Season 2, Episode 8: “Dream A Little Dream”
** out of *****
“I thought we might even pull this off. But you and me, not lying? Are you mad?”
Dream A Little Dream is actually the original first episode of the second season [1], re-tooled now as a flashback that shows what everyone on Moya went through between Family Ties and Mind the Baby.
While searching the last planet Crichton, Aeryn, and D’Argo might have escaped to after destroying Scorpius’s Gammak base–a planet that’s 90% lawyers–Zhaan is framed for the horrible, unthinkable, savage crime of jaywalking. Well, okay, so first she’s framed for jaywalking, THEN framed for murder. So I guess the latter is really more the issue.
It’s an interesting idea that a lawyer on this planet who puts on a defense he even suspects as being false he suffers the same fate as his client. I’m not sure how a 90% lawyer society could actually function, but, as often is the case with stories like this, it’s really meant more as a satirical tool rather than a model of a real society. Creative license.
While the concept of Chiana and Rygel having to win a trial without lying is a fun idea, in execution the episode isn’t terribly interesting to watch after you know what happens. And since it’s a flashback in the first place, and we already know that nothing of consequence really goes on, it’s not so interesting to watch the first time, either, as I recall. The whole “light of truth” bit seems far too hokey to actually work without more political backing.
One thing the episode does accomplish is to show us a bit more of the group’s emotional states as they dealt with the loss of their friends. Zhaan is taking it especially hard due to the fact that she’s both trying to cope herself and trying to aid the others in working through their own loss. The stress of it all is fraying Zhaan’s sanity. She’s going to pieces and hallucinating her lost comrades. It’s some insight into why she was re-entering the Seek in Mind the Baby. It’s just a shame the episode that brought this insight wasn’t a little better.
Last line:
“Thank you for your compassion.”
“Thank you for yours.”
Other Comments:
Zhaan hallucinates Crichton so accurately he even makes a pop-culture reference that she probably couldn’t have come up with herself.
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[1] Named “Re: Union”
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