Twentysomething Wendy Watson is an artist working the inevitable temp job when an alien encounter leads her to The Middleman. Impressed by her skills under pressure, he recruits her as his number two. It’s a swift joke that Wendy’s qualifications run very similar to those of any disaffected youth: cool, unimpressed, with heightened hand-eye coordination from combat video games.

Together, they fight aliens, the undead and other exotic problems. We follow Wendy and learn as she learns. Any exposition is speedy on-the-job training. Wendy is sarcastic and smart, but Natalie Morales has great deadpan delivery for what could’ve easily been a too-cool character. She’s also the perfect age--the dramatics of the job mirroring well the exaggerated drama of being twenty-three.

As for MM himself, we never even learn his name. Matt Keeslar fully embodies a mixed bag of hero clichés that evoke familiarity while maintaining mystery. His just-so hair and perfectly tailored uniform and ‘oh-golly’ language are a throwback to the fifties. But he’s also as handsome and reliable as the quarterback on your high school football team.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHz4HYvQUqI

The mentor/mentee relationship becomes akin to family, especially for Wendy, whose father disappeared years before. But the surrogate-father link is handled lightly--mentioned only once, actually--and works that much better for it. In a show where everything obvious is stated in snappy dialogue, it proves its sincerity in the basic relationship between Wendy and MM.

The Middleman is a fun series and a spectacle of pop culture references. The title of this column is a phrase used by every villain on the show to describe an evil plan. Cheeky setting descriptions announce each location in a self-conscious hat-tip to the viewers--Wendy’s apartment is labeled “The illegal sublet Wendy shares with another young, photogenic artist.” This bright, glossy, hyper-aware style is reminiscent of Pushing Daisies and Wonderfalls (both canceled after one or two seasons and the latter of which had an equally salty female protagonist suddenly thrust into responsibility through supernatural happenstance).

It’s not new to say, but ABC Family was not the right venue for a show with bleeped-out profanity, sexual innuendos and ongoing drug commentary. For better or worse, The Middleman was a precious show (i.e. smart and quirky), so it’s hard to say if its lifespan would’ve been lengthened or cut even shorter on another network. As it is, viewers get twelve episodes of an ass-kicking heroine who’s only just learning how to kick ass.

The Middleman was based on a comic series by Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Les McClaine. The show order was reduced and the series finale instead published as the comic book “The Middleman: The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse.”

Spaceman says, “Bitchin!”

Spaceman Exclamation Ratings

Great: “Bitchin!”

Pretty good: “I felt some G-Force!”

Middle of the road: “Not exactly anti-gravity!”

Not so hot: “Not sure this puppy can fly!”

Not recommended: “Let’s get outta here!”

Cast: Natalie Morales (Wendy Watson); Matt Keeslar (The Middleman); Mary Pat Gleason (Ida); Brit Morgan (Lacey Thornfield); Jake Smollett (Noser); Brendan Hines (Tyler Ford)

Photo by vagueonthehow

Friends don’t let friends date assholes. That’s the moral of the story in the first really, really bad episode of the series.

Moya comes upon a disintegrating ship and takes on two survivors-scientists hauling important cargo back to their home world. D’Argo recognizes them as genetic cousins and offers help, with particular attention to the female scientist, who tilts her head like a dog and speaks slow like syrup. The rest of the crew rolls their collective eyes and remains suspicious.

In particular, Aeryn is more interested in the visitors’ cargo, which they claim is scientific equipment but refuse to elaborate. And John finds himself having mental flashes after getting shocked by broken wires in the visitors’ ship. Involuntarily, he imagines himself in the middle of a foreplay-like fight sequence with the female scientist. He makes the ‘O’ face. It looks uncomfortable, both for the actor and us.

Meanwhile, Zhaan senses Moya is out of balance and goes snooping. The scientists are forced to admit their cargo is actually a very dangerous weapon–a quantum singularity, or part of a black hole. They were bringing it back home to strike against insurgent forces.

Aeryn makes a point to kick the lady scientist’s ass during some friendly ‘physical conditioning,’ but gets her own kicked instead. The scientist is well-versed in extraordinary combat moves and Aeryn figures her a spy. It seems not even her partner knows, right up until the moment she knifes him.

