On his first view of the planet surface--
J: Oh, yeah...I think I've seen this one before. Mel Gibson, Tina Turner...Cage match!
R: What?
J: Oh, don't worry. Nobody saw the third one, anyway.
John is referring to "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" -- which I have seen by the way.

After speaking with Volmae--
A: She gives me a woodie...
(John gives Aeryn an incredulous look.)
...'Woody', it's a human saying. I've heard you say it often. When you don't trust someone or they make you nervous, they give you --
John: "Willies!" She gives you the willies!
I'm wondering where Aeryn picked up "woody." Perhaps John mutters too much when he thinks no one is listening. "Woodie" is characterized as vulgar slang by Dictionary.com, the willies is slang for having a feeling of uneasiness.

A: I just spoke to D'Argo. He says he's content. He wants to stay, so I say we leave him and we go.
J: What? No! No, no, no! Look. Look. Woodstock has done something to his head.
Woodstock was a village in southeast New York state. In 1969 a large "hippie" rock music festival named after the village was held at nearby small town in the Catskill Mountains.

A: Where's Zhaan?
J: Look, she's with D'Argo, okay? Dancing with the Grateful Dead.
The Grateful Dead are a popular rock band, most notable for their fans who call themselves the "Dead Heads".

A: I had to figure out what was causing the problem and I had to fix it.
J: Yeah, I know, and we're all grateful that you did the Madame Curie bit--
A: What? Who?
J: Madame Curie. She's a...she's a scientist.
Marie Curie spent her life studying radioactivity. She made many important discoveries and won 2 Nobel Prizes.

J: This is great. You're trading in your pulse rifle for the junior chemistry kit.