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Farscape: I Shrink Therefore I Am

And now, on Farscape…

We watch our crew fight to save themselves from bounty hunters while coping with the added bonus of being miniaturized. I hate it when that happens.

I’m not the biggest fan of this episode. It has some fun moments, but the continued iciness between Aeryn and John really takes most of the enjoyment out of it for me. John is sniffing Noranti’s special medication so that he doesn’t think too much about this:


The problem is – without THAT for me – the show isn’t as compelling. I’d take fighting and snippy-ness over the cold silence that is now prevailing. Anyway, John and Noranti are coming back to Moya on a transport pod after some supply gathering and at least we get some fun communication from Pilot (which I’ll quote later) that clues John into the situation that is happening aboard Moya.

There are a lot of good parts to enjoy: having our crew in painful cuffs while John plays hide and seek with the aliens, Scorpius teams up with John to fight, John plays with the canisters that hold his tiny lady friends, Aeryn rides on 1812 the DRD to provide needed back-up, and John plays a round of – I shrink you, You shrink me – with the main bad guy. Then this happens, which is pretty sweet:


I do notice that John seems to reference Buffy from time to time, so here's a reminder of more tiny goodness.

Who's the little fear demon?
The episode ends with our intrepid crew deciding to venture into Tormented Space, which doesn’t sound like a blast for them, but does for us. I certainly hope so, because I’m starting to get frostbite from the cold and miserable wind which is blowing mournfully through Moya, at the moment. John and Aeryn’s epic romance is now:



Space Oddities:

Noranti spends most of the episode floating outside the ship in space. Fun fact: The human body can live after that experience, but it’s fifteen seconds or so before you lose consciousness. You can survive up to two minutes if you exhale to protect your lungs... and no, your face won't look like Schwarzenegger's in Total Recall. There might be some swelling, but not like this:

Gross
Head Bounty Hunter Axikor is played by Duncan Young, who plays another major Scarran character, later on. The producers were very impressed with Duncan and wanted him back on the show.

In a funny conversation, Sikozu tells Rygel that shrinking them down to their current size isn’t realistically possible, but Rygel tells her (and the viewers) to basically just ignore such small details because they’ve been shrunk, alright? Just go with it and forget about that pesky science stuff.

Since the bounty hunters proved to be led by a high-ranking Scarran, our crew must now worry more about the Scarran threat.

Scorpius is no longer being kept locked up in his quarters, but will be allowed to roam free. D’Argo and Crichton are going to be keeping a very close eye on him, though.

Speaking of eyes, Chiana went completely blind for a time after using her unique gift. She isn’t at all happy about that.

One person is a little happier: John finds out that Tormented Space is a nexus of wormholes. That should be interesting.

Cosmic Quotes:

Pilot: “Ka D'Argo is currently... helping Rygel with his… laundry and Aeryn's writing some… poetry.”
John: “Uh-huh. What about Chiana and Sikozu?”
Pilot: “Enjoying each other’s company. Preparing a meal for... everyone but Rygel. He's... not hungry.”

John: “How are my little inaction figures?”

Rygel: “Crichton?”
John: “Yeah, Ryg?”
Rygel: “There's a wrinkled old woman floating outside the forward portal.”
John: “Whoa! Gigantic oops. (to D'Argo) Do me a favor, pop outside the tier 3 side hatch and haul granny in.”
D'Argo: “Noranti is outside?”
John: “Yeah, don’t… don't ask.”

This episode should have been a great one because wacky hijinks like shrinking the crew is what Farscape does best, but as a John and Aeryn shipper – I just was left in the cold by this story.

Story and Action:  Three and a half out of five Mini-Sikozus.
Love and romance: One half out of five Mini-Aeryns.

Mallena needs more romance in her favorite space opera.

3 comments:

  1. Don't despair, Farscapers, I'll keep reviewing this lovely show as soon as the crazy holiday season is over. Some people say that they hate most of January and February. I like 'em, personally. I may be a little chilly, but life gets slower and calmer, just the way I like it.

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  2. Quite an enjoyable episode, with yet more bounty-hunter guys chasing after John Crighton.

    The John-Aeryn affair took a bit of a back seat here, helped somewhat with the drug Noranti gave him in the previous episode to help him temporarily get over any romantic inclinations he has for her.

    The bad guys on this occasion (Coreeshi) looked pretty impressive armour-wise, although they also reminded me of Godzilla! Moreover, their accents were more platonic and homely compared to the sinister threatening tones of say a Scarren - which is rather ironic as it turns out.

    But they do carry some decent armour, and the ability to miniaturize some of the crew and imprison them in canisters that are then fixed to the body armour of the Coreeshi, so that if they were killed in action, the prisoners would die also.

    With most of the crew immobolised, John has to turn to DRD-1812 and Scorpius for help. And through some very unlikely chain of events John and Co win the day - as we knew he would.

    So other than John the rest of the crew took a backseat in terms of plot and action. I wasn't very impressed with seeing a shruken Aeryn ride 1812 into battle because a) it didn't look convincing, and b) it didn't really achieve much.

    Good to see John and Scorpy work together, albeit rather reluctantly. But it proved worthwhile knowing what they eventually found out about the Coreeshi - or at least one of the Coreeshi.

    It was a fun episode, made slightly more interesting in that the crew will be heading off into the mysterious part of the galaxy called the Tormented Space: a place that not even the PeaceKeepers or scarrens fear to tread!

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  3. Yet again our crew manage to let the bad guys on board, what was interesting was John only having 1812 and Scorpius to aid his plans.

    The reveal where Scorpius admitted he has always been able to leave his cell at whim shouldnt have surprised Crichton, i mean if he can escape being shot then buried alive, what's a door?

    Meeting a ruling class scarran, has made John better understand the Scarran threat. The actor who played Axikor was very good, sinsiter whilst in disguise and menacing when unmasked.

    And Mallena i totally thought of Buffy too when Crichton stepped on Axikor.

    Rygel can be very wise sometimes, i loved it when he told a doubting Sikozu "The universe is not obligated to obey the rules we make up; it’s best to accept the impossible and just go with it."

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