As Scorpius, Noranti, and Sikozu start to find their feet as members of Moya's crew, the rest of the gang find their own roles shifting -- with an unexpected outcome.

This is a classic bottle episode, in that it's all shot on existing sets, essentially an exercise in budgetary constraint. The central premise harks back to the type of story the show told so well in season 1, and makes quite a pleasant change from a lot of the recent big events.

There are a lot of trust issues being dealt with here, largely with regard to the new members of the crew (Sikozu and Noranti), those less welcome (Scorpius), and the regulars themselves (as they try to decide who should be their captain), and even more so between Aeryn and John.

And then there's Aeryn and Chiana, who have a quite wonderful scene together early in the story, where the former confides in the latter about her pregnancy, and the fact that the baby may not be Crichton's.

As I said, a wonderful scene, very well written and acted, but I'm not entirely sure that it rings true from the perspective of Aeryn's character. She's never been the most forthcoming of people, and to talk to Chi so openly seems to go against the grain. The fact that she later decides the conversation was a mistake seems to compound this. For me, neither of these scenes really seem like the Aeryn I know, they seem more devisive than constructive.

Chi's almost unstoppable desire to divulge Aeryn's secret to D'Argo also grates a little, if only for the fact that there seems to be very little in the way of repercussions for her in the aftermath. Again, it seems devisive, a way of getting John and Aeryn to deal with their situation in a roundabout way, rather than approaching it head on.

But that's just my opinion.

And neither of these niggling little uncertainties manage to spoil the episode for me, which I always find very enjoyable.

I love Noranti in this episode. The way her investigations into dealing with the plant infestation swing on whether or not the tendrils would be a good addition to a casserole always makes me laugh.

Sikozu's intelligence shines through, but her motives are still cloudy, and her willingness to help Scorpius (and even vote for him to be captain) remains intact after he saved her in What Was Lost.

D'Argo has some brilliant moments, not least of which is the scene where he reveals Aeryn's secret to John (this one I had no problem with, it rang very true imo), and then finally becomes the captain (interesting that no-one voted for John, what does that say?).

It's also interesting that the only member of the crew who blames Crichton for the infestation is Rygel, considering that it was because of the human that they were sitting on top of the wormhole coordinates in the first place :lol:

There's one particularly disturbing scene involving Pilot and a mouthful of the plant tendrils. We get to see some new and interesting areas of the ship, the atmospheric scrubbers, giant fans that nearly cause Chi to lose her attire :lol:

:lmao:

And then there's yet another fantastic final scene, as John and Aeryn finally talk, and things - as always - don't go quite as expected.

Another very enjoyable episode :thumbsup:

The fan room is new though, we haven't seen that before.

I would say that Aeryn is out of character because of her hormones, she is pregnant, she has been keeping it a secret from John who has just told her he has found out and she is in a quandary about what she can tell him, she is in a situation that she doesn't know how to deal with. Zhaan is no longer around so the only female shipmate she can trust to share this with is Chi :)

bad choice of course :lol:

She might as well have told Rygel :lol:

I know what you mean. The old Pip, from season 1 or even 2, may have done exactly that, but the Chi that has grown and matured abord Moya would never betray Aeryn like that, at least I didn't think so.

Ok. The main story (Evil plant from outer space) is nothing special. Seen it all before. But the sense of menace increases tenfold when we see Pilot all but covered in tendrils. It even got inside him :fear:

In this episode, like so many others, the drama unfolding between the crew of moya is the main point of interest, the sci fi just seems to be incidental :D

Chi has always been much closer to John though, maybe she wanted him to find out

I don't know. It just seemed out of character to me.

Yeah, me too, it just didn't sit right with me :)

I was going to write practiacally the sames things about Chi and Aeryn that you wrote in your review Steve. Glad I read yours before I posted mine :D

:lol: Glad I could help :lol: ;)

but Aeryn and Chi have never been close have they, if D'Argo had told her a secret she would have kept it but it was Aeryn so makes sense that she would then confide to D'Argo, to me anyway.

Possibly, but I think it was more out of character for Aeryn to tell Chi in the first place. I think she would have been more likely to tell D'Argo or Pilot before Pip.

I can understand that she may have wanted to speak to a woman about it (which basically means Chiana, Noranti or Sikozu :lol: ), but having said that I can also see the warrior side of her wanting to talk to D'Argo too, and the latter would've been more true to her character, imo :)

The impression I got from Aeryn, and this is from some later episodes too is that she is a little bit more emotionally fragile now she is pregnant and perhaps not making the best judgements.

I mean not really rational of her to go running off to be a peacekeeper assasin now was it :lol: