Review

Mind the Baby is almost like a second series premiere for Farscape. There are many similarities between this first episode of season two and the first episode of season one. Once again the plot is largely wrapped up into a neat little package by the end of the episode, partly at the expense of depth. John is relatively safe for the time being, but has a different "insane military commander" chasing him. These similarities are so striking that John's monologue in the opening credits doesn't even need the slightest tweak.

There are important differences of course. Most remarkably the overarching story has grown in depth and nuance. Crais and Talyn being out there on the loose as ambiguous allies and probably guests in future episodes is certainly a fun prospect and Scorpius is definitely a more compelling villain than Crais was in season one. But at the same time, this season premiere makes it clear that we're once again not too terribly likely to see either of these two characters very frequently which is a trend I quite disliked in season one.

As for this episode's merits by itself, what we get is mostly good. Crais manipulating everybody was fantastic and Talyn himself is turning into quite a fascinating character. John's and D'Argo's antics in this episode were unusually funny and Aeryn dealing with Talyn slowly slipping away from her was touching, especially given the fact that she seems to have adopted Talyn acting as a sort of godmother to him.

But for all that the episode is jam packed with nice character moments, it's a bit too packed in. Several pieces of the story weren't given enough time to be really fleshed out and others were simply poorly executed. The most glaring weak portrayal for me in this episode was Scorpius. His role in the episode is distinctly uncomplicated. Chase Moya. His scenes amount to little more than your typical mustache twirler. As a character, he gains no more depth which makes him seem like little more than manufactured danger for our protagonists, which is a real shame after how strong he resonated as a deep and nuanced bad guy in Nerve.

Other oddities are things like Moya being attacked by the Sheyangs for no coherent reason and Chiana's strange reference to Zhaan having been put on trial during interim between last episode's cliffhanger and the events of this episode. What are they talking about? What happened? Speaking of Zhaan, her spacey behavior in this episode seemed out of character to me. Same goes for Rygel's emotional asphyxiation and Chiana's ridiculous jump hug. All of that was over the top and frankly campy. When I'm being reminded of Galactica 1980, then the story isn't doing a very good job.

But those oddities were brief and minor and much like the season one premiere, the season two premiere overall works and is quite satisfying, even if it's not quite perfect and could have been better in several ways. In the end, in the overarching plot sense we basically get more of the same, but it's more refined, it's deeper, and has more potential than season one did. I'd have certainly preferred something braver and darker, but this story certainly delivers in spite of that.

Review

While this is a fairly enjoyable character piece on some levels, this episode feels much more like "Thank God It's Friday, Again" than the more recent, considerably better material. Some of the worst cliches were thankfully avoided though, such as Nilaam being an established alien species (Luxan) rather than a new alien species of the week and she wasn't evil, nor did she have a hidden agenda.

The particular highlights of this episode are the small character details sprinkled about. John, Zhaan, and D'Argo are sporting classier new looks, which while being more interesting for the audience to look at in superficial ways also more importantly reflects their growing success in coping with life in the uncharted territories. If John's finding time for fashion, you know he's starting to grow into his place in the universe.

Likewise, this episode plants seeds of an upcoming serious relationship between Chiana and D'Argo and we get some more fascinating information about D'Argo's background with the explanation of what his chin tattoos mean and why he donned them. Finally the tidbit about how Pilot sacrificed a large percentage of his lifespan in order to bond with Moya is fascinating as well.

But the little details aren't enough to sustain a great story. They just make a largely unremarkable story a bit less drab.

Review

The idea of doing a story where one of our characters discovers that a close relative has died then having that character forced to grieve the loss is a decent notion. Such a premise offers the possibility for some solid character development. But this episode mostly erodes any of that potential by delivering a story that is largely incoherent and annoying.

Firstly the danger posed to Chiana in this episode is wholly manufactured; she did it to herself. The whole episode is focused on talking her down from her death wish. Perhaps a realistic happenstance, but it manifests itself in largely petty ways. Crichton doesn't have time for Chiana, so a temper tantrum ensues amidst trippy nonsense, almost no scoring, a dreary looking set, and a bunch of annoying lightning flashes. The end result is a rather boring episode that tells us almost nothing about Chiana's brother and what he meant to her.

