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I like the AV Club but their tv rewatches/reviews are shit - they just describe at length what happened in the episode then stick a load of quotes from it under the heading "Random Observations", and that's it.

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I've never read any of the AV Club's rewatches, but the one for episodes 8/9 (since I just watched them) didn't seem terrible, and I learned a few things. 

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Episode 10 (“They've Got A Secret”) really helped explain the events of Episode 9 (“DNA Mad Scientist”). I was somewhat uncomfortable with 9 and whether characters were acting in ways that were out-of-character for them, but 10 fills in the big missing piece there. It's probably good that it's structured that way. I think Farscape is trying to make the viewer uncomfortable at times, and filling in some character details retroactively lets the show get away with that.

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Got through some more episodes last night.  The AV Club's stuff pointed me to this transcript for the DVD commentary of what is apparently considered the absolute worst of all the Farscape episodes (Jeremiah Crichton).  The transcript is pretty amusing to read through.
 


And this is David Kemper, executive producer. Just a word as we look back from July 2004 at “Jeremiah Crichton”. Every once in awhile on a TV series, especially one that is just starting up from scratch, you’re fumbling, you’re looking around, and as the show starts to gel, a magical event happens. Every once in awhile you reach an episode where everything comes together: the writing, the directing, the acting, all the production crafts. And you achieve a magic, magic, perfect episode. We’re here today to talk about “Jeremiah Crichton” cause it is absolutely Not. That. Episode.

 

I'm also super enjoying the attitudes that Farscape takes towards sexuality, gender, and sex in general.  It's a refreshing attitude to see out of a TV show.  I'm realizing just how little of Farscape I must have seen, because I so far haven't recognized a single episode, and generally only have the vaguest memories of most of the characters. 

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I enjoyed the first season when it aired.  It wasn't my one of my favorite shows at the time...but it was fun stuff that was occasionally really good.  I think it was with Durka Returns that it really got rolling...that was a really good episode and after it every episode was solid...and then I think "Nerve" and "Hidden Memory" were what really cemented Farscape as one of my favorite shows.  Those two episodes took everything that was good going through the first season and wove them together really effectively while actually changing things up dramatically.  They also introduced a great villain and made all the characters we'd been following miserable in new and exciting ways!

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I definitely feel like the show doesn't start properly until Scorpius shows up. I think the last time I watched Farscape I skipped almost all of season one.

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This thread makes me so happy, I don't even know where to start.

 

Season 1 is really, really rough, but as a superfan, it's always interesting for me to go back and watch the show learn to crawl, then learn to walk, and finally (towards the end) learn to run. 

 

But if you're a first timer, use that skip list!

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But if you're a first timer, use that skip list!

 

We didn't! We're a few episodes into Season 2 now, and I'm really glad we went all the way through 1. I agree that there is a lot of unevenness there, but there's a ton of character development that I think would ultimately be lost without going through it.

Does the show return to some silliness going forward? Starting around Durka Returns (S1E15) through The Way We Weren't (S2E5), there's a whole ton of dark, serious stuff going on. There are some great episodes, many of the best so far, but at the same time binge watching this, it's like I need the show to dial back a bit into some fun and goofiness a bit more to provide some breathing room.

 

I didn't realize until most of the way through S1 that Pilot's voice is the same actor who plays Crais.  Which is pretty freaking incredible. 

 

Out of S2 so far, I've particularly enjoyed The Way We Weren't, as it firmly establishes Pilot as a full fledged member of the crew, someone who is as broken and fucked up as the rest of them. 

 

"Taking the Stone" (S2E3) is probably one of the worst episodes for me so far, but I still love how it subverts the structure of what could have been a classic Star Trek episode.  

 

Particularly in TNG, there's no way Pickard just leaves a planet with a suicide cult continuing to kill themselves completely unnecessarily.  But the Farscape crew are just like, fuck 'em, we tried, time to move on.

 

In general, a ton of episodes so far feel like they've taken the structure of classic sci-fi TV, and then done something quite different with it. 

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Does the show return to some silliness going forward? Starting around Durka Returns (S1E15) through The Way We Weren't (S2E5), there's a whole ton of dark, serious stuff going on. There are some great episodes, many of the best so far, but at the same time binge watching this, it's like I need the show to dial back a bit into some fun and goofiness a bit more to provide some breathing room.

