Farscape Rewind: Episode 2.01

[Mr. Infamous]

We resume this week with, "Mind the Baby" our first episode in season 2 and the second part of the cliffhanger we were left with in Family ties. Like a lot of "pick it up after the break" style cliffhangers though there are some things that get glossed over in the transition and we'll get to those in a minute but first the opening scene.

We open with Moya under attack by Sheyangs again, Chiana and Rygel are freaking out and Zhaan is calling for Dargo on the coms while they try to convince her he's gone. This scene turns out to just be a bad dream Dargo's having though and he soon snaps awake in some strange setting with John and starts to question if he's dead or not. At this point the viewer's probably doing the same, or maybe questioning how he's alive since the last episode ended with him loosing consciousness in space after his Luxon time limit ran out. John starts to clarify things soon after though, Aeryn did in fact pick them up and fly them to this mystery asteroid with some kind of abandoned mining base on it and despite all the time it must have taken her to do that Dargo's still fine even though he was already out when she was saying she couldn't even try to come get them yet last time. We also never get to see just how exactly she "picked them up" without depressurizing her own ship in the process.

There's a brief cut that shows Aeryn is planning something with Crais, then the opening credits followed by Aeryn's triumphant return. Turns out she needed to make a deal with Crais to get Dargo and John to an inhabited asteroid that he'd found in exchange for her helping him calm Talyn down. John and Dargo don't like this one bit of course so they hatch a plan to do something about it, one which involves Dargo tonguing Aeryn and John going off in her prowler to try and get Crais off Talyn.

Before all that goes down though we're cued back into all the plot threads from last season. Moya escaped ok, but now wants to go back and look for Talyn again. I guess the little pep talk John gave her didn't stick.

Scorpy's still searching for John and knows he's alive because he allowed Aeryn to pick him and Dargo up, fearing John would just kill himself if he ordered his own forces to move in to collect him. His lousy pilots then let Aeryn escape back into the asteroid field despite there being like probably thousands of them though, so he's back at square one again.

Lastly Crais is still out there with Talyn of course, and now he's trying to get Aeryn to come along with him on some sort of ex Pk pleasure cruise. She's been making regular trips back and forth to the ship to calm him down because apparently Crais sucks with kids or something, which I can't say is surprising.

Anyway though Aeryn comes back to the asteroid and spills the beans to Dargo and Crichton about Crais and her arrangement with him so Dargo knocks her out and John heads off to take care of Crais in her prowler.

Before we get to that though we get to see that Zhaan can be crazy in more than Dargo's dreams and has chosen this particular moment to retreat into some sort of meditative trance and ignore everything and everyone around her. I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean in terms of her character's direction this season. Chiana says that she's resumed trying to be a priest again but funnily enough I don't remember her being this annoying and useless when she was a priest before. Maybe true enlightenment can only be found on the inside of a peacekeeper prison cell and trying to do it in freedom just makes you a big useless doucheess?

All Chiana wants her to do is talk to pilot to try and convince him to convince Moya that charging back into the same trap they just got out of is probably not the best idea, but she'd rather stand still and hold rocks instead. You can get ready for more of this because "boy Zhaan sure is annoying" is something of a recurring theme for the two seasons that follow sadly. A shame to, she started out as a great character.

Speaking of enlightenment though Crais is enlightening Talyn into what a backbiting schemer Scorpius is by letting him listen in on a "conspiracy" discussion he's having with him involving him returning Crichton and all the others to Scorpy. It's not 100% clear if Crais is just totally playing Scorpy here to make a point to Talyn, or if he's cultivating some kind of a back door option for himself just in case. Probably a bit of both. He'd rather not hand everyone over to Scorpius and count on his mercy but if it comes down to him being caught again he wants to at least have the option to pretend he cooperated all along. It does show how little he knows Scorpius though, as Scorpy would of course kill him anyway. He despises Crais as a man and a traitor and more weaseling around to try and save his own skin is going to be the last thing that will elevate Scorpy's opinion of him.

John makes his appearance on Talyn next, arguing with Crais about his value as a living person vs a corpse for a while before Crais orders Talyn to attack him but instead ends up as John's hostage and heading back to the Prowler. Again it's not quite clear the logistics of how John managed to fly Crais anywhere in the Prowler since the passengers sit behind the pilot and Crais certainly isn't going to be flying. Rest assured though that the episode deals with this the way they usually deal with these kinds of problems, by simply not showing you how it happens.

Back On Moya Rygel and Chiana are talking about ditching the ship in Crichton's module before she has a chance to "run right into Scorpius' bad teeth" but decide against it on their own out of loyalty of all things. Despite that though Pilot gets awful pissy with them a moment later just because they brought it up, while apparently not bothering to notice that they also decided to stick around out of loyalty, even despite the suicidally stupid actions of the giant space whale he can barely control. It's a pretty big moment for both of these two to do anything out of a sense of obligation or loyalty, so it's rather a shame that pilot, and by extension the script, doesn't take the time to notice the significance of it.

