Farscape goes Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Pulse Pistols in a colourful tale of a drunken caper gone pear-shaped.

Written by Lily Taylor
Directed by Tony Tilse

If Pilot would just listen to him, Crichton is trying to tell the story of what happened on a pleasure planet � and why he and the rest are back on Moya only two days after Pilot ordered them to get off the ship to stop Crichton and D�Argo arguing with each other. Much of the pleasure on this pleasure planet revolves around a drugged scent which some people want to give to Chiana and Jool � and some to take it from them.

It was a familiar party-going-wrong tale, but it was so wrapped up in SF plot and twisted through an brilliantly drunken style of direction that it became unrecognisable, and just fabulous.

The repeated cutting, the stop-start juddering, was thematically right because that was how a still recovering Crichton was telling the story. It was also like the production team let loose with new buttons on the editing desk. Farscape always has a sense of pace but this flung itself around with abandon, recreating the noisy, messy party atmosphere that got the team into so much trouble.

It�s curious that this time the Crichton on Moya should be so loosened up when in the last episode it was the Crichton on Talyn who got the sexual healing. In a way though, the previous episode set up the feel of this one by ending on a sensual note that this one stylistically continued.

Also linking both last week's and this week's episodes is the appearance of an alien offering help. Nobody trusts either of them, and neither were exactly on the side of the angels.

If this week�s untrustworthy alien, Raxlis, seemed familiar to you, she should be: this was this year�s appearance of Mrs Ben Browder, Francesca Buller, who played M�Lee in the first season and ro-NA in the second.

Review by William Gallagher