Promises

Nitcentral's Bulletin Brash Reflections: Farscape: Season Four: Promises
“What is it with Peacekeepers? First they hunt us, then they wanna move in. Are we a bed and breakfast?!”


The reunion with Moya is marred by the return of Aeryn who is dying of Sebacean Heat Delirium – and she’s been rescued by none other than Scorpius who has put her into one of his coolant suits and is claiming asylum aboard Moya.
A ship approaches, preventing Moya from starbursting, and the captain insists that Aeryn was one of a group of mercenaries who assassinated his planet’s leader. Ullom has infected the mercenaries with the Heat Delirium and has the cure if Aeryn will surrender. Aeryn refuses.
Scorpius removes his neural clone Harvey from John’s mind.
Braca flies towards Moya with a Leviathan-killing missile, one which can even follow Moya’s slipstream if she starbursts. Sikozu takes over Ullom’s ship - which is a chameleon - and makes it look like Moya while Pilot shuts down Moya’s biologics so that Braca will aim the missile at the fake Leviathan. Once the missile is locked on the fake, Pilot wakes Moya and they starburst away.
Pilot gives the crew an ultimatum - he and Moya are tired of being bossed around by so many people, so they want the crew to select a single captain to act as their spokesperson.

Synopsis by Callie Sullivan.
By He, the Mortal, and the Misery on Saturday, July 13, 2002 - 6:07 pm:

For the life of me, I swore Aeryn's condition was caused by John's baby, leaving us with a season of her in Scorpious Bondage Gear. But it does make you wonder, are the Sebation sensitivity to heat accute enough that a half warm-blooded baby could endanger the mother? And what about the baby itself? Probably hopeful speculation what with how well D'Argo's son was adjusted, and Luxans can be assumed to be warm-blooded. I'm still hoping, since the episode where all this was brought up way back in Season 1, Crichton could not tell it was hot when Aeryn was sweating profusely, so a body heat of 98.6 could be quite painful to live with.


By Anonymous on Saturday, July 13, 2002 - 8:47 pm:

It annoys me that there's going to be somebody in charge of Moya. One of the things that seperates Farscape from all other TV space shows is that the ship never had a captain. Too bad.


By Scott McClenny on Saturday, July 13, 2002 - 9:01 pm:

I think the captain is going to end up being
Crichton since everyone seems to depend on his
decisions.'Sides D'Argo's too much of a hot head,
no-one trusts Scorpy worth a fig,Rygel is Rygel,
Chianna doesn't really come across as wanting the
job,and Aeryn as too much on her mind right now.
All that said it has to really be Crichton since
he is the main character.:)


By ScottN on Saturday, July 13, 2002 - 9:51 pm:

Is this the one where we see the "Scorpified" Aeryn?


By NSetzer (Nsetzer) on Sunday, July 14, 2002 - 7:15 am:

Yes, she's dressed in a "coolant suit" similar to the one Scorpius wears.

Incidentally, this episode explains that her heat delirium is due to a virus or bacterial agent an alien species infected her with.


By cstadulis on Wednesday, July 17, 2002 - 10:34 am:

"You play nice with the other kids, alright?" John as he lets DRD 1812 loose in Moya.

Thank God they got Aeryn out of the Scorpy suit... that was truly disturbing to see. I'm still a bit confused over the whole cooling rod thing. Does all this mean Aeryn had a hole drilled into her head? Or did the cooling-rod just slip along the outside? I couldn't tell.

So, the mystery continues about what really happened to Pilot in the wormhole. Nice to see John was thinking along the same lines as us nitpickers were, asking if Neela's people were responsible.
And where exactly did Granny disappear to during this ep? We saw her at the very beginning and later she got whacked by Aeryn, but other than that, she was gone for the rest of the ep. Was she sleeping the whole time? Guess Granny didn't get much pay this week.

RIP Harvey.


By Duane Parsons on Thursday, July 18, 2002 - 7:45 am:

I was wondering the same thing about Aeryn and the cooling rod. I did see in one scene when Aeryn and John were talking, on Aeryn's right side of her head, there was a blue rod and what looked like a tube leading to ear cover. So, it looks like she did not have any holes in her head.


By cstadulis on Thursday, July 18, 2002 - 10:44 am:

But, in one scene, where John first saw Aeryn sitting in the cooling room, it showed the circle-thingy spinning out of her head, like Scorpius. Was that just John's imagination or was it real?


By He, the Mortal, and the Misery on Friday, July 19, 2002 - 3:33 am:

cstadulis- Yes, that was John's imagination. You know how overactive it is.