John arrives back on the ship with Crais, locks him in his cell and goes to visit Zhaan where she continues to act weird and annoying by assuming that his return couldn't possibly be the result of the plan to save him they all came up with last episode, but must instead be because she's seeing his ghost. John's ghost is one of those ghosts that tells you he's not a ghost and has 2 way conversations with Chiana in front of you to. I guess from Zhaan's perspective this must mean that Chiana can just up and talk to dead people in front of her without even trying, or even realizing she's doing it. No wonder Zhaan's so intensely into this meditation thing this episode, she must think she's got an awful lot of catching up to do.

Wait, come to think of it, if him telling her he's not a ghost and having a two way conversation with Chiana right in front of her isn't enough to convince her he's not a ghost how could any of the others convince her they to were not ghosts. Does she actually believe this I wonder, that Moya is in fact a ghost ship haunted by the spirits of Pk victims past and the Pks are really only chasing her. If she did knock her head getting out of the space shower and start to she's already proven there'd be literally no talking her out of it.

Back on the asteroid Dargo's telling Aeryn that if he dies she should eat him, or before if it's not too much bother either, but John shows up next to take them back to the ship because guess what, Talyn's freaking the fuck out again and causing more problems for everyone. He'd already sent out a distress signal when John took Crais, which both Moya and Scorpius heard, but now for some reason he's decided that Scorpius is taking too long to find and kill him so he's going to fly out of the asteroid field to throw the ol' chap a bone. Moya of course is going to chase him, something that pilot, despite what he's called, can't to jack shit about, which leaves Scorpy all giddy back on the command carrier. Scorpy plans to hold back again, since he knows Talyn is to young to starburst and Moya won't leave him behind, choosing instead to tail them out of sensor range until they get too far from the asteroids to possibly turn and hide again. You've got to give Scorpy credit, he's only been in a few episodes so far and he's already showing just how much more competent he is than Crais. It's especially funny in light of the fact that he's a scientist not a naval commander.

The leviathan drama continues with Talyn fleeing and Moya chasing him, and after a brief interlude where we see that Rygel really does care, we're back to the crazy Zhaan show. This time she's ringing some kind of bell with a crystal from a distance and talking about a higher love when Aeryn comes in and tells her that she's full of shit and selfish and is basically just using this whole "Delvian seek" thing as a way to hide in her bedroom away from the real world and all its scary and difficult problems. This episode made me like Aeryn more.

Next we learn that Dargo actually quit the Luxon military and was a happy farmer with his wife before he got arrested by the Pks, this is all useful to note because it actually does become relevant to how his character develops in later episodes.

Next we're back to showcasing how bad Pilot is at his job as Scorpy finally decides to move in and Moya continues to chase Talyn and freak him out despite him shooting her in the face. Talyn wants Crais back as it turns out, and is shooting at Moya to get him, but Moya being again completely out of pilot's control continues to crowd him because she doesn't believe he'll fire again, so he does, and they lose their salvaged Pk defense screen from "PK Tech girl".

Next, in an obvious attempt to tug at the shipper heartstrings, Aeryn launches into this big thing about how she has to go with Crais now to prevent him from misusing Talyn and boo hoo hoo lets not say goodbye John and the whole usual song and dance. Why she thinks she has any business policing Crais and Talyn's lives despite the fact that the ship wants him not her is anyone's guess, but it doesn't last long because as soon as the two of them actually get to Talyn he makes his choice clear again by giving Crais a direct neural link to his systems and telling Aeryn to buzz off. Before she buzzes off though she manages to lose yet another fight, this time to Crais after both he and Talyn agree that she needs to get out and it would be cool if they both tried to kick her ass at once since she doesn't want to. It's good to see that she hasn't been practicing in the off season, though honestly I would pretty much expect Crais to kick her ass. He's basically a psycho with serious anger issues and probably most of the same training she's got. She lasted longer against him than I would have expected, though we still can't count this as a win. Also, Talyn is about as good of a shot as any other PK.

After Aeryn buzzes off as ordered Crais just goes ahead and jumps Talyn to starburst like it's nothing, followed shortly by Moya, but not before he taunts Scorpius one last time by telling him he killed Crichton. Scorpy is mega pissed now though because some expert on the command carrier told him that Talyn was too young to starburst and he made all his plans based around that information. I like this myself as it lets the good guys get away but does it in such a way as to not make Scorpy look overly stupid or inept in the process. It was his subordinates who let him down in this one, first by loosing track of Aeryn after he rightly held back on trying to grab Crichton fearing he'd just uncork his helmet in space, and now again with this "tactical expert" guy dicking up his analysis.

The episode closes up with Zhaan apologizing for being as annoying as she was all episode long, and agreeing to stop "seeking" for the moment. Keep note of this folks, because it means that all the times where she'll be annoying again after this, and there are plenty of times, are entirely down to the quality of of her own charming personality and can't just be shoveled off on wacky Delvian religion. Oh, and Aeryn and John contemplate whether Crais can really change.

