![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
chavalah.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
scifi_rewatchI have fond feelings for this episode. It doesn’t really advance any plots forward, except a minor benchmark in the pregnancy, really, but it’s a good one for the crew. Jonathan Hardy, who voiced Rygel, really got to show off his comic chops more than usual. Chiana had genuine chemistry with her new companions (and gains her iconic nickname!) John and Aeryn got to show off their technical skills. :P And if anyone thought that Moya wasn’t a real, living component to this show, hopefully this episode proved them wrong.
Pretty much, the jokes, as ridiculous as they were, could keep me coming back to this number. As John says at a couple of points, “this is one of the good days.”
The crew is eating gross-looking alien food (at least, according to John) with their fingers and discussing something shocking…leaving Moya?? What brought this on? The pregnancy, though ongoing by this point, has apparently made them cranky of late. Or at least D’argo, Zhaan and Rygel. John and Aeryn remain firm in their commitment to Moya and Pilot. As for Chiana, she keeps trying to interject with something, and keeps getting shot down before she can start. Soon, however, Pilot interjects on the clamshell, which corresponds with what Chi wanted to say—the DRDs have ears. :P And are apparently reporting back to their overseers. Zhaan, Aeryn and John, at least, attempt to sound contrite as Pilot lays out that he and Moya are also concerned about her lack of mobility. They want the crew to stay, because as Pilot words it: “We are most fulfilled when serving others. Your presence is gratifying and comforting.” ….aaaaw. We need more selfless people like Pilot and Moya in real life.
In order to prove that they can still be useful to the crew, Pilot says to prepare for immediate starburst! A-whaaa? She shouldn’t be starbursting for another 15 arns! No matter…they go through with it anyway. For a moment, things look relatively normal inside the mess hall. Suddenly, some light flashes send the dishes and the crew flying! Uh oh…
John, of course, immediately rushes to Aeryn; the floor is apparently their latest bulkhead!smash replacement. :P Chiana is assisting Zhaan, whose arm has been hurt. They try to get Pilot on the clamshell…nothing...Rygel is suddenly missing, too…and where are the stars? Yikes.
D’argo quickly takes control of the situation, barking out orders as he heads to command. But he doesn’t get a few steps out the door before he’s sucked into a red light! :-O A-whaa? Aeryn takes up D’argo’s lead, barking orders, walking out the door…and disappearing into a blue light. John is left with vocally nervous Zhaan and Chiana. I’d stay in the mess hall, personally, but somehow John makes it to command without getting sucked into somewhere. There’s bright light outside, but at least Pilot can appear on this clamshell. He knows pretty much nothing about what’s going on, so John runs from console to console, noting that the readings are all over the place. Three crewmembers have literally disappeared, the DRDs aren’t working and Moya is frightened and pained. :( Meanwhile, Pilot has located Rygel and Aeryn, so John runs.
Chiana and Zhaan are in a random corridor; Chi wants to get off this boat. John steps up and says Pilot can’t get the hangar doors anyway so she can fly the transport around the pod. :P Except not really, because while Zhaan is sent to keep Pilot company, John needs Chi to locate Rygel. Chi is adamantly against this idea at first. “I thought you were Junior Miss Tough Chick of the Universe,” John scoffs. “Yeah, when I can kiss or kick or cry my way out of it. This is way, way, way, way different!” is Chiana’s excuse. John attempts to comfort her—everything will be ok and you can’t go anywhere anyway—so off she goes to find Rygel.
John, of course, goes to the maintenance bay to look for Aeryn…but no one is there, despite Pilot’s claims. A frustrated human asks for a sign, and suddenly tools clatter on a table! As John approaches, he’s sucked into the red light. Oh no! He’s still in the maintenance bay, but it’s bathed in the red light and John is squinting. He stumbles around a blurry frame, complaining of the light, trying to reach Pilot, before he loses his cookies on the floor. Lovely. He makes it to Pilot’s den, having found a rag somewhere to tie above his eyes, but Pilot isn’t there! The music strums ominously and the gears move on their own. Yikes.
But D’argo is here, too, at least in the red world, breathing hard and calling for assistance as he approaches the mess hall, still strewn with food from earlier. John appears in the hallway in two distinct images, bracing himself against the wall before moving on. D’argo attempts to call to him, but can’t get the strength to speak loudly enough. This must be unusual for him. :P He’s too weak to move, as well, so we stick with John as he staggers into command. From in overhead duct he can hear a strange scratchy sound, so he stands on a table to observe. And then he gets sucked into the blue light!
