushed (what the hell are the Klingons going to tell their superiors?), but it’s still as powerful a commentary on nation-vs-nation as the last episode was on industry-vs-environment. And really, I was not expecting to like Kor even a tenth as much as I did - I tell you, without his charisma, the Klingon may well be as forgotten as the Talosians today.

Next: The Big one. And I promise to have some Big Thoughts to meet it all.

[richmeganews]

'Farscape' Was Feminist Sci-Fi Before It was Cool

Warning: This piece mentions sexual assault.

As of last week, Farscape—a cult sci-fi series made in collaboration between the Jim Henson Creature shop and the Sci-Fi channel (before it was Syfy!) is officially 20 years old and newly available to stream on Amazon Prime in glorious 4K. You might have heard of it if you move in nerd circles, maybe referred to as “Muppets in Space” (but not Muppets From Space), or the thing superstar video game voice actor Claudia Black did before she was in all the Uncharted games.

It broke barriers in some meaningful ways, first as a serialized show before that was cool (especially in genre TV), and perhaps most importantly as feminist-leaning sci-fi. It was a show so campy and daring that it was allowed to be a little weirder and more progressive than its more straight-laced forebears, especially in its era of latter-day Star Treks. Farscape—which is my favorite TV show of all time, just FYI—was filled to the brim with complex, flawed, interesting female characters, and it played with gender politics in smarter and darker ways than most genre fiction has dared both before and after it aired.

I don’t want to throw Star Trek under the bus here. Voyager and Deep Space Nine (both still running when Farscape premiered in 1999) had plenty of strong women characters, and even some mildly complex ones. These were characters I grew up with as a kid and a young teen, who were role models in many ways, and I’d go to bat for several of their portrayals (what’s up, Captain Janeway and Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres. I see you).

But they are still 90s Star Trek characters. Their growth was often stilted by the episodic format that dominated TV at the time, and the famously not-really-queer ethos of that universe kept a whole lot of interesting stories and avenues of representation firmly in “very special episode” territory. Enter Farscape with costumes and character designs and a general vibe so campy they’d make a Bushwick burlesque troupe blush. With its purposeful playing on gender roles and traditional femme/masc dynamics, its ever-so-light-but-still-super-there foray into kink and leather aesthetics, its queerness, and—on the far more serious side—its raw depictions of trauma, healing, and difficult relationships, Farscape was all the way out there. Sometimes, the show fell flat on its face. But largely it succeeded, and it’s well worth experiencing 20 years on.

Through the widest lens, it’s an action-y, sometimes soap-y space serial. In the pilot, an astronaut named John Crichton (portrayed by Ben Browder) takes off in an experimental spacecraft, goes through a wormhole, and ends up in the middle of a prison break on the other side of the universe where a bunch of weird aliens are taking over their prison ship in a coup for freedom. Everyone here is a criminal or a misfit of some kind (or they’ve been co-opted into said misfit band), and no one here is expected to be perfect. They go on adventures, get hurt, fall in and out of love, and lose and make friends along the way.

Image via Jim Henson Company

I like to tell people who are first dipping their toe into the series to skip a lot of season one, because, with respect, the team didn’t quite get it together at first. I also tell them that the appeal of this show, inherently, is in its characters and the way the show cares very deeply about their interior lives. It’s primarily interested in this little petri dish of weird people and how they mix and bounce off and cling to one another, given the larger-than-life events of living in a wild space serial. The show loves to take classic sci-fi tropes (body-swapping, time-traveling, alien politicking, you name it) and twist them in unfamiliar ways, especially where it concerns gender, sex, and notions about heroism and doing the right thing. Nowhere is this more evident than in its principle woman characters, all of whom look like they could’ve been bought out of an (especially colorful) sci-fi stock catalog, and all of whom are actually fleshed out, complex, and fascinating.

Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black) is a badass soldier who kicks the male lead’s ass in the first episode. She looks and sounds like the sorta-sterile badass lady stereotype made famous by Sarah Connor and the short-lived Tasha Yar. But she also enjoys (or endures) the longest emotional journey of anyone on the show, grows in ways that are consistent with her temperament and her desire to be, fundamentally, a protector and a fighter, and gets to have a relationship with a man who actually respects her for who she is.

At first blush, Chiana (Gigi Edgley) is a classic femme fatale sexpot and artful dodger who slinks her way in and out of wild situations. But Farscape doesn’t deny her pleasure or punish her for it. Everyone on the crew knows how much Chiana loves to fuck. It’s only a problem, per se, when she uses that sex bomb to hurt people (which, yes, she does). She’s also kind, loyal, smart as hell, and crew MVP in dozens of sticky situations.

