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fandomhigh_ooc2007-05-13 04:01 pm
stykera) wrote in fandomhigh_ooc2007-05-13 04:01 pm
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Spotlight on Fandoms: Farscape
Once upon a time, back in the early 90s, a guy named Rockne S. O'Bannon came up with an idea for a show, with a little help from Brian Henson (Jim's son) and David Kemper (god). And then in 1999, the SciFi channel brought us that show. It was Farscape and it was good. The show aired from 1999-2003, when Skiffy cruelly took it away from us after promising a 5th season and then canceling the show anyway, so they could air such quality entertainment as Tremors: The Series. No, really. After the cancellation was announced, there was a large fan campaign to save the show. It got covered on CNN even. More importantly, it kinda worked. A miniseries aired, in October 2004 (and it was the best birthday present EVER for me), to save us all from a cliffhanger ending of doom.
Meet John Crichton. John is your ordinary everyday IASA astronaut from a little planet we like to call Earth. While testing his slingshot theory in his Farscape module, he was hit by a magnetic wave and ended up down a wormhole. Bye bye Earth. Hello huge ship full of escaped prisoners that John kind of gets stuck with. Of course it can't just be that easy; upon exiting the wormhole, John's ship interrupted a space battle and hit another ship, killing its pilot. This is just the start of his problems.
Over the next four seasons, John lost his mind, got the girl (repeatedly), lost the girl (repeatedly), continued to piss people off to make them chase him around the galaxy, and it made for some really entertaining television, some people got back to their homes, some didn't, and some didn't because they died like dying things (for some of them, also repeatedly). Smart and equally funny and heartbreaking (and don't forget "OMG!!!"-inducing), it was one of those shows that wasn't afraid to go there (there was even Muppet porn) and even the worse episode/plotlines were still much better than anything else on television. AND WE WANT IT BACK.
The Characters
John Crichton (Ben Browder)
At the beginning of the series, John Robert Crichton was a scientist for IASA (they couldn't use NASA so they improvised) who, with his childhood friend DK, was testing a slingshot theory of space travel. Of course, as we find out later, John Crichton's luck absolutely sucks and his slingshot theory did not go as planned. Instead, a solar flare erupted during the initial test, opening up a wormhole and sending John Crichton into a completely different region of space. Here, John draws the ire of Bialar Crais, Scorpius, and Mele-On Grayza. He ends up getting mentally, physically and psychologically tortured, gets smacked around by the entire universe, goes completely off his rocker (can't imagine why) and after dealing with all that for four years, at least the poor guy gets a happy ending. Not that he earned it or anything.
Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black)
Aeryn starts out as one of the very human-looking Peacekeeper pilots in the battle John crashes (no pun intended), but her ship got sucked in along with Moya when she went into starburst, and Aeryn became the escaped prisoners' prisoner. She tried to turn them all in, but her commanding officer had lost his mind by then and deemed her irreversibly contaminated for hanging out with John. Oops. With no other choice, she goes with the others on Moya. Born and raised military, Aeryn kind of has a hard time adjusting, but ends up probably becoming the most attached to the life. The cute guy doesn't hurt.
Ka D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe)
D'Argo is a Luxan warrior, imprisoned by the Peacekeepers for killing his Sebacean wife. Except that he totally didn't do it. He's kind of scary, prone to Luxan hyper rage and is just all-around prickly when he wants to be, but he's got a much softer side and really only wants to be reunited with his son Jothee and go live on a farm somewhere. He's also kind of a party dude with absolutely no dance skills who somehow always manages to get the chicks. I'm not sure if they assumed anything about the six-foot long tongue he can use to stun people early and often, but hey, I'm sure they figured that they were wrong eventually.
Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan (Virginia Hey)
Zhaan is the gorgeous blue lady people (in my experience) remember if they've only seen a few minutes of the show. Also, she's a plant and she really, really likes lightclearly a deciding factor in the Stark relationship was the fact that Stark's all glowy. That's right, she's a plant, Delvians are flora-evolved. Zhaan has, in her own words, "kicked more ass than you've sat on," and there is little doubt this is true. She's a priest with a murderous past, she's an anarchist, she has photogasms, she grows spores, she gave her life for one of Moya's crew! Zhaan left the show in early season 3 due to the extensive makeup making the actress quite ill.