All in all there's not really a lot to say about "mind the baby" either good or bad. I suppose more than anything else the whole thing is basically just a somewhat dull re-visitation of the "Escape from Scorpy's command carrier" plot from family ties, only with the difficulty in actually sneaking past it that was such a prominent plot point in that episode completely glossed over in this one. They had to blow up and entire moon base just to distract the carrier long enough to get off a starburst last time but in this one they just have to fly out of the field and starburst willy nilly like it was nothing. You could put this on Scorpy shifting his strategy to holding back or not having the same kind of prowler net in place as he did last time, or you could just be honest with yourself and say that maybe this episode isn't completely free of plot holes and questionable writing after all.

Final verdict: Mediocre re-visitation of a story we already saw resolved in a much more exciting way just one episode ago.

[Rustydogz]

"Mind the Baby" resulted from dipping the hand into a 'Bits and Bites' bag of scattered ideas, pulling out a fistful and throwing them at a word processor.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

We open with Moya under attack by Sheyangs again, Chiana and Rygel are freaking out and Zhaan is calling for Dargo on the coms while they try to convince her he's gone. This scene turns out to just be a bad dream Dargo's having

I wonder if they intended a Dargo-Zhann romance at this point of the series. If true, that would make Chiana the sloppy seconds.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

the last episode ended with him loosing consciousness in space after his Luxon time limit ran out. John starts to clarify things soon after though, Aeryn did in fact pick them up and fly them to this mystery asteroid with some kind of abandoned mining base on it and despite all the time it must have taken her to do that Dargo's still fine even though he was already out when she was saying she couldn't even try to come get them yet last time. We also never get to see just how exactly she "picked them up" without depressurizing her own ship in the process.

Easier to write that then to actually think, then to use their imaginations, then to do their jobs and create something that made sense and was dramatically satisfying.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

His lousy pilots then let Aeryn escape back into the asteroid field despite there being like probably thousands of them though, so he's back at square one again.

Darn those pesky - could never exist in nature - asteroid fields! They are almost as pesky as those giant space clouds ships hide in so often in sf shows (cheap plot device cough cough hack writing cough cough).

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Anyway though Aeryn comes back to the asteroid and spills the beans to Dargo and Crichton about Crais and her arrangement with him so Dargo knocks her out and John heads off to take care of Crais in her prowler.

So apparently he helped her take D and C to the asteroid. That is very limited help to exchange for her giving him a series of lessons in 'piloting' Talyn. They should have at least put C and D on board Talyn instead of dumping them in some wrecked mine building. But of course the show once again wants to murder credibility and logic in order to force some drama out of Aeryn's trips back and forth, and C and D being at a distance in some weird locale instead of right on Talyn, where they of course would and should be after the rescue.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Before we get to that though we get to see that Zhaan can be crazy in more than Dargo's dreams and has chosen this particular moment to retreat into some sort of meditative trance and ignore everything and everyone around her. Maybe true enlightenment can only be found on the inside of a peacekeeper prison cell and trying to do it in freedom just makes you a big useless doucheess?

Again, forcing drama into the ep by writing something implausible, because, well, making the effort to write something good is just so hard! So we have a character who decides that, "Yes, we may all be about to die so I'll just start my Delvian Priestess re-initiation meditation right at this moment! And let me know if we are not all going to be murdered or imprisoned after all.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

You can get ready for more of this because "boy Zhaan sure is annoying" is something of a recurring theme for the two seasons that follow sadly. A shame too, she started out as a great character.

Yes she did, and she has a few good moments remaining, I think. The producers mumbled something about her being 'the moral conscience of the crew' in her seasons on the show, as if that explained messy sequences like this one.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Again it's not quite clear the logistics of how John managed to fly Crais anywhere in the Prowler since the passengers sit behind the pilot and Crais certainly isn't going to be flying. Rest assured though that the episode deals with this the way they usually deal with these kinds of problems, by simply not showing you how it happens.

They do that a lot in this series actually. That word 'again' really sums things up.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Despite that though Pilot gets awful pissy with them a moment later just because they brought it up, while apparently not bothering to notice that they also decided to stick around out of loyalty, even despite the suicidally stupid actions of the giant space whale he can barely control.

I had long since given up thinking of Pilot as anything but useless. And in this scene he/it became an asshole. It is fun to note that he is more upset in this scene than he was when they cut off his arm - which is to say in the former case he wasn't at all. Is this meant to pass as character development?

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

It's a pretty big moment for both of these two to do anything out of a sense of obligation or loyalty, so it's rather a shame that pilot, and by extension the script, doesn't take the time to notice the significance of it.

A shame but not a surprise. To do so may have required effort.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

John arrives back on the ship with Crais,

Now that was easy wasn't it? Why were they hiding in the asteroid field again? Scorpy didn't follow the Prowler to the Moya? I guess they could all have left their hiding spot at any time and just gone back to Moya in Talyn.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

John's ghost is one of those ghosts that tells you he's not a ghost and has 2 way conversations with Chiana in front of you to. I guess from Zhaan's perspective this must mean that Chiana can just up and talk to dead people in front of her without even trying, or even realizing she's doing it. No wonder Zhaan's so intensely into this meditation thing this episode, she must think she's got an awful lot of catching up to do.

