Farscape Signs for 2 More Years

Dimes noted that the scifi channel has signed Farscape for 2 more seasons. 44 more episodes of my favorite sci-fi on TV (Well, maybe Lexx gives it a run for its money ;). New episodes start in January, and I'm a happy camper. Related ramblings: TNN is doing a marathon rerun of all of ST:TNG all this week. And I finally watched Enterprise- that theme song really has gotta go. But I'd like to see more, if only I could get it in my area. So much potential if they don't screw it up.

Another quality product from Oztralya.

[ratzmilk]

The best Sci-Fi since Mad Max (Road Warrior for you Yanks). Only problem is, we don't get to see it here. Season 1 is currently showing on Cable on the FoxKids channel, but that's it. It ran for about 4 weeks on free to air, on Channel 9, who incidentally are co-produces of the show, but they pulled it.

LEXX is becoming more popular here, but still is only shown on Cable. Again, it was on late Sunday nights on Free to Air on Channel 7 here, but only for the first season.

Farscape is quality sci-fi

[p24t]

Farscape is a unique take on a space-exploring sci-fi show. Crichton is thrust into a completely alien environment, with no other humans. (although Sebatians don't really require makeup). Each of the other main characters are different species, a couple of them are non-humanoid, and are therefore puppets. The other planets and races they run into are strange and bizarre, and you never know what to expect.

The ship itself, which the pilot is connected to biologically, is itself a living being, and sometimes makes decisions on its own. The show seems to have explored the living-ship aspect quite well.

The show's main focus is usually on Crichton, who is confused from the start. He doesn't understand anything, much less how he got there. Of course, he learns quickly (Humans have to be good for something.) but is still considered by the rest of the crew to be inferior.

The crew, being made of excaped prisoners, is always on the run, but they don't start off by trusting each other, except by necessity. On more than one occasion, one member has betrayed the rest. Each different species has their own quirks, and biological differences, from D'Argo's self-poisonous blood to Rigel farting helium.

The language-barrier is tacked by implanted microbes, which, while something that has to be tackled by the type of show, doesn't immediately take effect on Crichton. The different languages also cause problems with other non-implanted beings later. But at least it's not the 'magic auto-translating badge' or other methods used elsewhere.

The plots are good, the episodes are well-written and interesting, and the acting is great. While watching it, I forget that Rigel and Pilot are puppets. I recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction, just watch a couple episodes. It's not for everybody, but what is?

p24t

Re:Farscape Newbie

[Pfhor]

The later into the series, they usually get more diverse aliens, but there are a lot of humaniods, not as close as star trek, where it really is most ly facial makeup changes. I don't know if anyone can find the actual article, but i remember reading somewhere some theories that pretty much said that other intelligent life out there has a good chance of being humanoid because of some basic ideas of convergent evolution (like how in australia there are species which look similar to ones in north america, but have a very different ancestry). I also think they threw in the humans with ink thing because at the beginning they didn't have a lot of money, so they probably spent a lot of their money on the big puppets (pilot, rygel, d'argo's costume, etc.) and were left with enough money for body paint and sparkly things.

But it works.

Chiana is hot. I am still unconvinced that andromeda is better (it's more of a hercules in space thing).

Guy?

[Pope]

Dude, it was Diane Warren who wrote the theme song.

Re:Farscape Newbie

[IBgrad]

Go to scifi's farscape page. You can read the "journey log" wich is essentially a teaser for each episode. It is best if you just read up to where you are to get an idea of what it going on. But the logs leave enough unsaid to still make the episodes worth watching if you are like me and loose control and just read all of them. Right now they are rerunning earlier season 3 stuff on fridays. This Friday they will be showing "Thanks for Sharing," and Wednesday they will show "Family Ties" the last episode of season 1. There will not be any truly new episodes until the season finale in January. After you read the journey logs there is lots of other interesting stuff, like the character profiles and Chrichton's notes. Though my personal favorite was the "character insights" with the director that are in the "farscape primer." The character insights more than anything will help you get an idea of what is going on in the show.

