The Farscape take on the First Contact scenario is its Star Trekkiest episode yet. Elements of the humans-as-aliens sci fi trope from Who Watches the Watchers through A Piece of the Action are evident in this episode charmingly set in an alien backwater when the ship emergency-lands near the home of a local UFO nut belonging to a pre-alien contact race.
There is a predictable game of cat-and-mouse with the snarling paranoid military types, while Zhaan spends most of her screen time sighing and looking concerned. The setup and the resolution are both mere filler for the real goal of the story, which is to put Crichton on the other end of wonderously gazing at alien visitors - and immediately trying to abduct them.
There is little to remark upon one way or the other in terms of special effects. The "aliens" are slant-eared humans; it isn't immediately obvious they are nonhuman at all until an alien child tells us as much with a stupefied response to Crichton's appearance that turns from curiosity to terror without much explanation.
The child's alien mother first strikes us as a friend, the kind of First Encounters hopeful enthusiast many Farscape viewers likely identify with. Her turn to terror, too, is sudden and mostly without provocation.
The episode proceeds more or less as we'd expect, with a modest twist ending Star Trek viewers may recognize as the Farscape equivalent of Chicago Mobs of the Twenties. Where it will lead we don't know, nor do we particularly care because the alien race we met is somewhat bland and predictable.
The action sequences are few but are well executed. This is a competently drafted episode that only fails because it couldn't decide whether to put the gang in the position of making first contact with an alien race, or putting them in the position of escape from alien Alcatraz. It tried to do both, leaving us with inconsistent motives and personalities in the alien characters that changed on a dime. Good humor and overt homage make this an otherwise watchable episode.
There is a predictable game of cat-and-mouse with the snarling paranoid military types, while Zhaan spends most of her screen time sighing and looking concerned. The setup and the resolution are both mere filler for the real goal of the story, which is to put Crichton on the other end of wonderously gazing at alien visitors - and immediately trying to abduct them.
There is little to remark upon one way or the other in terms of special effects. The "aliens" are slant-eared humans; it isn't immediately obvious they are nonhuman at all until an alien child tells us as much with a stupefied response to Crichton's appearance that turns from curiosity to terror without much explanation.
The child's alien mother first strikes us as a friend, the kind of First Encounters hopeful enthusiast many Farscape viewers likely identify with. Her turn to terror, too, is sudden and mostly without provocation.
The episode proceeds more or less as we'd expect, with a modest twist ending Star Trek viewers may recognize as the Farscape equivalent of Chicago Mobs of the Twenties. Where it will lead we don't know, nor do we particularly care because the alien race we met is somewhat bland and predictable.
The action sequences are few but are well executed. This is a competently drafted episode that only fails because it couldn't decide whether to put the gang in the position of making first contact with an alien race, or putting them in the position of escape from alien Alcatraz. It tried to do both, leaving us with inconsistent motives and personalities in the alien characters that changed on a dime. Good humor and overt homage make this an otherwise watchable episode.