Yes, they are trespassing in 'Ghost Whisperer' territory here. Jennifer Love Hewitt might have shown up on Moya and kicked both their asses - John's too, so all three!
If they wanted to do something like this, they should have brought Zhann back in time for the 'two John's' season, esp the ep where there is again only one John (I'm sort of avoiding spoilers). She could have been so traumatized she insists that one John is a ghost, a spirit reflection of the other. Or they could have done this with another character. But that, you know, would have required thinking and plotting.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Does she actually believe this I wonder, that Moya is in fact a ghost ship haunted by the spirits of Pk victims past and the Pks are really only chasing her.

Again, writing something like that seriously is possible, but not for this bunch. Or they could but they can't be bothered, the surfing in Australia being soooo good.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Moya of course is going to chase him, something that pilot, despite what he's called, can't to jack shit about,

Pilot's entire role on the series was to say that he/she/it did not know what was happening, and could not do anything about it what ever it was.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

It's especially funny in light of the fact that he's a scientist not a naval commander.

He seemed to be in a special category that let him do both. It was the old 'implausible job overlap' which, admittedly, Farscape did much better than the far over-regarded Star Trek.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

This time she's ringing some kind of bell with a crystal from a distance and talking about a higher love when Aeryn comes in and tells her that she's full of shit and selfish and is basically just using this whole "Delvian seek" thing as a way to hide in her bedroom away from the real world and all its scary and difficult problems. This episode made me like Aeryn more.

Thank you to whomever wrote that dialogue. I could have hugged Aeryn at that moment.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Next we learn that Dargo actually quit the Luxon military and was a happy farmer with his wife before he got arrested by the Pks, this is all useful to note because it actually does become relevant to how his character develops in later episodes.

Someone took the trouble to plant a plot seed for a future ep. Good, I mean that.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Next we're back to showcasing how bad Pilot is at his job as Scorpy finally decides to move in and Moya continues to chase Talyn and freak him out despite him shooting her in the face. Talyn wants Crais back as it turns out, and is shooting at Moya to get him, but Moya being again completely out of pilot's control continues to crowd him because she doesn't believe he'll fire again, so he does, and they lose their salvaged Pk defense screen from "PK Tech girl".

Not bad in itself maybe, but how many times can they go to the 'pilot can't actually pilot' well for drama? They use this constantly.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Next, in an obvious attempt to tug at the shipper heartstrings, Aeryn launches into this big thing about how she has to go with Crais now to prevent him from misusing Talyn and boo hoo hoo lets not say goodbye John and the whole usual song and dance.

Yes a goodbye scene that is not really a goodbye. A tease, a false dramatic moment, a waste of time.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Why she thinks she has any business policing Crais and Talyn's lives despite the fact that the ship wants him not her is anyone's guess,

Exactly. It is way past time to do anything about Crais controlling Talyn. This defines 'too late', she just sounds foolish when she says she intends to police Crais' behavior. She helped him gain control of Talyn, what is she going to do know? Nothing except get beat up again.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

but it doesn't last long because as soon as the two of them actually get to Talyn he makes his choice clear again by giving Crais a direct neural link to his systems and telling Aeryn to buzz off.

I suppose we can give the writers some credit here and say they wanted this scene to emphasize that Crais was Talyn's chosen pilot, in a way that merely stating the fact could not achieve. Going there still made her look foolish though, given the previous scenes in this two parter.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

though honestly I would pretty much expect Crais to kick her ass. He's basically a psycho with serious anger issues and probably most of the same training she's got. She lasted longer against him than I would have expected, though we still can't count this as a win.

Ironically, it was Aeryn who trained John, and after two weeks of that training John wiped the mat with Crais. This is also the one and only fight Crais wins.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Scorpy is mega pissed now though because some expert on the command carrier told him that Talyn was too young to starburst and he made all his plans based around that information. I like this myself as it lets the good guys get away but does it in such a way as to not make Scorpy look overly stupid or inept in the process. It was his subordinates who let him down in this one, first by loosing track of Aeryn after he rightly held back on trying to grab Crichton fearing he'd just uncork his helmet in space, and now again with this "tactical expert" guy dicking up his analysis.

This was good writing. See boys and girls, make your little plot reversals part of the logic of the story. The usual path for Farscape writers, especially in an ep like this, would be to ignore that they had ever written a line saying Tayln was too young to Starburst.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Oh, and Aeryn and John contemplate whether Crais can really change.

And he does sort of, vaguely, very slightly .... ok no he doesn't.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I suppose more than anything else the whole thing is basically just a somewhat dull re-visitation of the "Escape from Scorpy's command carrier" plot from family ties,

Somewhat dull?

