Recap / Farscape S 01 E 01 Premiere

Season 1, Episode 1:

Premiere

"And there's life out here, Dad. Weird, amazing... psychotic life. And death. In Technicolor."

Commander John Crichton, IASA astronaut and son of the legendary Jack Crichton, is conducting experiments on using the Earth's gravitational pull to slingshot Farscape One, a spacefaring module of his own design, to incredibly high speeds and thereby pave the way for genuine interstellar travel. During the experiment, a wormhole opens that sucks up Crichton's module and spits him out in a completely different part of the galaxy, right in the middle of a space battle between Peacekeeper Prowlers and an escaping Leviathan transport. Crichton isn't fast enough to avoid a collision with a Prowler, killing its pilot, before being dragged onboard the Leviathan by its docking web.

The Leviathan, named Moya, is being used by a group of extremely alien convicts to escape Peacekeeper custody: D'Argo, a Luxan warrior; Zhaan, a Delvian Pa'u (priestess) with some psychic abilities; Rygel, a two-foot-tall Hynerian and the deposed Dominar of an interstellar empire; and Moya's Pilot, one of a race who have a physical bond with their Leviathan. As Moya uses her Starburst drive to escape the Peacekeepers, Crichton is injected with Translator Microbes that allow him to understand the others' languages before being knocked out and locked in one of Moya's prison cells. When he wakes, Crichton discovers that he's been locked up with Officer Aeryn Sun, a Sebacean and Peacekeeper pilot who was also dragged aboard during the escape.

While D'Argo, Zhaan and Rygel take one of Moya's transport pods down to a commerce planet to buy supplies, Crichton and Aeryn escape their cell and then escape Moya in Aeryn's Prowler, also to head down to the commerce planet. Once there, Aeryn sends a message to her former commanding officer, Captain Bialar Crais, who subsequently redirects his Command Carrier and makes his way to the commerce planet at best speed. When Crais arrives, his Peacekeeper soldiers manage to capture D'Argo and Crichton and he orders the latter's death: it transpires that the Peacekeeper pilot who was killed in the collision with Crichton's module was Crais' brother, and now Crais wants revenge. Aeryn defends Crichton, claiming that he's neither brave or skilled enough to have killed Crais' brother on purpose, and Crais has declared "irreversibly contaminated", making her as hated — and wanted — as the rest of the criminals who escaped on Moya.

Crichton and D'Argo manage to escape custody and at Crichton's insistence, they bring Aeryn along to save her from execution at the hands of the Peacekeepers. They return to Moya and try to escape into the Uncharted Territories, a region of space outside of Peacekeeper control, but the Command Carrier is too fast and too powerful for them to simply outrun it without being shot down. Crichton convinces Pilot and the others to utilise the theory from his Farscape One experiment and they slingshot Moya around the planet in order to escape the range of the Command Carrier's weapons. Though D'Argo is mistrustful, Aeryn is angry about being forced out of the Peacekeepers and Crichton is still adjusting to life in this strange part of the universe, those aboard Moya form an uneasy crew as they head into the Uncharted Territories, knowing that Crais and his Command Carrier will be pursuing them...

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Tropes present in this episode include:

