Froon’s Farscape Watch, s1e06

“Thank God It’s Friday… Again” (season 1, episode 6)

• Written by David Wilks, directed by Rowan Woods •

Another “Weird Planetary Society of the Week” ep, wherein Aeryn gets to do some science and D’Argo just gets some. Oh, and John contemplates his navel and Rygel saves the day by peeing.

We begin with D’Argo screaming and kicking a DRD. Great opening!

Crichton calls Rygel “Spanky!” Take a drink.

Off to the planet, where we’re expecting a Killer Rage D’Argo but we find out he’s now Disco Mellow D’Argo. Odd place to break the Teaser… now that we’ve discovered that there actually is no huge problem.

Aaaaaand now we meet the Woman in White. One watcher (@jolorist) described her as “Space Tilda Swinton” which certainly deserves some sort of award.

“I… am… Volmae.” (Cheryl, watching with me: “Dear God.”)

Volmae is continuing our nascent tradition that Aliens Must Talk Funny (To Show They’re Alien) (As If Some Truly Splendid Makeup, Hair, and Costume Design Weren’t Enough).

Aeryn’s “she gives me a woody” line is a Season One Dialog Highlight. (Just don’t think too hard about how Translator Microbes work.)

Also Aeryn (to Rygel): “Only people who know you want to kill you.” So far, she’s getting all the best lines in this ep.

Did we ever name this planet or these people? It should be called Planet Murphy, as they seem to have invented the Murphy Bed.

Hmm, I am not sure about those coolie hats.

Sure is a lot of CGI in this ep. I seem to recall the season 1 CG budget going a tad over…

Worm in the Navel! Six eps in, and Farscape has already decided that Gross is Good, Critters are Better, and Bodily Fluids are Best!

Ah, here’s Zhaan and D’Argo having a long chat. Must be a Euro scene. Kinda sticks out in this ep as there isn’t a whole lot of anything else happening… no huge, imminent jeopardy to keep tension high.

Rygel in cryo looks great. This Aeryn subplot is all kinds of fun. (And is this the first time we hear the word “Dren”?)

One of the locals says “any longa.” Yup, aliens speak with Aussie accents. I got no problem with that.

Um, Crichton recognizes the Peacekeeper “red wedge” logo in the Big Airline Shipping Container Nazi Warehouse… but has he ever seen it? (I guess he may have seen it aboard Moya, in the cargo-bay Peacekeeper-decorated exercise room from the previous ep…)

And Rygel pees! Top that, Star Trek. And ‘splosions happen! As sublime as that is, it’s more of an attention-getting demonstration than an actual resolution; our heroes then have to speechify about what the exploding pee MEANS to get this plot resolved.

(I suspect that if we’d done this ep later, we’d’ve had Rygel’s pee actually blow something or someone up. But part of the problem with this ep for me is that it doesn’t really have a villain that deserves blowing up. Volmae’s not evil; she’s just not fully aware of what’s what.)

As un-Star-Trek-y as Rygel’s peeing is, we do kinda Trek-talk our way out of this ep. “Now that we’ve human-splained to you and your planet the error of your ways and shown you the right path, off we fly. Go thou and sin no more.”

Well, we do go out a nice Zhaan & D’Argo moment, even if it’s a bit Trekky as well. (Yeah, the one where Spock gets nirvana-brained & falls in love & gets ‘rescued’ & says in the Tag “…for the first time in my life, I was happy.”)

Peeing is believing.