What Was Lost Part 1: Sacrifice

Hey everyone!

Another week another Farscape as season 4 rolls on. This time we tackle What Was Lost Part 1: Sacrifice, so be warned this review contains HUGE HONKIN’ spoilers for that eppy and all ideas are my own. No one had to ply me with powder or sweat.

Overall:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found.
Was blind but now I see.

• The main plot of this eppy revolves around Crichton once again being gifted with unwanted knowledge that leads to the creation of a weapon of mass destruction and everyone’s attempts to either gain that knowledge, destroy that knowledge, or just find out why the hell everyone else wants Crichton.

*yawn* Yea, been there done that.

• However ignoring that huge chunk of plot leads to some real interesting developments. Like Jool having a crisis of faith of sorts; after spending a cycle slowly learning to respect the crew of Moya and start to change from her selfish ways, she’s brought back to her roots. At first she’s giddy with excitement about being among her own people and back to what she apparently loves to do, but slowly she realizes that there may be a conflict between the standards of her people and the new knowledge she’s gained being out in the ‘real’ world. At the end of S3 she urged Aeryn to not "go backwards" on her quest to become a better person. Now will she follow her own advice?

There’s also the mystery behind why Crichton found Ancient Egyptian on this alien world, what D’Argo’s been up to for the last few months, and what the frell happened with that wormhole that Moya got sucked into and how they escaped from it.

It’s too bad all that cool stuff got shoved into sub-plots behind a repeat of Who’s Gonna Chase Crichton For His Unwanted Knowledge Now.

And Crichton:

• Ladies and gentleman we have a new record. Crichton’s mind was frelled with not once...not twice...but an amazing FOUR times this episode. Between Grandma blowing illegal white powder and Grayza pouring on the sweat, plus a high dive off a cliff into some rough water that "kills" him, this episode ranks as a WACKer for the Charity Drive and gets a Between Commandant Cleavage and the Witch I’d Jump Off A Cliff Too rating.

At least the Witch’s report of his death is probably greatly exaggerated.

The Good:

• "Help me, my hand is still too week!"
  "Right! Pull the other one and I’ll whistle ‘Felanusen’."

• I love Crichton grilling Chiana on if she’s got a feeling or a Feeling.

• It’s great to see how happy D’Argo and Jool are to see Crichton and Chiana. Chiana may be less then happy about seeing the Princess and her ex-lover, but Crichton certainly returns the joy around getting his ribs busted by D’Argo’s hug.

• I liked how excited Jool was to show Crichton and Chi around the dig. She’s finally in her home element; surrounded by her own people and doing what sounds like she wanted to do as her vocation, so she’s like a giddy schoolgirl trying to impress her new friends. I especially liked her frantic "Please please PLEASE!" to get Crichton to let her give the grand tour, her holding his hand as they walked to lead him around the site, and her instant seriousness when Instructor Vella shows up.

• Crichton has given up trying to convince strangers that he really is smarter then the average monkey, especially to snotty bitches like Vella. So his sarcastic responses to her lecture are hysterical.

• Great Scene 1: D’Argo and Chiana discuss missing each other, D’Argo’s interest in Jool, Chiana’s obvious jealousy, and some new fun things his ship Lo’La can do.

• I’ve enjoyed watching the evolution of Lieutenant...uh...Captain Bracca, and lately we’ve seen how manipulative he really is. Not necessarily evil, but willing to do whatever it takes to climb the ranks and survive. While he did have some respect for Scorpious, it’s now obvious that his faithful actions to the half-breed were more out of self-preservation, and as soon as something better came along Bracca dumped him like yesterdays news.

• Great Scene 2: D’Argo confronts Jool about her failure to stand up for him to Vella. It’s a small scene where we see months of work on Jool’s part and months of slow simmering on D’Argo’s part disintegrate. Jool has started to change but still clings to her old ideals of racial superiority, simply rationalizing D’Argo as unique. She senses her own failure and is disappointed in herself yet honest enough to admit her true feelings to D’Argo. And poor D’Argo simply is heartbroken as another female he cares about betrays him.

• Demented Moment of the Eppy: Scorpious, the former epitome of evil, reduced to a dog on a leash licking Grayza’s boots.

• Check out the confused/freaked out/surprised looks Chiana gives as she watches Scorpious’ demoralizing actions.

• So a bit more about Jool comes out...she was in trouble because she stole from her digs. Perhaps really to learn from the artifacts, or perhaps to sell them for some money on the side.

• "Crichton is nally-whipped!"

• Gotta love Chiana’s plan to get Grandma free. At least now we know "nolie" means bathroom.

• Grandma to Crichton: "I’ve seen the carnage weapons of mass-destruction bring...the Peacekeepers cannot be allowed to have this." You’re preaching to the choir on this one, Granny.

The Bad:

• How come the Farscape Powers That Be assume we are smart enough to figure out what’s going on, or at least will let us fill in the gaps ourselves, on things we really don’t know enough about to make it frustrating (i.e., so what went on with Moya and the wormhole, what happened with D’Argo and Rygel while they were gone, did Crichton and Grayza go all the way on the beach?) and yet will add scenes into the "Previously on Farscape" that we’ve never seen simply to fill us in on plot developments that we could easily figure out for ourselves with the info given in the eppy (i.e., Grayza returning to fulfill her promise to take down Scorpious, Bracca going to her side)?

• How come this ancient Luxan ship D’Argo discovered and claimed as his own has these amazing powers that seam to be cutting edge compared to everything else (i.e. a cloaking device, weapons powerful enough to disintegrate a Leviathan in one shot)

• I remember reading an article that said something about Grazya’s breast sweat having a strange effect on Crichton. I had thought that was a colorful and slightly derogatory remark...not the truth! I’m sad to see I was wrong. OY!

• So where was Harvey this whole eppy? He didn’t have anything to say when we see the state Scorpy is in? He didn’t even try to make an appearance any of the times Crichton got mind-frelled to try and help him out? He’s done so in the past, both as a full neural-chip and as just the clone!

The Nitpicky:

• I can’t wait for Crichton to hear about the name D’Argo gave his ship. You think he’ll start singing some ‘Damn Yankees’ or a bit of The Kinks?

• Added Song Dialogue 1: Tarnit, ambushing Crichton and Chiana, "Get back! Get back to where you once belonged!"

• Added Song Dialogue 2: Crichton, to the Creature from the Black Lagoon, "Get back! Get back to where you once belonged!"

• And now a bit of whodunit...who killed Vella? Was it the Witch trying to stop her from getting the weapon? Was it D’Argo in a rage over her bitchiness with Jool causing the end of their relationship? Was it someone else on the dig trying to take over to hog the credit? Or was it Mr. Peacock with the lead pipe? :-)

• The Egyptian symbol that Crichton finds looks like the eye of RA. Wish I knew more...wish Crichton knew more. Damnit, where’s Daniel Jackson when you need him?

• The more I check out Commandant Cleavage’s outfits, the more they look like a cross between Elvira and Morticia Adams.

• Was Crichton and Grayza’s make out session on the beach a twisted homage to "From Here to Eternity"?

"Damn you need a bath!"
"Never bath, never bath...washes off the juice."
"That’s more then I wana know."
-Crichton and Grandma

Lauren (OboeCrazy)
SACCer #1: The Most Vocal Defender