Farscape Rewind: Episode 1.10

[Mr. Infamous]

Following on the heels of last week's excellent "DNA Mad Scientist" this weeks' episode is "they've got a secret" an episode that sets up what will go on to be a multi episode arc for the rest of season 1, and even beyond depending on how you look at it.

The episode starts off with the crew sweeping the ship for any leftover peacekeeper car alarms or other bugs that might still be present. I can't help but think it's a little late in the game to be revisting this sort of thing now. You would think that this sort of sweep would have followed the episode where they did have major trouble's with a PK car alarm, that episode being the second one, but here we are in episode ten and they're only now finally getting around to doing this. It's a sensible enough thing to do, the placement just seems a bit off, perhaps serving as another reason to encourage new viewers to just jump straight from 1.01 to 1.09 on their first viewing? As a third episode this works great.

Anyway, they're all sweeping the ship and Dargo finds some sort of shaft, crawls into it, kicks a PK device in there and ends up floating in space for his trouble. It's here where we first learn about one of Dargos species special traits, they can survive extended exposure to vacuume for far longer than humans, a half hour in this case. Aeryn flies out to recover Dargo, showing off a neat little Vectored thust capability I never even knew or rememebred Prowlers having until seeing it here, and hauls the big guy aboard. Zhaan and the others manage to bring him back to life but he's obviously still out of it as he calls Zhaan Lo Lan when he comes to, hinting at what'll be the major character plot of the episode. This episode, while it does also have an "A" plot centering around why the ships malfunctioning that will have consequences that last literally seasons, is mainly about Dargo as we finally get to learn more about his secret crime... but we'll get to that later.

The crew doesn't know what's wrong with Dargo or the ship at this point so speculation begins to fly, eventually landing on the idea of some sort of biomechanical virus of suspected Peacekeeper origen, released by Dargo when he broke the seal he found. It's interesting to note here that none of the characters present seems to have any trouble believing that the PKs could actually come up with something as techy and complicated as an engineered biomechanical virus. More bad news for the planet of the turnip people I guess. I've again got to raise the same old point though. If the PKs really had filled the ship full of packets of biomechanoid virus why wouldn't they have been released earlier, like when the control collar was taken off or even when the car alarm went off so late. It's another example of a theorised security measure that doesn't actually work like you would logically expect it to. What good is a packet of deadly virus as a security measure if in order to be released somebody that stole your ship has to crawl into an obscure shaft and kick a hole in it. Thankfully it turns out later that it wasn't a security measure at all but it's a point worth making since at this stage in the story all the characters seem convinced it's some sort of sinister PK virus.

The episode continues as more ship systems go haywire, DRDs attack people, including by gluing Aeryn to the floor, and Dargo continues treating Zhaan like Lo Lan. He also will later come to regard Rygel as his son and Chricton as Lo Lan's brother Macton. In another interesting bit of casual side info here it's revealed in a discussion between Crichton and Aeryn that the PKs have eradicated all disease from their society as well as devised a method that will enable them to eradicate any future diseases they may encounter. John is unsurprisingly caught somewhat offbalance by the completely casual way in which Aeryn reveals this to him.

As the mayhem on the ship continues to intensify, with DrDs trying to actually kill Crichton with some sort of laser blasters they all evidently have (why?!) speculation turns from the idea of a deadly PK virus to the possability that Moya herself may be trying to kill them. pilot is already KOed at this point thanks to nutrient starvation, leaving no obvious means through which the characters can communicate with their living ship to ascertain its intentions. They need more information, and to get it they need to know where exactly the Pk seal was that Dargo found before he was blasted into space. He doesn't remember though, so John and Zhaan figure that the best way to get him to remember details about reality is to indulge the delusions he's having by wholeheartedly playing into them themselves.

Wait, what the fuck?

