But first, welcome to a worthy member of the Spoilerslut Society: Kadira! You asked for this, BABE, so now you're getting what you asked for. Enjoy.
Farscape 4.01: Crichton Kicks. Reviewed by Hmpf BABE MacSlow
The episode opens with an irritatingly vague 'some time later' caption that will drive timeline fanatics mad - doubtlessly the effect desired by writer David Kemper. We see John's module floating in space as if no time has passed between 3.22 and now. However, as the camera zooms in, we see some time, indeed, must have passed: it's 'Farscape: The Ferret Strikes Back'!!! Yes, John is sporting a beard that rivals Reinhold Messner's, and *this* time his hair has grown, too! He's talking to some ancient, female pilot who's apparently thrown him off her Leviathan for a while because he'd been getting on her nerves with his obsessiveness. The old lady lets him back on board -- apparently she's saved his life 'a looong time ago', and he's been living on the dying ship all alone since then.
Being trapped on a dying Leviathan with no hope of escape, John has rediscovered science and is giving a pretty good impression of a mad scientist, dividing his time between scribbling wormhole equations on walls and crates, producing and consuming alcohol, and teaching a DRD to play Tchaikovsky. We see him dancing through Elack's (that's the Leviathan's name) corridors, singing and directing little DRD 1812's musical efforts, and although he looks like a scarecrow -- he's wearing a long, dirty white frock in addition to the hair and beard -- he's curiously cute (at least to my demented mind, but what can you expect of a woman who drinks camomile tea although she doesn't even like it *g*). A few minutes into the ep, the old pilot warns him that a ship is about to crash into the hangar, but he doesn't hear (or ignores) her, and is only mildly startled when, seconds later, a ship does indeed crash right through the crates and boxes he's been writing on. The music is used to very good effect here... can't describe it.
Well, the smoke clears and a strangely shaped head, or rather, a head with strangely shaped hair (FS's hairdressers are certainly going where no hairdresser has gone before!) appears... It's Sikozu Svanu Sugaizi etc. etc. etc. (think Hadschi Halef Omar...). John doesn't even bother asking her name, but calls her 'Sputnik', for reasons that will become obvious once you see her hair. He greets her the way he's learned to greet aliens, keeping her at a safe distance with Winona between them, or rather, he does until he's either decided she poses nor threat or simply doesn't care anymore. Anyway, down goes the weapon, up goes the shot glass, and he's all ready to turn away and forget about the intruder, but she insists on interacting with him. Communication is complicated due both to John's complete disinterest and to the fact that 'Sputnik' does not have translator microbes. Luckily, she's a genius, and can learn languages in a matter of hours? days? whatever. Anyway, John is great in that scene, and in the rest as well, he goes from cheerfully disinterested to mildly pissed to all-out manic and shows us why Ben Browder won this year's Saturn Award for best TV actor. ;-) He seems both softer, more relaxed, and crazier than at the end of season 3.
So, the new girl is an expert on Leviathans, but she's never been on one, and you can see how John enjoys *finally* knowing something better than some alien when he tells her where a certain hatchway is -- he is really having fun in that scene, he's practically bouncing! He may look like the Yeti's younger brother, but in that scene, he's just cute, in a 'little boy, let's pat him on the head' way.
Well... I just noticed the sky is getting lighter outside, so I had better go to bed now... sorry I can't give a full review. Let me just tell you that the episode also features Klingons, err, Grudeks (and John *talking* Klingon, not to mention Spanish), a not-so-nice 'puppy dog' that takes a bite out of John, fun with ripped-of body parts (classic line: 'Severed heads. Severed hands. It's a motif.') and someone taking a bath in shit (I won't tell you who, gotta leave *some* surprise! *g*), the confusing, but very Farscape return of Rygel and Chi, who has acquired strange and frightening new powers, and Harvey in a Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat.
Gotta go to bed now!
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