The camera spins around so we see John lying on the floor in the blue world, which is accompanied by an incredibly loud screeching sound. John boxes his own ears and keeps stumbling, making it to Pilot’s den again where he finds the same situation as he did in the red world. He makes it back to the maintenance bay and there’s Aeryn, calmly working on her prowler! John screams for her, but his voice is barely audible. Then he taps her on the shoulder, which seems a stupid move when confronting a battle-trained Peacekeeper. :P He’s lucky he didn’t get shot, but she does pull the gun on him. They attempt to communicate, getting out the basic “are you okay?” before resorting to hand signs to speak of the others—Aeryn mimics D’s tentacles and John bounces his hands in a thronesled motion. :P Both crewmates are still missing. Aeryn repeats their signs until John gets the idea that they should look for them. He’s able to explain how there are doors between the Moyas and leads her to command, swinging like a monkey near the duct, but nothing happens. Aeryn is not amused. :P They split up in the corridors, and suddenly orange scratch marks skid behind John! He sees the last of them, backing up warily before bumping into Aeryn. She hasn’t seen anything, and John gives up trying to explain amidst the noise. He enters Rygel’s quarters while Aeryn keeps guard outside…Ryg has apparently stolen John’s tape recorder and put it on his table. :P But more importantly, John can hear the static again! He attempts to reach for his tape recorder, but instead his hand disappears. Though he tries to pull himself out and call for Aeryn, he is eventually sucked away again!
John’s still in Rygel’s quarters…but in a yellow Moya and with the Dominar himself! He’s propped up on his bed, making jokes and laughing hysterically. Dude is in a really good mood, and even John, who is doing his best to explain the situation, gets caught up in some giggle fits. No sign of D’argo, so John whips Rygel up to go look for him. Later, they’re in the maintenance bay, John pushing Ryg in his thronesled like a baby. Rygel is finishing up a joke, and John is laughing at it, before snapping himself out of it to talk through what happened. “Nobody liked my Cholian Curd Salad,” Rygel quips, bringing the drumroll again. :P As for the collision—so what, they survived, right? Sure, but to paraphrase Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “This is a silly place.” :P But here’s something that’s not silly…the orange claw marks! This time, both Rygel and John see it…though Rygel is content to write it off as a hallucination. He quickly goes back to jokes, and John, despite his best intentions, is starting to laugh again. “I gotta get out of here before I end up like you!” “What? Handsome with a great sexual prowess?” This line wins for the episode, just fyi. :P John attempts to pinch Ryg’s lips shut, but that only makes him more hilarious, so ultimately they part company. Ryg, of course, heads for the mess hall.
Alone, John is still giggling before he hears the static sound off one of the corridors. He opens a small door to one of the maintenance shafts and slides on down, disappearing halfway through. Meanwhile, on regular Moya, Zhaan and Chiana are in command, having a frustrated discussion with Pilot because their crewmates aren’t where Pilot has located them. Why can’t we see them? Zhaan demands. John enters, answering that question with, because you don’t have X-ray vision. He asks Pilot what he knows about parallel realities and explains how there are three other Moyas. Pilot asks if John knows about dimensional schism—aka light and sound disjointed to base elements. It’s part of the starburst process, skidding on the edge of space time before you’re pushed out at random. Except, in this instance, they appear to be… “stuck,” Pilot says in a high-pitched voice. AKA they’re still in starburst until they reach…whatever’s on the other side. Sounds pretty vague. But from the outside, we can see the red, blue and yellow Moyas jutting out from the original. There’s our X-ray vision!
Later, walking a corridor, John tells them about the strange scratches, what he calls a creature. “What kind of creature? The kind that we eat, or the kind that eats us?” Chi asks. No idea…could be a fragment from another dimension. “I’ve always wondered what could be beyond height and width, depth and time,” Zhaan says wonderingly. “Nausea,” John quips. :P Anyway, their plan is to arm themselves with weapons, then John will go bring the others back. First he stops by Pilot’s den to try and maybe back themselves out of starburst. Pilot explains that only Moya is affected right now because of relative density, but he’s already starting to feel the pressure and sooner or later they will all be reduced to atoms. Lovely. John’s feeling sympathetic, though; he tells Pilot Moya shouldn’t have starburst until she was ready, and they should have been upfront about their feelings. Poor Moya is scared right now. :( Time to get this plan in action!
