Farscape

NomAnor15 · Post by **NomAnor15** » 2008-01-24 10:37pm

So, I've been watching this show recently (I'm about halfway through the first season), and I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed. The first couple of epsiodes were promising (good [if unoriginal] plot hook, decent room for character development, better 'alienization' than, for example, Star Trek), but as it went on, it kind of dropped into a pretty dull routine. So I figured I'd talk about it here, see what other people think, that kind of thing.

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba · Post by **Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba** » 2008-01-24 11:04pm

Best sci-fi show made, in my opinion. Gets better as it goes, before reaching a crazy crescendo in the Fourth Season, sadly cut short.

Gullible Jones · Post by **Gullible Jones** » 2008-01-24 11:13pm

From what I've seen of it, I'm not very impressed either. I mean, the weirdness is nice, but the characters are a bunch of annoying idiots, and the Scarrans just stretch my disbelief way beyond the breaking point.

(Their hides are tough enough to resist fire from pulse pistols, and even single shots from rifles? And they can project waves of furnace-like heat from their hands? And they can stay alive - and able to scream bloody murder - after being completely dismembered? Honestly, were these guys dragged out of Marvel Comics?)

Shannon · Post by **Shannon** » 2008-01-25 03:14am

I liked it. The characters appealed to me despite their annoying traits, or in fact sometimes because of them. You know how you like your friends despite the things they sometimes do that annoy the hell out of you? At times I thought that some of the characters were absolute idiots. The Farscape characters were great cos they were fallible and believable - they weren't a bunch of clones, or wanked out or nerfed, and even those who seem initially to fit into a stereotype are revealed to have interesting aspects. Take D'Argo, for example.
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He starts out as the stereotypical berserker warrior type, but it turns out he's rather young and inexperienced. His rank tattoos were applied to fool an enemy who'd captured his unit into interrogating the wrong prisoner, meaning that in some respects he's a fraud and quite insecure. He has a Sebatian wife and half-breed son (THAT I didn't like) and is eventually elected leader by the rest of the crew. He dies heroically in The Peacekeeper Wars (awesome movie). He has that really cool stunning tongue . . . which also has other uses, if you recall the scene from 'Look At The Princess' Trilogy (one of my favourites) where Crichton walks in on D'Argo and Chiana having sex. And he's not even my favourite character.

Darth Ruinus · Post by **Darth Ruinus** » 2008-01-25 03:22am

I liked the show, partly because of Chiana (she's hot) and because of some of the crazy episodes.

DesertFly · Post by **DesertFly** » 2008-01-25 03:53am

I watched it all the way through the mini, but don't necessarily take that as recommendation. I tend to watch shows all the way through unless they are horrifically bad, so I guess that it was okay.
I did like it, but sometimes the weirdness seemed like it was overplayed, like the show was being weird just for the sake of it.

DesertFly · Post by **DesertFly** » 2008-01-25 03:56am

Oh, and the actress who played Chiana was attractive, as was Sikozu, but Chiana herself was a grey freak (although she looked blue on my tv.)

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-01-25 08:00am

It really does get better as it goes along, and the Peacekeeper Wars are fucking awesome at the end of it. Stick with it. I especially like what they do with Crais' character.

CaptJodan · Post by **CaptJodan** » 2008-01-25 09:58am

Hit and miss for me, but I enjoyed some episodes. The one that always comes to mind that I enjoyed is the Crackers one. Of course there are a bucket full of weird episodes that I didn't always take to. The roadrunner episode was particularly odd.

PK Wars was probably a decent highpoint of the series.

NomAnor15 · Post by **NomAnor15** » 2008-01-25 11:18am

Zuul wrote:It really does get better as it goes along, and the Peacekeeper Wars are fucking awesome at the end of it. Stick with it. I especially like what they do with Crais' character.

