I’ve been re-watching Farscape a lot recently, not just a favorite episode here and there, like I’ve sometimes done in the past, but actually revisiting the series in its entirety from the beginning. This is something I’ve actually never done before, and there are several episodes that I’ve only ever watched a single time. But I’ve been really pleased — almost surprised at how pleased, even — to discover just how well the show holds up on a second viewing. In fact, knowing where the show is headed ahead of time, and how the characters and their relationships will develop, has actually increased my admiration for it. Now that I know its destination, I can even better appreciate the steps that it took along its journey.
Because Farscape is all about the journey, and all about character development along the way. The thing that I’ve most loved about revisiting the show is realizing not just that the characters change and evolve, but just how believable and hard-won those changes and evolutions are. They happen gradually and organically, so that you can look at any one character’s arc over the series and not feel like the writers have cheated. The show famously prided itself on having no reset button, so that there would be no undoing of mistakes or avoiding the consequences of a particular choice; but there’s also no fast-forward button, nothing to zip us past conflict and make characters suddenly friends, or enemies, or lovers without it feeling like that’s what would actually happen. The characters make very different choices by the end of the show than they do at the beginning, but these almost never feel like choices the characters wouldn’t make at that given point.
Some heavy spoilers follow, just so you know.
I’ve just recently finished re-watching the first season, and I think this is nowhere more clear in that season than in “Jeremiah Crichton,” about midway through. In one of their commentary tracks, the writers and cast jokingly refer to the episode as “When Bad Things Happen to Good Shows,” but I think that really does it a disservice and undermines what is, in retrospect, one of my favorite episodes from the first season. Yes, the costuming is unfortunate, and some of the acting from the guest cast is…well, questionable. It is not a perfect hour of television. And yet it does so many things right and underlines just how organic the character development on the show is, that I can easily forgive these faults.
It was only three episodes earlier, in “Till the Blood Runs Clear,” that Crichton told D’Argo that the two of them would never be friends. Now that I’ve seen the series in its entirety, I know that this isn’t true — there’s a friendship forming even by the end of the first season, and by the end of the show Crichton will name his first-born after D’Argo — but it was perfectly believable and in keeping with the characters at the time. Here, in “Jeremiah Crichton,” D’Argo realizes he hasn’t really held up his end of the bargain, that all of them have pushed Crichton away. Whereas, not that long ago, he would have gladly left Crichton on the planet where he’s been stranded, D’Argo returns to make amends and to help the man who, if nothing else, has proven himself a worthy ally. The episode is a real turning point in their relationship, and a deepening of D’Argo’s character overall.
Add in the beautiful Australian location shots — and some nice character work for both Aeryn and Rygel — and I think the episode gets unfairly maligned.
I’m really looking forward to re-watching the rest of the series. Including season four, which I don’t remember being the series’ finest hours. It’s been great to discover that Farscape really holds up, that it isn’t just nostalgia feeding my love for it. I may have more observations about particular episodes or arcs as I go along, but until then, I really do recommend giving the first season a shot if you’ve never seen it. The series rewards some initial patience, and its characters (even the ones that are puppets) are some of the richest and best developed in televised science fiction.
I was doing an episode-a-week rewatch with some online friends a while back, but we sort of petered out somewhere in the first half of season three. Which is a darned shame, really, as that’s about the point where the show hits its highest peak. And it does hold up amazingly well, doesn’t it? It’s very much the kind of show that benefits from multiple viewings rather than suffering under them.
I absolutely could not agree with you more about the character development. There were many great things about Farscape, but I beleive that’s what made it truly special. John and D’Argo, in particular have one of the best buddy relationships on TV, but, boy, is it earned.
It’s interesting that you actually liked “Jeremiah Crichton.” It’s widely considered as a Worst Episode Ever. I personally have never quite been able to understand why. It’s certainly not a good episode, and Crichton’s facial hair is… disturbing. But I don’t think it’s actively horrible. At the very least, I think I’d rather watch it than an average episode of, say, Voyager. 🙂
For what it’s worth, I found season 4 better in many ways on later viewings than I did the first time through. I think it helps to watching it knowing what plot threads will be paid off and which won’t.
