Lava’s A Many Splendored Thing
Written by Michael Miller, directed by Michael Pattinson
Season 4, episode 4
1st US Transmission Date: 28 June 2002
1st UK Transmission Date: 21 October 2002
Guest Cast: Raelee Hill (Sikozu), Melissa Jaffer (Noranti), John Adam (Raa’Keel), Jack Finsterer (Gleeg), Alan Flower (Frool), Ross Newton (Sloggard), Teo Gebert (Weldon), Mick Roughan (Airek).
Synopsis: Forced to land on a volcanic planet, Rygel, D’Argo, Noranti, and John stumble across a gang of thieves stealing some treasure hidden in caves by a bunch of do-gooders. Rygel is caught in a trap while John, D’Argo and Noranti, unable to escape from the caves, play hide and seek with the thieves.
Sikozu and Chiana manage to use Lo’la to blast into the caves, Noranti signals the owners of the treasure to come rescue them, and John and D’Argo deal with the bad guys and save Rygel. They fly away to rendezvous with Moya.
Buck Rogers Redux: His lo-fi plan to hit the bad guys with rocks actually works; he dives into lava to save Rygel, putting his life at risk to do the right thing. He makes jokes, looks pissed off that his day’s gone sideways again, and generally acts like the John we know and love, but who’s been MIA so far this season.
I Was A Teenage Luxan: D’Argo is on fine form this week, cracking wise, flinging the crew across lava pools and—a comparative rarity for a character who’s supposed to be a mighty warrior—fighting a bad guy one-on-one and decapitating the mug.
Buckwheat the Sixteenth: Rygel’s kleptomaniac tendencies get the crew in trouble again, but he gets his just desserts. Has he ever suffered this badly? Having his nethers sealed in amber when he’s got diarrhoea, then his whole body, then being dropped in lava.
A Ship, A Living Ship!: Moya has received D’Argo’s message and is coming to get them.
Grandma, we love you: She can regurgitate a substance called jilnak. It tastes like chicken but wreaks havoc on your guts. She’s narcoleptic, all of a sudden. Her blind trust in the Tarkans causes all sorts of problems, and she tends to blurt things out in a way that seems almost innocent—hard to square with the ruthless manipulator of the last two episodes. She finally proves herself a useful team player by using her hallucinogenic dust to convince two goons that she’s a belly-dancing alien siren so John and D’Argo can knock them out.
Bobblehead: After working with Crichton in 401, Rygel in 402 and D’Argo in 403, this week she’s teamed up with Chiana. It seems the writers are trying her out alongside each character in turn to see which ones she sparks off best against. Her spiky, patronising but ultimately successful team-up with Chiana is huge fun, and she proves herself well placed amongst the crew when she’s willing to cover her hands in D’Argo’s vomit—no room on Moya for anyone too squeamish about bodily functions of any kind. She can go without food for long periods of time.
Alien Encounters: Tarkan freedom fighters are known for their humanitarian good works throughout the galaxy.
Disney On Acid: Lou Costello was one half of the classic American comedy double act Abbot and Costello.
Blooper: Rygel’s arse is sealed tight in the amber, yet one of his farts escapes. John says Rygel can survive in the amber because he’s amphibious; but that only implies he can extract oxygen from water through gills, not that he can hold his breath for half an hour.
Behind the scenes: John Adam, who plays Raa’Keel also played Bekesh in the first two seasons.
The Verdict: Now here’s an oddity. Neither the writer nor director of this episode have been responsible for an episode of Farscape before, and neither will be again (although Michael Miller was a script editor this season). So it’s strange that this is the first episode this year which, for my money, is both well written and directed, and which feels like Farscape.
It’s not an earth-shatteringly original episode but it’s funny, silly, gross, exciting—everything the show should be. The ambitious sets and design are unlike anything the show’s tried before and they work really well. The bromance between John and D’Argo feels real and funny, and Noranti, while still feeling like she’s there to do what the story demands rather than being a coherent character, is at least amusing and good value for money.
A huge relief after the last three episodes and a sign that Farscape has life left in it yet.
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.
Given that MGM had a problem with the Bond stuff, would this maybe be why we later got the Vic Fontaine program? It let the producer’s play with Bashir’s 1960’s fetish, without treading too much on Bond territory?
A 9???????
After this episode was over, I turned to husband and said, “That is the WORST thing I have ever seen!” Like, this might actually be worse than Q-pid and that episode where everybody devolves because of the T-cells in their DNA (I am completely blanking on the title). The only thing that gets it to maybe a 2 or 3 is, a)the cast clearly having fun chewing the scenery and b)Garak getting to snark about what a spy’s life truly is. And I feel like we’ve already gotten quite a few episodes where the cast get to have fun playing different characters, so, honestly, I’m over that gimmick now.
But…ugh…not a fan of Holosuite episodes, usually not a fan of ‘alternate setting’ episodes (and I’m not that into the whole Bond thing to start with), and this was basically Bashir at his very Bashir-iest.
I mean, at least Qpid had John de Lancie…by the way, hope you had fun hanging with him!
Generally speaking I hate “the holodeck safeties are off” episodes, but I make a huge exception for this one. Like with “Little Green Men” a fondness for ridiculous 60s spy fiction really helps and this episode may hit even more marks than LGM did with its genre. (And krad missed one obvious homage which is right there in the title. Namely Our Man Flint which was half parody itself.) It’s a fun hour and it’s easy to just sit back and enjoy. OTOH, it might have been better coming after a bit of a serious stretch, rather than the third in a run of lighter episodes.
Of course, Garak’s running commentary and comparison with real spycraft does provide a bit of serious tone. He’s not in the least bit wrong about any of it, either. I wonder what he’d think of George Smiley.
I bet they could have gotten away with doing more of this. As noted, this was an entire genre, and just because Bond had more staying power doesn’t give MGM the rights to the whole thing. But they were probably still a bit gunshy from the Holmes debacle.
Lisamarie: I adore this episode. *shrug* And the one you can’t remember the title of is “Genesis.” :)
And I didn’t really get to hang with deLancie — I honestly barely saw him.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
DemetriosX: I did too mention Our Man Flint, right there in the first Trivial matters paragraph….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
No problem, I am probably not the target audience for this episode ;) After all, I’m sitting here at a software company wearing duct taped glasses, snow pants, a sweatshirt and with my hair in a messy ponytail. Clearly, people here only love me for my mind ;)
You can spot Ira Behr’s footprints and love of old-school Hollywood all over this first half of the fourth season.
Much like Little Green Men and Sword of Kahless, this is the kind of episode that would never have been made back under Michael Piller’s leadership. This is much more suited to Ira’s sensibility.
This is also the episode that actually improves with repeated viewings, especially after having seen a lot of Bond or other flamboyant action/spy films.
When I first saw the title for this episode, back in 1995, I actually thought they were going to kill Bashir off for good. “Our Man Bashir” really sounded like a post-mortem eulogy.
Yo, KRAD: you mean Gert Fröbe, not Gert Forbe!
I love this episode (I guess I am the target audience) – it is just so silly – it’s really a breath of fresh air before all that is to come in the next couple of seasons.
Oh and tell your fiance to warm up the oven :)
Yes, well worth it just to see Worf in a tux! And damn the 24th century aversion to smoking. Our favorite Klingon needed a stogie in every episode, especially in combat.
By the way, ever notice how smoky some of the Klingon ships are, like the Bird of Prey in The Search for Spock? Come on, you know those guys stopped by planet New Cuba on the edge of the Neutral Zone before heading to Genesis. Or New Amsterdam…