setsuled

25 years ago, Farscape was born. One of the greatest space opera franchises of all time, it combined top notch art design, Jim Henson creatures, brilliant actors, and even smarter scripts. It was so good, it inspired James Gunn to make the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. If you haven't seen this series, you should jump on this opportunity.

The 25th anniversary stream, hosted by the official Farscape YouTube channel, is one of two continuous marathons of the entire series on YouTube. The other is hosted by Shout! Studios:

Watch on YouTube

Both streams seem to be on season 4, episode 4, as I write this. If you prefer to start at the beginning, Shout! also has the premiere episode available for free on YouTube:

Watch on YouTube

The Farscape channel has the first five full episodes of season one as well as the first four of season four. If you're feeling let down by Star Wars and Star Trek these days, Farscape is an antidote I heartily recommend. It's classic serial, seat of your pants, storytelling. It's a true Flash Gordon for the 21st century with some of the smartest scripts by David Kemper (Star Trek: TNG), Naren Shankar (Star Trek: TNG, The Expanse), and Rockne S. O'Bannon (Seaquest DSV) of each of those writers' careers. It's dark, it's funny, it's sexy, it's immensely satisfying. WATCH IT.

X Sonnet #1867

Engrossing lamps prepared the mind for streams.
Aggressive rivers laid the bed for eyes.
Aromas cooked for men derail their dreams.
However, ev'ryone would like some pies.
Disturbing towers spit the nuns afield.
Aggressive dreamers push the dead to kill.
Above the rain, the air compels a yield.
Oppressive mists distort the sister's will.
Returning print presents a sleepy son.
Authentic dames redeem the picture book.
Impressive slugs consider sleep as fun.
It takes a hill of gold to make a hook.
Concussive thoughts subdue the forward flow.
Beyond the garden wall, the flowers grow.

Current Mood: hot
Current Location: Some distant part of the galaxy
Current Music: "A Duras Penas (En Vivo)" - Vincente Fernandez

Farscape, a Science Fiction series that began as a story about misfits, finding a way to live in a hostile galaxy, concludes with a story about choosing mass destruction over perpetual war. For the most part, the strokes are too broad for this war story to really work but there are still enough moments for characters to provide the Farscape fan with a bittersweet farewell.

The Peacekeeper Wars, Part II

Very quickly, many plot elements from Part I are resolved as our heroes escape from Scarran imprisonment, the baby is transferred from Rygel (Jonathan Hardy) back to Aeryn (Claudia Black), and D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) and Chiana (Gigi Edgley) return from their apparent deaths along with a team of Luxan commandos headed by none other than D'Argo's son, Jothee, now played by Nathaniel Dean, taking over the role from Matt Newton.

Jothee's former internal conflict about his identity as a Luxan, something that fit well in with the series' general theme of misfits, is totally absent as we find the young man now fully integrated with Luxan culture. The rocky love triangle between D'Argo, Jothee, and Chiana, which dealt with the blurred lines of a family dichotomy, are only briefly touched on here. Instead, we mainly see exchanges between D'Argo and Jothee that resolve their relationship to a seemingly comfortable father and son rapport. Chiana's feelings for Jothee are never discussed, the simplification all apparently being in the interest of bidding D'Argo an uncomplicated farewell when he dies heroically near the end.

Ben Browder and Anthony Simcoe maintain an entertaining chemistry and the two busting balls a little bit while D'Argo's dying does bring a smile to my face. I never really liked the idea of D'Argo and Chiana as a couple though it might have been entertaining to see their plans to become farmers on Hyneria meet with catastrophe. I'd love to see a story about D'Argo getting furious after discovering Chiana's developed a taste for frelling Hynerians.

But I was really disappointed by the conclusion of the relationship between Scorpius (Wayne Pygram) and Sikozu (Raelee Hill). When Scorpius unmasks her as the spy, he has one line where he laments she has ruined something "unique". But despite Sikozu's history with the other characters, particularly Crichton, we never get any hint of internal conflict in her nor are any of the other characters shown reacting to the revelation of her betrayal. That's the kind of thing that should have been the meat of the episode, that would have been in the first three seasons.

Crichton's decision to finally use the wormhole weapon gives the series finale an appropriately spectacular note but one can't help remembering that this very thing was the climax of season three and, in that case, the show did a much better job of trying it to character motives--the Scarrans had to be stopped and suddenly twin Crichton sees his life as not amounting to a hill of beans. In Peacekeeper Wars, the need to forge peace between the Peacekeepers and the Scarrans is never as strongly established. Like many other genre series--as I complained constantly about with Game of Thrones--getting a glimpse of the average civilians affected by the ongoing conflict might have been helpful. Weren't the Peacekeepers supposed to be an evil empire and the Scarrans ruthless killers? I kind of feel like the Yojimbo solution might have been more reasonable. As it is, it's still not clear that Crichton destroying a planet was the best idea.

I'm still not crazy about the pregnancy plot but it is great watching Ben Browder and Claudia Black together. Browder musters his madness wonderfully for one last time, too, and the sight of him stumbling about, bleeding from the head while arguing about his lousy position in life captures one of the essential aspects of the series.

So that's it, for now. There are canon comics which I haven't read. There's always the potential for the show to return, too. When I spoke to Gigi Edgley last year, she seemed certain it would. I find myself hoping she's right.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Prefect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealised Reality
Episode 12: Kansas
Episode 13: Terra Firma
Episode 14: Twice Shy
Episode 15: Mental as Anything
Episode 16: Bringing Home the Beacon
Episode 17: A Constellation of Doubt
Episode 18: Prayer
Episode 19: We're So Screwed: Fetal Attraction
Episode 20: We're So Screwed, Part II: Hot to Katratzi
Episode 21: We're So Screwed, Part III: La Bomba
Episode 22: Bad Timing

The Peacekeeper Wars

Part I

Current Mood: hungry
Current Location: Space
Current Music: "My Time" - The Psychedelic Furs

Two years after Farscape abruptly concluded its fourth and final season, a pair of TV movies aired, the result of fervent demands from disappointed fans. The miniseries is essentially a condensed version of what the showrunners had planned for an unmade fifth season. It bears many of the problems in terms of story and character that cropped up in season four but it's still great to revisit the wonderful locations and effects and to enjoy the performances of a terrific ensemble cast.