On top of that, John takes an irrationally extreme and unnecessary risk taking those mushrooms to try and help Chiana and the whole idea of an entire planet being dedicated to being a graveyard seems like an obnoxious waste. As for the Rygel "curse" plot, perhaps the less said, the better. Overall, this is the worst episode of Farscape so far.

Review

You'd think an episode all about how some pulsar light makes the crew bicker more might be cliched and annoying by now, but Crackers Don't Matter has that special comedic touch which makes it a fine episode in the tradition of The Flax. The absurdist comedy makes for an incredibly entertaining story while the danger of the actual plot manages to be both compelling for the immediate danger posed by T'raltixx as well as for the overarching danger posed by Scorpius.

The inclusion of a hallucinatory Scorpius was indeed a nice touch. This adds a delightful new element to the character of Scorpius, even if it's all in John's head. The real Scorpius of course isn't prancing around in Hawaiian shirts and talking about pizza and margaritas, but the next time John sees him will be colored by this experience. In effect, the experience of this episode adds a great deal of texture to how John perceives the character.

On a related note, this episode sees an uptick in the magnitude of irrelevant references to Earth, or John Sequiturs as I prefer to call them (others call them Crichtonisms). We now have clear evidence that the more crazy John is going, the more John Sequiturs get sprinkled into his dialog and internal monologue. It seems clear by now that these references are a kind of defense mechanism from letting his experiences make him completely insane.

Finally, it's worth noting that D'Argo's sincere apology to Rygel for the force feeding is more significant than it may appear, as in DNA Mad Scientist it was established that Luxans are not prone to apologies; it's incredibly hard for them to offer them. Overall, Crackers Don't Matter is an incredibly entertaining story, even if it doesn't advance the overarching plot much at all.

Review

The Way We Weren't is a magnificently dark story which drudges up all sorts of uncomfortable memories for Aeryn and Pilot and fleshes all of it out quite well. What makes it such a strong story isn't simply that Aeryn participated in the execution of Moya's original pilot, but that Aeryn demonstrated at least some level of willful complicity in her actions aboard Moya when she chose to actively work against Velorek to service her own interests.

The tragedy of the story is that Aeryn's interests were not with her cover story of preferring Prowler duty, but instead with running away from her feelings of true love for Velorek. In effect, Aeryn's inability to deal with her feelings of love for Velorek led to not only his (probable) execution, but also cost Moya and Pilot their freedom, assuming Velorek's plan to stop Crais' black project could have been carried out successfully without Aeryn's interference.

In addition, other nice tidbits of texture are strung about as well. Aeryn rightfully sees hypocrisy in Zhaan's, D'Argo's, and Rygel's outrage at Aeryn murdering Moya's old pilot under Peacekeeper orders while they were willing to cut off one of Pilot's arms (even if they do grow back...) of their own free will out of selfish desire to go home. Likewise, Pilot is shown to not be entirely innocent either when he reveals that he knew that fulfilling his desire to be amongst the stars would cost one of his own kind its life.

This brings up the episode's only true weakness of course, which is at times Pilot's turbulent emotions cross the line into being significantly less rational than might be realistic. As Velorek said, Moya's original pilot's fate was already sealed, so Pilot's guilt is irrational. Likewise, Pilot's outrage at Aeryn is also irrational, though perhaps less so. However, as a consequence, Pilot's behavior and rage throughout the story seems grossly out of character.

It's worth noting that Pilot having lived in a constant state of pain for the last few cycles might easily substantiate his explosive breakdown in this episode, but the story may have been better if this were stated explicitly. Instead, we can't really know whether or not Pilot would have acted that way pain or no pain, which at best is an omission in the writing and at worst disservices Pilot's character. Overall though, the broad takeaway from this story is that it's an outstanding piece of drama and character development and among the best episodes of Farscape so far.

Review

I wrote in my review of That Old Black Magic that Maldis was arguably more interesting than Crais as an antagonist because of his overwrought, almost deus ex machina level of abilities. As a consequence, in that episode, Crais seemed to be a less significant threat than Maldis, the malevolent super-alien who feeds on suffering. As such, it's logical to conclude that an episode which features Maldis as the primary (and only) antagonist might be a better story.

