First things first: Season 4 of Farscape wasn’t nearly as disappointing the second time around.
It still doesn’t completely work, as a season of television, and it’s almost certainly a letdown after the stellar third season. But watching it again, from season premiere to series finale — divorced from expectation and hype and the hoopla surrounding its cancellation — I was struck by just how much of it does work, by how much there is to admire in the show’s risky creative choices and its overall direction, and again by how difficult it is to pin down exactly what went wrong and where.
If I had to guess, I’d say they probably tried doing too much…and maybe tried to do it with too little.
“Crichton Kicks” gets the season off to an excellent start, however. It’s a fun and fast-paced episode that does some clever things with its introduction of new characters and old. Sikozu, who I remember spending much of the season not liking, emerges right away as a much more interesting and promising character than expected. She’s a character you’re not supposed to like, who the other characters don’t like, which is always a tricky thing to play. The character will never quite get the development she maybe deserves on the show, and eventually she’ll be weighed down by one too many plot-dictated superpowers — re-attach limbs, reverse her own gravity, shoot fire, etc. But here, in her earliest scenes with Crichton, trying to learn his language and trying to stay one step ahead of both him and her one-time business partners, she’s really a welcome addition to the show.
It’s kind of a shame, then, that what comes next is the muddled two-parter “What Was Lost.”
I think this is the first real inkling we get of what the writers have in mind for the season, how they’ve mapped out the story that’s to come and decided to tie everything together. It may be this last part, the attempt to tie everything together, though, that gets them into trouble. Season 4 was envisioned as part of a whole, not just a continuation of the Farscape story, but a culmination of the series, along with whatever the writers had planned for Season 5. This was the first time they really allowed themselves to play the long game, to set up developments that wouldn’t pay off for another season and a half. (Or, in reality, wouldn’t pay off until the miniseries.) It’s ironic that this was the first time they really felt confident of another season’s pickup, so much so that, right away, they introduced elements that wouldn’t be properly explained until the whole series was over. Every season before this had been a scramble, a last-minute save for another year. It was only now, when they were convinced that Season 4 could be half of a bigger whole, that they were canceled.
So there’s a reason “What Was Lost” feels muddled. It’s setting up new character dynamics, trying to explain why humans and Sebaceans look so much alike, introducing priests and prophecies and ancient astronaut hieroglyphic-like symbols that wouldn’t seem out of place on an episode of Stargate. It’s trying to do a whole lot, probably too much. The second time around, when I could better understand what it was trying to do and where all of this would eventually lead, the episode wasn’t as bad, was not as confusing. But it’s still a two-part mess. Noranti’s motivations and objectives are often unclear; Grayza’s being largely reduced to a sexual predator is problematic; Oo-Nii, the creature from the Black Lagoon, is just plain weird and occasionally dumb; and while the actors give it their all, the relationship between D’Argo and Jool can’t help but feel a little rushed — no doubt because Tammy MacIntosh and her incredible abs were leaving the show. The show looks terrific — again, filming in Australia meant Farscape looked like nothing else on American television — but I’m not sure how well it works as a pair of individual episodes.
“Lava’s a Many Splendored Thing,” the next episode, is a lot more fun and smartly written, as are the next two, “Promises” and “Natural Election,” even if these latter are a little on the forgettable side. Then there’s “John Quixote,” which works a lot better than I remember it doing — a common refrain this season — but which still kind of feels like an excuse to just let everybody act crazy. It ties together well, I think, by the end, with its cameo by Zhaan, but along the way the episode feels a lot like the second season’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” only with more rules and lower stakes.
“I Shrink, Therefore I Am” would, ironically, have worked better without the shrinking part altogether. Without that, it’s actually a pretty decent riff on Die Hard, with some nice developments along the way. The shrinking is amusing — until the very end, when it becomes sort of dumb and poorly rendered — and it does allow for a nice exchange between Rygel and Sikozu. (“This is physically impossible,” she rightly claims. “And yet it’s happening,” he tells her.) But it’s ultimately kind of superfluous.
