Farscape review thread

[Brikar]

Well, I decided not to continue 'Babylon 5'. Instead, I'll turn my efforts toward 'Farscape', another series I've seen bits and pieces of but never explored in depth.

1x01 "Premiere" - Astronaut John Crichton is sucked into a wormhole to a bizarre area of space. His ship accidentally collides with an alien vessel, killing the other pilot. He is brought aboard an alien prison ship in the midst of a daring escape, and forms an alliance with the prisoners on board when he discovers that the brother of the dead pilot is a high-ranking military official who wants revenge. This pilot episode is better than the whole first season of 'Babylon 5'. The dialogue is more fluid, the cast more comfortable and natural, and the sets and effects don't seem cheap at all. If there's one thing that bothers me, it's at the climax when Crichton uses his slingshot theory to help the ship escape the pursuing Peacekeepers - he tells Aeryn to vector to 29 degrees or some such... but how is she supposed to know what that means? Throughout the whole pilot we hear different words for measurements of time and distance, and Aeryn doesn't recognize the word 'compassion'. So I find it a bit odd that she understands our human measurement of degrees.

Still... This episode is a lot of fun and goes by in a wink. As such, it feels a little bit rushed. But I'm far more excited about digging into this series than I was after watching the 'Babylon 5' pilot.

[Tupperfan]

Yes! And yeah...human calculations confuse aliens!

But yeah, good choice! And honestly, thank god!

[Bean]

You'll fare much better with Farscape than B5. There are some not so good eps to be sure, but overall it's fantastic.

Like B5 the real mythology and serialized episodes pick up in season 2, but season 1 still has some great moments. Even the bottle episodes are generally really good. It's kinda sad that a show with great production and acting like this gets cancelled while B5 was allowed to not only finish it's arc, but to add several dvd movies and a spinoff...

[Bean]

Oh, and as for the inconsistencies with the "translator microbes" there's little things like that throughout the series. I guess for the sake of continuing the story you just have to overlook them.

[Brikar]

Bean stopped drinking long enough to mumble

Oh, and as for the inconsistencies with the "translator microbes" there's little things like that throughout the series. I guess for the sake of continuing the story you just have to overlook them.

That's what I figured. But in this instance it kind of stood out like a sore thumb. It's not like it ruined anything, I just kind of frowned at it while watching and went, "huh... ok..."

[Brikar]

1x02 "Exodus from Genesis" - Moya is infested by space bugs who can take the form of the crew. Just as Rigel strikes up a truce with their queen, a Peacekeeper squad boards the ship and starts killing everything in sight. A solidly constructed if unremarkable episode. It starts to form the bonds of friendship between the crew and shows off some silly, very "Stargate"-like humor. It's very obvious why Browder was tapped to come aboard 'SG-1' years later after playing this role.

[Arik]

Brikar stopped drinking long enough to mumble

Still... This episode is a lot of fun and goes by in a wink.

I'm just into season 3, and even at worst, it's usually been fun. I really have no bad things to say about the series as I've watched it (which is rare for me). Might change the closer I get to the end of it, though...

[Brikar]

A note: The episodes on Netflix seem to be presented out of order. From now on, I'll be watching the episodes in the order listed on Wikipedia.

1x03 "Back and Back and Back to the Future" - After getting zapped by a piece of alien technology, Crichton begins to see flashes of the future. Another decent episode, but nothing particularly special. The woman playing a rescued alien is pretty bad. I just wasn't all that engrossed with this one.

1x04 "Throne for a Loss" - Rygel is kidnapped by aliens who use drugs to enhance their fighting capabilities. This one reminded me a lot of that 'Stargate SG-1' episode with the alien armbands. it had some funny moments, and some cool action sequences. The subplot about the alien drug withdrawal was a bit too heavy-handed, but it came to a solid conclusion.

[Brikar]

1x05 "Thank God It's Friday, Again" - Moya comes across a world where the people seem blissfully happy to do backbreaking labor with nary a day off. Crichton soon discovers the food is laced with a drug that makes them susceptible to any suggestion... except to leave. This episode reminded me a lot of that 'SG-1' episode where the team was mind-wiped and put to work on some ice planet (and the 'Voyager' episode where the same thing happened), but with some cool twists. The idea that the people are continually told that "tomorrow is a rest day", which never comes, is pretty awesome in its simplicity. And what the work is ultimately used for, too. And some hilarious moments sprinkled throughout, such as Rygel's explosive bodily fluids.

[Sirgets]

i am so trying to convince my wife to watch this with me on netflix. i got a maybe so far from her