ORBzine - Farscape - December 1999
[Season 1 ! Season 2! Season 3! Season 4! Peacekeeper Wars]
SEASON 1
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 1]
Premiere
[first shown 4th Week of November 1999]
As the 1999-2000 SF TV season starts, Farscape appears on the scene - a jumble of SF cliches [most of them good] from the pen of USA SF TV uber-hack Rockne S. O'Bannon of Seaquest infamy. The story is in the mould of Lexx and Blake's 7 . A NASA astronaut [a la Buck Rogers ] breaks the lightspeed barrier, and finds himself in the midst of a battle between a large alien freighter and some unknown fighter-craft. He is tractored aboard the freighter, which is crewed by
The fighters are a bunch of fascist space-Australians, Peace Keepers - one is tractored aboard [a babe in black leather, played by Hercules bit-part player Claudia Black ] and by the end of the episode defects.
All in all, not exactly B5 but you know where it's coming from, and it's better than darts or snooker. IMHO.
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 2]
I, E.T.
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 3]
Exodus From Genesis
Shown Second Week, January 2000
The ship is infested with some kind of parasites. These massive bugs [over 40 centimetres in length] sample the crew's DNA, then replicate them. The creatures' goal? To raise the ship's internal temperature to a level unbearable to its occupants.
It is revealed that the Peacekeeper, Aeryn Sun [the delectable Claudia Black], belongs to a cold-blooded species. They just LOOK like interstellar Australians. Very Star Trek! Anyhow, this explains her frigid attitude towards the human male.
To save the babe from brain-death due to heat exhaustion, she must be stripped to her skimpy shorts and T-shirt, then doused with cold water.
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 4]
Throne For A Loss
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 5]
Back And Back And Back To The Future
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 6]
Thank God It's Friday. Again.
Shown Third Week, January 2000
This episode has a message that is either conventionally Anti-drugs or unconventionally anti-Utopian. The crew land on a planet where all is love and peace - but maintained by keeping the entire population in a drugged stupor.
Drek characters never used the bathroom, while B5 did the opposite and acrtually had important scenes set in the bathroom! In South Park's first episode Cartman farts fire - and Farscape shows its Australian toilet humour; the ugly muppet pisses napalm!
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 7]
PK Tech Girl
Shown Fourth Week, January 2000
The team discover a derelict Peacekeeper battleship, and scout it Aliens style. Aeryn Sun even carries a steadican-rigged LMG!
They discover a Kes-type Peacekeeper technician babe, and the sexual chemistry between her and the crew's token human male is quite blatant. Of course, since she is not part of the regular cast we know she will probably not make it to the end of the episode - and even if she did, the relationship between them would not continue to the next episode. Still, this does help develop the relationship with Aeryn Sun.
The ship is targetted by alien scavengers. Unlike cheapo Star Trek aliens [OK, the Sebations are just cold-blooded humans, but you know what I mean] these are full-suit aliens - as in Space Precinct and Dr Who.
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 8]
That Old Black Magic
Shown Fourth Week, January 2000
Earthman Jack confronts his nemesis, Kreiss. They are both captured by an evil sorceror and forced to fight to the death. The blue-skinned priestess must regain her dark side in order to attack the sorceror - a possibility for future character development, though the chances are it will be ignored. The twist in the tale, though, almost makes it worthwhile.
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 9]
DNA Mad Scientist
Shown First Week, February 2000
The crew meet a scientific genius who offers to help in exchange for samples of their DNA. He offers them a way home, but needs one of their pilot's limbs - and the heroes pounce on the luckless Henson creation without a thought. Only Earthman Crichton and Aeryn Sun stay out of the conspiracy - he has principles, while she has no home to go to. The scientist hands over a data crystal, but only one of the 3 destinations can be used; again the crew fall on themselves like a pack of Reservoir Dogs, each ready to doublecross the rest so that s/he can go home.
Crichton wants Aeryn Sun to return to Earth with him. She thinks differently, and gives the scientist a DNA sample in exchange for the location of a Sebation colony. However, the scientist deliberately contaminates her with the pilot's DNA - she becomes an involuntary lab rat!
We learn that Dargo [the Klingon] and Rigel [the muppet] were both arrested by their own governments! Yes, the Peacekeepers who kept them prisoner were only acting in accordance with the wishes of the prisoners' own people.
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 10]
They've Got A Secret
Shown Second Week, February 2000
The Farscape crew hit yet another bump in the road home. They discover that the Peacekeepers had installed failsafe devices, and try to remove them. There is an explosion, and Dargo [the Klingon one] is ejected into space. He is recovered and revived, but he thinks Zhaan [the blue-skinned priestess] is his wife and Rigel [the muppet] is his son.