Peacekeeper Wars? Sounds good to me. I think space combat is one of things that's lacking from the show (up to where I am in it). You know what's weird though...I actually have more sympathy for Crais than most of the main characters. Clearly he's a nutjob, but at least he has some nominal reason for it.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-01-25 01:18pm

Oh man, I want to tell you some of the awesome stuff that happens, but I won't. You need to watch it!

Also, yeah, there are some "experimental" episodes that are a bit out there.

All this talk is making me consider buying the full box set.

PREDATOR490 · Post by **PREDATOR490** » 2008-01-25 01:20pm

If you are looking for space battles then your unlikely to get it in Farscape. Not even the film (Mini-Series, whatever) is that good for space battles beyond the introduction.

I found Farscape rather amusing when they started showing it after Star Trek stuff on BBC 2. It made an interesting counterpoint and the premise and style they used is rather unique. Granted it has more than a few 'wierd' episodes but found it more of a bonus than a negative. Star Trek always ended up being so dreadfully dull and predictable because they rarely went into weird stuff and the whole premise was to be the 'ideal future of humanity' stuff.

Farscape tends to go the other direction and show a relatively normal guy flung into a situation and dealing with it as best he can to survive. It isnt about watching him preach to aliens or 'explore strange new worlds'. Essentially, it's the kind of character you could probably relate to if you were put in this position while adding levity with the humor like Earth references A.K.A Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars, Star Trek. I will admit the whole Scorpius angle was an extremely obvious attempt by the writers to keep the show going. You cant have 4 seasons worth of Crichton being chased by Crais 'just' for revenge. They had to bring in the wormhole angle for the arc to escalate along the road which eventually results in the Peacekeeper Wars.

As for the Scarrans... I think they go hand in hand with the general shift the series took in it's story. At first we saw the Peacekeepers as being Star Wars version of Imperials but over the course of the show they further expand on the universe to give a, at least I considered it valid, reason why they are in their situation. Season 4 is easily the best of the bunch for me with the 'Bomb' arc and the Earth episodes.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2008-01-25 03:15pm

I liked the series. It was idiosyncratic and Crichton's in-jokes to other SF franchises and cliches added a nice twist to some episodes. The character interaction was very good, particulary Crichton/Aeryn and Crichton/D'argo (drinking buddies who always ended up in a barfight somewhere). I ended up liking the Scorpius angle, and Wayne Pygram played the character quite well.

Alright, enough of this R2D2 crap, we're going with the Star Trek system —one blink for 'yes' and two blinks for 'no'.
—Crichton's instructions to DRD "Pike".

AK_Jedi · Post by **AK_Jedi** » 2008-01-25 04:05pm

Sure, the show is a bit weird, and may not have entirely original plots, but shows that are truly original are few and far between. Farscape has awesome characters, an awesome world, and an awesome off the wall sense of humor.

In my opinion, campy scifi shows like this are just boring unless they have a sense of humor. This is why I still enjoy shows like stargate and farscape even when the plots get a little ridiculous, and the leaps in logic get bigger.

Braedley · Post by **Braedley** » 2008-01-26 01:45am

I really enjoy the show, and actually re-watched every episode over the summer (I didn't really have much else to do, as we had no cable tv). I must admit that if I were to introduce someone to the show, I would show them the first episode, then jump right to season 2 before showing them the first season. In fact, when it had originally aired, I passed over it, thinking that I wouldn't like it, and then saw a season 2 episode and was hooked (my exact thoughts were something like "oh, so this is Farscape. Cool"). Get through the first season, and you'll be thankful you stuck with it.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2008-01-26 04:34am

Dunno, I actually kinda like first season Crichton somewhat better then the latter season ones. In S2 and later on he quickly develops into a wise-cracking, gun-wielding, adventurer bad-ass with his scientific credentials in the background, while in the first season you have an interesting concept of one of the brightest scientists/engineers of a low-tech culture stuck in a situation where his knowledge and himself are of limited use, and I found the exploration of that interesting. I don't mind him ending up in bad-ass mode, 4 years of being on the run and simply seeing and doing all the crap he did would do that (plus probably give him PTSD), but the transition could have been a bit more smooth rather then him just suddenly donning leather in S2.

