FarscapeWeekly Farscape Scratch 'n' Sniff episode review

Scratch 'n' Sniff
Season 3 episode 13

Have you ever had a friend, a good friend, a generally likeable guy, who just turned into an idiot when he got drunk? And did this friend ever force you to listen to a long, complicated story that he just had to tell, even though he was so far under the influence that standing up was a problem? That, I'm afraid, is "Scratch 'n' Sniff" in a nutshell. How much you'll enjoy this episode is entirely dependent on your tolerance for incoherence, along with your sensitivity to bright colors, loud music, casual sex, drug use, and a general willingness to suspend your disbelief altogether.

Here's the setup: John and D'Argo's bickering has finally pushed Pilot to the breaking point, and he sends them packing for ten solar days so he and Moya can enjoy some peace and quiet. They're orbiting planet Club Med (actually it was called LoMo), so Chiana and Jool decide to go, too. When they all return to Moya after only 2 days, broke, exhausted, and either hung over or still drunk, Pilot is pretty ticked. So Crichton, still nursing a drink, hunkers down on the console and proceeds to tell Pilot what happened down there.

The narrative itself is not nearly as confusing as the direction and the editing, which are so out-there that they succeed only in calling attention to themselves. We've got the weird camera angles, the repeated lines of dialog, the fast cuts, the flashbacks, the flashfowards, the flashsideways. There's a whole lot of those flash-whenevers going on. We've also got voice-overs to introduce people we need to know, which include Raxil, another terrific performance from Francesca Buller, and the black-clad baddie, Fe'tor, Tamblyn Lord's powerful and creepy drug lord.

So, the story: Crichton and D'Argo are diverted by a couple of feathered beauties (with predictable, but hilarious, results), leaving Chiana and Jool on their own in the nightclub. Chiana's striking looks catch Fe'tor's attention, and he reels her in with a sniff of freslin, a drug that, in this case, made him seem very attractive to her. Both the girls head off with Fe'tor to his home, where it's one big party, all the time. Come morning, John and D'Argo recover only to find themselves on display, and Chiana and Jool incommunicado. Enter Raxil, who expertly plays the two men under the guise of trying to help them so they will help her. The obvious route would have Fe'tor as a sexual predator, but he's much worse. It's hard to get a sense of just how bad he is, though, because of the way the story unfolds. There's a kick, a bounce to it, that, along with the bright and flashy visuals, is directly at odds with the horrifying stuff that's going on.

In spite of this fundamental disconnect, there are some priceless moments to be found. The funniest scene in the series to date gives a hung-over Crichton, insisting to D'Argo, "I am dressed," only to react in horror when he realizes what he's dressed in. It's a tiny scene that showcases Ben Browder's comedic talents. Francesca Buller has a wonderful scene in which she castigates Crichton and D'Argo as being useless; again, their reputation has preceded them, and Ralix expected a lot more.

The constant back-and-forth between John and D'Argo has its amusing moments, too, but Lani Tupu as Pilot, the Voice of Reality, gets my nod for the best performance, including a wonderful little growl. The Creature Shop's "pups" did masterful work on Pilot's facial expressions; his disgust and impatience were obvious. There are holes in Crichton's story a mile wide, and Pilot isn't buying any of it, leading to several fun scenes in which the exasperated Pilot tries to make sense of Crichton's story. TCS also did a great job on Kabaah, the fantastical Hangis, who looked like a Seussian praying mantis, and on Raxil's prosthetcs as well. I enjoyed Guy Gross's mood music, a snappy bossa nova that contributed to the surreal feel of the episode and emphasized the frothy party atmosphere.

"Scratch 'n' Sniff" is a style-over-substance episode that some will appreciate on that basis alone. My main problem with it was that the four characters who went planetside were, individually and collectively, atypically stupid. It served the plot and set up some great lines, but Farscape shouldn't do situation comedy. If the crew were really this thoughtless, they all would've been killed long ago. Does the fact that they weren't allowed to carry weapons mean that they could let their guard down completely? Apparently so, but these folks should know better. The only character that was consistently in-character was Pilot, which probably explains why I enjoyed his scenes so much.

Another big difficulty here is the Unreliable Narrator. We're seeing/hearing the story from Crichton's inebriated perspective, and it's impossible for us to know how much is embroidery and how much is real. Can we really believe all the different reactions freslin causes? What about the Hangi scenes, Farscape's closest-ever approach to a {shudder} holodeck? On the other hand, if they're going to lie, would they go to all the trouble to come up with a story that makes them look like idiots? John and D'Argo completely underestimated Raxil, and she ended up manipulating them into removing her competition, nearly at the cost of their own lives.

I think, though, the thing that bothered me the most about this episode was the general attitude. There's a trippy, la-dee-da air no matter what horrible thing is revealed. Perhaps we're meant to think it was the influence of all the intoxicants, but both Crichton and D'Argo spent way too much time bickering considering the stakes, and Crichton is so full of bluster in his scenes with Pilot that it's as if he's discussing a traffic mishap. Neither one of them really seemed to care all that much -- heck, John was still drinking. I'm not looking for a big judgemental speech, just a tiny bit of realism, or at least consistency of character. An entire society devoted to partying as a homicidal drug lord systematically picks off the pretty ones seems to demand comment. But since everything was played for laughs, Crichton and D'Argo don't give the situation the gravity it demands.

"Scratch 'n' Sniff" plays like the Moya-crew version of "Meltdown". Stylistically interesting (if you like that sort of thing) and visually pleasing, but inappropriately goofy. The humor itself isn't over-the-top, there's just too much of it. For many viewers, the bizarre structure will be off-putting, but it does work effectively to demonstrate Crichton's state as he's telling the story to Pilot. As a plot device, though, the unusual direction is wearing. This episode may benefit from repeated viewings, just to absorb all that was going on. But no amount of detail will change the fundamental problems of the inconsistent characters, leaving "Scratch 'n' Sniff" good for a few laughs and some great work by Pilot.