Farscape - Season 4 - Episode 04
Synopsis
After a forced landing, the crew is divided by an elaborate trap that leaves Crichton, D'Argo, Noranti and Rygel underground in a lava-filled system of caves. Chiana and Sikozu are left outside, trying to re-activate D'Argo's ship. Inside, Crichton and the others are hunted down by mercenaries who are not only protected by energy shield belts, but are led by a monster impervious to the fiery lava. [DVD]
Filler Quotient:
3, bad filler, totally skippable.
- No significant exposition, events, or consequences. And a lame episode on top of that. Making contact with Moya at the end of the episode is trivial continuity that can be understood in context later and it's not important to watch this episode just to know how they acquired the body armor.
Problems
- When D'Argo wrapped his tongue around Noranti for leverage, why didn't it just drag both of them into the lava?
Factoids
- Sikozu can go for days without eating.
- John Adam, the actor who played the lead bad guy in this episode also played Bekhesh from Throne for a Loss and Liars, Guns and Money.
Remarkable Scenes
- D'Argo: "They're shielded!" John: "They have body armor? That's a hell of an invention. How come we don't have that?"
- Noranti: "Let me mediate!" D'Argo: "You don't think we should let her try?" John: "No, she's gonna get shot!" D'Argo: "And that would be bad?"
- D'Argo throwing Noranti and John over the lava.
- D'Argo jumping over the lava, slipping, then wrapping his tongue around Noranti's neck for leverage.
- John and D'Argo debating whether or not hitting the guys with the shields with a rock would work.
- Chiana and Sikozu covering D'Argo's ship in his vomit so they can activate the controls sensitive to his DNA.
- John's conversation with Harvey.
- John attempting to rescue Rygel by using the shield to go into the lava.
My Review
Noranti feeds the tired and hungry crew of Lo'La poison, so they all have to land on hostile planet of the week to go throw up, getting themselves into trouble with some bad guys in the process. There's some very effective humor in some scenes, but aside from that this episode is largely just a waste of time.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.
This episode contains one of the very few moments in the series when I was slightly distracted by Rygel's status as a puppet.
It's when he's reacting to a figure that turns out to be John Adam's character; Rygel's ears are moving independently of each other and for some reason that looks too "animatronic-like" for me.