So I started watching Farscape. I’m always really behind the times, but I don’t mind that.
I hesitated for a long time in watching it because it is kind of dated (1999-2002) and plus I was afraid it would be some of…“Oh, white guy goes into space and fixes everything and gets the girl to boot”.
I have now watched the first four episodes and am pleased to report it hasn’t had much of that. The girl doesn’t instantly like him and Crichton is very much a fish out of water. But he’s also not dumb; his doctorate does serve him in good stead. He’s just overwhelmed by all of the alien stuff.
The crew is a little silly, but Episode 4 is what really cemented my desire to watch it. It actually handled some stuff pretty seriously and there was genuine chemistry (I felt) between Crichton and the young blond tech.
So is there anything I need to know about it? I know it got cancelled in fourth season, but I also know there is a 3-hour special that finishes it off. Is it worth it to keep going or will I just be sorely disappointed? Any episodes a must-see or any episodes I should definitely plan to skip?
The show really becomes good at the end of the first season and it gets better from there. The mini-series after the fourth season is a pretty good ending to the show that left me satisfied for the most parts. It does feel like a truncated fifth season though. Lots of cool buildup in previous seasons that were rushed through, or ignored, to some degree. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by the show.
Until you get to the episode “Nerve”, you haven’t really begun. The series got a lot better as it went and I thought it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
The silliness persists throughout the series; that’s just part of the show’s nature. It’s almost a comedy. (The pervasive body-function humor does get to be a bit tiresome at times, IMHO.) But it outshines more serious SF shows in a number of ways, such as the many genuinely weird aliens created by the Henson workshop. There’s plenty of satisfying character development as the series goes on. I won’t say much about the show’s main villains for fear of spoilers, but they have great story lines.
I picked it up in the second season, and that was first-class space opera. Rockne O’Bannon is the unsung hero of televised TV(check his filmography).
The final season, though, suffers from a massive attacks of the stupids. It is really awful; and possibly the biggest drop in quality in one season in the history of TV.
‘Scape is a Fweakin’ great series, stupid sci-fi channel killed it too soon, apparently the moronic CEO Bonnie Hammer (stupid Frelling tralk) thought the show was “too intelligent for our viewers” (IOW, BH thought sci-fi channel viewers were idiots)
There are so many great eps, in all four seasons, and the show swings widely between comedy and drama, but it’s overall consistently good
While Season four was a little weak, I love some of their little nods to continuity, like this one from the episode Kansas, there’s no spoilers, and since it takes place in an “unrealized reality” it’s a possible alternate reality…
Another scene (a deleted scene) featuring my favorite female character in the series, Chiana, tell me if you don’t get a little chill near the end when Pip (Crichton’s nickname for Chiana) whispers “but this place overdoes it…”
Memorable episodes for me;
Season 1
Durka Returns
Season 2
Taking the stone
Crackers don’t matter
Won’t get fooled again
Out of their minds
The way we weren’t
Season 3
Different destinations (not the typical reset-button time travel plot…)
Eat me
Green eyed monster (that’s no moon…)
Incubator
Infinite possibilities part 1 and 2
Revenging Angel
The “Lions den” three part arc
Season 4
Unrealized reality
Kansas
Terra firma
A constellation of doubt
Bad Timing
I really liked the show back in the day. It starts out a little weak, gets a lot better, then goes downhill towards the end (as shows often do), but overall, even though it was going downhill, I was disappointed when it was canceled. I was still enjoying the show.
The special effects are a bit cheesy by modern standards and too many aliens have a “puppet” feel to them. It’s not bad for 1999 technology, though.
On the plus side, the chemistry between the crew remains interesting throughout the series. One of the great things about it is that they don’t always all get along.
Keep going to the end. You’ll see it go downhill, but you’ll probably be invested enough in the show by then that you’ll want to follow it until the last episode.
One of the things I loved about the show was NO RESETS.
They would take a tired old Star Trek trope like body switching or cloning of characters and play it not only straight, but characters would refer back to it years later!
That is what told me this show is different.
Criticism I have is a few too many plot holes and inexplicable resurrections, how did <blank> recover from being shot and buried in a shallow grave?! We are never told, it could have been something they meant to go back to before the cancellation though.
The first season of Farscape is the most uneven. One episode had a pure “wizard” which pushed the Sci-Fi show further into Fantasy than it would normally sit. Although Zhaan (Blue Skinned woman played by an actress previously seen in Mad Max 2) supposedly has a dark past, the episode where she (and others) are particularly mean to Pilot (voiced by the same actor who plays Crais) seems misjudged.
However - and I have mentioned this recently - I would strongly recommend watching every episode since the narrative does get complicated and confusing, often deliberately, and your only way of keeping up is to watch all the episodes.
Otherwise there are good episodes and bad episodes. The writers and producers liked to play “games” with the viewers with fun episodes (the one based around Looney Tunes cartoons) and surreal episodes. Plus plenty of variations on “It was all a dream.”
People, generally, either like the show or hate it so if you have found value in a few episodes then settling down to watch the lot (in order) should give increasing returns.
That blue makeup that everyone loved is actually the main reason that Virginia Hey left the show. The makeup irritated her skin and made her ill. She said in an interview after she left that ironically as her character got more and more popular, she was getting weaker and sicker underneath the makeup, until finally she was so miserable that she couldn’t take it any more.
There was more than one blue skinned woman on the show… Though to be fair, the skin looked a bit grey other times. I can’t recall exactly if it was blue now. Looks like it here:
I guess it makes the difference which picture you see her in, I think I remember seeing her in an interview in the extras where this one would be more appropriate…