As John’s flashes switch to other people and conversations moments before they happen, he realizes he’s not hallucinating but actually seeing the future. He uses the information gained to adjust the sequence of events in order to save all their lives. Lady scientist gets vaporized by the black hole and the Moya crew escapes via starburst.

D’Argo, shamed for having been taken by feminine wiles, tells John: “It’s been so long.” John empathizes, as he hasn’t gotten any ass in awhile either.

Spaceman says, “Let’s get outta here!”

 Spaceman Exclamation Ratings

Great: “Bitchin!”

Pretty good: “I felt some G-Force!”

Middle of the road: “Not exactly anti-gravity!”

Not so hot: “Not sure this puppy can fly!”

Not recommended: “Let’s get outta here!”

Farscape ran from 1999-2003 on the SyFy channel. It’s our first Rerun series! 

Cast: Ben Browder (John Crichton); Claudia Black (Aeryn Sun); Lani Tupu (Bialar Crais); Virginia Hey (Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan); Anthony Simcoe (D’Argo); Jonathan Hardy (Rygel)

Photo by Imbecillsallad

Released in 2008, “Visioneers” was written and directed by the brothers Jared and Brandon Drake. It’s a dark comedy that doesn’t entirely work but remains somewhat engaging. It’s too slow to be really funny and the satire is too often signaled through forceful details, like everyone flipping each other the bird as a mandated corporate greeting:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3xhMOXT1Z8

But this isn’t Galifianakis in “The Hangover,” nor is it his typical stand-up self (for the record, I hate the former, love the latter). There are great, small moments and Galifianakis performs well as a silent ball of detached panic. Granted, brooding sadness isn’t that difficult to convey, but George’s longing for connection is particularly palpable in a scene where he describes very nearly touching the hand of a woman he works with. For a man who can’t even get it up, this is love and wanting, but he’s conditioned to believe such intuitions are simply wrong and against the ever-important goal of productivity. Why bother with love when there’s all this work to get done?

The film does a good job drilling in corporate culture’s belief that working as a group means accepting one’s place. And dreams are the nagging individual truths we can’t avoid. “Happiness is being happy,” sobs George’s wife, devastated to realize no book or TV personality can tell her exactly how to achieve such a subjective emotion. It’s a fair point to make. I just wish it were more subtle.

Spaceman says, “I felt some G-Force!”

Spaceman Exclamation Ratings

Great: “Bitchin!”

Pretty good: “I felt some G-Force!”

Middle of the road: “Not exactly anti-gravity!”

Not so hot: “Not sure this puppy can fly!”

Not recommended: “Let’s get outta here!”

Photo by bryce edwards

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu9fESAlGc4

Maybe I’m just really susceptible to our retro-infatuated culture, but I thought that looked pretty damn cool.

The gist: Vic is an ornery young man in want of food and a good lay. His best friend is a dog called Blood, who’s a telepathic chatterbox and ‘female provider.’ They roam the decimated ruins of Phoenix, Arizona and dream of a prosperous place called Over The Hill.

To my complete surprise, the first forty-five minutes of this cult classic are so slow that I fell asleep the initial go-round. Second time, I sat really close to the TV and watched out of determination. Consequently, Spaceman has a new exclamation rating.*

Mysterious men from the Downunder observe Vic and his shaggy buddy and decide to “put out the cheese.” The cheese would be Quilla, a doe-eyed and seemingly innocent young woman. Blood (voiced by Tim McIntire) hunts her down at an underground bunker. But before Vic can do what he came for, he must fend off dangerous goons looking for the same piece of female. Afterward, soft and grateful Quilla (Susanne Benton) submits to our young dumb brute, a sudden switch in attitude that likewise switches the facts from rape to makin’ love. But the next morning, Vic gets a crack over the head and Quilla takes off. Kids these days.

In my favorite part, the Downunder is a brainwashed society living under the ultra-conservative hand of The Committee. It looks like a town, feels like a town, believes itself a town--making it highly reminiscent of The Prisoner’s generic and inescapable Village. For breeding purposes, Vic is strapped to a bed and married off to every girl in town, but when Quilla’s turn comes up, our soft lady goes rogue. She enlists Vic’s help in killing The Committee. But when Vic only wants to get the hell outta town, she spits at him: “I didn’t bring you down here so they could use you, I brought you down here so I could use you!” Vic gives her a good smack and she switches back to submissive.

