Farscape — 3x03 — Self-Inflicted Wounds Part I: Could'a, Would'a, Should'a
Synopsis
While searching for a planet to heal the dying Zhaan, Moya collides and fuses with a small spacecraft, seriously injuring Moya and trapping both ships in a series of looping wormholes. Crichton and the captain of the other ship, Neeyala, soon realize that one of the ships must be sacrificed if any of them are to survive.
Filler rating: not filler
Numerous major long term plot threads are serviced here. This is also the episode where the recurring character of Jool is first introduced.
Remarkable scenes
- Moya stumbling on a wormhole.
- John injecting the aliens who boarded Moya with translator microbes.
- John likening the alien's discussion of wormholes to technobable from Star Trek.
- Moya attempting to starburst with the alien ship still stuck to her.
- Rygel: "We were thrown together against our will. And we're all just trying to make the best of it until we can get the chance to screw the others and get what we want."
- John getting in a fight with Rygel.
- Rygel: "You broke my nose!" John: "You ain't gotta nose Guido, you got slits!"
- Crichton having a chat with Harvey.
- Jool attacking John.
- D'Argo unlocking the ship he recovered from the last episode.
Review
Despite having a lot of worthwhile potential, this episode is a jumbled mess. We've got nothing but tidbits of largely unexplored ideas here that each deserved more screen time than they got. John seems to learn how to navigate a wormhole safely, one of the frozen aliens allegedly closely related to humans wakes up and this time survives, John and Harvey seem to both conclude that Scorpius is still alive, and D'Argo unlocks the recovered alien ship.
Meanwhile, Zhaan's story seems to be put on the backburner and instead replaced with a silly non corporeal serpent monster action plot. Combine that with Jool's annoying screams and homicidal behavior along with the false danger presented in the cliffhanger about the lives of John, Moya, and Pilot being in danger and you've got the makings for a pretty lame story. There's little else to say other than hopefully part 2 delivers stronger stuff.