 

There is definitely some silly stuff in the future.

Such as Revenging Angel which features animated versions of the characters

 

RAngel.jpg

 

or the classic bunny costume

 

jas400033.jpg

 

I also didn't care for Taking the Stone.

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The majority of the series is pretty serious from that point, but there are occasional flights of whimsy.

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I like the AV Club but their tv rewatches/reviews are shit - they just describe at length what happened in the episode then stick a load of quotes from it under the heading "Random Observations", and that's it.

 

 

You definitely have to pick and choose what shows and reviewers to read (i could rank it rewatch, drama then comedy last in terms of the types of shows). Rowan Kaiser has a pretty good one on Babylon5 (another show where you want to skip most if not all of the first season)  if you are looking for more  non-Trek 90's sci-fi (and an agruement for B5 predating the likes of the Sopranos and the wire in terms of tv serialisation)

 

I hold out hope for a Luxx rewatch someday which is the other show with a ragtag crew on the run in a living ship but not so good although far crazier/all over the palce with its cast and storylines than Farscape.

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I hold out hope for a Luxx rewatch someday which is the other show with a ragtag crew on the run in a living ship but not so good although far crazier/all over the palce with its cast and storylines than Farscape.

Did you mean Lexx? Lexx is completely and utterly insane and all about sex sex sex. The ship is a giant penis. There is a special dark place in my heart for Lexx. It's so bad, though. But also so great. Man. Lexx.

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I had forgotten the name of that show, so I couldn't rewatch it. Great show. Utterly bonkers.

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Did you mean Lexx? Lexx is completely and utterly insane and all about sex sex sex. The ship is a giant penis. There is a special dark place in my heart for Lexx. It's so bad, though. But also so great. Man. Lexx.

 

Yeah, I tried to rewatch Lexx four years ago, I think, and it was terrible enough to drop after two seasons. What was most upsetting was that the overarching plot, with His Divine Shadow, was quite good, as was the undead assassin guy, but they'd throw anything and everything under the bus for more sex jokes. It's important to remember that, despite the concentration of good sci-fi on TV in the nineties, not all sci-fi on TV in the nineties was good.

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I sat through the second season of Lexx this year, and it was mostly really excruciating and boring. Every episode is the same thing (Stanley and Zev wants sex and go to some planet/station/ship to get it, they get into trouble, in the last ten minutes Kai wakes up and saves them). The production values are bad, the acting is terrible (only Stanley gets a pass because he is supposed to be obnoxious), the music is that bland 90s 'someone fell asleep on the synthesizer', and the writing is beyond horrible and often specifically sexist.

 

The first season of Lexx at least consisted of (overlong) movie length stories that had some interesting scifi elements to them, and the inclusion of some fun actors (Rutger Hauer, Tim Curry). After that, all pretense of wanting to build a coherent and interesting universe are traded in for... the cheapest low-brow scifi shovelware imaginable. I don't for the life of me understand why Lexx appears in some of the 'top 25 sci-fi shows' lists. It's crap.

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We didn't! We're a few episodes into Season 2 now, and I'm really glad we went all the way through 1. I agree that there is a lot of unevenness there, but there's a ton of character development that I think would ultimately be lost without going through it.

Does the show return to some silliness going forward? Starting around Durka Returns (S1E15) through The Way We Weren't (S2E5), there's a whole ton of dark, serious stuff going on. There are some great episodes, many of the best so far, but at the same time binge watching this, it's like I need the show to dial back a bit into some fun and goofiness a bit more to provide some breathing room.

 

I didn't realize until most of the way through S1 that Pilot's voice is the same actor who plays Crais.  Which is pretty freaking incredible. 

 

Out of S2 so far, I've particularly enjoyed The Way We Weren't, as it firmly establishes Pilot as a full fledged member of the crew, someone who is as broken and fucked up as the rest of them. 

 

"Taking the Stone" (S2E3) is probably one of the worst episodes for me so far, but I still love how it subverts the structure of what could have been a classic Star Trek episode.  

 

Particularly in TNG, there's no way Pickard just leaves a planet with a suicide cult continuing to kill themselves completely unnecessarily.  But the Farscape crew are just like, fuck 'em, we tried, time to move on.

