"Farscape" Thank God It's Friday, Again (1999)

Director:

Rowan Woods

Writer:

David Wilks (writer)

TV Series:

"Farscape" (1999)

Original Air Date:

23 April 1999 (Season 1, Episode 6)

Genre:

Adventure | Sci-Fi

Plot:

D'Argo goes into a hyper rage and seeks out Crichton, thinking he left the ship for a nearby planet...

Plot Keywords:

Alien | Space | Fugitive | Technology | Villain

Cast

Ben Browder	...	John Crichton
Claudia Black	...	Officer Aeryn Sun
Virginia Hey	...	Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan
Anthony Simcoe	...	Ka D'Argo
Angie Milliken	...	Volmae
Tina Thomsen	...	Tanga
Ken Blackburn	...	Hybin
Selina Muller	...	D'Argo's Girlfriend
Mark Slocum	...	Sykaran Male
Peter Baroch	...	Sykaran Male
Jonathan Hardy	...	Dominar Rygel XVI (voice)
Lani John Tupu	...	Capt. Bialar Crais (as Lani Tupu)
Karen Jacobson	...	Loud speaker (voice) (as Karen Jacobsen)

Quotes:

Aeryn Sun: We have a situation up here.
John Crichton: I'm sure it's not any more interesting than the one down here.
Aeryn Sun: Remember Rygel's assassination attempt? He caused it himself. His body fluids have turned explosive.
John Crichton: I stand corrected.

Farscape's First Complete Miss

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Farscape had a very good start overall, with solid episodes like "Back and Back and Back to the Future" and "Throne for a Loss", but "Thank God It's Friday, Again" is the first episode that really fails. "I, E.T." was fatally simple and unambitious, but still amusing and consistently watchable. Bits and pieces of "Thank God It's Friday, Again" work, but for the most part the execution is poor and the story just isn't intriguing.

The story begins with the crew following D'Argo to a planet inhabited by the Sykaran. After arriving, they are surprised to find D'Argo to be more than satisfied with his "new life" on the planet as a farmer. Volmae, clearly some sort of queen, greets the crew kindly, telling to stay as long as they desire. Soon after, Rygel claims to have been attacked with an explosive, leading him and Aeryn to return to Moya. D'Argo brings Zhaan and Crichton to his house to spend the night. The next day, D'Argo brings Crichton and Zhaan with him to a farming area where the Sykaran happily grow tannot roots. Then, in a very alarming incident, a group of Sykaran grab Crichton and, well, inject a worm into his stomach.

There is something very sinister going on on the planet, as Crichton soon finds out. The small group of Sykarans tell Crichton that a toxin in the tannot root makes everybody on the planet happy and stupid. Injection of the worm prevents the tannot root from having its effect. Besides this group of Sykarans, nobody else on the planet besides the queen is unaffected. The whole population basically works as slaves of the queen, always believing that tomorrow is a rest day (hence the episode's title).

More secrets about the tannot root and its involvement with the Peacekeepers are revealed later on, but by that point I had lost all interest in the episode. The chief problem is with the main storyline. There's never any action, romance, adventure, or anything else to keep the story interesting. "Thank God It's Friday, Again" fails to give the audience anything to care about. The premise simply is not strong enough to make the episode interesting. The production values and make-up are OK but nothing special. Angie Milliken, who plays Volmae, also gives a poor performance, placing random pauses between the words in her lines. I'm not sure what director Rowan Woods was going for with her character, but whatever it was, it doesn't work.

The idea of an entire planet's population being brainwashed into believing that the next day is always a rest day is silly, but skillful execution could have redeemed it. "Thank God It's Friday, Again", however, trudges along at a slow pace and spends way to much time on the main storyline. The only segments of the episode worth seeing take place between Aeryn and Pilot, in which Pilot reveals that he doesn't understand everything about science. Aeryn also gets to use her scientific knowledge, in an unusual change of character.

The episode's climax, involving a very unexpected stunt by Rygel, is at least not as mundane as the rest of the episode, but it still fails to create any level of interest. Farscape had a very good start overall, and "Thank God It's Friday, Again" is one of its few truly bad episodes. Still, it does have a couple of good moments, but it never amounts to anything interesting. 1.5/4