“A Perfect Murder” feels incomplete; even with the deleted scenes on the DVD, it feels like there’s a good chunk missing from the story. This is one of those times when Farscape‘s tendency to jump right into a story — sometimes well into a story — kind of works against it. And the villains here are ultimately a little silly. Like a lot of the episodes before and after it this season, there are a lot of good moments, but they don’t quite add up to as much as one might have liked.
“Coup by Clam” is kind of fun, and again has fun poking holes at the impossibility of its own science. Crichton’s impatience with the doctor who keeps trying to explain why he’s blackmailing them and how the clams work — instead of just getting to the point of what he wants — is amusing, as is the sight of Ben Browder in drag.
Of course, from there it’s straight into the alternate timelines, wormholes, and Earth-based stories of “Unrealized Reality,” “Kansas,” and “Terra Firma” — none of which work as well as they maybe should. Again, they’re playing the long game, setting up a lot of information and putting a lot of new pieces on the board. But they also often feel like they’re biding their time; there are a lot of interesting ideas at work in these episodes, and in the season, but are there really two seasons’ worth of ideas? Individually, the episodes are interesting and fun to watch, but all together, they’re a little forgettable, seeming to be doing too much with too little. In that way, the last season of Farscape is very similar to the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
But that’s another story.
I could go into the Earth-based stories in detail, but few of the specific details are particularly memorable after the fact. Except for one thing: everybody does seem to learn English pretty darn quick, in ways that the translator microbes would seem to make difficult, if not impossible. (How do you learn the vocabulary and grammar of another language when the microbes automatically translate it, albeit sometimes imperfectly, into your native language?) Farscape often has fun playing with language and the Babel-fish-like microbes — it’s something I always felt it had over both Star Trek and Stargate — but here too many questions get raised. I’m just saying.
The next three episodes (“Twice Shy,” “Mental as Anything,” and “Bringing Home the Beacon”) all have their moments and do good work to push the story forward, but they’re again not especially memorable individually. (Although “Mental” does have some nice development for D’Argo’s character.)
It may be uncharitable to say this, and also maybe an exaggeration, but “Constellation of Doubt” often feels like little more than leftover footage from the Earth-based “Kansas.” It’s nice to see the reaction to Moya’s crew on Earth, but it also feels like we’ve seen this before, in earlier episodes and in Crichton’s repeated claims that Earth isn’t ready for alien contact. In many ways, the episode feels like a placeholder, something to watch while we wait for Crichton to remember where he heard the word Katratzi and figure out how to get there and move the story forward.
Which it does. “Prayer” and the three-part “We’re So Screwed” work quite well. “Screwed,” in fact, works much better than I remember it, not half as padded as I thought and nicely pulling together plot threads from as far back as Season 1. It’s not Farscape at its absolute best, maybe, not even up to the high standards of previous season finales, but it’s a good stretch of storytelling nevertheless.
Whereas “Bad Timing,” the season and series finale, is arguably the best episode the show ever did. Everything Farscape does well is on display here, and I immediately realized why this and “Crichton Kicks” are the only two episodes from Season 4 that I’ve watched more than once. If the rest of the season had been this tightly plotted, this emotionally hard-hitting, this clever and high-stakes, I would have had a much different reaction to it. The season works a lot better than I remember it working, but it also often doesn’t work at all. The second time around, I’d have to qualify my disappointment, point at all the parts that do work, all the risky choices that, even if they don’t pay off, are admirable in and of themselves. But qualified disappointment is disappointment nonetheless.
Still, “Bad Timing” is phenomenal.
There’s a lot to like about Season 4 of Farscape, individual lines or scenes that are as good as anything that came before them. There are some very decent episodes and some very intriguing ideas. But there’s little about the whole that works as well as previous seasons, and little about individual episodes that’s quite as memorable. A lot of that is due, I think, to the fact that their ultimate goal was too big; they decided to treat Seasons 4 and 5 as one long arc of the story, but in the meantime lost sight of the single season’s arc.
