Jeremiah Crichton
by Doug Heyes, Jr.
Directed by Ian Watson
REVIEW
Would you go back to rescue Crichton, putting yourself at risk? This episode poses that difficult question but only as an afterthought, never really testing the answer. And the answer, naturally, is that you have to because he's the series lead.
That said, once we'd seen Crichton stranded in space in the teaser, it was a nice surprise to find him bearded and living on a planet. And better still to have him genuinely not want to go back with D'Argo. Unlike most series that leave their heroes stranded (Buck Rogers, Star Trek), you could see a logic for Crichton wanting to stay where he was and that was a dramatically refreshing edge to this story.
Even though Farscape is at its best when it twists stock SF cliches, it risks falling into them too. For instance, it was abundantly clear that Rygel would save the day because he went down to the planet with D'Argo � when all possible logic says that it should have been Aeryn.
It's definitely a plot convenience that it's this pair that go down after Crichton, but it might be more than that. For the episode divides the crew into the women up on the ship and the men on the planet. Crichton even refers to "the girls" when neither of them is exactly pre-pubescent.
More, the men are the ones who take all the action while Aeryn and Zhaan are left to think a lot � and to then admit that they need Crichton to help them with even that. It felt like watching 'Blake's 7' or the original 'Star Trek' which both set up many women characters only to reduce them to operating the teleport and looking worried.
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