Rygel XVI (voiced by Jonathan Hardy)
Rygel is a puppet. OOCly, at least. He's the short little froglike creature in the thronesled who is actually the disposed dominar of Hyneria. His cousin had him imprisoned after a coup, and he's spent the most time on Moya, and in Peacekeeper captivity. Rygel is a little self-involved. He wants the shinies, he wants the attention, he wants the power, he wants to go home and get what's his, and he's pretty ruthless in how he gets it. Regardless, he seemed to be a really good leader and can sometimes be very sweet, which makes me feel a little dirty typing that. He also seems to get abused a lot because I think the cast and writers liked being able to hit the puppet.
Moya and Pilot (voiced by Lani Tupu)
Moya is a Leviathan, a giant living ship that had been used as a prison transport for D'Argo, Zhaan and Rygel when they escaped. Pilot, who is a separate purple clamshell-headed being, is physically bonded to her and is kind of like flight attendant, interpreting for her since she can't talk, and helps steer Moya along sometimes, such as when she is very scared. They are definitely individuals, though, and they don't even always agree. Oh, and Moya had a half-Peacekeeper gunship baby named Talyn. I miss this show.
Chiana (Gigi Edgley)
Chiana is of the Nebari race, who are big on conformity and mental cleansing. Chiana's not so big on that - is in fact a rebel and an accomplished thief - and so is a fugitive from her people. She joined the cast near the end of the first season. She's playful, seductive, promiscuous, and frankly bisexual. She's also determined that someday she is going to join her brother Nerri as a member of the Nebari resistance. Chiana can "kick, kiss or cry" her way out of anything. During the course of the third and fourth seasons, she developed a kind of psychic power - at first she was having premonitions, and now it manifests itself in a kind of time warp. Essentially, she's able to slow down time as she sees it, though it leaves her temporarily blind.
Stark (Paul Goddard)
Introduced at the end of the 1st season, Stark was meant to be a one-shotplot device character, but he was cool so they kept him around to eventually become a regular in season 3. Stark is a member of the Banik slave race, and the fact that they are slaves is nearly all we know about them from canon. He's also a Stykera, which is a special sort of Banik that does nifty stuff like crossing dying people over to "the other side", which we're pretty sure is why he is all glowy. Stark's crazy. He started off just pretending to be crazy while Scorpy used him for science experiments, then he really was crazy after he got dispersed, and then he was slightly less so, then he was really crazy again and just maybe at the end of it all he's mostly sane. It's confusing. A major contributing factor to the crazy is that the crew of Moya (and the universe at large, really) have a tendency to Kick The Stark.
Bialar Crais (Lani Tupu)
Crais is the captain of the command carrier launching the attack on Moya. And it's his brother that gets crispified when John knocks into his ship. After that, Crais isn't running with all of his cylinders working, and starts disobeying Peacekeeper commands to leave John Crichton alone so he can go chasing him into the Uncharted Territories. Eventually this gets the better of him, to the point that the PK's are not happy with him, and he defects onto Moya, where everyone lets their guard down just enough for him to make off with Talyn, bonding himself to the poor easily-influenced baby ship (who was gonna have a thing or two wrong with him anyway, let's face it). He pops up throughout seasons two and three mostly as an ally but also to frell over the crew when it suits him. He and Talyn both leave in season three, and let's just say they have their moment. It's a good one.
Scorpius (Wayne Pygram)
Dear old Scorpius is an anomaly: he wasn't born a Peacekeeper, he wasn't conscripted, he isn't even fully Sebacean. He's the product of a pretty brutal Scarran experiment in breeding with Sebaceans, raised in Scarran captivity before busting out and becoming badass. He signed up with the Peacekeepers in order to screw over the Scarrans that he hated, and since the Peacekeepers are not the Scarrans biggest fans, they said woo. He rose through the ranks and headed up the gammak base to develop wormhole weaponry against the Scarrans. Enter John, who gets captured and tortured and chipped to get the knowledge. Scorpy is a Machiavellian bastard who doesn't care who he hurts as long as he wins, and he kinda seems to get off on it. In season four he ends up on Moya as a prisoner, though this being Farscape, nothing is ever that simple.
