Hey everyone, time for another look at classic shows or movies and what makes them great. Today, I’m reviewing a sci-fi that has always been in my top three, an Australian/US television series known as Farscape.
For those who don’t know, Farscape revolved around the misadventures of John Crichton, an astronaut lost on the far side of the galaxy, who falls in with a group of escaped prisoners on their stolen living starship, Moya (side note – Crichton’s name is actually a reference to a story by Peter Pan creator J M Barrie, about a shipwrecked butler named Crichton). As Moya’s crew try and stay one step ahead of their captors, they bounce from on adventure to the next, encountering strange alien worlds and cultures – and usually causing as much trouble as possible on the way.
The show aired in 1999, conceived by Brian Henson and Rockne O’Bannon, the former’s influence coming through in the incredible amount of practical effects in every episode. However, what people mostly remember about this show was the stellar performances by Ben Browder as Crichton and Claudia Black as the rebellious Aeryn Sun. A hallmark of the later seasons was Crichton’s decent into madness, after wormhole technology and then a sentient computer chip are successively implanted into his brain, leading to John’s (hilarious) internal dialogues with his imaginary companion, Harvey. All fans of the show have their favorite episodes – mine was Claudia Black’s performance in Season Three’s “The Choice,” and the show had a fantastic range of dark, emotional and just plain silly episodes.
So what made this story so compelling? Farscape already shows a lot of the features I’ve written about in past articles of the Good Writing Matters series. The plot revolves around a small group of well-crafted characters with clear motivations and great character relationships. The galactic-scale conflicts are dramatic and intense, and are reflected within the framework of the personal conflicts between Moya’s crew. As the lead character, John Crichton has a great internal development, and the romance between John and Aeryn is active and consistent with both character’s arcs. The over-arching plot and fact that the main characters are escaped criminals, not noble explorers, means that we can get away from the “rinse and reset” mentality of some episodic sci-fi shows to really get a feel for the Farscape universe.
And this is what really makes Farscape great: consistency and continuity. It starts small – if one character has an argument with another, they’re still at each other’s throats in the next episode. Aeryn breaks a leg? Moya gets burned? Those injuries are still on display later on. This scales up to the conflicts and relationships between the larger factions at play in the galaxy, and the ongoing galactic war rolls on in the background, complete with its own set of victories and defeats. Some great writing has gone into keeping all of these relationships consistent, rarely using the “get out of jail free cards” of characters/groups inexplicably developing new powers or acting contrary to their established backstories, instead allowing the crew of the stolen Leviathan ship to rise and fall through natural interaction.
What this leads to is a fantastic sense of immersion and investment, and we really fall in love with this group of misfits as they careen from one escapade to the next. Even after twenty years Farscape still has a solid fanbase, and I for one would love to see more stories in this universe!
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