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4X08 - I Shrink Therefore I Am

J: Pilot, are you there? Testing, 1, 2, 3. Uno, dos, tres.
"Testing 1, 2, 3" is a standard phrase used for sound checks." Also, I'm beginning to wonder if Ben Browder took Spanish lessons over the hiatus and is using every opportunity to practice at work.

J: Pilot, I got a ton of groceries to unload.
Isn't that the way it is? Mom comes home with a load of groceries and when it comes to hauling them in from the car, no one is to be found.

Pilot indicates that none of the crew is available to help John unload the supplies
J: What are they doing, watching Jeopardy?
I'll take Geography of the Uncharted Territories for $400, Alex

J: Let me talk to Captain James T. D'Argo
Star Trek again. In the classic series, Captain Kirk's full name is Captain James T. Kirk. The T stand for Tiberius.

J: Crickets...something's wrong. Maybe the game's not over or maybe Scorpy's really loose on the ship.
Crickets are a type of insect, but I'm not sure why John says that, but we had a site fan write in and say that John speaking of crickets might mean that is was oddly silent aboard Moya. The second part refers to last week's episode, John Quixote.

The pod comes into view of Moya, and John sees the ship attached to her hull
J: Bingo, Moya's got gatecrashers.
Gatecrashers are people who come to a party uninvited.

John's trying to see if any of the DRDs are working
J: 1812? (1812 chirps) Playing possum, huh?
Playing possum means playing dead. Possums have few defenses against predators. One of these is to play dead so whatever is attacking them will give up and go away.

J: I'm going to scrounge up a blunderbuss.
A blunderbuss is an early type of rifle or shotgun.

Scorpius suddenly appears
J: You sold us out.
S: Nothing of the kind
J: So it's just coinkidink you're around running on the loose?
To sell someone out is to betray them to their enemies for personal gain. "Coinkidink" is slang for "coincidence."

John holds up his big bazooka
J: I'm going wabbit hunting.
Elmer Fudd had a bit of a speech impediment. He would go "wabbit hunting" when he was after Bugs Bunny.

S: You can't take them all at once.
J: How dumb do you think I am? I'll take 'em down one by one the Die Hard way.
Ahh, John is a Die Hard fan. I was just waiting for him to come swinging down into Pilot's den screaming "Yipee-ki-yay, m***erf***er!"

J: This is John Crichton paging the head Cylon. Pick up the phone, Imperious Leader.
The Cylons were the alien foes in Battlestar Galactica. Imperious Leader is another character from the same show.

J: Why don't you come down here and find me, Gort? Klaatu, barada, niktu
"Klaatu barada nikto" is the famous phrase which stops Gort, the robot in the sci-fi classic "The Day The Earth Stood Still." John actually pronounces it wrong just as Ashe does in "Army of Darkness." We've also had someone write in and let us know that Klaatu, Barada and Niktu were also characters in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. All three were Jabba's guards. Maybe George Lucas named them from "The Day The Earth Stood Still" since it was out before Star Wars.

He blasts the Coreeshi
J: Como estas, la cucaracha?
"How are you, cockroach?"

J: You didn't expect me to give you a loaded weapon, did you?
S: Well, yes.
This is another reference to "Die Hard." There's a scene in the movie where the bad guy, Hans (Alan Rickman) pretends to be an ally, and John McClane (Bruce Willis) gives him a weapon. Hans then attempts to shoot John McClane and John says exactly what our John says to Scorpius.

John pulls the helmet off the dead Coreeshi
J: It's like...Mr. Pumpkinhead. Kinda cool.
S: Bio-engineered armour shell
J: Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside.
Mr. Pumpkinhead sounds really familiar, but I might be thinking of Mr. Potatohead. Actually, what it really reminds me of is Jack Pumpkinhead from the book, "The Marvelous Land of Oz."

Our site readers came through again, thanks to everyone who wrote in. This is a reference to a horror film called, what else, "Pumpkinhead".

Aeryn explains to John that the head Coreeshi has shrunk D'Argo
J: So, we've gone from Die Hard to Honey, I Shrunk the Hostages.
John's riffing on the title of the movie "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" about an absent-minded scientist who accidentally shrinks his and the neighbor's kids while running an experiment in his attic.

