First of all, I am not going to turn this into more fanfare for Claudia Black- you get enough of that from my other reviews, and Ramblings.
I love this episode. Mostly because in order of the episodes (not the order in which I get to see them), this one is the first one where the crew of Moya really bonds, mostly over Aeryn's condition. Watch the beginning of the episode, the first scene with Aeryn and John where she uses "human" as a derogatory term, or the way D'Argo pushes past her when he's leaving the room. It doesn't look like any of them care about each other. Unless it's either a Zhaan scene with either Rygel or John, and in that case, disregard the last statement for those examples.
By the end of the episode, John can't promise to kill Aeryn if she was to succumb to the Living Death, even during the scene on the terrace. John seems to have won the respect of D'Argo. Zhaan does what she can to care for Aeryn. Even as he's leaving with John to get rid of the Peacekeepers, D'Argo reassuringly touches her shoulder- voluntarily. And I love the scenes with Aeryn and Pilot, I think they were my favorites in this episode. It's nice to see the crew gel so well, even during adversity.
Another point I like is what they did with Rygel. He clearly had leadership ablities and skills that he doesn't display with his shipmates if he was able to converse with the Monarch like that. Looks like the little Muppet's got some hidden talents that we'll hopefully get to see in future episodes.
My problem with this episode stems from the fact that I was a longtime viewer of seaQuest DSV. And this plot seems definitely recycled from that show. Second season of that show, an alien being took over the ship, causing the temperature to rise, and one of the crew members actually got possessed by the alien being, kind of like Zhaan did in this episode. Of course, if the plot is recycled, it's much better this time around.
BIG QUESTION:
Um, I dunno. I'll get back to you on that.
GRADE: A-
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