John meets up with the girls in a corridor where they give him a weapon. He’s recruiting Chiana to come with him in case the others are hurt, a case where yet again she doesn’t get a say. :P But before they can get going, the scratches are back again, bigger, louder and more aggressive than before. All three of them hit the deck, and then we see John from inside the creature. What’s that about?? We cut ahead in time to the threesome entering the maintenance bay, unhindered. John tells Zhaan to shoot the creature if it comes back, which she agrees to unquestioningly. Then he gives Chiana her most defining nickname of the series—Pip! “My favorite traveling companion.” He pushes her forward into red Moya.
Our human immediately starts feeling the effects of the light, but Chi’s fine! In better news for everyone they run into D’argo wearing a welding visor. Apparently it helps a little bit. John fills D in on what’s happened, and they briefly discuss that they’ve never heard of dimensional tears like this before. But apparently Chiana has! The Nebari scientists apparently poked a hole through to another dimension, but it ended up destroying a solar system with four populated planets. Which begs two questions—why didn’t Chiana mention this before and why can’t we have more Nebari plots on “Farscape”??? :( Alas. Anywho, John explains the Pilot sequence to D’argo since he has to take care of it on red Moya. Suddenly the scratches creature is back! Chiana and the boys take up their weapons and it disappears. Doesn’t feel like a victory, everyone agrees. :-/
Chiana is snickering over her lack of illness in Pilot’s den while John physically shows D what to do. They argue briefly about who should stay here—Chiana gets very insistent with D’argo that she won’t stay here alone. So she and John are off to tell Aeryn…after reminding D’argo how to get out of red Moya, if need be, and allowing John one final chance to lose his cookies. :P D’argo is not happy about the parting gift.
John, meanwhile, is annoyed by Chiana’s doubts as he tries to boost her into the blue Moya. What if the creature is waiting? She posits. “Then piss it off…pretend it’s me!” John snaps. Win. He finally gets her up there where she disappears and then he follows. Chiana’s luck, however, has worn off. Though completely unaffected by the red light, the blue sound is too much for her system to take. She writhes on the floor, hands to ears, unable to even stand on her own. John gets her up and attempts to talk to her as she starts to go pixilated around the edges! :-O Finally he hoists her over a shoulder and dumps her into the yellow Moya in Rygel’s quarters. He’ll have to find Aeryn on his own, and off he goes running through corridors. By the time he reaches the maintenance bay the scratching creature has made a new appearance—and it’s more deadly, too, leaving gashes in the walls and Aeryn’s prowler. Nearby Aeryn, of course, shoots it until it goes away. Then she hands John a modified headset and voila! They can hear each other and the external noise is muted. As John says to her, “not bad for a girl who doesn’t like to do her homework.” :P
Aeryn wants to know why John didn’t shoot at the creature (good question, since this was his idea,) but he doesn’t know. The ex-PK scoffs and they get down to business about explaining the Moya-dimension crisis. Ultimately John tells her about the plan to try and reverse, earning a reproach from the soldier about leaving instructions for last. Oh, and she also doesn’t need his help with the procedure; having part of Pilot’s DNA in her, she can repeat the instructions without hearing them. Aeryn is really bringing it this episode!
Time for John to enter yellow Moya and make sure Rygel and Chiana are ok. Turns out they’re better than fine…they’re having a blast in Pilot’s den. Chiana told Rygel what was going on before the situation devolved…does John know any good jokes? “Not besides the one I’m living.” :P John hops over himself to put yellow Moya into reverse. He tells Chi to stay with Ryg and restore the green knob if something goes wrong. “Ignore the green slob,” Chiana giggles. John ultimately gets her to pay attention by promising she can take a transport to the next planet. Manipulation works wonders. :P He prepares to leave when Rygel sings him a delightful little song: “Oh, there is no expanse of the mind the will cannot traverse/or physically the distance laid across the universe/ As blessings many in the stars save one lamented curse/ That 16th Rygel, glory me, must travel in reverse!” That’s it; the dominar needs to write all of our political slogans. :P
John laughs his way down the shaft to regular Moya where Zhaan is waiting for him. He notes that she’s wearing her spiritual vestments for the first time since she renounced being a Pa’u. Zhaan, apparently, is embracing the calling since death may be near. Light is starting to block the corridors, meaning Moya is getting swallowed up. In command they check in with Pilot and find that the four Moyas reverse idea isn’t working. :( Alas. Pilot suggests one long shot…Moya could willingly lose the baby. :-O Luckily he’s talking to John and Zhaan, who quickly shut that down. Pilot blames himself, Moya and their insecurities for getting them all into this mess. But no more time to argue…the scratch creature is back! Pilot is flailing and telling his crew to shoot it; “Moya is very scared!” The hole at the end of the scratch is widening…but John tells Zhaan not to shoot! :-O He’s looking around at the marks on the walls…all prime numbers. The creature isn’t trying to attack…it’s trying to communicate!
