Moya has an implant from the Peacekeepers. Since her control collar is gone, it starts emitting signals which might be heard by Peacekeepers. The crew decides to land in a planet to muffle the signals while they remove the implant --- a process which will be extremely painful to Moya. John Chrichton has to look for a numbing agent in the planet, home to paranoid residents that have not yet been contacted by beings from other planets. He has the luck to encounter a female military scientist who is looking for evidence of extra-planetary life. His charm is sufficient to obtain her help and the numbing agent he needs (the locals use it for cooking). Once back on Moya, the crew departs.
The episode was a callback to all those movies where a woman encounters a male alien that has crash-landed on Earth, falls in love with him, and helps him return to his home whilst being pursued by the local authorities (à la Starman). The difference, of course, is that this time around the alien is a human, and he does not stay long enough for the woman to fall for him. And herein is a nugget of one element that this series will display throughout: it will take familiar tropes and will reinterpret them in unconventional ways.
There is an obvious (once seen) gap in the logic of this episode. John Crichton had to be infected with translator microbes when he first got thrown into the show's corner of the universe. But the residents of this episode's planet understand him without problem despite the fact that they supposedly have never encountered extra-planetary life. Once could save the logic of the episode if one assumed that the translator microbes were somehow present in the planet and endemic among the planet's population; perhaps these people have been unknowingly visited before and the microbes somehow found a very receptive home in their brains without their knowledge.
Finally, in this episode we learn that priestess Zhaan is able to empathically feel and lessen the pain of another sentient being --- an ability which she uses to help Moya while the homing device is being removed.
Review by noelctBlockedParent2022-03-19T15:21:45Z
Our Deconstructing Moya piece from 2010:
http://farscape.madeoffail.net/episodes/episode-1-02-i-e-t/
Fresh thoughts:
Wow, I was salty on this one. I do think the writing is clunky at times, but while this does feel like a by-the-numbers plot which could be swapped into most any space-faring series (pretty sure SG-1 did something similar a couple times), I'm more understanding of it this time around. It's wrong for me to hold against this episode what the series will evolve into later, because it's totally allowed to still be figuring things out and finding its footing this early in. And it makes sense that, before we get to the REALLY weird stuff, we'll give John a taste of home, a feeling of normality, but in a way he knows he can't just settle into as he has to leave these scenic swamps behind. I made an argument for holding this taste of familiarity for later in the series, but given the broadcast order shifted it to episode 7 instead of 2 (I see Trakt is following that order which will leave my reviews a bit scrambled), that scheme didn't work as I remember this being a bit of a letdown after the series had already swung for weirder fences, and that structure will successfully come up later down the road when we actually return to Earth. No, if you're going to do this plot, the best place is as episode 2, as the aliens are thrust into an environment familiar to John, and John has to accept that this familiar world is almost too familiar to stay in, what with military and alien-fearing mobs, leaving him feeling like a man on the run from where he belongs, which is exactly the same position the rest of the team are in.
The main issue with the alien world subplot remains that that they're searching for an anesthetic, but don't actually return with it until AFTER the operation is done, which largely renders it meaningless. Aeryn still bounces around the two threads a bit much, but that bloody interaction with Rygel remains one of the first real shocking moments in what will be a pretty shocking show. I like the catty, begrudging bond Aeryn and D'Argo are building, as awkwardly staged as that scene in the tree is (they never explain what he suddenly grabbed at one point). Zhaan is still in den mother mode, consoling and encouraging the others. There's almost too much of a lack of conflict between her and everyone, and it'll be nice when that gets shaken up a little.
Overall, an episode I like more fondly than I used to. Nicely directed. The CG shots of Moya on the surface are still gorgeous. Fun fact, this is one of two episodes written by Sally Lapiduss, and is one of her few dramatic works in a hugely successful career as a writer/producer on sitcoms like Family Matters, The Nanny, Titus, Hannah Montana, and Jessie.