“PK Tech Girl”
Written by Nan Hagan, directed by Tony Tilse
Season 1, Episode 7
1st US Transmission Date: 15 March 1999 (see Backstage)
1st UK Transmission Date: 24 January 2000
1st Australian Transmission: 16 September 2000
Guest Cast: Alyssa-Jane Cook (Gilina Renaez PK Technician), Derek Amer (Teurac), Phillip Hinton (Voice of Teurac), Peter Astridge (Lomus), Christopher Truswell (Voice of Lomus), Peter Knowles (Evran), David Wheeler (Capt. Selto Durka)
Synopsis: Moya comes across a derelict ship, The Zelbinion, most powerful of all PK ships, lost in battle 100 cycles ago. They board her hoping to salvage weapons or star charts, but the ship has been gutted by Sheyangs. They encounter Gilina, a PK Tech from Crais’s ship. Crais found the Zelbinion and sent her across with a team to investigate its destruction while he continued his hunt for Moya. The Sheyangs killed all her comrades, looted the ship and said they would return for the Defence Shield, which is not badly damaged. The Sheyang ship appears and charges weapons to attack Moya, but D’Argo’s appearance makes them hesitate.
John and Gilina work to get the shield operational and succeed mere seconds before the Sheyang lose patience with D’Argo’s bluffing. There is a spare shield and Gilina agrees to help them install it on Moya. The Sheyangs launch an assault and one of them breaks through the shield and boards The Zelbinion. Aeryn kills him. They broadcast a distress signal to Crais to force the Sheyangs to flee, and Gilina returns to The Zelbinion to wait for pickup.
Buck Rogers Redux: ‘I try to save a life a day. Usually it’s my own.’ John got a doctorate in Cosmic Theory. He had a poster of Clint Eastwood from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly on his bedroom wall.
You Can Be More: ‘Showing pain is a sign of weakness.’ At first Aeryn is extremely hard on Gilina and looks likely to kill her, but after Gilina tells the truth, saves their lives and installs the shield on Moya, they find common ground. Aeryn advises her how to avoid being executed or exiled for having contact with aliens, and even gives Gilina the faintest of smiles. In spite of everything, she still longs to go home, is shocked at the demotion of her unit (following her “contamination”) but refuses to show the pain of the loss she feels, except when speaking to Gilina: ‘I hope you can only ever imagine how horrible it is to never return to the life that you love.’ She grew up entirely on ships like The Zelbinion.
I Was A Teenage Luxan: ‘I spit on your grave, you sons of cowards!’ D’Argo loses his temper with the Sheyangs even before they fire on Moya and it’s his bravado that convinces them not to attack. He resents Zhaan asking him to mislead the enemy, but rises well to the challenge and perhaps learns that some situations are best handled by cunning.
Buckwheat the Sixteenth: Rygel says he was deposed over 130 cycles ago, contradicting what he said in ‘Throne For A Loss.’ The Zelbinion was the first PK ship he ended up on, and he was tortured by its Captain, Durka. He finds what appears to be Durka’s body in his cabin he shot himself. Rygel spits on the face of his torturer’s corpse and steals back his royal sash and seal.
In The Driving Seat: Pilot and Moya are afraid of fire.
The Insane Military Commander: Although he doesn’t appear, Crais is still hot on Moya’s trail and is close by throughout the episode. He demoted Aeryn’s entire unit and they can only be re-instated upon her death.
A Ship, A Living Ship: Moya’s lack of offensive or defensive capability again lands her in trouble, but now she has a defence shield.
The Ballad Of Aeryn And John: Aeryn catches John and Gilina kissing and is thrown for a loop she tells John she doesn’t like being ‘ambushed.’ John asks her: ‘haven’t you ever just “clicked” with a guy?’ Her reply changes the nature of their relationship forever: ‘yes, but I didn’t let it in the beginning I found you interesting but only for a moment.’ John says it’s good to clear the air, but Aeryn has again shown a small chink in her armour.
Alien Encounters: Sheyangs are a scavenger race who will attack the moment they sense weakness. They can breathe fire. Peacekeepers are, according to Aeryn, hired by other cultures ‘to keep order, to keep harmony’; Rygel says their job is to ‘kidnap, torture and assassinate’.
Disney On Acid: John appears to be telling Gilina the plot of Lethal Weapon 3 before getting sidetracked into describing love stories, which apparently Peacekeepers have as well (this seems unlikely given what we later learn about their breeding habits and the rules against personal attachments of any kind). When D’Argo says The Zelbinion was considered invincible John replies: ‘yeah, well, just ask Leonardo DiCaprio; even the big ones go down.’ (On set Ben Browder ad libbed and changed Leonardo DiCaprio to Bill Clinton, but they made him change it back.)