Our brave human decides to walk into the belly of the beast, despite Zhaan’s protests. “What if the hole closes up?” “Then I’ll be dead a few minutes before you.” John makes good arguments today. He steps inside to ethereal music, and sees a scaly, red/blue creature that appears to be everywhere. His own face appears huge as well, juxtaposed against a vision of the rest of him. He asks, who are you? “Unimportant,” the creature says in a female voice. Dunno if it speaks English or has translator microbes or maybe this is just a mind connection. :P Anywho, Moya et al has breached their existence. They’re not technically in the creature’s dimension, as that’s impossible, but they’re in the in between. Also, this is the first time something like this has happened with living matter, making things even more tense. The creature is here to fix the breach, though John begs for a chance to try and literally back out of this mess. But there’s a reason it wasn’t working before—backwards will only rupture things further. They have to go forward...then the creature will attempt to deposit them back where they came from. John wheedles for more time—what if they don’t have enough power?? “Forward,” is all the being will say before spitting John out.
Zhaan comes to his aid but she didn’t hear the message; on this end, John barely got his head in before he was pushed out. She and Pilot at first aren’t ready to believe that John had time to have a creature talk. They don’t like this thrusting forward into the unknown, either, but John is adamant that they don’t have a choice. He tells Pilot to give him 500 microts before going forward—enough time to tell the others what to do. Cue the tense marathon music! John zaps into the red Moya and starts running down corridors. He leaves some more cookies at D’argo’s feet in Pilot’s den; lovely. D’argo, too, is irritated by the sudden change in plan, but there’s no time to argue. “I have no time keeping device!” is his final complaint, to which John teaches him the Mississippi—or Mippippippi—way of counting. :P
Now John’s on the blue Moya! Same tense music, same running through corridors, just more white light blocking his path. He finally puts on the headset to talk to Aeryn remotely. She’s having an easier time playing obedient soldier today; full maximum thrust in 150 microts—or 130 by the time he finishes talking, Aeryn points out. No Mippippippi needed. :P
Though he runs into light at all turns, somehow he gets to yellow Moya, and Pilot’s den specifically. Under 100 microts now so he’s counting audibly. Rygel and Chiana are still laughing. John jumps in himself to thrust forward at the right time; meanwhile his companions are getting pretty cozy as they lean into him. “Shall I disrobe so it’s memorable?” Rygel posits. He’s certainly Mr. Sexual this ep. :P At first it seems like nothing’s happened…but then we shift to an external shot of Moya where all of her colorful dimensions are coming together! Everyone jolts forward in Pilot’s den, flashing slowly into the real Moya (including Zhaan, who must have joined Pilot at some point. Thank goodness everyone picked separate places to sit, apparently. :P They are all sprawled over the console, though.) The music is triumphant as everyone looks at each other gleefully, all laughing. Poor Pilot is just bemused. “I fail to see the source of your amusement.”
Back in the cleaned mess hall everyone’s having much more fun over their meal, sharing naughty stories from youth, laughing…loving everything but John’s sad attempt at Grandmother Crichton’s famous buttermilk biscuits. Apparently Moya doesn’t have southern ingredients. :P Pilot breaks in on the clamshell, still confused about how they can be so jovial after their brush with death. Aeryn pipes up, asking for a report on Moya. She’s fine…in fact, more than fine. There’s been a baby status change…gestation to begin at any time! :-O Rygel says she should name it after him—only if it’s a runt, Chiana chimes in. :P John reminds them that this is one of the good days and proposes a toast—“to a happy, healthy baby.” D’argo just thinks John is handing him a drink. :P The music trills happily as Zhaan gives Rygel a kiss…for the first time in awhile he doesn’t look pleased, lol.
