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Farscape - Season 4 - Episode 10

Farscape - 4x10 - Coup By Clam - Originally Aired: 2002-8-16

My Rating - 4

Fan Rating Average - 4.03

Rate episode?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 23 17 5 8 46 11 5 8 11 8 6

Synopsis
While in quarantine high above the patriarchal planet Khurtanan, the crew shares a meal of alien mollusks and almost instantaneously suffers a violent physical reaction. Each crew member becomes bodily linked to one of the others, Crichton to Sikozu, Aeryn to Rygel, and so on. It soon becomes clear they have been deliberately poisoned by the local doctor and are being blackmailed in exchange for the cure. [DVD]

Filler Quotient: 1, partial filler, but has important continuity. I recommend against skipping this one.
- This episode is mostly filler, but one short clip of it is shown briefly in the next episode. The reference is not essential, but it's pretty neat if you've seen this episode.

Problems
None

Factoids
- The milking chair from Scratch 'n' Sniff is visible in the elite club as a decoration in this episode.

Remarkable Scenes
- The doctor fatally poisoning Moya's crew and demanding money for the cure.
- D'Argo and Noranti sharing the sensation of an orgasm.
- The doctor getting shot.
- John and Rygel flailing about as Aeryn and Sikozu get beat up.
- John and Rygel crossdressing.
- Sikozu getting her finger cut off and John experiencing it.
- Scorpius consuming the poison to lessen the burden on the others.
- Rygel biting off the tip of the doctor's nose.

My Review
An episode surprisingly similar to Star Trek DS9's dreadful Profit and Lace episode but far, far better executed. Unlike the DS9 episode, this story's crossdressing is a subplot and the joke subtler rather than overplayed to the point of being embarrassing. Instead, what steals the show in this episode is the poison primary plot, which, while it is complete filler, it is quite funny nevertheless. The success of the comedy is achieved by repeating the very successful gag from season three of having two characters neurologically linked so that they feel each others pain. It was most amusing with Braca and D'Argo and even funnier with John and Scorpius last season and it was nicely used here as well. Overall, while still filler, this episode is much more enjoyable than the last one.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Margaret J on 2019-08-02 at 8:52pm:
    An entertaining an fun episode which also shows some good character growth for Scorpius. His (Scorpius) voluntarily linking himself to to others and putting himself through hell in order to save them showed some pretty serious selflessness. I rated this a six (6)
  • From Will on 2022-02-05 at 8:04pm:
    Surprisingly really enjoyable episode, very silly obviously, but I liked it. The "coup by clam" was very interesting and I liked the concept of the female revolution. A little high on the gross factor though. Urine??! Scorpius putting his own body on the line to save the others was also quite selfless and I loved his dramatics.

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