Our Deconstruction Moya post from 2008: https://farscape.fandom.com/wiki/That_Old_Black_Magic
Some fresh thoughts: Not a whole lot of departure for me from what I previously wrote. It's not a bad episode, but uneven, feeling more like the first handful where the amazing puppetry and prosthetics are minimized with the actors having to convey alienness through body paint and contact lenses. Thus giving it a more typical syndicated scifi show feel, which isn't helped by this being such a heavy Q-influenced plot. With Richard Manning getting the bump to consulting producer on the last installment, it's surprising that this feels more like a step back to the first few episodes where this show was still finding its footing. Oddly, it feels more out of place to have a demi-god manipulator in this series than it does Star Trek: The Next Generation, because I'd certainly never credit Farscape with grounded realism and its shunning of convention. I think it doesn't sell for me because it's flatly staged and, to use that word again, typical. It's a British actor flaunting about menacingly on an open set, delighting in the mayhem he's feeding off of. It's fine, it's just not exploding off the screen with weirdness in the way it feels like it should from Farscape. Same with the shaman who builds the bond with Zhaan, who just stands there very still with a quiet, flat voice, with nothing beyond some purple body paint to sell that he's an alien. He feels cheap. It feels like a cheap episode, in a show that, while certainly a budget production, always brought a flair to the design and detailing that made it leap off the screen. This doesn't leap. The best effect it has is the room John and Crais are prowling around, only able to see each other through seams too metaphorically tight for them to bridge an understanding through. Other than being stuck with a flat shaman, the one who really steals the show is Zhaan, not because her having to take down the transcended non-corporeal demi-god is a particularly interesting solution, but because she has to tap into the very internal darkness she's long been running from. Having to cause pain, practicing it on both an innocent (yet edible) creature, then her own friend, the very friend she came to this planet to heal. Having to reach to that absolute level of cruelty just to be able to make a villain whole again for John to hit, that's an interesting angle to explore. As is her pain at Aeryn praising her for being a warrior, and lashing out at John when he tries to comfort her. This is a major turning point for the character who quickly became settled as the den mother. And yes, for as sidelined as he is in the episode, I absolutely love the sequence of Rygel being left to care for John's body, so he grandiosely declares his friend dead and himself the owner of all of John's things.
The sidelining of D'Argo and Aeryn is more awkward. The conflict between John and Crais has its moments, even if it's repetitive and doesn't ultimately go anywhere meaningful beyond giving John the nudge to fight back. The neck snap is so poorly done it's hilarious. I see this is Brendan Maher's lone directorial work for the show, and wonder if he had any struggles settling in. He much more prominently directed a chunk of the Beastmaster series. For as much guff as I give the purple shaman, it was fun seeing Grant Bowler show up. He re-teamed with series creator Rockne S. O'Bannon years later as the lead star of Defiance, as series I'm eager to revisit after this watchthrough.
Review by noelctBlockedParentSpoilers2022-04-28T02:03:46Z
Our Deconstruction Moya post from 2008:
https://farscape.fandom.com/wiki/That_Old_Black_Magic
Some fresh thoughts:
Not a whole lot of departure for me from what I previously wrote. It's not a bad episode, but uneven, feeling more like the first handful where the amazing puppetry and prosthetics are minimized with the actors having to convey alienness through body paint and contact lenses. Thus giving it a more typical syndicated scifi show feel, which isn't helped by this being such a heavy Q-influenced plot. With Richard Manning getting the bump to consulting producer on the last installment, it's surprising that this feels more like a step back to the first few episodes where this show was still finding its footing. Oddly, it feels more out of place to have a demi-god manipulator in this series than it does Star Trek: The Next Generation, because I'd certainly never credit Farscape with grounded realism and its shunning of convention. I think it doesn't sell for me because it's flatly staged and, to use that word again, typical. It's a British actor flaunting about menacingly on an open set, delighting in the mayhem he's feeding off of. It's fine, it's just not exploding off the screen with weirdness in the way it feels like it should from Farscape. Same with the shaman who builds the bond with Zhaan, who just stands there very still with a quiet, flat voice, with nothing beyond some purple body paint to sell that he's an alien. He feels cheap. It feels like a cheap episode, in a show that, while certainly a budget production, always brought a flair to the design and detailing that made it leap off the screen. This doesn't leap. The best effect it has is the room John and Crais are prowling around, only able to see each other through seams too metaphorically tight for them to bridge an understanding through. Other than being stuck with a flat shaman, the one who really steals the show is Zhaan, not because her having to take down the transcended non-corporeal demi-god is a particularly interesting solution, but because she has to tap into the very internal darkness she's long been running from. Having to cause pain, practicing it on both an innocent (yet edible) creature, then her own friend, the very friend she came to this planet to heal. Having to reach to that absolute level of cruelty just to be able to make a villain whole again for John to hit, that's an interesting angle to explore. As is her pain at Aeryn praising her for being a warrior, and lashing out at John when he tries to comfort her. This is a major turning point for the character who quickly became settled as the den mother. And yes, for as sidelined as he is in the episode, I absolutely love the sequence of Rygel being left to care for John's body, so he grandiosely declares his friend dead and himself the owner of all of John's things.
The sidelining of D'Argo and Aeryn is more awkward. The conflict between John and Crais has its moments, even if it's repetitive and doesn't ultimately go anywhere meaningful beyond giving John the nudge to fight back. The neck snap is so poorly done it's hilarious. I see this is Brendan Maher's lone directorial work for the show, and wonder if he had any struggles settling in. He much more prominently directed a chunk of the Beastmaster series. For as much guff as I give the purple shaman, it was fun seeing Grant Bowler show up. He re-teamed with series creator Rockne S. O'Bannon years later as the lead star of Defiance, as series I'm eager to revisit after this watchthrough.