What Was Lost, Part One: Sacrifice

What Was Lost, Part One: Sacrifice
Written by Justin Monjo
Directed by Rowan Woods

Original Airdate: June 14, 2002

Plot: Elack takes Cricthon and company to the planet Arnessk, where they are re-united with Jool and D'Argo, who are working on an archeological dig to uncover an ancient artifact that kept the PeaceKeepers and Skarrans at peace for centuries but has been lost. The old woman is also there and gives Crichton some startling visions about the artifacts as well as his role in finding them. Meanwhile, Grayza discovers where Moya's crew is and sends a small fleet there to capture Crichton...

Review

Warning: You won't need any flash forwards to push you ahead and find SPOILERS for the latest episode of Farscape "What Was Lost, Part 1: Sacrifice." If you keep reading, you'll see major SPOILER just ahead. You have been warned.

In short: A bit confusing, but that may just be the point.

It seems that every time the Farscape staff undertakes a really mind-blowing, you'd-better-pay-attention-or-you'll-miss-it storyline and one that just really frells with the mind of John Crichton, that more often than not, the writer behind all this is Justin Monjo. And that is certainly the case here with "What Was Lost, Part One: Sacrifice." It was confusing, but yet at the same time it was interesting and complex and it certainly seems to have set up some interesting pay off for the conclusion of the story and, possibly for the season as a whole.

From I can gather, once upon a time, there existed a device on the planet Arnessk that allowed Sebeccians and Skarrans to live in peace with each other for 500-years. Another race took exception to this--possibly the idea of having two such powerful races joining forces instead of concentrating on annihilating each other was a bit much for them--and bombed the planet with three devices that make the planet, most of the time unliveable. There were certain times when humanoid life could be down on the planet and the crew of Moya was there during one, basically playing Indiana Jones and unearthing the evidence of the past. Now, a dig is working to remove the three pieces that mess with the planet's magnetic field and remove them, thus opening up the planet to exploration and possibly finding a way to create peace within the Uncharted Territories--at least between the two major powers we've seen of Skarran and Sebeccian.

That's the big picture as far as I can tell from the episode, though I will admit that I am hoping for a lot of clarification of this in part two.

I think a lot of the confusion stems from the fact that we are, for the most part, following Cricthon around for most of the episode and sharing his confusion. He's been away from Moya for months and on his own. His friends have continued on with life and the one person he feels most connected to and wants to connect with most isn't there. Crichton's confusion spills over to the audience, though we do have the extra bonus of being third-person omniscient in this and getting to see other things going on--such as the tension between D'Argo and Jool, Scorpius's treatment on the command carrier and the apparent hold that Grayza has over males and how she uses that.

Of the subplots, I found the one with Grazya the most intriguing, simply because she's the newest big-bad on the block and she apparently has her sights set on Crichton--in more ways than one. Whatever her hold over Crichton (and to a lesser extent Braca) is, it certainly is an interesting one. But in watching the episode, I wondered how much of her focus was on Cricthon and how much of her focus was on breaking Scorpius. We see her attempting to break down Scorpius's will in the Aurora chair, then we see her using a new rod in his brain that gives an almost dominatrix like power over him (the scene of Scorpius in chains like a dog, licking her boots was chilling on a lot of levels) and then the scene when she seduced Crichton on the beach in full view of Scorpius and Braca. Grazya has apparently decided to use all of the means at her disposal to get to Cricthon and whoever else stands in her way--and you get the feeling that she is using her sexuality to ensnare and destroy Crichton.

In a lot of ways, the development of Crichton as the leader of Moya and becoming the stuff of legend in the Uncharted Territories (we even get this in the gun pointing scene on the cliff as we hear yet another person say that in the UC, Crichton is perceived as the leader of Moya and her crew) is similar to what happened on another show, Blake's Seven. (Another show with a dominatrix like female villain). On that show, a small group of people led by Roj Blake sought to overthrow an evil empire and worked to do that and, thus, gained a reputation. It was eventually revealed that the brains behind this was Avon, but that Avon was content to let Blake serve as a lightning rod and to pull strings in the background. I almost get the feeling this is happening here with Crichton-that someone is content to let him be the lightning rod to draw attention while the others are in the background pursuing their agenda. I am not sure who on the crew would be this just yet--the first thought might be Rygel, but that seems too noble and not selfish enough for our favorite Hynerian to embrace as a plan.

Of course, there is also the possibility that I'm reading way too much into my Farscape viewing and that I should just relax and enjoy the ride.

Overall, I have to admit that I came away from "Sacrifice" with a lot more questions than I had answers. Which, considering that this is a two-part story, that's not such a bad thing. Part two has a lot of ground to cover and it needs to do so fairly quickly, I think. For one thing, why is Granny so upset about the this peace device being uncovered--to the point that she has Crichton apparently kill himself rather than tell the PeaceKeepers where it is. Another question is just who is the sea creature guy and what exactly are his loyalties? Does he live on the planet full time or is he there with the team? If so, how does he survive living there and why did he drag Crichton out to sea after Granny magic-dusted him the first time? Also, who killed Vella (I kept thinking this was some sideways Blake's Seven reference as well to the character of Vila) and why? Was it Granny or was it, as I came to suspect throughout the story, Granny? Finally, just what is going on with D'Argo and Jool?

There are a whole lot of threads left out there--and we haven't even scratched the surface of the whole "Where did Aeryn go?" plotline. So, I think part two has a lot of work to do and it's going to be really difficult to assign a firm rating to this one until we see how part two comes out.

So, I guess that's about it for now, except for some small things...

--Chiana's acting very strange of late...I know she is upset at being pursued, but you almost feel as though she's angry and bitter at losing Crichton's interest to Aeryn and now Sikouz and losing D'Argo to Jool.

--OK, I may have missed this in the "Into the Lion's Den" two-parter, but at what point did Grayza make Braca a full captain. I don't remember that at all and it seemed like the scenes we saw didn't ring a bell. May have to go to the videotape on that one.

--I liked Braca's reaction to Scorpius's being humbled so. Wayne Pygram continues to do fantastic work as Scropius, with whatever material he's given.

--The cliffhanger left me cold. Farscape is usually so great with cliffhangers that this one wasn't much to write home about. But it did have me interested to see what comes next, so I suppose that on that level, it did it's job.

So, that's about it for now. Again, I'm going to have to wait for part two before I pass final judgment, but so far, so good.

My rating: 8.0

Next up: Crichton is under Grayza's spell....