Farscape — 1x13 — The Flax
Synopsis
Whilst flying a Transport Pod, Crichton and Aeryn become ensnared in 'The Flax', an immobilizing net-like weapon under the control of ruthless Zenetan Pirates. An eccentric ex-pirate, Staanz, comes to Moya's aid before she too is captured, but he is being pursued by the dangerous hunter Kcrackic. After D'Argo abandons them to search a nearby Luxan vessel caught in The Flax, Crichton and Aeryn are faced with a serious problem: they must depressurize the Pod to make repairs, but they have only one space suit - meaning one of them must die.
Filler rating: not filler
The Zenetan Pirates show up again in late season 2 in a pretty significant way.
Remarkable scenes
- John's flying lessons.
- Rygel and Zhaan noticing that Staanz' genitals aren't where most bipeds' are.
- The ridiculous inside of Staanz' ship.
- Aeryn suggesting that one of them be temporarily killed and then resuscitated so they can vent the oxygen and do repairs.
- Crichton teaching Aeryn CPR.
- D'Argo and Staanz escaping the flax.
- Aeryn temporarily killing John and performing the repairs.
- Aeryn abandoning the repairs to save Crichton's life.
- Rygel revealing he lost on purpose to make Kcrackic leave the ship thinking himself victorious.
- Aeryn and Crichton suddenly making out and D'Argo interrupting them.
- Staanz revealing that he's the female of the species and coming on to D'Argo.
- John to Aeryn: "You are the female of your species, right?"
Review
An enjoyable episode with delightful comedy and some great character moments for John and Aeryn especially. The performance of Staanz was also remarkably good. The actor knocked the comedy out of the park and delivered a performance that was delightfully absurd. I loved almost every scene his character had from his ridiculously broken down ship to his coming on to D'Argo at the end of the episode. The parallel but more serious story of Aeryn and Crichton falling for each other was a satisfying development, but I'm a bit annoyed it wasn't explored in more depth.
After Aeryn's and Crichton's rescue, they both decided it best to forget their mutual attempt at a last shag before death ever happened, something which I find annoyingly immature, if admittedly realistic. There's clearly something between them, something that's been clearly implied for quite some time. But like Odo and Kira on Star Trek DS9, neither of them seem to want to admit it. Hopefully a permanent pairing won't be dragged out for quite as long as it was on DS9.