The Peacekeeper Wars, Part I

We meet up with Dominar Rygel (Jonathan Hardy) showing off his heretofore unseen swimming prowess as he gobbles up pieces of a "crystalised" Crichton (Ben Browder) and Aeryn (Claudia Black) off the ocean floor. So, of course, the pair weren't really killed. This solution to what had looked like a permanent problem results in the amusing development of Rygel's body taking custody of Aeryn's foetus.

This is discovered by none other than Grunchlk (Hugh Keays-Byrne), one of the more memorable characters from the series' history who makes his first appearance since the beginning of the third season. No explanation is given for his surviving what looked like death back in season three but we can forgive this oversight when we have the man delivering lines like, "If there was a little passenger before, it ain't aboard the train no more."

Less forgivable are some of the ongoing problems resulting from pushes to get characters from point A to B without much concern for how they do so. Why does it make sense for Scorpius (Wayne Pygram) to abandon his command of a Peacekeeper armada to travel as a refugee aboard Moya again just because Crichton is alive again? Crichton was alive when Scorpius last left Moya, after all.

When D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) talks briefly to Aeryn about her baby during a gunfight, she tells him that Crichton wants the baby so bad that she's trying to want it too for his sake. It seems kind of late in the game to give her character this motive. It might also put a complicating light on the torture she underwent in the previous season if the show ever bothered to portray any lasting psychological effects from the experience in Aeryn's behaviour or in the way others treat her.

The plot about the war between Scarrans and Peacekeepers continues to get hazier, especially when a deus ex machina McGuffin is introduced in the form of a sentient race capable of influencing warring factions into pursuing peace.

Jool (Tammy MacIntosh is briefly returned in order to wear an unexplained cave girl outfit and sexily straddle and smooch Crichton--which is nice though one wonders what happened to her yen for D'Argo. She doesn't last long in any case, being obliterated with the Eidelons by a "precaution" missile courtesy of the Scarrans.

Stark (Paul Goddard) and the last survivor of the Eidelons (Ron Haddrick) confer about the psychology of Scarrans as though this factors into the peace negotiation technique but it still seems more like mind control as a disappointing shortcut for the development of relationships. Which is too bad because the Scarrans remain intriguing with fantastic makeup and costumes.

Even if their makeup, and Scorpius', looks oddly more artificial than it did in season four. I'm not sure if it's the makeup or something to do with the cameras but their faces look a bit more like masks, thicker and shinier.

I find I like Sikozu's (Raelee Hill) costume redesign a lot more now than I did the first time I watched the miniseries.

I was happy she had at least one moment talking about her relationship with Scorpius that explores her tendency to see other beings only in terms of whether they're inferior or superior.

The apparent deaths of Chiana (Gigi Edgley) and D'Argo at the hands of Ahkna (Francesca Buller) is a nice, surprising plot development though their escape is attained by the disappointingly improbable means of D'Argo somehow pulling both himself and Chiana unharmed from the explosion of his craft and floating in space, keeping Chiana alive with his own breath.

Crichton's decision to bring Staleek (Duncan Young) into the wormhole feels a little like a repeat of Crichton bringing Scorpius into a wormhole but the confrontation between Einstein (John Bach) and the Emperor is kind of neat. I liked that the situation actually seemed to compel the emperor to see reason, a much more effective development than the quick fix of the Eidelons.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Prefect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealised Reality
Episode 12: Kansas
Episode 13: Terra Firma
Episode 14: Twice Shy
Episode 15: Mental as Anything
Episode 16: Bringing Home the Beacon
Episode 17: A Constellation of Doubt
Episode 18: Prayer
Episode 19: We're So Screwed: Fetal Attraction
Episode 20: We're So Screwed, Part II: Hot to Katratzi
Episode 21: We're So Screwed, Part III: La Bomba
Episode 22: Bad Timing

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: The uncharted territories
Current Music: "The Passage of the Marshes" The Two Towers OST - Howard Shore

So here we are, the infamously premature final episode of Farscape. In some ways, a decent enough episode that returns to some aspects of the show largely absent from the fourth season, but, at the same time, it feels oddly rushed in places and some characters make oddly abrupt decisions.

Season Four, Episode Twenty Two: Bad Timing

Having accidentally mentioned birds of paradise are plentiful on Earth, Crichton (Ben Browder) now has to race against the Scarrans, who ingest the plant to prevent themselves from intellectually devolving. Who'd have thought birds of paradise would be so hard to synthesise.

But the episode begins with Scorpius (Wayne Pygram) and Sikozu (Raelee Hill) being expelled from Moya because Braca (David Franklin) has shown up with the Peacekeeper command carrier he's seized from Grayza. This leads to a couple sweet moments between Scorpius and Sikozu dining on the big Peacekeeper ship.

There's no time for Grayza to appear in this episode, though, or for Stark (Paul Goddard) to comment on Scorpius being there in the first place. Stark feels very hastily written in the episode as Pilot's (Lani Tupu) helper. I sense a lot of hasty rewriting was going on--it made sense when he was torturing Scorpius, it made no sense that he was a bioloid. Why would the Scarrans bother making a bioloid of Stark anyway?

The episode doesn't even have time to show Pilot in a transport pod navigating a wormhole, having been temporarily removed from Moya to perform a risky wormhole popping stunt Crichton has contrived. But we do get the nice scene of Crichton on the moon, bidding farewell to his father.