Unfortunately, it simply didn't work out that way. The first half of the episode was wasted on the rather drowsily paced "mystical painting that can see the future" plot and it isn't until the second half of the story that Maldis is actually confirmed to be behind the scenes. By the time we actually get to see him, he barely gets to do any mustache twirling at all before Zhaan swiftly dispatches him.

Along the way nothing new happens; it's basically just a repeat of the last encounter, but with less trial and error. Zhaan just takes him out like a well trained assassin, leading me to roll my eyes at her closing line of having been more scared in that moment than any in her life. I can certainly see why John would assume her panic was all an act. Zhaan's work was ruthless and professional.

That said, Zhaan's highly effective tactics are also what make this story as enjoyable as it is. A better story would have exposed Maldis earlier and made Zhaan's plan take longer, but the surgical precision with which Zhaan's plan was executed was delightful to watch. Plans which work right the first time are a rarity on Farscape indeed! We also get more tender character moments between Chiana and D'Argo, continuing to hint at a budding romance between the two. All in all, the episode is nothing special, but not so bad either.

Review

Another less than stellar Chiana's past episode brings us to a dreary mining colony where she once mingled with some disreputable folk. Well some more than others anyway. Chiana brings Moya and her crew here because they're all desperately short on food. Conceptually, it's a decent idea for a story, but the details leave much to be desired.

Neither the plot down on the dead Budong nor the plot aboard Moya quite shines. Zhaan's extreme (over)reaction to starvation struck me as adding an unnecessary artificial urgency to a problem that seems straightforward enough already. They'll all starving. We didn't need Zhaan's crazy alien reaction to starvation to understand why starving is bad for our heroes.

But down on the Budong what we get isn't much better. It sure was convenient that Moya just so happened to show up just as B'Sogg killed his brother. Not that I cared much though as none of the people from Chiana's past in this episode were terribly interesting anyway.

Just about the only thing that was interesting about this episode was D'Argo and Chiana struggling to define the terms of their budding relationship. The kiss at the end is a nice payoff to this. But even then, they end up more or less where they started. The latent attraction between the two was obvious several episodes ago.

In the end, while this episode has a few enjoyable scenes such as Zhaan's pollinating or John fighting the creature and is certainly worth an extra point for the D'Argo and Chiana character moments alone, nothing in this episode was indispensably important. You wouldn't be missing much by simply skipping it and thus it doesn't warrant a very flattering rating.

Review

This episode was originally meant to be aired as the season premiere without the flashback framing device. However, after watching this episode, it's pretty easy to see why they opted to go with Mind the Baby as the premiere instead, despite the fact that it introduced some minor continuity errors that might leave you scratching your head when Chiana mentions in that episode Zhaan having been on trial along with Chiana and Rygel seeming so unusually happy to be reunited with John, Aeryn, and D'Argo. Had this episode (without the flashback framing device of course) preceded Mind the Baby, those scenes would have made sense. But it would have been a dreadfully boring season premiere.

The basic thrust of the story is to depict Zhaan's inability to assume a leadership role now that John, D'Argo, and Aeryn are unavailable. This by itself is a reasonably interesting exploration of Zhaan's character, but the plot device used to get us there is dreadful. Introducing: Litigara, the hyper-litigious planet where 90%(!) of the population is lawyers. Zhaan gets thrown in jail for jaywalking, then gets framed for murder. It's obviously supposed to be satire of a society's obsession with legal code run amok, but the portrayal is so ridiculous that it's painful to watch.

Frankly, everything about the satire is overwrought. How could a society function where 90% of the population is lawyers? Why imprison someone for jaywalking? What possible sense could it make to have lawyers suffer the same fates as their clients, even in the scenario where the attorney is arguing their case in bad faith? And finally, how the frell could the judge be so damn stupid as to be fooled by Chiana's, Rygel's, and Pilot's parlor trick with the "light of truth" simulation? And even allowing for that, why would she consider that admissible evidence? The whole damn thing is nonsense.

In spite of this though, the character moments the silly plot device affords Zhaan, Chiana, and Rygel are touching. Had they been integrated into Mind the Baby and the silly Litigara plot device been ditched, it certainly would have made for a nice season premiere. All in all, while I'm glad we got an explanation for the plot holes in the season premiere, I'm also glad this episode never ended up being used as the season premiere. That would have been even more annoying than it was as a flashback after the fact.