That was more or less my reaction on viewing this. Dargo's already half out of his mind here so they figure the best way to get him to focus and remember what happened to him in the shaft is to... encourage his delusions further. How is that even suppossed to sorta make any sense? Yeah ok you're helping him to remember, but you're helping him to remember something completely differant and unrelated, thereby only further removing his focus from being on the reality of the matter at hand and intensifying how real his delusions actually seem. If they wanted to know something crucial about him from the time period he was caught daydreaming about then yeah, I could see then how playing along with him could be helpful. What they want is the exact opposite though so what this actually comes off as is them taking advantage of his condition to satisfy their own curiosity about his secret past at the worst possible time. In that sense though it works brilliantly and Dargo spills all the beans. Lo Lan was his wife, she was a Sebacean, the two of them had a baby (god I hate that interspecies breeding cliche) so her PK brother Macton killed her and framed him for it. We'll learn later that there's a bit more to this story than appears here but for the moment reliving this in our little "theatre on the command deck" moment lets Dargo remember where the PK device was so they rush off to find it. As it turns out the DRDs have sealed the original opening and camouflaged it to look like part of the wall, which explains why they couldn't find it earlier. John goes in to investigate and the big mystery of the episode is finally revealed. All the malfunctions and weird behaviour are because Moya has become pregnant thanks to the seal Dargo broke and was trying to protect her baby. This falls a little short as an explanation for me for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious is why wouldn't pilot know this, why would the ship feel the need to hide it from him, and why would it choose to risk nearly killing him instead. They do explain later on that for the first few hours extra resources are required for the baby, so thats why pilot got nutrient starved, but that just makes it seem even more conspicuously irrational that the ship didn't just tell him so that more proper preperations could be made. The way this went down the crew had all but concluded that the ship was trying to kill them and in response Aeryn had begun lobotomizing it with a laser saw, being literally moments away from her goal when the others barely stopped her upon learning the truth.

I'll also comment here that this is another case of "you have other ships you fools" where the entire crew could have easily just evacuated to a transport pod if they really felt that threatened. It was hardly a case of being trapped on a ship trying to kill them with no possible way to escape.

That's not my biggest problem with the episode though. No my biggest problem is in short, why in the purple spotted, tricycle riding hell would frozen Leviathan sperm and fertility drugs cause Dargo to start reliving his deep dark past. It just seems like such a freakishly forced point where they wanted to do a Moya gets pregnant episode but also wanted or needed to include some sort of development for Dargo at the same time so they contrived this as the result. I can't think of any reason why that reaction is a sensible connection here. It seems to me that the time to explore Dargo's past would have been in the blackhole weapon episode where at least you've got the general theme of flashing forward and backward in time already there and you've got other near Luxon characters that he might feel more compelled to open up to more. The way this went down here just came across as jammed into an episode where it was never meant to fit in a really unnatural and nonsensical way, and while the backstory given on Dargo was interesting the ridiculous manner in which it was revealed brought the overall episode down despite that.

All in all "They've got a Secret" again returns us to the middleground in terms of quality. It's not a terrible episode but it is plagued by a series of contrived events and circumstances as well as a generally slow pacing that at times borders on boring. On the upside though there are some good scenes between John and Aeryn, as well as Dargo and Rygel, and the backstory given about Dargo is interesting and the scene in which it's revealed, both compelling and well acted. Taking all these factors into account we end up with a rougly middle of the road episode. It's not one you're going to want to watch over and over but it's not one I'd encourage you to skip either.

[Rustydogz]

I enjoyed the main plot. They did a good job of beginning with something relatively benign - the search for Peacekeeper devices- then moving to the mystery of the tunnel, and building gradually into ever more complex and dangerous situations. It was very Hitchcock/DePalma -ish.

There were a few problems, but nothing fatal. Pilot, being a symbiote, connected directly to Moya, would know of the baby even if Moya did not want him to, and she would have no reason not to. But the writers needed some way to remove Pilot from the story, depriving the crew of his services and adding to the sense of building danger. The method chosen by the writers was probably the best one could come up with.

THe DRDs had lasers and glue guns? For ship maintenance? But in other episodes when the devices would have been useful against various threats, they do not reappear.

The second plot served the dual purpose of keeping DArgo from giving the tunnel's location, and providing his backstory. There were a few laughs in this plot, and the reveal in the last B-story scene was good. But too much time was devoted to this story, and most of it was slow and boring.

There is no reason why Moya microbes, or even floating in space, should give DArgo delusions. And though the final reveal was good, the plan to 'wake up' DArgo by acting out his delusion was .

I'd agree that episodes 9 and 10 seem misplaced. They should have been eps 3 and 4. But I wouldn't advise a new viewer to skip to episode 9. My list of first season eps for a Farscape newcomer would include episodes 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, and 10 so far.