• Aliens Speaking English: Averted; when the DRD's force John to The Bridge he finds D'Argo and Zhaan speaking their own incomprehensable languages, and it doesn't help when D'Argo grabs him in a Neck Lift and starts shouting in his face. Fortunately a DRD injects John with Translator Microbes which are so quick-acting they translate what D'Argo is saying before he's finished talking.
• Alien Sky: Crichton looks up at the Flying Cars and megastructures of the commerce station and mutters, "I'm on another planet..." Then Aeryn turns up complaining about the "waste hole of a planet" they're stuck on.
• Are These Wires Important?: D'Argo rips out the control console's biomechanical wiring even though Pilot points out it has nothing to do with the control collar imprisoning Moya. He's wrong—somehow this deactivates the coding wall and the collar comes apart on its own. Unfortunately tearing loose all those synapses caused Moya to leak most of her iriscentent fluid, drastically slowing their speed and forcing them to stop at a commerce planet to buy more fluid.
• Bad Boss: When Aeryn suggests that his brother's death might have been an accident because Crichton is too cowardly and stupid to attack one of their Prowlers, Crais accuses her of being 'irreversibly contaminated' by an 'unclassified lifeform' merely for having spent a short amount of time with Crichton. He then has her arrested along with D'Argo and Crichton, on a trumped-up charge that has the death penalty. This is the soldier who enabled him to recapture D'Argo and Crichton in the first place.
• Beneath the Mask: When Zhaan introduces herself to D’Argo, the ferocious Luxan warrior becomes adorkable in her presence, shyly enquiring about Delvian sexual practices and stressing that he served in two battle campaigns when Zhaan teases him about being Just a Kid. It shows a different side to the species that Aeryn dismisses as savage berserkers.
• Bittersweet Ending: The crew of Moya escape against all odds, but rather than becoming Fire-Forged Friends they make it perfectly clear to Crichton that they don't trust him or each other. Crichton has no idea how he's going to get back to Earth or even where he is now, while Aeryn has been forced to flee the culture she's been raised to serve since birth.
• Bizarre Alien Biology:
  • Rygel demonstrates that he can fart helium when nervous or angry.
  • D'Argo shoots out an Overly-Long Tongue that somehow stuns John into unconsciousness.
• Bizarre Dream Rationalization: When John wakes up after getting knocked out, he pleads that his situation is just a "very bad and very twisted dream." He then realizes he's in an alien cell. Naked.
• Blatant Lies: Crais says that Crichton "charged my brother's Prowler in that white death pod of yours." He has video footage of the incident which clearly shows his brother was flying up from behind Farscape One and collided with it by accident.
• Blind Jump
  Zhaan: Pilot, does Moya know where we are?
  Pilot: Yes. We're someplace else. I'll...get back to you on the specifics.
• Cassette Craze: Lacking a Captain's Log, John talks to his absent father via a cassette recorder he brought with him.
• Chekhov's Gun: Before the flight Jack Crichton gives his son a good luck charm; a puzzle ring given to Jack by Yuri Gagarin. As John will say in a later episode, it might not have brought him luck but it does save his ass. Likewise the slingshot theory he was testing that got him into this mess proves useful in getting the crew of Moya out of another mess.
• Circling Monologue: Crais prowls around Crichton while revealing his evil intentions towards our hero.
• Cutlery Escape Aid: D'argo catches Aeryn trying to hide a fork up her sleeve. But he neglects to search Crichton, so when the two of them get thrown in a cell together, she has something to pick the lock with.
• Culture Clash: When examining John's charm ring, the Peacekeeper soldier thinks it's a "field resourcefulness exercise", apparently unfamiliar with the concept of puzzles for entertainment in his militaristic society.
• Dramatic Irony: Zhaan advises Crichton to answer D'Argo's questions because "You know how Luxans can be." Actually, Crichton has no idea.
• Enhance Button: Upon viewing the footage of his brother's demise, Crais demands that his crew "peel the image". This process takes some time, but it produces a crystal-clear likeness of John Crichton and the interior of his spacecraft, right through the canopy.
• Establishing Character Moment: D'Argo grabs Crichton in a Neck Lift, then rips out parts of the control panel while Pilot tries to talk sense into him. Zhaan has an air of cool aloofness despite all the shouting. Rygel knocks down Crichton with his throne sled, but moments later is offering to help him if Crichton returns the favour. Crais barks to his Number Two that he doesn't care about casualties—he wants those escaped prisoners! Aeryn beats up Crichton, then throws him on the floor and straddles him with her thighs while demanding answers from him.
• Evil Wears Black: Just to cue the audience that the human-looking Space Police trying to recapture the escaped prisoners are the bad guys, they're all wearing black and their spaceship has a totalitarian design aesthetic.
• Face-Revealing Turn: Used with D'Argo to reveal to John that he's not in Kansas anymore.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: John gets hold of his first Ray Gun and threatens his captors thus: "Don't move! Or I'll fill you full of... little yellow bolts of light!"
• Fictional Counterpart: Crichton was originally going to be a NASA astronaut, but NASA wanted script approval in order to allow the use of their name and insignia in the show, so it was changed to the International Aeronautics and Space Administration.
• Fantastic Arousal:
