Claus Encounters
Episode 13 — Jan 17, 2003
“Terra Firma”
Claus EncountersBack in the first season, Crichton was tricked into thinking that he’d travelled back to Earth, and it wasn’t a very friendly visit; his dad and some mean government guys went all Alien Autopsy, and imprisoned and dissected his friends. Turned out that was all a hallucination created by [technobabble] in order to [lunatic plot contrivance], so it didn’t really happen.
But now, thanks to some wormhole surfing, Crichton actually has travelled back to Earth, and oddly enough, the real thing is a lot less realistic than the hallucination was. Basically, Crichton’s dad turns up on Moya like he’s meeting him at the bus station, and says, hey, John, welcome home. Neat ship you’ve got here. Everybody is acting terrifically cool about the whole thing; this is more of a “business casual” first contact. In fact, they’re playing it like Crichton is home from college for Christmas break, and he’s brought some of his friends home to meet the folks.
And isn’t this always the way? You come home from college, and all of a sudden, everybody in your hometown seems so boring and fake. It turns out — and no surprise on this one, really — that humans are just, like, these total phonies. As soon as Crichton walks in the door, a white guy in a suit steps up to him: “Commander Crichton!” — he’s shouting here, like Crichton’s forgotten how to speak English — “I am TR Holt, special advisor to the President! Congratulations! You have accomplished something truly momentous — Earth’s first contact with extraterrestrial life!”
So, damn, is that embarrassing or what? Crichton’s been home for all of ten seconds, and already all his groovy alien friends have to find out that Earth is full of blowhard Republicans. Wait till the Scarrans hear about this; they’ll never stop laughing.
Anyway, there’s no quarantine this time, or even your more basic security precautions; they just set up the aliens in Michael and Jane’s beach house from Melrose Place, and they let Crichton’s random family members and ex-girlfriends come and go as they please. They suggest that this is a major world event — mostly with shots of news cameras and lines of dialogue like, “Gosh, this is a major world event” — but Farscape doesn’t have enough money to show crowds of more than about eighteen people at a time, plus a twelve year old cousin with a video camera.
In lieu of the dissection, the government guys still get to act creepy by insisting that only Americans get to play with all the cool guns and spaceships. Crichton has the typical conversation that every kid has when he comes home from college and discovers that his parents are, like, totally part of the white male imperialist power structure: “Space travel was your dream to unite mankind,” Crichton says. “When did that change?” Dad’s response: “September the 11th. This isn’t the same world you left four years ago, son. People don’t dream like they used to. It’s about survival now.”
I’m sorry, people don’t what now? There’s a big terrorist attack, and all of a sudden people don’t dream? Dad needs to get a grip on himself; his worldview is starting to come across as less thoughtful than the Chabuka-clan dreadlock guys from tormented space. Dang, you leave humans alone for a few years, and they completely fall to pieces.
Meanwhile, Tina Turner is prowling around and killing people. I’ve avoided talking about the monster for this long because I’m not sure how to describe exactly why I think she looks like Tina Turner. All I know is that as soon as she appeared on screen, I said, hey, that’s Tina Turner! and then I couldn’t shake it. Basically, if Tina Turner was a green, armor-plated alien assassin — and there’s no reliable evidence to suggest that she isn’t — then this is Tina Turner, plain and simple. Anyway, Tina was sent to Earth by Grayza to find Crichton and capture him — which Crichton’s ex-girlfriends and twelve year old cousins manage to do right away, using the carefully-honed strategy of actually going to his house and knocking on the door — but Tina can’t seem to manage it. By around halfway through the episode, she’s still prowling around multi-story parking garages and killing Crichton’s friends. This episode’s message: Just because you’re a professional telepathic Grammy-winning alien assassin, it doesn’t mean you’re very good at your job.
But geopolitics and dead friends aside, the thing that’s really important in this episode is that Aeryn sees John kissing Caroline, and she gets jealous. Aeryn is clearly The Girl Friend of the group, so Crichton’s family invites her home to spend Christmas with them while the other aliens hang around at the beach house and eat things. Aeryn and Crichton then proceed to have a series of thirty-second conversations straight out of every college romance gone sour.
Aeryn: “Do you want me to go back to Moya?”
Crichton: “We’ve already gone over this. It’s entirely up to you.”
Aeryn: “Look — I’m not trying to pressure you, John. I’m actually trying to take the pressure off. Would you be happier if I wasn’t here on Earth? You don’t have to justify it, or explain it. Just give me an honest yes or no.”
And then — because it’s a Farscape tradition, and because it’s Christmas — just at the moment when it looks like Aeryn and John might actually finish a whole conversation about their relationship, Tina Turner breaks in and starts killing people.
There’s lots more in this episode to talk about, but I honestly don’t think I can top that. Gosh, I’ll miss Farscape.
by Danny Horn
