TVScape.NET

Basic Facts:

Episodes: 22
Runtime: 50 min.
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Premiered: 1999

Format:

Series

Genres:

Adventure, Sci-Fi

Created By:

Rockne S. O'Bannon

Actors:

Anthony Simcoe, Ben Browder, Claudia Black, Gigi Edgley, Jonathan Hardy, Lani Tupu, Virginia Hey

Made In:

Australia, USA

Premiered at:

SyFy

I have watched Farscape for the first time in 2004. And from back then, this unique sci­ence fic­tion show remains my favorite TV show ever. Even if you try, you can not really com­pare Farscape to any other sci-​fi show, it’s truly unique. Farscape is Aus­tralian show financed by the Amer­i­can SciFi chan­nel (now SyFy chan­nel). Show is cre­ated by Rockne S. O’Bannon and pro­duced by Jim Hen­son Pro­duc­tion and Hall­mark Entertainment.

Hen­son Com­pany, famous for the cre­ation of Muppet’s, was respon­si­ble makeup, pros­thet­ics and many crea­tures includ­ing two reg­u­lar char­ac­ters. Main char­ac­ter, John Crich­ton is played by Ben Brow­der and he is the only Amer­i­can actor on the show. From the begin­ning shows fol­low the main sto­ry­line that started when Crichton’s space mod­ule Farscape One gets caught in the worm­hole and trans­ported to the other end of the galaxy. Crich­ton con­tin­ues his voy­age in search of the way to get back to Earth on the Leviathan, liv­ing ship called Moya. Most episodes in the first sea­son have a basic episode based story, and still fol­low the main storyline.

Char­ac­ters

Crichton’s ship­mates are Ka D’argo (Luxan), Aeryn Sun (Seba­cian, human-​like), Rygel (Hyner­ian, ani­mated pup­pet), Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan (Del­vian) and Pilot (Pilots, con­nected to the ship, also ani­mated pup­pet). Later in the sea­son they are joined by Chi­ana (Nebari). Dur­ing first sea­son they are chased by the Peace­keeper cap­tain Crais, and in the last few episodes we meet Crichton’s neme­sis called Scor­pius (half Seba­cian, half Scarran).

Char­ac­ter devel­op­ment is excel­lent, even pup­pets char­ac­ters are done excel­lent in both move­ment and ani­ma­tion and excel­lent voice act­ing. Both Pilot and Rygel look very believ­able, and when you go deeper into the show you will not even notice any­more that they are made as pup­pets. All char­ac­ters are com­plex with a lot of back sto­ries that are revealed as the show pro­gresses. Many episodes fea­ture strange-​looking aliens that for the most part are either cre­ated using pros­thet­ics or as a full ani­mated pup­pets. And some of the races look very strange. This made the show look­ing very col­or­ful, rich and dif­fer­ent from Star Trek con­cept of aliens.

All actors are really excel­lent, com­mit­ted to story, to every line. They per­for­mances are emo­tional and deep and I really can’t find any other SF show that offers this level of act­ing as the Farscape does. Character/​Actors chem­istry is amaz­ing and that’s another thing that will pull you deeper into the Farscape magic. Char­ac­ters are multi dimen­sional, heroic, but still flawed, petty and self­ish at times. All this makes them seem very real. There is no clear dis­tinc­tion between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ char­ac­ters as you will find out if you watch the show.

Sto­ries and storytelling

For the most part, sto­ries in all the episodes, includ­ing the main sto­ry­line, are very well writ­ten, intel­li­gent. There are some clichés in the sto­ry­telling that couldn’t be avoided con­sid­er­ing that this is SF show for the most part. This is a grand adven­ture, drama and even a love story. But unlike many other SF shows, that fol­low strict set of rules like Star Trek, Baby­lon 5 and oth­ers fol­low; sto­ry­telling in Farscape sim­ply has no strict rules. It’s a real fan­tasy, any­thing can hap­pen. Humor is a very impor­tant part of the show from the very first episode, and many pop-​culture remarks by Crich­ton will really make you laugh (ref­er­ences to Clint East­wood, Star Wars, Three Stooges and many more).

Music and sound effects

Music is excel­lent, but in the first sea­son it lacks in pro­duc­tion val­ues. Some of the crea­tures lips syn­chro­niza­tion is not always done well, but that’s the prob­lem with pup­pets, but you will notice that too much. Other spe­cial sound effects are done well, from the ships sounds, minia­ture DRD robots and every­thing else.

Show pro­duc­tion

Unfor­tu­nately SciFi chan­nel gave the show very lim­it­ing bud­get, caus­ing some of the pro­duc­tion val­ues to be lower than you would like in the show like this one. But still, it’s amaz­ing what they man­aged to do with it. CGI is used only for space scenes, and is not very con­sis­tent in terms of qual­ity, but it’s still bet­ter than Baby­lon 5 or Star Trek TNG. This will improve in the fol­low­ing sea­sons. Some of the inte­ri­ors are look­ing repet­i­tive from time to time, and that’s also to blame on the small bud­get. That’s also one of the rea­sons they kept tech­ni­cal side of the ships, com­puter ter­mi­nals to the least, and that made them look­ing very alien and strange. Impor­tant thing is that show cre­ators man­aged to turn all the pro­duc­tion prob­lems into advan­tage, and man­aged to make a truly unique look­ing show.

Cos­tumes are great and diverse, from black leather uni­forms of Peace­keep­ers to rep­til­ian look­ing Scar­rans, and royal look­ing Del­vians cos­tume design­ers really had a free­dom to go crazy; fur­ther enhanc­ing the way the show looks.

Con­clu­sion

For most SciFi fans it’s not easy to get into the Farscape uni­verse. It breaks all the rules, it’s unpre­dictable and so unlike any other SF show you can see on TV. Don’t pay much atten­tion to physics and sci­en­tific the­o­ries, because in Farscape all that is not impor­tant. If you give it a chance, if you stop com­par­ing it to other shows you will really enjoy it. I watch Farscape at least once or twice a year, and I am still amazed by it. No other show com­pares to Farscape. Despite the flaws and pro­duc­tion prob­lems, few bumps on the road, every­thing the Farscape really is, blends into a truly per­fect, deep, enter­tain­ing, com­plex and highly addic­tive show.