More bittersweet is Crichton and Aeryn (Claudia Black) on the boat, meeting what looks like their ultimate fate at the hands of a very impressive animatronic alien.

The episode also features Chiana (Gigi Edgley) finally using her power vision again, though, sadly, it's to be rendered permanently (for now) blind.

Fortunately, this isn't, of course, really the end of the series. A miniseries, The Peacekeeper Wars, follows. It is the end of the fourth season, in many ways the most generic season of the series. The relationship plot between Crichton and Aeryn revolves around her pregnancy and the identity of the father, the kind of story that would seem more at home on a soap opera. And it's delivered unevenly, from the traumatic and serious events around Aeryn's capture and torture, to the coy evasions of the subject in some scenes. The makeup and effects, however, are certainly at their strongest with the Scarrans in particular benefiting from redesigns in both wardrobe and makeup. Lacking the absorbing drama of season three and the adventurousness of the first two seasons, it's still pretty frelling good.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Prefect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealised Reality
Episode 12: Kansas
Episode 13: Terra Firma
Episode 14: Twice Shy
Episode 15: Mental as Anything
Episode 16: Bringing Home the Beacon
Episode 17: A Constellation of Doubt
Episode 18: Prayer
Episode 19: We're So Screwed: Fetal Attraction
Episode 20: We're So Screwed, Part II: Hot to Katratzi
Episode 21: We're So Screwed, Part III: La Bomba

Current Mood: hungry
Current Location: Moya
Current Music: "Strike Up the Band" - Ella Fitzgerald

Flowers are deadly serious business on Farscape, especially when there's a nuclear bomb involved.

Season Four, Episode Twenty One: We're So Screwed, Part III: La Bomba

Negotiations inevitably fall apart once again and our heroes are forced to improvise complicated plans as they go along. Things really go south when the sensor Crichton (Ben Browder) rigged for his nuke belt stops working, taking all his leverage with it.

Both he and Aeryn (Claudia Black) seem strangely withdrawn in this episode. I suspect this was intentional, maybe a comment on the inevitable emotional fatigue that may occur after years and years of torture and harrowing escapes. Still, especially in Claudia Black's case, I can't help just feeling like the actors are checked out. I wonder if it was related to any offscreen drama.

Everyone else seems very alive--Chiana (Gigi Edgeley), D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe), and Rygel (Jonathan Hardy) are all as crazy and/or irascible as ever. But their parts are small--most of the episode's actual drama involves the power plays among Scarrans and Peacekeepers.

The Scarrans are certainly a wonder to behold. The Emperor (Duncan Young) actually navigating between benevolence and threats when dealing with Crichton comes off as genuinely smart. The rivalry between Ahkna (Francesca Buller) and Janek (Jason Clark) is amusing.

And, meanwhile, Braca (David Franklin) relieves Grayza (Rebecca Riggs) of duty, citing her mental instability and not her dress code. I do miss the time when a character on a tv show could show that much cleavage for no particular reason.

Really, though, it's a fair cop; Grayza was going to force the whole crew to join her in a suicide mission.

We also learn a little more about Sikozu (Raelee Hill) in this episode and her involvement with a strange resistance group. It's too bad this is only one episode away from the end of the series--I would have liked to have seen her relationship with Scorpius (Wayne Pygram) play out properly.

The Stark (Paul Goddard) who tortured Scorpius is revealed in this episode to in fact be a bioloid. Noranti (Melissa Jaffer) and Rygel (Jonathan Hardy) rescue the real Stark. I don't quite see why the real Stark couldn't have tortured Scorpius.

All in all, a good episode but, again, not quite reaching the highs of pre-season four episodes.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Prefect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealised Reality
Episode 12: Kansas
Episode 13: Terra Firma
Episode 14: Twice Shy
Episode 15: Mental as Anything
Episode 16: Bringing Home the Beacon
Episode 17: A Constellation of Doubt
Episode 18: Prayer
Episode 19: We're So Screwed: Fetal Attraction
Episode 20: We're So Screwed, Part II: Hot to Katratzi

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: An asteroid
Current Music: "Yojimbo Main Title" - Masaru Sato

It's time for Crichton to put his boots right on the Scarran dinner table as Farscape adds a new wrinkle to its cold war plot. Now Crichton wants to get paid. Or so he says.

Season Four, Episode Twenty: We're So Screwed, Part II: Hot to Katratzi

Why not "We're So Frelled"? It could be my imagination but it seems like there's less of the alien slang at this point in the series, which is a bit disappointing. A more noticeable disappointment is Aeryn (Claudia Black) being completely recovered from her incarceration and torture.

The little waltz she and Crichton (Ben Browder) have on an elevator is sweet but I kept thinking--this woman just had four giant spikes in her pregnant belly. Surely that should have some kind of lingering impact, if not physical at least psychological. Okay, you could say Aeryn just happens to be really strong. But one of the great things about the show is how the lasting effects of severe trauma manifest in Crichton's personality. Why pass up a similar opportunity for storytelling with Aeryn? Remember how great Claudia Black was in "Choices" in season three, when Aeryn was dealing with the trauma of losing the other Crichton?

Sure, "Hot to Katratzi" is fun. It is fun watching Crichton play chicken with a nuclear bomb. The Scarran puppetry and makeup effects are fantastic, too. And I do like the return of Stark (Paul Goddard), torturing Scorpius (Wayne Pygram), and I found Scorpius being a frustrating masochist about it even more amusing. But mostly these episodes feel like just an echo of the great "Liars, Guns, and Money" three parter.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Prefect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealised Reality
Episode 12: Kansas
Episode 13: Terra Firma
Episode 14: Twice Shy
Episode 15: Mental as Anything
Episode 16: Bringing Home the Beacon
Episode 17: A Constellation of Doubt
Episode 18: Prayer
Episode 19: We're So Screwed: Fetal Attraction

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Katratzi
Current Music: "Ana Luiza" - Antonio Carlos Jobim

It's a quarantine lockdown on Farscape on a Scarran space station in a plot that finally makes something more of Noranti than a walking gag.

