There�s a type of show known as the "format breaker" - where the normal rules of a series are set aside. Used well, they perk up a show, giving it the chance to do something different, or put its characters in a new situation.

The trouble is, to do this you have to have a format in the first place, and Farscape is becoming dangerously close to losing sight of its central premise entirely.

Popping John, Alice-like, down the wormhole, Unrealized Reality lets us peek at various ways things could be very different, culminating in a mad mixed-up jumble with the regulars all swapping costumes, characters and even facial features. Between these strange glimpses, an effects-deficient Ancient-type gabbles wormhole theory at John on an iceberg.

This wormhole knowledge is clearly very important to the rest of the series, but did it really need a whole episode to get across? Everything else here is filler, and it�s filler we�ve seen before. Brilliant though it is to get a peek at these realities, they�re only unrealized ones, and can�t grab our attention the way �real� events affecting Moya�s crew do.

It�s fun seeing the cast play against type, but we�ve just had too much of it lately. Farscape�s writers need to have more confidence in the brilliant characters they created in the first place.

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