S: I seem to recall a Peacekeeper file about a species called the Coreeshi.
J: These are our pumpkin people?
Pumpkin people? I'm stumped. Any ideas? Perhaps just another reference to "Pumpkinhead" the movie referenced above.

Steam is rising from Scorpius's helmet.
J: You're smoking. You know that's not good for you.
This is classic Crichton, making a joke no one else gets for his own personal amusement.

J: Hit the bench, go on.
S: How did you survive so far?
J: Charm, good looks, a winning attitude.

1812 impales the Coreeshi
J: Bear trap, ugly but creative.
I'm not familiar with bear traps so I can't really comment, but one of our readers did. He told us "a beartrap works by a heavy spring pinning its foot in place. The trap [John uses] was more like that seen in the Green Berets with John Wayne, where McLean Stevenson is killed with a spring-loaded, two stage trap." Thanks!

C: Where are we?
J: You're still tiny, and you're still stuck in a beer can.

J: I got a plan. (Leans down and breathes into the canister holding Chiana and Aeryn) How's my breath? Death by laser guillotine. 4 DRDs -- clothesline the suckers.
Ah, the return of "manic John." I love it. The guillotine was the classic instrument of execution by beheading made famous by the French Revolution. To "clothesline" someone is to trip them up by stringing a rope across a path at neck level.

Aeryn & Chiana express doubts about the plan
J: Don't be small-minded
We pause our regularly scheduled program to allow the entire viewing audience to groan over that pun

Chiana, how are the peepers?
Peepers = eyes. From the song "Jeepers Creepers" written by Johnny Mercer.

John gets the area set up for the ambush and checks on Chiana and Aeryn again
J: How are my little inaction figures?
Oh, wouldn't it be cool if they put out season 4 action figures packaged in little containers like the ones from this episode? I'd buy the whole set!

As predicted by Aeryn, John's plan fails miserably
J: Oh crap, best laid plans...
An often used misquote from the poem "To A Mouse" by Robert Burns. The actual quote is "The best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft agley."

to the Coreeshi henchmen
J: Your boss, he's not a battlebot.
Coreeshi Henchman: Ridiculous!
J: Take a can opener to him. But you'd better do it quick. Fellows, I've got no axe to grind. Peacekeepers, Scarrans, I'm dead either way...If I'm telling the truth -- yeah, we're going to smoke the peace pipe.

• Battlebots is a tv show featuring robots created to fight each other. It airs on Comedy Central.
• Can opener is pretty self explanatory.
• Having an "axe to grind" with someone means you have a grievance against them.
• "Smoke the peace pipe" refers to the use of a ceremonial pipe by certain Native American groups like the Lakota.

The Coreeshi suddenly explode at the joints and fall over dead
J: Man, I hope you guys are still under warranty.
We covered warranties in Look At The Princess 2

John pulls off one of the arms gauntlets and scoops innards out of it and puts it on
J: Ew, it's still warm. Uh, nurse, I am ready for surgery.
Doctors scrub up and put on gloves before surgery. I'm sure they never put on gloves filled with pumpkin guts though.

Searches the canisters in the dead Coreeshi and finds Rygel & Sikozu
J: Hey how 'bout that. I got a tadpole.
A tadpole is the juvenile stage of a frog's development.

John stomps the tiny Scarran
J: One small step for man
looks at what's left
J: Donde esta la cucaracha?

• "One small step for man" is part of the words spoken by Neil Armstrong when he first set foot on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission.
• John says: "Where is the cockroach?" Well John, it's pretty well splatted.

D: We should still keep an eye on [Scorpius] at all times.
J: 24/7
24/7 means 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not terribly meaningful when you live in the Uncharted Territories.

J: Do me a favor. Pop outside the Tier 3, Treblin side hatch and haul Granny in.
D: Noranti's outside?
J: She's got some red Play-Doh in her pocket, a dose of that when she gets in and she should be all right.
Play-Doh is a clay-like modeling substance made by Hasbro toys. It comes in a rainbow of colors. You can even make your own at home.

John asks Aeryn about Tormented Space
A: Um, it's a place where neither Peacekeepers or Scarrans will travel.
J: Right it's a rough neighborhood.
All I can say is that Tormented Space better not turn out to be like "Event Horizon." We both agree that is probably the most horrific film every made. Yuck!