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1.1 Premiere

Writer Director Tour Date Production Number
Rockne S. O'Bannon Andrew Prouse March 19, 1999 1.01
Synopsis
Astronaut John Crichton, like all good sci-fi heros, figured out a new way to travel and immediately tested it. Also like all good sci-fi heros, he screwed up, and found himself on the other side of the galaxy, inadvertantly involved in a galactic prison break. Forced into an alliance with the escaped prisoners and an exiled Peacekeeper by Crais, a high-ranking Peacekeeper (talk about your misnomers) whose brother was killed during Crichton's explosive arrival, Crichton's big problems have become how to get home, and how to survive until then.
Best Lines
Crichton: Don't move! Or I'll fill you full of... little yellow bolts of light!

Aeryn: It is my duty, my breeding, since birth! It's what I am!
Crichton: You can be more.

Crichton: See, you're fixed. Go play.

Crichton: And there's life out here, Dad. Weird, amazing... psychotic life. And, uh... in Technicolor.

Kiki Says
Okay, we're in 30's Sci-Fi Serial Territory. If the "Ride of the Valkyries"-esque intro music weren't a dead giveaway, the bright pretty neon sets and smartass humor would be. I immediately put Aeryn in the same class as Susan Ivanova and Miss Parker as Women I Wanna Be When I Grow Up. Zhaan and D'Argo don't get to do much, but they're amusing; Rygel seems watchable in a squash-him-now kinda way, I like the idea of a living ship, and John Crichton is very amusing when he's confused. Not to mention cute. (I called Perri as soon as the shirt was off, knowing her taste in men. Not that *I'm* objecting....)
Perri Says
Not a bad pilot, as pilots go. Gotta love Aeryn's idea of making a first impression, and Zhaan rocks (I must disagree with my learned collegue - I wanna be Zhaan when I grow up), but the Muppets are going to take some getting used to. They also need to take some of the money going to CGI and put it into their cheesy scenery. Still, bring your popcorn (so you can throw it at the screen, since both Crais and Rygel are begging for it), bring your towels (ladies, anyway -- John wakes up without clothes in one memorable, if much too brief, scene), and prepare to giggle your way through an entertaining hour. It ain't art, but it's fun.

1.2 Exodus from Genesis

Writer Director Tour Date Production Number
Ro Hume Brian Henson March 26, 1999 1.03
Synopsis
After a close encounter with a Peacekeeper Marauder, and a closer encounter with a cloud of space debris, Moya's crew finds themselved with a gang of unexpected hitchhikers who like things hot. This turns up the heat for Aeryn, whose Sebacean physiology is not equipped to handle high temperatures; in fact, they lead to an unpleasant fate-worse-than-death. And to top the situation off -- remember that Marauder?
Best Lines
Crichton: Looks like it's just you and me.
D'Argo: Actually, it is just me.... and you.

Aeryn: (to Crichton) Could you have kept your promise?

Kiki Says
The best bits are between Aeryn and John, although it's way too soon for them to milk the situation for all it's worth. Rygel continues to be squishable, the Peacekeepers are wonderfully hissable, and the alien cockroaches are iiiiiiiick. The F/X for the clones works wihout a hitch. First view we get of the Terrace. I want one of those.
Perri Says
I would have expected this to work better later in the season, when Moya's crew has a more vested interest in Aeryn's survival, but the interactions still come off pretty well, especially between Aeryn and Crichton -- 'shippers, start your engines! Especially liked their last scene on the terrace - lots of nice levels happening there. And I am not in the least interested in details on Rygel's interactions with the Sovereign! Did like John's solution to the Peacekeeper problem, and Virgina Hey turns in a great performance. [Note: Ha! I was right! This should have been later! Not much later, but still...]

1.3 Back and Back and Back to the Future

Writer Director Tour Date Production Number
Babs Greyhosky Rowan Woods April 2, 1999 1.05
Synopsis
D'Argo persuades Moya's crew to pick up the survivors of an exploded science ship, and convey them to their rendevouz point -- his insistence certainly has nothing to do with the fact that one of the scientists is, by Luxon standards, an extremely hot babe. She's also giving John some flashes -- after a close encounter with something in their escape pod, he's found an unsettling ability to experience the future before it happens. The big problem is preventing it, before D'Argo and John both wind up dead.
Best Lines
Zhaan: "He says he is experiencing the future."
Aeryn: "The future? He can barely function in the present."