 

In general, a ton of episodes so far feel like they've taken the structure of classic sci-fi TV, and then done something quite different with it. 

 

One of the best things about Farscape (aside from all the subversive stuff you mentioned, and its attitude towards gender + sexuality) is how nuanced the tone can be, in balancing silliness with seriousness/darkness/trauma. There's an episode coming up for you (A Clockwork Nebari) that has very, very dark themes, some of the darkest implied stuff in the entire series, but Chrichton basically has to pretend to be high the whole time. Crackers Don't Matter is as hilarious as it is deeply disturbing. And Won't Get Fooled Again is... well, a masterpiece of mindfuckery, with a lot of goofiness thrown in. Watch for the pumps!

 

(and this is all second season stuff. The third season of Farscape is my favorite 22 hours of entertainment ever made, bar none. I'm excited for you that you're experiencing it for the first time!)

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One of the best things about Farscape (aside from all the subversive stuff you mentioned, and its attitude towards gender + sexuality) is how nuanced the tone can be, in balancing silliness with seriousness/darkness/trauma. There's an episode coming up for you (A Clockwork Nebari) that has very, very dark themes, some of the darkest implied stuff in the entire series, but Chrichton basically has to pretend to be high the whole time. Crackers Don't Matter is as hilarious as it is deeply disturbing. And Won't Get Fooled Again is... well, a masterpiece of mindfuckery, with a lot of goofiness thrown in. Watch for the pumps!

 

That is definitely one of my favorite aspects of the show.  I like serious sci-fi and I like goofy sci-fi, but I don't think any other show has balanced the two in the same way that Farscape does.  In most other shows, they'll have "serious" episodes or "silly" episodes that stand out in contrast to the "normal" tone of the show.  There's nothing wrong with that, but Farscape does such a good job of blending the two in the same episode.  There are certainly episodes that are more serious or silly than others, but I don't think you can label any of them as the "silly" episode without brushing over a lot of nuance.

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Yeah, I tried to rewatch Lexx four years ago, I think, and it was terrible enough to drop after two seasons. What was most upsetting was that the overarching plot, with His Divine Shadow, was quite good, as was the undead assassin guy, but they'd throw anything and everything under the bus for more sex jokes. It's important to remember that, despite the concentration of good sci-fi on TV in the nineties, not all sci-fi on TV in the nineties was good.

That's unfortunate, because the real gold is after the plot with His Divine Shadow ends. It gets super ridico-bonkers.

 

I won't hold it against anyone for not being able to put up with that show, but I fucking love it for how completely absurd it is. But it is also just really really awful. I won't apologize!

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Ah, the next few episodes after The Way We Weren't were exactly what were we wanting from the show for a bit.  It was great to see Chiana and Rigel get a chance to helm an episode in Dream a Little Dream (S2E8).  And the idea of a planet that is 90 percent made of lawyers is a very Douglas Adams type story to explore.  Ultimately it's actually not a great episode, it lacks the focus of the best, but I still like seeing the two most selfish characters have a chance to contribute. 
 
Then there's Out of Their Minds (S2E9), which is the funniest episode so far.  Mind swapping stories are always good for some goofiness, but the Farscape crew really pulled it off well.  Almost every single scene has something terrific in it.  I suppose I'll spoiler this stuff, just in case someone else who hasn't seen these reads through here eventually:

Sure, a lot of it is just basic body humor like Rigel having to figure out how to pee in John's body, or John playing with Aeron's boobs while in hers. But it all totally and completely fits with each character as you know them. My favorite though was D'Argo and Chiana. Chiana trying to seduce Rigel while they were in D'Argo and John's bodies is incredible (and borderline ballsy back then). Then D'argo's admission that he liked being in Chiana's body at the end. Oh, and the bad guys are basically the bird creatures from The Dark Crystal!



After these more standalone episodes, definitely feel like we're ready for the show to delve back into the main storyline again.

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You're making me want to watch it again, when I already have to re-watch Twin Peaks and I can barely keep up with the two TV shows I actually watch as they come out.

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Watched a few more episodes last night. The Princess episodes were an interesting trilogy that seemed mostly about driving several of the relationship arcs forward. Crighton's reaction was kind of funny, as he's shown a willingness to sacrifice his own life to save his friends, but he drew the line at getting married to save his friends' lives. There's something that's so American Male about that idea, that death is a preferable sacrifice to make than marriage.

