Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Last Tanga In The Paris Commune
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 04.22.1999
Done. Ooh! Look at John looking all sexy with the vest! The PA's going ("Stop reading so much into this stupid science fiction show and start cracking some jokes I've heard before in other hilarious contexts! Write some hate mail and make sure to misspell the word 'pretentious'! Ignorance is strength!") and we transition to John wearing a funny hat, digging with Zhaan and D'Argo.
Aeryn has finished, she thinks. Pilot is similarly ambivalent about whether they've done good science. "No...well, I can prep another slide of Rygel's blood and check his liver and altex functions again," says Aeryn, causing half the audience to fall over sideways and break into a cold sweat. "No need," says Pilot sweetly. "So, what are you saying? That it's done? That I did it?" She did. Aeryn immediately demurs and is all, "Oh, Pilot it was all you, all I did was wear a sparkly dress and turn the letters over as they lit up," and Pilot underscores pretty huffy-awesomely that it was all her. "Huh. It was me." Dust your TV screen before you kiss it, even with modest mouth closed, or you will experience a horrible taste sensation. FYI.
John carries a sack of tannot to the boxcar, and Aeryn rings in on comms. He leans against the wall and covers his badge with his hat. "Listen, I've worked out what's wrong with Rygel. A reaction to food." John puts together that it was a reaction to the tannot, and Aeryn stumbles through some science talk as John grins. "His Hynerian body chemistry acted like a...um...a catalyst. I've set up a leaching sieve. We're collecting all the volatile elements. We're just going to flush them straight out the airlock." He congratulates her lovingly, and it's been looked at too hard, her pride in doing something shameful and John's encouragement, so she looks away. "Listen, what's happening with D'Argo? Is he coming back or not?" John says it's unlikely at this time, and she declares again her desire to leave D'Argo behind. Keep running. John is, of course, horrified, and begs her to drop that idea. "It's gotten complicated." Tanga comes near and he shuts it down. "If I haven't come up with a solution by then, then you and I may have to leave on our own." Aeryn asks about Zhaan, and gets worried about the situation planetside. "Just fix Rygel. I'll be in touch." Aeryn sighs, frustrated, left hanging with the pride of what she knows and the fear of what she doesn't.
John tips his hat down over his face and helps Tanga up into the boxcar, loading her tannot sack for her. He takes off the hat, asking if she remembers all the hitting of him she's been doing, and drags her into the boxcar. "You going to scream? Call attention to us? Yeah? Well, go ahead." She reminds him that she's expected outside, working, and John gets intense on her: "Not before you tell me something. I want to know something right now. How do I get this worm out of me?" No answer. He asks her, frustrated and crazy, why they grow the horrible tannot in the first place; Tanga only knows it was brought to the planet by some mysterious "others." It made everybody stupid, and now once every six months the bad guys come and pick up all the harvest. Volmae was chosen at random -- "could have been any one of us" -- and given the worm, which is very rare and valuable. So why waste one on John? "You have a ship. You can find someone out there who can help us. Bring us weapons. Fight beside us." She implies that the tannot is destroying the planet's ecology and that it won't last much longer -- and then they are done for. Another immune Sykaran comes to retrieve Tanga, telling her that her father is ill, out in the fields. John follows them at a distance; Tanga tries to help her father but he says he's out of energy. "Please, just let them discover me. I would rather be dead." Ouch. And the work day is complete.