Jool (Tammy Macintosh)
Jool arrives, kicking and screaming with the emphasis on the screaming, at the beginning of season 3. She'd been on ice previous to that, and we mean that literally, for 22 cycles. At first annoying and shrill she becomes useful and in fact kind of awesome later on. Her scream, in addition to being annoying, is able to melt metal, and she's veryvery smart though sheltered and unsure how the real universe works. Jool is an Interion, a species which is evidently related to humans though it's never made clear exactly how.
Noranti (Melissa Jaffer)
Noranti is "another lunatic with the wrong number of eyes." She's scary, 3-eyed, old woman who shows up at the very end of season 3 with no explanation and never leaves, much to the dismay of much of fandom. She's something of a mystic, a terrible cook, and a drug pusher. Really, more trouble than she's worth.
Sikozu (Raelee Hill)
Sikozu is a Kalish. Kalish can't use translator microbes, so she has to learn English, and does so in like, half an hour. She also can reattach her own severed appendages which is a useful skill for a Farscape character to have. She crash-lands right in John's lap (lucky girl), and ends up having to join the crew, where she develops a crush on Scorpius. Clearly she is crazy in addition to all her other attributes. The Kalish, it turns out, are Scarran collaborators. Sikozu is a member of the Kalish resistance. Also, she’s a robot. Or something. Seriously.
Meeklo Braca (David Franklin)
Meeklo Braca was introduced as something of a Peacekeeper redshirt at the end of season one. Braca quickly established himself as Scorpius's assistant. John quickly pegged their relationship as being very Smithers/Mr.Burns. At one point, Braca had Scorpy on a leash. Literally. When Grayza had a mental breakdown due to incompetentence and teh crazy, Captain Braca relieved her of command of the Command Carrier. In the miniseries Scorpius had regained command of a Command Carrier and Braca is once again at his side, where he belongs. Although he is wounded (and carried off by a totally concerned Scorpy) during a big battle, he proves conclusively that he is not a redshirt at all by surviving until the end of the mini.
Mele-On Grayza (Rebecca Riggs)
Mele-On Grayza is a Sebacean female with mind-controlling boobs of doom. Seriously. BOOBS OF DOOM. She’s risen through the Peacekeeper ranks to become a Commandent in the Peacekeeper military. Politcally astute and ruthlessly ambitious, she has no problem with using anyone or anything to achieve her goals. Grazya also wants John’s wormhole knowledge, thinking it will be a bargaining tool in her dealings with the Scarrans (big lizard dudes). Crichton manages to escape but Grazya spends most of season 4 hunting Crichton. She becomes obsessed with the hunt, putting a bounty on John Crichton. That fails and Grayza seems to fade away until showing back up pregnant. Grayza eventually assumes command of the entire Peacekeeper force and signs a treaty with the Scarrans ‘for the good of our children.’
The Seasons
Season 1
In which we meet Our Hero, Our Villain, Our More Different Villain, and our crew of assorted escaped criminals. Because escaped criminals, apparently, make the best kind of shipmates. The season starts with John on Earth. Pay attention, because it's the last time this will happen for a very long time. Then he gets shot through a wormhole and it only goes downhill from there.
On his first day in outer space, John accidentally killed a guy, became a fugitive, and figured out he wasn't going to have the easiest time with his new shipmates. Over the season, he learns to get along with the others (mostly), gets to make out with an alien chick or three, finds out one half of the other people on Moya are kind of psycho about getting back to their homes omg, gets wormhole knowledge implanted into his head, gets captured and tortured and blows up a moon. So all in all, a great start.
Season 2
In which John's season one run-in with Scorpius turns out to have had a nasty little lasting effect: namely, a neural chip implanted into his brain so Scorpius can get the wormhole information in John's head. This means John just goes crazier and crazier throughout the season till the chip takes over. And other stuff happens, but really, that's the important stuff. While season two is filled with some of the crackier episodes, the season finale is generally regarded as the show's best episode, and might have caused copious drinking and/or post-traumatic stress disorder while shopping in the grocery store's frozen foods aisle. MIGHT.
