Farscape — 4x12 — Kansas
Synopsis
The crew travels through a wormhole to Earth, 1985, and Crichton finds he has somehow disastrously changed the course of time - his father Jack is now slated to fly the doomed Challenger mission. Lying low in Crichton's home town, the 'aliens' use the timely Halloween celebrations to remain (almost) anonymous, while Crichton tries to revert the timeline - in the process putting his younger self in mortal danger.
Filler rating: not filler
Numerous major long term plot threads are serviced here.
Remarkable scenes
- John, in orbit of Earth in nothing but his space suit: "I can't believe I'm gonna die here. This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
- John asking D'Argo to follow John through the wormhole.
- John discovering that he's traveled to Earth, but it's in the 1980s.
- John observing his younger self.
- John discovering that his dad will be on the doomed Challenger shuttle.
- John confronting his younger self.
- Aeryn watching Sesame Street.
- Chiana flipping off an Earth woman.
- Rygel accidentally being exposed to an Earth woman.
- Grayza locating Moya.
- Aeryn referring to Rygel as Kermit. ????
- Noranti drugging the cop.
- John confronting his mom, telling her to stop Jack from going up on the Challenger.
- D'Argo attempting to drive the cop car.
- Rygel on a sugar high.
- Scorpius meeting with Braca, who is revealed to be secretly still loyal to Scorpius.
- Rygel scaring kids to get more sugar.
- John using his semi-corporeality to his advantage to convince his mother to prevent Jack from boarding Challenger.
- The single cop who remembered everything being perceived as crazy.
- John returning to Moya only to discover that Moya is in orbit of Earth and it's also the correct year.
- John seeing his father aboard Moya and acting with immediate disbelief.
Review
Having John return to Earth for real but in the wrong year would have been good enough for a fantastic story by itself, but the amazing twist at the end of having John return to Earth at the correct year along with Moya and with his dad having already boarded Moya is an absolutely fantastic development. One of the greatest fascinations of Farscape's ongoing story is to explore the idea of what would happen if John did some day return to Earth with all the knowledge and technology he had gained out in space. They touched on this way back in A Human Reaction, but it was deliberately exaggerated and I rightfully never believed it was a realistic portrayal of what would really happen.
This time though it's real. No illusions, no smoke and mirrors, real. I loved John's disbelief at the end of the episode. Even though there's absolutely no reason to think any of this is a fake this time, John doesn't buy it. He thinks it it just has to be a fake. He's become paranoid. And can you blame him? I certainly can't. The best part about all this for me is this is all happening in the middle of a season. They didn't even save this big moment for some big finale. If the follow-through of this plot arc is as bold as the setup, we've got the makings for perhaps the best storytelling ever depicted on Farscape.