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Farscape - Season 2 - Episode 09

Farscape - 2x09 - Out of Their Minds - Originally Aired: 2000-7-7

My Rating - 7

Fan Rating Average - 5.49

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Synopsis
When Moya is attacked by Halos-1, a hostile ship, the crew discovers that rather than being injured, they have all swapped minds. Zhaan, on a diplomatic mission to the alien ship, is the only one unaffected. The Halosians then plant an acidic weapon in Moya's neural cluster, so that not only is the crew in a state of bodily confusion, they must also deal with the acid burning through Moya's circuits. Zhaan, with no way of getting to the crew, must contend with the Halosians on her own. [DVD]

Filler Quotient: 0, not filler, do not skip this episode.
- First appearance of Talyn and Crais since the season premiere. They have little screen time, but the events here will become more significant later.

Problems
None

Factoids
- Zhaan has the capability to collapse her fiber structures at will, sort of like intentionally breaking bones. This is what allowed her to escape her shackles. But doing so poses to her an extreme danger of losing full motor control.

Remarkable Scenes
- John regarding the hostile vessel: "Have we sent the don't shoot, we're pathetic transmission yet?"
- Zhaan discovering that Talyn had previously attacked the aliens.
- Moya taking fire from the hostile aliens, protected by the defense shield.
- Moya's crew exchanging personalities.
- Chiana inhabiting D'Argo. I love how you could tell just by the signature body movements.
- The aliens showing Zhaan the recording of Talyn attacking them.
- Pilot talking D'Argo through administering Moya's many functions.
- The Polaroid DRD.
- Rygel in John's body having to go pee at an inopportune time.
- Yoz revealing that Talyn merely defended himself and that they in fact fired first.
- John taking the opportunity to grope Aeryn's breasts while inhabiting her body.
- Everyone switching bodies again but still being in the wrong bodies.
- Zhaan convincing Yoz to take command.
- Zhaan escaping and taking over the alien ship.
- Everyone trying to explain to Zhaan why she needs to fire on Moya again.
- D'Argo to Chiana: "I really, really enjoyed being inside your body."

My Review
This episode is a great deal of fun. Watching the actors play each other's characters might sound like a silly farce, but the actors do a great job of selling it both realistically in the sense of exploring the implications of this science fiction plot device and delivering the inevitable resultant comedy.

On top of that this episode finally gives us some insight into what Crais and Talyn have been up to. Although I'd have preferred their involvement in the story to be more pronounced. Likewise, the alien antagonists of the week were not terribly compelling either.

Other than that, there's little else to say about this story. There's some cute relationship stuff between Chiana and D'Argo, as well as John and Aeryn, and the episode is filled with delightfully awkward switched-character moments.

I suspect D'Argo, and to a lesser extent Chiana now have some deeper understanding of just how different Pilot's life is compared to the rest of them, similar to though perhaps not as deep as the bond Pilot and Aeryn developed in DNA Mad Scientist. All in all, this episode is mostly just some good fun and great comedy. Not unlike The Flax or Crackers Don't Matter.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Dan on 2014-07-16 at 12:53pm:
    The Halosians look suspiciously like the "The Dark Crystal" Skeksis which are puppets engineered by Jim Henson.
  • From John Meacham on 2016-04-01 at 10:24pm:
    Although it was just a line or two, I felt this episode actually had some fairly important characterization for Moya. Namely that Moya was super excited to hear Pilot's stories about what it was like to be in the other bodies to the point she was hounding pilot to tell her all about it.

    It was the first time I think that we have seen Moya express something pointing to an inner life that wasn't purely focused around the utilitarian aspects of being a ship or a mother. It is intriguing that she honestly wonders what it is like to be one of the passengers instead of the ship.
  • From Margaret J on 2019-06-20 at 7:26pm:
    I gave this episode a 6. There was continuity, some main plot and character progression. I enjoyed getting an updateon Crais and Talon as well as everyone in the end discussing them. I liked the design of the guest star alens and for me at least, there was some originality in the nicer alien's double double cross. I also like the Freaky Friday concept, but not so fond of how it played out as mostly juvinile humor scenes .
    AND the biggy here for me... I do not like the Dargo and Chianna relationship. It feels creepy. She comes across as quite young say late teens to maybe 20 and dargo's personality coupled with the fact he has been maried with a child of at least 5 before he went to prison and then imprisoned for some years comes across as being in his forties.

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