[Thyme Laird]

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

The episode starts off with the crew sweeping the ship for any leftover peacekeeper car alarms or other bugs that might still be present. I can't help but think it's a little late in the game to be revisting this sort of thing now. You would think that this sort of sweep would have followed the episode where they did have major trouble's with a PK car alarm, that episode being the second one, but here we are in episode ten and they're only now finally getting around to doing this. It's a sensible enough thing to do, the placement just seems a bit off, perhaps serving as another reason to encourage new viewers to just jump straight from 1.01 to 1.09 on their first viewing? As a third episode this works great.

They apparently needed a reason to get D'Argo jettisoned.
I suppose Moya was too big to do a complete sweep in one go,
but ten episodes in does seem a bit too long.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

The crew doesn't know what's wrong with Dargo or the ship at this point so speculation begins to fly, eventually landing on the idea of some sort of biomechanical virus of suspected Peacekeeper origen, released by Dargo when he broke the seal he found. It's interesting to note here that none of the characters present seems to have any trouble believing that the PKs could actually come up with something as techy and complicated as an engineered biomechanical virus. More bad news for the planet of the turnip people I guess. I've again got to raise the same old point though. If the PKs really had filled the ship full of packets of biomechanoid virus why wouldn't they have been released earlier, like when the control collar was taken off or even when the car alarm went off so late. It's another example of a theorised security measure that doesn't actually work like you would logically expect it to. What good is a packet of deadly virus as a security measure if in order to be released somebody that stole your ship has to crawl into an obscure shaft and kick a hole in it. Thankfully it turns out later that it wasn't a security measure at all but it's a point worth making since at this stage in the story all the characters seem convinced it's some sort of sinister PK virus.

I think this is an example of good writing,
because the characters are in the middle of the crisis,
coming up with crappy theories to explain what's going on until they finally figure it out.

Much better than other shows that have the protagonists correctly guess the answer with an air of authority in their demeanor...accompanied by theme music to cue us into believing in them...rather than having us snort in disbelief.

Helps make it harder to predict which way things are going to go.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

As the mayhem on the ship continues to intensify, with DrDs trying to actually kill Crichton with some sort of laser blasters they all evidently have (why?!)

I'm guessing Moya single-mindedly orders them to protect the baby and then focuses her attention on it, rather than keeping tabs on the DRDs.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

They need more information, and to get it they need to know where exactly the Pk seal was that Dargo found before he was blasted into space. He doesn't remember though, so John and Zhaan figure that the best way to get him to remember details about reality is to indulge the delusions he's having by wholeheartedly playing into them themselves.

Wait, what the fuck?

That was more or less my reaction on viewing this. Dargo's already half out of his mind here so they figure the best way to get him to focus and remember what happened to him in the shaft is to... encourage his delusions further. How is that even suppossed to sorta make any sense? Yeah ok you're helping him to remember, but you're helping him to remember something completely differant and unrelated, thereby only further removing his focus from being on the reality of the matter at hand and intensifying how real his delusions actually seem. If they wanted to know something crucial about him from the time period he was caught daydreaming about then yeah, I could see then how playing along with him could be helpful. What they want is the exact opposite though so what this actually comes off as is them taking advantage of his condition to satisfy their own curiosity about his secret past at the worst possible time. In that sense though it works brilliantly and Dargo spills all the beans.

I disagree. D'Argo is confused, shifting between times.
One moment Lo Lann is dead and the next he is talking to her.
What Crichton did was force D'Argo to confront her death
while Zhaan was still in front of him.
Then once D'Argo has confronted her death,
Crichton shifts his focus to the present situation.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Lo Lan was his wife, she was a Sebacean, the two of them had a baby (god I hate that interspecies breeding cliche)

Hey, once you accept every species has deoxyribonucleaic acid (as in the last episode), as the basis of their construction, interspecies breeding doesn't seem so far-fetched.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

John goes in to investigate and the big mystery of the episode is finally revealed. All the malfunctions and weird behaviour are because Moya has become pregnant thanks to the seal Dargo broke and was trying to protect her baby. This falls a little short as an explanation for me for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious is why wouldn't pilot know this, why would the ship feel the need to hide it from him, and why would it choose to risk nearly killing him instead.

Those pesky biomechanical hormones.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

They do explain later on that for the first few hours extra resources are required for the baby, so thats why pilot got nutrient starved, but that just makes it seem even more conspicuously irrational that the ship didn't just tell him so that more proper preperations could be made. The way this went down the crew had all but concluded that the ship was trying to kill them and in response Aeryn had begun lobotomizing it with a laser saw, being literally moments away from her goal when the others barely stopped her upon learning the truth.

