Farscape
"Home on the Remains"

Airdate: June 16th, 2000

Chiana

With Moya low on food rations, the crew must find supplies by visiting a mining camp situated in a budong carcass.

I totally dig the two-fer of the week; Zhaan's starvation mode turns her in to a spore-spewing maniac and Chiana returns to a home that she desperately tried to escape for years. This chance to see some more of the harsh past that has formed Chiana's present is too good to pass up. The same goes for Zhaan; every time we get to see her darker side is a trip through the Way Back Machine to a time when this gentle creature's lid was flipped off her Id.

Pop Quiz. If your friends were starving and you had to sell your body to save them, what would you do?

As I watch Chiana (Gigi Edgely) from the relative comfort of my futon chair, I resist the impulse to say "What is she thinking? How could she?" That I care for her character so much makes that impulse nearly irresistible. Despite being set in a fictional environment, that she feel a depth of loyalty to her comrades even to the point of considering a lifetime of sexual slavery as a viable option to save her dying friend really gets in my face and makes me think, would I do this? I mean, I have no problem talking about (and following through with) killing, dying or risking injury to save someone I cared for, but would I give up my body? Dunno.

Farscape has been known to show some very interesting settings; a cemetery planet, a floating little shop of horrors in space, and a living ship. But a floating animal carcass? It stands as the most interesting place yet to house a civilization. That is, if you want to call a budong barcass camp "a civilization". It's dark and claustrophobia inspiring; lending the feeling that nothing is what it seems to be at first glance. I can't blame Chiana and Neri for wanting to get away from that place, although the education she received there seems to have kept her alive so far. There's nothing wrong with having keen survival skills, but the price she pays is a permanent sense of suspicion. Like Officer Sun, Chiana is slow to let people in and lately D'argo's the one seen expressing frustration at her reticence all the while trying to let her know she's safe with the crew on Moya. That he punctuates that sentiment with a kiss was as big a surprise to me as it was to her. Damn! What next?

Zhaan

For a change no one character chews the scenery and the different plots are equally attention grabbing, even the subplot between B'soog and Chiana -- the tease of the past makes me hunger for more history and I like the action and the character emphasis of the episode. Despite the serious situation in the A plot, a starving crew, there were scenes that were just too funny, like Crichton and Rygel in the keedva's cave; and Crichton frying up some dentics in Moya's galley.

"Home on the Remains" far pushes the series along with a minimum of exposition. I like that there is no conveniently neat solution of Starfleet issue food replicators or credit cards to save the crew from starvation, and Zhaan's not so delicate condition putting a dire point on an already bad situation that spurs Chiana's desperate solution makes "Home" that much more enjoyable.

Starvation can test the most-iron clad friendship and I'm relieved and happy to see Moya's crew, Chiana especially, banding together to save someone else in the unit. As she says to B'soog, she is evolving as an individual. It is also good to see Aeryn and Pilot share some quality time taking the Mr. Wizard route to solve Zhaan's problem and D'Argo and Crichton putting their heads together as well. Now if only Rygel would follow suit.

If the intent of writers Gabrielle Stanton and Harry Werksman, Jr. is to show (without saccharine sweetness) the familial cohesion of Moya's crew, I'd say good job -- you succeeded.

-- Vivian E. Lee

Farscape airs at 9pm EST, Fridays on The Sci Fi Channel.

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