So yes, fun episode! Nice to see the crew working together, especially with Chiana’s awesome contributions and Rygel’s funny bone. I’m still not sure what the yellow Moya has to do with base elements, but hey, it was undoubtedly the highlight of the episode. :P
It’s also interesting to look back on this from the vantage point of the entire series—in the future, “Farscape” will return to this idea of parallel realities, but it’ll be a lot more thought out and embedded into the major themes of the story. This early episode was mostly fluff—but a nice little test drive into the area.
___
Pretty much, the jokes, as ridiculous as they were, could keep me coming back to this number. As John says at a couple of points, “this is one of the good days.”
The crew is eating gross-looking alien food (at least, according to John) with their fingers and discussing something shocking…leaving Moya?? What brought this on? The pregnancy, though ongoing by this point, has apparently made them cranky of late. Or at least D’argo, Zhaan and Rygel. John and Aeryn remain firm in their commitment to Moya and Pilot. As for Chiana, she keeps trying to interject with something, and keeps getting shot down before she can start. Soon, however, Pilot interjects on the clamshell, which corresponds with what Chi wanted to say—the DRDs have ears. :P And are apparently reporting back to their overseers. Zhaan, Aeryn and John, at least, attempt to sound contrite as Pilot lays out that he and Moya are also concerned about her lack of mobility. They want the crew to stay, because as Pilot words it: “We are most fulfilled when serving others. Your presence is gratifying and comforting.” ….aaaaw. We need more selfless people like Pilot and Moya in real life.
In order to prove that they can still be useful to the crew, Pilot says to prepare for immediate starburst! A-whaaa? She shouldn’t be starbursting for another 15 arns! No matter…they go through with it anyway. For a moment, things look relatively normal inside the mess hall. Suddenly, some light flashes send the dishes and the crew flying! Uh oh…
John, of course, immediately rushes to Aeryn; the floor is apparently their latest bulkhead!smash replacement. :P Chiana is assisting Zhaan, whose arm has been hurt. They try to get Pilot on the clamshell…nothing...Rygel is suddenly missing, too…and where are the stars? Yikes.
D’argo quickly takes control of the situation, barking out orders as he heads to command. But he doesn’t get a few steps out the door before he’s sucked into a red light! :-O A-whaa? Aeryn takes up D’argo’s lead, barking orders, walking out the door…and disappearing into a blue light. John is left with vocally nervous Zhaan and Chiana. I’d stay in the mess hall, personally, but somehow John makes it to command without getting sucked into somewhere. There’s bright light outside, but at least Pilot can appear on this clamshell. He knows pretty much nothing about what’s going on, so John runs from console to console, noting that the readings are all over the place. Three crewmembers have literally disappeared, the DRDs aren’t working and Moya is frightened and pained. :( Meanwhile, Pilot has located Rygel and Aeryn, so John runs.
Chiana and Zhaan are in a random corridor; Chi wants to get off this boat. John steps up and says Pilot can’t get the hangar doors anyway so she can fly the transport around the pod. :P Except not really, because while Zhaan is sent to keep Pilot company, John needs Chi to locate Rygel. Chi is adamantly against this idea at first. “I thought you were Junior Miss Tough Chick of the Universe,” John scoffs. “Yeah, when I can kiss or kick or cry my way out of it. This is way, way, way, way different!” is Chiana’s excuse. John attempts to comfort her—everything will be ok and you can’t go anywhere anyway—so off she goes to find Rygel.
John, of course, goes to the maintenance bay to look for Aeryn…but no one is there, despite Pilot’s claims. A frustrated human asks for a sign, and suddenly tools clatter on a table! As John approaches, he’s sucked into the red light. Oh no! He’s still in the maintenance bay, but it’s bathed in the red light and John is squinting. He stumbles around a blurry frame, complaining of the light, trying to reach Pilot, before he loses his cookies on the floor. Lovely. He makes it to Pilot’s den, having found a rag somewhere to tie above his eyes, but Pilot isn’t there! The music strums ominously and the gears move on their own. Yikes.
But D’argo is here, too, at least in the red world, breathing hard and calling for assistance as he approaches the mess hall, still strewn with food from earlier. John appears in the hallway in two distinct images, bracing himself against the wall before moving on. D’argo attempts to call to him, but can’t get the strength to speak loudly enough. This must be unusual for him. :P He’s too weak to move, as well, so we stick with John as he staggers into command. From in overhead duct he can hear a strange scratchy sound, so he stands on a table to observe. And then he gets sucked into the blue light!