Season Four, Episode Nineteen: We're So Screwed, Part 1: Fetal Attraction

We have a chance to meet more Kalish, Sikozu's (Raelee Hill) people who are subjugated by the Scarrans and running the border station on which the episode takes place.

When it turns out the ship carrying Aeryn (Claudia Black) is about to leave in thirty minutes, Noranti (Melissa Jaffer) hastily concocts a strategy that involves provoking a relapse of a highly contagious disease Rygel (Jonathan Hardy) had at some point in the past, when he was Dominar. This buys some time as the station administrator is forced to call a lockdown, detaining the Scarran ship. Since Kalish and Sebaceans aren't immune to the disease, Noranti has to work quickly to cure Rygel.

Melissa Jaffer is a good actress--she'd been on the show previously as a dying Luxan in season two and she would go on to have a small role in Mad Max: Fury Road--so it's good to see Noranti being more than the omniscient, mysterious healer or the old lady who likes to gross out the young people. You can see her frantic as she tries to hold onto her identity as the mystic with all the answers, fronting a confidence as she digs through herbs and potions. Inevitably she has to face the fact that her solution for saving Aeryn results in the deaths of uninvolved Kalish and Sebaceans.

It also gives Rygel an all too rare moment to reflect on his time as a Dominar in a way that shows him as more than caricature. As a ruler, he too, had to make decisions which would inevitably cause people to die with never any certainty that an alternative wouldn't be better. But Rygel concludes by saying, "Welcome to Moya" and, indeed, one of the nice things about Farscape is that it doesn't shy away from putting its characters in difficult positions.

Physical as well as philosophical. Poor Aeryn endures more in season four than in the other three seasons put together. I suppose she hasn't quite caught up to all of the involuntary surgery and mind rape Crichton (Ben Browder) has been subjected to, though. Not the kind of competition you want to win.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Prefect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealised Reality
Episode 12: Kansas
Episode 13: Terra Firma
Episode 14: Twice Shy
Episode 15: Mental as Anything
Episode 16: Bringing Home the Beacon
Episode 17: A Constellation of Doubt
Episode 18: Prayer

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Scarran Space
Current Music: "Un Amico" - Ennio Morricone

Farscape dips its toe into the realm of torture porn for a particularly cruel episode. Certainly it's one that affirms the severity of the threats facing the crew of Moya, even when those threats come from among their own ranks.

Season Four, Episode Eighteen: Prayer

We join Aeryn (Claudia Black), held captive by the Scarrans, and apparently talking to herself. She explains how the Sebaceans once had a deity, a sadistic or uncaring goddess, whom Aeryn, in her desperation, now resorts to praying to. One can hardly blame her when she's placed in what looks even more like a gynaecological exam chair than the one from the season two episode "The Ugly Truth".

Claudia Black is quoted by the Farscape wiki as saying it reminded her of something from Dead Ringers, David Cronenberg's movie about deranged twin gynaecologists played by Jeremy Irons. That movie also concerns pregnancy though it indulges in no scene as explicit as the one in "Prayer" where a Scarran heat ray visits a slow and painful death on a foetus.

This was censored in U.K. broadcasts. Speaking as someone who doesn't believe in the usefulness of trigger warnings and who enjoys Eli Roth movies I don't personally object to the content though I find it amusing that, according to the Wiki, David Kemper and production staff felt better about the scene because it's later revealed to be a sham. It was staged to coerce Aeryn into believing her fellow inmate is not a spy. This is surely a rarefied trick of the mind. Regardless of whether Morrock (Sacha Horler) was really pregnant or not within the confines of the story, the violent late term abortion is of course fake. It's a TV show and the foetus is a puppet and any trauma or moral offence incurred seems unlikely to be mollified when the fake violence is revealed much later in the episode to be fake fake violence.

Meanwhile, Crichton (Ben Browder) and Scorpius (Wayne Pygram) are on a mission that's more Saw than Hostel, visiting an alternate reality where they find they must kill alternate versions of Moya's crew in order to find a clue to Aeryn's location. John knows the timeline is fixed, that these people are going to die anyway, but the episode is ambiguous enough on this detail to present a conundrum more thought provoking than the shallow torture puzzle of Saw (I like the Hostel movies much better). It's also great seeing Raelee Hill playing the Stark/Sikozu amalgam. She does a pretty good job imitating the real Stark's mannerisms and ticks.

The episode reminds the viewer of the brutal and unforgiving nature of the galaxy on Farscape. For Aeryn's story, in which she prays Crichton will come and rescue her, it ironically links a more traditional story form--the hero rescuing the damsel in distress--with forsaking religion. In this, there's an interesting echo of "John Quixote" earlier in the season. One wonders if this was part of a planned overall theme for the fourth season from the beginning.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Prefect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealised Reality
Episode 12: Kansas
Episode 13: Terra Firma
Episode 14: Twice Shy
Episode 15: Mental as Anything
Episode 16: Bringing Home the Beacon
Episode 17: A Constellation of Doubt

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: A cell
Current Music: "Standing in the Doorway" - Bob Dylan

After Aeryn's been kidnapped by the Scarrans on Farscape, Crichton tries to piece together her location from one clue, a single Scarran word, "Katratzi". In the process, he obsessively watches a documentary from Earth about his alien friends.

Season Four, Episode Seventeen: A Constellation of Doubt

David Kemper writes a more thoughtful episode about Moya's crew on Earth than "Terra Firma". The interviews depicted in the documentary having been conducted partly by John's (Ben Browder) nephew Bobby (Joshua Anderson) during the events of "Terra Firma". Aeryn (Claudia Black) is also interviewed by an amusing 90s style tabloid TV host (Nick Tate).

