As this episode Moya is in a stellar mist and the crew are waiting for Aeryn to return from a recon flight. A day has passed and they are starting to get concerned. Eventually they pick up a signal and her pod returns. Something strange has happened though; the pod; it looks ancient and when they enter it they see it is filled by a plant; a plant that Zhaan gave to Aeryn the day before that was just a pot plant. When they get to Aeryn they find that she is now an old lady. The others, including Stark who arrived a couple of days before, wonder what could have happened to have caused her to age. Aeryn however doesn't believe something happened to make her age unnaturally; in fact she has memories of the 165 cycles she claims to have been away including three sons and a granddaughter. She also claims that she must return with the pod if her granddaughter is to survive. Eventually she takes the pod and returns to the planet in the mist with Crichton; here they meet her granddaughter before she tells Crichton he must leave. He heads back towards Moya but something happens before he gets there and he is trapped too. Back aboard Moya Stark theorises that Moya is caught in something called a 'Centre Halo' where space and time meet; which some how means that time doesn't pass for them. The next time they hear from Crichton he too has grown old and by the time they return to Moya Aeryn has died of old age. They come up with an idea that may get them out of the mist but that won't solve the problem of the fact that time has passed for John and Aeryn... or will it?
The idea of having a crew member age or even living a full life within an episode isn't original but that doesn't mean the idea can't be used again in an interesting way. Here it was interesting because John and Aeryn coped in the opposite way to how I'd expected... she coped with a life on a planet totally different from any life she'd had before but he was depressed and constantly longed to return to Moya. The ending obviously requires the use of the 'reset button'; after all if it didn't Aeryn would be dead and Crichton would be old. The old age make up looks pretty good; especially for Aeryn although Crichton did sound a bit too much like the cliché of a grumpy old man. It was good to see Stark back although it would have been better if we'd seen his arrival or had it spoken about before we saw him; it seemed a little odd seeing him there without prior explanation. Still that is a minor quibble as I really enjoyed the episode.
The idea of having a crew member age or even living a full life within an episode isn't original but that doesn't mean the idea can't be used again in an interesting way. Here it was interesting because John and Aeryn coped in the opposite way to how I'd expected... she coped with a life on a planet totally different from any life she'd had before but he was depressed and constantly longed to return to Moya. The ending obviously requires the use of the 'reset button'; after all if it didn't Aeryn would be dead and Crichton would be old. The old age make up looks pretty good; especially for Aeryn although Crichton did sound a bit too much like the cliché of a grumpy old man. It was good to see Stark back although it would have been better if we'd seen his arrival or had it spoken about before we saw him; it seemed a little odd seeing him there without prior explanation. Still that is a minor quibble as I really enjoyed the episode.
