Episode Report Card Keckler: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Portrait Of Dorian Blue
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 6 | Aired on 04.20.2000
Back on Moya, Crichton and D'Argo work on the defense screen. Crichton, mildly. D'Argo, angrily. A few non-homoerotic sparks fly, and Pilot reports that Moya has been experiencing "a number of minor power anomalies." If there's something that my long career of sci-fi-ing has taught me, it's that anomalies are never good. In fact, many consider most of Enterprise to be a subpar anomaly, and that Quantum struggled with facial anomalies most of his life. D'Argo and Crichton can't squeeze any more DRDs out of Pilot because a bunch of them are performing a scheduled and overdue maintenance on Aeryn's prowler. Crichton argues that Aeryn doesn't have to know. "She's just returned," Pilot says smugly with a tiny smile.
Still completely engrossed in her art piece, Chiana shuffles down the corridor until she catches sight of a DRD zipping and bleeping happily along. Seeing something shiny and sparkly clasped in its pincer, Chiana stops the DRD and lifts off her aforementioned favorite necklace. She looks with wonder and almost fear at the art piece, which is now showing a new Chiana. This one has a severed leg. Chiana moves closer to the glass to get a better look, but the DRD gets underfoot and trips her up. She falls to the floor with a sickening crunch of bones and starts wailing. Staring down the image of herself with the severed leg, she screams louder and louder.
Somewhat calmer, Chiana explains the whole thing to Crichton as he checks out her leg. At first the image didn't even look like her, then it showed her lost necklace, and finally it showed her with a broken leg. Chiana has determined that the art piece predicts the future. Unimpressed, Crichton says his Aunt Ruth can do that with tea leaves. Chiana asks Crichton if he has any other explanation for the string of events. "Have you eaten, drunk, smoked, sniffed anything weird lately?" Crichton asks. "No, have you?" Chiana snarks as Zhaan injects her with something. "Not lately," Crichton snarks right back. Zhaan and Crichton both try to offer explanations, like maybe Rygel and Aeryn are playing a trick on her, or the DRDs are fritzy. Those ideas are discarded because, as Crichton says, Aeryn doesn't have a sense of humor, and Rygel wouldn't go so far as to break Chiana's leg. Also, clearly stung by the implication, Pilot edgily reports that the DRDs are all performing within normal parameters and doing exactly what he tells them to do. He did ask the DRDs to look for Chiana's necklace, but that was a long time ago. Crichton shrugs Chiana's experience off as coincidence. However, Zhaan wants to run some tests on Chiana's art, causing Chiana to flip out that Zhaan will ruin it. Chiana refuses and says it's staying with her, giddily gabbling that she can't wait to see what it shows her next. Always the voice of compromise, Crichton suggests that Zhaan chip off a small piece of glass where it doesn't show. Zhaan's good with that, but Chiana's still whiny, so Crichton barks, "Pip! She just fixed your damn leg!" Rolled-paper-smacked, Chiana gives in. "A. Very. Little. Piece," she grits out.