As an addendum to all this, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the miniseries, The Peacekeeper Wars. I think it’s a terrific piece of storytelling, a fitting and thrilling conclusion to the story. But one thing it isn’t, I discovered, is a fifth season of the show. The miniseries is best appreciated as a sequel, rather than a direct continuation, experienced (as it was originally) with some time between it and Season 4. Trying to watch those four hours as the cap to Season 4, rather than as a movie on its own terms, you’re reminded too easily of the the things that don’t work about it, and all the tiny (and not so tiny) differences. Like Pilot’s different voice, or the different makeups for Scorpius and Noranti, or the fact that Noranti is hardly in the miniseries (supposedly because of an adverse reaction to the new makeup), or that Grayza is suddenly pregnant and next in command to the Chancellor, or that D’Argo’s son Jothee is suddenly played by a different actor, with completely different makeup of his own, or…and so on. By comparison, Raelee Hill’s new haircut and bondage-gear outfit don’t seem so remarkable at all. Actually, they seem like exactly the sort of thing Sikozu would pick up trying to impress and attract Scorpius.
The miniseries is wonderful, and builds from the strengths of “Bad Timing” more than the weaknesses of the season before it. But try to watch it too soon after Season 4, and it’s easy to dwell on all the things they changed, either out of necessity or simply because so much time had passed since production originally shut down.
I haven’t read the comics yet, and I’ve heard pretty mixed things overall, but I suspect at some point I will. Re-watching the series from the beginning has reminded me just how rich this universe is, how much of it there still is to explore, and how, if put in the right hands and treated well, there’s nothing else like it out there.
This is Fred Coppersmith, somewhere in the universe, signing off.
Whee! Time for more of my usual lengthy and verbose comments!
First things first: Season 4 of Farscape wasn’t nearly as disappointing the second time around.
I’ve found that, too. The disappointment I felt the first time around — which went side-by-side with the enjoyment I felt, it must be said — was mainly due to having formed a lot expectations that were never met. Going into it knowing what will and what won’t be addressed or paid off or explained makes it a lot easier to just relax and enjoy what it does offer.
If I had to guess, I’d say they probably tried doing too much…
My comment at the time — and I still think this is in large part true — is that they did far too much of something that served them very well in lesser quantities in previous seasons. They left lots and lots of little hooks and loose ends thrown-out-there ideas… Which, then, instead of getting picked up on later, just kept spawning, until the whole thing became something of a tangled mass of loose ends and stuff that came out of nowhere. Which I think does also come under the heading of “doing too much.”
Sikozu, who I remember spending much of the season not liking,
I hated her so much at first, that it really surprised me when I somehow ended up liking her. Then again, the same was true of Noranti. And even Jool, although I never became as fond of her as of the other two. I do have to respect Farscape‘s ability to do that. (Of course, the extent to which I ended up liking Sikozu only makes what the ultimately did with her in the miniseries more annoying to me, but never mind that.)
It’s ironic that this was the first time they really felt confident of another season’s pickup, so much so that, right away, they introduced elements that wouldn’t be properly explained until the whole series was over.
Yeah. It’s painful. I still lament what season 5 could have been.
And, yes, “What Was Lost,” in retrospect, was one of the times when it wasn’t just the writers tossing random balls up into the air and hoping they’d land somewhere interesting. The fact that so much of the season clearly didn’t have a planned payoff just makes it even more annoying that we didn’t get to see this genuinely planned arc get to play out before the cancellation.
Then there’s “John Quixote,†which works a lot better than I remember it doing — a common refrain this season — but which still kind of feels like an excuse to just let everybody act crazy.
