Thread by @SoFarscape

In our review of #Farscape episode 108 (That Old Black Magic) it occurred to us what a riot of colours, both to suggest that Maldis’ world is far larger than the fantastic sets on which it was filmed, and to illustrate the emotional journey Crichton and Crais take.

First, blue:

Perhaps paralelling the cool tones of the PK Command Carrier, the food-festooned hall of Haloth’s palace is lit in a cool and mysterious teal-blue. It feels like moonlight, or an underwater scene.

Next is green, when Crais and Crichton are pitted against each other for the first time. Maldis looks entirely at home here.

From a brief glimpse of an ochre-lit space, where Crais stalks the human, they meet again around the fire-pit where Crichton succeeds in appealing to Crais’s reason — until Maldis picks at the scabs of the conscript’s childhood trauma, and the fresh wound of his brother’s death.

Maldis’ plan comes to fruition under magenta light — a magical colour, because famously magenta “doesn’t exist”. It doesn’t have a wavelength, sitting “between” low-frequency red and high-frequency violet.

Two extremes smashed together in the mind… sound familiar?

Which brings us back to blue. Full circle, back in the banquet hall with those tempting profiterol towers, back under that aquatic, lunar light. Maldis has won and, true to his word, he aims to claim John’s life as his prize.

But someone has other ideas…

Blue is Zhaan’s element. Tough beans, Maldis!

And if your eyes need a rest from this visual feast, you can treat your ears to the latest episode of So Farscape, where we discuss this masterful episode in far more detail, and with far fewer GIFs :)

sofarscape.com/episode/108