Farscape
"The Ugly Truth"

Airdate: September 8, 2000

Crais invites Moya's crew aboard Talyn in an attempt to garner their help in disarming the tyke. It seems that the little Leviathan's aggressive tendencies are scaring the big, bad, former Peacekeeper. During the meeting, so as not to let Talyn discover his plans and do something bad, Crais puts the ship in privacy and manual override modes. Luckily, Talyn doesn't seem too concerned that he can neither fire his weapons nor hear the conversation on his command deck and spends his time chit-chatting away with mommy Moya.

Bailar Crais, former Peacekeeper, new Pit Bull owner.

Crais' plan includes Moya and the others helping him sedate Talyn so that he might replace the offensive weapons with mere defensive ones. He is awaiting the arrival of a band of Plokavians traders, masters at arms development, with whom he hopes to deal. To say that the others are skeptical is an understatement.

The Plokavians arrive, but before you can say "Crichton looks good in Peacekeeper leather", Talyn has fired a salvo at their ship and turns it to nothing more than stardust. Another Plokavian ship arrives and while Crais and Talyn make their escape, Moya's crew members are captured and questioned in order to find out who was responsible for the murder of the other arms traders.

One by one, Aeryn, Zhaan, Stark (who is still aboard after "The Locket"), D'Argo, and John are questioned, each giving a slightly to incredibly different story from the others. In the end, the Plokavians decide that all of them are lying and all must pay the price for the deed. Yup, they will all be put to death.

What makes this episode interesting is not how each of our heroes lies to the Plokavians, but how they cast themselves and their fellow crew members in their fiction. Each story gave a peek at the psyche of the teller and their view of the crew dynamic from their point of view. For instance, both Aeryn and D'Argo, knowing Crichton's distrust of his former pursuer, make John overly-stubborn in his rejection of any attempts by Crais to seem reasonable and peaceable. Additionally, Aeryn and Zhaan both cast themselves in the lead role as the only real voice of sanity in an insane situation. And while Aeryn seemed to have the best handle on John, her version put words in his mouth that were not part of the Earthman's usual pop-culture-reference infused vocabulary and was therefore easily identifiable as a figment of her imagination.

Since John is our entry into this fantastical universe, it is his version which is supposed to be closest to the truth. Surprisingly, despite his grudge against Crais, he doesn't take Stark's position and blame the former Peacekeeper for the current situation. (Instead, he leaves out one tiny bit of information which contains the real truth behind the matter.) Crichton neither softens his attitude towards the man who chased him halfway across the Uncharted Territories out of a mistaken sense of vengeance, making his story the most believable. But, of course, since he knows the truth, he can afford to be more honest than the others.

I don't think I'd call this episode a full success. The setup is a bit tired, the execution less than graceful, and I definitely hated the Plokavian's resolution, but I did like the slight twist at the end.

Oh well, if nothing else it offered a close-up of those leather pants John wears so well. Yum.

-- Linda M. Najera

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

We welcome your comments on The 11th Hour and this review. Please send letters to: letters@the11thhour.com

Next Review >