Review

This episode is a great deal of fun. Watching the actors play each other's characters might sound like a silly farce, but the actors do a great job of selling it both realistically in the sense of exploring the implications of this science fiction plot device and delivering the inevitable resultant comedy.

On top of that this episode finally gives us some insight into what Crais and Talyn have been up to. Although I'd have preferred their involvement in the story to be more pronounced. Likewise, the alien antagonists of the week were not terribly compelling either.

Other than that, there's little else to say about this story. There's some cute relationship stuff between Chiana and D'Argo, as well as John and Aeryn, and the episode is filled with delightfully awkward switched-character moments.

I suspect D'Argo, and to a lesser extent Chiana now have some deeper understanding of just how different Pilot's life is compared to the rest of them, similar to though perhaps not as deep as the bond Pilot and Aeryn developed in DNA Mad Scientist. All in all, this episode is mostly just some good fun and great comedy. Not unlike The Flax or Crackers Don't Matter.

Review

This episode is like Star Trek Voyager's "Tuvix" but without the well played moral dilemma. Unlike Tuvix, the super smart John in this episode is portrayed as unlikable and self-absorbed to the point of being dangerous to the rest of the crew. That happenstance is merely a convenient trap door for the episode to get a free reset button. Now we don't have to deal with more than one Crichton, or deal with the issue that if only one Crichton can remain, a solid case could have been made to keep the smarter one around.

When John wondered and worried that the smarter, more evolved version of himself was the inevitable future of his race, D'Argo quite correctly consoled him by assuring him that it's only one possible genetic path. I enjoyed this detail, but it also underscores the more interesting question, what if the genetic path the sphere delivered was a likable, non-self-absorbed, non-dangerous version? What if super smart Crichton was as harmless as the original?

That would have made for a more interesting story. But, again, the episode's trap door makes it so we don't have to tackle the tough questions. Instead, we get a cliched action show and a set of confusingly preachy moralizing scenes. For example, Chiana sets neanderthal Crichton free to make some kind of high minded moral point, but as D'Argo said it was merely stupid. That move very easily could have cost everyone on Moya their lives.

Then original John paradoxically agrees to sacrifice himself just as he finishes lecturing his super-smart counterpart about the evils of him being remarkably indifferent to the lives of Moya's crew. Why would John do that? By this point he had all the evidence he needed that his smart counterpart would be the worse version for Moya to keep around, despite his enhanced abilities. John should have kept fighting for his life. I found it profoundly out of character for him to just give up like that and horribly convenient that his neanderthal counterpart let him off the hook.

That said, the poor neanderthal Crichton's story was indeed touching. Imagine living your whole life as a regular person, then being transformed into... that. In your diminished capacity, you're just lucid enough to know what you've lost, but not lucid enough to ever regain it. Indeed tragic. But the implications of John being cloned like this could have been much deeper and much more interesting. It's a shame the episode didn't explore it well.

Review

Moya quite literally stumbles into relevance in this episode, her aimless wandering finally delivering the crew into non-filler plot advancement which has been sorely lacking in the season thus far. Unfortunately, the execution leaves much to be desired.

It's nice to finally see a full-blooded Scarran and his capabilities, as well as see the romantic relationships between the crew clarified. We now know for sure that D'Argo and Chiana are dating each other and that John and Aeryn would like to but can't sort out their feelings.

However, the relationship exposition isn't entirely new information. Most of this info was slowly disseminated over previous episodes. Astute fans would have already drawn these conclusions. What is new in this episode is the plot dealing directly with these relationships.

But the plot focusing so much on these relationships is part of the reason this episode doesn't work very well. Chiana and D'Argo are amusing comic relief, but John and Aeryn are just annoying. Frankly, Aeryn's behavior during this whole episode is highly irrational; since she's doing it to herself, I have little sympathy for her sadness.

But that's just the beginning of this episode's remarkable lack of focus. What I found even more striking was Zhaan's and Moya's role in this episode and especially Scorpius' role, or in both cases I should say lack thereof.