While the second half delivered some of the wackiness promised in the trailer, it couldn’t make up for the disjointed beginning. And like many old movies, the acting doesn’t age well, coming across as stiff and pitchy. With all of that said, I can understand the cult classic label. There’s some pretty dark comedy going on, including the film’s notorious final line. This second trailer will give you a better idea of the craziness (Spoilers ahead!):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9ermq_-jog

Out of the Downunder, Vic finds Blood dying of starvation and Quilla can’t stop professing her love in order to save her own exiled ass. Our young Don Johnson looks confused, but there’s no choice to be made. The question of love may never have come up between them, but Blood taught him well. They kill and eat Quilla, then head off towards the horizon. This jaunty little tune plays during the credits (ahem, sorry about the URL name, it was the only place I could find it):

httpv://www.badmovies.org/movies/boyanddog/boyanddog-song.wav

“A Boy and His Dog” was based on Harlan Ellison’s short story of the same name. Ellison was openly unhappy with the film’s ending and misogynistic tendencies. He produced the graphic novel “Vic and Blood” as a continuation. Although a film sequel was long rumored, it never materialized, but an animated remake by David Lee Miller has a 2012 release date.

Spaceman says, “Not exactly anti-gravity!”*

Spaceman Exclamation Ratings

Great: “Bitchin!”

Pretty good: “I felt some G-Force!”

Middle of the road: “Not exactly anti-gravity!”

Not so hot: “Not sure this puppy can fly!”

Not recommended: “Let’s get outta here!”

Photo by BlatantNews.com

The visitors are the Tavliks, a scarface’d bunch who’ve bartered a cargo-hauling deal with the Moya. Instead, their arrival is an ambush meant to kidnap Rygel. They believe him worth a substantial ransom, considering his self-advertised royal connections. In the battle, one Tavlik is captured and D’Argo steals his peculiar weapon: A fully-loaded armband that pumps powerful stimulants into the wearer’s bloodstream. It’s soon realized that Moya’s propulsion is off-balance, due to a missing stone that Rygel borrowed in an effort to dress up his royal appearance. And so begins the exhaustive search and rescue part of the show.

Aeryn, John and D’Argo head down to the planet. It seems that everybody’s got a plan and each one is a flawed build on the next. The only thing Aeryn and D’Argo can agree on is John’s ridiculous nature: “Imagine, somewhere out there, there’s a whole world full of Crichtons and how useless that must be,” Aeryn says.

Meanwhile, Zhaan and the Tavlik prisoner perform a little stand-off a la ‘I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours.’ He’s angry and young, but he’s also struggling through withdrawals from the stimulants. Despite his ungrateful attitude, Zhaan shares his pain and they develop an understanding.

D’Argo and John sneak into the Tavlik camp, where jabbering and self-righteous Rygel has established himself as the most annoying prisoner ever. Before finding the little hairball, there’s a scuffle and Aeryn comes to the rescue. But D’Argo’s been shot, so Aeryn pummels the wound in order to cleanse the dark blood to a clear color–a sort-of literal physical therapy for their strained relationship.

In the meantime, John runs off to find Rygel on his own. There’s a stand-off with some Tavliks and John attempts to bullshit his way through several elaborate lies before finally admitting the truth: No one will ever pay the ransom because Rygel isn’t worth it. After a quick, anti-climactic call to the ship to prove there’s nothing there worth stealing, they’re released. John hauls Rygel (and the stone, which he swallowed for safekeeping) back to the ship under his big, broad hero arm. It seems we know who the leader should be.

Spaceman says, “I felt some G-Force!”

Spaceman Exclamation Ratings

Great: “Bitchin!”

Pretty good: “I felt some G-Force!”

Not so hot: “Not sure this puppy can fly!”

Not recommended: “Let’s get outta here!”

Farscape ran from 1999-2003 on the SyFy channel. It’s our first Rerun series! 

Cast: Ben Browder (John Crichton); Claudia Black (Aeryn Sun); Lani Tupu (Bialar Crais); Virginia Hey (Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan); Anthony Simcoe (D’Argo); Jonathan Hardy (Rygel)

Photo by AndyRob

Briar Wilkes lives under the shame of a reputation destroyed by a renegade father and a husband whose final invention literally split the city in half: Dr. Leviticus Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine was intended to plumb icy depths. But instead of striking gold, the drilling monstrosity unleashed a toxic gas that turned the living into the walking dead. Subsequently, a wall was erected around the city center, meant to contain the ‘rotters’ and the gas, and Briar escaped to the Outskirts with the rest of the survivors.

