大象传媒

A CLOCKWORK NEBARI
Teleplay by Lily Taylor
Directed by Rowan Woods

PLOT
A pair of Nebari hunting Chiana board Moya and manage to take over the ship and the crew.

REVIEW

What an excellent episode. The aliens taking over the ship ought to have been a very familiar story. The main character revealing rather an important life-changing secret should have felt clunky, but both elements really worked.

This was largely due to a smart use of misdirection and jeopardy. Farscape is very good at creating massive problems for its characters, siutations that somehow seem impossible to resolve. As we the story unfolded it was arresting to see how each step to a solution was reached.

Crichton's inevitable escape from the alien control: It was inconceivable that he wouldn't escape, and yet doing so via Scorpius was a tremendous twist. It was logical and believable, and laced with the ongoing threat of Scorpius' plans.

If there was a flaw, though, it was in Zhaan. In twenty episodes of not doing much, she has never had so little to do Aeryn and D'Argo were sidelined, too, but that was rare for them. Oddly Aeryn did get to be a medic, something that ordinarily Zhaan would do.

DID YOU NOTICE?

This is the 40th episode of Farscape.

The entire story depended on Crichton's gun not working in the teaser.

In the many references to Chiana's brother being alive, none covered why his life disc stopped working in the episode Taking the Stone.

You can presume Chian's brother destroyed his life disc to prevent being found by the Nebari. If so, is that how Varla found Chiana?

Both Nebari had scarring from the Peacekeeper attack, and both on the same side of their faces.