I'd like to think Scorpius just hanging out on the sidelines like this, waiting for things to happen is part of his clever scheming, but instead it comes off more like he was backed into a corner by the local royalty and has no choice but to play by the rules. That doesn't sound very Scorpius at all to me.

As for Moya and Zhaan, the broader implications of Moya's wandering into the (alleged) leviathan "builders" domain remain to be seen. Overall the episode is a disappointment. I don't care about the breakaway Sebacean colony and I'd prefer these long term story arcs to be handled with better focus to enhance the dramatic effect. Aimless wandering makes for a boring drama.

Review

Part 2 is basically a repeat of part 1 except it brings some fantastic action into the mix. John's spacewalk is of particular note. It's among the most badass scenes I've seen in all of Farscape so far! Unfortunately though, this episode does little to mitigate the previous episode's issues with focus. Aeryn is still incoherent and useless, Moya's still off in la la land with Zhaan, and the rest of the characters are unable to help John get out of his predicament, rendering them almost as useless as Aeryn.

As for Zhaan, we now know why Moya wandered off, but the reason isn't a very good one. It's intriguing to meet the leviathan ship builders, but for a race so advanced they seem to have rather primitive critical thinking skills. They can build leviathans, but seem to lack the ability to sterilize them. Thus, they decide to kill Moya to prevent her from reproducing further. A plot so ludicrous it almost belongs in the technical problems section.

Perhaps the most interesting thing in this episode was John hearing Scorpius' voice in his head telling him to focus in order to survive. Could this be a slow resurgence of hallucination Scorpius from Crackers Don't Matter? A less comical, more serious version of that Scorpius that exists solely to act as John's anti-panic mechanism would indeed make for some fascinating drama. As for the real Scorpius, I'm glad we saw him make an actual play to try and grab John, but it too was rather weak. I expected more from Scorpy.

Finally, on a lighter note, it was fun watching John masquerade as a Peacekeeper again in the teaser. I sometimes wonder if they'll be abusing that cliche for its endless comedic effects for the rest of the series. Overall, this episode is a step up from the last one, but not by too much. Scenes like John's spacewalk were undeniably badass, but do little to mitigate general poor plotting. Hopefully the next installment is a grand slam.

Review

Part 3 mostly fixes the focus issues at the expense of some of part 2's action gains. John and Aeryn have sort of kind of maybe probably worked out their relationship tension, but it took extreme separation anxiety and near death experiences for them to sort of kind of maybe probably accept their feelings for each other. Meanwhile, John got a princess impregnated with his child, though not by his own choice. The idea that his daughter won't be born for another 80 cycles is intriguing, but also a convenient way for us to dispose of this plot thread forever, rendering it largely inconsequential.

The only plot of actual consequence is John's time with Scorpius. We get some interesting exposition about Scorpius and what his big black suit and the weird rods being inserted into his head are all about and we also get to see Scorpius both fail and in some respects deal with failure. At first I was annoyed that Scorpius couldn't hack it on Sebacean royalty planet, but now that we've spent more time with his character, I can see why. Scorpius isn't Crais. He's interested in getting John, yes, but he won't sacrifice his career in the process. Thus, we see a more nuanced Scorpius here.

We also see a weaker Scorpius. His thermal regulation weakness has been exposed and in fact Scorpius was mere inches from being killed by John. Why John didn't kill Scorpius in that moment I may never know. As D'Argo said, it was a mistake. A huge mistake. Maybe it's just a flaw in John's character. He can't kill poor old Scorpy even when he knows he should because he's just too darn nice a guy. Whatever the reason, it should have been made more clear to us. Instead, it looks like a quirky, snap decision John makes for no good reason. Overall, the three parter was decent, but largely a disappointment. With better focus in all 3 parts it could have been a much stronger story.

Review

All this Vorc and parasite nonsense for what amounts to a single scene of important exposition. This episode almost couldn't be more annoying. Instead of dealing directly with the issue of why John is seeing Scorpius everywhere, that much more interesting issue is treated as a subplot so we can get yet another generic alien of week story with our heroes running up and down Moya chasing and shooting the pesky critter.