Get Frelled: John finally gets his Captain Kirk on, although what it is that he and Gilina have about each other’s eyebrows is food for disturbed thought.
What Does This Do? Gilina says that ‘human and Sebacean men are much the same’ and she says that when she’s sitting in his lap and doing a little gentle wriggling, so I wonder what exact similarity she was remarking on .
Logic Leaps: The ship’s been looted first by whoever destroyed it (see 115, ‘SPOILER Returns’) and secondly by the Sheyangs. Yet Rygel found his seal of office just lying in Durka’s room?
Bloopers: When John’s holding the terminals apart, it cuts to Gilina doing rewiring — watch closely and you’ll see that in one shot she’s wearing her jumpsuit, the next just her t-shirt, and then she’s got her jumpsuit on again.
WHAT did you just say?: John’s explanation of humanity to Gilina: ‘Human. It’s kind of like Sebacean, but we haven’t conquered other worlds yet, so we just kick the crap out of each other.’
Stats: The Zelbinion was considered invincible and was famous even on Luxan. Gilina considers it a ‘cultural treasure.’
Time measurement: a Microt is a second.
Backstage: This episode was the first Farscape to air. It was shown as a special preview on SciFi Channel’s sister channel USA Network four days before ‘Premiere’ was shown on SciFi. It is also the first episode filmed solo and not in tandem with another episode, which David Kemper believed heralded a higher level of quality and he’s right.
Anthony Simcoe: ‘we really found the tone of the show in ep seven; it really was a journey, marching straight towards episode seven and as soon as we hit that episode I feel we all discovered, as a company, what Farscape was.’
Gilina is the first character that David Kemper rescued she was to die at the end of this episode, but he liked her so much he changed the ending so he could bring her back. Exactly the same thing would later happen with Chiana.
Nan Hagan had sci-fi experience as a writer on season three of Sliders, and would go on to write two episodes each of Dawson’s Creek and JAG. This is her only contribution to Farscape.
This is the first episode directed by Tony Tilse obviously his work was well received, as he went on to direct 18 more across all four seasons. It certainly looks great, with the location filming for The Zelbinion lending the show a welcome sense of scale.
The Verdict: Moving effortlessly from atmospheric space mystery to romance to action thriller, this is real edge-of-the-seat stuff. Alyssa-Jane Cook is excellent as Gilina and the romance between her and Crichton is moving and believable. The Zelbinion sets are stunning, but the Sheyang are a bit daft, to be honest — they’re well-realised and fun, but still just fire-breathing space frogs at the end of the day. Rygel’s subplot is so underdeveloped and unexplored you wonder why they bothered; happily it turns out to be a set up for future developments. In the end, the love story carries the episode and it’s nice that Gilina doesn’t end up dead in a blaze-of-glory self-sacrifice, which is what would have happened on most shows.
Verdict Redux: I didn’t solicit my wife’s opinion on this episode as her regular snorts of mild derision told me all I needed to know — don’t think she was buying the whole romance angle, nor was she knocked out by the Sheyangs. I’m also somehow less impressed with this episode now than I was initially. Hard to say why, because I vividly remember this was the episode that turned me from enthusiast to fan, and it definitely marks a step change in quality across the board.
Scott K. Andrews has written episode guides, magazine articles, film and book reviews, comics, audio plays for Big Finish, far too many blogs, some poems you will never read, and three novels for Abaddon. He is, patently, absurd.
There was something about this episode that elevated the series a bit, more heart maybe? Jealousy from Aeryn? Whatever it was, I became more of a fan after this one, too.
Oh, the frog guys, I had forgotten about them!
Funny, I was reading your review and thinking that this was the episode where I really started to get into Farscape and there you explain exactly why. I hadn’t watched it when it was on TV originally, so was watching the episodes in order and not at the mercy of TV schedulers.
I think one reasons why it started to gel here is that Aeryn starts to show more human emotion (albeit of the less flattering kind), and starts to become a character instead of a grumpy Soldier Girl. We also start to get a bit of the backstory on the Peacekeepers and the military society that shaped her, as well as a bit more backstory on Buckwheat, which rounds out his character a bit more, too.
i really enjoyed this episode and was pleasantly surprised when things from this episode were relevant later on =)
Rewatched two nights ago. Always thought of this as one of my favorite episodes, but didn’t love it as much on this re-viewing.
The Rygel plot fails, but I enjoy the cheesy love story.
