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"This is the first planet in twenty we've found with any drinking water, and you're gonna get us all banished." -- D'Argo to Chiana
Episode 4.09, "A Prefect Murder"
Written by Mark Saraceni
Directed by Geoff Bennett
Air Date: 8.09.02
It's too bad everyone's favorite trollop didn't fool around with just a few more locals; we might just have avoided this train wreck of an episode. Yes, that's right - a mere week after the brilliant "I Shrink Therefore I Am," we're forced to endure this. It simply does not make for a good contrast. But you know what, let's give it a go anyway, since it's an interesting case study on stand alone episodes.
Episodes that have very little to do with the overall story arc can still be quite good. Sometimes they're even necessary for budgetary reasons. Episodes that don't require additional sets, for instance, because all the action takes place on Moya, are called 'bottle episodes.' The aforementioned "I Shrink..." is a fine example, and there are countless others. (My personal fave - "Crackers Don't Matter" also springs to mind.) What made those episodes so good is that the driving action directly affected the crew. Moya is overrun by bountyhunters, or Moya is hijacked by a whacky mad scientist. As a bonus, Crichton saves the day in impressive fashion in both cases.
Now, the wrong way to go about a stand alone is to throw the heroes into a situation that really has absolutely nothing to do with them, and the viewer is asked to care about people we've never even heard of before. And that is the case with "A Prefect Murder."
The crew is desperate for supplies as they've had little luck so far in Tormented Space. The finally find a suitable planet where there is an uneasy peace between hundreds of clans. But before too long, Chiana is banished for some indiscretions. All the while, however, Sikozu is messing around with the son of the incumbent Prefect, Gaashah. Then, Aeryn begins having violent hallucinations. The visions become gruesome reality, though, as Aeryn inexplicably murders seventeen clansman, including Gaashah. Wisely, she flees.
The rest of the episode deals with Crichton, D'Argo, Sikozu, and Chiana (yup, doesn't take well to banishing) trying to figure out what happened. Alright, I'm just gonna give away the mystery here, so skip ahead if you haven't seen this one yet. The current Prefect, Falaak has no intentions of stepping down. His henchman, E'Alet, has the ability to spawn little bugs out of his [i]head[/i] (kinda cool, actually) which implant murderous subliminal signals in their victims. But in the end, they figure out that Falaak is responsible, and when Gaashah's son threatens to expose him, he commits suicide by jumping out the window. Yes, I'm serious.
Okay, I don't even know where to start. The direction of this episode was... misguided, to put it nicely. Footage was shown and re-shown from different perspectives for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Most of it was outside of Aeryn's scope, so its only purpose seems to have been to make an apparently short episode run long enough. It did convey a foreboding-kinda vibe to the whole thing, but it was just too much, and too confusing with no payoff. The premise itself was totally uninteresting, the aliens were annoying, and the death of the Prefect may well have been the worst scene in Farscape history. Worse yet, the John/Aeryn stuff was just lacking, especially the scene where they drew their guns on one another. It just seemed forced. Also, where was Scorpius during all of this? Just kickin' in on Moya with Wrinkles? But the very worst part may be that this episode had some pretty good production values, and it was all for naught.
So basically... I don't think I have anything nice to say about this one. And you know how the saying goes, so I'll just stop now. Let's just do ourselves a favor and pretend "A Prefect Murder" never happened.
Episode Rating: 4 out of 10.
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Upcoming Eps - MINOR SPOILERS
4.10, "Coup By Clam"
Moya's crew exhibits strange symptoms after an alien doctor poisons them with deadly mollusks.
4.11, "Unrealized Reality"
- written by David Kemper Believing that Crichton's wormhole knowledge threatens the universe, and inter-dimensional being plans to execute Crichton. (you won't wanna miss this one)
