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Oct. 8th, 2004 12:06 pm
A positive rant - GEEK POST
There are NO SPOILERS in this praise of Farscape.
On days when I'm home, I've been catching a few of the Farscape reruns currently showing on the Sci Fi Channel.
Tangent: I love their ad campaign for this: "Eighty-eight hours. Eleven days. Every frelling episode" and "From the first sight to the last embrace -- and every frelling thing in between." End Tangent
Even seeing only a few episodes over the last week (and OH! How I wish I'd thought to buy 11 eight-hour tapes! The DVDs are better, but SO EXPENSIVE!), I'm struck by the thing that makes Farscape so awesome.
See, continuity is a bane of Sci-Fi television. Most dramatic series have characters who evolve over the course of the show. So do many comedies, in fact, though the evolution there is slim in American comedies. But as a rule, Sci-Fi television has never been strong on evolution of concept or characters. But when Babylon 5 came along and did what British television had been doing with sci-fi for decades, it ignited a revolution in American Scifi. Suddenly, shows featured evolution of characters. And few shows did this as well as Farscape.
Farscape is even better at showing the evolution we fans crave than B5 was. In the beginning, the characters are thrown together, allies only because they must work together to survive. By the end of the first season, they're all good friends, even family, and despite their occasional squabbles, they all risk their lives without thinking to save one of them.
Right now, I'm watching the Season Two finale. I won't spoil it for those among you who haven't seen it (it's a BIG MOMENT), but it's got me in tears because Rygel, who started the show as the most avaricious, backstabbing little schmuck you could imagine, just said something so beautiful and selfless that it broke my heart.
And it continued! Not content with this evolution, the characters continued to grow throughout seasons 3 and 4, so much so that the opening narration changed each year, just as B5's did. John Crichton goes from wanting nothing more than finding a way home to (well, I won't spoil it). Aeryn Sun goes from being a no-nonsense soldier to a selfless, loving woman who adores those she travels with. Even the enemy, Bialar Crais -- well, I won't spoil that, either.
Even the newer characters introduced in seasons 3 and 4 evolved over time -- I loathed Jool when she first showed up, but by the time she left, I adored her. Sukozu drove me absolutely crazy with her attitude, too, but by the end of the show I adored her, too, even though I seriously questioned her attitude towards [Spoiler Protected].
I love this show, not just because it's one of the best science fiction shows ever shown on television, hell, one of the best shows, period, but because it further refined and developed the concept of ongoing continuity for Science Fiction. When the show was cancelled (for reasons one could reasonably say were absolute bullshit), fans were in an uproar -- because this show was so good it was adored. Every year, the TV Guide critic -- not generally kind to Sci-Fi on TV, but a fan of SF in general -- called Farscape "one of the best shows on television."
I will definitely get these DVDs when I can, because not only do I want to share the show with my beloved, who never really saw it, but because I want to show this beautiful show to my children when they're old enough (ok, we'll probably have a NEW medium by then, but still...).
On days when I'm home, I've been catching a few of the Farscape reruns currently showing on the Sci Fi Channel.
Tangent: I love their ad campaign for this: "Eighty-eight hours. Eleven days. Every frelling episode" and "From the first sight to the last embrace -- and every frelling thing in between." End Tangent
Even seeing only a few episodes over the last week (and OH! How I wish I'd thought to buy 11 eight-hour tapes! The DVDs are better, but SO EXPENSIVE!), I'm struck by the thing that makes Farscape so awesome.
See, continuity is a bane of Sci-Fi television. Most dramatic series have characters who evolve over the course of the show. So do many comedies, in fact, though the evolution there is slim in American comedies. But as a rule, Sci-Fi television has never been strong on evolution of concept or characters. But when Babylon 5 came along and did what British television had been doing with sci-fi for decades, it ignited a revolution in American Scifi. Suddenly, shows featured evolution of characters. And few shows did this as well as Farscape.
Farscape is even better at showing the evolution we fans crave than B5 was. In the beginning, the characters are thrown together, allies only because they must work together to survive. By the end of the first season, they're all good friends, even family, and despite their occasional squabbles, they all risk their lives without thinking to save one of them.
Right now, I'm watching the Season Two finale. I won't spoil it for those among you who haven't seen it (it's a BIG MOMENT), but it's got me in tears because Rygel, who started the show as the most avaricious, backstabbing little schmuck you could imagine, just said something so beautiful and selfless that it broke my heart.
And it continued! Not content with this evolution, the characters continued to grow throughout seasons 3 and 4, so much so that the opening narration changed each year, just as B5's did. John Crichton goes from wanting nothing more than finding a way home to (well, I won't spoil it). Aeryn Sun goes from being a no-nonsense soldier to a selfless, loving woman who adores those she travels with. Even the enemy, Bialar Crais -- well, I won't spoil that, either.
Even the newer characters introduced in seasons 3 and 4 evolved over time -- I loathed Jool when she first showed up, but by the time she left, I adored her. Sukozu drove me absolutely crazy with her attitude, too, but by the end of the show I adored her, too, even though I seriously questioned her attitude towards [Spoiler Protected].
I love this show, not just because it's one of the best science fiction shows ever shown on television, hell, one of the best shows, period, but because it further refined and developed the concept of ongoing continuity for Science Fiction. When the show was cancelled (for reasons one could reasonably say were absolute bullshit), fans were in an uproar -- because this show was so good it was adored. Every year, the TV Guide critic -- not generally kind to Sci-Fi on TV, but a fan of SF in general -- called Farscape "one of the best shows on television."
I will definitely get these DVDs when I can, because not only do I want to share the show with my beloved, who never really saw it, but because I want to show this beautiful show to my children when they're old enough (ok, we'll probably have a NEW medium by then, but still...).