Here a link to make it easy for you Farscape [scifi.com]

Re:Main Character is Dead

[Exatron]

I take it you haven't seen several episodes in the third season, which doesn't end until January. Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan is dead for good (the actress who played her left the show) and one of the two John Crichtons died. Crichton was duplicated in the episode "Eat Me," with each copy eventually traveling on different ships while attempting to evade the Peacekeepers. The only character that was ever truly resurected was Aeryn Sun, but the process proved quite detrimental to Zhaan's health. All of the other characters only died in the sense that some hospital patients may die and be resuscitated while undergoing an operation.

farscape etc.

[56ksucks]

Farscape I like. Lexx seems stupid to me though. I haven't got a chance to see Enterprise yet, but, I already see a flaw in it. The Klingons. In the original series Klingons looked human, it wasn't until the first movie that they had bumpy heads. Enterprise is set before the original series. So logically Klingons would look human. This flaw in the story line wouldn't be a big deal, but the writers have already addressed the fact that somewhere in the fictional history the Klingons went through some type of change. In the DS9 episode trials and tribble-ations the DS9 crew look at Warf in disbelief when he tells them that the human like beings at the other table are indead Klingons. Of couse we don't know exactly what happened (other than an increase in the makeup artists' budget) because Warf explains to the crew, "We do not discuss it with outsiders". The point is, they've already accepted in the story line that something happened in the history of the Klingons that changed their appearance forever. And now the Klingons in Star Trek Enterprise look like the new Klingons. Major flaw in the story line.

Re:Main Character is Dead

[tap]

There have been a few more than that.

In the episode with the Tavloids, er Tavleks, Rygel gets choaked to death by a guard before a commerical, then after the break he is brought back to life by the squid thing in the cell next to him.

Stark is killed when he's dispersed as a punishment for blowing up the nuclear waste aliens' ship after D'argo rats on him. But then he comes back to life in another episode.

Durka, the captain of the Zelbenion, is a dead corpse in the episode "PK Tech Girl", but in "Durka Returns" it turns out he faked his death and was captured by the Nebari and frozen for 100 years or so. His ship is sucked out of Moya and explodes at the end of that eposide. But then later it turns out he lived (he ducked when the ship exploded) and now leads the Zenetan pirates. He appears right before a commercial break and then Rygel kills him and sticks his head on a stick right afterwards.

Maldus, the magic vampire guy, gets killed at the end of the episode, but then comes back in another and is killed again.

In one episode Crichton appears to have killed Scorpius after his cooling rods explode, but then we find out he didn't die, just got a headache.

D'Argo appears to get eaten in the episode "Eat Me", but then we find out the weird dude made a backup copy of D'Argo before eating him so he's still around. Chiana also gets eaten (not like that! maybe the uncut verison..) but we see her get copied first so it's not a return from the dead.

The weak surgeon alien that took apart Chrichton's brain appears to die when Scorpius breathes on him. But next season we find out he was just passed out, and he survies just long enough to put Chrichton's brain back before a scaran breathes on him and dies for good.

In one episode Chrichton is frozen in carbonite (it worked for Han Solo) and his head is cut off and tossed in a pool of hot acid. But carbonite is tuff stuff, so in the next episode they fish out his head, stick it back on, and revive him.

Aeryn's mother Xhalax cuts Rygel in half when she escapes in the episode "Relativity". But then Stark stiches him back together with magic healing vine and he comes back to life.

In that same epsidode, Crais kills Xhalax when they recapture her, but then she comes back in another episode because Crais just really just pretended to kill her.

And Zhaan might not really be dead. The last episode ended with Stark staying Zhaan is trying to contact him from behond the grave (compost pile?) and he's going to leave Moya for a while and look for her.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but clearly there have been quite a few "he wasn't really dead" plot twits.

Lexx? CmdrTaco revealed!

[Kostya]

I know conclude that despite all of CmdrTaco's talk about anime and such, he is clearly a sci-fi poser. Lexx is the bottom of the barrel, below even all those bad Mark Hamill movies (which at least have the fact that they document the plummeting career of a scifi beloved going for them).

Lexx is crap. Not Andromeda crap (i.e. sketchy scifi/science) which is still fun. Lexx is crap-crap. Utterly iredeemable. It is the TV equivalent of Battlefield Earth.