Bedlam · Post by **Bedlam** » 2008-01-26 12:03pm

Netko wrote:Dunno, I actually kinda like first season Crichton somewhat better then the latter season ones. In S2 and later on he quickly develops into a wise-cracking, gun-wielding, adventurer bad-ass with his scientific credentials in the background, while in the first season you have an interesting concept of one of the brightest scientists/engineers of a low-tech culture stuck in a situation where his knowledge and himself are of limited use, and I found the exploration of that interesting. I don't mind him ending up in bad-ass mode, 4 years of being on the run and simply seeing and doing all the crap he did would do that (plus probably give him PTSD), but the transition could have been a bit more smooth rather then him just suddenly donning leather in S2.

I be honest I've always seen it that Crichton snaps and actually goes insane somewhere during series one, probably when hes tortured by Scorpius and the Crichton in the rest of the series is the personality he puts together to protect himself.

Zixinus · Post by **Zixinus** » 2008-01-26 02:07pm

Personally I got a bit tired of it by season three. I didn't like it how each episode becomes more and more the emotional lament of the crew. For aliens, they had quite human-specific problems.

Although, you have to admit, that Critchon changing personality is quite expectable: after getting shot at numerous times, I would get a gun and stop being nice after a while too.

As for the Sebbecians, who says they aren't engineered? From what I saw about them, I wouldn't put it past them.

However I really liked the premise. An astronaut with a bunch of criminals doing whatever they have to do to survive. How they get into one crappy situation from another per episode is quite much more believable. Although, I would really would have liked to know how they got that damn ship in the first place.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2008-01-26 02:39pm

Erm... watch the pilot episode (and a few others here and there during the run)?

And yes, the Sebbacians are engineered, its explained in PK Wars.

Zixinus · Post by **Zixinus** » 2008-01-26 03:02pm

Erm... watch the pilot episode (and a few others here and there during the run)?

No, I mean how did D'Argo and the rest get hold of the ship in the first place? I don't recall much about that.

Braedley · Post by **Braedley** » 2008-01-26 05:07pm

That's in the pilot as well. And that probably should have been spoilerized, there Netko, but oh well.

Zixinus · Post by **Zixinus** » 2008-01-26 05:13pm

I'll re-watch the episode then.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2008-01-26 05:36pm

Gullible Jones wrote:and the Scarrans just stretch my disbelief way beyond the breaking point.

Just out of curiosity, was Maldiss a problem in the same way?

PREDATOR490 · Post by **PREDATOR490** » 2008-01-26 06:23pm

Watching Crichton steadily changing over the course of the series was one of the best things about it as far as I saw it. Season 4 has the whole 'return' to Earth episodes which bring this up and it is hardly unresonable given what he has been subjected too over the arc.

Crichton goes from being a normal 'moral human in the beginning to becoming the kind of guy who is willing to blow Scorpius's head off or make devil deals. A.K.A The bomb arc of season 4 is pretty much the peak example of how far Crichton changed in contrast to the start when he wouldnt kill Crais etc.

The scope of the series is lighter as well. The equivelent of Serenity the way I see it. We are seeing this 'new' universe from the perspective of criminals and your 'average joe' kind of deal. Not things like Star Trek or Stargate where the fate of billions are always at risk etc. The change in perspective was rather refreshing when I watched it although the series has it's own problems from such a standpoint. To be blunt, Farscape is hardly your good guy / bad guy clean cut show. Where the good guys always win or they preach like Star Trek. Instead the writers seem to have at least tried to murky up the situation so Crichton and company are the lesser evil at points. If anything I found that a highlight of the show next to the humor which incidentally is also like Serenity...

Gullible Jones · Post by **Gullible Jones** » 2008-01-26 06:28pm

I assume you mean Maldis (that's what I find on Google anyway)?

... I don't recall ever seeing that fellow. Wikipedia describes him as a a magical entity, is that right in-universe?