Farscape Rewatch: Scratch 'n Sniff (3.13)
Wiki summary: Crichton tells Pilot the highly improbable story of how, during shore leave on a pleasure planet, the crew got mixed up in the drug trade which led to Chiana and Jool being captured.
(Yes, I'm skipping Meltdown. I just don't like that episode, and this is my rewatch.)
Whereas I do love this one. It's Farscape at its zaniest, being delightfully bonkers, and for a change utterly angst free, despite, in theory, serious stuff like, you know, the draining and murder of a lot of people going on. Given the impeding tragedy over in the other storyline, it's a needed breath of fresh air. And it's a great case for "only in Farscape" (especially at the time this was originally broadcast):
Only in Farscape:
- would our all American hero narrate the tale to an unimpressed muppet who doesn't believe a word he says from start to finish and kicks him off the boat for some more away time
- would the gag of Crichton and D'Argo waking up with Crichton in female stockings be used without a later scene assuring the audience of Crichton's continued manliness
- would one of the two big guest roles (another of Francesca Buller's tiny and highly memorable one shot aliens) be a (female) shady entrepreneur who turns out to be as bad as the villain and getting away with it at the end
- would the scene that offers the most blatant fan service (Chiana and Jool dancing with each other segueing in Chiana's fire dance, which as I recall is something Gigi Edgley actually could do and did sans stuntwoman) be entirely in character and actually have a plot point in the episode (as it's when our villain decides to pounce on them)
- would some of the previous big triumphant drama moments (Shadow depository, blowing up the Gammak base) be spoofed by being brought up by an indignant alien who thinks our heroes don't live up to their reputation
And so on and so forth. Mind you, on a slightly more serious note, I bet the women being drained this way results from someone in the creative team having read Perfume by Patrick Süskind which was one of our few international German bestsellers of the last few decades, and it's of course incredibly creepy. Given Chiana and Jool spent most of the episodes being the to be rescued damsels, it's therefore only fitting that Chiana is the one who actually kills the villain, and that she does it (after a few well deserved kicks) by giving him an overdose. As Londonkds remarked elsewhere, the few times when Chiana does kill someone in this show on screen, she gets viciously inventive about it. (And rarely has a guy deserved it more.)
Even the Harvey cameo of the episode is hilarious (and yet not pointless, not just because Harvey points out a few important things but because this way D'Argo gets to meet John's inner Neuraclone, and we see Harvey has adopted a few Crichton mannerisms more by now, making him thus a true mixture of John and Scorpius rather than, well, a Scorpius clone, which TalynJohn's Harvey still is. (And of course, the two Johns by now react very differently to their respective Harveys showing up.)
Lastly: "Does this guy scream Vegas or what?" is possibly my favourite fourth wall breaking on Farscape. Hence the lj-cut text.
The other episodes
(Yes, I'm skipping Meltdown. I just don't like that episode, and this is my rewatch.)
Whereas I do love this one. It's Farscape at its zaniest, being delightfully bonkers, and for a change utterly angst free, despite, in theory, serious stuff like, you know, the draining and murder of a lot of people going on. Given the impeding tragedy over in the other storyline, it's a needed breath of fresh air. And it's a great case for "only in Farscape" (especially at the time this was originally broadcast):
Only in Farscape:
- would our all American hero narrate the tale to an unimpressed muppet who doesn't believe a word he says from start to finish and kicks him off the boat for some more away time
- would the gag of Crichton and D'Argo waking up with Crichton in female stockings be used without a later scene assuring the audience of Crichton's continued manliness
- would one of the two big guest roles (another of Francesca Buller's tiny and highly memorable one shot aliens) be a (female) shady entrepreneur who turns out to be as bad as the villain and getting away with it at the end
- would the scene that offers the most blatant fan service (Chiana and Jool dancing with each other segueing in Chiana's fire dance, which as I recall is something Gigi Edgley actually could do and did sans stuntwoman) be entirely in character and actually have a plot point in the episode (as it's when our villain decides to pounce on them)
- would some of the previous big triumphant drama moments (Shadow depository, blowing up the Gammak base) be spoofed by being brought up by an indignant alien who thinks our heroes don't live up to their reputation
And so on and so forth. Mind you, on a slightly more serious note, I bet the women being drained this way results from someone in the creative team having read Perfume by Patrick Süskind which was one of our few international German bestsellers of the last few decades, and it's of course incredibly creepy. Given Chiana and Jool spent most of the episodes being the to be rescued damsels, it's therefore only fitting that Chiana is the one who actually kills the villain, and that she does it (after a few well deserved kicks) by giving him an overdose. As Londonkds remarked elsewhere, the few times when Chiana does kill someone in this show on screen, she gets viciously inventive about it. (And rarely has a guy deserved it more.)
Even the Harvey cameo of the episode is hilarious (and yet not pointless, not just because Harvey points out a few important things but because this way D'Argo gets to meet John's inner Neuraclone, and we see Harvey has adopted a few Crichton mannerisms more by now, making him thus a true mixture of John and Scorpius rather than, well, a Scorpius clone, which TalynJohn's Harvey still is. (And of course, the two Johns by now react very differently to their respective Harveys showing up.)
Lastly: "Does this guy scream Vegas or what?" is possibly my favourite fourth wall breaking on Farscape. Hence the lj-cut text.
The other episodes