I grant the episode an extra point solely because the John and Scorpius stuff is so interesting and that it answers my primary question from the last episode's review, which was why didn't John kill Scorpius when he had the chance? Now we know why. John, for some reason, couldn't. It's possible Scorpius has messed with John's mind so much that John is now susceptible to mind control to a certain extent. A fascinating idea indeed.

But we'll have to wait for another episode which deals with this plot thread in more depth before we can truly begin to explore it.

Review

Introducing: Harvey. He's both John's protector and tormentor. Poor John was captured by the Scarrans off screen just prior to this episode and was sure to be done in. But the enemy of John's enemy turned out to be his friend. Scorpius implanted Harvey into John's head during the events of either Nerve or The Hidden Memory to protect John's life at all costs. If John were to die, everything Scorpius is after would die with him. Thus, while Harvey will stop at nothing to keep John alive, he'll also stop at nothing to unravel John's brain to get at that wormhole knowledge. A delightful impasse.

Structurally and dramatically, this episode is everything the previous episode should have been. What little exposition we got out of the last episode explaining hallucination Scorpius was reiterated here and then some. And the complete answer we got is, as I've said, delightful. There are all sorts of fascinating possibilities. It's clear Harvey can exert some amounts of control over John. He can affect his physiology (even stop his brain!), he can prevent John from killing Scorpius, and he may even be able to prevent John from revealing the full extent of what Scorpius' neural clone really is to his shipmates.

Whatever the capabilities of the neural clone are, it's sure to play a big role in John's increasingly unstable behavior. Simply being stranded away from Earth and on the run was making John crazy enough, but to have his pursuer literally inside his mind messing with him adds a lovely new layer of danger to the story. John's being attacked on two fronts now. Not just in space, but from within as well. In short, this episode manages to be successful at not just telling a great, fun story by itself, but also setting up the rest of the season for more great storytelling. Well done.

Review

The Locket is an episode which had a lot of potential to be a fantastic Aeryn and Crichton character story but it was wasted because the details just didn't tell a very touching story. Instead we got something of a jumble.

Aeryn got old on some planet where time slows down, had children with some man we learn absolutely nothing about, then John goes down there with her (accidentally) and gets old too. The point of the story seemed to be about Aeryn's unrequited love for John, given that they were separated for so many decades, but that drama was understated to the point of barely existing, if at all.

Meanwhile, Stark's now back on the ship randomly and knows the whereabouts of Jothee, D'Argo's son. His presence adds almost nothing to the story except to enhance Zhaan's mystic powers, a cliche they abused not once but twice. Likewise, the whole idea of rapidly aging the characters and then resetting them to normal age is something of a science fiction cliche by this point as well.

The most annoying detail though was how Aeryn thoroughly failed to coherently explain to John when she first returned to Moya exactly what had happened to her. She insisted instead that Moya's crew trust her so she wouldn't have to explain, but she spent more time insisting this than explaining would have taken! Overall the episode is somewhat a flop.

Review

An amusing and fascinatingly framed story with a dramatic twist at the end. Stark's noble sacrifice was abrupt, surprising, and moving. Though like in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan we can be all but certain Stark isn't dead. He's been given a get out of death free card due to his mystic powers and his method of execution.

I am frequently irritated by deaths framed in such a way in science fiction stories because despite how moving Stark's death was, the fact that we cannot know that it is certain death robs it of much of its dramatic appeal regardless of whether or not we ever see him again. Nevertheless, the ending is a great dark twist despite its shortcomings.

The next most remarkable thing in this story is the delightful framing device of most of the episode's plot being told via the dramatized accounts of each of the five prisoners. Each prisoner's subtly different account of what happened aboard Talyn was delightful in its own way. There are too many amusing details to list.

Overall The Ugly Truth is a solid story. Along with Stark's noble sacrifice and the fun of the different accounts of the prisoners, it was great seeing Talyn and Crais again and this time they were used for more than just a silly cameo appearance. Hopefully they start to play a bigger and more frequent role in the ongoing story soon.

Review

This is an episode with very little plot advancement but lots of fun along the way. We learn more about why the nefarious Nebari government is so evil and we find out Chiana's brother is still alive, but aside from giving us some background exposition concerning Chiana, absolutely nothing of consequence happens. What's interesting about this episode is the little details.

