The Worlds of Farscape (33 page)

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Lilo & Stitch
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. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2011. 15–30. Print.

Shakespeare, Tom.
Disability Rights and Wrongs
. London: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Star Wars, Episode V
:
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. Dir. Irvin Kershner. Perf. Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher. 20th Century–Fox, 1980. Film.

Tøssebro, Jan. “Understanding Disability.”
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We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story
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Sherry Ginn

John Crichton's attraction to Aeryn Sun occurs almost from their first meeting, despite the fact she kicks his butt. At the end of the series' first episode (“Premiere”), Crichton speaks into his tape recorder, describing for his father the events that have unfolded since his arrival in the
Farscape
universe. Removed prior to broadcast, his last words were “And dad, there's this girl.” A short time later we learn that Aeryn is also attracted to Crichton: she tells him that when they first met, she found him “interesting” (“PK Tech Girl” 1.7). Their mutual attraction continues to grow until it is finally consummated, albeit on a “make-believe” Earth (“A Human Reaction” 1.16). Unfortunately the course of their relationship will not run smoothly or well during the majority of episodes of the series. As Executive Producer David Kemper says, “Crichton and Aeryn are Romeo and Juliet. That's one classic story about two people who love each other but can't get together because they were raised differently” (22).

Part of the rationale for the “will they-won't they, star-crossed lovers” aspect was to keep both characters available for romances with other people. Indeed on the DVD commentary to the episode “The Locket” (2.16), Ben Browder (Crichton) and Claudia Black (Aeryn) both admit that the producers planned for Aeryn to have a boyfriend at some point in the series. Interestingly, advertisements for the series made a point of noting that Crichton was the lusty American adventurer in space who would have a woman at every (space)port, à la James T. Kirk. In actuality Crichton has sex with only 3 women on
Farscape
, besides Aeryn, and only one of those was by choice. He has “sex” with an ex-girlfriend Alex when the Delvians on the New Moon of Delvia cloud his mind and cause him to believe that Alex accompanied him on the Farscape Mission (“Rhapsody in Blue” 1.12). Later, he is raped by Grayza several times. However, he chooses to have sex with Jena after she rescues him from Prince Clavor's assassins (“Look at the Princess Part II: I Do, I Think” 2.11).
¹
Aeryn on the other hand is shown having sex with only one other person and that is Velorek (“The Way We Weren't” 2.5), although she married and bore children during an alternate time-line in the episode “The Locket.” Nevertheless, in actuality Crichton is jealous of other men who Aeryn might find attractive, such as Crais, and Aeryn is jealous of other women, such as Chiana.

Certainly there are practical reasons, related to ratings, for creating sexual tension between the major characters of a television series and then not letting them express that tension. The accepted truth, dating from the series
Moonlighting
(1985–1989), is that as soon as the characters stop the foreplay and actually do the “dirty deed,” the audience will no longer be interested. This “given” has some veracity in that after Maddie and David had sex on
Moonlighting
, in the 14th of the 15-episode Season Three (“I am Curious ... Maddie”), the show's popularity declined and it was canceled. The truth of the matter is that neither Bruce Willis, whose popularity following
Die Hard
had skyrocketed, nor Cybill Shepherd, who had just given birth to twins, were interested in continuing the series on a work schedule similar to that of the first two seasons. Fans were decidedly angered over the Season Four episodes which featured other characters and rarely featured Maddie or David together in the same scene. Nevertheless there are examples of series wherein sexual tension can continue along with adult relationships between the characters (consider Sheridan and Delenn on
Babylon 5
for instance). Exactly how long were fans supposed to suspend their belief that Troy and Riker, Mulder and Scully, and Starbuck and Apollo, to name only a few science fiction pairs, were not in love?

