Season 4, Episode 8:
I Shrink Therefore I Am
Crichton and Noranti return from a food run to find that Coreeshi bounty hunters have taken over Moya and captured the rest of the crew. Crichton sneaks aboard and proceeds to find a way to take out the bounty hunters, reluctantly working with Scorpius. However, Axikor (the lead bounty hunter) has a different agenda than simply collecting Grayza's reward.
Tropes present in this episode include:
- Broken Pedestal: Downplayed. Scorpius retains healthy respect for Crichton, but having pursued him for years, he's surprised to see how much of his actions relied on the Indy Ploy.
- Color-Coded Characters: The Coreeshi armor is indistinguishable, but Axikor has three red bars on his shoulder, while the underlings have one row of blue lights on their chests.
- Continuity Nod: After hearing Pilot's subtle warning, Crichton wonders if he's still trapped in the game.
- Crazy-Prepared:
- The bounty hunters managed to disable all the DRDs (save 1812), while attaching magnetic locks to Crichton's module, Aeryn's Prowler, D'Argo's ship, and any remaining transport pods to prevent anyone from escaping Moya.
- Axikor installed a fail-safe in the different armors to kill his underlings should they question his cover ID.
- "Die Hard" on an X: Lampshaded.Scorpius: You can't take them all on at once.
Crichton: How dumb do you think I am? You take 'em down one-by-one the Die Hard way. - Dramatic Unmask: When Axikor is revealed to be a Scarran.
- Enemy Mine: By the time Crichton is captured, he's learned Axikor is really a Scarran, so he tells the remaining Coreeshi and suggests teaming up against him. When the lead mook confronts Axikor, though, the fail-safe is activated, and they're all killed.
- Eviler than Thou: Scorpius believes the bounty hunters might spare Moya after getting what they want, but that the Scarrans definitely won't.
- Foreshadowing: Axikor warns that Crichton will soon be seeing more upperclass Scarrans like him. Some of this ends up being unintentional, too, as the actor (Duncan Young) was later cast as Emperor Staleek.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Zig-zagged. Crichton remains wary of Scorpius, but he concedes he could've sold them out instead of helped.
- It Can Think: 1812 deliberately played possum until Crichton returned and found it.
- It Works Better with Bullets: Facing one of the bounty hunters in the air flow chamber, Scorpius uses the weapon Crichton gave him and finds it's not loaded.Scorpius: Thank you, John. [gets shot]
- Klaatu Barada Nikto: "Why don't you come down here and find me, Gort? Klaatu Barada Nikto!"
- Lampshade Hanging: Rygel and Sikozu's scene highlights the Hollywood Science of shrinking stories. While Sikozu demands a logical explanation, Rygel is simply content to accept that what's happening is what's happening.
- No Name Given: Averted with Axikor, whose name is mentioned once onscreen towards the end. The others go unnamed. note
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Pilot invokes this to warn Crichton that something is wrong on Moya. He tells him that D'Argo is doing Rygel's laundry, Aeryn is writing poetry, Chiana and Sikozu getting along, and Rygel not being hungry. Crichton gets it immediately; Noranti not so much.
- Powered Armor: The Coreeshi are grafted into armor, which makes them resistant to most pulse weapons, increases their strength, and boasts shrink ray gauntlets.
- Ramming Always Works: Crichton sends his transport pod on a collision course with the Coreeshi ship. Both ships are destroyed, stranding the Coreeshi on Moya.
- The Reveal: Axikor is an upperclass Scarran in disguise.
- Rewatch Bonus: Axikor's refusal to using any of Moya's remaining transport pod to go collect their bounties. The general reasoning (not wanting to be vulnerable to any other bounty hunters in the area) remains the same, but knowing he's a Scarran out to take Crichton back to his leaders adds extra weight to it.
- Shout-Out:
- Crichton refers to D'Argo as Captain James T. D'Argo.
- To Die Hard and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, of course.
- Crichton calls Axikor a Cylon and later Gort.
- Shrink Ray: Courtesy of the Coreeshi.
- Story-Breaker Power: Downplayed. Unlike Moya's DRDs, 1812 is still online due to coming from Elack and operating on a different wavelength. When Crichton returns to the ship, 1812 gets to work reactivating the others. This gives Crichton a little extra firepower and help, though not enough DRDs are reactivated to face the bounty hunters head on.
- Super-Strength: Scorpius reveals that he had always chosen to stay in his cell and that the door otherwise couldn't hold him.Crichton: You opened it with your bare hands?
Scorpius: Gloved hands, yes. - Telepathy: Axikor demonstrates this ability when asking his captives what Crichton's next moves are.
- Temporary Blindness: Chiana used her power to learn two of the codes for the bounty hunters' weapons. As before, it blinds her, but it takes longer for her sight to come back, and she fears it's permanent.
- Wham Episode: With the Peacekeepers already a threat and the Scarrans actively pursuing Crichton now, the episode ends with the decision to journey into a new, dangerous region: Tormented Space.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Averted. During The Teaser, while Crichton braces for action, Noranti drinks a mixture that allows her to safely be in a coma in space for three arns. Barring when Aeryn asks about her, Noranti is completely ignored until the very end. Rygel reports he sees Noranti floating outside, and Crichton (realizing he forgot all about her) asks D'Argo to take care of it.
- What Measure Is a Mook?: Zig-zagged. Crichton kills a couple of the bounty hunters, which supposedly aggravates Axikor. However, as he's really a Scarran, he actually couldn't care less and even kills the rest of them himself without a second thought.Crichton: Henchmen—always the last to know and the first to get hurt.
- Worthy Opponent: Axikor is immediately both impressed by and irritated with Crichton."I begin to see why his bounty is so high."