Worse than that, Moya [the ship] and the DRDs [skutters] decide to kill the crew - at first it looks like a Peacekeeper virus, but it could be the ship's internal defence mechanism!
By the end of the show we have learned a lot about Dargo and his past - not to mention the forthcoming plot mini-arc concerning Moya. And the concept of a relationship between a Sebation woman and a lesser species is given some airing ...
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 11]
Til The Blood Runs Clear
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 12]
Rhapsody In Blue
Shown second Week, March 2000
The episode centres around the priestess woman, Zhaan. We learn why she was condemned by her people's government, and why the Peacekeepers were involved.
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 13]
The Flax
Shown First week, March 2000
Crichton and Aeryn Sun are trapped together, and their relationship develops. As one would expect from this kind of TV episode.
Will Dargo [the Klingon] rescue them, or will he take the opportunity to loot - err, liberate - certain items from an abandoned Luxan freighter?
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 14]
Jeremiah Crichton
Shown Fourth Week, March 2000
Crichton takes his ship out for a spin, and Moya [the pregnant bio-ship] jumps to FTL, abandoning him in deep space.
3 months later Crichton as a massive beard that looks like it took 6 months to grow. He is on a sunny tropical beach with a sexy polynesian maid at his side. Her father, the village chief, is caucasian - while the village's best hunter [and the Princess's former beau] is negroid. Unlike Star Trek they admit they are colonists, and not Bajorans or something! It turns out the colonists were sent by Emperor Rigel 10th - and they think Rigel 16th [Crichton's muppet-like shipmate] is their god!
The colony has a concealed negative power vortex that makes all electronic equipment [ships, weapons, communicators] useless. Crichton, Rigel and Dargo must disable the vortex, or suffer the wrath of the natives.
This episode gives Rigel the muppet the opportunity for some character development.
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 15]
Durka Returns
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 16]
Human Reaction
Shown April 2000
The crew has been joined by a short blonde woman called Chiana. Unlike Kes in Star Trek: Voyager , she is not dressed as Peter Pan but instead as a convincing non-Terran
Moya discovers a wormhole back to Earth, and Crichton takes the plunge. Once back he finds that his former comrades are more paranoid than he recalls, and is imprisoned as a suspected Alien because of the translator bacteria in his brainstem.
Aeryn Sun, Dargo and Rigel join him, and he has to choose between his comrades from Moya and the fascists who hold them prisoner. Finally Crichton and Aeryn Sun let their relationship reach a new level - not in the blatant, ratings-boosting way that happens in Buffy.
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 17]
Through The Looking Glass
Shown April 2000
Moya goes to starburst [FTL] and splits into several realities - with the crew trapped in different parallel universes. Will this have negative effects on Moya's baby?
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 18]
A Bug's Life
Shown April 2000
Moya takes aboard some Peacekeeper Commandos, one of whom is a friend of Aeryn Sun. Unfortunately, the ship also takes on a cargo infected with an intelligent virus that can possess its victims and take over their minds.
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 19]
Nerve
Aeryn Sun is dying from a wound received in the last episode - and the only place she can get a tissue graft is from the local Peacekeeper base. Crichton goes undercover there, and as you can guess things go wrong ...
The show has a number of Arc elements collide;
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 20]
Hidden Memory
Aeryn Sun tries to return the favour and rescue Crichton.
Kreiss is put in the interrogation chair, and tries to conceal the fact that he murdered his 2ic in order to ignore orders to break off his search for Crichton.
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 21]
Bone To Be Wild
Crichton, Dargo and Zhaan take a shuttle down to a jungle-world, and rescue a young lady from a monster. The female, Emily [Ben Browder's wife], is reminiscent of Sadie Frost in Bram Stoker's Dracula . The obvious twist comes along, of course - but is followed by a couple more that are disguised by it.
It is revealed that Zhaan's species, the Delphi, are actually mobile plants - their blue skin contains chloroplasts, they like the sun because they photosynthesise, aand they have hard cartilige instead of bone.
The Peacekeepers are in pursuit - Kreiss is a prisoner, and Scorpius is in command.
Farscape [Season 1, Episode 22]
Family Ties
Kreiss and Scorpius, the Skarran half-breed, are closing in on Moya in the asteroid field. As a side-note, the alien girl rescued last week has been taken away on a shuttle, probably to Scorpius' secret base on the nearby moon. Rigel defects to the Peacekeepers, and offers a deal. However, the only one who wants to make a deal is Kreiss - Scorpius is going to kill him eventually, and he wants to defect to Moya.
The good guys know they are cornered, and prepare for the worst. They start to say their goodbyes, and plan a last-ditch attack against the secret base to decoy Scorpius away from them.
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