Season 3
In which...well, the first episode of the season is called "Season of Death," so I think you can do the math. People die. They don't always stay dead, but they do die. The season starts off with a main character dead and another one left with his brain exposed on an operating table. It ends with everyone running off in different directions, and Our Hero stranded in space with no fuel. In between there's more death, some twinning, the seperation for a good portion of the season of most of the characters, more angst than you can shake a stick at, a B-plot about insurance fraud, and (this is proof that David Kemper loves us and wants us to be happy, all evidence to the contrary) there was one episode that was animated.
Season 4
In which we find our hero alone, floating in space. But, alas, he is saved by a batty new Pilot (not our regular Pilot) and, eventually is reunited with most of the crew sans Aeryn. Of course, this is when the Boobs of Doom become a lethal weapon and most of the audience was HOPING for Aeryn to return just to strike Grayza down. 'Twas not to be. Not then, of course. Hark, do not fret as Aeryn does return albeit in a slightly...altered form. There is shrinkage, John Crichton going sideways, an episode almost entirely about vomit (it's bad), rampant drug use, a trip back to 1985, Aeryn Sun in Cher lookalike clothing, Aeryn Sun having REALLY BAD HAIR DAYS, a nuclear bomb strapped to someone's hip and David Kemper ourEvil Overlord showrunner proving he is both evil and awesome by ending the show on a horrific cliffhanger even when offered the chance not to.
The Peacekeeper Wars
In which we are saved from the horrific cliffhanger after waiting far too long, the people making the show use up all the explosives in Australia while compressing 22 hours into 4, and in which John Crichton attempts to destroy the universe. No, really. After blowing up a moon, a shadow depository and a command carrier, there are only so many ways to top yourself. And also? They fixed Aeryn's hair and there was much rejoicing, but Sikozu's hair suffered greatly in exchange. And Rygel was pregnant for a while, but that's neither here nor there. And somebody (not Rygel, for which we are all very thankful) has a baby.
Why You Should Watch
It's pretty. You've seen the pictures. You know this to be true.
It's good, or at least a lot of us think so.
It has muppets. Everyone loves muppets! And the muppets are believable characters, beautiful even when they are ugly, and generally made of awesome.
The muppets will also make you cry.
And sometimes the muppets have innapropriate sex, which also makes you cry, but in a different way.
It's a show that will cause you pain deep in your soul and make you love it. And then it will turn around and make you laugh or squee with joy. Sometimes this all happens within the same scene.
The aliens are actually alien, not just people with bumpy foreheads (though we have that too, sometimes).
The leather. People, LEATHER. So much leather.
The new vocabulary. Frell came before frak, damn it! (Though not before frack.) And really, the words are just fun to say.
The crack. PEOPLE, THE CRACK. There are several episodes that are like a television series on acid. AND IT'S CANON.
The CGI. It's just a beautifully made show. Props to the Henson company.
Because we said so.
Clips Yay!
John/Aeryn naming the stars
An absolutely gorgeous scene of stuff blowing up (Spoilers for the season 3 finale)
Chiana is a slut. Nobody is surprised.
John's brain is a strange and sometimes animated place
John's brain is also a dirty, dirty place.
Humans are superior!! Even if they're dressed like idiots.
John's crazy. This bears repeating.
This is how FH's Scorpy!John plot didn't end (Massive spoilers for the season 2 finale. You might not want to click this link if you haven't seen this far. Seriously. DON'T SAY WE DIDN'T WARN YOU.)
Because there's no really no better way to get your heart ripped out and stomped on than by watching John and Aeryn break up (Slight spoilers for season 3.)
It took a full half of the body switch episode for John to notice he had boobs
Fighting in bunny suits. Why not? We have said John's head is a weird place, right?
No Farscape clip show is complete without some serious angst.
John recaps all 4 seasons at the beginning of Peacekeeper Wars (Spoilers for...everything whee!)
Starbursts are pretty
John and Aeryn make out to a porno soundtrack
John and Aeryn are unbearably cute and dancing.
D'Argo is your daddy. Once you learn this lesson, we'll all get along fine.