Yeah, it's pretty flimsy.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

I'll also comment here that this is another case of "you have other ships you fools" where the entire crew could have easily just evacuated to a transport pod if they really felt that threatened. It was hardly a case of being trapped on a ship trying to kill them with no possible way to escape.

Especially when the Prowler is featured so prominently in this episode.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

No my biggest problem is in short, why in the purple spotted, tricycle riding hell would frozen Leviathan sperm and fertility drugs cause Dargo to start reliving his deep dark past. It just seems like such a freakishly forced point where they wanted to do a Moya gets pregnant episode but also wanted or needed to include some sort of development for Dargo at the same time so they contrived this as the result. I can't think of any reason why that reaction is a sensible connection here.

Well, there was the damage he sustained from being exposed to space.
Remember, Luxans can withstand fifteen minutes exposure.
D'Argo was exposed for thirty minutes.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

It seems to me that the time to explore Dargo's past would have been in the blackhole weapon episode where at least you've got the general theme of flashing forward and backward in time already there and you've got other near Luxon characters that he might feel more compelled to open up to more.

The writers don't seem to want to focus a whole episode on a single character at this point and I agree....
....especially when D'Argo is recently being such an ass.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

The way this went down here just came across as jammed into an episode where it was never meant to fit in a really unnatural and nonsensical way, and while the backstory given on Dargo was interesting the ridiculous manner in which it was revealed brought the overall episode down despite that.

They took a risk and failed because the cause of his confusion wasn't directly explained.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

All in all "They've got a Secret" again returns us to the middleground in terms of quality. It's not a terrible episode but it is plagued by a series of contrived events and circumstances as well as a generally slow pacing that at times borders on boring. On the upside though there are some good scenes between John and Aeryn, as well as Dargo and Rygel, and the backstory given about Dargo is interesting and the scene in which it's revealed, both compelling and well acted. Taking all these factors into account we end up with a rougly middle of the road episode. It's not one you're going to want to watch over and over but it's not one I'd encourage you to skip either.

Separate the two plots and the D'Argo story could have easily worked.
The Moya story requires us to suspend a lot of disbelief.
I had to make a lot of excuses for Moya in this one and I shouldn't have to.
Maybe the explanation is bullshit,
but at least they should have furnished something less vague.

Originally Posted by Rustydogz

I enjoyed the main plot. They did a good job of beginning with something relatively benign - the search for Peacekeeper devices- then moving to the mystery of the tunnel, and building gradually into ever more complex and dangerous situations. It was very Hitchcock/DePalma -ish.

There were a few problems, but nothing fatal. Pilot, being a symbiote, connected directly to Moya, would know of the baby even if Moya did not want him to, and she would have no reason not to. But the writers needed some way to remove Pilot from the story, depriving the crew of his services and adding to the sense of building danger. The method chosen by the writers was probably the best one could come up with.

The comms could have been forced offline and Moya could have sealed Pilot in.

Originally Posted by Rustydogz

I'd agree that episodes 9 and 10 seem misplaced. They should have been eps 3 and 4. But I wouldn't advise a new viewer to skip to episode 9. My list of first season eps for a Farscape newcomer would include episodes 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, and 10 so far.

For me, it's episodes 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10.

[Rustydogz]

Originally Posted by Thyme Laird

I disagree. D'Argo is confused, shifting between times.
One moment Lo Lann is dead and the next he is talking to her.
What Crichton did was force D'Argo to confront her death
while Zhaan was still in front of him.
Then once D'Argo has confronted her death,
Crichton shifts his focus to the present situation.

That part is fine, but it took them too long to get there.

Originally Posted by Thyme Laird

Especially when the Prowler is featured so prominently in this episode.

I assumed that Moya could prevent her own shuttles from leaving, and the Prowler was too small for everyone.

Originally Posted by Thyme Laird

Well, there was the damage he sustained from being exposed to space.
Remember, Luxans can withstand fifteen minutes exposure.
D'Argo was exposed for thirty minutes.

