FARSCAPE Revisited Mini-caps / Season 4, Episodes 1-5

Farscape minicaps! Season 4! Going widescreen!

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

Hey, fellow travelers of the Uncharted Territories, its time for the start of mini-caps on the fourth and final season of Farscape. Let’s just get it out of the way: Aeryn is pregnant with John’s kid! Unfortunately, due to her commitment issues (i.e., every one she cares about dying badly), she leaves Moya, and John finds out this info a bit too late. As in “I’m in my module about to ask Moya to find her, when Moya gets sucked into a wormhole and leaves me alone in the middle of space” kind of late. So, where do we find Crichton in season four?

“Crichton Kicks”

Its been “some time”, and Crichton has managed to survive on a dying Leviathan where he can work on his wormhole equations in peace…until red-headed alien woman Sikozu shows up, with Leviathan scavengers behind her. As much as I love the parts of this episode, the whole feels a bit disjointed and rushed (so much so that a scene showing what happened to Scorpius after the events of season three ended up being dumped and included in a truncated form in the “previously on…” teaser for the next episode). But there’s still some fun to be had, with some of the gang returning and some brief setup for the season.

Hawaii Five-O with John Crichton and Scorpius? You failed on that opportunity, CBS.

“What Was Lost”

“Part 1: Sacrifice”

Crichton, Chiana, Rygel, and Sikozu meet up with D’argo, Jool, and that crazy alien lady from “Dog With Two Bones” (Noranti is her actual name) on a planet dig site. But things get weird when Crichton has visions of some history involving an ancient order that kept peace in the galaxy. That mystery gets sidetracked by the arrival of Grayza, the Peacekeepers, and what can only be described as a neutered Scorpius. Grayza uses some alien love potion to force Crichton to obey her, and thanks to Noranti, ends up jumping into the ocean, where…

“Part 2: Resurrection”

…Crichton survives, thanks to some alien fish man, and needs to help D’argo’s plan to get rid of the Peacekeepers by keeping Grayza “occupied”. D’argo’s plan involves sacrificing the dying Leviathan, and Sikozu, who gets saved by an unlikely source: Scorpius. Oh, and Scorpius gets shot (he has armor, so no worries) and gets buried alive (yeah, look to my notes on that subject) and the gang have to keep the planet from charbroiling them. Oh, and they discover some of that ancient order who have been stuck in time and Jool stays to educate them. Like the premiere, a little uneven feeling two parter that sets our gang off in D’argo’s ship and Crichton’s module to reunite with Moya.

“Lava’s a Many Splendored Thing”

A pit stop on the way to Moya leads to a confrontation to aliens who live on a planet full of lava. And yes, thanks to Rygel’s butterfingers, leaves them separated, dealing with mercenaries and lava monsters. Meanwhile, Sikozu and Chiana have to work D’argo’s ship, so expect plenty of cattiness. It’s a decent enough time-killer between the two-parter and the eventual return to Moya, but essential in the sense it introduces the shield used next episode.

“Promises”

Our heroes make it back to Moya to find it has guests…namely Scorpius and Aeryn in a Scorpius suit! Turns out she’s suffering induced heat delirium from someone looking to interrogate her for a murder, and Scorpius helps her in order to find asylum with Crichton. Oh, and Grayza has a leviathan killer missile she wants to test on Moya! Good setup for the conflicts on Moya this year.

It wouldn't surprise me there was a female Scorpius cosplayer at Comic-con one year after this.

It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a female Scorpius cosplayer at Comic-con at one point after this.

I don’t know if its clear from my impressions above, but the opening salvo of this final season of Farscape was full of great stuff, but for some reason, it felt off. There’s a lot of big questions that get partly explained and feel way too convenient. The two-parter is fine, even though it introduces plot points that don’t really come back in the season (I would guess it was setup for a fifth season, but that got compressed into the mini-series after the show was cancelled). In comparison to season three, this wasn’t the strongest opening of a Farscape season, but with Scorpius’ arrival as a prisoner on Moya, things definitely pick up from here.