How To Get Your Very Own Farscape
ADVFilms put out two sets of DVDs. The first ones were crazy expensive and did not have enough extras to justify the pricetag. The second set, the Starburst Editions, are much cheaper and have better extras. Unfortunately, ADV is apparently stupid and let the rights to the first season go, so Region 1 DVDs of that may be difficult to find. The other 3 seasons should be available from most DVD retailers. Amazon and Best Buy both carry them, as does Netflix. Peacekeeper Wars was put out by Hallmark and is also available most places DVDs are sold. At least in Region 1. I know nothing of other regions, alas.
There were also 3 tie-in novels published. They were pretty bad. They're on Amazon, as far as we know.
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banikslaveboy, can_be_more, and whitedeathpod.
Meet John Crichton. John is your ordinary everyday IASA astronaut from a little planet we like to call Earth. While testing his slingshot theory in his Farscape module, he was hit by a magnetic wave and ended up down a wormhole. Bye bye Earth. Hello huge ship full of escaped prisoners that John kind of gets stuck with. Of course it can't just be that easy; upon exiting the wormhole, John's ship interrupted a space battle and hit another ship, killing its pilot. This is just the start of his problems.
Over the next four seasons, John lost his mind, got the girl (repeatedly), lost the girl (repeatedly), continued to piss people off to make them chase him around the galaxy, and it made for some really entertaining television, some people got back to their homes, some didn't, and some didn't because they died like dying things (for some of them, also repeatedly). Smart and equally funny and heartbreaking (and don't forget "OMG!!!"-inducing), it was one of those shows that wasn't afraid to go there (there was even Muppet porn) and even the worse episode/plotlines were still much better than anything else on television. AND WE WANT IT BACK.
The Characters
John Crichton (Ben Browder)
At the beginning of the series, John Robert Crichton was a scientist for IASA (they couldn't use NASA so they improvised) who, with his childhood friend DK, was testing a slingshot theory of space travel. Of course, as we find out later, John Crichton's luck absolutely sucks and his slingshot theory did not go as planned. Instead, a solar flare erupted during the initial test, opening up a wormhole and sending John Crichton into a completely different region of space. Here, John draws the ire of Bialar Crais, Scorpius, and Mele-On Grayza. He ends up getting mentally, physically and psychologically tortured, gets smacked around by the entire universe, goes completely off his rocker (can't imagine why) and after dealing with all that for four years, at least the poor guy gets a happy ending. Not that he earned it or anything.
Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black)
Aeryn starts out as one of the very human-looking Peacekeeper pilots in the battle John crashes (no pun intended), but her ship got sucked in along with Moya when she went into starburst, and Aeryn became the escaped prisoners' prisoner. She tried to turn them all in, but her commanding officer had lost his mind by then and deemed her irreversibly contaminated for hanging out with John. Oops. With no other choice, she goes with the others on Moya. Born and raised military, Aeryn kind of has a hard time adjusting, but ends up probably becoming the most attached to the life. The cute guy doesn't hurt.
Ka D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe)
D'Argo is a Luxan warrior, imprisoned by the Peacekeepers for killing his Sebacean wife. Except that he totally didn't do it. He's kind of scary, prone to Luxan hyper rage and is just all-around prickly when he wants to be, but he's got a much softer side and really only wants to be reunited with his son Jothee and go live on a farm somewhere. He's also kind of a party dude with absolutely no dance skills who somehow always manages to get the chicks. I'm not sure if they assumed anything about the six-foot long tongue he can use to stun people early and often, but hey, I'm sure they figured that they were wrong eventually.
Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan (Virginia Hey)
Zhaan is the gorgeous blue lady people (in my experience) remember if they've only seen a few minutes of the show. Also, she's a plant and she really, really likes light
Rygel XVI (voiced by Jonathan Hardy)
Rygel is a puppet. OOCly, at least. He's the short little froglike creature in the thronesled who is actually the disposed dominar of Hyneria. His cousin had him imprisoned after a coup, and he's spent the most time on Moya, and in Peacekeeper captivity. Rygel is a little self-involved. He wants the shinies, he wants the attention, he wants the power, he wants to go home and get what's his, and he's pretty ruthless in how he gets it. Regardless, he seemed to be a really good leader and can sometimes be very sweet, which makes me feel a little dirty typing that. He also seems to get abused a lot because I think the cast and writers liked being able to hit the puppet.
