Farscape — 2x14 — Beware of Dog
Synopsis
Chiana returns from a Commerce Planet with a cute little creature called a 'Vorc'. When D'Argo is attacked by a vicious beast, the crew utilize the Vorc to track down the unwanted guest. Troubled by hallucinations of Scorpius, Crichton has also been catching glimpses of a ferocious creature eating its way through Moya. The rest of the crew doubt his sanity, until it is discovered that the docile Vorc and the voracious animal Crichton saw are one and the same!
Filler rating: bad filler
All the exposition about hallucination Scorpius offered in this episode can be gotten in context later.
Remarkable scenes
- The Vorc humping Aeryn's leg.
- The creature attacking Chiana and D'Argo.
- The revelation that the Vorc is the parasite.
- John speculating that the Vorc only takes the form of the parasite to hunt it.
- John and Aeryn injecting translator microbes into the Vorc.
- John shooting at an imaginary Scorpius beside Aeryn.
- The supposed parasite leading John and Aeryn to a cocooned Rygel.
- Rygel helium farting to prove his identity.
- John and Aeryn exterminating the real parasites.
- John and Aeryn attempting to console the dying Vorc.
- John revealing his flashes of Scorpius to Aeryn.
- John revealing that he tried to kill Scorpius when he had the chance, but couldn't because something inside of him stopped him.
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.