Scenes like Harvey helping John resist the mind control, John naming his gun Winona, mind-frelled D'Argo, John chiding Rygel for always trying to sell them out, and so many others turn this otherwise average plot into a quite enjoyable story packed with an assortment of fun scenes. Though it's little more than that. The plot is somewhat deficient at times.

Melak's character is particularly foggy. The plot said Melak was "sent" to deliver Nerri's message to Chiana. But sending him under the guise of working for the Nebari government sort of defeats the purpose of delivering her a message from the resistance if he's duty bound to capture her in the process to maintain his cover. Given that logical contradiction I'm left wondering why Melak didn't just betray Varla right from the start. Oh wait, I know why. Because then we wouldn't have an episode. ;)

In any case, the episode manages to be well above average anyway. It's jam packed with fun scenes and while I'm starting to get irritated that the issue of D'Argo's son continues to be on the backburner, they manage to get away with it pretty well by implying that it's taking Moya some time to travel to the location where Jothee is being held. All in all A Clockwork Nebari is a strong story.

Review

A fast paced action plot with lots of great suspense and danger but very little payoff. Almost nothing of consequence happens in this episode despite all the high stakes. The two most significant events are the return of Stark and Scorpius zeroing in on John. But saving D'Argo's son still remains conspicuously untended to and the bounty Moya's crew acquired from the Shadow Depository turned out to be sabotaged for some reason. I'm particularly annoyed with this cliffhanger. If they had gotten away with the money, the episode might have been worth another point, but sabotaged money that transforms into deadly spiders just isn't a very interesting plot point.

Stark's return is certainly a welcome one. If they're going to plant seeds like they did in The Ugly Truth about how Stark's probably maybe not really dead, they should at least follow through with that wishy washiness and bring him back. Fortunately, they did exactly that and wasted no time doing so. I'd have been irritated if they dragged it out, but they didn't. So good job there I guess. What's especially notable though is Stark's behavior post-resurrection seems even more erratic than pre-resurrection, much to my amusement. Watching his convoluted plan slowly unfurl was lots of fun and the fact that his crazy plan wasn't so crazy after all adds a lot of credibility to the character, as D'Argo made note of.

The centerpiece of the story though is John's spazzy behavior as a consequence of John's neural implant being in close proximity to the real Scorpius. I loved how John had no reservations about assassinating Scorpius, but it was obvious that the chip in his head was preventing him from directly attempting to do so. The scene where Scorpius commands John to save his life is one of the most powerful scenes in the series so far. It's delightful that John was able to overcome Scorpius' control, but not completely. John was unable to will himself to kill Scorpius when he got away and what's more leaving the cooling rod within Scorpius' reach was clearly the wishes of the chip in John's head.

Overall the first part of this multi-part episode is off to a good start, cliffhanger notwithstanding. Hopefully the next installment ratchets up the intensity and relevance even more.

Review

This episode is a riveting continuation of the previous installment's premise and I'm delighted to see that rescuing Jothee is finally the primary focus of the story. John takes one more stab at assassinating Scorpius in the process but his plan falls apart as plans always do on this show when the money turned out to be sabotaged. I was pleased the spiders didn't serve as the episode's primary antagonist but instead were treated more like a nuisance while the episode's much more interesting A plot marched forward. This focus made Moya's devastating injury far more shocking and dramatically compelling.

Another nice detail was D'Argo admitting to struggling with giving John to Scorpius in exchange for his son. I liked both that D'Argo struggled with this as well as the fact that he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. Fortunately for D'Argo, the choice was made for him when John realized his plan had fallen apart. Now with no money to pay the mercenaries, John had little choice but to agree to Scorpius' terms.

Speaking of the mercenaries, this episode is a continuity gold mine or nightmare depending on how you look at it. I'm typically fond of well integrated stories where characters recur and aren't confined to single episodes, but the characters brought back in this story weren't Farscape's best offerings, with the possible exception of Durka. Seeing Rygel personally murder Durka was one of the best scenes of the episode; a worthy tangent. We'll have to see how the mercenary thing plays out in the next installment.