We also see a series of experts commenting on the aliens, including one played by David Kemper and another by Brian Henson.

Some of the opinions shared are a little cliche or dated, like Noranti's (Melissa Jaffer) opinion on religious zealots or the depiction of a Buddhist monk being more understanding of Chiana's (Gigi Edgley) frank sexuality than a Catholic bishop. But parts of the episode focusing on the casual alienness of the aliens, particularly Chiana, are sweet.

Though I find it hard to believe Chiana has no concept of makeup. Maybe Nebari don't wear makeup but I can't believe everyone she encounters on this colourful series is supposed to have only their natural pigmentation. But Edgley does a great job with the scene, which, according to the wiki, she believed to be her last for the series. Scenes featuring D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) focus on Earth's military inferiority, providing an interesting contrast with Chiana's alien vulnerability.

Current Mood: groggy
Current Location: Earth
Current Music: "Chimes of Freedom" - Bob Dylan

The second of Farscape's gender team episodes catches up with the ladies on their shopping trip to a budget mandated dead Leviathan. Redressing Moya's sets for the location was probably a necessary measure with so much money clearly having been spent on makeup and costume, a category in which this episode is certainly impressive.

Season Four, Episode Sixteen: Bringing Home the Beacon

Francesca Buller, wife of Ben Browder, returns once again, once again playing a different character. This time she's the memorable Scarran military leader Ahkna, though her outfit suggests something more like Dominatrix Queen. In fact, according to the Wiki, she wore thigh-high boots with two-inch stiletto heels from Sydney's House of Fetish. A pity you can't see her legs in any shot!

A few shots of her from the waist up are the best we get from director Rowan Woods whose tendency to overuse close-ups is sadly in evidence again. But Ahkna's secret meeting with Grayza (Rebecca Riggs) is still pretty cool. We're permitted to watch the two trying to out-dom each other gracefully while negotiating intergalactic politics.

Aeryn (Claudia Black) and Sikozu (Raelee Hill) watch from the rafters, the two pragmatists making a nice team. Meanwhile, Chiana (Gigi Edgley) and Noranti (Melissa Jaffer) are dealing with the two locals they made a deal with for a sensor scrambler of some kind for Moya. Again, the makeup budget is on display when Chiana and Noranti get genetically modified to go incognito.

Chiana looks a bit like she did in "Taking the Stone" while Noranti looks kind of like a caricature of Casey Kasem. Of course they make out at one point to throw off pursuers. Noranti has a lot of business about making drugs from spit and Chiana kisses people to get what she wants. That can be fun but I wish this season had more for Chiana to do. Another episode exploring Nebari culture would have been nice and certainly a few exploring Chiana's character, like "Taking the Stone", would have been a big plus. I think back also to episodes like "My Three Crichtons" or the first part of season three that explored her free sexuality for intelligent and emotional stories. The throwaway gags are fun but there could be so much more to Chiana.

Unlike "Mental as Anything", this episode doesn't completely devote itself to one half of the crew. The male characters return for the last ten minutes and Crichton (Ben Browder) has time to solve a problem with his trademark craziness--a pretty sensible reaction when it turns out Aeryn isn't who she appears to be. It turns out she's a bioloid created by the Scarrans in what appears to be a big taupe vagina. Appropriate, I suppose.

Current Mood: groggy
Current Location: Another Leviathan
Current Music: "Heart and Soul" - Dean Martin

Farscape's angriest character, D'Argo, finds he has to face whether or not he can control his rage in a fourth season episode refreshingly reminiscent of earlier seasons.

Season Four, Episode Fifteen: Mental as Anything

When was the last time an episode was about anyone's backstory but Crichton's (Ben Browder)? Not since season three. This is the first episode since early in season three to focus on D'Argo's (Anthony Simcoe) past and the first time his wife's murder has been talked about since, I think, season one.

At Scorpius' (Wayne Pygram) recommendation, half of Moya's crew--for some reason only all the male crewmembers--visit a master of some kind of mental discipline, Katoya (John Brumpton), in order to receive training. Among the students is none other than Macton (Blair Venn), brother of D'Argo's deceased wife, Lo'Laan (Rachel Gordon).

It had been established earlier that D'Argo's imprisonment was for the murder of his wife and that he'd been framed by Macton who put the blame on Luxan "hyper-rage". Macton, D'Argo believes, was Lo'Laan's true killer. When D'Argo first sees Macton, his first instinct is to murder him. But eventually, D'Argo confesses to Crichton that he may well have killed Lo'Laan himself because hyper-rage also causes blackout, meaning he might have killed Lo'Laan without retaining memory of the crime.

The torment of not knowing for sure is fertile ground for great story and character development but the episode eventually does provide an answer. Before that, though, Anthony Simcoe gives a brave, unrestrained and effective performance. He does a good job of showing the horror in contemplating the possibility that Lo'Laan had been lying to him, to spare his feelings, about whether or not he'd ever hit her in fit of hyper-rage. He shows the horror of considering the possibility that he may have killed the woman who was willing to give her life for him.

Meanwhile, Crichton undergoes special training in a metal box over lava. His final escape from this is a moment of distinctly Crichton-ish, amusing, and slightly scary madness.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Prefect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealised Reality
Episode 12: Kansas
Episode 13: Terra Firma
Episode 14: Twice Shy

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: In the mind
Current Music: "Carol" - The Beatles

Bad things happen to all kinds of people on Farscape and it's not always clear who most deserves a sympathetic hand. So Chiana drastically misjudges a situation.

Season Four, Episode Fourteen: Twice Shy

After sealing a deal with some traders, somewhere out in Tormented Space, Noranti (Melissa Jaffer) and Rygel (Jonathan Hardy) think they've done a pretty good day's work. But just as they're leaving, the traders produce a sex slave named Talikaa (Paula Arundell) and offer to sell her, too. Chiana (Gigi Edgley), understandably incensed at the the idea of a young woman being abused, insists on buying the girl's freedom.