I’d love to hear your comments on particular episodes. But I’m sure you could have guessed that. 🙂
I think if I was going to pick an episode as contender for Worst Episode Ever from the first season, it would be the second episode, “I, E.T.” It’s an intriguing premise — turning Crichton into the alien visitor — but I don’t think it works so well in execution. And Farscape, which normally makes good use of its Babel Fish-like solution to the alien language problem, here creates a world whose inhabitants magically can understand English. (I’m willing to buy the answer that the world has somehow been seeded with translator microbes, but I can’t say I’m satisfied with it.) And the makeup, along with that kid guest star, also aren’t so great either.
I was quite happy to see “Rhapsody in Blue” again. While I think Zhaan had an interesting arc, I don’t know that Delvians as a whole turned up much after that, and I think there’s definitely potential in them as a species. Same, even more so, with the Nebari, a point that’s underlined by their incredible power — destroy a Peacekeeper battleship? No biggie — in “Durka Returns.” The makeup couldn’t have been easy on either of the actors, though.
And “DNA Mad Scientist” is great at showing just how much these characters aren’t friends at the beginning.
My favorite episodes are probably the obvious choices, like “Nerve”/”The Hidden Memory,” “A Human Reaction,” and “Family Ties.” But I’m also a big fan of “Through the Looking Glass,” which manages to be a clever puzzle and have a great deal of character development within it. It’s among the episodes I had re-watched already, multiple times, before this all-the-way-through thing I’m doing now.
But the thing I’ve most loved about re-watching the whole series is reminding myself that none of the episodes are unimportant, especially in the early going; they’re all the building blocks that make up these continually evolving characters.
We’ll see what I think when I get to the fourth season. (I’m going through these slowly, now at “Dream a Little Dream” in the second.) I really enjoyed that season’s premiere, and its finale — the show’s finale before the miniseries — is one of my all-time favorite episodes. But there’s a whole swath in there that I don’t remember terrifically well…and I’m a little worried there’s good cause for that.
Still, it remains one of my very favorite shows, one that I think did so many things right, and I’m loving this experience of fully rediscovering why.
I remember rather liking “I, ET” the first time I saw it, for its human-as-the-alien inversion of the usual SF cliche, but it’s definitely not one that holds up on repeat viewings. At all. And the translator microbe thing bugs the heck out of me, too.
I’m not sure what gets my vote for Worst Episode Ever. For a while, it might have been “My Three Crichtons,” but that turned out not to be as bad as I remembered it. I do remember nominating “Twice Shy” for the honor at some point, but I don’t now entirely remember why, except for the final scene not making any sense at all.
I really wish we’d gotten to see more of the Nebari. They’re one of the biggest dangling plot threads in a series with a lot of dangling plot threads. But even that aside, it was always interesting when we got to see more of any of the regular characters’ species. There was always this great sense of lots and lots of backstory and culture and diversity in each character’s background that we really only got glimpses of.
“DNA Mad Scientist,” interestingly, was the first episode I ever saw. It was some time before I went back to the show again and started watching from the beginning, but on first viewing, even though aspects of the plot struck me as silly, I was damned impressed by the show’s willingness to go where it went in that one, to allow the characters to be that selfish and to refuse to wrap it all up with a feel-good moral lesson and a show of forgiveness. Again, it makes the friendship and teamwork they were capable of later all that much more meaningful and impressive.
“Through the Looking Glass” isn’t necessarily one of my favorites, though it is consistently enjoyable. I’ve always found it interesting, because it’s a much more Star Treky kind of plot that Farscape usually does, but the wacky humor is very, very Farscape. More than that, it’s a marvelous demonstration of just how very character-driven the show is. Even when it does a Space Anomaly of the Week kind of thing, it still makes character the driving force behind the story.
And, yeah, even the weakest, most self-contained episodes do important stuff with character development. That’s why I strongly recommend that people start at the beginning and watch all the episodes in order. You can get away with skipping around in season 1, but you won’t do yourself any favors. And, of course, many of the things that seem like unimportant one-off elements crop up again in important ways later.
As for the fourth season, it’s certainly got some darned good stuff, as well as some things that frustrate me a bit. I expect you’ll find it worth rewatching, too.
In conclusion: yes, it’s a hell of a show. 🙂