She’s a hardened heroine, reformed trophy wife and no-nonsense mother, meagerly supporting her teenaged son with a factory job at the water processing plant. She dreams of moving East, if only the war would end and enough money could be scraped for the journey. We see her for the first time through the eyes of a local journalist come to ask questions about her long-dead but still notorious father:

One arm at a time, Briar pried herself out of the overcoat and left it hanging on a peg. Without the coat, her body had a lean look to it–as if she worked too long, ate too little or too poorly. Her gloves and tall brown boots were caked with the filth of the plant, and she was wearing pants like a man. Her long, dark hair was piled up and back, but two shifts of labor had picked it apart and heavy strands had scattered, escaping the combs she’d used to hold it all aloft. She was thirty-five and she did not look a minute younger.

Briar’s troubled love for her son is like a side effect of his very existence–his every detail is a reminder of a past she must protect him from. Who should he be like, if he mustn’t be like his father or grandfather? Zeke is equal parts ignorant and hopeful like only the dumb young can be, so he sneaks into the city determined to clear his family’s name and perhaps find his father, who may or may not be alive. He wants the truth, not the legend, and certainly not the dismissive half-truth his mother feeds him. Briar has no choice but to go after her son and this dangerous quest through the ruined city includes help from airship pirates and subterranean survivors. 

SPOILER ALERT: Plot twists ahead!

Throughout 400-something pages, we never stop running around, alternately searching or fleeing. Every time I bookmarked, whether at the end of a chapter, paragraph or sentence, I felt the moment’s cliffhanger. Also, refreshingly, Priest serves us a female protagonist without even a hint of peripheral B-plot romance. And while the third person narrator switches between mother and son in a sometimes expositional delivery, all the action made necessary the occasional infodump.

With that said, it was voracious reading until around page 300, when all the twisting tunnels and zombie run-ins blended together and I wondered if perhaps too many gunshots had left me deaf to the purpose. The goal was always clear–mother, hug your runaway son–but the overarching mystery never materialized with tangible menace. And somehow, I wanted more gore. Strangely, there’re a lot of zombies but not a lot of death.

Although steampunk has been around since the late 80′s, I’ve only recently become acquainted with the genre subset. As my introduction, “Boneshaker” proves that great science-fiction doesn’t have to be spaceships in the year 3000 or aliens invading the homeland. It can be about family and legacy. It can be a mother with a rifle and a gas mask, hunting through the underground for her misguided child so she can finally tell him where he comes from.

Cherie Priest has, among many other things, a blog, website and youtube channel. “Boneshaker” was recently nominated for a Hugo Award.

Spaceman says: “I felt some G-Force!”

Spaceman Exclamation Ratings

Great: “Bitchin!”

Pretty good: “I felt some G-Force!”

Not so hot: “Not sure this puppy can fly!”

Not recommended: “Let’s get outta here!”

Photo by Librarianguish

In NCC, Emanuelle finds A-Tamara and asks for help with Joseph, who’s become an unresponsive amp-addict in the real world. Her reputation as ‘the dead girl’ and the widespread tagging of her name throughout NCC insinuates her evolution beyond the frantic young woman who can’t find her way home. She agrees to help bring Joseph back to his real responsibilities, most importantly young William, but her reunion with her father is a brutal severing of ties. After an icy hug, she demands he stop following her and then shoots him, forcing him out of NCC for good. For a girl who once sent a messenger to his door with news of her existence, such a permanent act stresses her changed views. Who has she become? What does she know now?    

Amanda and Daniel, estranged on their separate lost islands, have a dinner date to reconnect. But when she asks him point blank if he stole the Cylon chip from Vergis, he doesn’t deny it. She’s not even stunned because she already knew it was true, but there’s a sense her last grasp at reality has failed. She stumbles out of the house, leaving him behind and he doesn’t follow.

Sister Clarice confronts Barnabas about his reckless actions. His bombings throughout Caprica have been drawing too much attention to the STO at a time when they need to lay low in order to build legitimacy and gain more followers. It’s the typical battle of Messiah Complexes and there can be only one savior. Barnabas employs Lacy in a scheme to take down Clarice–in exchange he will provide safe passage to Geminon for her secret cargo–but what she believes is only a tracking device is actually a bomb.