Fifteen minutes limit should mean he is dead after 16, but they always do things like that in movies and tv. It reminds me of those submarine movies. There is always a scene in which the captain insists on diving below 'crush depth'. Let's say crush depth is 500 meters (It varies, I don't recall the proper numbers). Someone will tell the captain this and he'll growl "I don't care! Dive!" So they'll dive to 550, 600, 700, 750 ... we hear groaning metal, the sound of bolts popping, a few leaks spraying water into the sub ... then finally the captain growls "Bring her up!" So why has he done this? Apparently just to prove that the laws of physics can be countered by looking tough and talking in an angry voice, or that when engineers design and build a sub, they determine crush depth by rolling a pair of twenty-sided dice.

[Thyme Laird]

Originally Posted by Rustydogz

I assumed that Moya could prevent her own shuttles from leaving, and the Prowler was too small for everyone.

I don't recall any reference to Moya controlling the shuttles.

Originally Posted by Rustydogz

Fifteen minutes limit should mean he is dead after 16, but they always do things like that in movies and tv. It reminds me of those submarine movies. There is always a scene in which the captain insists on diving below 'crush depth'. Let's say crush depth is 500 meters (It varies, I don't recall the proper numbers). Someone will tell the captain this and he'll growl "I don't care! Dive!" So they'll dive to 550, 600, 700, 750 ... we hear groaning metal, the sound of bolts popping, a few leaks spraying water into the sub ... then finally the captain growls "Bring her up!" So why has he done this? Apparently just to prove that the laws of physics can be countered by looking tough and talking in an angry voice, or that when engineers design and build a sub, they determine crush depth by rolling a pair of twenty-sided dice.

Well, it's quicker than all those boring stress tests.

[Rustydogz]

Originally Posted by Thyme Laird

I don't recall any reference to Moya controlling the shuttles.

There wasn't one. It was an assumption on my part. Because Moya was a living ship, I assumed she could make her own shuttles inert, or seal the garage doors, or whatever.

Originally Posted by Thyme Laird

Well, it's quicker than all those boring stress tests.

That's why everyone loves a man of action.

[Mr. Infamous]

Originally Posted by Thyme Laird

I think this is an example of good writing,
because the characters are in the middle of the crisis,
coming up with crappy theories to explain what's going on until they finally figure it out.

I'd agree it can be, but to a point. The point it stops is when the suggestions they're throwing out start to contain holes that you'd think someone would be able to spot. I would have expected someone like Aeryn for example to mention how useless the "viral security system" was if it actually was meant to be a security system. They don't all have to believe her of course, and indeed it would probably be more interesting and realistic if they didn't. It just gets back to that thing I mentioned a few episodes ago. I like to know that the writers are also thinking these things through as the characters are as oppossed to just writing the characters intelligence or lack of around facilitating a certain desired outcome without selling it particularly well.

Much better than other shows that have the protagonists correctly guess the answer with an air of authority in their demeanor...accompanied by theme music to cue us into believing in them...rather than having us snort in disbelief.

This to again depends on how they work it out and if you can believe they'd actually be able to work it out given the info you have. B7 did this sort of deduction a lot to, sometimes really well, sometimes not so well.

I'm guessing Moya single-mindedly orders them to protect the baby and then focuses her attention on it, rather than keeping tabs on the DRDs.

My "why!?" was for why the hell anyone would think DRDs needed lethal laser blasters that are obviously weapons not tools to fill their role as repair drones, or why the PKs never freaked about this.

I disagree. D'Argo is confused, shifting between times.
One moment Lo Lann is dead and the next he is talking to her.
What Crichton did was force D'Argo to confront her death
while Zhaan was still in front of him.
Then once D'Argo has confronted her death,
Crichton shifts his focus to the present situation.

He had no idea when he started what the end of the story was though, he didn't know she'd died or that he could bring Dargo any kind of closure this way. For all him and Zhaan knew playing into it could have just fixed their roles in his mind and drove him deeper into delusion. Then before long they're acting out Christmas and Thanksgiving with the Dargo familiy in excruciating detail while the ship falls apart around them and he just keeps ranting on and on about stuffing and Santa Claus.

Hey, once you accept every species has deoxyribonucleaic acid (as in the last episode), as the basis of their construction, interspecies breeding doesn't seem so far-fetched.

Basically why this is stupid is because theoretically any alien organism should have even less in common with humans genetically than even the most distantly related Earth creature. This is simply by virtue of them being the product of a completely differant system with no common begining, not even one found billions of years ago. I can agree to buy it with Aeryn because Sebaceans are

( Click to show/hide )

actually just transplanted humans with a few genetic tweeks

but with Dargo it should be a total no go.

