Your Reviews
You told us what you thought of Mental As Anything. Here's the reviews we sent out from those you sent us.
See the Farscape fan reviewer Roll of Honour.
Graham
Well, all good things come to an end. After a run of three absolutely kicking episodes up comes the proverbial (post-Christmas) turkey. Okay, it is in theory really cool to see an episode centring around someone other than JC, but this didn’t do D’Argo any favours. And the resolution of the supposed story arc about his wife’s murder failed to satisfy, principally because we weren’t aware it was a story arc.
Where the episode really suffered was in dumping all the female characters in the first three minutes and so losing half of the interplay we expect from the characters. Instead of this normally sparkling collection we got a cardboard cut out Peace-keeper and a plasticine proto-Zen master.
It also says a lot about the episode when one of the best things in it was the rather grim rest area set, - it was at least believable, unlike the testing area where our mental master seemed to have obtained a job lot of 60 watt bulbs to add that just thrown together ambience.
Actually, the best scene was the opening one - John and Aeryn trying to sneak a few minutes alone. And the TV set, - has she bought him a DVD and the complete set of Buffy as well? Now, that would be true love.
Angela Dunn
Hmm. That was different. An episode that not centred solely around John made a refreshing change - it was D’Argo’s turn to face a nightmare from the past. And it was done in a classy and dignified way too. It was great to finally have that lose end tied up and it was revealed what most people knew - he didn’t do it.
Simcoe played his role excellently, and it was the scenes between him and his wife that really stole the show. Although Rygel finally getting a chance to whoop the ass of a Charad in the arena came close.
What was in those boxes was finally revealed as a television. It was nice to see John and Aeryn so cosy but this being farscape can it really last? An episode that tied up some loose ends but put other storylines in a right old muddle.
Andy Devine
This episode proves yet again that there are no filler episodes in Farscape. Mental as Anything doesn’t further the Aeryn/Crichton storyline, but it does an outstanding job of propelling D'Argo centre stage.
It is often too easy to forget that our band of happy aliens were on Moya for a reason and this episode provides answers about D'Argo’s past while tipping its hat to the characters’ development. In addition to the usual throw-away comments and one-liners, other gems are Rygel going into combat and Crichton getting hot in the dungeon.
If only all character driven television even wished it was this good.
