All Right, It's Friday Night, So You All Know to Expect This By Now... (WARNING: Spoilers for Farscape Episode 4.08, "I Shrink, Therefore I Am.")

Well, this episode didn't add a great deal to the story arc (unless you count that "Hey, let's head off for an even more dangerous area of space!" thing at the end), but it was a fun action romp, and it did do some important things in terms of characterization, particularly when it comes to the relationship (weird, ambiguous, and distrustful as it is) between John and Scorpius. Which, come to think of it, is pretty important to the story arc.

I must say, it was a lot of fun watching Scorpy learning firsthand how they do things on Moya. Namely, bullshitting wildly, cracking stupid jokes, pulling weird, half-baked plans out of their asses and trying them one after the other until one of them, by sheer good luck, actually works... Yeah, somehow I don't think this is Scorpius' usual way of dealing with a crisis situation. It's nice to know that he can keep his sense of humor about things like being given an unloaded gun, though.

Speaking of which, I notice the writers have come up with a very clever solution for dealing with a problem that I suspected was going to come up sooner or later if Scorpius really is going to hang around indefinitely. Namely, Scorpy is a frelling tactical genius (a real one, not a naive all-book-learnin'-and-no-practical-experience wannabe like Sikozu). And not only is that kind of difficult to write consistently, but it also raises the serious risk of having Scorpius outwit the bad guys or think his way out of whatever situation they're in every episode, which would be both boring and unfair to the other characters. (Well, face it, he was damned good at that sort of thing when he was the bad guy...) The fact that the others don't trust him any farther than they can shoot him helps, but doesn't entirely solve the problem. It is, however, very neatly solved by them having spilled all his coolant juice a couple of episodes back and having to make do with an inferior substitute, so that his brain has a tendency to overheat and render him unable to think straight. (Well, OK, maybe it just brings him back down to "mere mortal" level, but, hey, that's good enough!)

Speaking of clever bits of writing, I have to add that these guys know just exactly how to make me accept silly stuff like, oh, shrink rays without protest. Sikozu's quite scientifically accurate complaints about the impossibility of the whole thing made it quite clear that the writers weren't commiting a mistake out of ignorance (which always bothers me, because it means that a) they can't be bothered even to check their facts, and b) they're assuming the audience isn't smart enough to know better, either). And Rygel's response -- that obviously it's happened, the explanation doesn't matter, and she should quit whining and just frelling deal with it -- is perfect. OK, something that should be impossible just happened, we don't know what the explanation is, and it isn't really terribly important that we (or the characters) do know. No problem. I can deal with that. In fact, I think that's pretty much exactly how it would work in real life (if it weren't actually completely impossible, that is).

On the not-so-clever front, I suppose I've gotta mention John and this drug problem he's apparently developing... Man, I just wanna slap that boy across the face. Hey, John, this is not the solution! To anything! I have the feeling this is going to get him in very deep trouble, very, very soon. And probably not just with Aeryn, although running from that problem isn't going to help anything, either. Dope Peddler Granny, by the way, is really starting to creep me out. Minus six thousand points for her for getting John hooked on this stuff. I was actually starting to warm towards her for a couple of episodes there, but she's now well back on the minus side in my estimation. They should have left the old bat floating out in space, if you ask me. Hmm. You know, there's a bit of irony here, really. John distrusts Scorpy intensely (and for understandable reasons), but for my money it's Noranti (towards whom he is far, far too trusting) who's the real danger to him.

I'm sure there are other things I'd have to say about the episode, but I'm a bit distracted at the moment by the fact that it's raining again, and the leak in my kitchen ceiling seems to have turned into a miniature waterfall.

Sigh. At this point, frankly, fighting bounty hunters and undercover Scarrens is starting to sound good to me. At least Moya doesn't leak. Much.