Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT A Human Reaction
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 08.19.1999
Down in command, we can hear the sounds of Moya's engines winding down. Rygel, the hungry Muppet with an inflated sense of personal worth, complains about that. Pilot explains to John that they've noticed something -- a thing they haven't seen since John first arrived onboard. It's a wormhole. Pilot warns him that it's unstable, already breaking apart, and Chiana wanders in as Rygel addresses them all, self-righteously: "That is a pathetic little waste funnel, of which I care little about. We're supposed to be on our way to [a] commerce planet where, I believe, they have Hynerian marjools." He giggles. A Hynerian is what Rygel is, in addition to being a deposed monarch. Marjools are best not talked about. Chiana's concerned about whether John is or is not the captain of Moya, because she doesn't think he should be allowed to stop the ship for any old reason. She's only just come aboard, so she and John don't have a relationship: she's just bitching about any semblance of authority. Which she hasn't had a whole lot of opportunity to do, considering that there's not a single person on the ship who knows what the hell is going on, because they are all crazy. Rygel and Chiana are not getting why the wormhole is important to John, because all they understand is stuff having to do with Rygel and Chiana. Pilot screams for John to look closer at the wormhole: at the other side, you can see a planet that pretty much looks like Earth. John is wounded by hope, as Rygel and a badly-looped Chiana continue to scoff. The show's theme song, gone ethereal and weird, plays as John stares through the wormhole: "That's Earth. That's my home."
Credits. The most beautiful thing about maybe this entire show is the way the credit sequences change from season to season, updating the story boilerplate while mirroring John's adaptations to his situation. "I'm just looking for a way home" becomes "Look upward, and share the wonders I've seen." There's a lot of emotion coded into those little changes. It gives me chills every time.
Aeryn's sitting against a wall, somewhere else, brooding. Aeryn was a Peacekeeper, a soldier, before she met Crichton and got exiled. Now she's nothing, trying to learn to be something else. Earlier, when the crew was doing pretty hideous things to each other on the off chance that they'd be able to find maps to their various homes, John promised her that she could come home with him, since she no longer has a home, or a people, of her own. It was pretty devastating, and they've kissed since then, but the subject really hasn't come up again, because John and Aeryn are still busy being idiots. John approaches her, wearing his IASA flightsuit. "You're going, now?" she asks, refusing to look him in the eye. "Yeah, Pilot says we're runnin' out of time," says John. He's got a southern accent that comes and goes, depending on how freaked out he is. I'd put this scene at about a 6. "I can't go with you," says Aeryn, cold as stone. John complains that this is possibly their only chance to find home. Aeryn: "No, this is your only chance. I'm not certain I'll belong there." John promises that she will, but she shakes her head, swallows, apologizes. Pilot calls down to John that the wormhole is continuing to destabilize, and he looks at Aeryn awhile before standing. "I'm on my way," he calls to Pilot, and turns away. She looks at where he was standing. It's easy to blow this off, because we know how their relationship will twist and turn, but this is the beginning. This is Aeryn, terrified, not even beginning to understand what John meant when he said she could be "more." She's still empty. The last thing she needs is to go to a place where everybody knows John but still looks at her funny.
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