Recap / Farscape S 01 E 02 IET

Season 1, Episode 2:

I, E.T.

A Peacekeeper beacon is activated on Moya that threatens to lead Crais' command carrier straight to their location. In order to muffle the signal, Crichton suggests they fly into the atmosphere of a nearby planet and submerge Moya in a bog, stifling the signal until the beacon can be removed. However, the beacon is attached to some of Moya's neural networks, meaning a dangerous operation must be performed in order to destroy it. Crichton, Aeryn and D'Argo go out onto the planet to get an anaesthetic: chlorium, an commonly occurring element that in large enough quantities can numb Leviathans.

It transpires that the planet's population is culturally similar to the people of Earth, and they've never met aliens before. Crichton meets a woman and her son who've spent their lives trying to make first contact with aliens, while D'Argo falls into the hands of the planet's military, which thinks he's a threat and wants to study him. Once Crichton has found a large enough source of chlorium (in a local food seasoning), he helps D'Argo escape, they take it back to Moya, and Rygel and Zhaan remove the beacon.

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Tropes present in this episode include:

• Adventure Planet
• All for Nothing: Rygel completes cutting the beacon free right before Crichton returns with the anesthetic. It does have some use though, as Crichton tells him to sprinkle it on to dull Moya's post-operative pain so they can take off.
• Armies Are Evil: Although Commander Ryymax is nice enough in his interactions with Lyneea, she doesn't think the military's intentions are benevolent. Given his recent experience with the Peacekeepers, Crichton lampshades the trope.
• Blessed with Suck: A disadvantage of a Living Ship is when you have to do surgery on them, it hurts. Pilot thinks the pain might kill Moya, hence the need for the anesthetic. Moreover, as a space-dwelling creature the Leviathan might collapse under its own weight under the planet's gravity.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Rygel chewing a chunk off Aeryn's arm and swallowing it was put in to avoid making the Muppet look cute.
• Chiaroscuro: The hunting party searching for the aliens is shown at night, silhouetted by floodlights and carrying flashlights set on narrow beam. In the audio commentary Anthony Simcoe and Claudia Black joke about its similarity to The X-Files (which may be deliberate given the episode storyline).
• Closest Thing We Got: Despite his distaste for manual labour and his lack of medical knowledge, Rygel has to perform the operation to remove the beacon as he's the only one capable of reaching it.
• Comically Missing the Point: Crichton says they can carry out his Crazy Enough to Work plan or put their heads between their legs and kiss their asses goodbye. Everyone stares at him until he clarifies that it's a saying, not a proposal.
• Coming in Hot: A Leviathan has never landed on a planet before (well according to legend one did, but no-one knows if it ever got off the planet). Moya can handle the heat from the atmospheric friction, but the gravity is a problem for a space-dwelling creature.
• Comm Links: Crichton is given a badge-like comm which, unfortunately, he loses.
• Commonality Connection: And not just because their society is so Earthlike—like Crichton, Lyneea has just discovered she's not alone in the universe.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Downplayed; Lyneea is a ufologist but her work is funded by the military even if they're skeptical of it.
• Cornered Rattlesnake: Rygel bites Aeryn when she tries to force him into working on the beacon. Rygel later admits to Zhaan that he's more afraid of failing at his task and killing Moya than what Aeryn might do to him.
• Dunking the Bomb: The beacon is using Moya's hull to resonate and amplify its signal, so Crichton suggests landing the Leviathan in a swamp to muffle it until they can find a way of shutting down the beacon.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Lyneea offers Crichton a meal and it sets off his sensor. Turns out a seasoning she uses in the food is the chlorium he's looking for.
• Evolving Credits: This episode adds Crichton's distress call narration to the opening credits.
• Excessive Steam Syndrome: As Rygel does Meatgrinder Surgery on Moya, Zhaan (and Aeryn who's propping her up) are showered with vapor and fluids—the latter is not played for fanservice despite two women being involved.