Moya and Pilot (voiced by Lani Tupu)
Moya is a Leviathan, a giant living ship that had been used as a prison transport for D'Argo, Zhaan and Rygel when they escaped. Pilot, who is a separate purple clamshell-headed being, is physically bonded to her and is kind of like flight attendant, interpreting for her since she can't talk, and helps steer Moya along sometimes, such as when she is very scared. They are definitely individuals, though, and they don't even always agree. Oh, and Moya had a half-Peacekeeper gunship baby named Talyn. I miss this show.
Chiana (Gigi Edgley)
Chiana is of the Nebari race, who are big on conformity and mental cleansing. Chiana's not so big on that - is in fact a rebel and an accomplished thief - and so is a fugitive from her people. She joined the cast near the end of the first season. She's playful, seductive, promiscuous, and frankly bisexual. She's also determined that someday she is going to join her brother Nerri as a member of the Nebari resistance. Chiana can "kick, kiss or cry" her way out of anything. During the course of the third and fourth seasons, she developed a kind of psychic power - at first she was having premonitions, and now it manifests itself in a kind of time warp. Essentially, she's able to slow down time as she sees it, though it leaves her temporarily blind.
Stark (Paul Goddard)
Introduced at the end of the 1st season, Stark was meant to be a one-shot
Bialar Crais (Lani Tupu)
Crais is the captain of the command carrier launching the attack on Moya. And it's his brother that gets crispified when John knocks into his ship. After that, Crais isn't running with all of his cylinders working, and starts disobeying Peacekeeper commands to leave John Crichton alone so he can go chasing him into the Uncharted Territories. Eventually this gets the better of him, to the point that the PK's are not happy with him, and he defects onto Moya, where everyone lets their guard down just enough for him to make off with Talyn, bonding himself to the poor easily-influenced baby ship (who was gonna have a thing or two wrong with him anyway, let's face it). He pops up throughout seasons two and three mostly as an ally but also to frell over the crew when it suits him. He and Talyn both leave in season three, and let's just say they have their moment. It's a good one.
Scorpius (Wayne Pygram)
Dear old Scorpius is an anomaly: he wasn't born a Peacekeeper, he wasn't conscripted, he isn't even fully Sebacean. He's the product of a pretty brutal Scarran experiment in breeding with Sebaceans, raised in Scarran captivity before busting out and becoming badass. He signed up with the Peacekeepers in order to screw over the Scarrans that he hated, and since the Peacekeepers are not the Scarrans biggest fans, they said woo. He rose through the ranks and headed up the gammak base to develop wormhole weaponry against the Scarrans. Enter John, who gets captured and tortured and chipped to get the knowledge. Scorpy is a Machiavellian bastard who doesn't care who he hurts as long as he wins, and he kinda seems to get off on it. In season four he ends up on Moya as a prisoner, though this being Farscape, nothing is ever that simple.
Jool (Tammy Macintosh)
Jool arrives, kicking and screaming with the emphasis on the screaming, at the beginning of season 3. She'd been on ice previous to that, and we mean that literally, for 22 cycles. At first annoying and shrill she becomes useful and in fact kind of awesome later on. Her scream, in addition to being annoying, is able to melt metal, and she's veryvery smart though sheltered and unsure how the real universe works. Jool is an Interion, a species which is evidently related to humans though it's never made clear exactly how.
Noranti (Melissa Jaffer)
Noranti is "another lunatic with the wrong number of eyes." She's scary, 3-eyed, old woman who shows up at the very end of season 3 with no explanation and never leaves, much to the dismay of much of fandom. She's something of a mystic, a terrible cook, and a drug pusher. Really, more trouble than she's worth.
Sikozu (Raelee Hill)
Sikozu is a Kalish. Kalish can't use translator microbes, so she has to learn English, and does so in like, half an hour. She also can reattach her own severed appendages which is a useful skill for a Farscape character to have. She crash-lands right in John's lap (lucky girl), and ends up having to join the crew, where she develops a crush on Scorpius. Clearly she is crazy in addition to all her other attributes. The Kalish, it turns out, are Scarran collaborators. Sikozu is a member of the Kalish resistance. Also, she’s a robot. Or something. Seriously.
