""I’m getting a really bad bribe."
"Oh God, she’s speaking English. Vibe, it’s a really bad vibe."
-- Aeryn and Crichton

>> I did not like this episode. I'll tell ya that up front. It was just so.... boring. It had its highlights, but overall it just failed to impress me. I can't remember the last time Farscape failed to entertain me (I think it was "Taking the Stone" back in Season 2) so I'm not that concerned.

>> Why, once Crichton realized the bug caused him to start to target the Priest, did NO ONE think to grab the bug for evidence?

>> When Crichton begs D’Argo to knock him out, why didn’t D’Argo just tongue him?

>> Bug Man states that he’s "puzzled by off-worlders"...but isn’t he an off-worlder as well?

>> Crichton says, "Man, you should’ve met her Mother." But wait! THIS Crichton never met Xalax Sun. The other Crichton did.

>> Crichton hands Wynnona to Aeryn and walks off to prevent himself from killing the Priest. Back from commercial suddenly Aeryn and Crichton are being fumigated and the Priest has Wynnona. He says he got her "Peacefully, for the most part." Wait, did he fight with Aeryn? What happened?!

>> Chiana manages to tackle Aeryn pretty well for being completely blind.

>> So why didn't Sikozu stay behind with the clan leader?

>> What was with the priests? Are there two different species on this planet and all the priests are of the ugly-horned-deformed species?

>> Before going into Tormented Space, why didn't the crew stock up on essentials like water? Moya is a big ship. Surely she could carry quite a bit of it. Perhaps it wasn't so good that Crichton slammed his pod full of supplies into the alien ship last week.

>> I really didn't like the weird way that they put this together. I much prefer the straightforward method of storytelling (unless it's just supposed to be a bizarre crazy mess such as "John Quixote" or "Scratch-n-Sniff" in which case it's okay).

NEXT WEEK:
Evil clams!!!!

See ya later
TUE

There's probably a way to explain Crichton's line about meeting Aeryn's mother. I have a feeling that is something that could be answered in a short story in the Farcape magazine.

I had to watch this episode twice to be sure, but have to conclude reluctantly that Farscape is losing its touch. Flashback-type episodes have been done to death, and the flashbacks in this episode didn't add anything to the story. I usually find in this type of story that a second viewing makes me go, 'Ohh, now I understand why that was there,' but if this had been told as a straight story without the flashbacks, it would have been no worse for their lack.

Aeryn's visions of Gaashah's death were eerily prophetic - he died in exactly the way she'd foreseen! Did the bugs control her to such an extent that they wouldn't let her fire until he was in the right place and was standing in such a position that his arms would splay out when he was shot?!

How did D'Argo survive a direct hit from a pulse pistol?

There are no insects on the planet? That's a very strange ecosystem they've got. I suppose that any oddity like that can be explained away by saying, 'Ahh, things are different in Tormented Space.'

I couldn't see why Paroos had to be a muppet. He could have just as easily and successfully been played by an actor. There seemed to be a touch of "look how clever we are" about it which just annoyed me.

I agree with TUE that the jump between John walking off and then he and Aeryn being fairly alright again was clumsy. We don't get commercials during the show here and so the jump was even more obvious and jarring. There must have been another scene that was cut for time, but it's not like the editors to be so ham-fisted.

Why did Chiana feel she needed to go into vision mode to see E'Alat make the sgabba flies? She's so scared that the next use of her visions will send her permanently blind - I don't understand why she used them here, and I'm fairly sure she'd have known what he'd done anyway (unless the bugs zapped out of his head so fast that she wouldn't have seen them in normal time, but that wasn't made clear). And we had a better view of what was happening than she did, because E'Alat had his back to her.

Again I'm with TUE: Why didn't Sikozu stay with Zerbat? She even said, "There's nothing I'd like more," and the "but ..." was never properly explained.

There were some nice affectionate and understated moments between John and Aeryn, and Chiana and Sikozu.

And my two-penn’orth on John's comment about Aeryn's mother: I imagine that Rygel will have told the others about what happened on Talyn, so John must know that Xhalax was the mother from hell. And he didn't say that he'd actually met her.

I finally realised where I’d seen the Prefect before – the white-haired outgoing Prefect, I mean. I knew I recognised him but couldn’t place where I’d seen him until I watched this episode again last night. He was in Mad Max 2 playing the role of the Gyro Captain (I looked him up on Farscape World and found that his real name is Bruce Spence).

Bruce Spence also played the airplane pilot in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. At least he had better teeth.

I didn't really like this one that much. It was kind of boring. Didn't really feel like the epic movie style that Farscape usually is. And the aliens looked like Star Trek: Voyager rejects. Well, except for the priest and bug guy. Plus we didn't see Scorpius, Pilot, Rygel, or even Moya, though we did get to hear Rygel's voice. That's something I guess.

What was with the evil dude holding Crichton over the cliff like that? What was the point?

How do those translator microbes work? Can Aeryn hear him speaking english and then hear it translated into Sebacean? When she says "bribe" (or "woody") is she really speaking english?

You know, it seems to me that it wasn't very clearly explained why Sikozu was getting jiggy with the clan chief's son. For the most part, not a very well thought out episode.