John: "Sorry. Should have seen it coming."

D'Argo: "Do not mock me."
John: "D'Argo, I mock all of us."
Kiki Says
Matala earns Bitch-Queen status in my book. That super-sweet sing-song voice of hers was driving me to chant "kill her, kill her, *kill her*" at the screen every time she showed up. D'Argo's actually sympathetic instead of just stupid here, since Matala really is a very slippery wench, and he's so obviously lonely after eight cycles in prison. The cuts back and forth from present to possible future are as confusing for the viewer as they are for John, which helps up the suspense factor a lot.
Perri Says
I'm not even going to discuss D'Argo's hormones, a topic I have no interest in; I'll just state for the record that, even after that long away from home, his taste in women sucks, poor guy. Want to know what he really did to get sent to prison, but it's cool that John isn't pushing. There were some really cool twists on the seeing-the-future routine, trying to keep track of what was actually happening and what was just John flashing forward. Loved him very deliberately breaking Zhaan's glass dealie -- niiice scene.

1.4 Throne for a Loss

Writer Director Tour Date Production Number
Richard Manning Pino Amenta April 9, 1999 1.04
Synopsis
Rygel's attempts to impress potential customers backfires, resulting in the Dominar being kidnapped by the Tavleks, a race of warriors who use drug-laden gauntlets as super weapons, and held for ransom. Moya's crew is (extremely) unwillingly forced to rescue Rygel to regain a ship's component he took with him, and to do so using one of the captured gauntlets, which has unfortunate effects on its wearers -- like overagression, lack of judgement and general homicidal urges.
Best Lines
Crichton: If the gauntlet brings out the real you, both of you think long and hard about therapy!

Crichton: Don't you tempt me, Fluffy.

Zhaan: No sermons.

Kiki Says
Zhaan finally gets to sink her teeth into a plot, and is uniformly cool throughout. I get the impression this woman doesn't blink at anything less than a nuclear explosion, and possibly not that if you gave her shades. The gauntlet plot gives D'Argo, Aeryn, and John a chance to have way too much fun beating each other up in the middle of a forest that looks like it was spray-painted by an old Dr. Who crew. And the bad guys are again amusing and icky, although I didn't find the spider-crab very convincing (and they forgot to do makeup on the youngest Tavlek's hands). Rygel gets some sympathy whenever he keeps his mouth shut, but this isn't often. It's a tribute to the F/X and acting that go into him, though, that I have by now stopped automatically thinking of him as a Muppet.
Perri Says
Well, damn. Just when I'd gotten used to the show's being fluffy, they go and sneak in an extremely well done, very subtle plot on drug/steroid use and abuse. While the planetside follies of the Moya Guerrilla Troupe are entertaining as hell (particularly Aeryn and John, who is invading Aeryn's personal space at every available opportunity; not to mention the nice D'Argo and Aeryn moments), Zhaan and the captive on ship are serious and, at a few moments, heartwrenching. But geez, deck John and it barely fazes him -- never even broke his train of thought! Gotta agree with Kiki, though -- whoever had the blue spraypaint needed to be supervised more closely.

1.5 PK Tech Girl

Writer Director Tour Date Production Number
Nan Hagan Tony Tilse April 16, 1999
[USA Network Preview March 14, 1999]		 1.07
Synopsis
The discovery of the floating hulk of a legendary Peacekeeper prison ship, the Zelbinion, brings no weapons or information, but vistors in the form of Sheyangs, an aggressive group of vultures, and a Peacekeeper tech named Gilina. True to form, Aeryn hates her for being a tech and the bearer of bad news about Aeryn's unit, and John falls for her. If the Sheyangs don't kill Moya, the UST might!
Best Lines
Crichton: Human. We haven't discovered other planets yet, so instead of conquering other cultures, we just kick the crap out of each other.

Crichton: Well, I try to save a life a day. Usually it's my own.

Crichton: (on Aeryn) She's not a traitor. Not by a long shot. Crais never gave her a chance. Not like we're giving you.

