Small rant to get off my chest before I either go to sleep or do something constructive. Earl sent me a copy of The Anthology at the End of the Universe, a Benbella “Smart Pop” book devoted to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Books. I found the book kind of uneven, but I don’t want to do a full-blown review here. There’s one essay, though, that I have not been able to get out of my head, and I would like to exorcise the ghost here. Susan Sizemore writes the only really negative essay about Adams, called “You Can’t Go Home Again – Damn It! Even If Your Planet Hasn’t Been Blown Up By Vogons.” Sizemore basically reports that when she was doing research for her essay in the book, she discovered she didn’t like any of the Hitchhiker stuff anymore, but she had already agreed to write an essay, so she was stuck talking about all the things she no longer liked. At one point she brings up subsequent stories that she thinks have explored the same material as Adams, only better. I’m not sure I agree with many of her points, but I didn’t come skidding to a mental halt until I read on page 116:
Then there’s Farscape. When this show whips an everyman from Earth onto an alien spaceship, they make him far funnier and tougher than Arthur Dent and his adventures far more relevant.
There is no small bit of irony here, since one of John Crichton’s pop culture references is the line I used to title this post and because Hitchhiker actor Mark Wing-Davey was one of Ben Browder’s acting instructors. More to the point, and I say this as a big fan of Farscape and Ben Browder, but calling John Crichton an everyman suggests that most of us are seriously underachieving.
For starters, Crichton gets flung through space in the first place because he’s a test pilot. Test pilots are pretty mythologized figures, certainly not considered your average folks. But just being a test pilot isn’t enough for ol’ John. He designed the spaceship that he’s test flying, because he has a Ph.D. in Theoretical Sciences. (Man, I never see that department in the college brochures.) He’s such a smart, stand-up guy that he impresses a wise alien, who then plants super-secret information in his head such that John Crichton becomes the target of multiple interstellar empires.
All of which eventually drives Crichton just about as stark raving bonkers as Arthur Dent chasing a sofa, but anyway.
The point is, Crichton’s not an everyman. Crichton’s a hero, one of the best and the brightest, just waiting for the circumstances to test him and reveal his potential. Arthur Dent is just a guy who got up one morning. Much as I wish most of us were Crichton, I tend to think we’re a lot more like Arthur.
On the other hand, Arthur does learn to fly. So it’s not all bad.