  • Zhaan gives Crichton a Smooch of Victory by pressing her ear against his. From the expression on Crichton's face, it's implied something naughty happened.
  • She also claims to have experienced "The Fourth Sensation". Unfortunately we don't find out what that is, though she clearly implies that it's sexual.
• Foreshadowing: Crichton wants to get hold of some star charts so he can work out where he's ended up. He's able to do so in the following episode.
• Green-Skinned Space Babe: A blue-skinned version with Zhaan, but played straight with the hints of exotic cultural practices and sexual freedom.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: One of the guards searching Crichton finds the charm ring, gets too wrapped up in trying to solve the puzzle causing his companion to try and wrest it off him, enabling Crichton to snatch a gun off them.
• Helium Speech: Following Rygel's helium flatulence, Rygel and everyone in proximity to him (Crichton, D'Argo, Zhaan, and presumably Aeryn) succumbs to this.
• Hidden Depths
  • Rygel boasting of how he engineered their escape, and negotiating with an Insectoid Alien with More Teeth than the Osmond Family, shows he's not all bluster.
  • Aeryn claims to dislike the idea of 'compassion', yet Crais railroading the man who helped her escape sits wrong with her and she tries to speak up in Crichton's defense.
• Humans Are Morons: Aeryn and D'Argo both regard John as some kind of idiot thanks to his ignorance of things they take for granted. They only listen to his slingshot idea because no-one has a better one.
• I'm Not Hungry: The escapees feed their prisoners because they need them alive for now for interrogation. Aeryn is a Peacekeeper, and they assume from the way Farscape One appeared out of nowhere that Crichton has access to superior technology they can use to escape. Aeryn eats because she knows they might not have another chance to do so and advises John to do the same, not knowing he's only reluctant because the food cubes look rather unappetising.
• Insignificant Blue Planet: No-one has heard of the planet "Erp" and John doesn't even know if he's in the same galaxy anymore.
• It Began with a Twist of Fate: The Prowler piloted by Crais's brother barely clips the wingtip of Farscape One, but it's enough to send him spinning out of control into an asteroid. If it weren't for that, despite their Fantastic Racism the Peacekeepers would likely have helped Crichton, as Aeryn points out (after all, he's from a potential client planet and appears to have accidentally discovered a new means of interstellar travel).
• It's Personal: Crais targets Crichton because his brother's Prowler crashed into Crichton's Farscape One module, sending it careening out of control into a nearby asteroid. He abandons the armada he's supposed to be in charge of and goes chasing after them with a Command Carrier. At the end after they escape into the Uncharted Territories, Aeryn points out that the fact that it's out of Peacekeeper jurisdiction is hardly going to stop him avenging his brother's death.
• Language Equals Thought: Played with when John has to explain to Aeryn what "compassion" is. Aeryn then says she does know what the word means—she just doesn't like the idea.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Aeryn Sun ignores the order to withdraw and gets pulled into the starburst.
• Look Behind You: Aeryn and Crichton are confronted by a sword-wielding D'Argo, only to see Crais coming up behind him with a squad of soldiers. Aeryn stands to attention while John tries to point them out to D'Argo, who scoffs at the idea that he would fall for such a trick. The fact that D'Argo's not watching his back establishes the Luxan's inexperience as a warrior despite his claims otherwise.
  D'Argo: You are such fools. I will not fall for such an ancient ruse.
  Crais: But fall you will, Luxan!
• No-Paper Future: John asks for paper and gets a blank look, so he writes out his slingshot calculations on the floor. It won't be the last time he'll do that.
• Not so Dire:
  • D'Argo announces he wants something to eat and opens the door to Aeryn and John's cell, to the latter's alarm. Turns out they really do intend to feed them.
  • John is alarmed when a couple of eye stalks peer at him over the cockpit of his module, but they turn out to be one of the DRD robots that service Moya. (though a short time later they give John some zaps to force him to go to the control room).
• Plot-Demanded Manual Mode: Pilot is too busy trying to hold Moya together to concentrate on Crichton's proposed slingshot maneuver, so D'Argo demands to be given maneuverability so he and Aeryn can operate the controls together.
• Nun Too Holy: Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan is a Delvian priest but claims to be something of an anarchist. She flirts with D'Argo and speaks coyly of having experienced what she calls The Fourth Sensation, "though not lately". She's later shown meditating while naked in a Lotus Position.
• Portent of Doom: John admits to having the "rattlers" before the launch of Farscape One, which his friend thinks is just him being nervous about his important experiment working. At the end of the episode when he realises just how screwed he is, he has the rattlers again.
• Robot Buddy: Aeryn warns John to choose his companions wisely. So John repairs the DRD with a damaged eyestalk.
• Rule of Drama
  • You'd think Aeryn (let alone Rygel when he was imprisoned) would be able to squeeze through those Widely-Spaced Jail Bars if she just took off her spacesuit, but it enables the camera to shoot through them, especially when the bars are needed as a Scenery Censor for a naked John Crichton.
