Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Believing The Strangest Things
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 7 | Aired on 05.07.1999
But even cooler, this is further paralleled within the episode itself, which is about a clash between military and pure science, once the bad guys show up and Lyneea has to decide on her allegiances. Which is the other reason Zhaan and Rygel didn't come down with them for the mission: Story A is about what it's like to be a scientist, surprised by beauty, other uses of knowledge than violence, so all you have are scientists and soldiers. (Story B is about the strength inherent in passivity, the balls it takes to be a healer, which is another path that doesn't involve active violence -- what makes it surprising is that neither of the fighters, Aeryn nor D'Argo, is really punished for straying into this episode at all, which usually they would be, although it continues the painful job of breaking Aeryn's indoctrination wide open, announcing that intention throughout pretty loudly.)
Of course, the analyzer immediately starts working. Aeryn says the reading is weak, and that if that's the level they're going to find, they'd have to "bring back half the planet," and D'Argo agrees they need a more concentrated source. Some kind of vehicle approaches, and they scatter. As people search all around for them, John lies in the brush, staring -- and then is startled by D'Argo and Aeryn as they drop on either side of him, protecting him. He's just a tech, he can't take care of himself, and I love that even at the beginning of the show, before anybody makes friends, they just naturally cover him whenever the shit happens, because they know he's not up to it. D'Argo says they need to draw the people away from the ship, but that's too short-term for Aeryn, who wants to get the hell out of there -- warrior v. soldier -- and she corrects him: "We need chlorium." D'Argo gives them their orders: he and Aeryn will distract the searchers, John will find a better source of chlorium, and they all will meet back up at the ship. As plans go, it's one of the least lame these three will ever come up with: D and Aeryn can take care of themselves, and John only operates properly when there's nobody around whatsoever. D'Argo makes a scary growling noise and takes off in one direction, Aeryn does a crazy bird sound and runs off in the other, and John skulks out into the forest.
Zhaan wanders into Pilot's chamber and looks at the freaking out DRDs. Pilot informs her he's done analyzing the connections between the beacon and Moya's neural system: "The interlacing is...extremely intricate." Zhaan asks how on earth the PKs could have managed getting something like that aboard without him or Moya even noticing. Rather than explaining the horrible truth, he just tells her that they tranked Moya upon first capturing her. "The weak and the old do not survive, which I suppose is part of its purpose," he says. Which is pretty horrible on its own. "I thought I had discovered all they had done to Moya. Obviously, I had not." Zhaan tells Pilot not to blame himself, which is very sweet if you ignore the fact that that's her answer for everything, and Pilot says that even with a bunch of chlorium, "there will not be enough time to complete the separation before Moya succumbs to her own intense weight." That's what K-Fed said!