User Reviews

As Moya's pregnancy continues reduce her starburst capabilities the crew debate whether the time has come to abandon her and find a new ship. They don't realise that Moya is listening to them; eager to prove herself Moya immediately starbursts but something strange happens; Moya gets split into four distinct dimensions; the regular one, one with a nausea inducing red light, a blue lit one with a piercing noise and a yellow tinted one which causes those in it to laugh hysterically. Crew members only exist in one of the dimensions at a time but can move between them through portals although each portal only works in one direction. It turns out Moya is stuck in starburst and must get out if they are to survive... to make matters worse there is an inter-dimensional creature that may pose a threat to them... or offer them the solution they need.

One thing I like about Farscape is the way the protagonists are always bickering in a way you'd never find in the more refined worlds of shows like Star Trek; here it is their bickering that leads to their difficulties. The idea of having a spaceship split into different dimensions isn't new but it is well handled and one of the dimensions is a bit painful for the viewer too... I'd advise not to watch this while listening on headphones or the blue dimension may hurt your ears! The previous episode only gave very limited screen time to new crew member Chiana; thankfully she gets a lot more screen time here so we can get to know her character a bit better; Gigi Edgely is great in the role and is proving to be a fine addition to the cast. Some of the special effects weren't too great but they weren't too bad either so didn't really detract from the story. I'm not usually a fan of shows which end with the protagonists sitting around laughing but here it actually worked because the things they were laughing at were quite funny and it was believable that they would be laughing as a form of stress relief after being in a dangerous situation like that. Overall this was a decent episode which advanced the main plot arc concerning Moya's baby a fair bit in the final scene even though most of the episode could have been considered 'stand alone' up until that point.

In an effort to prove that she is still capable of protecting the crew, Moya teleports the crew into a technicolor nightmare consisting of three different color-coded copies of itself. We get to spend the episode in each of the three wonderful worlds of Loud, Funny, and Headaches.

The opening sequence tantalizes us with the promise of a character-building episode that may give us some more insights into our new crew member, before we are tragically dragged away into a nonsensical noodle-scratcher of an episode that accomplishes none of Act 1's promise to restore our faith in Moya. Far from it, we now get to spend the rest of the series certain that our beloved ship could expose us to danger most incomprehensible any time it tries to fire up the inconsistently-powered starburst drive.

The crew's dedication to preventing the ship from miscarrying its child is the only familiar plot point we have to hang onto here. We are otherwise briefly introduced to a poorly-designed alien puppet whose job, at which it appears to be terrible, is to prevent inter-dimensional shennanigans of the sort that Moya is apparently able to cause at any time.

It is further revealed that the ship is always listening to the crew. This creepy, 2001-esque revelation leaves the crew slightly upset where they should be horrified. Has the ship listened in without assistance every time the crew has been nearly shot, boiled, abducted, or betrayed? Apparently, and the crew seems unconcerned with the level of carelessness this has implied on Moya's behalf for the entire season so far.

It is hard to even notice what Act 2 is meant to contribute to the plot because we spent most of it quickly turning the volume down when Crichton emerges into the Loud Universe. He spends the remainder of the episode just trying to figure out what went wrong, and the solution to the problem appears as quickly and haphazardly as the problem itself.

All told, the crew does nothing, the ship reveals itself to be an incompetent snoop to which Pilot is a co-conspirator, and the self-created problem solves itself. It is low tension, low comprehension, and low impact.