Review

The epic rescue of John is a densely packed action show and a great deal of fun. We get to see Talyn strut his stuff, only Rorf and the Sheyang die in the process, nobody else is captured, and the crew makes off with riches! I have to agree with Rygel for once. For a Farscape plan, that's quite a successful haul.

A particular highlight of the story for me was the subtle character development of Jothee. He doesn't have many scenes, but the ones he has count. He starts off indignant, refusing to help rescue John. Then he realizes that he's not comfortable with his cowardice and changes his mind, volunteering to assist his father.

D'Argo though is mindful of Jothee's feelings and gives him the honor of playing a less risky role in the rescue. I liked that Jothee seemed to have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, he didn't have to risk (as much) life and limb. On the other hand, he seemed to truly desire to prove himself to his father in battle and didn't get his chance to. The ambivalence was nicely portrayed.

The centerpiece of the intrigue in this episode was of course once again John and his struggling against Harvey. John seems to have lost more control over his actions than ever before; having to be knocked out by Aeryn and carried out of Scorpius' clutches by D'Argo. John didn't even once assist in his own rescue aside from buying time by distracting Natira.

There were only two minor blemishes that prevent this episode from getting a perfect score. The first is the same complaint from before about the mercenaries. They were annoying. Of course they were far less annoying in this episode than the last one, but they were still a bad idea to begin with because as I wrote in my last review none of them are terribly interesting characters.

Thus when two of them nobly sacrificed themselves, it was hard to really feel for them. They were little more than a distraction from the interesting parts of the plot to begin with. On top of that they didn't even matter that much in the end anyway. It was Talyn that made the difference in the battle, not the mercenaries. Some of them even got in the way, like the pirates.

The second blemish on the plot was the alleged death of Scorpius. This wasn't framed well. We didn't see him die; it was only mentioned in passing. So if he did die, he got a fairly unceremonious death, unworthy of such a fantastic antagonist. If he's not really dead, then the plot's doing a fairly poor job of convincing us that he is. Either way it's a poorly executed plot point. But overall this is an awesome episode of Farscape.

Review

Another stellar episode just shy of being worthy of a perfect score. Repeating the same mistake as the previous episode, we all know Aeryn is not really dead, so why the big, dramatic funeral? The story plants the seeds of her resurrection quite clearly. The Diagnosan regularly preserves people at the moment of their death, keeping them alive in stasis. Clearly, unbeknownst to anyone in the story, the Diagnosan is (was?) planning to add Aeryn to its collection.

Once again, the audience isn't being clued into this hidden motive because the writers are trying to fool us, playing up Aeryn's alleged death with an overwrought funeral. But audiences are not fooled and even if we were, that's not how you write good drama. On a related note, were we supposed to act surprised that Scorpius was still alive? Nobody in this episode even acted like he was dead and nobody was surprised when he returned. It's as if the writers gave up on that ruse last episode.

The next most annoying detail of the episode is the Diagnosan itself. Scorpius said, "What irony! Sensitivity to heal anything but oneself." He's right, but the irony is pretty forced. It's like the planet full of lawyers. A good satire is nice, but it's hard to suspend disbelief that there is an entire species out there dedicated to a single craft, like healing or lawyering. Once again, Farscape delivers us another bad science fiction cliche.

That said, the season two finale delivers a lot of drama and intrigue. The icy dogfight between Aeryn and John controlled by Harvey was incredibly thrilling. And the little details tantalize as well. There is dialog suggesting that humans, Sebaceans, and perhaps other aliens are genetically closely related somehow and there's also a sequence of lovely scenes between Chiana and Jothee. Poor D'Argo. His girlfriend is about to become his daughter in law.

And finally, you can't help but feel for John. Aeryn's death may be a poorly executed sleight of hand, but John being robbed of his girl, his speech, and much of his memory is a terrible price to pay for getting that chip in his head removed. Like Aeryn's life, I'm sure John's speech will be restored, but I doubt this is the last we'll see of Scorpius.

It would be fun to see some sort of role reversal. Imagine Scorpius developing some kind of wormhole technology using John's recovered memories and then John hunting Scorpius both for a way home and for vengeance. But whatever does ensue, this episode definitely leaves me on the edge of my seat for more Farscape. This was an effective season finale and the season itself continued to deliver a delightfully dark drama.