Farscape

"Won't Get Fooled Again"
Airdate: August 18, 2000

The doctor is in.

IASA Astronaut John Crichton finds himself aboard the Farscape One once again and this time, instead of being sucked into a wormhole, he crash lands back on Earth. Only its changed a bit. The Ancients might have been able to fool him once, but John is wise to their tricks and rejects the false reality someone is trying to force upon him.

As with every Farscape episode, things just keep getting weirder as John's friends and enemies from The Uncharted Territories start making guest appearances on Earth. Aeryn is his doctor, D'Argo is a fellow IASA pilot, Zhaan is his therapist, Rygel is his new boss, Chiana is an astronaut groupie, Pilot is the Ringo of a local bar band, Crais is a friendly, but oddly shod police officer and Scorpius keeps popping up in the weirdest places. Unwilling to play along, John refuses to be suckered into this almost reality and pushes the envelope of this world, even to the point of playing fast and loose with his own life.

Whatever force has him in its grip, however, won't let him get away so easily. A continually sweating John is subjected to increasingly weirder stimuli until a chink is finally found in his psyche and then the knobs are turned up even higher. Luckily -- or unluckily, depending on your point of view -- Crichton has a surprising ally in this battle for his sanity.

John's continual flashes of Scorpius are explained by the latter's figment revealing that while in the Aurora chair, the former had a chip inserted in his head. This implant contains Scorpius' personality and allows the Scarran-Sebacean hybrid access to Crichton's subconscious so that he might eventually unearth the wormhole technology the Ancients put there back in the first season's "A Human Reaction".

The chip's work not being done, it takes on the role of John's guardian angel when a Scarran, intent on finding out why Crichton is so important to Scorpius, takes the human hostage and attempts to break him. Scorpius' microchip alter-ergo can only speak to John when the Scarran's attention is diverted so his advice on how to defeat the big, scary, lizard guy is interrupted before he can say anything useful. Of course.

Nuttier than a fruitcake, but we don't care.

With Scorpius' help John escapes, but without the knowledge he learned about his arch enemy while in the clutches of the Scarran. And so our favorite astronaut will continue on in his adventures, suspecting that he's merely cracking up when in reality he's been both mentally hijacked and lojacked.

The Wizard of Oz references piled up fast and furious in "Won't Get Fooled Again". Everything from the obvious (ruby slippers and a white Toto) to the only-slightly-less-obvious (people from the Uncharted Territories appearing on Earth) was thrown at the audience. But the references didn't stop there. Scorpius' true intentions keep him from being Clarence (It's A Wonderful Life), so Crichton instead refers to him as his big, fluffy bunny companion (Harvey). And I could swear that the dance scene between Aeryn and Chiana was a nod to the Buffy episode "Bad Girls". But that could be just me.

Ever since Crichton was stuck in The Aurora Chair, he's been headed for a breakdown. The increased pressure of the events in the "Look At The Princess" three-parter had seemingly weakened our normally stalwart hero, leading him to experience delusions as in last week's "Beware of Dog". Add to this the unfulfilled desire to go home, the increasing weirdness that surrounds him, and more than likely a hint of transit delirium and what you've got is one shaky boy. While it undoubtedly makes for great drama, it also makes you wonder if they told actor Ben Browder at his audition that his character would be so tortured.

Poor thing. Again, I volunteer to comfort him. And yes, I did take a number. It's just kinda high and I'm impatient.

Covering some, but not all, of the same ground as "A Human Reaction", Browder gives an outstanding performance as the tortured Crichton. There is so much pain in his eyes, even as he rejects what he knows to be false. There is confusion too as seeing his two worlds collide makes him miss those who have become his family even more than their Earthly counterparts. Although he remains a cowboy in some ways, Crichton has been allowed to reveal some of his vulnerabilities. Luckily Browder seems proficient at retaining his character's heroic qualities even as John is proven to have a breaking point.

My only quibble with this episode is questioning the need to see Rygel all done up in S&M gear complete with a whip. Ohhhhh.... My psyche may never recover.

-- Linda M. Najera

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

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