The Mezzanine

I was discussing Love Actually with my friends, and someone mentioned that the relationship involving Keira Knightley is extremely problematic.

I said, "Yep. But it's one of my favourite stories in the movie."

Everyone stared.

"Why?" they asked. "It's all so… unhealthy."

"EXACTLY," I said.



Because, honestly, my love for fictional relationships has little to do with how healthy I think that relationship would be in real life. If anything, the reverse is true.

Are you a soulless vampire, desperate to stake/screw/destroy the disgustingly soulled vampire lover who you simultaneously adore and despise? I will ship that.

Are you desperately, sort-of secretly, in love with a woman who you keep on calling a "whore", while she insults your job, your skills, and your personal hygiene any chance she gets? I will ship that.

Are you fighting an intergalactic war against your nemesis, father of your daughter, whom you are openly ordering killed while secretly arranging for him to slip through your fingers? I will ship that.

Are you terrified of your wife leaving you, and have arranged a fake pregnancy so that she will stay? Or have you discovered the whole fake-pregnancy thing and are secretly plotting your husband's downfall, while still pretending everything's fine? I will ship that.

Are you utterly devoted to your commanding officer, and following his every order, especially the ones about tying him up, humiliating him, kicking him, and making him lick your shoes? I will ship that.

Are you having fight scenes that somehow morph into sex scenes, where you keep wanting to hurt each other but also can't stay away? I will absolutely ship that.



Healthy relationships are great. They're also – for me – kinda boring to watch. Give me the problematic weirdness any day.

I'm so impressed by the way John/Aeryn is written. In every way, really, but right now specifically the way it's done in Look At The Princess.

You see, there's sex, and then there's romance.

John has no problem with sex. And no problem with romance.

Aeryn has no problem with sex. And HUGE ISSUES with romance.

Sex isn't really an issue for them at the moment. (They've already had sex - months ago.) But now their relationship is starting to get seriously romantic. And Aeryn is freaking out.

So, what does she do? She accuses John of being too hormonal, and only after sex.

What does John do? He retaliates by going after Chiana (in front of Aeryn, purely to annoy her) and then kissing every woman he can find.


So...

Aeryn is yelling "You only care about sex!" And John is yelling straight back "You're right! I only care about sex!" AND IT'S ALL BECAUSE JOHN WANTS THINGS TO BE ROMANTIC.



It's beautifully written. And superbly acted. Because it's quite apparent what's going on, but it's never said. If you took their relationship at face value, you'd think the problem was that John was only interested in sex...

In the Farscape episode Different Destinations, when they've gone back in time at the peace memorial, and Harvey is wearing cowboy boots and playing Home on the Range on the harmonica (yes, this all makes perfect sense in context), his cowboy boots have "ANDY" written on the soles.

Because Crichton is a wonderful human being who apparently loves Toy Story.

Can't believe I never saw that before...

...just because.


Buffy

- Spike's arrival.

Because suddenly vampires were not angsty gothic people, but would make ridiculous comments about Woodstock and then go watch telly.


And way before that...
- "They can fly??" "They can drive."

It was just so mundane and common-sense-y.


Farscape

- Crichton's first week in space:
"Get a tractor beam on that shuttle!"
"Tractor beam? What's that?"
"Graviton field. Attracto ray. Superglue. Whatever it is that you yanked me aboard with."
"You mean the docking web?"
"Yeah! Fine! Use it on the shuttle!"

Star Trek really has done a lot for us. Because, despite the fact that none of us have ever seen one in action, anyone who's watched even the slightest bit of television would recognise the draggy laser thing as a "tractor beam".
I loved that Crichton's space-vocabulary was completely different from everyone else's.


Also...
- Frag-cannons.
Specifically, the fact that Crichton reacts to the name "frag-cannons" by grinning and looking around to see who else has noticed the silly; and meanwhile, everyone else it taking it totally seriously because OH NOES THE FRAG CANNONS!


Doctor Who

- "Wait! The Prime Minister's an alien! ...nah, that's never going to work, is it?"

Most shows would have either had him continually insisting that the PM was an alien, with an aggrieved why-does-no-one-believe-me air, or else had him try to conceal it from the get-go. This one made a nice change.


Leverage

- Parker's origin story. With her blowing up her foster family's house to get her soft toy back.
AND IT WAS ALL CUTE AND EVERYTHING.

Still on the subject of Farscape as the anti-Trek...

Crichton comes from a world of Star Trek, Aliens, and E.T. He starts by approaching life in exactly that way.

There are a whole bunch of humanoid aliens: he will smile and say hello; the Peacekeepers are humans in uniforms: they are clearly Star Trekky and will help him; D'Argo is weird and has tentacles: maybe he'll want to eat him; Aeryn is a pretty human: clearly she'll be friendly and nice.

He spends the whole episode operating under those assumptions, and then stumbling around in bewilderment when nothing he does is working...

It's...

( Farscape )

________________

Master List
________________