I always had the impression Scorpius has a cooling rod to run his suit and one to keep his brain cooled. The one in his mind was constantly changed because it was thrust right in the middle of the skarran-heated environment. The brain is a very sensitive organ.


By The Undesirable Element on Friday, July 19, 2002 - 4:46 pm:

"Kryptonite, silver bullets, Buffy...what is it gonna take to keep you in the grave?" -- Crichton on Scorpius's many apparent deaths.

>> Did it occur to Crichton that Scorpy may have used the neural clone removal opportunity to implant another chip?

>> In this episode, they keep Aeryn in a thermal cooling chamber deep inside Moya. John asks how Aeryn knew of the room. "Scorpius found it." In Farscape's third episode of season one, "Exodus from Genesis", Aeryn was suffering from the heat delirium, and they simply kept her in her quarters. Shouldn't Pilot have known about this chamber? Shouldn't Moya have known about it?

>> When the Hokothian ship showed up, Moya was unable to starburst because of its incredible mass. Later, however, Sikozu figures out that it's mass is actually quite small, and that it was merely an illusion, or trick. So then, why exactly couldn't Moya starburst? You can't fake mass. It's either there or it isn't.

>> It is stated that the missle will only kill Moya, leaving the crew alive inside. Yet when the missle locks onto the Hokothian ship, it destroys it. Braca does not seem to think that anything is odd about this until he is informed that it wasn't Moya. This seemed odd to me.

>> I see nothing wrong with Crichton being captain of Moya. It brings him full circle. In the beginning, he was the dumb outsider alien that everyone underestimated. Now he's become their leader. Seems appropriate. (Though I also have my suspicions that Aeryn will be the captain)

>> You can see that there is a blue cooling rod on the outside of Aeryn's head when she is in her Scorpy gear. If it can be done this way, why does Scorpy's have to go through his brain? Isn't this also dangerous?

>> Given the timeline (and not knowing the amount of time that Sebaceans are pregnant), are we to assume that Aeryn has already given birth?

>> Grayza seems to be just an evil thug now. (Blow up Moya. Bring me Crichton) She lacks the motivation that both Crais and Scorpius had.

>> This was a very good episode. It brought the crew back together completely and had a good story. We also have Scorpius on the ship now. It's always interesting to see what he's up to.

NEXT WEEK: D'Argo likes to shoot things.

See ya later
TUE


By Kosh on Monday, July 22, 2002 - 12:39 pm:

>> Did it occur to Crichton that Scorpy may have used the neural clone removal opportunity to implant another chip?

_Possibly_, but he hasn't lied at all this whole season -- I think he's gonna tell the truth in order to get his way.

>> In this episode, they keep Aeryn in a thermal cooling chamber deep inside Moya. John asks how Aeryn knew of the room. "Scorpius found it." In Farscape's third episode of season one, "Exodus from Genesis", Aeryn was suffering from the heat delirium, and they simply kept her in her quarters. Shouldn't Pilot have known about this chamber? Shouldn't Moya have known about it?

I have the impression that even Moya doesn't know everything about herself -- and unless I'm mistaken, wasn't something like that said around season 2? I can't recall... anyone?

>> When the Hokothian ship showed up, Moya was unable to starburst because of its incredible mass. Later, however, Sikozu figures out that it's mass is actually quite small, and that it was merely an illusion, or trick. So then, why exactly couldn't Moya starburst? You can't fake mass. It's either there or it isn't.

But you can fake sensors, which is what they did. Had moya attempted a starburst, she'd have been fine, but they thought it would damage her.

>> It is stated that the missle will only kill Moya, leaving the crew alive inside. Yet when the missle locks onto the Hokothian ship, it destroys it. Braca does not seem to think that anything is odd about this until he is informed that it wasn't Moya. This seemed odd to me.

Well, the other ship was smaller than Moya, and it wasn't alive -- perhaps there was some other reaction to the warhead and that's why it exploded? Beyond that, I don't know why it was destroyed.

>> You can see that there is a blue cooling rod on the outside of Aeryn's head when she is in her Scorpy gear. If it can be done this way, why does Scorpy's have to go through his brain? Isn't this also dangerous?

Perhaps it's easier to protect? Kinda like carrying a cell phone on your belt (where it can be subjected to anything you hit) versus in your pocket.


By Callie on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 4:09 am:

John’s comment about Peacekeepers hunting them and then wanting to move in summed up the reason for my rather weary sigh when Scorpius asked for asylum. Other series might keep repeating the same story over and over but I expected more of Farscape.