–This is the only season of Farscape that ended up being shown in widescreen (for somewhat obvious reasons, this unexpectedly being the final season).

–That Brindz Hound has 5 legs? I’m sure it was a chore to figure out how that worked.

–Ben Browder grew a beard for the season premiere, which in a funny twist, was mocked by some critics as being fake, unlike the first season’s “Jeremiah Crichton”, which actually was.

Yes, the beard is real. Now shut up and move on.

–Great use of the 1812 Overture throughout the episode. And hey, John has a new pet DRD called 1812 he takes to Moya later on. At least it won’t run out on him.

–Sage advice from Rygel: “When a woman, whether she’s your wife, your lover, or a slave you purchased to be your wife or lover, leaves you repeatedly, take the hint.”

–“A show of force is the only thing Kilngons understand!”

–“Severed heads. Severed hands. It’s a motif.”

–“Welcome to the universe.”

–That Jool doesn’t remember what happened after Moya got sucked into the wormhole (let alone Pilot’s lack of memory later on in “Promises”) is convenient, but does lay out a big mystery that gets dealt with midway through the season.

–It looks like Crichton hasn’t learned his lesson about having crazy old women blowing dust into his face from last season, did he?

–Kinda creepy having Braca and neutered Scorpius watch Grayza’s make-out session with drugged up Crichton.

–D’argo gave his ship a name. That’s cute.

–“Me, Crichton. You, Grandma.”

–“Do not point guns at people!”

–Great classic John reaction to being stunned by D’argo.

–This is the last we see of Jool (well, sort of…) until The Peacekeeper Wars miniseries. Speaking of, D’argo and Jool hooked up, didn’t they?

–Heroic end for the leviathan Elack.

This is what happens when senior citizen Pilots take the wheel of giant living spaceships.

–“John, EVERYONE knows!”

–“Does my ass look big in these pants?”

–Aliens know what “purple” is.

–Throwing Noranti across the lava river like a rag doll was particularly funny. Noranti flashing Crichton and D’argo was kind of the opposite: terrifying.

–Hands in vomit, incinerated people, decapitated people, old space alien nudity: yes, its definitely a Farscape episode.

–“Why does everything taste like chicken?” “What’s chicken?”

–“Burning is too good for her.”

–“Ok, Ok, I’m with you, but I just have one small, little question: who is Lou Costello?”

–Alright, so bear with me on this: somehow Scorpius managed to escape Arnessk, despite being buried alive, found a ship…somewhere, and in the period Crichton and gang we’re trying to reach Moya, found Aeryn, kept her alive, and then found Moya before the others did. This is a real big leap of logic to make that isn’t really explained other than Scorpius planned well. And then there’s the mole on the Command carrier working for him (and we all don’t believe it’s the hard-headed pilot, do we?). Lots to swallow to buy the setup of this episode.

–And by the way, do we all really think Harvey’s gone? Yeah, I thought so too when I saw it for the first time.

–Love that final scene where Crichton catches Aeryn lying about being pregnant and lets her know it. That she can’t answer him back shows they got a long way to go back to being somewhat normal.

–Oh, and Moya wants a “captain”. Kind of slim pickings to who that could be at this point.

–“Kryptonite, silver bullet,…Buffy? What’s it going to take to keep you in the grave?”

–“And she wonders why I have trouble trusting people.”

This isn’t really from a Farscape episode. This is apparently Crichton’s college fraternity hazing ritual.

NEXT TIME: Problems with a giant space plant force the crew to trust Scorpius in “Natural Election”, Crichton and Chiana get sucked into a deadly game world in “John Quixote”, the crew gets shrunk down to size in “I Shrink, Therefore I Am”, and Aeryn is a suspect in an assassination in “A Prefect Murder”.