That doesn't stop her from taking Talikaa back to her quarters and engaging in some aggressive flirtation. Talikaa's charming innocence turns Chiana on ("What is 'sexy'?" Chiana, "Sexy . . . is my favourite colour"). This may not be Chiana at her wisest but how could she have predicted Talikaa would turn out to be a giant spider monster?

This monster drains the most distinctive personality traits of its victims so John (Ben Browder) loses his optimism, Aeryn (Claudia Black) her stoicism, Rygel his greed, D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) his anger, and, Chiana, amusingly, her sex drive.

A subplot in this episode involves Aeryn and Crichton arguing about his taking drugs to forget her. She has no tolerance or understanding for this, which is surprising because it's almost exactly what she herself does in season three when she tries to drink away her memories of the other Crichton. I'm surprised the episode doesn't make at least one reference to this, maybe because it was written by a first time writer for the series, David Peckinpah. Nephew of Sam, David Peckinpah passed away on April 23, 2006, fourteen years ago yesterday, by amazing coincidence.

But mainly I like this episode. Talikaa is good as both someone to show the crew how dangerous it is to assume things about other people based solely on their own experience and as an amoral villain--she has no sympathy when Crichton talks to her at the end. Or malice, either. Moya's crew are just food to her. An effective way of looking at things until, of course, it isn't.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Prefect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealised Reality
Episode 12: Kansas
Episode 13: Terra Firma

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: A space ship
Current Music: "Swamp Fire" - Duke Ellington

The crew of Farscape finally make it to Earth--for real, this time, and in the right time. Aeryn's fears of not fitting in on John's home, which she voiced back in seasons one and two, seem to be well founded but not just for her. Crichton has become an alien, too.

Season Four, Episode Thirteen: Terra Firma

Set and broadcast in 2003, the episode emphasises not just how John (Ben Browder) has changed by how America has changed as well. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Jack Crichton (Kent McCord), John's father, is no longer the optimist he once was, no longer a believer in sharing America's discoveries and technology with other countries. Ironically, John's experience over the same period of years has seen him witness greater destruction and brought him even closer to deadly peril many times but he still wants the technological discoveries he brings back with him shared openly with the rest of the world.

Is that really such a good idea? I don't recall ever finding out. But the situation bears an interesting resemblance to Scorpius' (Wayne Pygram) preoccupations about wormhole technology. Considering how strongly Crichton feels that neither side should have the power of wormholes, it's curious that he's so blasé about world changing tech falling into the hands of humans here.

Of course, the episode inevitable encounters territory already covered in previous episodes where Crichton has been tricked into thinking he was back on Earth--"A Human Reaction" and "Won't Get Fooled Again". It's no wonder the story rushes over a few details. I do like how it focuses more on the experience of being alien on Earth, something that will be explored more in a future episode.

"Terra Firma" ends with a pretty effective action sequence which sadly cuts off some relationship drama between Aeryn (Claudia Black) and John. But the stunt work, squibs, and editing are so good, I almost forgive it.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Prefect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealised Reality
Episode 12: Kansas

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Earth
Current Music: "Distant (Rubicon II)" - VNV Nation

Farscape does Back to the Future in an episode that sends its cast back to Earth and back to the 1980s. Featuring a few fun moments for fans, the episode nonetheless does itself no favours by inviting Back to the Future comparisons.

Season Four, Episode Twelve: Kansas

Crichton (Ben Browder) is rescued from EVA Earth orbit by D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe), Rygel (Jonathan Hardy), Aeryn (Claudia Black), Noranti (Melissa Jaffer), and Chiana (Gigi Edgley), who find their way through the wormhole in D'Argo's ship. Meanwhile, Scorpius (Wayne Pygram) and Sikozu (Raelee Hill) stay behind on Moya for a disappointing B plot.

Along with Pilot (Lani Tupu), Sikozu and Scorpius form the not so brilliant plan of allowing Grayza (Rebecca Riggs) to board Moya under the theory that if she sees Crichton isn't aboard she'll leave them alone. At least by the end of the episode we see Grayza leave a spy aboard so that this doesn't go as completely without a hitch as Sikozu mysteriously thinks it will. Scorpius, we see, has his own ulterior motives for the plan and his reunion with Braca (David Franklin) shows he's still got a friend among the Peacekeepers after all.

But most of the episode involves Crichton interacting with his family, trying to stop his father from going on the ill-fated Challenger mission. In addition to the 80s setting, the episode also borrows the "fading from existence" effect from the Robert Zemeckis movie for when younger Crichton (Jamie Croft) seems about to die. Mostly this just has the effect of making the episode seem like Back to the Future done quick.

The best moments of the episode are fan service moments, like when Chiana, posing as "Karen Shaw", takes young Crichton's virginity.

Also worthy of note are Aeryn's inexplicably groovy scavenged duds.

The show previously referenced Back to the Future in the first season episode "Back and Back and Back to the Future", a far more interesting episode than this, to be quite honest. I started watching Farscape during the first run of the fourth season which I think, looking back, was probably the most flattering way to see season four. Pilot and Moya's design, Chiana, Crichton--these were all new to me. Now I'm finding season four puzzlingly mundane at times compared to the first three seasons. I wonder if this had to do with any pressure from SyFy to make the show more palatable to general viewers. Still, there are some very good season four episodes and I'm still looking forward to all the drama with the Scarrans.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Prefect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealised Reality

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Earth
Current Music: "Cargo Culte" - Serge Gainsbourg

It turns out wormholes aren't just about crossing distance on Farscape but time and alternate timelines, as well. Crichton learns this essential lesson in an outstanding episode.