• Faceless Goons: Commander Ryymax's Zeta Team are Gas Mask Mooks with red overalls and black equipment.
• First Contact Farmer: Invoked Trope when Lyneea is about to rush off and contact the authorities. Knowing she's been trying to make contact with aliens, Crichton says that if they wanted to make First Contact with someone in the government they would have, but they chose her instead. He later admits the full truth, however.
• Foreign Farewell: When Crichton gives Lyneea a departing kiss on the cheek, she asks if that's how his people say goodbye.
  Crichton: What...your people don't do that? (Lyneea shakes her head with a coy smile)
• Foreshadowing: When Zhaan asks how come the beacon was installed without him knowing about it, Pilot goes on a long explanation about how Leviathans are drugged when the control collar is installed. Pilot never says if he was drugged as well while all this was going on. As we later discover, he's not the original Pilot. He didn't know about the beacon because he wasn't there when it was installed.
• Friend to All Children: Lyneea is afraid of the ferocious Luxan held prisoner in her barn, but Crichton coaxes D'Argo and Fostro into shaking hands once he's free.
• I, Noun: The title, with Crichton being the extraterrestrial in question.
• Idle Rich: Rygel is afraid of messing up as he's never had to do a day's work in his life. Even when he was in prison everything was provided for him. He's justly proud when he actually succeeds in cutting the beacon free.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Rygel is genuinely concerned when Zhaan says she's going to share Moya's pain, and later when she collapses. When Zhaan recovers, he admits to her that it's fear of messing up and killing Moya that makes him unwilling to operate.
  • Aeryn also seems concerned for a moment about Zhaan, through naturally she denies this when called on it.
• Leave No Man Behind: D'Argo goes to find Crichton and gets captured. Even through Lyneea urges Crichton to flee while he has the chance, he refuses to leave his 'friend' behind even though D'Argo hardly fits that description at this stage.
• Like a Duck Takes to Water:
  • Crichton shows an interesting advantage over the others when he suggests that Moya land while they remove the beacon; none of the others thought of that as an option because even Pilot has never heard of a Leviathan actually landing on a planet. Later he's able to get their Everything Sensor working by pushing just three buttons, when both D'Argo and Aeryn can't. "It's just like a VCR."
  • Averted with Aeryn; when D'Argo demands to know why she didn't warn them about the Paddac beacon earlier, she snips that she's not used to this whole "escaped prisoner crap".
• Mental Fusion: Zhaan eases Moya's pain by forming a mental bond with the Leviathan, though she admits that Moya is still bearing the brunt of it.
• Mucking in the Mud: After landing in the swamp, Moya sinks into the mud. This stops the hull resonance that amplifies the beacon signal, but Rygel is still not happy.
  Crichton: You okay?
  Rygel: Okay? No, I'm not okay! We're in MUD! (softly, with dread) Under the mud...
  Aeryn: You're Hynerian. You're aquatic. What's your problem?
  Rygel: Aquatic; that's water, not mud. Mud is...MUD! You can't breathe in it; you can't move in it! It holds ya! It grabs ya! It sucks you down. You want to know about mud? I KNOW about MUD!
  Crichton: Guy knows mud.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Aeryn isn't happy that she's revealed information on a top-secret Peacekeeper beacon, and all because she was stupid enough to stand up for Crichton in the first place. Crichton quickly realises that sympathy won't work and tells her to Quit Your Whining and get with the mission to disable it.
• Never Split the Party: When men with guns and tracking animals turn up to investigate the crash landing, Aeryn and D'Argo lead them off while John goes to find the chlorium. The following day D'Argo goes to find Crichton while Aeryn heads back to Moya to help with the beacon.
• No Peripheral Vision: The trackers miss Aeryn and D'Argo—the latter in bright red clothing—sitting unconcealed up in a tree just a few feet above their heads.
• Obligatory Swearing: Aeryn uses the word "crap" early in the episode to make it clear that you're not watching Star Trek. However, this quickly became Early-Installment Weirdness with the adoption of a unique vocabulary of alien curse words.
• Opening Narration: Done in the form of a Distress Signal sent out by Crichton.
