Episode Report Card Strega: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Virtual Insanity
By Strega | Season 2 | Episode 15 | Aired on 08.17.2000
When he lowers them, he's in the Lynch Tribute Bar, Now Under New Management. Disco music plays, strobe lights, um, strobe, and the dance floor is full of people. Aeryn and Chiana dance over to him. Crichton starts to laugh as, from across the floor, D'Argo bellows, "Get down and boogie!" Crichton looks up at the disco ball and shouts, "I don't boogie!" The music skips and stutters, and the disco ball becomes Aeryn's face in the shifting light. Her hair is pulled back in its customary ponytail, and she shouts, "Crichton, where are you?" Her voice echoes and repeats, and becomes "Clear the dance floor!" The crowd gradually moves away, and we see Crichton standing under the disco ball, his arms stretched up toward it. Aeryn is only a few yards away. She pulls out her pulse pistol and aims as Crichton drops his arms and starts to duck. She fires, and the disco ball explodes like the Death Star.
Crichton lowers his hands from his face. He's on the dance floor, and gingerly reaches out to feel Aeryn's boots. She shakes him away and grunts, "I searched half this world for you." She says they're still on the commerce planet. "Underground, in some sort of holographic chamber. I destroyed the projector." He asks who grabbed him, and the disco lights still hang on the ceiling behind her as Aeryn says, "Scorpius. I killed him." Crichton gasps, "That's...interesting." She asks why, and helps him stand up. Crichton says they should get out of here. Aeryn insists, "No. Tell me now." Crichton stares at her for a long moment and then says, "No, you get nothing from me." Aeryn says, "Frell you, then. Stay." She does that tongue-rippling thing at him, and walks away, turning to give him one last glare over her shoulder as Crichton allows himself a grin. He leans his head back and smiles with relief, closing his eyes.
And then opens them, and the disco inferno is back. The music and the dancing get faster and more frenetic. D'Argo shouts, "Boogie or dieeeeee!" again. Crichton shouts, "Kiss my --" and flings both hands up in a two-finger salute. Then his body jerks as the music suddenly rises and cuts off. Everything stops.
At the hospital, DK screams at him again, blood splashing the camera. Crichton's body is jolted.
In the car, D'Argo says, "...thinking about you..." Crichton shudders again.
Crais screams, "Then I can't arrest you!" Crichton's eyes roll back as his body twitches.
Ma sobs, "Be with me when I go."
We pan around a dark room. Crichton is standing, his head rolled back, while the Scarran lurks nearby. It toys with some controls and tells nobody, "Brain wave patterns are increasingly irregular." I guess he's recording notes for a report. It's more fun to believe he just likes narrating, though. He declares, "Increasing stimuli to kalvo nine." Not kalvo nine! It's kind of remarkable how much the Scarrans manage to do without breaking their nails. You'd think they'd use something besides push-buttons on their control panels of doom, though. It just looks silly when this one has to press a button with the heel of his palm. Anyway, Crichton's body goes on twitching under a flashing light. Things buzz and whirr. The Scarran growls, "Kalvo ten." More buzzing. The air around Crichton starts to ripple. Then the rippling stops, and Crichton drops to the floor. "Dead?" the Scarran gripes. He helpfully turns his back to Crichton and adds some details about Crichton dying of "full synaptic overload." Well, maybe you shouldn't have kept increasing the...kalvos.