Recap / Farscape S 04 E 07 John Quixote

Season 4, Episode 7:

John Quixote

En route to Moya in a transport pod, Chiana tries out a strange, neural link game she bought. She soon forces Crichton to try it out and for good reason: it starts out as a recreation of the escape from the Gammak Base. All of a sudden, however, the game shifts into a medieval-esque adventure game, with Aeryn as a princess in a tower, Stark as "guide to the game embodied" and other familiar faces playing other parts. Unable to just opt out, Crichton and Chiana have to play the game to escape, but there's a far more sinister motive at work here.

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Tropes present in this episode include:

• Black Knight: Rygel's role in the game, a homage to the Black Knight character from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
• Bluff the Imposter: To figure out which Chiana is which, Crichton asks what Aeryn's secret is.
• Callback: The first part of the game recreates the escape from the Gammak Base.
  Chiana: Drad, huh? Bring back memories? Gilina, Scorpius - Gammak Base!
• Car Fu: During his second run-through of the game, Crichton steals male Zhaan's van and uses it to run over Game!Rygel.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The dead John Crichton gets a couple of nods.
  • A very subtle piece, with the constant cries of "Eat me," the title of an episode about duplicating the characters. Jool also says "Why won't anyone eat me?", referring to her being the only character to not be duplicated in that episode.
• Darker and Edgier: Scorpius in the game is a far nastier, less reasonable person - to the point of outright trying to kill Crichton over being inconvenienced.
• Elevator Floor Announcement: Yes. The game-game-game has a dedicated announcer for inter-level transit. You'll either love it-love it-love it or hate it as much as John does.
  John Headroom: [elevator music plays constantly] Yes, I know. This elevator sucks. My job su-su-sucks. Day after day the same-the same thing. Up. Down. Up. Down-down. Just once-just once it'd be nice to go... sideways. Just-just... sideways. Frog Princes! [door opens, Sheeyang spits fire, John slays it] N-n-not that I plan on doing this forever-ever. I have plans you know - [softly] Big [loudly] PLANS! I-I-I'm studying to be an astronaut. And... Penthouse! Have a good day.
• Fantastic Medicinal Bodily Product: The Virtual Zhaan's "milk" has healing properies in the virtual world. Though the other nipple produces acidic poison, choose wisely.
• Game-Breaking Bug: The whole plot. In the game you play as Crichton (as interpreted by Stark), and so when Crichton himself logs in it goes utterly insane and dumps them in a Minus World.
• The Game Never Stopped: At first it seems as if Crichton has made it out of the game and back onto Moya (with Chiana, this time), only for Scorpius to have taken over the ship by hacking into Pilot via a neural interface, then using chips to commandeer the others. But once John discovers he still has one of the question stones Game!Stark gave him, he realizes he never really escaped after all and has to exit by properly "winning" it.
• Gender Bender: Zhaan is male for most of the game. This proves to be a clue to what Crichton really needs to do to win.
  "Ugliness enslaved..."
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: When Crichton kissing Princess Aeryn fails to end the game Game!Stark suggests that maybe Chiana has to kiss her, and adds that he'd love to watch that.
• I Am a Humanitarian: Game!D'Argo likes to taste his victims. Recreations of Chiana and Jool are oddly okay with that.
• Mind Rape: The game itself. Game!Stark states that when Crichton's body dies, his spirit will become trapped in the game "with us." Scorpius also takes over Moya in this fashion, though this is later revealed to be part of the game.
• Minus World: The game is supposed to be a simulation of the Gammak base raid from season 1. The level they spend most of the episode in is due to a bug and shouldn't exist.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero
  Crichton: So how'd you do it? Who helped?
  Game!Stark: You did. You and that tragic brother; pouring his heart out on his deathbed.
  Crichton: Bull. This game has crap he couldn't know.
  Game!Stark: It's crap you gave me along the way. You talk so much.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Crichton kisses Game!Aeryn and... nothing happens. As Crichton thinks he's trapped and has no way out, Game!Stark boasts, "This is ''my' world, meat; you're just walking through it!" This, however, prompts Crichton to figure out what he needs to do.
  "Your world, your princess!"
• Non Sequitur Environment: Crichton and Chiana realize that they're still playing the game when - among other immersion-breaking glitches - they find Moya's docking bay doors opening onto the game's fairytale kingdom.
• Not in the Face!: Game!Stark appears on a TV screen to gloat, only to panic as Crichton raises his sword. And since he's on the TV, only his face is being shown.
• Oh, Crap!: Crichton when he's been on Moya for a while, only to realize he's still in the game.
• Reality Is Out to Lunch: And this episode is deranged!
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In a sense; Game!Stark wants to trap Crichton inside forever as punishment, since he blames him (and Aeryn) for Zhaan's death. To escape, John not only has to free her from the male disguise, but also earn her forgiveness (by promising to save the universe, set right the balance, and make sure the deaths of everyone who died for him meant something) so she will kiss him.
• Shout-Out: John Headroom. And the title is a pun on Don Quixote.
• Spot the Imposter: Chiana has a double in the game, who swaps places with her off-screen when she and Crichton get separated. It takes Crichton until getting back to that level to realize what has happened.
• Taken from a Dream: After apparently managing to escape from the simulation, Crichton soon finds himself dealing with Scorpius attempting to take over Moya... up until he finds the last hint voucher in his pocket - revealing that he never escaped at all.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Virginia Hey's appearance was meant to be a last-minute surprise, but Sci-Fi Channel's promos focused on that particular moment. Some reviewers commented at the time, "That sound you hear is Ben Browder screaming over the plot twist being spoiled."
• Trapped in TV Land: Of the video game variety. Humorously, when Crichton first realizes he's trapped, a television does fall on him.
• Virtual-Reality Warper: Crichton tries to turn the tables on Scorpius by dragging him into the buggy VR game he was playing earlier in the episode. Unfortunately, Scorpius sees right through the simulation's fabric and can manipulate it in ways that ordinary players can't even attempt: within seconds, he turns Crichton's pulse pistol into a banana, dissolves Gilina into meaningless equations, and nearly manages to shut down Crichton's lungs in the real world before Aeryn saves him. And then it turns out that Crichton never stopped playing the game at all, and everything that's happened since he "quit" the first time - including Scorpy's breakout - was set up by Avatar Stark to frell with Crichton's head.
• Win to Exit: The only way out of the game is to complete it and "Kiss the Princess".
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: In the general sense, this happens multiple times—John escapes the game only to find out he left Chiana behind, thinks he escaped the game later again into a Moya where Scorpius has taken over only to find out he never left, and discovers the Chiana who has been with him all this time is actually Game!Chiana. But it also happens literally when he kisses Princess!Aeryn in the tower, only to realize she isn't the one he has to kiss to escape, it's Stark's "princess", Zhaan.