“John Quixote” had me scraping bits of my brains off the wall. I have to respect any show that can do that and somehow make me like it. 🙂
and it does allow for a nice exchange between Rygel and Sikozu. (“This is physically impossible,†she rightly claims. “And yet it’s happening,†he tells her.)
Not my favorite episode, but the whole shrinking plot is worth it just for that exchange. Best bit of scientific impossibility lampshading ever.
“A Perfect Murder†feels incomplete; even with the deleted scenes on the DVD, it feels like there’s a good chunk missing from the story.
And here I thought the reason I felt that way was just because my cable cut out on me at the end the first time I saw it, and I had no picture for the last five minutes or so. 🙂
(How do you learn the vocabulary and grammar of another language when the microbes automatically translate it, albeit sometimes imperfectly, into your native language?)
My guess is that it lets you hear the original language, but understand it in yours. If that makes any sense. I think that’s really the only way it could work.
(“Twice Shy,†“Mental as Anything,†and “Bringing Home the Beaconâ€) all have their moments and do good work to push the story forward, but they’re again not especially memorable individually.
“Twice Shy” made it onto my Worst Episodes Ever list immediately after I saw it, mostly because I thought that final scene was staggeringly stupid. I’ve mellowed some toward it since, though. As for the other two, I sort of agree, although I do at least like the fact that on Farscape, it’s the men who go off to get in touch with their emotions, while the women get to kick ass and start interstellar incidents. Of those three, “Beacon” is by far the best, too.
Whereas “Bad Timing,†the season and series finale, is arguably the best episode the show ever did.
I don’t think I’d go that far, but it sure does have its moments. That scene where he’s talking to his dad always kind of chokes me up.
There’s a lot to like about Season 4 of Farscape, individual lines or scenes that are as good as anything that came before them.
Absolutely. And, again, I do think it’s easier to enjoy those on their own terms in a rewatch. 🙂
I haven’t read the comics yet, and I’ve heard pretty mixed things overall, but I suspect at some point I will.
There have been certain elements of the comics continuation that have annoyed me, but in general, I think they’re a good continuation of the series. They do seem to get the spirit of it right. The quality of the secondary series has varied a lot, though.
I’ve found that, too. The disappointment I felt the first time around — which went side-by-side with the enjoyment I felt, it must be said — was mainly due to having formed a lot expectations that were never met. Going into it knowing what will and what won’t be addressed or paid off or explained makes it a lot easier to just relax and enjoy what it does offer.
It still doesn’t work, with a surprising number of decent but forgettable episodes, given how much of-a-piece the season is.
I hated her so much at first, that it really surprised me when I somehow ended up liking her. Then again, the same was true of Noranti. And even Jool, although I never became as fond of her as of the other two. I do have to respect Farscape‘s ability to do that. (Of course, the extent to which I ended up liking Sikozu only makes what the ultimately did with her in the miniseries more annoying to me, but never mind that.)
I came to like both Sikozu and Noranti a lot more than I expected to the second time around, mostly because I was better able to see the important roles both of them were playing in the story, the different takes on previous characters. Noranti is essentially the next Zhaan surrogate, after trying out Jool in that role didn’t quite work out. Farscape bucks a lot of the traditions of a space-faring show, is in many ways an anti-Star Trek, but you almost need a healer/doctor of some stripe to be able to tell certain kinds of scientific stories. And Sikozu is interesting for a lot of reasons, not least of all for her immediate attraction to Scorpius. He’s the hero of the piece, as far as she’s concerned, whereas Crichton’s largely just an idiot from a backwater world. Her flirtations with Scorpius over the course of the season work really well, and it makes perfect sense that she’d wind up with him by the end of the season.
But then they just kept weighing her down with silly superpowers and plot-dictated developments. She has some good scenes in Peacekeeper Wars, particularly her conversation with Aeryn about love and equal partnership, but I agree her end is…problematic.
