FARSCAPE Revisited Mini-caps / Season 4, Episodes 14-17

Farscape season 4 minicaps has not been taken over by Bioloids…yet.

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

Hey, fellow travelers of the Uncharted Territories, its time for another round of mini-caps on the fourth and final season of Farscape. Last time, John discovered some new things about wormholes, and something else…Earth. After a brief excursion into the past, he ends up in the present, where he gets to spend Christmas at home with his family. After dealing with an alien killer, Crichton decides to head back through the wormhole to defend Earth from the Peacekeepers and the Scarrans. So let’s see how that goes…

“Twice Shy”

While picking up some maps from smugglers for travel through Tormented Space, Chiana purchases a slave girl from them. Like many plans involving Chiana, this goes bad, with the slave girl being a parasite who starts amplifying and bringing out the worst in the crew. Its a one-off episode that’s fine enough, but is more pivotal for dealing with the chasm between Crichton and Aeryn this season. His distance isn’t really from the narcotics Noranti gives him…but from the fact he knows Scorpius is spying on him, and Crichton fears Scorpius will use Aeryn to get the wormhole tech!

“Mental as Anything”

Crichton, D’Argo, and Rygel get some mental training against Scarrans at a special facility, which also has an unexpected guest: Macton, D’Argo’s ex-brother-in-law and the murderer of his wife! This awkward dysfunctional family reunion gets even more whacked out when D’Argo gets put through the mental wringer by Macton suggesting D’Argo did it in a fit of hyper-rage. Meanwhile, Crichton spends his time fishing for keys to a hot cell and Rygel gets worn out during one of the exercises, so no help there. Suffice to say, there’s more to what happened than meets the eye. What are the girls up to during all of this? Funny you should ask…

“Bringing Home the Beacon”

When going shopping for some radar cloaking tech for Moya, the girls discover a secret meeting between Grayza and the Scarrans is happening. While Chiana and Noranti play dress-up to avoid Braca, Aeryn and Sikozu drop in on the secret meeting, and in true Farscape fashion, everything gets frelled up royally. Besides learning Grayza would give up the Luxan worlds to the Scarrans, Aeryn decides to kill Grayza to stop this (at first to stop the treaty and then to just keep the Scarrans from discovering they don’t have wormhole tech), and yes, it gets frelled up too. They all make it back to Moya, except, um, they don’t, because the Scarrans replaced Aeryn with a fake Aeryn, which gets found out relatively quickly. Oh, nuts.

“A Constellation of Doubt”

So, Aeryn’s a captive of the Scarrans, and what does John do? Well, first he watches some TV from home, namely a documentary about his time back on Earth. Its through this and his questioning of his friends he discovers where Aeryn may be, but where it is proves to be a challenge that can only be helped by making an alliance with Scorpius.

With Aeryn captive and John making a deal with the devil, I mean Scorpius, things aren’t looking good for our heroes. And then there’s the whole Scarran/Peacekeeper conflict that’s ready to boil over. So, hope you all enjoyed the one-off adventures so far, because they’re done, and its one big push to the finish line for Farscape from here.

Next time on Farscape: D’Argo tries to escape the Pink Floyd Laser Light Show.

–Kind of a relief to see Crichton hasn’t been messed up completely by those happy drugs, even if it seemed his theory about Scorpius was a bit far-fetched at first.

–So, I think the lesson here is: don’t let Chiana bring stuff on board. I thought that would have been learned by season 2, but…

–Something about angry/sad Aeryn venting kind of breaks my heart a bit.

–“You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like you!”

–“I know you can see me. Bad guys always see me. My plans suck. People die. Its always a mess.”

–Nice gesture with Aeryn bringing back a TV for John. Although considering radio waves and their transmission through space, he might be able to catch some “new” episodes of The Honeymooners any day now.

–John whistling the theme to The Great Escape in that hot cell was a nice touch. John’s hands caked in what I assume is actually KY jelly, not so much.

–Apparently that training room was pretty disorienting to shoot in. I can see that.

–D’Argo leaving Macton trapped in that simulation with his nightmares was a particularly vicious if open-ended fate. You have to think he’ll come to eventually, or the next group that arrives there will wonder who that guy is strapped to the equipment.

-“Why do I always attract the psychos?”

–“Killing him would’ve been merciful. I’m not that enlightened.”

–Once again, Aeryn’s pregnancy tips off Crichton something wrong, namely to the Bioloid Aeryn in their midst. Surprisingly, she’s not the only fleshy robot in Moya’s midst as we see by season’s end.

I have a bad feeling this will be happening to Real Dolls of the future in a few years.

–Um, Chiana and Noranti really got into that performance for Braca a bit too well.

–Another appearance by Francesca Buller, Ben Browder’s wife, as the Scarran Akhna.

–Aeryn’s plan for when she pulls off her attempt on Grayza: “Run”, or “Run quickly.”

–I can’t remember how long Rygel goes on his restraint from eating from this experience at the camp.

–“I prefer the elegant grey.”

–Note the cameos from Farscape producers Brian Henson and David Kemper as some of the commentators on the program.

–Also like the nod back to “Kansas” with the sheriff who ran into the gang now believing he’s being told through radio waves to eat fatty foods by aliens. No worries, because the tinfoil in his cap is keeping him from porking up.

–Of course the kid would lie about the video camera being off. On the plus side, he did get tongue zapped by D’Argo.

–A weird bit of trivia to note: most of the camera footage was some of the last footage to be shot for the series, like Chiana’s bathroom exploits.

–Love Rygel’s acceptance of Earth culture, like gambling, sugar, and phone sex ads.

–I think John briefly forgot D’Argo is the captain of Moya. I’m just saying he should be glad he’s not dealing with the D’Argo of season one, is all.

–“You watch too much TV.”

–“Nothing?” “A reasonable interpretation of the word ‘no’.”

Dominar Rygel the XVI: who needs cleanliness when you have billions of subjects?

NEXT TIME: Aeryn struggles to survive Scarran imprisonment while Crichton goes through the wormhole to find information in “Prayer”, and Crichton takes a serious gamble to retrieve Aeryn from the Scarrans and deal with the Peacekeepers also in the “We’re So Screwed” three-parter.