It's another season finale, so time's a wastin'.

Nerve (part 1 of 2)

The endgame for Season One of Farscape got its unofficial start last week when Aeryn suffered a stab wound fighting the Peacekeeper Larraq. This week, she coughs up some blood during some physical training, a symptom that her paraphoral nerve, a bit of Sebacean-specific anatomy, has been severed, an injury that will kill her without immediate medical attention. Her only hope is to sneak into the nearby Gammak science facility and get some gene therapy.

Thus Ben Browder's inability to affect a decent foreign accent persists. It's not too much of a distraction, though. Things stay pretty tense in the Gammak base and we even get a reappearance of Gilina, Crichton's first alien seduction from "PK Tech Girl". Gilina has done some records-fudging to keep Crichton safe, that is until Scorpius arrives on the scene.

From his first appearance, there's little indication that Scorpius will be the central villain on Farscape, but all the pieces are there. Wayne Pygram inhabits this role with such relish and nuance, he's a perfectly complicated bad-guy for a show full of complicated protagonists.

The Hidden Memory (part 2 of 2)

In "Nerve" Crichton is captured and tossed into a cell with Stark, a crazy humanoid alien with a metal mask covering half of his face. Stark will dart in and out of the show for the remainder of the series, but to be honest I never much liked his character. He moved between being too goofy and just plain annoying. For now, he's just a window into what Crichton will be if he keeps getting exposed to the Aurora Chair, a torture device/memory retrieval technology Scorpius is using to interrogate him.

With Aeryn healed, the stakes need to be raised up on Moya, so the Leviathan finally goes into labor. The complication is that Moya's baby isn't a normal ship. The Peacekeepers messed with Leviathan DNA to create a battleship.

Back on the base, some Chair sabotage allows Crichton to create a false memory of his old nemesis, Bialar Crais, betraying the Peacekeepers. Meanwhile, a mostly recovered Aeryn rescues John and Stark. Moya gives birth, Gilina gets shot and Scorpius makes an enemy of a seriously pissed-off Earthling.

Bone to be Wild

My one criticism of Farscape is the way it handles finales. It has this tendency to go big and then pull back, as in this episode. After all of the intensity of the two-part extravaganza, "Bone to be Wild" is nothing but a monster-of-the-week episode. The only interesting revelations are that Delvians evolved from plants and that Scorpius takes over Crais's command carrier. Otherwise, snooze.

Family Ties

Luckily, Farscape also has a tendency to go big, very big when it comes to actual finales. By the time "Family Ties" is over, Crais is onboard Moya seeking asylum for being "contaminated", Scorpius has settled in as the new lead villain, Aeryn takes control of the baby Leviathan, which she names Talyn after her father, and Crichton proves that he's the biggest bad-ass in two galaxies. With D'Argo, he loads a shuttle with homebrew explosives and runs it right into the Gammak base, igniting the atmosphere around it and destroying an entire moon in the process. In typical cliffhanger form, the season ends with Crichton and D'Argo floating in the vacuum of space, alone.