Daniel is stunned to learn the government knew all along where the Cylon technology actually came from, but Daniel’s inability to complete the contract is quickly becoming an embarrassment so the deadline is moved up to a week. While Philo wants to continue studying the Cylon’s unique anomalies, Daniel orders the chip to be wiped so they can use it as a proper template to begin mass production.

A-Zoe panics, as those unique anomalies are actually her. Faced with being erased, she exposes her true Cylon identity to Philo, who panics as the six-foot robot corners him. She lists off all the people who’ve failed her and reminds him of his promise in V-World that it doesn’t matter what she looks like. He agrees to help, but then pulls an alarm. She shoves him away, throwing him violently against a wall, killing him instantly.

Amanda considers her life and all she’s lost, cradling the scars on her wrist of a previous suicide attempt. She looks to a nearby bridge for a better, more permanent option. Down below, Sister Clarice is stuck in traffic and sees the curious sight of Amanda up on the bridge ready to throw herself off. She gets out of the car to watch, narrowly escaping the explosion from the bomb planted by Barnabas via Lacy.

A-Zoe has fled in a stolen van, but is heavily pursued. She comes to a roadblock set up by the military and stops. Memories flash of how far she’s come. There’s nowhere to go. She jams the gas and goes for it, airborne momentarily before crashing and burning in a fiery blaze.

Daniel gets a call. But is it about Amanda or the robot? What’s been lost? It seems obvious A-Zoe should survive but now that Daniel’s lost the contract, to whom does she belong? What will Joseph do now that his daughter has abandoned him? And who is A-Tamara anyway? Will Lacy remain STO, even after Barnabas deceived her? And what the hell is waiting in Geminon, exactly?

Caprica returns in the Fall.

Spaceman says, “Bitchin!”

Spaceman Exclamation Ratings

Great: “Bitchin!”

Pretty good: “I felt some G-Force!”

Not so hot: “Not sure this puppy can fly!”

Not recommended: “Let’s get outta here!”

Caprica airs Fridays, 9pm Eastern on Syfy.

Cast: Eric Stoltz (Daniel Graystone); Paula Malcomson (Amanda Graystone); Alessandra Torresani (Zoe Graystone); Esai Morales (Joseph Adama); Sasha Roiz (Sam Adama); Magda Apanowicz (Lacy Rand); Polly Walker (Clarice Willow); John Pyper-Ferguson (Tomas Vergis); James Marsters (Barnabas)

Photo by LiGado em Serie

After a session of connect-the-dots, Daniel Graystone realizes his daughter’s avatar is the only explanation as to why the Cylon robot has evaded duplication. But A-Zoe doesn’t trust Daniel because the original Zoe didn’t trust him either. It quickly becomes a battle of wills, while she pretends to be only a robot, responding to commands and he attempts to expose her true identity.

Phase One of Daniel’s plan to reveal A-Zoe includes a detailed retelling of the night their first home caught fire and five-year old Zoe was trapped and screaming in her attic bedroom. Intermittently, he commands the Cylon to dismantle and reassemble a gun in almost nauseous repetition. A-Zoe becomes so worn down by the mundane task that when Daniel burns himself lighting a cigarette, she flinches at his sudden movement. He notices, but it’s not enough.

In order to handle himself in the lurking danger of NCC, Joseph needs to understand murder and so he asks Sam, who’s unaware of Joseph’s V-World exploits. It’s a direct question that’s never been posed and Sam is taken aback. Hesitantly, he describes his victims as not people, but targets and this isn’t life, but a game. “You tell yourself it’s not real,” he says.

Phase Two: Like a true parent, Daniel unleashes on A-Zoe for her mistakes, biggest of all being the train bombing. He demeans her childish idealism and insists that while she was brilliant, she was also just a scared kid who knew nothing of life’s true gifts. But still, he loves her, no matter what she’s done or what she is–”I know you’re not really even her,” he admits, but further begs, “You are all I have left.” When she doesn’t respond, he proceeds with Phase Three and pours a circle of gasoline around the robot and lights it. The robot can handle it, but A-Zoe will show fear, he believes. Still, she refuses to acknowledge.