The question with respect to Aeryn and John, though, is this: Why is she unable to admit her feelings for Crichton and just go about the business of life? Crichton is pretty open about his feelings for her, and she knows how he feels. In the second season episode “Liars, Guns and Money Part I: A Not So Simple Plan” (2.19) as Aeryn leaves Moya, he says “I have to tell you how I feel.” She replies, “No, you don't.” He says, “Yes, I have to tell you,” and she looks at him and says very emphatically, “No. You don't.” He knows in that instance, as does the audience, that she is aware of his feelings for her, even if the words have never been spoken. Their dance will end that season with her death, at his hands. Season Three finds Crichton twinned with Aeryn finally consummating her relationship with the one designated as Crichton-Black.
²
Guess which one will die? Aeryn's fetus will be released from stasis during Season Three and she will be unwilling to tell Crichton she is pregnant, as she does not know who the father is. Given Sebacean/Peacekeeper physiology the child might be Crichton's. It could just as easily be Velorek's or some other person with whom she recreated (see my essay on relationships in this collection). Of course, the child—a boy—is Crichton's and he will be born during
The Peacekeeper Wars
.

Nevertheless, the question remains, why does it take her so long to admit that she loves him and that she will be with him, eventually marrying him? Perhaps the answer to that question lies in her past. Consider the Aeryn Sun presented in “The Way We Weren't” (2.5). This is the woman who recreated with a man named Velorek. They had a sexual relationship certainly, but it was apparently something more. She was assigned to be his personal pilot and they began their relationship on the second day of her assignment. Velorek asked Aeryn to be with him, to go with him to whatever his next assignment was; he told her that he was high enough in the command structure to be able to choose a lover, someone who would be more than a partner for recreation, rather than having one chosen for him. She appeared to be tempted and she later told Crichton that she thought she was in love with Velorek. However, that did not stop her from betraying him. Velorek was tasked with the job of developing a hybrid Leviathan, but unbeknownst to anyone but his most loyal colleagues, he actually planned to render Moya incapable of breeding. Aeryn learned that Velorek had a secret plan—she never knew what it was—and she used it to her advantage: she informed on Velorek to Crais. Velorek was charged with treason and executed and Aeryn got her old job, prowler pilot, back. She might almost see her irreversible contamination as retribution. She got her beloved job back, by betraying her lover, which meant that she was flying a prowler when Crichton's module burst out of the wormhole. That action led to her prowler being caught in the wake of Moya's starburst to safety, and hence her contamination and exile from the only life she ever knew.

Consider then her fear. She has already betrayed one lover; he died. How can she trust herself with another lover? How can
he
trust her, knowing of her past? Crichton, a highly-educated man, would understand Aeryn's fear and so knowing, would work to earn her trust as well as her love. Aeryn, the lonely woman who never knew any type of
loving
relationship, other than the one with Velorek, would have much more emotional baggage, to use an Earthly reference. She would find it more difficult to trust someone, especially someone not of her species, and not understanding love and perhaps having never experienced it,
³
would find it extremely difficult to not only feel it but admit it as well. Aeryn's story evolved with Crichton's; that was the plan from the very beginning of the series, as soon as the producers saw the chemistry between Claudia Black and Ben Browder.
Farscape
was always a love story; David Kemper never denied it. But it sure could be an exasperating one!

1.
Here is one example of the difference between the sexes (see my essay on relationships in this collection). I was rather disturbed that Crichton would have sex with Jena considering his feelings for Aeryn. Ben Browder also expressed surprise at the fans' non-reaction to the event. He expected more of them to feel like I did. My spouse, on the other hand, blamed Aeryn and said if she had not treated John so badly, he would not have looked for “solace” elsewhere. Chiana said pretty much the same thing to Aeryn, only she made the statement with respect to Crichton's marriage to the Princess Katralla. I do not think that Aeryn knows about Jena.

2.
Aeryn gives one twin a green shirt and the other a black shirt in order to tell them apart. It is very fitting that one wear a green shirt (see Carty's essay on Ben Browder as a writer in this collection). Black is also meant to signal a darker Crichton, one who is skirting closer and closer to making very difficult choices, such as who will live and who will die (DVD commentary “Back”).

3.
Nadine Farghaly, in her unpublished essay “On How to Overcome Non-Functional Attachments Bonds in Outer Space,” proposes that part of Aeryn's problem is that she never developed a secure attachment to a primary caregiver during her first year of life. One would expect this to be true to all Peacekeepers who are bred to fill the ranks using controlled breeding.

