FarscapeWeekly Farscape What Was Lost, part 1: Sacrifice episode review

What Was Lost, part 1: Sacrifice
Season 4, episode 2

Technically polished, visually stunning, substantially irritating: that's my three-phrase summary of "What Was Lost, part 1: Sacrifice." On the whole, though, I'm reserving judgement until I see part 2, because part 1 was about 90% setup and until I get the payoff, I don't really know how to react to the package.

I did have quite strong reactions to the individual pieces of this episode; let's take that list of three from the top. Technically polished, yes, unfortunately polished to the point of predictability. All the pieces fall neatly into place, even the mysteries. But they've all been done before: Who killed Vella? Who cares, really? Why make that a mystery at all, is it even remotely related to the plot? How does Crichton survive his leap off the cliff? Who cares, really? We know he's going to survive, why even bother to setup such an obviously bogus "threat"? What are those symbols on the tile, are they really from Earth? Are we supposed to believe they're not, after all the head-scratching over them? Allow me to point out that symbols like a hand and an eye don't necessarily need to point back to Earth, given that an overwhelming preponderance of the local species also have humanoid hands and eyes. But that's beside the point. For three years now we've been wondering what the link is, if any, between humans, Sebaceans, and all the other more-or-less human species we've encountered, and now it looks like we might actually get it. With the setup from part 1, I'm more dreading that relevation more than welcoming it, but really, I'm trying to hang onto my open mind. Perhaps Justin Monjo can somehow redeem this morass of predictable plot elements. I certainly hope so.

Let's move on to the big positive: this episode was gorgeous. I loved the outdoor sets, the exceptional use of the locale. The dig was realistically rendered, I thought. I also loved the Creature from the Technicolor Lagoon, particularly the underwater shots. My heart was breaking in the scenes with Auntie (Elack's) Pilot, particularly in the scene between Auntie and Rygel. Major kudos to The Creature Shop, Jonathan Hardy, and the actress voicing Auntie, who is still uncredited, for giving us a scene between two animatronic creations that rivaled any between two flesh-and-blood actors. Raelee Hill still looks great, especially when she's perpendicular to a wall. The visions, flashes, and pyrotechnics were nifty as well, including the carver effects. Production design doesn't get any better than this.

If "What Was Lost, part 1: Sacrifice" was a purely visual feast, I'd have nothing to complain about. Unfortunately, there was a ton of dialog to respond to, not to mention seductions, degradation, betrayal and simple bad tempers. That's where the substantially irritating quality comes in. In more or less episode order: Chiana (Gigi Edgely) has reverted past her original self-involved brat status, and now is downright stupid in her prickliness. Jool (Tammy Macintosh) betrays D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe), just because she doesn't want to contradict dig's leader, Vella. Crichton (Ben Browder) is stupid enough to let Melissa Jaffer's Old Woman within arm's reach of him, and lets her send him spinning into a series of visions, again. Then there's the Grayza/Braca/Scorpius business: enough is enough, guys, OK? I don't need or want to see Scorpius (Wayne Pygram) drooling, crawling, and licking Grayza's boot. And if anyone is ripe for a smackdown, it's Commandant Cleavage (Rebecca Rigg). She's every intelligent woman's nightmare: a woman whose power, it seems, is exclusively derived from her sexuality. Perhaps Crichton's dunk in the ocean will have washed off his pheremone-induced enslavement and so put an end to this farce, but I doubt it.

Let me be clear in my continued admiration for all of the actors. Ben Browder, in particular, did a fine job with showing us his struggle not to surrender to Grayza. You could see his brain telling his body what to do, and his body just refusing to comply. Anthony Simcoe played perfectly off Tammy Macintosh, before and after her betrayal. Melissa Jaffer is completely convincing as the sometimes lucid, sometimes scatterbrained Old Woman, and a big bump to David Franklin for his chilling Peacekeeper Captain. Wayne Pygram deserves hazard pay for having to scuttle like a beetle through most of his scenes, with a special bonus for having to deal with all that drool. Ick.

No, the big problem wasn't with the actors, it was with the characters themselves. The huge gaping plot holes didn't help much, either; the Journey Logs over on SCIFI.com's Farscape page explained why Elack traveled to this particular planet, but that information never made it on-screen. And sneaking in those clips of Braca, Grayza, and Scorpius in the "previously on Farscape" segment when they most definitely were not "previously on Farscape" was just low. It would also help to have a clue exactly what Grayza wants from Crichton. I think it's safe to assume she can have sex whenever she wants it, so it's got to be something else, but what? That hasn't been discussed yet, either. And could we please have an episode which does not feature a drug-induced vision of some sort? They're getting as old as all those head-games episodes got in Season 2, and we're only on the second episode of the season. I understand that showing is much more powerful than telling -- exposition is boring -- but there's got to be another way to get to the scenes you want to show.

This episode shares many characteristics with some recent scifi movies; A.I. and Star Wars, episode 2: Attack of the Clones in particular. They're visually outstanding but, to me, ultimately unsatisfying because they're less than the sum of their parts. They're pretty, even gorgeous. They have some great plot elements and interesting characters. Still, I came away from both of them wishing the basic plot had been workshopped. A lot. Both films suffered from having one guy calling all the story shots, with no one influential enough to point out the flaws and make the point stick. My impression, so far, of "What Was Lost" is that they left Monjo alone at his word processor and just let him have at it.

Here's hoping in part 2 he cleans up the mess he has created here.