  • From their conversations it's clear the prisoners on Moya have been incarcerated for many cycles and are on their way to a prison planet for life. So why are their personal effects stored on Moya if they're not going to be released? Rygel's jewellery and D'Argo's sword should have been sold off or melted down ages ago.
  • A Spaceship Slingshot Stunt should not be able to outrun a spaceship capable of Faster-Than-Light Travel, which a Command Carrier presumably is. Also skimming the atmosphere would have the opposite effect—slowing down a spacecraft by aerobraking.
• Run or Die
  • When D'Argo accidently frees them from the control collar he orders an immediate starburst, even though Moya hasn't done this since they put the control collar on her. D'Argo points out that as Leviathans are unarmed, it's the only defensive maneuver that she's capable of.
  • There's a Command Carrier powering up its Frag cannons and Moya hasn't recharged for another starburst. Crichton suggests the same Spaceship Slingshot Stunt he developed for the Farscape project. Everyone thinks he's crazy but as Zhaan points out, their only alternative is death.
• Samus Is a Girl: Crichton is thrown into a cell with a prisoner wearing a bulky, body-concealing spacesuit. When the helmet is removed it's revealed that the prisoner is not only a Human Alien, but the very female Aeryn Sun.
• Shout-Out: After extended interaction with the crew, Crichton gripes, "Boy, was Spielberg ever wrong. Close Encounters my ass..."
• Space Plane: Farscape One, though it's ferried into space rather than being a single-stage-to-orbit craft, likely so they can use Stock Footage of the Space Shuttle launching.
• Spaceship Slingshot Stunt: This is what Crichton is attempting in Farscape One when he hits a Negative Space Wedgie and is thrown into a wormhole. He uses the same equation in Moya to outrun Crais' Peacekeeper Command Carrier.
• Spoiler Opening: Zig-Zagged by removing Crichton's plot-detailing opening narration but leaving in the shots of the rest of the cast who don't appear until after the credits, and whose appearances are meant to be played as reveals in the episode.
• Starfish Aliens: Crichton can only gape in astonishment at a two-foot-high toad man, a Dreadlock Warrior Humanoid Alien, a Blue Skinned Space Babe and whatever the hell Pilot is. When Aeryn takes her helmet off, he's visibly relieved.
• Starship Luxurious: Stuck inside his tiny module, John is in awe over how huge Moya is. "That's big...that's really big..."
• Super-Speed: Zhaan's hands move so fast over her console they blur as she tries to reprogram the control collar.
• Take a Third Option: Crichton is able to grab a pistol off the guards, whereupon D'Argo and Aeryn both demand to be released. Crichton has no reason to trust either of them, so he forces D'Argo to release him, then gets D'Argo to agree to get him and Aeryn both off the planet.
• Talk to the Fist: Exasperated over all the craziness and being on the receiving end of Rygel's sneeze, John shouts: "What is the MATTER with you...people?" D'Argo makes him Talk To The Tongue.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Our heroes argue and squabble constantly and express open distrust and dislike for each other. The two who get along best are Zhaan and D'Argo who form an instinctive Red Oni, Blue Oni relationship despite (or because of) the fact that they never even met before their escape. Crichton tries to form a similar relationship with Aeryn, but she doesn't make it easy, assuming that he's either a traitor or (after finding out he's not from her species) dismissing him as an idiot.
• They Would Cut You Up: When John explains that he's not Sebacean but human, Crais threatens to pull him apart to see what he's made of, though it's unclear if he means autopsy-wise or just lots of Cold-Blooded Torture.
• Translator Microbes: Crichton is injected with the Trope Namer shortly after arriving on Moya, allowing him and the audience to understand what everybody's saying.
• Trashcan Bonfire: A variation; the burning drums have a plate of metal on top so they can be used as a brazier to cook food, probably because the scene is set on a commerce planet instead of a Wretched Hive. Or they're trying to stop the audience from asking why aliens use 44-gallon oil drums.
• Undressing the Unconscious: After being knocked out by D'argo's tongue, John wakes up in a cell some time later and realizes he has no clothes on. Turns out Zhaan wanted to examine him while he was unconscious. They were considerate enough to leave his undershirt and pants in the cell and he rushes to put them on.
  John: Examined me? How? Where?
• Unique Pilot Title Sequence: A minor version as while the credits are visually identical to the rest of the season Crichton's narration is not used as it would give away too much of the plot.
• Unwanted Rescue: Aeryn doesn't want to escape with John at first even though she's facing the death penalty, having been raised from birth to be a Peacekeeper soldier and knowing no other life.
  John: You can be more.
• Verbal Business Card:
  • Aeryn identifies herself as "Officer Aeryn Sun, Special Peacekeeper Commando, Icarion Company, Pleisar Regiment" and demands John provide his own rank and regiment.
  • Being former royalty and proud of it, Rygel introduces himself to John thus: "I am Rygel the XVI, Dominar to over 600 billion people. I don't need to talk to you!"
• What Are You in For?: D'Argo claims he was imprisoned for killing his own commanding officer. Zhaan says she was something of an anarchist on her homeworld. Rygel the XVI was deposed by his own cousin. Ironically Rygel is the only one who's telling the truth.
• You All Meet in a Cell: IN SPACE! Well John and Aeryn meet in a cell; the others were all on the same Prison Ship but it's made clear that they're not very well acquainted at this stage.