Farscape Season 1, Vol. 4 - PK Tech Girl/That Old Black Magic (1999)

Action, adventure, boot stealing...

PK Tech Girl is a good old fashion adventure story, with a dead ship, troubled pasts and a cute, sexy girl in uniform. Hey, Gilina is cute, so sue me.
That Old black Magic has John and Crais in a death match, another alien planet, and Zhaan trying to save her friends by losing her own control.
And Rygel stealing John's boots is a hoot. But why? He can't wear them and I doubt Aeryn would buy them. February 24, 2008

Not as good as most Farscape, but better than most other TV

Crichton (Ben Browder) finds love on an abandoned Peacekeeper battleship in "PK Tech Girl." This irks Aeryn (Claudia Black) and gives us our first clear hint of the potential for the great romance that is to come. Meanwhile, D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) and Zhaan (Virginia Hey) bluff a dangerous intruder and Rygel confronts old ghosts. A strong episode.

"That Old Black Magic" is less successful. A powerful sorcerer (Chris Heywood) kidnaps Crichton and brings him face-to-face with Crais (Lani Tupu) in order to feed off the resulting emotion. Despite a powerful performance by Heywood, the tremendous power his character must possess in order to bring Crais into the story makes him too implausible. In addition, much of the episode is talky and consists of our hero running around in a maze, which becomes tiresome after a while. However, we do receive some important and intriguing insight into Zhaan's character and history.
November 6, 2004

Best Sci-Fi Show EVER!!!!

I am 37 year old and have watched Sci-Fi all my life. Farscape is definitely the most creative, original, dynamic, intriguing, sophisticated, intelligent and exhilarating sci-fi show ever produced. YOU MUST SEE THE WHOLE THING!!!!! If you want to learn more about what Farscape is about visit www.savefarscape.com. October 29, 2003

A pair of pivotal PeaceKeeper episodes (but no commentary?)

Well, here I have been watching the Season 1 "Farscape" DVDs and praising the tag-team great commentaries I had been enjoying as the best in fan friendly extras (not to mentioning why Joss Whedon has been so skimpy with such commentaries on the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" DVDs). So I get to Volume 4, which is the best pair of episodes I have seen to date, and guess what: no commentaries. I was all ready to give this volume 5 stars but I have to subtract one in protest because I am so disappointed.

"PK Tech Girl" does offer the old chestnut about the prisoner who falls for the captor, in this case retelling the tale (quite self-consciously it must be admitted) with the titular character, Technician Gilina Renaez (Alyssa-Jane Cook), a PeaceKeeper technician found on an abandoned PK super cruiser, and John Crichton (Ben Browder) in the familiar roles. What makes this episode work a bit better than that is how this affair irks Aeryn (Claudia Black), plus the fact that this is not a one shot deal for Gilina, which makes this more than a brief but close encounter. There is also a nice little subplot with Rygel, who was once tortured aboard this Peace Keeper ship and needs to confront a rather significant ghost.

I had been wondering what had happened to PeaceKeeper Captain Bialar Crais (Lani John Tupu), who has vowed to hunt down Crichton in the pilot episode. Well, in "That Old Black Magic" Crais and Crichton are brought together by a warlock vampire type being who wants them to try and kill each other. Crichton has long wanted an opportunity to explain that the death of Crais' brother was an accident. This episode gives him a chance to reason with the PeaceKeeper, for all the good it is going to do him. Meanwhile, Crichton's crewmates are trying a way to rescue him, even though they do not know exactly what is going on. Again there is an interesting element to the story involving the difficulty Zhaan (Virginia Hey) is having in taking advantage of her long dormant dark side in being part of the rescue effort. Of the first eight episodes, this is the best of the bunch.

The reason that both of these episodes are above average is because they both have implications for several of the story and character arcs in "Farscape." Like all great science fiction shows, the characters and their relationships are the best part of the show. By this point in the first season we are starting to learn some interesting things and the characters and their relationships are starting to click. On to Volume 5, please. January 24, 2003

Farscape is the greatest show on TV.

Anyone who does not understand why one would buy DVD's of this show is not a fan. The DVD's last forever and you can revisit the show when ever you want through them. I'm not getting these for right now. I'm getting these for ten years from now. April 26, 2002

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