“Back and Back and Back to the Future.” DVD commentary by Rowan Woods (Director) and Babs Greyhoskey (Writer).

“The Locket.” DVD Commentary by Ben Browder (John Crichton) and Claudia Black (Aeryn Sun).

“I am Curious ... Maddie.” Dir. Allan Arkush. Writ. Glenn Gordon Caron.
Moonlighting
. Perf. Cybill Shepherd, Bruce Willis. ABC, Burbank, 31 March 1987, Television.

“The Aurora Chair (Interview with David Kemper).”
Farscape: The Official Magazine
2 (2001 Sept./Oct.): 20–24.

Ensley F. Guffey

Throughout the various incarnations of
Farscape
, an impressive array of character quirks and pop culture references are used to firmly encode John Crichton as a late twentieth and early twenty-first century American male. Among fans of the series, one of the most beloved of these cultural conceits is “Winona,” Crichton's favorite pulse pistol. First revealed late in the second season of
Farscape
(“A Clockwork Nebari” 2.18), Winona, and Crichton's preference for “her” over other weapons, quickly becomes a regular feature of the series throughout the succeeding two seasons,
The Peacekeeper Wars
(
PKW
) mini-series, and Boom! Studios'
Farscape
comic book series. No other character in the series gives a name to their personal weapon, making Crichton's choice to do so yet another marker of his humanity.
¹

Crichton is not the only character in American popular culture to give his weapon a woman's name. Other examples include Jayne Cobb's rifle “Vera” in Joss Whedon's
Firefly
and Jack's knife “Katie” in the
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
episode “The Zeppo” (3.13). The most famous example of naming firearms occurs in Stanley Kubrick's
Full Metal Jacket
(1987) when the film's Vietnam-era Marine recruits are ordered to give their M14 rifles “a girl's name, because this is the only pussy you people are going to get!” Leon Uris' novel
Battle Cry
, based upon his experiences as a Marine in World War II, also mentions this female gendering of a Marine's rifle as Platoon Sergeant Beller tells his recruits about their newly issued M-1903 rifles:

You've got yourselves a new girl now. Forget that broad back home! This girl is the most faithful truest woman in the world if you give her a fair shake. She won't sleep with no swab jockeys the minute your back is turned. Keep her clean and she'll save your life [48].

Indeed, naming firearms has become such a well-known trope in American popular culture that it is often satirized. In
The United States of Tara
, Tara's male personality Buck calls his gun “Persephone,” while Steven Colbert sometimes talks to a revolver named “Sweetness.” The
Scrubs
episode “Our Drunk Friend” includes a tranquilizer rifle named “Megan Fox” (9.02), and
Mystery Science Theater 3000'
s Tom Servo appears with a gun he names “Lucille” in “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” (8.09).

Popular culture, however, does not exist in a vacuum, and the naming of weapons, particularly of males giving weapons female names, is deeply rooted in history. In fact, the English word “gun” is likely derived from the Old Norse female name
Gunnhildr
, a combination of two words which both mean “war” (Wilton). As early as 1330 C.E., a munitions inventory of Windsor Castle listed a siege weapon called “
Domina Gunilda
” or Lady Gunilda (Wilton). During the First World War, Germany deployed two 420mm (16.54 inch) howitzers called
Dicke Bertha
or Big (Fat) Berthas, which were used to destroy concrete fortifications in Belgium and on the Russian Front (Rembrella Ltd.). During the Second World War, the
Wehrmacht
deployed two massive, 8000mm (315 inch) railway guns, one of which was named Dora and used in the bombardment of Stalingrad in 1942 (Stilley). On the other side of the coin, the Soviet Red Army deployed their own, much more mobile and widely used
Katyusha
(Little Kate) rocket artillery to devastating effect throughout the war, including in the destruction of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad (Merridale 179). Not to be left out, the U.S. Army's 280mm (11 inch) M65 cannon, purpose built to be able to fire atomic as well as conventional shells, was quickly dubbed “Atomic Annie” and deployed in Western Europe from 1952 to 1963 (“M65 Atomic Cannon”).