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

only with the difficulty in actually sneaking past it that was such a prominent plot point in that episode completely glossed over in this one.

i.e. ignored (hack writing! cough cough)

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

They had to blow up and entire moon base just to distract the carrier long enough to get off a starburst last time but in this one they just have to fly out of the field and starburst willy nilly like it was nothing.

They write a couple of good scenes near the end, and then -clunk! - drop us back down.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

or you could just be honest with yourself and say that maybe this episode isn't completely free of plot holes and questionable writing after all.

But for a couple of instances mentioned above, it was free of good writing.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Final verdict: Mediocre re-visitation of a story we already saw resolved in a much more exciting way just one episode ago.

And the word 'exciting' there being relative. They pulled that fistful of Bits and Bites out of the bag and threw it at the WP and in the viewer's faces. They seemed uninterested in writing this ep. They could have begun season two with Vitis Mortis and had a couple of lines in the first scene that said:
"Wow Aeryn, you picked us up right in the nick!"
"Yes, I think Scorpius let me rescue you thinking he could capture us afterwards, the schmuck!"
"Ha ha, for sure. Too bad Crais took off with Tayln though, I wonder if we will ever see them again?"

Those lines sum this ep. They could have saved themselves the production costs.

[Mr. Infamous]

Originally Posted by Rustydogz

"Mind the Baby" resulted from dipping the hand into a 'Bits and Bites' bag of scattered ideas, pulling out a fistful and throwing them at a word processor.

Or putting "Family Ties" through a paper shredder, gluing what was still readable to some sheets of paper and just filling in the blanks.

I wonder if they intended a Dargo-Zhann romance at this point of the series. If true, that would make Chiana the sloppy seconds.

The funny thing about Dargo's dream is just how egotistical it is. Like they're all surely going to perish without him and they're all calling out for his help. There's another similar scene from a later episode that's exactly the same in terms of what it says about his personality to.

Easier to write that then to actually think, then to use their imaginations, then to do their jobs and create something that made sense and was dramatically satisfying.

These kind of cheats are one of the things that can really bring down an otherwise good story for me. It's not going to cause me to hate something I would otherwise have liked but the taste of tricking the audience into investing in a suspenseful situation, then simply cheating your way out of it with a scene cut never goes down easy.

Darn those pesky - could never exist in nature - asteroid fields! They are almost as pesky as those giant space clouds ships hide in so often in sf shows (cheap plot device cough cough hack writing cough cough).

Yeah, I was going to rant about the asteroid field being impossibly dense and how in real asteroid fields objects are so far apart you'll almost never even be able to see two at once but I first hit on this in Bone to Be Wild and there was so much else to rant about in that episode it fell by the wayside. Suffice it to say it's yet another tired overused sci-fi cliche in the same category as "slow moving blobs of... something" and "our ships fight so close together they mind as well use swords". It's just one of those things that have been ripped off and re-ripped off so many times nobody seems to even give a moment's pause to think if it could be done differently. It's just taken for granted by now that that's what an asteroid field will look like on screen.

So apparently he helped her take D and C to the asteroid. That is very limited help to exchange for her giving him a series of lessons in 'piloting' Talyn. They should have at least put C and D on board Talyn instead of dumping them in some wrecked mine building. But of course the show once again wants to murder credibility and logic in order to force some drama out of Aeryn's trips back and forth, and C and D being at a distance in some weird locale instead of right on Talyn, where they of course would and should be after the rescue.

It's even worse than you make out. Crais apparently could barely even control Talyn at all until Aeryn came aboard and helped them two of them bond or whatever. So basically he was on about equal terms with pilot. I also had to question why she didn't just take Dargo and Crichton to Talyn though. The only rational reason I can think of is that Crais himself simply forbid it, fearing that the three of them together would attempt to take the ship from him by force before he could convince it to trust him.

Again, forcing drama into the ep by writing something implausible, because, well, making the effort to write something good is just so hard! So we have a character who decides that, "Yes, we may all be about to die so I'll just start my Delvian Priestess re-initiation meditation right at this moment! And let me know if we are not all going to be murdered or imprisoned after all.

It was just hopelessly out of place for her to start in on this now. They'd just escaped from the PK base and left the others behind. It only makes sense if you assume that Aeryn was spot on about her just using it as an excuse to hide while retaining some air of superiority, which I'm inclined to think is exactly what was going on. Zhaan has shown before that she's hardly unwilling to abandon her shipmates if she gets scared so perhaps you could sort of look at this as progress for her. Sure she's not at the head of the effort to return and rescue everyone but she's also not trying to convince pilot to jump the ship like she did in Hidden Memory, and she even refuses to try and dissuade him from going back when Chiana asks her to. In other words she knows what the right thing is to do but her fear of the Peacekeepers means this is the best she can do in terms of leading a heroic charge to the rescue, that being hiding in her room and focusing on controlling her own fear so she doesn't go running around trying to undermine the rescue.

Yes she did, and she has a few good moments remaining, I think. The producers mumbled something about her being 'the moral conscience of the crew' in her seasons on the show, as if that explained messy sequences like this one.