And I feel like I liked Tammy Macintosh more than I liked Jool, ultimately. Maybe that does have something to do with the midriff-baring outfits — I’m only human — but she did feel a little underdeveloped. And yet, by the time she left, she had a totally believable friendship with Chiana, and I could completely agree with Pilot when he said, “I actually miss Jool.”
The fact that so much of the season clearly didn’t have a planned payoff just makes it even more annoying that we didn’t get to see this genuinely planned arc get to play out before the cancellation.
Maybe it’s just that I don’t like this planned arc, or at least find it more unnecessary and convoluted than the writers appear to. It smacks a little of retconning and grafting on an explanation for something that didn’t exactly need explaining. So Sebaceans and humans look alike and share some of the same physiology. Do we need to know that’s because humans were taken by Eidolons millennia ago? It doesn’t fit entirely well into the overall themes of the show — unless to say, “Earth is different! But wait, not so different after all!” — and it’s not as if there isn’t a long history of aliens that look an awful lot like humans, only just slightly different. Sebaceans look human because they’re being played by human actors.
I don’t know, maybe I’m over-thinking this. But that’s part of the problem: “What Was Lost” itself seems to be over-thinking things. I’m not convinced an explanation for what was going on more detailed and definitive than the one we get in the miniseries would have really made those episodes work as episodes.
That’s kind of the problem with the season, I think. Lots of episodes that work as stand-alones but don’t tie in well to the rest of the show, and are not particularly memorable. And lots of episodes that tie almost too well to the rest of the show, and therefore don’t work as stand-alones. (And also, sometimes, aren’t very memorable either.) There are much fewer this season, maybe only three or four, that I’d eagerly revisit just for the pleasure of an hour’s entertainment.
“John Quixote†had me scraping bits of my brains off the wall. I have to respect any show that can do that and somehow make me like it.
It’s a genuinely fun episode, smartly written, although I think it pales in comparison to Browder’s earlier “Green Eyed Monster.” But it’s a little goofy and uneven, almost the sort of thing we expect to see in a malfunctioning holodeck episode of Star Trek, to really work. But it’s inventive and well-played enough that I can overlook its flaws.
Best bit of scientific impossibility lampshading ever.
Agreed, which is why it’s a shame, then, that the shrinking is ultimately so completely unimportant to the story.
And here I thought the reason I felt that way was just because my cable cut out on me at the end the first time I saw it, and I had no picture for the last five minutes or so.
To me, it felt like the first five minutes are missing. There could be a whole other episode in whatever it is that Sikozu’s supposed to have been up to. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sex scene so in need of context!
My guess is that it lets you hear the original language, but understand it in yours. If that makes any sense. I think that’s really the only way it could work.
My main issue isn’t that the translator microbes don’t make sense. Of course they don’t make sense. It’s that those episodes set on Earth keep reminding me that they don’t make sense.
…although I do at least like the fact that on Farscape, it’s the men who go off to get in touch with their emotions, while the women get to kick ass and start interstellar incidents.
This is true. I hadn’t quite thought of it like that before.
That scene where he’s talking to his dad always kind of chokes me up.
It’s even more amazing since it was cut together from two different scenes, filmed months apart. A lot had changed between McCord’s half of the conversation and Browder’s, and they’re never even on camera together, and yet it’s maybe their best scene together.
And I’m not just grading “Bad Timing” on a curve because the rest of the season is so disappointing. It’s honestly one of, if not my very favorite episode. For what it’s worth, here’s a very rough list of my favorites, not necessarily in order:
“Bad Timing”
“Infinite Possibilities”
“The Choice”
“Green Eyed Monster”
“Self Inflicted Wounds”
“The Locket”
“A Human Reaction”
“Nerve”/”The Hidden Memory”
“Out of Their Minds”
“Through the Looking Glass”
And I’d toss “Jeremiah Crichton” in there, for all the reasons I discussed here. Of course, in true Farscape fashion, there’s hardly an episode here you could watch without already being familiar with the show.