Zhaan: Face your demons, Rygel, or they will chase you from the shadows to the pyre.

Aeryn: Sorry about the mess.

Continuity Glitches
Gilina's costume changes from full jumpsuit to shirt-and-shorts and back again during the confrontation with the Sheyang. Either she's the quickest quick-change artist in the world, or they messed up the editing. Slap their hands. No cookie!
Kiki Says
Wheeeee! All right, more coherent: great John and Aeryn stuff, with the almost-romantic, non-romantic, and angsty all getting equal time. A not-terrible (although not Aeryn-class) blonde for John to get cuddly with, and boy, he does that well! < fan, fan, fan > Silly Japanese fighting fish in Samurai costumes flailing about, but the fire-breathing was amusing. And we get some more Peacekeeper background that's beginning to almost become a plot. And, oh yeah, Rygel gets to face his personal demons. I'm not caring, but someone probably is, and he'd be cuddly if he ever stopped talking, y'know?
Perri Says
All right, who thought Aeryn was going to just throw that component at John and Gilina and the hell with the defense grid? < snerk > Some of the best John/Aeryn scenes to date, but those bad guys... sheesh. Fighting Flounders on Parade. Loved Zhaan coaching (and harassing) D'Argo behind the scenes, and I'm not objecting to the John/Gilina kissage at all. Nice job with what could have been yet another rehash of a badly overused plot. But we really could have lived without the Rygel C-plot; episode run a little short, guys? [ED: Okay, okay, it was pointy!!! < g > Way to set up future episodes!]

1.6 Thank God It's Friday. Again

Writer Director Tour Date Production Number
David Wilks Rowan Woods April 23, 1999 1.06
Synopsis
D'Argo announces his plans to leave Moya and take up residence on a quiet farming planet whose selling points include peaceful days, partying nights and some heinously impressive chick value. Crichton and Zhaan realize something is wrong -- like, the entire planet has been enslaved -- but John falls in with the wrong crowd and Zhaan falls into the trap. Meanwhile, Aeryn and Pilot have to become scientists to figure out what's wrong with Rygel, whose usual offensive bodily functions have become truly explosive.
Best Lines
Aeryn: (re D'Argo) Actually, he's been off the ship for three days, but we couldn't find you to tell you. You hide very well.

Crichton: Why didn't he go after Spanky, here? He's male! Sort of.

Crichton: My man D'Argo's entered the Promised Land.
Aeryn: And left his brain behind.

D'Argo: I would have approached you at the next gathering.
Zhaan:And I would have accepted.

Any point at which Crichton is pretending to be stoned. < major giggles >

Missing Scenes
John convincing Aeryn Peacekeepers were behind the planet's enslavement. It's doubtful she believed him without evidence, and giving up the secrets of making the weapons to Peacekeeper 'enemies' must have been a hard choice for her, given what a fuss Gilina kicked up about the defense grids in 'PK Tech Girl'. But we didn't see any of it!
Kiki Says
Party, party, party! Gotta go with Perri on the low humor --- I was muttering "ick" more often than I wanted to be --- but some of it was still amusing. John and Zhaan sharing a bed and a whole lot of personal space, Crichton doing his impression of someone on hash brownies, and Aeryn freaking at Crichton for forcing her into the geek role were all giggle-worthy. The Peacekeeper hook was *very* nice --- clearly, they'll continue to be our main baddies for the series, and the character stuff we got out of this one for Aeryn and D'Argo was worth most of the icks. Most of them. Not all of them.
Perri Says
To quote our friend Dianne, "The Planet of the Fuschia Hippies." Can we say, humor aimed at the lowest common denominator? All right, I was giggling, but I hope the show doesn't descend to these depths too often. I did not need to see Rygel that close to naked, and I didn't want to know nearly that much about his bodily functions, thanks. On the other hand, the episode can't be dismissed as non-pointy -- finding out Peacekeepers were behind the planet's enslavement, and the repercussions from the planet's freedom, should be interesting. I also loved Aeryn's discovery that she could be smart as well as strong, and John's delight in that fact, and all of Aeryn's scenes with Pilot rocked. But freeing that planet was awfully simple -- must be nice to be able to manumit an entire race by flipping a switch and turning off their stereos.