• The Paralyzer: Fostro, a nervous farm kid who's just made First Contact, spooks and runs for a long rod device that acts like a Static Stun Gun. He fires and puts Crichton on the floor, unable to move for several minutes.
• Pardon My Klingon: Our first fake swear word with, "Where the hazmata is that siren coming from?" However Aeryn says "crap", not "dren".
• Poor Communication Kills: A relatively benign case, as it's established that the crew still haven't quite gelled together when all of them individually stick their heads in the wall to see what's making the noise rather than just one of them telling the others.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: The start of a Running Gag with Crichton. When Aeryn wants to know who Yoda is, Crichton gives a tongue-in-cheek reply that he's a little green guy who trains warriors, without explaining that he's a fictional character.
• The Radio Dies First: Crichton drops his comm badge in the straw on the barn floor. Without knowing that he's still alright, D'Argo comes looking for him and gets captured. However Lyneea is able to modify her radio telescope to send a signal to Pilot.
• Red Alert: The episode opens with the crew complaining about the ear-piercing siren the Paddac beacon is putting out, while the DRDs scurry about flashing little red lights. Pilot is able to silence the alarm, but not the signal it's sending out.
• Remonstrating with a Gun: Crichton grabs hold of the shock prod and demands to know what the jar that his sensor says holds the MacGuffin he's after is. Lyneea just clutches her son and trembles in fear until Crichton comes to his senses and hands the weapon back to her.
• Rubber-Forehead Aliens: The sides of the head are built up over the ears while the face is completely clear. Lyneea even comments on how weird it is that they look so similar. However, she freaks out after seeing Pilot and D'Argo, even though they're more in line with her expectations.
• Self-Guarding Phlebotinum: A DRD puts a Laser Sight on the Paddac beacon, only to be destroyed by the beacon. The only way of cutting it free is by using non-metallic objects, which means a person with a bone knife instead of a robot.
• Series Continuity Error: The one time that translator microbes can't cover the communication issue, as these aliens haven't had any contact with other races.
• Share the Male Pain: It's implied that the bone knife Rygel uses to cut free the beacon is used for Luxan ceremonies involving the circumcision of their young men. Rygel is suitably grossed out.
• Ship Tease: Aeryn tells Crichton to brace for impact, but he's too busy staring at the Earth-like planet rushing up below, so she grabs him and holds on, causing them to be thrown against each other. Interestingly Aeryn seems to notice their Suggestive Collision more than Crichton does. Later when D'Argo mockingly asks if John being a mere 'savage' bothers her, she denies it a bit too vigorously.
• Shout-Out:
  • Crichton says the swamp reminds him of Dagobah. Or Louisiana.
  • The title is from ET The Extraterrestrial.
  • While bidding goodbye to Lyneea, Crichton tells her to keep watching the skies.
• Silly Animal Sound: The script called for Aeryn and D'Argo to make "terrifying alien sounds" to distract the hunters, but as the actors hadn't really established their characters, they had no idea what "alien sounds" were.
• Single-Biome Planet: Averted; most of the planet is swampy, but that just means the population live on the areas that are more solid. In fact its Earthlike appearance is a plot-point, making Crichton homesick.
• Speak in Unison: Aeryn and Crichton both say "Chlorium?" in unison, then give each other a look as if surprised they're on the same page for once.
• Tap on the Head: Crichton knocks out the two Gas Mask Mooks guarding D'Argo with a Shovel Strike. Admittedly they're wearing helmets.
• They Would Cut You Up: Lyneea admits she would be set up for life if she turned in a live alien to the military, but later reveals that this trope is why she doesn't turn in Crichton.
  Lyneea: It's too late for [D'Argo]! He's going to be laid open on an autopsy tale by dawn tomorrow. That's what I'm trying to protect you from!
• Twitchy Eye: The resonance from the beacon gives Crichton one of these, and he's eager to get rid of it.
• We Need a Distraction:
  • Aeryn and D'Argo lead off the hunting party while Crichton goes to find the McGuffin.
  • To remove most of the guards around D'Argo, Lyneea plays Pilot's signal to Commander Ryymax and sends him off to the wrong coordinates.

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