The camera spins around so we see John lying on the floor in the blue world, which is accompanied by an incredibly loud screeching sound. John boxes his own ears and keeps stumbling, making it to Pilot’s den again where he finds the same situation as he did in the red world. He makes it back to the maintenance bay and there’s Aeryn, calmly working on her prowler! John screams for her, but his voice is barely audible. Then he taps her on the shoulder, which seems a stupid move when confronting a battle-trained Peacekeeper. :P He’s lucky he didn’t get shot, but she does pull the gun on him. They attempt to communicate, getting out the basic “are you okay?” before resorting to hand signs to speak of the others—Aeryn mimics D’s tentacles and John bounces his hands in a thronesled motion. :P Both crewmates are still missing. Aeryn repeats their signs until John gets the idea that they should look for them. He’s able to explain how there are doors between the Moyas and leads her to command, swinging like a monkey near the duct, but nothing happens. Aeryn is not amused. :P They split up in the corridors, and suddenly orange scratch marks skid behind John! He sees the last of them, backing up warily before bumping into Aeryn. She hasn’t seen anything, and John gives up trying to explain amidst the noise. He enters Rygel’s quarters while Aeryn keeps guard outside…Ryg has apparently stolen John’s tape recorder and put it on his table. :P But more importantly, John can hear the static again! He attempts to reach for his tape recorder, but instead his hand disappears. Though he tries to pull himself out and call for Aeryn, he is eventually sucked away again!
John’s still in Rygel’s quarters…but in a yellow Moya and with the Dominar himself! He’s propped up on his bed, making jokes and laughing hysterically. Dude is in a really good mood, and even John, who is doing his best to explain the situation, gets caught up in some giggle fits. No sign of D’argo, so John whips Rygel up to go look for him. Later, they’re in the maintenance bay, John pushing Ryg in his thronesled like a baby. Rygel is finishing up a joke, and John is laughing at it, before snapping himself out of it to talk through what happened. “Nobody liked my Cholian Curd Salad,” Rygel quips, bringing the drumroll again. :P As for the collision—so what, they survived, right? Sure, but to paraphrase Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “This is a silly place.” :P But here’s something that’s not silly…the orange claw marks! This time, both Rygel and John see it…though Rygel is content to write it off as a hallucination. He quickly goes back to jokes, and John, despite his best intentions, is starting to laugh again. “I gotta get out of here before I end up like you!” “What? Handsome with a great sexual prowess?” This line wins for the episode, just fyi. :P John attempts to pinch Ryg’s lips shut, but that only makes him more hilarious, so ultimately they part company. Ryg, of course, heads for the mess hall.
Alone, John is still giggling before he hears the static sound off one of the corridors. He opens a small door to one of the maintenance shafts and slides on down, disappearing halfway through. Meanwhile, on regular Moya, Zhaan and Chiana are in command, having a frustrated discussion with Pilot because their crewmates aren’t where Pilot has located them. Why can’t we see them? Zhaan demands. John enters, answering that question with, because you don’t have X-ray vision. He asks Pilot what he knows about parallel realities and explains how there are three other Moyas. Pilot asks if John knows about dimensional schism—aka light and sound disjointed to base elements. It’s part of the starburst process, skidding on the edge of space time before you’re pushed out at random. Except, in this instance, they appear to be… “stuck,” Pilot says in a high-pitched voice. AKA they’re still in starburst until they reach…whatever’s on the other side. Sounds pretty vague. But from the outside, we can see the red, blue and yellow Moyas jutting out from the original. There’s our X-ray vision!
Later, walking a corridor, John tells them about the strange scratches, what he calls a creature. “What kind of creature? The kind that we eat, or the kind that eats us?” Chi asks. No idea…could be a fragment from another dimension. “I’ve always wondered what could be beyond height and width, depth and time,” Zhaan says wonderingly. “Nausea,” John quips. :P Anyway, their plan is to arm themselves with weapons, then John will go bring the others back. First he stops by Pilot’s den to try and maybe back themselves out of starburst. Pilot explains that only Moya is affected right now because of relative density, but he’s already starting to feel the pressure and sooner or later they will all be reduced to atoms. Lovely. John’s feeling sympathetic, though; he tells Pilot Moya shouldn’t have starburst until she was ready, and they should have been upfront about their feelings. Poor Moya is scared right now. :( Time to get this plan in action!
