Through the Looking Glass
by David Kemper
Directed by Ian Watson
REVIEW
It began and ended like Moya on Walton's Mountain, but in between Farscape did what it does best: set up a mystery and then give us a tense race to the finish line.
Nobody really knows why a countdown can be so effective a way of building tension, but Farscape used the effect in spades by giving us one massive problem and effectively four countdowns. Writers call this putting a clock on the action and easily the best moments of the episode were as Crichton ran between the different versions of Moya counting down the time in his head.
For all this, though, the plot took second place to an episode that was about reaffirming the crew as a group. Crichton's got over his tantalising glimpse of home and while they all start off disagreeing and plotting escape, they're brought back together by the episode's events.
Still, the new regular Chiana – she's officially guest cast but is continuing – had only marginally more to do in this episode than last time. And again Zhaan had less screen time. After 17 episodes we're beginning to see what happened in Star Trek when some characters such as Voyager's Harry Kim became permanent background characters, specifically denied a main story.
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