Season Four, Episode Eleven: Unrealised Reality

Engaged in the questionable exercise of floating, E.V.A., near a wormhole, Crichton (Ben Browder) gets sucked in after Pilot (Lani Tupu) mysteriously fails to deploy the docking web. Incidentally, I love that alternate term for a tractor beam. Docking web. It's very Farscape to reinterpret a familiar Sci-Fi concept as something gooey and organic.

John ends up in a mysterious realm, apparently on a little piece of ice on a vast, dark sea. With him is a being he calls "Einstein" (John Bach), one of the wormhole aliens, now gauging again if John is worthy of surviving with his wormhole knowledge. We, along with Crichton, are treated to disjointed, documentary style interview clips of people from his past.

In one series of clips, everyone will say something nice about Crichton, in another, they only have bad things to say, and in another, the same people can barely remember him. This culminates in Crichton experiencing alternate versions of his comrades in moments from past episodes.

Einstein informs him that these things aren't illusions but all complete realities which he might become a part of if he lingered long enough. In order to successfully escape the wormhole, he has to find the right place and the right time. So, within the story, the wormhole acts as an illustration of how reality might be reshaped by perspective. In reliving a moment from the first episode, John already knows who D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) and Zhaan (Virginia Hey) are and it changes the nature of the encounter (despite old clips being used). The alternate presentation of opinions of Crichton would seem to indicate that he is a different person. But is he?

The creepiest alternate reality is a version of Earth, many years after a Scarran takeover. Ben Browder wears subtly Scarran-ish makeup and his father has been replaced by a slightly human looking Wayne Pygram, who normally plays Scorpius. The scene has a real Twilight Zone eeriness while at the same time kind of demonstrating Scorpius' point about the Scarrans.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: A distant part of the galaxy
Current Music: "Honey, are You Straight or are You Blind?" - Elvis Costello and the Attractions

Sooner or later, strange poisonous molluscs were going to factor into Farscape. Naturally, they also force physical connexions between pairs of crewmembers, too.

Season Four, Episode Ten: Coup by Clam

Though they're more like squid than clams. It's hilarious when Crichton (Ben Browder) gets annoyed by the "technobabble" explanation in this episode but it is kind of funny, the idea of a mollusc that must be eaten by a single person or everyone who eats from it will share physical symptoms, pain, or pleasure.

This means poor Aeryn (Claudia Black) farts every time Rygel (Jonathan Hardy) does (which is often) and Cricthon feels Sikozu's (Raelee Hill) pain. Maybe the worst off is D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe), though, who experiences Noranti's (Melissa Jaffer) orgasm at a very awkward moment.

This kind of thing never happened to Worf. You'd think it would undercut his efforts to interrogate the long nosed doctor (Barry Otto) who tricked them into eating the mollusc.

After a season with many episodes that felt more typical of other shows, it's nice to see this one with a uniquely Farscape-ish predicament. I also like that Crichton and Rygel team up in drag at the end, instead of the usual Crichton and D'Argo, to rescue Aeryn and Sikozu. Crichton in drag looks a bit like Val Kilmer in Willow.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: A squid
Current Music: "Smile" - Charlie Chaplin

Having Australian shooting locations sets Farscape apart from other space opera series in a very good way. The production team could also take advantage of rare opportunities, like using a recently burned forest as a unique alien landscape.

Season Four, Episode Nine: A Prefect Murder

The first part of the story is told in a slightly bewildering, non-linear fashion as we see from different characters' perspectives the fallout from Chiana (Gigi Edgley) apparently frelling every eligible body in a village where the crew have stopped for water.

D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe), in his role as Moya's captain, is trying to negotiate with one of the clan leaders (Ivar Kants). Crichton (Ben Browder) is still snorting the drug Noranti gave him in order to deal with talking to Aeryn (Claudia Black) while Aeryn has started having disturbing hallucinations. Meanwhile, Sikozu (Raelee Hill) is the star of an awkwardly framed sex scene with a local prince (Brett Stiller).

We see several conversations multiple times from different perspectives which mainly has the effect of making the episode feel shorter than it is. As a result, the story never quite gets off the ground. The highlight of the episode is a weird, amazing new puppet from the creature shop as an old priest. When Chiana tickled him under his chin, I kind of wanted to see what their relationship would be like.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Charcoal world
Current Music: "Aguas De Marco" - Antonio Carlos Jobim

Farscape has its inevitable shrink ray episode, and that's always fun (or almost always), but it turns out to be a minor element in an episode that focuses more on the season's overarching plot.

Season Four, Episode Eight: I Shrink, Therefore I Am

In an amusing cold open, Crichton (Ben Browder) and Noranti (Melissa Jaffer) are heading back to Moya after a supply run. Crichton is tipped off by Pilot (Lani Tupu) that the ship has been taken over by mercenaries when Pilot tells him everyone else is too busy to talk--that Aeryn (Claudia Black) is writing poetry and Rygel (Jonathan Hardy) isn't hungry for dinner which Chiana (Gigi Edgley) and Sikozu (Raelee Hill) are cooking together.

Sikozu has the cutest glare. Naturally, the two are actually getting on each other's nerves, tied up together. When Crichton finally does get aboard (leaving Noranti floating in space in a trance) he has to hide in the air ducts and team up with Scorpius (Wayne Pygram).

Crichton and Scorpius feels a little like Crichton and Harvey though Scorpius refrains from making any pop culture references. Crichton seems to enjoy teasing him, to the point of giving him an unloaded gun in a dangerous situation.

This episode features the first appearance of a "ruling class" Scarran (Duncan Young) who shows an ability to read minds, finding Crichton's location by reading Rygel's thoughts. He doesn't even have to use a heat ray.

Mostly the shrink ray is just a convenient way for the bandits to tote their captives around. The end of the episode features a very brief, amusing moment with tiny Aeryn riding a DRD and the final fight between Crichton and the Scarran involves them alternately shrinking and enlarging, which is still fun to watch even after having seen the Ant-Man movies.

