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FARSCAPE |
John Crichton - Ben Browder Aeryn Sun - Claudia Black Ka D'Argo - Anthony Simcoe Chiana - Gigi Edgley Scorpius - Wayne Pygram Jool - Tammy MacIntosh Sikozu - Raelee Hill Noranti - Melissa Jaffer 
OTHER FARSCAPE SEASONS Season 1 Season 2 Season 3 The Peacekeeper Wars OTHER SPACE TRAVEL SHOWS Star Trek The Next Generation Voyager Enterprise Space:1999 Battlestar Galactica 
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Crichton KicksFollowing the disappearance of Moya, Crichton manages to survive aboard another Leviathan that has come to the sacred space to die. Scavengers board to harvest the tissue from the dying ship, preceded by a young alien who learned everything she knows from books. She can also change her gravity to walk on any surface and reattach severed limbs. Crichton, driven half mad by the isolation decides to take on the bad guys and has some help to do so. FARSCAPE returns for its fourth season with this surprisingly confused and choppy story. One moment Crichton is on his own and going mad, the next Chiana and Rygel have appeared out of nowhere to help. Crichton seems to be getting his mind back and then he's suddenly on his own and going mad again. Was it all in his mind? Could the screenwriters just not be bothered to come up with an explanation for Chiana and Rygel's return? It's hard to say. Since Crichton's gone over the edge it's also hard to care. Ben Browder's done his fair share of 'gone bonkers' moments and is pretty good at it by now, but it hardly endears his character any. TopWhat Was Lost Part 1 - SacrificeThe ageing Leviathan and her ageing pilot take John, Rygel and Chiana to a desolate planet where Jool and D'Argo are helping with an archeological dig. There's an aquatic monster roamning around, a gun that turns things into rock, a mad three-eyed woman who keeps throwing drugs in Crichton's eyes and the Peacekeepers have just arrived. It's all going to end in tears. FARSCAPE is just about the druggiest show that we have ever come across. In this episode Crichton not only gets hallucinogenic powder in his face a dozen times, but the Peacekeeper leader keeps doping him up on an aphrodisiac as well. The show's had its fair share of trippy moments, but this one is full of them. Being the first episode of a two part story it is inevitably unsatisfying, but it does at least seem most of Moya's crew back together again. TopWhat Was Lost Part 2 - ResurrectionIt seems that nobody at the dig site is to be trusted. Whilst the Peacekeepers parade their pet, a destroyed Scorpius, for Crichton's pleasure everyone seems to be scheming to keep three important probes from falling into anyone's hands. The leviathan makes one final trip and it is also time to say goodbye to a travelling companion. There is an awful lot of cross and double cross going on in this concluding half of the story and it all gets a bit rushed towards the end, but the things work out rather satisfyingly and Jool gets to share a fond farewell with D'Argo. We hardly got to know her. TopLava’s A Many-Splendored ThingMaking a pit stop from the voyage in D'Argo's flyer in search of Moya, the gang happen on a cache of treasure and medicines that are in the process of being looted from volcanic tunnels. Rygel gets caught in an amber-like material and the others will have to find a way to rescue him without getting dumped in lava themselves. The team are back to their normal tricks as a game of cat and mouse develops between the members of the team that are trapped with the bad guys and the others try and find a way to rescue them. Only in FARSCAPE would that require sticking hands in vomit and the dance of the seven veils. The comedy is fun, the alien makeup back up to scratch and the show as entertaining as it ever was. TopPromisesEveryone reunites aboard Moya, but there is general shock that Aeryn has returned with Scorpius, last seen being buried. Aeryn is in a heat fever that can only be cured by the owner of the huge starship that has turned up demanding that she be turned over to him for her crimes. The one big shock of Scorpius turning up with Aeryn overshadows the way that this episode is nicely put together, mixing the adventure story with the emotional turmoil and throwing in and external threat that is neatly averted by use of technology mentioned much earlier. It's good to have everyone back together again, though there are clearly issues to be dealt with. TopNatural ElectionFollowing Pilot and Moya's request for a captain to be elected, the ship is attacked by a spacegoing plant that lives off metal and sets about devouring the ship. The crew try everything they know to destroy it, but when it invades even Pilot things don't look good. A fairly straightforward episode by FARSCAPE standards with an unusual threat and the introduction of a new set in the shape of Moya's air circulation system which has all the swirling blades and dangerous equipment that GALAXY QUEST made so much fun of. TopJohn QuixoteReturning to Moya, Chiana persuades Crichton to take part in a video game that transports them both into a strange world populated with characters from their minds. When Crichton gets free, he learns that Scorpius has escaped, but has to go back inside to free Chiana. This is one of the wonderfully bizarre, oddball episodes that sets FARSCAPE apart from most other series. The surreal world of the video game is witty, twisted and so much fun that you want to give it a go. Would any other show have used flamethrowing farts as a threat? Claudia Black as a lisping princess is a real hoot and it is a real treat to see Virginia Hey as Zhaan again. Paul Goddard's Stark reappears and Tammy MacIntosh is back as Jool who is very unsettling with D'Argo eating beans off her chest. The twist that is introduced is too obvious to fool anyone, but this is definitely a very memorable episode. TopI Shrink Therefore I AmMoya is taken over by a group of almost invulnerable bounty hunters, with only Crichton left free as he is returning in a transport pod. His attempts