Farscape
"Look At The Princess, Part 3: The Maltese Crichton"

Airdate: August 04, 2000

In a final, desperate act, the Scarran ambassador and Prince Clavor commit one final atrocity. They behead Crichton's statue and dump it in a vat of foundry acid. Without a head, John can't be un... er... marbelized and without a Regent, Katralla can't rule. The one thing they don't count on is the deviousness of Scorpius.

Aeryn Sun: Our hero.

You see, back when he had the guy in his Aurora Chair and discovered the amazing knowledge stuck in John's cranium, Scorpius lo-jacked our hero. By using a tracking device, he locates Crichton's head and plans on re-attaching it and reuniting them. For his own sick and twisted reasons of course. But just as Clavor and the Scarran are outsmarted, so is Scorpius.

Move over, James Tiberius Kirk, there's a new studmuffin in space! Unable to resist the charm that is John Crichton, Jr., Peacekeeper plant Jena has her wicked, wicked way with our favorite Earthman (the lucky wench!) after she saves him from the machinations of Prince Clavor, the Scarran ambassador, and Scorpius. Hey, I don't know about you, but that would have been the same price I would have extracted for pulling his behind out of the fire... er... I mean his head out of the vat of foundry acid.

In the meantime, Aeryn is undergoing a voyage of self-discovery with the help of a would-be paramour and Zhaan's last ditch effort to save the Leviathan and Pilot earn her Kahaynu's respect and blessing.

Discovering that their plan has been foiled, Prince Clavor turns on the Scarran who has finally had enough of his whining accomplice and offs him. Just when the royals think that all has been lost, John makes his big entrance. Only he finds that he can't undergo statue-ification again as it would kill him. That's when he makes a crazy proposal that pretty much wraps everything up.

In the end, the good guys get almost everything they want: Princess Katralla gets an heir -- courtesy of super-stud John Crichton -- and a chance to spend the rest of her days with her beloved Tyno by her side, Chiana and D'Argo are reunited relatively unscathed, and, of course, John and Aeryn discover that they are very compatible. It's kinda like the end of a Love Boat episode, you know? Captain Merril Stubing would have been proud.

This episode deals a lot of heavy emotional scenes to the female members of Moya's crew. Claudia Black breathes life and pain into Aeryn Sun, making her emotional paralysis more understandable. It's still frustrating, but at least you don't feel like shaking her. Okay, so you still do, only not as much. Virginia Hey's Zhaan, on the other hand, jumps into deep emotional waters with both feet as she plots and schemes against The Builder. Her anger makes her desperate and with that comes a dangerous side to the normally peaceful Delvian. Both actresses should be commended for their successful forays into what amounts to deeply personal journeys for their characters.

Then again, it's all about Crichton. Again. But I don't mind too much as Ben Browder has a knack for remaining appealing even when he heads deep into Captain Kirk territory. But unlike my favorite Enterprise captain, Browder's Crichton is never painted as perfect. He's smart, but not omniscient. Brave, but not foolhardy. Lucky, but not that lucky. What John does have in common with his peer in babe-magnetism is a strong attachment to and need for his friends. And he's got a great puppy-dog look, which probably got him lots of chicks on the other side of the wormhole too.

-- Linda M. Najera

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

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