Back in NCC again, Joseph and his guide visit a club where A-Tamara is supposed to have gone. But Joseph, wanting only to hear something concrete about his daughter, is frustrated by the circuitous intricacies of this alternate reality. He and Emanuelle are given the boot, but before hitting the street again Joseph catches a scribbling of his daughter’s signature (the particular way she signs the ‘T’ in Tamara) on a poster. Ready to play, he amps himself up with drugs and heads back into the club, gun blazing him a path back up to the stage. The club ringleader admits to having seen A-Tamara, but he only assumed–like everyone else–that she was a new part of the game. This assumption takes on a curious truth when Joseph and Emanuelle later discover Tamara’s signature throughout the neighborhood. If the gamers are right about her identity, then who exactly is Joseph searching for?

Meanwhile, Tomas Vergis shows up at the Graystone residence while only Amanda is home. Calmly and concisely, he tells her the story of how Daniel stole from him the unique technology needed to fulfill the military contract. In the process, he also had two of his associates murdered. So now, Amanda knows. But does she believe? And if she’s keeping her own unraveling sanity a secret, then isn’t it possible her husband could be hiding just about anything from her?

Final Phase: Daniel gives the Cylon a gun and commands it to shoot the dog. A-Zoe does as told but the bullets are blanks, which she notices from the slight weight difference in her hand. The intensity of Daniel’s convictions has, in fact, begun to piss A-Zoe off. In V-World, she confesses to Lucy that she’s losing control of her emotions and must get to Geminon soon. It seems that pretending to be an obedient killer robot is only making her a better one.

Spaceman says, “Bitchin!”

Spaceman Exclamation Ratings

Great: “Bitchin!”

Pretty good: “I felt some G-Force!”

Not so hot: “Not sure this puppy can fly!”

Not recommended: “Let’s get outta here!”

Caprica airs Fridays, 9pm Eastern on Syfy.

Cast: Eric Stoltz (Daniel Graystone); Paula Malcomson (Amanda Graystone); Alessandra Torresani (Zoe Graystone); Esai Morales (Joseph Adama); Sasha Roiz (Sam Adama); Magda Apanowicz (Lacy Rand); Polly Walker (Clarice Willow); John Pyper-Ferguson (Tomas Vergis); James Marsters (Barnabas)

Photo by LiGado em Serie

S1E2: When an alarm goes off on Moya, Aeryn recognizes it as a Peacekeeper tracking device and everyone freaks, since it’s broadcasting their position back to the enemy. In order to halt the signal, they must remove the device from an extremely sensitive spot in Moya’s biomechanical structure. But before the amputation, they need to land and John suggests crashing onto a nearby planet, using its fairly watery surface as a buffer. The idea is perfect–except they start to sink and time is suddenly an even more urgent matter.

Aeryn, D’Argo and John head out into the wilds to search for a specific element called Chlorium that’s needed to numb Moya’s pain. However, some rifle-toting locals show up, clamoring at the insane sight of a spaceship falling out of the sky. Using whoops and hollers to draw them away from the ship, Aeryn and D’Argo play the distraction while John escapes to find Moya’s pain killers.

He stumbles upon a house in the shadow of a huge satellite. He inspects the nearby barn and gets shot by a kid with a flinch-ey trigger finger. It’s not quite a gun, though, but a kind of laser sword that paralyzes its victim. And the kid isn’t quite human, as his profile reveals elongated cheekbones stretching back into tiny ears, making him appear victim to a terrible facelift.

Paralysis wearing off and hoping to gain trust so he doesn’t get zapped again, John convinces the mother that he ‘chose’ them. She’s easily swayed, as she works for the government’s astronomy division in the search for extraterrestrial life and has a deep investment in such a discovery. John gets distracted by her star charts, muttering about Earth, and then discovers Chlorium sitting on the counter in a saltshaker. Seems it’s a common household item, but right then the military shows up and he has to hide again.

Back on the ship, Zhaan and Rygel are spooked by how quickly Moya is sinking and decide they cannot wait any longer. Being a high priestess of spiritual alignment, Zhaan hugs a wall in order to take on Moya’s pain while Rygel wields a knife to the tracking device. But it’s too much pain and both Zhaan and Moya pass out and the ship goes dark.

Aeryn and D’Argo continue to hide out from the rifle-toting locals. They’ve clambered up a tree, where they sit bickering over the smartest course of action. But when Aeryn mentions that John said the planet reminded him of home, they both agree he’s basically a savage by technological standards and they laugh and laugh and laugh. And on that note, Aeryn heads back to the ship, leaving D’Argo to quickly get captured and tied up in the mother’s barn.

