Farscape

[Aiken_Drumn]

Well that's more positive

 

[steveg700]

Well, I don't see any of my comments as negative. The show was one that straggled in a lot of ways. Its foundation was on the craftmanship that went into its production. I think it's self-evident that the show's narrative was amorphous. They realized that Crais was no Darth Vader, and pivoted away from him and the Peacekeeprs to Scorpias and the Scarrans as primary antagonists. And then when Scorpias seemed to work, they tried to Barnabas him into into joining the crew.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

I think viewed through the lense of a child, as it was for me when it came out it was brilliant. I can imagine it may fall a little watched again as an adult. Who was it's target audience? Can't fault it for missing a target it wasn't aiming at.

 

[steveg700]

Well, it had a lot of adult themes--the show overall is kind of cynical--and I don't think Rigell was ever intended to be a plush toy.

It wanted to appeal to fans who wanted something edgy. It wanted to break the mold that all the military sci-fi shows set with their perfect commander and their chains of command (Star Trek, BSG, Stargate). Thing is, sci-fi fans really liked that military stuff. They wanted ships with big honking weapons blowing things to bits in space. I don't think it was til Firefly that a lot of sci-fi fans got a taste for shows about misfits on the fringe.

I loved it tho. It was brilliant. As a kid I remember watching Blake's 7 late night on PBS after Tom Baker's Doctor Who. It really tried to defy the notion that sci-fi was kiddy-fare. Lots of dark themes. Way ahead of its time. It had one of those all-time greatest series finale. So for me, Farscape was something I'd been waiting for a long time.

 

[Grendeldef]

I clearly need to pop here more often. Everyone should respect the Dominar - Space Muppets was great. End of season 4 was one of the saddest cases in tv history and The Peacekeeper Wars one of the greatest rescue efforts.

 

[Grendeldef]

I have actually been planning to do a Farscape marathon near future as I haven't watched seasons 1 & 2 on larger screen than tv and I don't think the quality of the first DVD release was that great. The later BR is supposed to be much better; at least one can hope. The 4:3 might be an issue before getting used to it again but I mainly want to see the people again for 4 seasons. The Peacekeeper Wars is a bit different - that's more of a movie experience than a tv series one. The surroundings & visuals become more important.

 

[Blake00]

Yeah I got the blu-ray a few years ago and did a comparison to my dvd copy and could see the differences. Obviously nothing huge resolution wise due to the source material being tape but you could see little details like hair and stuff being a bit clearer, less artifacts and much nicer colour work.

 

[Plotinus]

It's funny seeing people describing Farscape as a misery-fest. It's a long time since I saw it, and we stopped after a couple of seasons simply through a lack of time and opportunity to watch anything much, but I remember it as being consistently fun. Although it has themes of trauma, guilt, and loss, the muppet-based setting keeps it from ever feeling too serious. Tonally it always felt similar to Buffy, in a good way. We still say "one, mippippippi, two, mippippippi" in our family. Also, my wife once bought some beauty products from Zhaan, and they were excellent and she was charming in correspondence.