to take out the bad buys one by one is complicated when they shrink all his shipmates and hold them in chest containers, meaning that they cannot be easily killed. The shrinking gimmick here is not overly utilised as it is simply an aside to the main story of Crichton's hit and run tactics in dealing with the bad guys, using one of three-eyed witch Noranti's concoctions to banish thoughts of Aeryn from his mind so that he can concentrate on what he is supposed to be doing. The costume design of the bounty hunters is excellent and Scorpius' actions make his characters' motives all the harder to get a handle on. TopA Prefect MurderAeryn has flashes of an attack on a peaceful marketplace and then carries out the massacre herself. She has apparently been affected by insects that allow one of the recently united clans to control her. Crichton has also been affected. Can they find the perpetrator before they are influenced to kill each other? The time-meddling flashes at the beginning confuse an otherwise straightforward plot, but once the cause of Aeryn's actions is known it settles down into another more average episode. TopCoup By ClamThe crew are tricked into eating a mollusc that should not be shared. Linked to each other's emotions, they must go down onto a male-dominated planet and deal with female rebels in order to get the cure. If you ever wanted to see Ben Browder in drag then this is your moment. Crichton has to dress up as a woman in order to infiltrate the nightclub the women rebels are using as a cover and this leads to an amusing, if hardly original, set of misunderstandings. In true FARSCAPE fashion, the cure for the problem is almost worse than the disease itself, involving urine drinking - and not their own. This is an amusing, though ultimately inconsequential episode. TopUnrealized RealityCrichton is floating around is space, waiting for wormholes, when one pops up and swallows him whole. Instead of being torn apart by the immense forces inside, Crichton finds himself out of normal space and time in the company of a strange being who wants to understand why the Ancients gave him wormhole technology. Through known pasts, alternative presents and possible futures, Crichton is bounced until the creature has the answers it wants. There are times when FARSCAPE abandons any attempt at straightforward adventure storytelling and comes up with something beyond the norm. It's what places the show apart from others. The presence of the muppet creature effects frees it from any need to be attempt realism. This episode goes off on a magical mystery tour through Crichton's past, through his future, through universes where Moya's crew have all swapped races and he is high in the Peacekeeper hierarchy. But that on its own isn't enough for this show. There are talking head moments when people, and creatures, that have known him share their feelings, feelings that change from moment to moment. It's original, exciting, fascinating and exhilarating stuff that you can only find in this show and even manages to come up with a nice cliffhanger to finish on. TopKansasMoya comes through the wormhole to rescue Crichton who is drifting helplessly in orbit around Earth. This, though, is an Earth 20 years before and Crichton's father is about to captain the ill-fated Challenger space shuttle mission. Crichton must interfere with his own past in order to make sure that it happens the way that it did. The main reason that time travel can't possibly exist is because it would be just too unutterably messy. Take Crichton's past, for example. The simple fact that his virginity is taken by Chiana ought to be enough to outlaw the stuff, but there are no end of complications as the crew fight to restore the timeline. It's BACK TO THE FUTURE, of course, right down to the disappearing Crichton, but it is handled with enough enthusiasm and sense of fun to make it work. TopTerra FirmaCrichton is back on Earth in his own time, but it is his friends who are making the biggest impact. Whilst he tries to protect both the aliens from the humans, but also the Earth from his friends, he has to come to terms with what it is that he wants from him life. He can stay or he can go, but for once the choice is real and it is his. Until the invisible assassin turns up, that is. The alien assassin here borrows its cloaking shield from the PREDATOR, but this is really a story about the collision between family and friends, or more importantly between family and lovers. Everything about Earth is familiar, warm, friendly, but also edged with all the problems that come with family and a few that come with national security. Crichton's life on Moya has changed him, but has it changed him so much that he no longer fits in? Does he even want to fit in any more? His friends are on Moya and Aeryn is on Moya, though both of them still have a bucketload of issues to sort out. In a way, it's a shame that the alien assassin has to intrude so rudely since up until that point it was an interesting examination of adult feelings. After that it gets pulled back to simple adventure. TopTwice ShyWhilst negotiating for charts of Tormented Space Moya's crew rescue an innocent young woman from the traders. She is, however, about as far from being innocent as she is from being a woman. Giant spiders monster roaming the ship sucking the defining characteristic out of each of the crew. Emotion sucking creatures are ten a penny in science fiction and this is just the same as the others. Crichton loses his determination, Aeryn her control, D'Argo his anger, Chiana her sex drive and Rygel his greed. It's fun for a short while seeing the characters without these characteristics, but matters soon follow a predictable course. TopMental As AnythingThe males aboard Moya (pilot excluded) travel to a planetary dojo where a marital arts master teaches mental control. Crichton refuses to play ball and ends up locked in a metal box over a coal fire, Rygel gets to avenge himself on one of the creatures that killed so many of his people, but D'Argo is stunned when his brother-in-law shows