Aeryn arrives back at Moya just in time to offer Zhaan some literal support. She and the ship have revived, but the amputation is not yet finished. While Rygel continues cutting, Aeryn holds a much-weakened Zhaan against a wall so she can continue sharing Moya’s pain.

While the mother insists that John escape, he refuses to leave D’Argo behind. The kid proves a useful distraction while John sneaks up with a shovel to knock out the guards. John accepts several bags of Chlorium, kisses the mother goodbye and they return to Moya just in time to apply the painkiller and get the hell outta there.

As the Earth-like planet grows smaller in the window, John considers the people he’s just met and left behind. For them, his arrival was a huge and overwhelming moment confirming that they aren’t alone in the universe. Being newly aware of such a truth himself, John understands their awe. Back on the planet, the mother tells her son, “One day, you are going to have a very singular story to tell.”

Spaceman says, “I felt some G-Force!”

Spaceman Exclamation Ratings

Great: “Bitchin!”

Pretty good: “I felt some G-Force!”

Not so hot: “Not sure this puppy can fly!”

Not recommended: “Let’s get outta here!”

Farscape ran from 1999-2003 on the SyFy channel. It’s our first Rerun series! 

Cast: Ben Browder (John Crichton); Claudia Black (Aeryn Sun); Lani Tupu (Bialar Crais); Virginia Hey (Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan); Anthony Simcoe (D’Argo); Jonathan Hardy (Rygel)

Photo by mela sogono

As a teenager, Amanda Graystone went crazy and was committed after her brother died in a car accident. Current circumstances–no longer a doctor, no longer a mother and lonely days of being a busy man’s wife–drive her crazy all over again. She finds herself chasing the ghost of her dead brother down the street. Aside from booze and pills, her only solace comes from new friend Sister Clarice.

Joseph tracks down Heracles (formerly no-named gamer guy) and forces him to play guide in the underground V-World. In New Cap City, Joseph finds the rules of the game similar to life: No flying, and when you die, you’re gone, never to return. Being a clumsy old man in a young person’s world, he gets Heracles killed and finds himself at the mercy of a new guide.

A-Zoe and Philo the lab tech meet in V-World for a proper first date. To him, her name is Rachael. She goes off on a tangent about V-World being used for higher purposes, like the extension of life, rather than a playground with generic details. Piqued by tech talk, he counters, “I work with top secret military robots.” She plays swooning and they kiss.

Daniel doesn’t understand why the Cylon robot works at all and being unable to pinpoint the scientific reasoning behind its working existence leaves his military contract in limbo. Inspired by Rachael’s words, Philo suggests a theory that mass-production, like human offspring, must use a generative process with an unchanging variable–kinda like DNA? Daniel sits in his lab, playing fetch with the dog. The robot joins in, a movement that is just another show of its sentience. Daniel walks up to it, stares into its red eye, senses familiarity and wonders aloud, “Zoe?”  

Sister Clarice and Amanda meet at a bar to smoke some drugs and chill out. But friendly girls night out this is not–Amanda weeps over the disintegration of her life and apparent sanity, while Clarice carries a secret Messiah complex, believing God has a specific plan for her only. Amanda is convinced that “surviving is the punishment for leaving things left unsaid.” Every kindness a scheme wishing her closer to A-Zoe, Clarice urges Amanda to trust in God’s unknowable wisdom. “Which God do I trust?” Amanda asks her, needing truly to know. The One True God, perhaps?

Spaceman says, “Bitchin!”

Spaceman Exclamation Ratings

Great: “Bitchin!”

Pretty good: “I felt some G-Force!”

Not so hot: “Not sure this puppy can fly!”

Not recommended: “Let’s get outta here!”

Caprica airs Fridays, 9pm Eastern on Syfy.

Cast: Eric Stoltz (Daniel Graystone); Paula Malcomson (Amanda Graystone); Alessandra Torresani (Zoe Graystone); Esai Morales (Joseph Adama); Sasha Roiz (Sam Adama); Magda Apanowicz (Lacy Rand); Polly Walker (Clarice Willow); John Pyper-Ferguson (Tomas Vergis); James Marsters (Barnabas)

Photo by Joe Pugliese via LiGado em Serie