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He is so likable and nice in season 1 apart from the understandable occasional snap, yet in season 2 he is a complete dick to everyone! Always! Whenever someone says ANYTHING he goes on to reply in a ohmygod-you-are-all-so-pathetic-and-annoying-i-am-so-much-better-than-you-please-just-shutup manner!

Does anyone know what the reason was? For example did the character writers change?

I am new to farscape and in the middle of season 2, Pleeeease WITHOUT SPOILERS can someone tell me if he gets back to his old self after this season?

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3 Answers 3

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Something happened during the Season 1 finale that won't be apparent until near the end of Season 2. The first clues were in 2x04, Crackers Don't Matter.

While I never really noticed it as rudeness (more like irritability), he does mellow out a little later on.

For completeness in this answer, this is what you'll learn by the end of Season 2:

In short, Crichton is slowly going insane due to the neural chip placed in his head by Scorpius.

Harvey's appearance in Crackers Don't Matter was originally supposed to be nothing more than a hallucination, but the writers decided Scorpius needed a more-constant presence to be a big enough threat to the main characters, so the existence of the neural chip was retconned in to the events of the Season 1 finale by way of flashbacks.

In the season 2 finale, the neural chip is removed, but Harvey remains. At this point, Crichton gets more control over Harvey's appearances, since the personality doesn't have a physical presence backing it anymore, and isn't quite as wound up.

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    Like Izkata said, John's erratic behavior is mostly caused by what Scorpius did to him. But that's not all. His feelings for a certain female on board of the Leviathan and his coming to terms with his long absence from home and the possibility of never getting back to Earth also play an important role. Furthermore, a new dangerous species is introduced in season 2 and let's just say that their agenda doesn't sit well with John.
    – JC2k8
    Commented Sep 25, 2013 at 12:07
  • And by the end of Season 4, to be quite honest, he's a total tool. He gets so cocky and arrogant by the end. At least he seems to be aware of this.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Jul 6, 2016 at 9:37
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I never particularly noticed a change in attitude; however, an in-universe explanation would probably be PTSD.

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    Thanks for your answers guys :-) much appreciated. Im glad it mellows out. Its strange, half my friends who watch farscape say they hardly noticed it and the other half say it was really noticable and disconcerting to them. Strange, i guess its just relative! Oh ptsd is horrible. And a good explanation. Ptsd was really well shown in S2EP1 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
    – Lola
    Commented Sep 25, 2013 at 10:49
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The Crichton lovers will completely disagree with this, but I see it as his original personality. You're so spot on in his mannerisms. Even if he was the captain, which he was already acting like he was, his abuse (verbal and physical) would still be out of order and definitely not explained away by PTSD.

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  • Welcome to Science Fiction and Fantasy! I do not think it was any kind of PTSD, but rather spoiler thing in one of the other answers. But in any case, why do you think that was his original personality ?
    – Adamant
    Commented Sep 8, 2016 at 18:29
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    -1; an unsupported opinion to counter another (unstated?) opinion does not make a good answer.
    – Radhil
    Commented Sep 8, 2016 at 20:39

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