Dust to Dust
Episode 22 — Mar 21, 2003
“Bad Timing”
Dust to DustWell, stay tuned for Battlestar Fucking Galactica, I guess.
Which just adds insult to injury, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s bad enough that they go and cancel the only show on the Sci-Fi Channel that I have the slightest interest in watching. Then they have to take that money and put it into shows based on stuff from the 70’s. They just showed a miniseries on Children of Dune, from 1976. Next up is a miniseries based on Riverworld, which was 1971. And they take this moment — the series finale of Farscape — to spring the news on us that after that, they’re doing a remake of Battlestar Fucking Galactica. Hey, I thought science fiction was supposed to be looking to the future. Wha happen?
You want worse? Here’s worse: I don’t even know about this stuff from watching the commercials. Who watches commercials? No, I know all about the Sci-Fi Channel’s upcoming lineup because they’ve started using that hideous technique of promoting future shows while the show that’s currently airing is happening on the screen in front of you. They’re “bottom-thirding,” which means that every time they cut from a commercial break back to the show, they put an animation on the bottom third of the screen that tells you that there’s a new Shannen Doherty reality series coming in a couple weeks. They do this right over the show. Then, presumably, they run ads over that show telling you to watch the next show, and so on and so on, until eventually I guess there just aren’t any TV shows left. Broadcast TV will just be an endless loop of promos for itself.
Is it too early to call for a consumer revolution on this? I pay good money for satellite TV; I don’t need this nonsense. My fantasy is that the people rise up and march on the TV stations with pitchforks and rakes. Failing that, can we at least boycott the Shannen Doherty show, which I wasn’t going to watch anyway?
Anyway, I don’t mean to go on about it, but if I complain about the promo clutter, then I don’t have to think about the last minute of the actual show. Which is the moment when all the goodness and kindness of the world was snuffed out like a candle, and all I was left with was Battlestar Fucking Galactica. You can see why I’d want to avoid dwelling on it.
But there’s no way around it, so here goes. Time is clearly running out for our Farscape friends, because in the first minute of this episode, they all realize that they only have an hour left, and they have like five new plot points to establish. So it cuts back and forth between all the characters, who are running from room to room and shouting the new plot points at each other. It’s like finals week on Moya, and everyone’s cramming.
The big news, of course, is that last week I assumed that a whole bunch of people died, just because a nuclear fusion bomb went off about twenty feet away from them. Silly me. None of them are dead. The big-breasted Scarran emperor is alive, the Maleficent chick is alive. Everybody is apparently alive. Evil characters never die on this show. Only the puppies and kittens die.
So the not-dead Scarrans are planning to go through the wormhole to Earth in order to enslave the humans, take over the planet and steal some of the flowers. Which seems like a long way to go just for flowers, but try getting that across to the Scarrans. Everybody finds out about this plan because apparently the Scarrans were talking about it on their cell phones, and the Peacekeepers were listening in. Or something. This all gets established in shouty jump cuts, so it’s hard to be sure.
John’s way of dealing with this situation is to strap a nuclear bomb to Scorpius and push him out an airlock, which I can only say I entirely approve of. I wish I could deal that effectively with my irritating house guests.
By the way, all of this happens before the opening credits. They have a lot to get done this week.
Then, happily, there’s a long scene of John lounging around on the floor dressed entirely in tight black leather. Then all the characters walk around for a while and make funny jokes about how nauseous they are. Then John and Aeryn have a really cute relationship scene where they lean against the wall and smile at each other. All of this reminds me of why I’ll miss Farscape, especially the parts with the tight leather.
John comes up with a lunatic plan to close the wormhole to Earth by flying through it before it opens and making it collapse in on itself, which makes about as much sense as anything else, so fine. They make sure that every character gets a little task to do, which is really cute; you can basically go through most of the episode checking off each character’s plot moment. Pilot gets cut from Moya to fly the module through the wormhole… Rygel is the one that convinces him to do it… D’argo does the actual cutting… Noranti keeps the cables moist until Pilot can be rejoined… Chiana slows time so she can learn how to use the controls… and Scorpius and Sikozu sit on the Peacekeeper ship and mack out for the whole episode, the purpose of which was a bit unclear to me. They looked like they were having a good time, though.
John goes through the wormhole to Earth again, where he lands on the moon and calls his dad on a cell phone. You can tell this is science fiction, because they have a two-minute cell phone conversation between Florida and the moon, and they can actually hear each other the whole time. In real life, of course, you can’t call somebody three blocks away. I kept expecting John to start saying, “What? WHAT? I’m ON the MOON! Can you HEAR me? WHAT? I’m ON the MOON!” Anyway, the conversation with John and his dad just makes me tear up. It’s incredibly moving, actually, which should have been a warning sign. Any time something gets beautiful on Farscape for two minutes at a time, that’s a red flag that they’re about to kill a puppy.