Just how big are the Uncharted Territories – about ten miles square?!! What were the odds of Scorpius conveniently running across Aeryn just in her time of need? And how did Grayza’s command carrier track down Moya so easily?

The business of Pilot suddenly not remembering what happened to him and Moya in the wormhole seems clumsy. Jool said that Noranti and Pilot had talked about it in detail, and Noranti confirms that he knew more about it before, so why has he suddenly clammed up? It may well be explained in future episodes but at the moment it seems to be a rather too-blatant way of gearing us up to a future plot point.

That’s a neat hologram Ullom has – it even throws shadows!

I didn’t like the masks that were designed for Ullom and his crew. It was really obvious that there were mesh-covered gaps in the masks for the actors to look through, and that made them unconvincing.

Why are we suddenly hearing all these alien languages? Either the viewers’ translator microbes work or they don’t – we shouldn’t be able to hear Scorpius, Sizoku or Pilot speak in any other language than English.

Noranti’s sleep powder works in a strange way. She sniffs it and isn’t knocked out, but when Aeryn knocks it into her face she drops like a stone without even taking a breath. Does it only work on physical contact with the face?

Kudos to Claudia for doing such a good impersonation of Scorpius.

A strange sequence seems to take place just prior to Harvey’s removal. Harvey sits down, says to ‘internal’ John, “I’m going to miss you,” then ‘external’ John lurches forward, at which Scorpius grabs him and plunges the Neural Clone Remover™ into his neck. I watched the sequence twice but couldn’t work out what made John lurch as neither Scorpius nor Harvey seemed to do anything to cause it.

Harvey’s death has a lot less emotional impact on this John than it did when the other John’s Harvey was removed. The other John was weeping with relief – this one just effectively says, “He’s gone ... OK, where were we?”!

Scorpius announces that the Prowler will fire a missile in three arns – and neither John nor Sikozu think to ask how he knows that? It’s only when Scorpy updates the arrival time that John suddenly realises that he shouldn’t know that. I could understand John still being a bit befuddled after having a whomping great Neural Clone Remover™ stabbed in the back of his neck, but Sikozu should have been more alert. Or was that a clue that she is in cahoots with him and already knows about his link back to the Carrier?

Not a nit as such, as I’ve done it myself in the past: John tells Scorpius, “I have just two questions,” then asks more than two!

Why did Scorpius destroy the whereabouts of Earth. Does he want to be the only person with a hold over John? And when did he destroy the information? Surely not while the Command Carrier was falling down around his ears?

Further thoughts on a comment made above by TUE: Do we have any indication of how much time has passed since the end of Season 3? Aeryn’s hair has grown big time since we last saw her, though I did wonder why a Peacekeeper would let it get so long. Even tied into a ponytail, if she got into a fight someone could grab it. But from the length of her hair and the length of John’s beard in Crichton Kicks, I can imagine that it’s been very many months since Dog With Two Bones. Does John therefore believe that Aeryn’s baby has already been born? No matter how diplomatic he might be trying to be, I can’t imagine that he would be able to prevent himself asking where it is.


By JM on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 5:16 pm:

Good episode. It was very nice to see Aeryn again. But like Pilot, I kind of miss Jool. Ah well.

Rygel stops Aeryon from killing herself. Go Ryg!! It's good to know he's useful for something.

When Crichton is talking to the more Scorped-up Aeryn, was that Harvey messing with him or what?

TUE: You can see that there is a blue cooling rod on the outside of Aeryn's head when she is in her Scorpy gear. If it can be done this way, why does Scorpy's have to go through his brain? Isn't this also dangerous?
I get the feeling that Scorpius's condition is different from Aeryn's. His condition is more severe and because of his biology he needs it to go directly into his head in order to survive and function. Aeryn's disease could be fought with less direct methods.

Callie: Why are we suddenly hearing all these alien languages? Either the viewers’ translator microbes work or they don’t – we shouldn’t be able to hear Scorpius, Sizoku or Pilot speak in any other language than English.
Sikozu can hear what Scorpius is saying since she doesn't have the microbes.

Callie: Harvey’s death has a lot less emotional impact on this John than it did when the other John’s Harvey was removed. The other John was weeping with relief – this one just effectively says, “He’s gone ... OK, where were we?”!
They were very different situations. The TalynCrichton was not on good terms with Harvey when he died. Remember, Harvey didn't want to leave and tried to take John with him. The other Crichton and Harvey seemed to grow closer. As Harvey himself said, he had pretty much become John's friend. It wasn't a burden for Crichton to have Harvey and the MoyaCrichton accepted his presence.


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