FARSCAPE Revisited Mini-caps / Season 1, Episodes 9-12

Stewart here…and fair warning, some spoilers lie within…

Well, its time for another mini-cap on Farscape.  A brief recap on how things are going so far for our band of fugitives in the Uncharted Territories first, though.  John Crichton is still stuck in the wrong galaxy.  Aeryn is still “irreversibly contaminated”, D’Argo is still angry, Rygel is still full of himself, and Zhaan is still blue, although her recent excursion into the darkside is not reassuring.  Oh, and the Peacekeeper commander Crais who is hunting them?  He’s pretty much hiding his superiors’ orders to return home by killing his own officers.  So with that, let’s get to it.

“DNA Mad Scientist”

An alien scientist offers the crew a way home, and for Aeryn, making her an unwilling experiment with Pilot’s DNA.  Some interesting facts: Pilot’s species can regenerate arms (which doesn’t make that involuntary dismemberment any better), the group will still turn on each other at the drop of a hat, and unless my research’s off, this marks the first usage of the word “frell” (a bit more on that at the end of the article).  Some pretty good makeup and physical effects work (especially with Nam Tar and the mutated Aeryn) continue the string of good episodes.

“They’ve Got A Secret”

D’Argo discovers a Peacekeeper device, gets shot into space, but recovers, albeit under a temporary brain scrambling (which reveals a pretty significant character and series plot).  And also, Moya is defending itself because, well, its expecting.  Yep, a living ship is giving birth to another living ship.  It’s a pretty significant episode in the series in retrospect, especially considering the mysteries as to why the Peacekeepers would want to prevent such a thing.

“Till The Blood Runs Clear”

An experiment with wormholes leaves Crichton and Aeryn getting his spaceship repaired on a desert planet.  No trouble there, except the duo of bounty hunters they have to keep occupied from finding the rest of Moya’s crew.  Good enough episode, even with the rather awkward timing of Zhaan’s “photogasms” (which makes a bit more sense when you learn something really significant about her by season’s end).  Plus, D’Argo and John start their “bromance”.

“Rhapsody In Blue”

Zhaan gets tricked by a mad Delvian priestess to take some of her insanity, while everyone else in the group gets mindeffed royally.  This leads to John having to deal with the hallucination of his former love and helping Zhaan fight the insanity.  Some good stuff here, like Zhaan going all evil red eyes with lunacy and Rygel really feeling small.  Its a decent enough episode to finish off this batch of eps.

Its nice to see the group hasn’t become complacent with each other, and that’s one of the things I really do appreciate about the show’s first season that other sci-fi shows have tried (and sometimes failed at) with mixed success.  There’s the tension that is brought up in “DNA Mad Scientist” when D’Argo, Zhaan, or Rygel spend the episode fighting over who gets to go home first, while Crichton and Aeryn may never be able to go home.  Add to that Moya and Pilot’s needs, and its clear they have a long way to go before they can thoroughly trust each other, if at all.  For a longtime fan, it’s been interesting seeing the roots of what’s to come with the series (and the characters that will drift back into Moya’s view later on), and hinting at some of the dark stuff on the horizon.

And now, some notes (in episode order):

–Shuddered a bit with the whole eye stuff in “DNA Mad Scientist”.  And people wonder why I still wear glasses.

–Speaking of “DNA”, this might be one of the first times I’ve heard Rygel call Zhaan a “blue assed bitch”.

–Maybe a bit too on the nose for Crichton to bring up Mengele when facing Nam Tar.

–Sebaceans apparently don’t know anything about drawing smiley faces with food cubes.

–D’Argo in with his cello at the end of the episode was kind of sweet.

–“Frell you.”

–“Lucky for you, you didn’t trade anything of real value to get it.”  Ooohh, Pilot burned you all.

–Always be untrusting of DRDs.  That’s the message I’ve learned from “Secret”.

–The first appearance of the Aeryn “battle-pony” (the hair back look) in “Secret”.

–Looks like Aeryn’s little Pilot DNA swap gave her some extra skills.

–Funny to see hallucinating D’Argo “play” with Rygel.

–D’Argo has a mixed kid and Moya’s was on Peacekeeper birth control?  No way this will come back…oh who am I kidding, yes it will.

–First appearance of Crichton’s “modified” Farscape One module.

–No way that missing wormhole data will come back…yes, it will too.

–“What is a ‘pain in the ass’?”

–“Goggle rental?”

–Man, the Peacekeepers have a truly messed up retirement plan.

–Aeryn is wearing John’s undies (maybe).  I’ve always wondered about the laundry situation on Moya.

–Zhaan murdered someone during “unity”.  Yikes.

–“’Wives’, plural?”

–Crichton’s response to Zhaan’s curiousity as to what’s in his head: “Not much.  I’m a guy.”

–Maybe its just me, but calling a psychic blue alien going mad “chicken” may not be a good idea.

NEXT TIME: Crichton and Aeryn get caught in “The Flax”; Crichton goes native (and not for the best for us viewers) in “Jeremiah Crichton”; Rygel faces an old captor and Moya gets a new passenger in “Durka Returns”; and Crichton has a nasty homecoming in “A Human Reaction”.

Tags: Farscape, Mini-caps, NerdLush Crew Review, Reviews, Stewart, Television