Well, there was the damage he sustained from being exposed to space.
Remember, Luxans can withstand fifteen minutes exposure.
D'Argo was exposed for thirty minutes.

Yeah this is a good point. I never considered that the delusions might just be entirely the result of the extended space exposure and completely unrelated to anything he breathed in, be it virus or fertility drug.

[quoteThe writers don't seem to want to focus a whole episode on a single character at this point and I agree....
....especially when D'Argo is recently being such an ass.[/quote]

As we'll see though 1.12 is pretty much wall to wall Zhaan.

Separate the two plots and the D'Argo story could have easily worked.
The Moya story requires us to suspend a lot of disbelief.
I had to make a lot of excuses for Moya in this one and I shouldn't have to.
Maybe the explanation is bullshit,
but at least they should have furnished something less vague.

The Dargo story could have worked well in an episode that already more prominently featured Dargo. It could have worked in the Elonic episode for example or the one I just did where he gets caught by the bounty hunters. Have them inject him with some sort of interrogation drug or something, then it would even make total sense why he's half out of his mind and spitting his past history all over the place.

[Thyme Laird]

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

He had no idea when he started what the end of the story was though, he didn't know she'd died or that he could bring Dargo any kind of closure this way. For all him and Zhaan knew playing into it could have just fixed their roles in his mind and drove him deeper into delusion. Then before long they're acting out Christmas and Thanksgiving with the Dargo familiy in excruciating detail while the ship falls apart around them and he just keeps ranting on and on about stuffing and Santa Claus.

Wait, I thought D'Argo told Rygel about Lo Lann's death in a previous scene.
They did a jump scene to a different scene
and I assumed that gave Crichton "time" to learn it from Rygel.
Or am I remembering it wrong?

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Basically why this is stupid is because theoretically any alien organism should have even less in common with humans genetically than even the most distantly related Earth creature. This is simply by virtue of them being the product of a completely differant system with no common begining, not even one found billions of years ago.

To be clear, my point was that aliens probably wouldn't possess DNA (as in the actual chemical) to begin with, making them far less compatible than you were originally arguing.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

Yeah this is a good point. I never considered that the delusions might just be entirely the result of the extended space exposure and completely unrelated to anything he breathed in, be it virus or fertility drug.

I always just assumed it was the space exposure.
I wish they would explain things better sometimes.

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

As we'll see though 1.12 is pretty much wall to wall Zhaan.

It's a big Crichton story too. His B plot leads to the resolution of Zhan's A plot.

[Mr. Infamous]

Originally Posted by Thyme Laird

Wait, I thought D'Argo told Rygel about Lo Lann's death in a previous scene.
They did a jump scene to a different scene
and I assumed that gave Crichton "time" to learn it from Rygel.
Or am I remembering it wrong?

I can't say for sure, I could dig around in the episode again I suppose. I dug around in the Matala one to see if he mentioned it there when John was spying on him but he didn't.

To be clear, my point was that aliens probably wouldn't possess DNA (as in the actual chemical) to begin with, making them far less compatible than you were originally arguing.

They probably wouldn't yes, even if they did though it's still a huge leap to viable reproduction. This cliche annoys me mainly because it's become literally so pervasive that people, both fans and writers, all but take it for granted that all the "sort of human" species they come up with will be able to breed with one another. It's bad enough that they already all look the same and typically also all speak English, don't rub it in.

I always just assumed it was the space exposure.
I wish they would explain things better sometimes.

The way the episode makes all the characters jump to the idea that the stuff they found on his cloths was a "virus" of some kind doesn't help either. You say virus and people are naturally going to start thinking he's been infected or contaminated with something.

It's a big Crichton story too. His B plot leads to the resolution of Zhan's A plot.

It is definately the B plot though, the episode is jammed with blue people and the whole issue of John's former girlfriend isn't something that comes up again very often again if ever as I recall, maybe in "through the looking glass"? I actually intended to comment on this in the next review, as well as why the Delvian didn't just pick someone already on the ship for a much less complex deception.

We're getting ahead of ourselves now though.

[Thyme Laird]

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

They probably wouldn't yes, even if they did though it's still a huge leap to viable reproduction.

One word....

Minotaur.






See...don't you feel silly now?