There have been certain elements of the comics continuation that have annoyed me, but in general, I think they’re a good continuation of the series. They do seem to get the spirit of it right. The quality of the secondary series has varied a lot, though.
At some point, I’ll have to read them — if only because those webisodes, movie, etc. don’t seem like they’re every going to happen.
(Also, whoops, I fail at threaded commenting.)
Given that a) the comments are themselves as long as some posts, and b) you’re probably the only reader of this blog besides me who’s seen the show, I don’t think it’s an issue. 🙂
Good, ’cause I somehow keep doing it. 🙂
but you almost need a healer/doctor of some stripe to be able to tell certain kinds of scientific stories.
Yeah. It’s possible to break a lot of molds, and Farscape certainly does, but these shows do tend to have certain kinds of crew complements, or at least certain ranges of skills, for a reason.
And Sikozu is interesting for a lot of reasons, not least of all for her immediate attraction to Scorpius. He’s the hero of the piece, as far as she’s concerned,
Which is an entirely legitimate way to look at Scorpius, if you have a certain attitude towards Scarrans. It’s one of the things I love about him, too, although not quite in the fashion Sikozu does. 🙂
So Sebaceans and humans look alike and share some of the same physiology. Do we need to know that’s because humans were taken by Eidolons millennia ago?
Well, I don’t mind having an explanation for that. It is a bit of a niggly, implausible detail, and it’s kind of nice to have it addressed. I didn’t necessarily like the way “What Was Lost” did address it, but judging from the truncated version we saw in the miniseries, they had what could have been a much more interesting exploration of the idea in mind. (Then again, I will admit that I’m entirely biased, because Stark was clearly meant to be at the heart of the fifth season arc, and I’m irrationally fond of the little nutbar.)
But it’s a little goofy and uneven, almost the sort of thing we expect to see in a malfunctioning holodeck episode of Star Trek
Star Trek, on it worst holodeck malfunction day ever, never achieved that level of goofiness! I do like that Farscape is willing to totally commit to insanity when it does insanity.
For what it’s worth, here’s a very rough list of my favorites, not necessarily in order:
Interesting list! Especially in that I don’t think it would overlap much with mine, if I were capable of being decisive enough to draw one up. Well, “Out of Their Minds” definitely makes my top five, though, and “Nerve”/”The Hidden Memory” and “Greed-Eyed Monster” are at least contenders.
And I’d toss “Jeremiah Crichton†in there, for all the reasons I discussed here.
Given that it’s so widely regarded as the Worst Episode Ever, that amuses me a lot. 🙂
Of course, in true Farscape fashion, there’s hardly an episode here you could watch without already being familiar with the show.
I do actually have a friend who I accidentally got hooked on the show by lending her a videotape with “Green-Eyed Monster” on it after whatever it was she actually wanted to borrow. I would not have thought that ep would really work for someone who hadn’t seen the show before, but apparently it did.
At some point, I’ll have to read them — if only because those webisodes, movie, etc. don’t seem like they’re every going to happen.
They keep saying the webisodes are still happening, but I’m sure not seeing much evidence that they’re doing anything about them.
Then again, I will admit that I’m entirely biased, because Stark was clearly meant to be at the heart of the fifth season arc, and I’m irrationally fond of the little nutbar.
I quite liked the arc he got in the miniseries, finally attaining his own inner peace. It’s an obviously truncated, and likely modified, version of what they originally had planned, but I still think it works quite well. And I’ll say the same for the rest of Stark in Season 4, which really didn’t work as well for me the first time around, particularly the whole “Hey, it’s Stark! No wait, it’s a clone!” in the three-part “We’re So Screwed.” I was really disappointed by those three episodes the first time around, and Stark felt really shoehorned in, but his return (and his being among the Scarrans) makes a lot more sense and seems much more organic this time around.
I do like that Farscape is willing to totally commit to insanity when it does insanity.
