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Farscape - Season 3 - Episode 04

My Rating - 6

Fan Rating Average - 4.82

Rate episode?

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# Votes: 16 30 22 3 2 24 8 42 10 21 7

Synopsis
Hoping to preserve their own ship at Moya's expense, Neeyala's crew has been sabotaging Moya and hastening her disintegration. Crichton and the crew must battle not only the saboteurs but also a mysterious and deadly alien serpent. As the situation worsens, the only possibility of saving Moya requires that one of her crew make the ultimate sacrifice. [DVD]

Filler Quotient: 0, not filler, do not skip this episode.
- Numerous major long term plot threads are serviced here.

Problems
None

Factoids
- Zhaan was not originally slated to be killed off in this episode. They planned to rejuvenate her on the soil of a suitable planet just as everyone was saying. However, the actress who played Zhaan (Virginia Hey) wanted to quit the show because the makeup required to play the character was beginning to adversely affect her health.

Remarkable Scenes
- John: "I'm telling you Aeryn, it was from Earth. A television transmission." Aeryn: "What, you mean like that Yoda from Dagobah?"
- Moya's crew breaking off into two separate factions both simultaneously planning the same thing even though they think they're on opposite sides.
- Jool: "You killed my cousin!" John: "Not on purpose! He was a corpsicle and your other cousin, he didn't last half a minute defrosted." Jool: "Then why did I survive?" John: "I don't know. You're not sick. Maybe they shanghaied you for body parts. You're the freebie." Jool: "Everything I've seen so far is despicable!" John: "Welcome to the Federation starship S.S. butt crack!"
- John cutting the serpent in half with the force field from D'Argo's ship.
- Harvey surfacing to have a chat with John.
- Aeryn kicking Pilot awake.
- Rygel: "Goodbye, you big beautiful blue bitch."
- Zhaan sacrificing herself so that Moya can escape the wormhole.
- Jool: "Do you know how much these shoes cost, young whore?" Chiana: "For me, three sex acts. Probably double that for you."

My Review
Part 2 is less of a jumble and more pointed, but never fully recovers from the last episode's issues. Aside from the continuing annoyance of Jool's screams, a number of essential plot tidbits are left largely unexplored such as the implications of John discovering how to safely navigate wormholes, the discovery of a wormhole within range of Earth, the full extent to which Harvey can control John, and the full extent to which John and Harvey suspect Scorpius is still alive and what they plan to do about that. These unresolved issues make the story's conclusion somewhat unfulfilling.

But simultaneously, despite not enough important plot being adequately addressed, the story also drags at times. Like the prior episode, the biggest issue is the alien wormhole researcher plot. The aliens were unworthy as a plot device to create danger for the crew and even less worthy as a plot device for Zhaan's demise. It's touching that Zhaan's ultimate sacrifice was to save Moya, but I was far more moved when she originally ultimately sacrificed herself to save Aeryn. I think her death would have been stronger had she died the moment she saved Aeryn.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Margaret J on 2019-07-05 at 8:18pm:
    Definitely better than part one but only because it seemed more focused, spent more time on the Zahn stuff, with the Aliens of the week being what seemed demoted to the B story. Also lots of sentimental and some humorous conversations nicely injected into this episode.
    I am hoping however that the beacon the alien spoke of that was being installed or fused with Moya is forgotten in subsequent episodes, and that we do not have to see this lame species again
    I really wanted to rate it higher being that it is Zahn's swan song but als I could not and had to give it a 5
  • From Jon Reremy on 2021-01-08 at 1:23pm:
    Oh come on, this episode deserves a higher rating for the Rygel/Pilot stuff alone, it kept making me smile.
    "Too bad about Pilot. I liked him."
    "He liked you too."
    "Hmm? How do you know?"
    "He told me."
    --
    "We're never gonna make it John, we voted to stay together, no matter what."
    "Even Rygel?"
    "Pilot likes me."
    --
    "I... appreciate your concern, Rygel. It's just that.. you never paid this much attention to me before."
    "Hehehehehuh, I think maybe you haven't noticed. I like you, Pilot. I like you a lot."
    Too damn funny lol

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