While the various crew members of the living starship Moya each have their own agendas and objectives, including simply surviving in a hostile galaxy with a host of enemies after them, one goal has remained at the heart of Farscape: John Crichton's attempt to find a way home to Earth. And in Farscape Season 4 Collection 3, quite unexpectedly, that's what happens... but as the four episodes here prove, going home is never quite as simple as one would like it to be.

The set opens with the intriguing "Unrealized Reality": moments after successfully predicting the appearance of a wormhole, Crichton is sucked inside, ending up in a strange alternate dimension, trapped by a strange alien who's aware of Crichton's wormhole knowledge.

The story moves continuously along into "Kansas," in which Crichton is reunited with the rest of the Moya crew in orbit above Earth... only to find that, as the strange wormhole alien warned, things aren't quite right. An error in wormhole navigation has brought them to Earth circa 1985, and a potentially devastating distortion has crept into the timeline, forcing Crichton to make some hands-on changes in his own past life to set things right. This episode is sure to be particularly enjoyable for long-time fans of Farscape, as it places Crichton "back home" but has D'Argo, Aeryn, Chiana, and Rygel as the strangest kind of fish out of water on pre-contact Earth.

The third episode here, "Terra Firma," continues the Earth storyline, as Crichton introduces modern-day Earth to the aliens, and is reunited with friends and family. It's a bittersweet reunion, though; Crichton's perspective has changed after four years of experiencing a much wider, more dangerous world. And danger still lurks around the corner, as Grayza is still on the hunt for Crichton, with new and deadlier tools at hand.

The fourth and final episode in this volume, "Twice Shy," appears at first glance to be a completely stand-alone story, unrelated to the larger story arc. Crichton and the crew are back on Moya, and happen to pick up a refugee slave girl from a group of traders. This innocent-seeming girl, however, turns out to be more than she seems, and all of the crew are soon struggling for their lives. Woven into this adventure-of-the-week story, however, is a very interesting story thread regarding Crichton and Aeryn's relationship, as well as an additional layer to the character of Scorpius and his place on the ship.

Both Collection 1 and Collection 2 of Farscape's fourth season offered very entertaining stories that made me eager to watch the next collection; Collection 3 does even better, with its highly involving three-episode story arc dealing with Crichton's return to Earth and its consequences. The stories are all extremely well crafted, and will leave viewers eager to turn to Collection 4 for even more great Farscape adventures.

The DVD

Farscape Season 4 Collection 3 is a two-DVD set, packaged in a double-wide plastic keepcase with two 50-minute episodes on each disc.

Video

The episodes here are presented in an attractive anamorphic widescreen transfer at the show's original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Overall, the image quality is excellent, with bold, vibrant colors and a generally clean and clear appearance.

Audio

Farscape includes both a Dolby 5.1 and a Dolby 2.0 soundtrack. Here, the sound quality is excellent, with dialogue consistently crisp and clear, and with the volume levels handled very well, for a consistently high-quality sound.

Extras

The main special features are two featurettes, one on each disc. Disc 1 has the better of the two, an interesting 23-minute interview with Lani John Tupu, who plays Crais and also supplies the voice of Pilot. On Disc 2, a 12-minute piece on "Early Make-up Tests" provides some interesting shots of the early makeup designs for Farscape, but due to a lack of any voiceover commentary is less interesting than it could have been.

Both discs have "Cool Farscape Facts" and "Alien Encounters," providing text information on various aspects of the show and the Farscape universe, Set, Prop, and Costume Galleries, and ADV previews. A total of about eight minutes of deleted scenes are included as well.

Final thoughts

Farscape continues to impress as it moves further into the fourth season on DVD. The four episodes here are extremely entertaining and well crafted science fiction, offering an imaginative and highly original story with lavish production values. Coupled with an excellent DVD transfer, Collection 4 easily gets a "highly recommended."