John meets up with the girls in a corridor where they give him a weapon. He’s recruiting Chiana to come with him in case the others are hurt, a case where yet again she doesn’t get a say. :P But before they can get going, the scratches are back again, bigger, louder and more aggressive than before. All three of them hit the deck, and then we see John from inside the creature. What’s that about?? We cut ahead in time to the threesome entering the maintenance bay, unhindered. John tells Zhaan to shoot the creature if it comes back, which she agrees to unquestioningly. Then he gives Chiana her most defining nickname of the series—Pip! “My favorite traveling companion.” He pushes her forward into red Moya.
Our human immediately starts feeling the effects of the light, but Chi’s fine! In better news for everyone they run into D’argo wearing a welding visor. Apparently it helps a little bit. John fills D in on what’s happened, and they briefly discuss that they’ve never heard of dimensional tears like this before. But apparently Chiana has! The Nebari scientists apparently poked a hole through to another dimension, but it ended up destroying a solar system with four populated planets. Which begs two questions—why didn’t Chiana mention this before and why can’t we have more Nebari plots on “Farscape”??? :( Alas. Anywho, John explains the Pilot sequence to D’argo since he has to take care of it on red Moya. Suddenly the scratches creature is back! Chiana and the boys take up their weapons and it disappears. Doesn’t feel like a victory, everyone agrees. :-/
Chiana is snickering over her lack of illness in Pilot’s den while John physically shows D what to do. They argue briefly about who should stay here—Chiana gets very insistent with D’argo that she won’t stay here alone. So she and John are off to tell Aeryn…after reminding D’argo how to get out of red Moya, if need be, and allowing John one final chance to lose his cookies. :P D’argo is not happy about the parting gift.
John, meanwhile, is annoyed by Chiana’s doubts as he tries to boost her into the blue Moya. What if the creature is waiting? She posits. “Then piss it off…pretend it’s me!” John snaps. Win. He finally gets her up there where she disappears and then he follows. Chiana’s luck, however, has worn off. Though completely unaffected by the red light, the blue sound is too much for her system to take. She writhes on the floor, hands to ears, unable to even stand on her own. John gets her up and attempts to talk to her as she starts to go pixilated around the edges! :-O Finally he hoists her over a shoulder and dumps her into the yellow Moya in Rygel’s quarters. He’ll have to find Aeryn on his own, and off he goes running through corridors. By the time he reaches the maintenance bay the scratching creature has made a new appearance—and it’s more deadly, too, leaving gashes in the walls and Aeryn’s prowler. Nearby Aeryn, of course, shoots it until it goes away. Then she hands John a modified headset and voila! They can hear each other and the external noise is muted. As John says to her, “not bad for a girl who doesn’t like to do her homework.” :P
Aeryn wants to know why John didn’t shoot at the creature (good question, since this was his idea,) but he doesn’t know. The ex-PK scoffs and they get down to business about explaining the Moya-dimension crisis. Ultimately John tells her about the plan to try and reverse, earning a reproach from the soldier about leaving instructions for last. Oh, and she also doesn’t need his help with the procedure; having part of Pilot’s DNA in her, she can repeat the instructions without hearing them. Aeryn is really bringing it this episode!
Time for John to enter yellow Moya and make sure Rygel and Chiana are ok. Turns out they’re better than fine…they’re having a blast in Pilot’s den. Chiana told Rygel what was going on before the situation devolved…does John know any good jokes? “Not besides the one I’m living.” :P John hops over himself to put yellow Moya into reverse. He tells Chi to stay with Ryg and restore the green knob if something goes wrong. “Ignore the green slob,” Chiana giggles. John ultimately gets her to pay attention by promising she can take a transport to the next planet. Manipulation works wonders. :P He prepares to leave when Rygel sings him a delightful little song: “Oh, there is no expanse of the mind the will cannot traverse/or physically the distance laid across the universe/ As blessings many in the stars save one lamented curse/ That 16th Rygel, glory me, must travel in reverse!” That’s it; the dominar needs to write all of our political slogans. :P
John laughs his way down the shaft to regular Moya where Zhaan is waiting for him. He notes that she’s wearing her spiritual vestments for the first time since she renounced being a Pa’u. Zhaan, apparently, is embracing the calling since death may be near. Light is starting to block the corridors, meaning Moya is getting swallowed up. In command they check in with Pilot and find that the four Moyas reverse idea isn’t working. :( Alas. Pilot suggests one long shot…Moya could willingly lose the baby. :-O Luckily he’s talking to John and Zhaan, who quickly shut that down. Pilot blames himself, Moya and their insecurities for getting them all into this mess. But no more time to argue…the scratch creature is back! Pilot is flailing and telling his crew to shoot it; “Moya is very scared!” The hole at the end of the scratch is widening…but John tells Zhaan not to shoot! :-O He’s looking around at the marks on the walls…all prime numbers. The creature isn’t trying to attack…it’s trying to communicate!
