Farscape starts out innocently enough with a beautiful dawn. On this fateful morning an astronaut named John Crichton is shot into space on a test mission, and unwittingly enters a wormhole. Where he ends up is not only the true setting of the story but yet another beautiful and frightening dawn for Crichton. Now aboard a Leviathan, the living ship of Moya, he is in a constant struggle to survive but also adapt to his strange surroundings and shipmates.
The species represented on the ship are incredibly diverse and detailed, each one possessing intricate back stories which are slowly illuminated throughout the first season's 22 episodes. The aggressive yet honorable Luxan warrior D'argo, the exotic spiritual Delvian Zhaan, the incredibly selfish highfalutin royal Hynerian Rygel, the dutiful and passive Pilot, and the deadly Sebacean Peacekeeper commando Aeryn, along with the displaced yet capable human Crichton make up Moya's manifest. The noticeable amount of detail shown in each expertly constructed environment gives the show an extravagant feel as it all looks very expensive.
The imaginative creature and makeup effects from Jim Henson studios are the true highlight of the season though the CG visuals do date the show considerably.
While the crew's plan to return to each of their home worlds leads the audience on an unforgettable journey through many dangerous and evocative locales, the series is still in its infancy so blunders along the way are to be expected.
Farscape is not immune to the early season pitfalls that can arise on such a sci-fi endeavour, though accompanied by well-imagined characters, ambitious storywriting and sfx it truly is the dawn of good things to come.
Buyers Guide:
Available as a 6 disc box set containing all 22 episodes of S1. The same box can be found in a Full Series box, which contains all 4 Seasons.
Nutted by Borderline
1 comment:
Perfect. I loved the New Dawn analogy.
I really liked Zhaan in the early seasons. And “…highfalutin royal Hynerian Rygel” was great. It would probably please the little squirt because it sounds nicer than it is. :p
It did blunder a lot at the beginning but the potential, and the aspirations were clear to see.
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