Farscape: Scratch 'n Sniff   Rewatch 
January 23, 2016 9:16 AM - Season 3, Episode 13 - Subscribe

The crew of Moya take some shore leave in a nightclub where a potent recreational drug is popular. When Jool and Chiana disappear, Crichton and D'Argo make a plan to rescue them.[via]
posted by cshenk (6 comments total)
 
Sorry for not posting yesterday. The holiday threw me off! Should be lots to talk about with this episode...
posted by cshenk at 9:17 AM on January 23, 2016


No biggie!

This is another one of those episodes which should not work-at-all. It shouldn't. It's too goofy, it employs way too many cuts, and it even has my personal hate-fav, a small alien like woman with an annoying voice selection. BUT I LOVED THE HECK OUT OF IT.

I think the delivery is part of what sells this episode, that being John relating a story to a very cynical and irritated Pilot, who acted also as our own POV character in terms of raising our own doubts. There is the greater question of whether any of it happened at all, but when contrasted against their past adventures, this story would have been completely at home if told from a much more calm and dramatic perspective. Second thing that sold it: D'Argo dancing into the frame, then out, then back into it. It's the ridiculous so over the top fun that the show drops from time to time which makes it so darn endearing.

The interaction between D'Argo and John, perhaps the other best couple on the show (maybe tied with Aeryn and Pilot), propels the story along just through their back and forth banter. By this point, they are so perfectly best friends and it's simply fun to join them into the equivalent of a 1980s buddy comedy.
posted by Atreides at 10:11 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is one of those episodes that I wasn't sure I liked the first time I saw it, and now I count it as one of my favorites! The editing, the characters, the dialog, the sets, the costumes, it all works. This is also my favorite appearance by Mrs. Browder--Francesca Buller--as Raxil, who has one of the best lines:
Raxil: (eyeing John) You're not very smart are ya? Now he - (she glances at D'Argo) - he's got a brain. But you - you're a bit of an idiot huh?

From the Companion book: "The face of that episode changed completely in post-production," post supervisor Deb Peart says. Ben Browder: "We had to meld the two elements of the dark and light together. We were thinking of a Pulp Fiction motif, or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Another ambitious episode that Farscape manages to make work!
posted by cshenk at 10:57 PM on January 26, 2016


a small alien like woman with an annoying voice selection.

She sounds like every terrible Ricky Gervais character.

But we know - know! - that Chricton is not the most reliable narrator. I wonder what actually happened? Or what D'Argo would say happened?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:30 AM on January 30, 2016


Anthony Simcoe's dance moves are the best part of this one. Gotta love a Luxan who can do the Funky Chicken.
posted by ob1quixote at 10:31 PM on February 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


That was deeply weird.
posted by kyrademon at 2:28 PM on October 15, 2019


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