Episode Report Card Couch Baron: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT He Said, She Said
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 12 | Aired on 07.15.1999
Back on the pod, Crichton is acting like he knows how to fix things, while Aeryn exposits that they're not moving at all, and what's more, they're not getting a comm signal despite the fact that the equipment is functional. Despite this, when Crichton tells her that their power readings are down, she claims that's "impossible." It doesn't seem any less possible than anthropomorphic Muppets, but I guess without her comment, Crichton's picturesque murmuring of "Impossible" would have seemed out of place. Then the lights go out, and he exhales, "This isn't good." Crichton, you may be an impossible combination of virile, sensitive, and scorching, but leave the editorializing to the pros.
On Moya, Zhaan worries that Crichton and Aeryn are caught in the Flax, and wonders, if Staanz did in fact come to warn them, what he wants in return. D'Argo pulls up a Peacekeeper record and discovers that Staanz is wanted...
... and then he's marching off to kick some ass as Zhaan pleads with him not to rip Staanz's head off, or at least not until they know more about the Flax business. D'Argo isn't trying to hear that, so Zhaan points out that they're both ex-prisoners of the Peacekeepers, and wonders if D'Argo's checked his own record to see what lies have been written about him. Googling yourself is probably just as effective. D'Argo: "Not everyone imprisoned by the Peacekeepers was innocent." It's too bad the translator microbes don't seem to work on Moya herself, because I would have loved to hear her wake up from her pregnancy haze to deliver an "Oh, SNAP." D'Argo rushes off to the bridge...
... where Staanz and Rygel are sizing each other up like they're at the final table. Staanz makes a move, and Rygel, who's smoking from a hookah-like contraption, exhales in his face. You'd think Moya would be a little sensitive about people smoking inside her when she's pregnant, but maybe she understands that they're trying to drown out the attendant smells by any means necessary. At least they're not using aerosol sprays. Rygel gets all plot-pointy about the "interesting move" Staanz made, and I admit I don't know how to play the game, but moving some piece three squares ahead doesn't seem to warrant a whole lot of comment here. That move would even pass in Candyland. Rygel asks to raise the stakes, and produces some sort of statuette that looks like it's made from lapis lazuli, but just then D'Argo arrives and hauls Staanz out of his chair all Darth Vader asking for the plans at the beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope. (Well, without the crushed neck vertebrae and all.) Rygel complains that he had Staanz right where he wanted him, as Staanz explains that he used to be a Zenetan pirate. He offers proof, so D'Argo lets him down, whereupon Staanz pulls down his pants. Rygel chooses this moment to go all "Oh, MERCY ME" on us, not that I blame him, while D'Argo is just all, "And?" which is another valid choice. Staanz explains that the tattoos on his leg prove that he was a Zenetan, but he was captured and spent nine cycles in a labor camp, and his Zenetan brothers did nothing to help him, so now he warns people off the Flax, both to piss the Zenetans off and hopefully to get rewards from the warnees. Zhaan shows up and checks Staanz out, and then D'Argo breathes, "Put those back on." Heh. Rygel hems and haws over asking Staanz something, but Zhaan smoothly interjects, "For an anthropoid biped, there seems to be... something missing." I think it's safe to say that she's cast her research net far and wide on that one. Staanz admits that his species isn't exactly "cut from the standard mold," and then, thankfully, the genitalia wackiness is over, as Zhaan tells Staanz about Crichton and Aeryn's possible plight. Staanz ascertains that they're not family, and clunkily says there's nothing worse than losing family. I'd say there's nothing worse than having your reproductive organs in your ears, but not having access to space travel, I may be a little provincial about the idea.