“Won’t Get Fooled Again” (S2E15) was another dream/hallucination episode that was pretty delightful for being completely insane and essentially one long running series of non-sequiturs. Some of the episodes which are really about just mind fucking Crighton and the rest of the crew often seem like an excuse to introduce some sexual content that would not normally appear in a television show 15 years ago. When Rygel pops up late in the episode in the doctor's office, that's one of the funniest things I've seen:

post-33601-0-44265400-1414508851.gif

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Have got through quite a few episodes since last time I posted, and hit the big spoiler moment for Zhaan in Season 3.

 

Not gonna lie, I cried a little bit when she sacrificed herself.  I already knew it was coming, and I was rather glad I did.  Not sure I would have handled it as well if it had been a big surprise.  At some point link surfing through Farscape stuff in the last couple of weeks, I saw mention of Virginia Hey asking to be written out (for very good reasons). 

 

I had been meaning to write a bunch about Zhaan in general, though I doubt I have anything particularly unique to say about her.  She's been my favorite character on the show, in a large part because she reminds me more of my wife than any other fictional character I've seen.  The combination of a peace, rage, sexuality and being a sentient plant are all things I can identify with my lady (seriously, she has to be part plant given the kinds of things she can grow).  It's unfortunate that for being arguably the most well rounded character on Farscape, she was also the one the writers seemed to struggle with the most.  She too often became the plot needed swiss army knife (we need a scientist/chemist/healer/mystic!), or was minimized as she's not as action driven as the rest.  At any rate, I'm going to miss having her on the rest of the show. 

 

Going back a bit, it made me super happy to realize that someone on the show's staff must be a Warren Zevon fan, since the final arc in Season 2 is called "Liars, Guns and Money" a riff on Zevon's classic "

."  Zevon is likely my favorite song writer of all time.  There are even some parallels with the lyrics of the song and the plot of the episodes, "Send lawyers, guns and money, Dad get me out of this." 

 

"A Clockwork Nebari" just makes me want to see more Nebari episodes, as they seem like a fascinating species with an interesting villainous take, but it doesn't seem like they're going to end up being major players with the focus on the Peacekeepers and wormholes.  Also, at least once a season, the creators were bound and determined to make people squirm right the fuck off their couches with eyeball shit. 

 

Speaking of disturbing shit, "Eat Me" could have ended up being a hell of a lot more disturbing than it was.  I'm kind of surprised they didn't push the envelope there more, though they may not have wanted to savage one of the main characters, as they tend to have trauma last and someone would have had to witness it. 

 

I love how naturally self-destructive so many of the characters are.  Chiana and Jothee's arcs are completely believable. 

 

Honestly, quite often Farscape is pretty messy in terms of the actual plot going on in any given episode, but the characters and ideas are all so fascinating that the show transcends its problems with plot and story.

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Have got through quite a few episodes since last time I posted, and hit the big spoiler moment for Zhaan in Season 3.

 

Not gonna lie, I cried a little bit when she sacrificed herself.  I already knew it was coming, and I was rather glad I did.  Not sure I would have handled it as well if it had been a big surprise.  At some point link surfing through Farscape stuff in the last couple of weeks, I saw mention of Virginia Hey asking to be written out (for very good reasons). 

 

I had been meaning to write a bunch about Zhaan in general, though I doubt I have anything particularly unique to say about her.  She's been my favorite character on the show, in a large part because she reminds me more of my wife than any other fictional character I've seen.  The combination of a peace, rage, sexuality and being a sentient plant are all things I can identify with my lady (seriously, she has to be part plant given the kinds of things she can grow).  It's unfortunate that for being arguably the most well rounded character on Farscape, she was also the one the writers seemed to struggle with the most.  She too often became the plot needed swiss army knife (we need a scientist/chemist/healer/mystic!), or was minimized as she's not as action driven as the rest.  At any rate, I'm going to miss having her on the rest of the show. 

 

I also wish they had a chance to expand Zhaan more but you can't really argue with makeup causing kidney complications.  I never really warmed to her "replacement" Jool.  I did enjoy later characters Noranti and Sikozu though.

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