FARSCAPE Revisited Mini-caps / Season 2, Episodes 9-13

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

Well, fellow travelers of the Uncharted Territories, its time for another round of mini-caps on Farscape.  Look, we got a lot of episodes to cover (I rather cover the 3-parter as a whole than split it up to stay in my regular 4 episode block I set up) so I’m assuming you are caught up (and more importantly, just re-read the previous installments).  Let’s Starburst in, shall we?

“Out of Their Minds”

Moya runs into aliens who fire at them, and by a freak accident, the crew swaps personalities.  Yep, it’s a body swapping episode, but with some wonderfully twisted Farscape humor along the way.  Its fun to see the actor bringing their own interpretations of their fellow actors’ characters out (minus Zhaan, who misses out on all the fun on account of being prisoner on the attacking ship), and leads to some rather awkward moments for all involved.  Hey, its not Rygel’s fault he doesn’t know how Crichton relieves himself, you know!

“My Three Crichtons”

An alien probe enters Moya, makes two radically different versions of Crichton besides his usual self, and can only leave if one of the Crichtons is taken back with it.  So it’s a nice tour-de-force for Ben Browder in this ep with his usual Crichton, cromagon Crichton, and Brainiac Crichton, with a sad ending which shows in true sci-fi fashion, which of the three might have been the more heroic one out of them.  Plus, John’s old flight suit returns!

“Look At The Princess”

“Part 1: A Kiss Is But A Kiss”

Farscape’s first three parter starts out innocently enough: the crew arrives on a Royal planet during a time of coronation, Crichton and Aeryn are having some emotional conflicts, and then Crichton finds himself being the only compatible person to marry the princess of this planet.  Obviously, he should walk away, but with Moya and Zhaan being lead away by a bizarre signal, and Scorpius arriving, getting a shotgun wedding may not be the worst thing.  Oh, and he’ll be made into a statue for 80 years.  Ummm…

“Part 2: “I Do, I Think”

The prince tries to kill Crichton so he can become king (and is responsible for poisoning her sister’s DNA from suitors other than John), and after another failed attempt at assassination later on, John is put into hiding on a space station in the planet’s orbit.  This turns out to be a trap by Scorpius to capture him, which goes horribly awry in a fantastic way.  Oh, and Moya has been called to her creators to be shut down due to that whole giving birth to a gunship thing.  And then Crichton gets bronzed.

“Part 3: The Maltese Crichton”

John’s now bronzed head is stolen, restolen, reattached, and unbronzed in the nick of time to deal with the machinations of the prince, Scorpius, the Scarran agent, and his secret ally in a Peacekeeper spy before the queen decides to just exterminate all the off-worlders. Meanwhile, Zhaan fights to save Moya and Pilot from death at the hands of her makers.  Lots of double crosses and surprises fill this last chapter, with a wonderful epilogue that many a John/Aeryn shippers will love.

So, a LOT goes on in the “Look at the Princess” three parter: the intro of the Peacekeeper/Scarran conflict that’s going on in the Uncharted Territories, and confirmation something happened with John involving Scorpius that keeps him from killing the leather gimp when he has the chance.  I feel Aeryn gets a bit shortchanged in the last installment of this arc while going on a rock climbing trip with a rather randy and inexperienced suitor, but with John’s dalliance with the hot Peacekeeper spy and his numerous near-death experiences in this adventure alone, both these characters needed to reassess how they approach each other.  Aeryn may be an inexperienced person when it comes to relationships and John’s a woman magnet, but they do love each other after all.  Oh, and D’argo and Chiana have lots of sex in the meantime.  Just putting it out there.

–The aliens in “Out of Their Minds” remind me of the Skeksis from The Dark Crystal.  No surprise there, being Jim Henson’s Creature Shop does the puppet work and produces the show.

–Aeryn/Crichton (body/mind respectively) describing how Crichton/Rygel can pee.  I almost have no words for it.

–Aeryn/Crichton’s um, discovering herself moment.  “Oh, c’mon!  They’re here!  Right here!”

–Crichton/Rygel and D’argo/Chiana.  Yowsa.

–D’argo inadvertent double entendre about being in Chiana’s body.

–“Freaking Three Stooges!  Now I’m hitting myself!”

–“That’s all right.  We do that kind of thing all the time here on Moya.  I just peed in the maintenance bay.”

–“Its okay.  You were in my shoes.  I was in your pants…”

–“Great!  Now I’m getting yatz from my own body!”

–“But this body is so…white.”

–Loved the visual connection of cromagon Crichton in John’s old flightsuit and Brainiac Crichton in the Peacekeeper commander uniform.

–Little much on the CG with Moya’s corridor cracking.

–So according to Aeryn, if you’re super smart like Brainiac Crichton, you’re not as well-endowed as original recipe Crichton.

–While I thought the whole Moya gets called by her creators to be shut down storyline with Zhaan was filler, it was good for the time it was on.

–Who didn’t love Crichton just bullying and bitch-slapping the prince?

–Nope, you’re not hallucinating: that’s the voice of Rygel (the late Jonathan Hardy) playing the Leviathan builder.

–So, yeah we get it: D’argo and Chiana are having lots of sex.  No way that kind of dependent relationship can go bad, right?

–Another appearance by Ben Browder’s wife (Francesca Buller) as Ro-na.

–“You do not get the toaster.”

–I’ll be honest, after the crap Crichton goes through in the first half of this adventure, I probably would be trying to get Braca to shoot me in the head and losing my marbles.  Love the Blazing Saddles reference too.  And unless I heard it wrong, did Crichton call Braca a “pussy’?

–Nice to see exposure to space doesn’t blow you up, but does make you look like a frosted over Crichton-sicle.  Great sequence escaping the exploding cargo ship.

–Sad to see Crichton won’t ever see his future daughter with the princess ever again (unless the current comics continuation does something about that).

–Why doesn’t Crichton melt Scorpius’ face when he has the chance?  Better yet, why does Crichton hear him urging him to escape the cargo ship?  At first viewing, I didn’t completely clue in everything, until…well, see the next installment of minicaps for that.

NEXT TIME:  The crew have to deal with parasites and an alien bloodhound in “Beware of Dog”, Crichton gets sucked into a twisted mindgame and a big reveal is made in “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, Aeryn returns from a mysterious mist as an old woman in “The Locket”, and Moya’s crew are left to fend for themselves when Talyn attacks an alien ship in “The Ugly Truth”.

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