***SPOILER: And I like that we will see Gilinia again and John/Aeryn’s relationship with her will matter.***/SPOILER
One of the better lines from the episode is definitely: “There is no shame in losing to a clever opponent. And Ka D’Argo, I make it a point to someday kill my clever opponents.”
@4– I completely agree regarding SPOILER, etc. It lends a lot of heft to this episode, or so I thought, knowing what comes later.
I suppose there’s a bit more scope in this episode, or a hint at the scale of the scape universe. Knowing what comes later adds more weight to seemingly throwaway storylines. It’s amazing how sure footed it is at just 7 episodes in, there is very little to retcon compared to most space operas, babylon 5 being a notable exception obviously.
I recall this episode for having the worst episode title ever. While it does allow you to exactly place it, “PK Tech Girl” is just horrible especially when the Peacekeepers had never been, to my recollection anyway, called “PKs.” I remember , even years later, that the title did inspire curiosity in me and later I did a face palm when I realized that PK meant Peacekeeper. Also, although young, Gilina is clearly an adult.
Hey, I am big fan of this site re-reads and that’s the first re-watched blog I am reading. It is fun and Farscape has always been a favourite for me. But I was wondering if there is any chance to errm, if I may ask, speed things a bit? Would be a troube if we do this two times a week? Most of the re-reads are two times a week as well. (to be honest I’d like 7 times a week but that’s a bit too much , right? right?!?? (smiley-face-here-because-i-am-not-big-fan-of-emoticons))
For me too, this episode marked a turning point in my appreciation for the series.
On rewatching last week, I thought it held up pretty well. It is true that the Rygel sub-plot is short, but it is the first time we see genuine vulnerability from Rygel, which leads to some nice fleshing out of the character. The Gilina “romance” goes rather quickly, but I thought the actors had good chemistry and played it with heart and conviction. While the Sheyangs did have a whiff of Ferengi about them, the characters’ reactions to them gave me enough sense of danger to suspend disbelief. I agree that the title stinks.
The worst part of the ep for me was the contrived “hold these plates apart” scene; they could have done better with that I think. I really liked Aeryn’s development here and the role Gilina played as a catalyst both in her looking back to her previous life and becoming more open to her new life.
@tonka I’d love to, but I’m afraid with all my other writing commitments – Sniper Elite V2: Target Hitler coming soon folks ;-) – I’d be worried about missing a deadline. This way at least I can be totally reliable. Sorry. But it’s nice to have people clamouring for more!
See, I adore the Sheyangs, and brought them back in the comic book precisely because I thought they were awesome. There’s no cause to modify “fire-breathing frogs” with “just.” ;)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Like so many others, this is really the episode where I become hooked on the series and really love it.
Yes, I think the Sheyangs are just fire-breathing frogs and kinda cheezy looking. But, the rest of the episode really hits a home run.
I even got my wife watching with this episode!
I caught on to Farscape late halfway through the first season, I ended up not seing this episode until I did a rewatch before “PeaceKeeperWars”. I remember being upset that I missed it the first time, because watching it, so much of the rest of the show makes more sense. :)
i like this episode a lot, esp as most have pointed out what happens later on,crais is a formidable opponent as you learn he’s never that far off their tail which has got to be worrying to all the crew living on edge like that since they escaped! i don’t like the romance but hey if you click you click , plus she’s not a bad person!
it just wasnt fair to aeryn she doesnt have it as easy to be open and emotionally available like that tech girl, love when she shows a little bit of vulnerability at the situation! so all that beating up john was her way of saying she found him annoyingly interested against her better judgement!
also seeing the interior of that peacekeeper carrier is interesting as you realize this is the first time but not the last our crew will be on one(hope not to much of a spoiler) and the difference is stark between a desecrated ship and one full of life and habitable space!
i just watched “john carter” so hearing john and aeryn talk about never going home and how that feels was just another example of a story used and re-used but made super poignant with ben and claudia great acting and rapport which was sorely missing from “john carter”
aww chiana i don’t miss her right now but once she joins the crew she becomes an integral part of them!
Going to join in with he others who name this episode as the one that convinced them about the series. I think I’m fonder of the Sheyangs that quite a few, I thought they felt convincingly chaotic as villains which made them feel like a genuine threat. Was never fully convinced by them backing down just because a Luxan appeared on screen, though, given that they were literally seconds (microts?) away from obliterating/crippling Moya.
Also remember someone (Aeryn?) telling Rygel to put his ‘silly persona vedetta aside’ or words to that effect, in relation to him seeking out Durka, which never sat well with me. Durka literally tortured Rygel, any resentment Rygel feels as a result could not be more legitimate.
They definitely could have thought of a better name for the episode though :P