1.7 I, E.T.

Writer Director Tour Date Production Number
Sally Lapiduss Pino Amenta May 8, 1999 1.02
Synopsis
As if being on the run from the Peacekeepers wasn't bad enough, it turns out they stuck a tracking beacon on Moya while she was in custody, and it's been broadcasting the ship's location to all six directions of the galaxy. So, the crew bops down to a planet which hasn't made interstellar contact yet to look for an anesthetic for Moya, so they can yank the beacon out of her nervous system. Unfortunately, John, Aeryn and D'Argo take too long on their pharmacy run, and Rygel and Zhaan have to start the operation without them, before Moya sinks to the bottom of a marsh. While Aeryn and D'Argo play hide-and-seek with the local MIB's and USAF, John makes first contact. Eeek.
Best Lines
Pilot: With apologies, but that is Moya's central nerve nexus. It's extremely sensitive.
John: Well, how sensitive is sensitive?
Aeryn: Look, she's just going to have to endure it.
John: Could *you* be a little sensitive?

Aeryn: Look, I'm new to all this escaped prisoner crap, all right?

Rygel: This is a tokkar knife! Do you _know_ what ceremony young Luxan males use this for? On themselves? At that certain age?!
Zhaan: Then I suspect that D'Argo will want it back unharmed.

Aeryn: Your greatest fear will come to pass, Hynerian. Someday, you will die at the hands of a Peacekeeper.
Continuity Glitches
In the scenes after Rygel bites Aeryn, while she's supporting Zhaan, we were wrong, she is wearing a bandage -- when the camera angle reverses, the bandage is suddenly metallic, instead of the neat white gauze-type thing we see from the other angle. Either they changed their minds, then changed it back and forgot to reshoot, or they were using something unrecognizably funky to simulate Aeryn's bandages.

Also, how do the Deneans understand John and D'Argo? Do the translator microbes grow in their water supply? No other rational explanation seems to be forthcoming, unless John's microbes come with a Denean Berlitz course.

Kiki Says
A nicely mind-bendy take on the whole Roswell incident, with John getting to stand in for the bug-eyed little grey guys. It's very weird from both sides of the glass: Lyneea is about as freaked as you would be if an elf walked into your living room and demanded all your cinnamon for his spaceship, and it's fun watching John get mental whiplash trying to deal with the sitch. Zhaan is her usual ultra-cool self, taking on Moya's physical pain --- she should get another credit level to her priestship for that. Rygel, for once, does elicit sympathy, probably because he sucks it up and keeps going (and then stuffs his mouth with the Clorium. Typical). D'Argo and Aeryn don't get much to do, but there are some fun tiny bits in the middle of the bughunt: D'Argo whipping out his tongue, neither of them knowing how to use an analyzer, and Aeryn's confrontation with Rygel back on the ship (she has *got* to work on her people skills. But then, so does Rygel). This is a good ep, but it's weird to watch out-of-sequence, since the character continuity for the series is good enough that events occurring here *couldn't* happen after "Thank God It's Friday Again." Whoever made the decision to scramble the airing order of these shows has some 'splaining to do...
Perri Says
Vastly amusing switcheroo on the whole 'first contact' riff. John knew all of his lines -- he's been playing at this since he was a kid! -- but he wound up cast as the alien instead of the Human, which was messing with his head to no end. Loved seeing Lyneea flipping when she first 'meets' Pilot -- great turn from the guest star there. The stuff onboard Moya rocked, as well -- Pilot got some wonderful lines (he's fast becoming my favorite character), Zhaan got to be cool and Rygel was less obnoxious than usual (except when he was biting Aeryn -- it is mondo freaksome to see a Muppet with blood on his lips < shudder >). Awesome interaction between Rygel and Zhaan, in fact; this is one of the few times we are reminded that Rygel and Zhaan have known each other longer than anyone else aboard Moya. I so wish these had aired in the correct production order -- this would have been much more effective earlier on, when the open hostility between so many of the crew (mainly Aeryn, D'Argo and Rygel) was running much more overtly. As it is, though, it still has the desired, highly disturbing effect. And, of course, the entire landing sequence for Moya was beautifully done -- major kudos to the FX gang.
 

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