Zhaan (Virginia Hey) is a priest and the ship’s doctor, an anarchist who was imprisoned for a major political coup, who sometimes meditates naked when she feels like it. If there’s a stereotype here, its the Earth mother/healer, but Zhann is also capable of terrifying violence and incredible acts of both selfishness and selflessness. She’s spiritual, she’s a scientist, and yes, she, too, likes to fuck.

Later leading ladies include Jool (Tammy MacIntosh), who first appears to be a stuck-up princess/bimbo type who also has something like four PhDs. Noranti (Melissa Jaffer), who looks like an old hag and also has hilarious ideas about healing materials. But she enjoys a good lay too. And Sikozu (Raelee Hill), a hyper-capable spy who got super into leather and kink.

There’s an obvious through-line here about gender and pleasure. By the time the series has run its course, you’ll see just about every main character on this show enjoy sex in some form, and interestingly, women are mainly framed on top. It’s a subtle element, but wildly effective in communicating the series’ ideas about sex, who owns sex, and who is allowed to enjoy it without punishment. There’s very little slut-shaming to go alongside all that fucking on Farscape, which was revolutionary in a time where the most sex you’d see on a mainstream sci-fi show is a little kissing with a strategic pan to a space blanket. And that was almost always exclusive to heterosexual couples, wherein Farscape has queer scenes and masturbation, and yes, Virginia, puppet sex.

Puppet sex.

I don’t linger on the sex element to highlight the series’ horniness, rather that it had a refreshing attitude toward sex in a pretty prudish time. And there was a difficult fourth-season arc about sexual assault and trauma that intelligently, I think, played on notions about gender and power that was also unexpected at the time.

Farscape does a lot of other things right that earned it its place on my all-time favorite list. It’s very, very funny, and alternately quite dark at times, and rides those highs and lows in ways that allowed its storylines and characters to resonate so strongly. Its colorful aesthetic is wild at times, and never not fun to look at and just kind of soak in. And goddamn, this show can tell an action story.

But it’s primarily those characters that have stayed with me through two decades of my own life, who were formative for me to watch as a young woman and queer person navigating a pretty terrible time to be queer and a woman. And despite some missteps, it’s still a joy to check back on today, this goofy, funny, dark, wonderful, creative show about a bunch of weirdos on a spaceship.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow Danielle Riendeau on Twitter.

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from WordPress http://www.richmeganews.com/farscape-was-feminist-sci-fi-before-it-was-cool/

[richmegavideo]

'Farscape' Was Feminist Sci-Fi Before It was Cool

Warning: This piece mentions sexual assault.

As of last week, Farscape—a cult sci-fi series made in collaboration between the Jim Henson Creature shop and the Sci-Fi channel (before it was Syfy!) is officially 20 years old and newly available to stream on Amazon Prime in glorious 4K. You might have heard of it if you move in nerd circles, maybe referred to as “Muppets in Space” (but not Muppets From Space), or the thing superstar video game voice actor Claudia Black did before she was in all the Uncharted games.

It broke barriers in some meaningful ways, first as a serialized show before that was cool (especially in genre TV), and perhaps most importantly as feminist-leaning sci-fi. It was a show so campy and daring that it was allowed to be a little weirder and more progressive than its more straight-laced forebears, especially in its era of latter-day Star Treks. Farscape—which is my favorite TV show of all time, just FYI—was filled to the brim with complex, flawed, interesting female characters, and it played with gender politics in smarter and darker ways than most genre fiction has dared both before and after it aired.

I don’t want to throw Star Trek under the bus here. Voyager and Deep Space Nine (both still running when Farscape premiered in 1999) had plenty of strong women characters, and even some mildly complex ones. These were characters I grew up with as a kid and a young teen, who were role models in many ways, and I’d go to bat for several of their portrayals (what’s up, Captain Janeway and Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres. I see you).

But they are still 90s Star Trek characters. Their growth was often stilted by the episodic format that dominated TV at the time, and the famously not-really-queer ethos of that universe kept a whole lot of interesting stories and avenues of representation firmly in “very special episode” territory. Enter Farscape with costumes and character designs and a general vibe so campy they’d make a Bushwick burlesque troupe blush. With its purposeful playing on gender roles and traditional femme/masc dynamics, its ever-so-light-but-still-super-there foray into kink and leather aesthetics, its queerness, and—on the far more serious side—its raw depictions of trauma, healing, and difficult relationships, Farscape was all the way out there. Sometimes, the show fell flat on its face. But largely it succeeded, and it’s well worth experiencing 20 years on.