It's clear that "moral conscience" is what they were definitely trying for but they certainly fed her some awfully stupid lines and had her defend or argue for some really goofy notions in the process.

They do that a lot in this series actually. That word 'again' really sums things up.

I'd have to agree unfortunately. It's another thing I didn't really notice before I was watching these with a more critical eye, but now that I am I'm disappointed by how often I'm seeing this tactic of "we just won't show it" being used as an escape hatch when they've written themselves into a corner.

I had long since given up thinking of Pilot as anything but useless. And in this scene he/it became an asshole. It is fun to note that he is more upset in this scene than he was when they cut off his arm - which is to say in the former case he wasn't at all. Is this meant to pass as character development?

This episode was a real tour de force of just how utterly useless he is though. He's got basically no control over the ship at all. The ship is flying him to what could very well be their collective doom, eating repeated weapon hits in a blatantly emotional and recklessly self destructive manner, and there's absolutely nothing he can do about it. I can see why the PKs wanted to explore different methods of controlling a Leviathan if this is how things normally work.

A shame but not a surprise. To do so may have required effort.

It was a such a turning point for them. They didn't know he was listening and yet they both convince themselves that they need to stay out of loyalty with no one else around telling them what to do. He should have been overjoyed not angry because now he knows that they really will stick with him and his out of control space whale to the end. Hearing that conversation that they thought was private between them was worth them simply telling him they'd stick around a thousand times.

Now that was easy wasn't it? Why were they hiding in the asteroid field again? Scorpy didn't follow the Prowler to the Moya? I guess they could all have left their hiding spot at any time and just gone back to Moya in Talyn.

Pretty much yeah, the whole fearsome command carrier net from last season grew some pretty big holes in it this episode. Maybe Scorpy had all those shitty pilots that lost Aeryn liquidated.

Again, writing something like that seriously is possible, but not for this bunch. Or they could but they can't be bothered, the surfing in Australia being soooo good.

I wouldn't want to see that as a serious story arc. I was just pointed out that after seeing what Crichton does in this episode and still thinking of him as a ghost, going by her ridiculous criteria, any of the others could also be ghosts that only she can see.

Pilot's entire role on the series was to say that he/she/it did not know what was happening, and could not do anything about it what ever it was.

My favorite is the episode in, I think it's season 4, where the ship literally tries to fly them all into a sun.

He seemed to be in a special category that let him do both. It was the old 'implausible job overlap' which, admittedly, Farscape did much better than the far over-regarded Star Trek.

Scorpy probably does a lot of studying up in his off hours on things like this but it's still funny that he's able to so utterly outperform Crais here when Crais is supposed to be a Captain first before all else. Maneuvering Pk warships and best utilizing all their capabilities is supposed to be his number 1 specialty, where as it's more of a "self taught" thing for Scorpius. Maybe it's the PK training standards that suck ass in general and you're better of with home schooling but other PKs like Xhalax and Grayza got the drop on Moya pretty bad at times and neither one of them seemed as heavily "I command warships and nothing else" slanted as Crais either. Xhalax was a commando, an infantry soldier, and Grayza was some kind of politician with maybe some distant fading memory of full time military service in her past.

Thank you to whomever wrote that dialogue. I could have hugged Aeryn at that moment.

It was the highpoint of the episode for me and I wish they'd gone back to it in future eps when Zhaan starts acting all loopy again.

Yes a goodbye scene that is not really a goodbye. A tease, a false dramatic moment, a waste of time.

Yep, waste of about 5 minutes of a 40 something minute episode, and then it all ends with. "Turns out the ship doesn't really want you here, and now that I don't need you to help me control him, neither do I.

Exactly. It is way past time to do anything about Crais controlling Talyn. This defines 'too late', she just sounds foolish when she says she intends to police Crais' behavior. She helped him gain control of Talyn, what is she going to do know? Nothing except get beat up again.

It's more just about the sheer temerity of it to. "Oh I don't like what the two of them might decide to do together so I'm going to make it my business to go along with them so I can tell them what they are and are not allowed to do with their lives. Did she actually expect that to accomplish anything other than them ditching her on the next planet?

Ironically, it was Aeryn who trained John, and after two weeks of that training John wiped the mat with Crais. This is also the one and only fight Crais wins.

I think the only time John ever really gets beat by anyone period is when he's outnumbered, it's some kind of superhuman monster, or when it's Scorpius, who of course is also superhuman.

And he does sort of, vaguely, very slightly .... ok no he doesn't.

The funny thing about this line is that Crais already made the biggest change he's ever going to make in Family Ties, when he let go of his irrational anger and desire to get revenge for his brother.

Somewhat dull?

Considering what's coming up next I don't want to fly off the handle just yet lest the sense of relative comparison be lost or something. This episode may have been pretty boring but it's got nothing on the next two.

Those lines sum this ep. They could have saved themselves the production costs.

Yes and the next one can be summed up with the words "the one where Dargo fucks the old lady... and we get to watch.".

Stay tuned folks!