Our brave human decides to walk into the belly of the beast, despite Zhaan’s protests. “What if the hole closes up?” “Then I’ll be dead a few minutes before you.” John makes good arguments today. He steps inside to ethereal music, and sees a scaly, red/blue creature that appears to be everywhere. His own face appears huge as well, juxtaposed against a vision of the rest of him. He asks, who are you? “Unimportant,” the creature says in a female voice. Dunno if it speaks English or has translator microbes or maybe this is just a mind connection. :P Anywho, Moya et al has breached their existence. They’re not technically in the creature’s dimension, as that’s impossible, but they’re in the in between. Also, this is the first time something like this has happened with living matter, making things even more tense. The creature is here to fix the breach, though John begs for a chance to try and literally back out of this mess. But there’s a reason it wasn’t working before—backwards will only rupture things further. They have to go forward...then the creature will attempt to deposit them back where they came from. John wheedles for more time—what if they don’t have enough power?? “Forward,” is all the being will say before spitting John out.
Zhaan comes to his aid but she didn’t hear the message; on this end, John barely got his head in before he was pushed out. She and Pilot at first aren’t ready to believe that John had time to have a creature talk. They don’t like this thrusting forward into the unknown, either, but John is adamant that they don’t have a choice. He tells Pilot to give him 500 microts before going forward—enough time to tell the others what to do. Cue the tense marathon music! John zaps into the red Moya and starts running down corridors. He leaves some more cookies at D’argo’s feet in Pilot’s den; lovely. D’argo, too, is irritated by the sudden change in plan, but there’s no time to argue. “I have no time keeping device!” is his final complaint, to which John teaches him the Mississippi—or Mippippippi—way of counting. :P
Now John’s on the blue Moya! Same tense music, same running through corridors, just more white light blocking his path. He finally puts on the headset to talk to Aeryn remotely. She’s having an easier time playing obedient soldier today; full maximum thrust in 150 microts—or 130 by the time he finishes talking, Aeryn points out. No Mippippippi needed. :P
Though he runs into light at all turns, somehow he gets to yellow Moya, and Pilot’s den specifically. Under 100 microts now so he’s counting audibly. Rygel and Chiana are still laughing. John jumps in himself to thrust forward at the right time; meanwhile his companions are getting pretty cozy as they lean into him. “Shall I disrobe so it’s memorable?” Rygel posits. He’s certainly Mr. Sexual this ep. :P At first it seems like nothing’s happened…but then we shift to an external shot of Moya where all of her colorful dimensions are coming together! Everyone jolts forward in Pilot’s den, flashing slowly into the real Moya (including Zhaan, who must have joined Pilot at some point. Thank goodness everyone picked separate places to sit, apparently. :P They are all sprawled over the console, though.) The music is triumphant as everyone looks at each other gleefully, all laughing. Poor Pilot is just bemused. “I fail to see the source of your amusement.”
Back in the cleaned mess hall everyone’s having much more fun over their meal, sharing naughty stories from youth, laughing…loving everything but John’s sad attempt at Grandmother Crichton’s famous buttermilk biscuits. Apparently Moya doesn’t have southern ingredients. :P Pilot breaks in on the clamshell, still confused about how they can be so jovial after their brush with death. Aeryn pipes up, asking for a report on Moya. She’s fine…in fact, more than fine. There’s been a baby status change…gestation to begin at any time! :-O Rygel says she should name it after him—only if it’s a runt, Chiana chimes in. :P John reminds them that this is one of the good days and proposes a toast—“to a happy, healthy baby.” D’argo just thinks John is handing him a drink. :P The music trills happily as Zhaan gives Rygel a kiss…for the first time in awhile he doesn’t look pleased, lol.
So yes, fun episode! Nice to see the crew working together, especially with Chiana’s awesome contributions and Rygel’s funny bone. I’m still not sure what the yellow Moya has to do with base elements, but hey, it was undoubtedly the highlight of the episode. :P
It’s also interesting to look back on this from the vantage point of the entire series—in the future, “Farscape” will return to this idea of parallel realities, but it’ll be a lot more thought out and embedded into the major themes of the story. This early episode was mostly fluff—but a nice little test drive into the area.
___
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}