Meeklo Braca (David Franklin)
Meeklo Braca was introduced as something of a Peacekeeper redshirt at the end of season one. Braca quickly established himself as Scorpius's assistant. John quickly pegged their relationship as being very Smithers/Mr.Burns. At one point, Braca had Scorpy on a leash. Literally. When Grayza had a mental breakdown due to incompetentence and teh crazy, Captain Braca relieved her of command of the Command Carrier. In the miniseries Scorpius had regained command of a Command Carrier and Braca is once again at his side, where he belongs. Although he is wounded (and carried off by a totally concerned Scorpy) during a big battle, he proves conclusively that he is not a redshirt at all by surviving until the end of the mini.
Mele-On Grayza (Rebecca Riggs)
Mele-On Grayza is a Sebacean female with mind-controlling boobs of doom. Seriously. BOOBS OF DOOM. She’s risen through the Peacekeeper ranks to become a Commandent in the Peacekeeper military. Politcally astute and ruthlessly ambitious, she has no problem with using anyone or anything to achieve her goals. Grazya also wants John’s wormhole knowledge, thinking it will be a bargaining tool in her dealings with the Scarrans (big lizard dudes). Crichton manages to escape but Grazya spends most of season 4 hunting Crichton. She becomes obsessed with the hunt, putting a bounty on John Crichton. That fails and Grayza seems to fade away until showing back up pregnant. Grayza eventually assumes command of the entire Peacekeeper force and signs a treaty with the Scarrans ‘for the good of our children.’
The Seasons
Season 1
In which we meet Our Hero, Our Villain, Our More Different Villain, and our crew of assorted escaped criminals. Because escaped criminals, apparently, make the best kind of shipmates. The season starts with John on Earth. Pay attention, because it's the last time this will happen for a very long time. Then he gets shot through a wormhole and it only goes downhill from there.
On his first day in outer space, John accidentally killed a guy, became a fugitive, and figured out he wasn't going to have the easiest time with his new shipmates. Over the season, he learns to get along with the others (mostly), gets to make out with an alien chick or three, finds out one half of the other people on Moya are kind of psycho about getting back to their homes omg, gets wormhole knowledge implanted into his head, gets captured and tortured and blows up a moon. So all in all, a great start.
Season 2
In which John's season one run-in with Scorpius turns out to have had a nasty little lasting effect: namely, a neural chip implanted into his brain so Scorpius can get the wormhole information in John's head. This means John just goes crazier and crazier throughout the season till the chip takes over. And other stuff happens, but really, that's the important stuff. While season two is filled with some of the crackier episodes, the season finale is generally regarded as the show's best episode, and might have caused copious drinking and/or post-traumatic stress disorder while shopping in the grocery store's frozen foods aisle. MIGHT.
Season 3
In which...well, the first episode of the season is called "Season of Death," so I think you can do the math. People die. They don't always stay dead, but they do die. The season starts off with a main character dead and another one left with his brain exposed on an operating table. It ends with everyone running off in different directions, and Our Hero stranded in space with no fuel. In between there's more death, some twinning, the seperation for a good portion of the season of most of the characters, more angst than you can shake a stick at, a B-plot about insurance fraud, and (this is proof that David Kemper loves us and wants us to be happy, all evidence to the contrary) there was one episode that was animated.
Season 4
In which we find our hero alone, floating in space. But, alas, he is saved by a batty new Pilot (not our regular Pilot) and, eventually is reunited with most of the crew sans Aeryn. Of course, this is when the Boobs of Doom become a lethal weapon and most of the audience was HOPING for Aeryn to return just to strike Grayza down. 'Twas not to be. Not then, of course. Hark, do not fret as Aeryn does return albeit in a slightly...altered form. There is shrinkage, John Crichton going sideways, an episode almost entirely about vomit (it's bad), rampant drug use, a trip back to 1985, Aeryn Sun in Cher lookalike clothing, Aeryn Sun having REALLY BAD HAIR DAYS, a nuclear bomb strapped to someone's hip and David Kemper our
The Peacekeeper Wars
In which we are saved from the horrific cliffhanger after waiting far too long, the people making the show use up all the explosives in Australia while compressing 22 hours into 4, and in which John Crichton attempts to destroy the universe. No, really. After blowing up a moon, a shadow depository and a command carrier, there are only so many ways to top yourself. And also? They fixed Aeryn's hair and there was much rejoicing, but Sikozu's hair suffered greatly in exchange. And Rygel was pregnant for a while, but that's neither here nor there. And somebody (not Rygel, for which we are all very thankful) has a baby.