Through the widest lens, it’s an action-y, sometimes soap-y space serial. In the pilot, an astronaut named John Crichton (portrayed by Ben Browder) takes off in an experimental spacecraft, goes through a wormhole, and ends up in the middle of a prison break on the other side of the universe where a bunch of weird aliens are taking over their prison ship in a coup for freedom. Everyone here is a criminal or a misfit of some kind (or they’ve been co-opted into said misfit band), and no one here is expected to be perfect. They go on adventures, get hurt, fall in and out of love, and lose and make friends along the way.

Image via Jim Henson Company

I like to tell people who are first dipping their toe into the series to skip a lot of season one, because, with respect, the team didn’t quite get it together at first. I also tell them that the appeal of this show, inherently, is in its characters and the way the show cares very deeply about their interior lives. It’s primarily interested in this little petri dish of weird people and how they mix and bounce off and cling to one another, given the larger-than-life events of living in a wild space serial. The show loves to take classic sci-fi tropes (body-swapping, time-traveling, alien politicking, you name it) and twist them in unfamiliar ways, especially where it concerns gender, sex, and notions about heroism and doing the right thing. Nowhere is this more evident than in its principle woman characters, all of whom look like they could’ve been bought out of an (especially colorful) sci-fi stock catalog, and all of whom are actually fleshed out, complex, and fascinating.

Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black) is a badass soldier who kicks the male lead’s ass in the first episode. She looks and sounds like the sorta-sterile badass lady stereotype made famous by Sarah Connor and the short-lived Tasha Yar. But she also enjoys (or endures) the longest emotional journey of anyone on the show, grows in ways that are consistent with her temperament and her desire to be, fundamentally, a protector and a fighter, and gets to have a relationship with a man who actually respects her for who she is.

At first blush, Chiana (Gigi Edgley) is a classic femme fatale sexpot and artful dodger who slinks her way in and out of wild situations. But Farscape doesn’t deny her pleasure or punish her for it. Everyone on the crew knows how much Chiana loves to fuck. It’s only a problem, per se, when she uses that sex bomb to hurt people (which, yes, she does). She’s also kind, loyal, smart as hell, and crew MVP in dozens of sticky situations.

Zhaan (Virginia Hey) is a priest and the ship’s doctor, an anarchist who was imprisoned for a major political coup, who sometimes meditates naked when she feels like it. If there’s a stereotype here, its the Earth mother/healer, but Zhann is also capable of terrifying violence and incredible acts of both selfishness and selflessness. She’s spiritual, she’s a scientist, and yes, she, too, likes to fuck.

Later leading ladies include Jool (Tammy MacIntosh), who first appears to be a stuck-up princess/bimbo type who also has something like four PhDs. Noranti (Melissa Jaffer), who looks like an old hag and also has hilarious ideas about healing materials. But she enjoys a good lay too. And Sikozu (Raelee Hill), a hyper-capable spy who got super into leather and kink.

There’s an obvious through-line here about gender and pleasure. By the time the series has run its course, you’ll see just about every main character on this show enjoy sex in some form, and interestingly, women are mainly framed on top. It’s a subtle element, but wildly effective in communicating the series’ ideas about sex, who owns sex, and who is allowed to enjoy it without punishment. There’s very little slut-shaming to go alongside all that fucking on Farscape, which was revolutionary in a time where the most sex you’d see on a mainstream sci-fi show is a little kissing with a strategic pan to a space blanket. And that was almost always exclusive to heterosexual couples, wherein Farscape has queer scenes and masturbation, and yes, Virginia, puppet sex.

Puppet sex.

I don’t linger on the sex element to highlight the series’ horniness, rather that it had a refreshing attitude toward sex in a pretty prudish time. And there was a difficult fourth-season arc about sexual assault and trauma that intelligently, I think, played on notions about gender and power that was also unexpected at the time.

Farscape does a lot of other things right that earned it its place on my all-time favorite list. It’s very, very funny, and alternately quite dark at times, and rides those highs and lows in ways that allowed its storylines and characters to resonate so strongly. Its colorful aesthetic is wild at times, and never not fun to look at and just kind of soak in. And goddamn, this show can tell an action story.

But it’s primarily those characters that have stayed with me through two decades of my own life, who were formative for me to watch as a young woman and queer person navigating a pretty terrible time to be queer and a woman. And despite some missteps, it’s still a joy to check back on today, this goofy, funny, dark, wonderful, creative show about a bunch of weirdos on a spaceship.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow Danielle Riendeau on Twitter.

The post 'Farscape' Was Feminist Sci-Fi Before It was Cool appeared first on .

The post 'Farscape' Was Feminist Sci-Fi Before It was Cool appeared first on .

from WordPress http://www.richmegavideo.com/farscape-was-feminist-sci-fi-before-it-was-cool/