My Farscape Manifesto (for Scifiland)
I was studying for the bar exam when I discovered Farscape. The bar exam is terrible and dry - corporations and wills and divorces and all manner of utterly human utterly earthly utterly boring material. I needed a distraction in my life… Something the complete opposite of what I was studying day in and day out.
I knew the answer lay in the realm of science fiction. How much more unearthly can you get? So I fished around for recommendations about what to watch that I hadn’t already seen. Two things came up time and again - Babylon 5 and Farscape. Both were available on Netflix on demand. I tried Bab 5, but about 30 minutes into the premiere, I was finding it even more dull than tort law. Clearly, this was not the answer to my problems.
So the day before the biggest exam of my life, I watched the Farscape premiere, and there it all was - blue women and green slugs and sexy soldiers and gorgeous astronauts and living ships! Humor and adventure and the promise of future romance… It had everything that I wanted!
Farscape is the greatest show ever. I will say that as a declarative. It does everything a show can do, and it does it so well - from the depths of tragedy to the heights of the absurd. It has characters that might initially seem like just a collection of prosthetics or just large soulless puppets, but somehow they manage to make you love them. And what’s really remarkable is that you love them in spite of - and eventually, BECAUSE of, their imperfections. The good guys have terrible moments, the bad guys have moments of heroism. They are an unbelievable cast of characters…
And they act out their dramas, big and small, against an amazingly beautiful and extravagant universe - Watch the video “The wonders I have scene” (sic) on youtube and you will know what I’m talking about. The way that they portrayed the planets of the Uncharted Territories and wormholes and the glories of space is just breathtaking. Watch other shows that were made around the same time, and you’ll be blown away by the difference in quality in the special effects. Short of getting sucked through a wormhole myself, and getting to see the wonders of space in person, Farscape has been the next best thing!
And then, last but certainly not least, there is John and Aeryn. Without a doubt, the greatest pairing I have ever had the privilege to watch on screen. Throughout the series, those two had sexual chemistry in spades. You HAD to want them together - they were electric! They sizzled in the smallest little moments. And it wasn’t just sexual chemistry… It was love. They had such gentle sweet moments - just watch them, sitting at the base of Pilot’s consule, John toying with Aeryn’s hair. Sure, there were the occasional moments where she would kick the shit out of him or pop him in the face, but those just added to the magic.
I thank my lucky stars that I found Farscape. It’s been the brightest part of the last two years of my life, introduced me to heaps of wonderful people (with great taste in television shows) and it allows me to dream of the stars!
I knew the answer lay in the realm of science fiction. How much more unearthly can you get? So I fished around for recommendations about what to watch that I hadn’t already seen. Two things came up time and again - Babylon 5 and Farscape. Both were available on Netflix on demand. I tried Bab 5, but about 30 minutes into the premiere, I was finding it even more dull than tort law. Clearly, this was not the answer to my problems.
So the day before the biggest exam of my life, I watched the Farscape premiere, and there it all was - blue women and green slugs and sexy soldiers and gorgeous astronauts and living ships! Humor and adventure and the promise of future romance… It had everything that I wanted!
Farscape is the greatest show ever. I will say that as a declarative. It does everything a show can do, and it does it so well - from the depths of tragedy to the heights of the absurd. It has characters that might initially seem like just a collection of prosthetics or just large soulless puppets, but somehow they manage to make you love them. And what’s really remarkable is that you love them in spite of - and eventually, BECAUSE of, their imperfections. The good guys have terrible moments, the bad guys have moments of heroism. They are an unbelievable cast of characters…
And they act out their dramas, big and small, against an amazingly beautiful and extravagant universe - Watch the video “The wonders I have scene” (sic) on youtube and you will know what I’m talking about. The way that they portrayed the planets of the Uncharted Territories and wormholes and the glories of space is just breathtaking. Watch other shows that were made around the same time, and you’ll be blown away by the difference in quality in the special effects. Short of getting sucked through a wormhole myself, and getting to see the wonders of space in person, Farscape has been the next best thing!
And then, last but certainly not least, there is John and Aeryn. Without a doubt, the greatest pairing I have ever had the privilege to watch on screen. Throughout the series, those two had sexual chemistry in spades. You HAD to want them together - they were electric! They sizzled in the smallest little moments. And it wasn’t just sexual chemistry… It was love. They had such gentle sweet moments - just watch them, sitting at the base of Pilot’s consule, John toying with Aeryn’s hair. Sure, there were the occasional moments where she would kick the shit out of him or pop him in the face, but those just added to the magic.
I thank my lucky stars that I found Farscape. It’s been the brightest part of the last two years of my life, introduced me to heaps of wonderful people (with great taste in television shows) and it allows me to dream of the stars!