Why You Should Watch
It's pretty. You've seen the pictures. You know this to be true.
It's good, or at least a lot of us think so.
It has muppets. Everyone loves muppets! And the muppets are believable characters, beautiful even when they are ugly, and generally made of awesome.
The muppets will also make you cry.
And sometimes the muppets have innapropriate sex, which also makes you cry, but in a different way.
It's a show that will cause you pain deep in your soul and make you love it. And then it will turn around and make you laugh or squee with joy. Sometimes this all happens within the same scene.
The aliens are actually alien, not just people with bumpy foreheads (though we have that too, sometimes).
The leather. People, LEATHER. So much leather.
The new vocabulary. Frell came before frak, damn it! (Though not before frack.) And really, the words are just fun to say.
The crack. PEOPLE, THE CRACK. There are several episodes that are like a television series on acid. AND IT'S CANON.
The CGI. It's just a beautifully made show. Props to the Henson company.
Because we said so.
Clips Yay!
John/Aeryn naming the stars
An absolutely gorgeous scene of stuff blowing up (Spoilers for the season 3 finale)
Chiana is a slut. Nobody is surprised.
John's brain is a strange and sometimes animated place
John's brain is also a dirty, dirty place.
Humans are superior!! Even if they're dressed like idiots.
John's crazy. This bears repeating.
This is how FH's Scorpy!John plot didn't end (Massive spoilers for the season 2 finale. You might not want to click this link if you haven't seen this far. Seriously. DON'T SAY WE DIDN'T WARN YOU.)
Because there's no really no better way to get your heart ripped out and stomped on than by watching John and Aeryn break up (Slight spoilers for season 3.)
It took a full half of the body switch episode for John to notice he had boobs
Fighting in bunny suits. Why not? We have said John's head is a weird place, right?
No Farscape clip show is complete without some serious angst.
John recaps all 4 seasons at the beginning of Peacekeeper Wars (Spoilers for...everything whee!)
Starbursts are pretty
John and Aeryn make out to a porno soundtrack
John and Aeryn are unbearably cute and dancing.
D'Argo is your daddy. Once you learn this lesson, we'll all get along fine.
How To Get Your Very Own Farscape
ADVFilms put out two sets of DVDs. The first ones were crazy expensive and did not have enough extras to justify the pricetag. The second set, the Starburst Editions, are much cheaper and have better extras. Unfortunately, ADV is apparently stupid and let the rights to the first season go, so Region 1 DVDs of that may be difficult to find. The other 3 seasons should be available from most DVD retailers. Amazon and Best Buy both carry them, as does Netflix. Peacekeeper Wars was put out by Hallmark and is also available most places DVDs are sold. At least in Region 1. I know nothing of other regions, alas.
There were also 3 tie-in novels published. They were pretty bad. They're on Amazon, as far as we know.
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Also, you did an awesome job recapping a series that I find utterly indescribable without just showing someone the first episode.
Thank you much!
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And yeah, I love this show endlessly for giving us the translator microbes, even if everyone looks like they're speaking English most of the time. Handwave, handwave, handwave. =D
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And translator microbes FTW! :D
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*whimpers at memory*
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Did we flail together over that one? I forget. I think we did.
*passes the ice cream*
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And the cursing out Skiffy when they put up that "Thanks to all the cast and crew!" screen after they totally screwed over everyone ON the cast and crew. *is still a little bitter*
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On the only bright side, they do sometimes have random surprise sales with massive price cuts.
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Though this was also about a year and a half after I had finished spending something like five years collecting the entire series for $25-30 a pop for four eps at a time.