[Rustydogz]

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

The funny thing about Dargo's dream is just how egotistical it is. Like they're all surely going to perish without him and they're all calling out for his help. There's another similar scene from a later episode that's exactly the same in terms of what it says about his personality to.

The guy shouts impressively but rarely backs that up with results. It is like they were afraid to take some spotlight from Ben Browder.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

It's even worse than you make out. Crais apparently could barely even control Talyn at all until Aeryn came aboard and helped them two of them bond or whatever. So basically he was on about equal terms with pilot. I also had to question why she didn't just take Dargo and Crichton to Talyn though. The only rational reason I can think of is that Crais himself simply forbid it, fearing that the three of them together would attempt to take the ship from him by force before he could convince it to trust him.

Given the Moya example I doubt he could have stopped anyone from boarding. Anyway, I assume his 'help' included transporting J and D to that mine.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I wouldn't want to see that as a serious story arc. I was just pointed out that after seeing what Crichton does in this episode and still thinking of him as a ghost, going by her ridiculous criteria, any of the others could also be ghosts that only she can see.

Yes, of course. I meant that if they wanted Zhann to start acting delusional, there were better occasions for it.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

My favorite is the episode in, I think it's season 4, where the ship literally tries to fly them all into a sun.

Ohhh boy, I forgot that one. I can hardly wait.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

It's more just about the sheer temerity of it to. "Oh I don't like what the two of them might decide to do together so I'm going to make it my business to go along with them so I can tell them what they are and are not allowed to do with their lives. Did she actually expect that to accomplish anything other than them ditching her on the next planet?

Aeryn of all people as a moral guardian. Maybe the others are really that bad.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

The funny thing about this line is that Crais already made the biggest change he's ever going to make in Family Ties, when he let go of his irrational anger and desire to get revenge for his brother.

And much later, when it is revealed that Crais was teaching Talyn a bias against non-Sebaceans, Crais looks slightly embarrased. Oh yah, when he is reunited with Braca he has that great sarcastic line.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Considering what's coming up next I don't want to fly off the handle just yet lest the sense of relative comparison be lost or something. This episode may have been pretty boring but it's got nothing on the next two.

Maybe they should have begun the season with Crackers Don't Matter. I used to think one of this show's strengths was the writing, now I think the writing was a weakness. But.... apparently the cast continually went off script. If that is true, then any problems with the dialogue, though not the plotting, is their fault.

[Mr. Infamous]

Originally Posted by Rustydogz

The guy shouts impressively but rarely backs that up with results. It is like they were afraid to take some spotlight from Ben Browder.

Later on he almost becomes more of a comic relief character to.

Given the Moya example I doubt he could have stopped anyone from boarding. Anyway, I assume his 'help' included transporting J and D to that mine.

He could have told Talyn it was a peacekeeper prowler coming to kill them, that could have had some interesting results.

Yes, of course. I meant that if they wanted Zhann to start acting delusional, there were better occasions for it.

Yep, was really out of place here. It's not like she even suffered any specific personal trauma to bring this sort of thing on. Maybe when Bernee shrunk her and John restored her her brain still remained a few sizes too small or got scrambled somehow when his machine had a power hiccup.

Ohhh boy, I forgot that one. I can hardly wait.

It's made even better by everything else in the episode being equally awful!

Aeryn of all people as a moral guardian. Maybe the others are really that bad.

The key to being moral is to whine, constantly. Only inherently immoral people can keep their personal shit squared away when in the prolonged company of others.

And much later, when it is revealed that Crais was teaching Talyn a bias against non-Sebaceans,

I don't remember that part but I'm having a chuckle right now over Crais trying to encourage a giant half insane space whale to add space racist to it's resume.

Maybe they should have begun the season with Crackers Don't Matter. I used to think one of this show's strengths was the writing, now I think the writing was a weakness. But.... apparently the cast continually went off script. If that is true, then any problems with the dialogue, though not the plotting, is their fault.

I can't believe I actually said in a previous review that the end of season 1 and beginning of 2 constituted a stretch of quality episodes. I guess I just mentally skipped ahead to "look at the princess" or something.

Let's take a look at what we've got coming up.

2.02: Vitas Mortis: An episode where about 70% of it takes place in an old lady's bedroom and is just as exciting as that description implies.

2.03: Taking the Stone: An episode kept from being the worst episode of Farscape only by the existence of Jeremiah Crichton. Has characters so irritating you'll be compelled to futilely punch holes in your TV in some vain and desperate attempt to righteously punish them for existing.

2.04: Crackers Don't Matter: I actually don't remember a lot about this one but it's apparently a fan favorite and what I do remember seems good.

2.05: The Way We Weren't: Want to hear some more about Aeryn and Pilot's back story for an hour. If you do you'll like this one, if you don't, better luck next time...

2.06: Picture If You Will: Maldis

2.07: Home On The Remains: You thought you've seen Zhaan freak out before. Not that bad all told though, Chiana centric for a lot of the episode.

