Farscape - Season 3 - Episode 03
Farscape - 3x03 - Self-Inflicted Wounds Part I: Could'a, Would'a, Should'a - Originally Aired: 2001-3-30
Synopsis
While searching for a planet to heal the dying Zhaan, Moya collides and fuses with a small spacecraft, seriously injuring Moya and trapping both ships in a series of looping wormholes. Crichton and the captain of the other ship, Neeyala, soon realize that one of the ships must be sacrificed if any of them are to survive.
[DVD]
Filler Quotient:
0, not filler, do not skip this episode.
- Numerous major long term plot threads are serviced here. This is also the episode where the recurring character of Jool is first introduced.
Problems
None
Factoids
- Jool was in stasis for 22 cycles.
- The clip from Earth John sees in the alien recording device at the end of the episode is a still from The Three Stooges.
Remarkable Scenes
- Moya stumbling on a wormhole.
- John injecting the aliens who boarded Moya with translator microbes.
- John likening the alien's discussion of wormholes to technobable from Star Trek.
- Moya attempting to starburst with the alien ship still stuck to her.
- Rygel: "We were thrown together against our will. And we're all just trying to make the best of it until we can get the chance to screw the others and get what we want."
- John getting in a fight with Rygel.
- Rygel: "You broke my nose!" John: "You ain't gotta nose Guido, you got slits!"
- Crichton having a chat with Harvey.
- Jool attacking John.
- D'Argo unlocking the ship he recovered from the last episode.
My Review
Despite having a lot of worthwhile potential, this episode is a jumbled mess. We've got nothing but tidbits of largely unexplored ideas here that each deserved more screen time than they got. John seems to learn how to navigate a wormhole safely, one of the frozen aliens allegedly closely related to humans wakes up and this time survives, John and Harvey seem to both conclude that Scorpius is still alive, and D'Argo unlocks the recovered alien ship.
Meanwhile, Zhaan's story seems to be put on the backburner and instead replaced with a silly non corporeal serpent monster action plot. Combine that with Jool's annoying screams and homicidal behavior along with the false danger presented in the cliffhanger about the lives of John, Moya, and Pilot being in danger and you've got the makings for a pretty lame story. There's little else to say other than hopefully part 2 delivers stronger stuff.
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
There is too much going on here, and it is not all coherent... I thought the pathfinder aliens were very "Space 1999" btw, just there costumes, how they spoke and the looks of their spaceship (and the lighting).
The episode should have been good (It was about wormholes) but it was not. I knew neither Moya or Pilot could/would die so no real tension there and the aliens of the week were just blah. My mind kept wandering and I had to repllay several scenes, so definitely did not keep my interest.
The new character (did not know she was going to become one until I read it here, nor did I know that the shortened version of her name would be Jool) was very,very, very annoying - so I hope she gets betterThe new character (did not know she was going to become one until I read it here, nor did I know that the shortened version of her name would be Jool) was very,very, very annoying - so I hope she gets better
Zahn's story is still sad but the actress as always is doing an amazing job with her scenes. Speaking of Zahn Starks "your very pretty" comment to her was creepy and seemed out of character
I also liked the John and Harvey talk and all of Rigel's scenes.
And Yay someone finally says what I have been thinking. Chianna and Jothee are just kids doing what kids do best rebelling. So just saying she is a kid somewhat confirms my original hypothesis that she was a late teenager say 18/19. Dargo's kid is being put into the same age category as her so he is way too old for her.
I gave this episode a 4
Boy I wish you could edit your posts on here .
Sorry for the double comment regarding Jool - using a tablet to type and doing copy and pastes from notes obviously I am not very good at this.
Also the comment regarding Starks comment I said it was to Zahn but I knew it was to Aeryn and that is why is was creepy and out of character