At this point, "John Quixote" is still the most interesting episode of Season Four, with several episodes like this that seem to focus more on action and plots. I was never a fan of Aeryn's pregnancy and thought it generally didn't drive the story as well as the complicated, stranger motivations from the first three seasons. But there are still some very good episodes left to go.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: A can
Current Music: "Running Gun Blues" - David Bowie

Sooner or later, every intensely immersive simulation game is going to go fantastically wrong, as proves to be the case on Farscape. Crichton and Chiana find themselves caught in a forced dream composed of parts of Crichton's memory in an episode with surprising psychological depth.

Season Four, Episode Seven: John Quixote

The second episode to be written by Ben Browder, Crichton himself, this has at its heart the relationship between Crichton and Aeryn (Claudia Black), much like Browder's previous episode, "Green Eyed Monster", from season three. But this wasn't unusual subject matter for season three, in season four it feels like a refreshing return to form after the first episodes of the season had been more about introducing new characters and focusing on Aeryn's secret pregnancy. For whatever reason, previous writers in season four failed to take the pregnancy plot to the levels of the John jealousy/inadequacy plot in season three.

The silly story in the game simulator which Chiana (Gigi Edgley) gets them stuck in while in a transport pod turns out to contribute to this depth during the perhaps inevitable portion where it seems the two have safely gotten back aboard Moya. They find Scorpius (Wayne Pygram) is taking over the ship and finally succeeds when Aeryn double crosses Crichton, confirming John's fear from a few episodes back that she was working with Scorpius for more than necessity's sake.

This is where the episode starts to become brilliant because while we, as the audience, might assume now that this is all a simulation, there's enough ambiguity to prevent this from being the obvious conclusion. It crystallises in an excellent moment for Claudia Black to show her capacity for subtlety as Crichton, now locked in a cell, confronts her on the issue of her loyalties, commenting on how everything they say can be overheard.

She asks questions to undermine possibilities of certainty. She'd shot Crichton when he was being attacked by Pilot (Lani Tupu) being controlled by Scorpius and she points out to Crichton that her shooting him may have been her way of protecting Pilot. She doesn't say if this was her motive, she merely points out that he didn't seem to be considering it. Is this her way to signal to him that she's only pretending to support Scorpius because he's spying on them? If so, would would this be the simulation Aeryn pretending? All this compels the viewer to intensely scrutinise her expression for any tell--that she's pretending, that she's a simulation--virtually anything, and Black employs the tiniest suggestive quirks of the eyebrow. Ironically, when she does reveal herself to be entirely supportive of Crichton, this is the moment he correctly guesses it's a simulation.

Which isn't to say it's not true Aeryn would be supportive of him but this is the moment where the computer fails to hit the right level of nuance for effectively sentient.

The episode features several season three guest stars--Jool (Tammy MacIntosh), an oddly hairy Stark (Paul Goddard) and, of course, Zhaan (Virginia Hey), in her first appearance since her death at the beginning of season three. She's only a simulation but it's still nice to see her.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election

Current Location: Data
Current Music: People talking at the coffee shop

Farscape returns to an old fashioned bottle episode when Moya gets caught up in a deadly space plant. It smells like onion and it won't stop growing even as drama over Aeryn's baby unfolds within.

Season Four, Episode Six: Natural Election

And the title seemingly refers to a request from Pilot (Lani Tupu) at the end of the previous episode, that the crew finally pick a captain. Before the final election, they decide each person should serve temporarily, and we join our heroes while Dominar Rygel (Jonathan Hardy) is having his turn.

As a former ruler, you'd think he'd be a natural, but the poor little guy beats himself up when things go wrong on his watch. It really has been a long time since he had legions doing his bidding, I guess.

What goes wrong is a plant, one that seems to be getting bigger and finding new ways of clogging Moya's works. This doesn't stop chatter about pregnancy, though, and Aeryn (Claudia Black) makes the unwise decision to confide in Chiana (Gigi Edgley). The latter seems to think nothing of immediately telling D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) but she does seem a bit upset when the news spreads.

The news is that Aeryn isn't sure the father is John Crichton (Ben Browder), be it the current resident of Moya or the deceased twin from last season. There's an interesting bit of info about Sebacean biology, that Aeryn's body could have kept a conception in stasis since well before she met Crichton. Nonetheless, I found the drama about whether Crichton's the father a bit disappointingly typical compared to the usual, weirder Farscape fare. I also dislike Aeryn casually throwing away the tension about the Crichton copies by saying there's no longer any distinction in her mind between the two men. The plant plot therefore is much more interesting. I liked how it's Scorpius' (Wayne Pygram) coolant rods that save the day.

This isn't the best episode of the series, though it's not terribly bad. Maybe the best part to me is Sikozu (Raelee Hill) showing increasing eagerness to help Scorpius. I like how the show uses this to help distinguish her from Jool. And anyway, they'd make a cute couple.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises

Current Mood: groggy
Current Location: Moya
Current Music: "Snakedriver" - The Jesus and Mary Chain

Profile

setsuled

January 2026

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Neutral Good for Practicality by timeasmymeasure

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jan. 3rd, 2026 06:15 am

Entries tagged with farscape

Farscape is Near

Peace Kept on Farscape

Keeping Wars from Peace

The Badness of the Timing

Then It's the Bomb That will Bring Us Together

Liars, Nukes, and Money

Staying In Scarran Space

Aeryn's Resistance and Crichton's Reluctance

Investigating the Local Aliens

No Makeup is Too Expensive

The Mind Unknown

Tormented Space Justice at Your Own Risk

From Far to Firm

Back and Back Again

The Many Paths of the Wormhole

Mollusc Cuisine of the Stars

Burnt Trees of a Distant Part of the Galaxy

Little 'Scape

The Real Pretend and the Pretend Real

Trap of the Plant