Rating summary
Movie | | 4.0 |
Video | | 3.0 |
Audio | | 4.5 |
Extras | | 5.0 |
Overall | | 4.0 |
Farscape: The Complete Seasons Blu-ray Movie Review
To boldly go where several have gone before.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 5, 2011
Is there really anything new that can be crafted in the realm of television science fiction, especially space dramas?
Probably not, but that
doesn’t mean that interesting and even compelling new soufflés can come along every few years. Few people had any
hopes for Star
Trek: The Next Generation when it came along, and in fact star Patrick Stewart rather sheepishly admits that the
only reason he
accepted a role he then deemed beneath his Shakespearian talents was that it would be some quick (and abundant)
money and the show
would never last for the six season commitment his original contract required. So much for making plans.
Farscape probably didn’t
raise many eyebrows when it was announced when it simultaneously premiered in Australia and Canada, and then
matriculated to the
United States on what was then known as the Sci-Fi Channel (I still find it hard to accept the patently silly Syfy
rebranding). But over a
relatively short time span, the series developed a rather ardent fan base, one that went through original Star
Trek withdrawal when
Farscape met an ignominious cancellation at the end of its fourth season, despite that season having ended
with a major cliffhanger
and a fifth season having already been promised. That particular upset was remedied by a miniseries which was made
possible at least in
part by fans’ insistence that they at least be brought up to speed with several dangling plot elements (the miniseries is not included
in this set, as it's a Lionsgate title).
Farscape is a frankly not very
well hidden amalgamation of ideas from any number of previous television science fiction properties, including Lost
in Space, Star Trek,
Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate, Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica (with maybe even a passing
nod to the old
Irwin Allen series Land of the Giants), but that very proclivity—a
little this-a and a little
that-a—manages to deliver a fairly nourishing casserole of characters and ideas. The show may wear its sociopolitical
heart on its sleeve in
much the same way that the Roddenberry outings usually did, and some of Farscape definitely has a déjà
vu feeling about it,
but often the series manages to be immensely enjoyable, visually striking and intellectually engaging if not exactly
challenging. In fact one of
the most compelling analogies between Farscape and Star Trek is the vociferous support of its fans, and
the swell of outrage
from them no doubt helped pave the way for the miniseries which wrapped up the series (more or less, anyway) if not
providing for an
outright resurrection. What the intervening decades between the cancellation of the original Star Trek and
Farscape may
have proven more fascinatingly than the mere uprising of fan support is how much the rapid dissemination of
information over the internet
has changed the face of entertainment in the 21st century. Had the internet been around in 1969, in other words, we
might have had that
full five year mission that Captain Kirk’s voiceover in the Star Trek opening credits always promised.
Ben Browder portrays John Crichton, a NASA test pilot who has a theory about the gravitational pull of planets being
able to catapult spacecraft into super-fast speeds he wants to check out. On his test flight, he’s sucked into a massive
wormhole which deposits him lightyears away in an unknown part of the universe, though one of course strangely
rather densely populated by various alien types, many of whom seem to be engaging in a fierce battle as Crichton
erupts from his columnar portal. Crichton’s propensity to get sucked into things continues as he’s magnetically drawn
to a massive spaceship and deposited in its docking bay. He soon discovers that he’s been drawn aboard Moya, a
“biomechanoid” (in the series’ verbiage) from a sentient species known as Leviathans, who are both huge “space
whale” like creatures which also serve as spacecraft. Moya is one of
Farscape’s more innovative concepts, and
in a certain way presages
Avatar, as Moya has been bonded since early life with her Pilot (named, well, Pilot).
Crichton soon finds out that the crew of Moya, such as it is, is a bunch of renegade ostensible criminals who are
attempting to escape from some evil space villains known in a sort of nod to Orwellian semantics as Peacekeepers.
Crichton is also quickly introduced to another stranger in a strange land, a female Peacekeeper named Aeryn Sun
(Claudi Black) who like Crichton has been pulled aboard Moya against her will. The supposed criminal crew of course is
not thrilled to have Aeryn aboard, and she returns the favor, seeming to reserve special disgust for Crichton. Can love
be far behind?
The first two seasons of
Farscape see the slow evolution of relationships between Crichton and the crew of
Moya, including warrior Ka D’Argo (Anthony Simcoe), a kind of quasi-Klingon looking character who is volatile but also
strangely vulnerable when it comes to his missing son, who has been kidnapped by the main villain of the series’ first
season, a Peacekeeper named Crais (Lani Tupu). Also on board Moya is a seductive blue (and bald) Priestess named
Zhaan (Virginia Hey), a sentient plant species who has a number of spiritual powers, including one that is suspiciously
close to the Vulcan mind meld. Rygel provides a lot of the comedy relief of the series. A puppet creation of the Henson
Studios, Rygel is sort of the Ted Baxter of Moya, a once despotic ruler who is completely full of himself and who can’t
quite believe he’s forced to slum with these supposed lowlifes. There are several other supporting characters who
appear throughout the series’ four year (plus a little) run, but the bulk of the stories revolve around this group. Two
other main plot arcs though concern Chiana (Gigi Edgley), a sort of street kid (if space had streets) who is brought
aboard Moya midway through Season One and who attempts to defy her society’s insistence on conformity; and
Scorpius (Wayne Pygram), a nefarious villain whose shenanigans take up the bulk of the second season’s plot arc as he
attempts to obtain the secrets of the wormhole by implanting Crichton with a neural chip which literally drives the
astronaut more than a bit batty.