up to prove once and for all that the Luxon killed his wife. This is another episode that deals exclusively with the internal life of the characters. It's all about D'Argo's past and his guilt and his anger. These are the episodes that really stand out in the show and this is not an exception. Much of it plays out pretty well as expected, but the route to enlightenment proves to be an interesting and illuminating one. TopBringing Home The BeaconThe female members of Moya's crew descend into the hull of a dead Leviathan that provides a trading post in the hope of getting a sensor disrupter that will mask their energy signature from scanning ships. Instead, they encounter high-powered officials from both the Peacekeeper and Scarran camps making treaty that will sign over D'Argo's home planets to the Scarrans. A straight adventure episode, this moves forward the season arc set around the conflict between Peacekeepers and Scarrans, but it is the kicker of an ending that will be the lasting memory. We're still a little way from the end of the season, but the finale is being set up here and now. The incidental pleasures include Chiana going green (literally) and Noranti proving to be quite an actress. TopA Constellation Of DoubtWhilst the rest of the crew try to locate the secret Scarran base of Tatrazi where they hope Aeryn is being held, Crichton watches a transmission Pilot has intercepted from Earth that analyses the recent visit paid by Moya's crew. The television programme 'Alien Visitation' that Crichton is watching is a sad indictment of the state of our society as it all too accurately mimics what we would really expect should such a thing ever actually happen. The truth is twisted and the case sensationalised, but it proves to be far more balanced than perhaps we might first have expected. It's really about Crichton, though. There isn't much mileage in watching Ben Browder brood for an hour, so the time in between is filled in with this faux TV show. It's a gimmick, but an effective one, even if it does smell a little bit of padding. TopPrayerCrichton has identified the time and place where he heard the word Katratzi before and takes Scorpius inside a wormhole to another reality. On an alternate Moya, he faces off against an alternate Stark to get the information that he needs, but it will mean the death of members of Moya's crew, alternate reality or not. FARSCAPE is going to some really dark places as we race towards the end of the season. Aeryn is being tortured and her only hope is another patient who has managed to amass enough sleeping pills to kill them both. Is her pain enough to commit suicide and take her unborn child with her? On the alternate Moya, Crichton finds his humanity slipping away in his need to get the information that he needs to regain Aeryn. Are the creatures he faces any less real just because this reality never came into being? It's compellingly dark stuff. TopWe're So Screwed Part 1 - Fetal AttractionMoya is stopped at the border of Scarran space and the crew learn that another of the ships at the border station is the freighter taking Aeryn to Katratzi. A desperate plan is hatched to get her back, a plan that includes infecting the whole station with a deadly plague. Did we mention that the show is going a bit dark. Well it doesn't get a whole load darker than this. The Scarrans plan to remove the baby and implant it in Chiana, who is immune to the plague. Aeryn is growing ever weaker, Rygel is on the edge of death and the plan hasn't even gotten into full swing yet. The action when it comes is fast and furious and the outcome would be satisfying were it not for the twist that is thrown in at the end in a Dracula spoof. TopWe're So Screwed Part 2 - Hot To KatratziA peace conference between the Scarrans and the Peacekeepers at Katratzi is gatecrashed by Moya's crew. Crichton's got a nuclear weapon strapped to his belt and is willing to trigger it if anyone threatens him or his friends. He offers to sell his wormhole technology to the highest bidder, but secretly foments and riot between the Scarrans main allies. As the fighting starts, the plan is sprung to free Scorpius, but whose side is Scorpius really on? FARSCAPE does YOJIMBO (or A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS if you prefer) as Crichton plays off all sides against the middle, sowing discord and getting everyone at each others' throats. It's a nice plan and lots of fun, but the twists just keep coming as the plan is sprung and the cliffhanger sees the nuclear bomb squealing up towards detonation. TopWe're So Screwed Part 3 - La BombaHaving caused his own rescue to be foiled, Scorpius turns the focus of attention to the plant that is so important to the Scarrans. To destroy the plant would be a vital blow to the Scarran empire, but since it is shielded, how can they succeed? Crichton still has the solution. Scorpius continues to swap between the side of the angels and devils with remarkable flexibility, but the new change of direction is a bit abrupt and doesn't really convince. It seems unlikely that an entire species could be so dependent on a single plant and not find ways of reproducing it. They cloned Stark after all. This leads to a conclusion that is unsatisfactorily hurried and not very believable. TopBad TimingThe Scarrans know of a place where the plant that they are so dependent on grows - Earth. Crichton determines to destroy the wormhole once and for all, stranding himself on the wrong side of it, but the plan requires something as drastic as the removal of Pilot from Moya. Season finale time and after the big scale theatrics fo the We're So Screwed trilogy it all seems a bit low key. That said, the stakes are high enough for it to matter and the consequences of Crichton's actions should he succeed or fail are suitably dramatic. His final conversation with his father is quite moving, but in FARSCAPE fashion takes place from the moon. All of the plotlines seem to be nicely tied up until a (literally) shattering last few moments. Top |
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