2.08: Dream A Little Dream: Planet of lawyers argue with Zhaan, and no more or less exciting that that sounds.

2.09: Out Of Their Minds: Body switching episode, cliched and old as the hills conceptually but manages to be funny at times.

2.10: My Three Crichtons: The first time John gets cloned in the series, cliched pseudo luddite morality ending that irritates me because it thinks it's breaking with convention when it isn't.

2.11 Look at the Princess part 1: Sweet salvation is here to stay for three weeks starting now, but the episode after that sucks so enjoy it while it lasts.

[Rustydogz]

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

He could have told Talyn it was a peacekeeper prowler coming to kill them, that could have had some interesting results.

That could have worked very nicely. I was assuming that Crais' 'help' was transporting J and D onto that asteroid in Tayln.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

It's made even better by everything else in the episode being equally awful!

Great! I'll try to be on sarcastic, skewering best for that one.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

The key to being moral is to whine, constantly. Only inherently immoral people can keep their personal shit squared away when in the prolonged company of others.

Interesting. Is that from the I Ching? Is there a personal anecdote behind that one?

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I don't remember that part but I'm having a chuckle right now over Crais trying to encourage a giant half insane space whale to add space racist to it's resume.

It is from Crichton's analysis of the situation after Tayln locks him out of the ship whilst they are inside the fiery stomach of a Bodong.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I can't believe I actually said in a previous review that the end of season 1 and beginning of 2 constituted a stretch of quality episodes. I guess I just mentally skipped ahead to "look at the princess" or something.

And I wouldn't take a date to see that one either.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Let's take a look at what we've got coming up.

Ok.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

2.02: Vitas Mortis: An episode where about 70% of it takes place in an old lady's bedroom and is just as exciting as that description implies.

Some badly recycled scifi and fantasy cliches.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

2.03: Taking the Stone: An episode kept from being the worst episode of Farscape only by the existence of Jeremiah Crichton. Has characters so irritating you'll be compelled to futilely punch holes in your TV in some vain and desperate attempt to righteously punish them for existing.

Someone read a newspaper article on the weird games bored teens with a death wish play, and thought it would make a good sf story. It did not.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

2.04: Crackers Don't Matter: I actually don't remember a lot about this one but it's apparently a fan favorite and what I do remember seems good.

From what I remember, it is ok, if the crew buying a shipment of crackers, taking aboard a mad scientist, then becoming delusional and trying to kill each other, is ok. Really, it probably is.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

2.05: The Way We Weren't: Want to hear some more about Aeryn and Pilot's back story for an hour. If you do you'll like this one, if you don't, better luck next time...

I liked most of this story, but it faltered at times.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

2.06: Picture If You Will: Maldis

Someone resurrecting their AD&D character from the 70's as a scifi villain. This story probably began as a game module.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

2.07: Home On The Remains: You thought you've seen Zhaan freak out before. Not that bad all told though, Chiana centric for a lot of the episode.

The first half is good, the latter half was not, as I recall.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

2.08: Dream A Little Dream: Planet of lawyers argue with Zhaan, and no more or less exciting that that sounds.

Some scenes were oddly entertaining, but when it is over the thought is: "What was the point of them making this ep?" My impression was that they thought they had given us several episodes of intense withering drama and now we needed a light episode. But they are all light episodes.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

2.09: Out Of Their Minds: Body switching episode, cliched and old as the hills conceptually but manages to be funny at times.

Yes, that is my memory of it also.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

2.10: My Three Crichtons: The first time John gets cloned in the series, cliched pseudo luddite morality ending that irritates me because it thinks it's breaking with convention when it isn't.

They needed to do far more with this concept if they were going to use it at all.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

2.11 Look at the Princess part 1: Sweet salvation is here to stay for three weeks starting now, but the episode after that sucks so enjoy it while it lasts.

I recall it being ok, but let's not be too hasty, we have suffered for that before.

[Mr. Infamous]

Originally Posted by Rustydogz

It is from Crichton's analysis of the situation after Tayln locks him out of the ship whilst they are inside the fiery stomach of a Bodong.

Ok I don't really remember much of that one other than the fact it was about them getting swallowed by a Budong and the phrase "electromagnetic candy".

And I wouldn't take a date to see that one either.

From what I remember I liked it. I'm sure that won't stop me from discovering countless flaws and shortcomings to bitch about when I watch it critically again, but from what I remember of it it's their first epic 3 part episode, drags a bit at parts, but generally comes off pretty good.

Some badly recycled scifi and fantasy cliches.

The worst part is I did just watch it a while ago but too long ago to just review it from memory so now I'm going to have to watch it again.

Someone read a newspaper article on the weird games bored teens with a death wish play, and thought it would make a good sf story. It did not.

Ditto with this abomination.

From what I remember, it is ok, if the crew buying a shipment of crackers, taking aboard a mad scientist, then becoming delusional and trying to kill each other, is ok. Really, it probably is.

Let us hope.

I liked most of this story, but it faltered at times.

I don't really remember much of this one either. I initially thought this was the body swapping episode.