I Shrink, Therefore I Am

I Shrink, Therefore I Am
Written by Christopher Wheeler
Directed by Rowan Woods

Original Airdate: August 2, 2002

Plot: Traveling back to Moya in a transport pod, Crichton learns that the ship has been taken over by a group of Coreeshi bounty hunters. The hunters want to capture Cricthon and turn him over to Grayza. After crashing the transport pod into the alien's ship, Cricthon is forced to try and free his friends and re-gain control of Moya. But the bounty hunters put a monkey wrench in the works when they enforce "containment procedures" making it harder for Crichton to kill them.

Review

Warning: If reading SPOILERS for the latest episode of Farscape "I Shrink, Therefore I Am" will make you go Die Hard on me, then please turn back now. There are major SPOILERS just ahead.

In short: Treading water.

I suppose that after we had the season high-point last week with "John Quixote" it was really only to be expected that we'd have a follow-up that failed to live up to the high standards put out there by last week's story.

I just didn't think it would be this disappointing.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion this year that the writing staff on Farscape wants us all to see just how clever they can be and are trying to recapture the glory of season two. It was season two that gave us hints of an overall storyline that was developing, but it was only when you saw the final third of the season that it all began to make sense. Just look back at "Crackers Don't Matter" where we see Crichton being tormented by his own personal Scorpius. We had little idea then that his was actually happened to him and wasn't just a result of the wacky region of space the crew was in. It was one of those things where you take a stand-alone episode (and one that is really good BTW) and make it something more for the viewer when we're enduring the re-run doldrums in the long Sci-Fi imposed hiatuses that we, as Farscape viewers, are forced to endure.

I honestly get the impression that the writing staff is trying to recapture that feeling in season four--but that they've forgot how to do it. A couple of weeks ago, we had "Natural Election" where it felt as if the Aeryn is pregnant and questions of the child's paternity subplot where forced into the overall story of Moya taken over by weird alien fungus story. Here, we get several instances of heavy-handed foreshadowing forced into what could have been a stand-alone storyline.

First of all, we see that Crichton is using the stuff Granny gave him way too much. Anyone who doesn't see this plotline becoming hugely important as the season progresses take one step forward. OK, I see all of you still standing there. Just what I thought.

Second of all, we find out that the Skarrans have decided that is Crichton is so damn valuable to the Peace Keepers, he might have some value to them. And they'd better darn well find out what it is. This plotline, on some levels, actually worked rather well. It showed a bit of long-term, logical story growth based on what we've seen. After all, the Talyn-Crichton did destroy an entire Skarran war-fleet last year in the Infinite Possibilities duology. It only makes sense they'd want to know how he did that and what his value to the Peace Keepers might be. So, I can buy this. What was a bit much was that one of our hijackers was actually a Skarran in disguise.

Thirdly, we see Moya and company heading out into Tormented Space, which based on the dialogue is one really, really bad area of space to be. I guess I'm interested to see how this develops, but one part of me goes--how many more such hiding places can there be out in the Uncharted Territories can there be like this. And how many of you really think that this will stop Grayza from going after Crichton. If you do, take one step forward. Again, I see no one has moved.

Finally, we get to the biggest plotline--and that is the slowly developing friendship between Crichton and his new best-buddy in the hole universe Scorpius. I'm all about those wacky buddy movies as the next guy, but I just can't buy this. Scorpius is the enemy. Making him an ally just doesn't really work for me. Yes, we did it was Crais, but then again, Crais never put Crichton on a table with his brain left exposed, apparently killed the surgeon and left him for dead. So, you can see just why I can't see Crichton suddenly becoming chummy with Scorpius--no matter how much good he appears do. I could see it maybe being something done out of a necessity, but even then I'm not sure about it.

Of course, a lot of this could be the fact that as a long-time Scaper, I'm used to looking for the on-going plotlines. But again, when they are so blatantly obvious as we're seeing here, it's hard to ignore them. I keep hoping that Kemper and company have something more up their sleeve for this year. I know they've certainly surprised me before and could do so again here.

So, all that said, just how was the overall Moya taken over by bad guys plot?

It was just OK.

It's really not anything we haven't seen before. Next Generation did it and even Buffy's done it with the classic "School Hard." Indeed, the entire idea of one man against a whole group of bad guys is not something new. It's how you twist it and make it your own that makes it interesting.

And the twist here is that the bad guys can shrink the crew, thus ensuring if Crichton kills the bad guy, he kills his friends as well. Certainly it works well in giving a new wrinkle to the storyline, but then again it doesn't last long as we see Crichton come up with wacky new ways to defeat the bad guys and take back Moya.

Overall, I have to admit that his plotline wasn't much to write home about. It wasn't good, it wasn't bad. It was just sort of there. It had a bit of the "been there, done that" type of feel to it and, thus, the storyline never engaged me as much as I'd hoped it would.

Again, it felt like we were forcing some long-term plot issues into a stand-alone storyline. And it came out feeling a bit disjointed.

So, I guess that about wraps it up for now, except a few small things.

--The direction was well done. Seeing the way the scenes came together when shrunk people interacted with regular sized people worked well.

--I loved the moment where Sikozu basically pulled an Austin Powers with the idea of shrinking and the air molecule size question. "Don't think too much about it" and then the wink to the audience "And you shouldn't think too much about it either" implication.

--Less Granny is good by me. Could we leave her floating out there permanently?

--I did like how Pilot tipped off Crichton that something wasn't right aboard Moya.

I really don't have much else to say about the story. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. It's an hour spent watching Farscape and really not much more than that. And after last week so was so good, that's a huge disappointment.

My rating: 5.5 (out of 10.0)

Next up: Aeryn takes out an entire village of people...and not for dinner.