Agreed. Any show that could do an episode like “Scratch ‘N Sniff,” for instance, and still almost make it work…you really have to be committed to the insanity.
Given that it’s so widely regarded as the Worst Episode Ever, that amuses me a lot.
Me too. It’s not an episode I would have ever thought to pick originally. I’ve never disliked it as much as some (including its own cast and crew, to hear them talk), but it was also never a favorite. But in retrospect, it’s a surprisingly pivotal episode in terms of the character dynamics, particularly between Crichton and D’Argo, and my appreciation for what it’s doing has just grown. I’ll grant you, it doesn’t do all of those things well, but it’s not at all an episode you can just cut out. As opposed to a few of Season 4’s episodes, like perhaps “Twice Shy” or “I Shrink Therefore I Am.” I think more than good, “Jeremiah Crichton” feels, to me, necessary.
I do actually have a friend who I accidentally got hooked on the show by lending her a videotape with “Green-Eyed Monster†on it after whatever it was she actually wanted to borrow. I would not have thought that ep would really work for someone who hadn’t seen the show before, but apparently it did.
Oh, it’s possible, I’m sure, to get enough out of that episode that you don’t necessarily need all of the back story. You don’t need to know who these people are to understand they’re in a love triangle (or is that love parallelogram?). And I could see that episode, more than a lot of others, being a pretty good introduction to the show. But I’d still recommend starting at the beginning.
They keep saying the webisodes are still happening, but I’m sure not seeing much evidence that they’re doing anything about them.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed, but not holding my breath.
It’s an obviously truncated, and likely modified, version of what they originally had planned, but I still think it works quite well.
I like it as an arc. It’s the “truncated” part that bugs me. But then, that’s true of a lot of things in the miniseries. Not their fault at all, of course, and I’m happy to have had the resolution at all. But, man, I would have liked to have seen the whole thing played out on the appropriate timescale. And not just because I have trouble suspending disbelief in the magical overnight baby.
And I’ll say the same for the rest of Stark in Season 4, which really didn’t work as well for me the first time around, particularly the whole “Hey, it’s Stark! No wait, it’s a clone!†in the three-part “We’re So Screwed.â€
Agreed. That bothered me a lot the first time, mainly because I had difficulty making sense of it all, but by a second viewing I had come to terms with it. And there is a lot to be said for those episodes, I think. They’re a bit of a mess, but in grand Farscape tradition, they’re an interesting mess.
And I could see that episode, more than a lot of others, being a pretty good introduction to the show. But I’d still recommend starting at the beginning.
Absolutely. There are shows you can easily come in on the middle of, but Farscape really isn’t one of them. Even at the very beginning, where it seems highly episodic, that’s actually kind of deceptive.
But, man, I would have liked to have seen the whole thing played out on the appropriate timescale. And not just because I have trouble suspending disbelief in the magical overnight baby.
I had less trouble with the timeline of the miniseries, or with the things they likely had to cut out, than with some of the cosmetic character changes. I’ve watched it several times, and I think it’s only this last time, watched right after Season 4, that changes in the makeup and Pilot’s voice bugged me.
And there is a lot to be said for those episodes, I think. They’re a bit of a mess, but in grand Farscape tradition, they’re an interesting mess.
I was surprised by these penultimate three episodes more than any of the others, since I remembered them better than most of the others, and remembered mostly only weariness and disappointment. (I hinted as much in my write-up of Season 2.) And yet, despite some confusion and a little padding — Scorpius as double-agent? Stark as clone? Sikozu going all Doctor Manhattan or Firestarter? — the episodes work surprisingly well. I was genuinely impressed with how they tied things together. Oh, so that was Scorpius’ plan. That was why he was interrogating Stark in Season 1. That was why he had one of those hummingbird feeder flowers back then. Whereas a lot of the season had an unfortunate we’re-making-this-up-as-we-go vibe to it, “We’re So Screwed” actually managed to make it feel like they’d been planning all of it from the very start.