Pilot gets them back through the wormhole at the right time to make it collapse, and it happens to be just at the same time that the Scarran scout ship is coming through from the other side. This leads to an incredibly tense action sequence that almost makes me forget that this whole thing is about the Scarrans going on a shopping trip to get some flowers. The Scarran ship is going this way, John’s ship is going that way — and luckily, at the last second, it becomes the Haunted Mansion ride, and they all kind of turn transparent and float through each other, so everything’s okay.
By the way, John’s ship makes it out of the wormhole before it collapses, which everybody is obviously happy about, but for all we know, the Scarran ship made it through to the other side too. So they might be sitting on the moon right now calling John’s dad. I just wanted to point that out.
So now, unfortunately, there’s really no way for me to avoid That Last Minute. I have to talk about it. It’ll help me get over the trauma.
Because, the thing is, as incredibly cynical as I have been about Farscape, they actually managed to make me believe for a minute that the season (and therefore the series) might have a happy ending. I feel like such a sucker for admitting that. I’ve been writing for weeks about how they always kill the puppy on this show, how they only give you a moment of happiness in order to take it away from you and set it on fire.
So, warning sign #1: They stop to rest. Warning sign #2: John and Aeryn go out on a boat, and they have a whole scene together to talk about their relationship. Warning sign #3: D’argo, Chiana and Rygel are watching them, doing a funny and warm commentary. Warning sign #4: Aeryn is having John’s baby, John proposes, Aeryn accepts… and they’re happy. The audience lets their guard down for a moment. The puppy is ready to burn.
And then, out of the sky, with no warning at all, a Thomas’ English Muffin alien flies by in a spaceship, and spots John and Aeryn.
I’m calling him a Thomas’ English Muffin alien, because his head splits open to show the nooks and crannies that hold the melted butter. Also, I can’t call him anything else, because I’ve never seen the guy before in my whole entire life. Is it fair to pull out random, murderous breakfast-related aliens at the last minute? Not really. But here he comes.
And he shoots John and Aeryn with a ray gun. And we watch John and Aeryn crumble and disintegrate, until they’re nothing but a pile of dust, except for the engagement ring, which is left intact on account of extra poignancy.
Now, I have to admit that this is just about the Farscapiest ending for the series that they could possibly have done. I mean, sure, the main characters get one moment of peace before they’re disintegrated. When you stop to think about it, it really couldn’t end any other way.
But, talk about insult to injury — then they put up the words “TO BE CONTINUED,” which is just a horrible lie, unless maybe they mean “TO BE CONTINUED ON A THOUSAND SLASH-FICTION WEBSITES.”
Which is fair enough, because the only alternative to writing your own season five is just to go and put your head in the oven. So, in case you’re having trouble coming up with your own, here are my five possible scenarios for how John and Aeryn were supposed to survive at the beginning of the next season.
Survival Scenario #1: It wasn’t John and Aeryn after all. They were just genetically engineered biloids.
Survival Scenario #2: They’re not dead, they’re freeze-dried. Just add water!
Survival Scenario #3: Pam Ewing goes to take a shower; the entire season was a dream.
Survival Scenario #4: Noranti scoops up the dust and takes it to an alien specialist, who manages to reconstitute John and Aeryn — but they come back as hideous flesh-eating zombies who feast on the brains of the living. (Note: This is an extremely plausible scenario.)
Survival Scenario #5: It just looked like they were killed — actually, the English Muffin Alien’s ray gun teleported them through a space-time fracture. The dust is just their excess skin and clothes, so they’ll be completely naked when they get to wherever they’re going — which let’s say for the sake of argument is Happy Bunnyland, where nobody wears any clothes and they all live happily ever after.
Obviously, my personal choice is Happy Bunnyland, but the beauty of a show getting cancelled before it’s actually over is that you get to make up your own ending.
There’s just one thing that I know is true, no matter what: The Scarran scout ship did get all the way through the wormhole, and they ended up trapped in Earth orbit. Feeling pretty pissed off about the whole situation, they spent a couple days sitting around on the moon and lobbing tactical nuclear devices at the Earth.
So everybody and everything you’ve ever known is dead and gone forever, burned up in a pointless nuclear holocaust, and it’s all John Crichton’s fault. Bye!
by Danny Horn
