Episode 1.21 - Bone to Be Wild
Synopsis
Moya and her baby are hiding in an asteroid field, trying to evade Crais' Command Carrier, that's looking for them. By minimizing power to all systems, Moya and her baby can't be detected by scans, but they also can't escape without being spotted. What they need are charts to find a way out of the field without being detected, at least until they are well clear.
At that point, Moya receives a weak signal coming from one of the asteroids. Hoping to find maps, Crichton, D'Argo and Zhaan go over there, while Aeryn stays on Moya to help her communicate with the baby. On the asteroid, the crew finds that there are no animals there, just plants. Zhaan couldn't be happier and reveals that she too is a plant. They soon run into the creature that sent the transmission, being attacked by another creature. After they scare her attacker away, the creature, called M'Lee, explains the situation. Apparently, she, her family and others of her kind lived on the asteroid, but suffered from attacks by the creature. Now only M'Lee is left and she begs the crew to help her.
Meanwhile, Aeryn has gone aboard Moya's baby in the hopes of getting it to listen to his mother. Apparently, it a perfect blend of Peacekeeper and Leviathan technologies and Aeryn soon figures out how to operate the ship, with some help from the ship itself. This is good, because back on the Command Carrier, Scorpius is undermining Crais's command in an attempt to take over and look for Moya and her baby his way.
Back on the asteroid, the crew and M'Lee are attacked by the creature, which was waiting in the transport pod. In the ensuing fight, the pod is damaged and D'Argo becomes seriously wounded. As Zhaan, M'Lee and Crichton look for healing plants outside, M'Lee takes off, because she can sense the creature's approaching again. Crichton chases her, leaving Zhaan alone and under attack. To help save Zhaan, M'Lee offers to take Crichton to the place where the creature eats its victims. Once there, it is revealed M'Lee is the creature that does the eating as she attacks Crichton. Then the other creature storms in and chases M'Lee away. The creature, called Br'Nee, takes Crichton back to his cave, where he also took Zhaan.
Apparently, Br'Nee's people seeded all the plants on the asteroid in the hopes of finding new cures for all kinds of diseases. Unfortunately, when Br'Nee and his team returned, they came across M'Lee, who eats bones, killed, and ate all but Br'Nee.
As Zhaan and Br'Nee head back to the transport with the means to heal D'Argo, M'Lee approaches Crichton back in the cave to complete Br'nee's story. She explains that it was his people that brought M'Lee's ancestors to the asteroid to kill all the animls that lived on the asteroid. Br'Nee's people expected all the calcivores to be dead when they returned, but M'Lee survived and started feeding on the team. She promises Crichton that she will not attack him or the others if they take her with them.
Crichton heads over to the transport to confront Br'Nee, who explains why his people did what they did because they needed to the flora to grow unchallenged. But, even better, he claims to have maps that he will share if the crew takes him with them.
Zhaan and Br´Nee head back to the cave, but when Crichton joins them, he finds a wounded Br´Nee. He tells Crichton that M'Lee took Zhaan and Crichton rushes off, realizing later that M'Lee wouldn't be interested in Zhaan, because she has no bones. Apparently, Br´Nee captured Zhaan and was planning to use her for his research. As Crichton frees Zhaan, he kills Br´Nee and they plan to head back to the pod. Then M'Lee shows up, really hungry. Fortunately, she talked to D'Argo, who told her that the Peacekeepers would come. She will try to get onto the Carrier, as it is one big banquet to her. Crichton, Zhaan and D'Argo head back to Moya with the maps. Aeryn and Moya made real good progress with the baby and Moya asks Aeryn to name him.
Meanwhile Scorpius, who took over the Carrier, arrives on the asteroid and agrees to take M'Lee with him, hoping she has information that will lead him to Crichton.
Review
Farscape seems to making a habit of taking standard SF plots and then twisting them around. The episode too, started just as so many others did, but soon became so much better than the average science fiction story.
When you see little M'Lee being attacked by the big strong Br'Nee, you cannot help but expect a standard story. But it is soon turned around when M'Lee turns out to be the bad guy. But then it switches again, and again, and again, until you really don't know who the real bad guy is anymore. At then end M'Lee is just a predator, who can't help that she eats what she eats. Br'Nee is a bad guy, capturing Zhaan and all, but one could also say D'Argo is being a bit of a bad guy, pointing M'Lee to the Peacekeepers. This makes the characters way more real, because D'Argo, just like Aeryn last week, didn't do the right thing, but the thing that served him best.
The other parts of the story were not as important as the story on the asteroid, but they were good character developments. Scorpius takes over command from Crais and had the potential to become a better bad guy than Crais. Although partly a shame that Crais survived his ride in the Aurora Chair, he still has a lot of potential as the deposed captain, probably wanting revenge on Scorpius now. Moya's baby was beautifully done, with the shot of Aeryn in the command and then zooming out really showing how massive he is and how big he will become, as he is still dwarfed by Moya.
This episode, as well as the previous two, is building up the tension toward next week's season finale very well and I can't wait to see it.
Trivia
The title is a wink to the song, "Born to be Wild" by Steppenwolf from 1968.
Spot the actress. The woman playing M'Lee is Francesca Buller, Ben's wife.
The idea of hiding in an asteroid field and running into some unexpected danger is quite reminiscent of The Empire Strikes Back.
Quotes :
- "A distress call, directed at us?" Chiana
- "How stupid is that?" John, seeing the irony in the situation
- "To put things in perspective Zhaan, you are the least thing on this asteroid I am allergic to." D'Argo, not very happy about all the plants.
- "The big guy's got a point, my rashes have got rashes." John agrees.
- "Zhaan, let me explain what is going on in my nose right now: there are large pieces of green mucus and gunk that..." D'Argo, still not happy about the plants.
- "D'Argo, stop it with the Luxan poetry." John did not need to hear that.
- "It was instinct D'Argo. You know what instinct is? Every single thing you do is based on it." John, getting annoyed with D'Argo, as usual.
- "Take it outside M'Lee. Us Southern boys don't make good eatin'. Not without a fight." John, under threat by M'Lee.
- "No offence, but I say we take this tree hugger, shove him out the access port and blast the hezmana out of here!" D'Argo, having a very good idea.
Rating:
9/10 for having a good story with good developments as well as building up tension for next weeks season finale.
Synopsis & Review by : Deutsche Leute
Edited by : DS9ers
Put on-line by : Bluey
