When I first heard about Farscape five years ago, I was excited that there was a new non-Star Trek sci-fi show being produced. Then I heard about the premise, and who was working on the project.
An earth astronaut gets stranded in his space craft by stumbling through a wormhole and ends up in another part of the galaxy surrounded by aliens who either want to eat him, kill him or just generally make his life hard. But he finds some friends in a group of escaped prisoners and joins up with them to find a way home, all under the banner of Jim Henson’s creature shop.
It did sound cool five years ago, but then I thought about the whole deal. “Muppets in space” or “Buck Rogers with muppets” sprang to mind and I ended up watching the first episode and, after having my worst fears confirmed, never bothered going back.
So naturally when the opportunity to review the fourth and final season of the show popped up I jumped at it. Why would I review a show I never watched and never liked? Because a lot of people do like it. Farscape has a huge following of very dedicated fans so I figure there must be something going for it and I want to find out what I missed out on.
And what I missed out on was a lavishly produced science fiction show with amazing character chemistry and a chaotic but interesting story. I also missed out on brilliant make-up and special effects, tight direction, decent acting and a mostly Australian cast and crew with international success.
As well as that, I missed out on a show that made you think about what was going on. Farscape is not the type of show you can have playing in the background while you do the dishes or make dinner, you really need to concentrate on the events in front of you, this is definitely one of the strengths of the series.
As you can see, I’m a convert and that’s just from viewing Season 4. I have still yet to see seasons 1 to 3, so they are now on my to-do list. Unfortunately for new converts like me, the series has been over for a couple of years, fortunately a new mini series called Farscape: The Peacekeepers Wars has just been broadcast in the U.S. which apparently ties up a lot of loose ends left by the sudden cancellation of the show, keep your eyes peeled for a DVD version.
This box set is presented on six discs. The first four discs have four episodes each while the last two have three each giving a total of 22 episodes, the usual season run of most TV shows.
Season 4 was the first season of Farscape broadcast in widescreen format and the 1.78:1 ratio has been preserved on this DVD set. Some TV shows don’t translate well to widescreen but Farscape isn’t one of them, it looks simply gorgeous.
I could fire off a list of the usual accolades for the video quality, colour levels, shadow details, sharpness are all excellent and above what you would expect from a TV show, even approaching cinematic quality. The only minor complaint I could level is that squeezing four episodes onto each disc has left a few areas with some obvious compression artefacts, nothing too distracting though.
The audio track is also approaching cinematic quality, presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, another rarity for TV shows until recently and it sounds great. There is a Dolby Digital 2.0 track also available which falls flat in the usual areas, gun battles and space flight are particularly noticeable. The only thing lacking are subtitles, the absence of which will be a disappointment to those who rely on them.
Listening to the 5.1 track is an outstanding experience. The centre channel is clear and crisp, dialog is fully audible at all times, even when spoken by some freaky aliens without a mouth. Surrounds and subwoofer are used to full effect at appropriate times, mostly noticeable for panning of space craft flying overhead, melee battles and the usual gun fights, all excellent.
On to the special features and we have what I would call an Andromeda-like level of extras. The excellent Andromeda series, which has the first few seasons released in box set format has probably the best collection of special features I’ve ever seen in any TV show box set. This season of Farscape almost comes close.
The extras are spread all over the six discs in the set and consist of 5 Audio commentaries on some key episodes, namely Crichton Kicks, Don Quixote, Unrealised Reality, A Constellation of Doubt and the final episode Bad Timing. The commentaries are hosted by a variety of cast and crew, most prominent is Gigi Edgley (Chiana), Anthony Simcoe (D’argo) and director/producer Andrew Prowse.
The commentaries with Edgley and Prowse generally focus on the story and action within each episode. Those featuring Simcoe tend to go off in interesting tangents as he claims that commentaries that discuss the episode alone are boring and he likes to discuss various other aspects of the show in a broader sense, they even get a little philosophical at times.
Other extras in this set include The Story so Farscape. An excellent little summary of the story up until the beginning of Season 4, running for 26 minutes this is a welcome addition for this reviewer after having missed the first three seasons, it would have been handy on the first disc though, rather than the fifth.
Just under seven minutes of pre-production make-up tests, showing various different versions of some of the key characters and sets, an interesting look into what could have been (Chiana’s teeth are particularly disturbing, I’m glad they scrapped them)
Another welcome addition for the recently initiated, giving a few static pages of Farscape Liingo with definitions of such words as Arnooks, Klemmpt and Rip Nitz (look them up yourself). A five minute slide show of Concept Art Gallery sketches providing an interesting insight into the process behind the production of the show.
Definitely the highlight of all the extras and something that fans will really enjoy is Farewell. This featurette running for just under 18 minutes gives us out of character interviews with cast, crew and fans regarding the events surrounding the cancellation of the show. It is clear after watching this that there was a lot of passion and dedication involved in producing Farscape and the strength of the fan base is what was mostly responsible for the new mini series, which also gets a short mention.
Only on a Farscape DVD could you call a game ‘Screw the Pooch’ and get away with it. This game is reminiscent of Dragon’s Lair, the idea being to escape the Brindas Hound by using your DVD remote control to guide Crichton around the ship and to safety, an interesting little distraction and worth a play.
Each disc also includes a static text plot synopsis of each episode, of limited use but an interesting addition anyway.
Life is full of regrets and after seeing Season 4 of this show, missing the Farscape phenomena is one of mine. Luckily, now that all four Seasons are available on DVD with the new mini series not far behind, I’ll have a chance to catch up and enjoy the rich and amazing series. Although I’ll probably wait until they’re on sale, paying $140 per Season is a bit rich for my blood (hint hint).
