Farscape (TV Series) Rhapsody in Blue (1999) User Reviews

Crichton meets his ex... in his mind!

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 10 May 2012]

This episode opens with Crichton dreaming of a woman he once loved on Earth; he is awakened when Moya mysteriously starbursts; as the crew meet up to figure out what happened it turns out Rygel and D'Argo also dreamt of old loves. It turns out Moya was drawn to a Delvian colony that wanted Zhaan to come to them. They want to persuade Zhaan to help them kill somebody for them by sharing the dangerous part of her mind with them. In order to stop the others interfering with them the Delvians start manipulating their thoughts. While they are distracted Tahleen, the Delvian high priestess persuades Zhaan to undergo something called the Unity; it doesn't go as she expected however and Zhaan could be left insane. If Zhaan is to be saved Crichton must risk his own mind.

This was another enjoyable episode where we learn more about Zhaan's people, the Delvians and their abilities to adjust others' views of reality; most notably by making Crichton believe that the woman he split up from on Earth actually married him and came with him through the worm hole! While it wasn't the funniest episode it did have its moments; when Crichton accused Aeryn of wearing his underwear was particularly funny... and she did look a lot better in them than he did! There was no action to speak of but it felt as though Zhaan and Crichton were in real danger; especially the former as she battled to maintain her sanity. The only really negative thing about the episode was the effect used to depict Unity; showing the participants heads combined like that didn't work for me... I suppose they couldn't just be seen holding each other's heads or it would look too much like a Vulcan mind meld!

Really good episode

[gjenevieve · 9/10 · 13 March 2016]

I really enjoyed this episode. We get to find out more about Zhaan and her people. Moya is sent a distress call that is supposedly from another ship like Moya but it turns out to be the Delvians. Everyone on board Moya has dreams of their love interests the night before they arrive at the planet that summoned them.

They were summoned by the Delvians because they are struggling with controlling their rage and some of them have gone insane. In order to stop everyone else from going insane they need to have help from Zhaan who has learned to control her inner rage.

Zhaan agrees to join with Tahleen, the leader, to help her control her rage, but it is a trick and Tahleen tries to take everything that Zhaan has. This causes Zhaan to revert back to her baser instincts.

We also got to see a bit more about Crichton and his past. It shows his girlfriend that he was planning on marrying back on earth. It was interesting how the Delvians were able to show Crichton his relationship with his earthly girlfriend via mind control.

One of the reasons that I liked this episode so much is because of the visual effects they used to depict the joining of two people. I liked how they merged together as one. I also liked the acting. The script was well written. It was a good story.

This is one episode that I highly recommend. Very worth watching.

Best Episode of Season 1

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 23 October 2019]

And it has something that many people overlook: This episode has some of the best music by Braedy (Spelling?) and Chris Neal aka "SubVision".

Subvision offered Farscape an appropriately outrageous soundtrack for each of the episodes they provided content for. When Guy Gross took over during "The Way We Weren't", the music suddenly took a traditional turn that did not match the imagery or tone we were seeing. He did create new Theme music for the show that had interesting Homages to SubVision, but Gross was basically a traditional composer, while SubVision created not only musical sounds, but interesting textures of sounds and sound effects that matched the strangeness we were seeing week after week. It was a stark, unexpected and unwelcome change for the show. When they left the show, they were missed, and they also unexpectedly vanished from existence, they did no more work after Season 2's "Crackers Don't Matter". That was it, no more SubVision. I've never heard any reason why they suddenly vanished, it's a mystery.

This episode had the strongest SubVision music, 2nd only to to "Jeremiah Criton" as far as 1st Season soundtracks go.

Regarding this episode, it begins with a surreal , shared set of soggy dreams accompanied by an elongated Starburst from Moya.

It seems Moya's crew were summoned by one of Zotah Zha'an's people, a "Woman" who wanted something from Zha'an but went about asking for it in the most utterly wrong way possible. Criton starts remembering a woman he was having a fling with before he became an astronaut, and those memories keep changing. As do the perceptions of Aeryn and Ka D'argo and Rygel. Something is rotten, but this is not Denmark.

We learn things about Zha'an that make her less Goddesslike, more Human. Her kind and giving nature this time puts her in a spot of real trouble.

But mostly we get to see how Delvian conflicts are resolved: With Delvians, things are never how they originally seem. There is a lot of subtlety in this episode, that's how Delvians are. There is also Hypocrisy. But it is all hidden beneath a false presentation of Piety.

Ironically, it's Criton who sees the impropriety, even through the constantly changing memories of the woman "Alex". Speaking of Alex, look for her in Back to the future II, riding a hover-skateboard with Biff Tannen The 2nd.

Thanks to the Blue Ray version of this show, there is some startling imagery in this escapade of the Uncharted Territories.

Blue Cloistered Cult

[craybatesedu · 3/10 · 22 April 2019]

Zhaan's whackadoodle religion takes a much-unwanted center stage in this 48-minute homage to Tool album covers and electronics commercials from the 1980s. While running an errand, the crew stumbles across a thriving Scientology outpost where dreams come true and also everyone is half-evil, half-good depending on which side of the commercial break you're on. The gang is mostly aware that something is amiss as a rogue band of Delvians decides to start incapacitating them in order to either punish Zhaan, steal Zhaan's powers, or befriend Zhaan depending on which side of the commercial break you're on.

The sole narrative achievement gained by all this is that we learn through flashbacks that Crichton once loved a woman and Zhaan is a murderer. That either is supposed to be a surprising revelation is one of many misunderstandings this episode revels in. Another is that anyone is particularly interested in what level of space-wizard Zhaan is, or that we are dying to know the intricate details of how telepathy works. We are not.

The Delvian temple that serves as the backdrop to this mess of a script is gorgeously constructed and that is approximately as far as the charm in this episode goes. It is otherwise the opportunity, which nobody asked for, to prove than Zhaan has nearly godlike telepathic powers that will either never be seen again or that will solve literally every problem for the rest of the series.

The gang is mostly useless in solving whatever the underlying problem is. Sun and D'Argo are incapacitated by obvious delusions aboard ship, while Crichton spends most of the episode arguing with his imaginary wife about whether or not she really exists. Crichton achieves the apotheosis of his obtuseness when he actually loses an argument with her on this point, with the illusion taking the side of reason.

Zhaan's ascent to the status of living McGuffin is complete. She achieves Tenth Level space wizard rank, which you can tell is important because her eyes change color slightly and she whispers a lot. By the end of the episode it is clear that something profound has happened, but I have no idea what it is.

Overall a skippable episode that leaves us to wonder why Zhaan is still in the crew at all. She has clearly become something powerful and occasionally malevolent, but nobody - especially not the writers - knows what to do with it.