Season 2, Episode 9: “Out of Their Minds”****1/2 out of *****
“Disgusting! ‘If you say so, John!’ ‘Trust me. It’ll be all right!’ And she believes it! Well, yotz, if I said that you’d all VOMIT!”
Body-swapping is such a common occurrence in sci-fi/fantasy television that I’m sure it’s got its own page on TVTropes. (Yep!) Even so, I’m going to go on record as saying this may be the most entertainment body-swapping episode in all of TV. It’s one of my favorite Farscape episodes, and a welcome high point in the sometimes mediocre first half of season 2.
Moya runs across a damaged alien ship that turns out to be Halosian [1] and a survivor of a recent battle with Crais and Talyn. The Halosian’s weapon interacts with Moya’s partially-functioning defense screen in the utterly logical way of making people near each other switch bodies. [2] Hilarity ensues.
I put this episode above all the other body-swap episodes I’ve seen for two reasons:
- The actors. They’re excellent at portraying their fellows in both body language and tone of voice. Claudia Black manages an American accent, Jonathan Hardy’s voice coming out in non-cranky fashion is a curious novelty, and Anthony Simcoe does such a great Chiana-in-D’Argo that I can’t help but wonder if he’d been doing impressions of her on the set already.
- It goes where most body-switching eps don’t in terms of how the characters deal with the fact of being in new bodies that they might have previously admired.[3] Plus with the characters being aliens it adds another element to it. Yeah, so it might be bathroom humor, but the bit with John, mortified, telling Rygel how to urinate (and Rygel’s utter enthusiasm for the process) is priceless. Too bad he didn’t warn him about zippers.
It’s not all played for humor, though. There’s a great moment between Pilot and D’Argo where they discuss all the things that their respective lives give them and deny them. It’s a very grass-is-greener moment, and considering Pilot’s existence of being bonded to Moya for the rest of his life, very poignant.
The episode’s only weakness may be Zhaan aboard the Halosian ship. In order to provide enough time for things to develop on Moya, it seems the plot requires her to spend a little too much time reasoning with the Halosians via using arguments that would sway her but clearly have no effect on them. Granted, having her take such an approach is in character for her, but she keeps it up a bit too long before changing her approach.
Last line:
“Excuse me?”
Other Comments:
It’s amazing that the Halosians can speak so well without lips. (Yeah, okay, so they did look like Skeksis, but the mouths were…not the strong point of the design.)
Boy, this episode’s version of the semi-recurring Chiana/Rygel “let’s bail and run” scene has an entirely different feel to it, doesn’t it?
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[1] Upon my first watching, even before the body-swapping began, I liked this episode just for the Halosian’s resemblance to another Henson creation, the Skeksis. I was disappointed that Crichton didn’t make a reference, but he does eventually do so in a later episode, if I remember correctly…
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[2] Yeah, okay, just a liiiittle unlikely, but it’s fun, so screw this thing called “realism.”
[3] John in Aeryn: “Oh, come on, man! I’m– They’re here. They’re right here. They’ve been here for a couple of arns, and I just had to–“
Aeryn in Rygel: “You are mentally damaged.”
John: “I’m a guy. A guy. Guys dream about this sort of thing.”
Aeryn: “I’ll tell you one thing Crichton, if I find you’ve been dreaming anything else to my body I’ll break your legs, even if they are mine.”