There is no denying that there is the scent of shows that have gone before wafting over large elements of
Farscape. Both Aeryn and Chiana are redolent in their own way of
Star Trek: Voyager’s Seven of Nine,
as Aeryn is trying to reconnect with her emotions, buried after years of being a warrior, and Chiana is attempting to
escape from her race’s insistence on absolute conformity. And the Borg connection is perhaps even stronger with
Scorpius, a character who is fairly reminiscent of Lorcutus, the Borg-afied (if that isn’t a word, it should be) version of
Captain Jean-Luc Picard. And of course getting
Lost in Space through a
Land of the Giants-esque space
anomaly that is somewhat like a
Stargate only ups the “been there,
seen that” feel to the series.
But you know what? Against considerable odds,
Farscape succeeds a great deal of the time, mostly due to
some very sharp writing and an invincible sense of humor about itself which keeps the proceedings from getting overly
pretentious (for just one great example of this tendency, take a gander at some of the episode titles listed in the Supplements section
below, which are frequently a collection of horrible puns). There’s a literally childlike sense of wonder to many of these episodes, helped
immeasurably by the
wonderful creations of Henson Studios and some very good makeup effects on the human actors. As Brian Henson
mentions in one of the many supplements included on this 20 disc (!) set, the initial inspiration for
Farscape was
the bar scene in
Star Wars, and the series’ creative staff wanted that wild and wooly mix of incredible alien
characters to fill every nook and cranny of their series, and to a large degree, they’ve succeeded admirably.
Farscape actually gets off to a fairly standard start and some viewers may give up when Crichton and Aeryn lock gazes in supposed
hatred of each other and most will not be wondering if they’ll ever get together but
when they’ll get together. The show actually
picks up considerable steam as it goes along, and by the middle of the second season it’s regularly delivering one knockout episode after
another, especially after Scorpius starts working his nefarious magic. Seasons three and four are often really spectacular, with some
extremely inventive storytelling (my personal favorite is the quasi-homage to Chuck Jones’ cartoon career, “Revenging Angel”), and in fact
the series seems to really have found its authentic voice in these final two years, once the relationships of Moya’s crew had been set and
characters were well established enough for the writers to take off on some considerable flights of fancy.
This immense new set will most likely be a welcome addition to
Farscape’s fans’ collections, though many will probably be distressed
that the miniseries
The Peacekeeper Wars which sought to wrap up some of the dangling plot threads left frayed at the end of the
fourth season’s finale isn’t included here (as was mentioned above, it’s licensed by another company which probably has a lot to do with this
decision). Maybe fans
can mount another internet petition drive and get that excellent conclusion out in HD soon, too. They’ve proven how powerful they can be
already.
Farscape: The Complete Seasons Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality
Farscape is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of A&E with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 1.33:1 for the series' first three seasons and
1.78:1 for the last season (I"ve included screencaps of both aspect ratios so that you can see the difference). Farscape was filmed in
Australia and presented there in the PAL standard. The series' creators are insisting that the 35mm prints are nowhere to be found, plus the
visual effects
were created in SD (meaning they'd have to be recreated for a true HD master), so this is an
upconversion which unfortunately does not look great a lot of the time. I'd actually rank the 1.33:1 seasons at somewhere between a 2.5 and
3.0 and the fourth season moderately higher at between a 3.0 and 3.5, for an average score of 3.0. The image is frequently fuzzy, with less
than appealing color and some very spotty contrast. The series is often quite dark, regularly taking place within Moya's labyrinthine confines,
and crush is rampant
throughout these sequences. Things have at least a moderate improvement in the final season of the series, though even at a wider aspect
ratio, the image is still distressingly soft a lot of the time, with little of the pop that one would hope for with a series of this relatively recent
vintage and one which boasts such an impressive production design and sometimes staggering visual effects. In fact it's the visual effects that
probably come off best in the series, with the animated sequences of Moya or other interstellar sequences achieving a modicum of clarity and
precision which the rest of this presentation lacks.
Farscape: The Complete Seasons Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality
Much more impressive is Farscape's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, which crackles with intensity, some fantastic LFE and
relatively consistent surround activity, at least within the confines of a weekly television series. Dialogue is pretty uniformly anchored to the
front three channels, but in terms of sound effects, which are plentiful and sometimes quite fanciful, and the synth-heavy score from composer
Guy Gross, surround channels are used with a fair degree of regularity. Effects populate discrete channels quite a bit of the time and there are
some nice whooshing pans as spacecraft flit about outer space. The best moments are in the series' many action sequences, when things get
quite lively and explosions, gunfire and other propulsive effects zing through the soundfield with excellent fidelity and some great impact. The
overall feel of this series from a sound design perspective can be just a tad busy at times, though the DTS track maintains excellent
clarity and precision even in the noisiest moments.
Farscape: The Complete Seasons Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras
Farscape: The Complete Series boasts one of the most impressive and lengthy collections of supplements in recent memory (just
detailing all of these took me the better part of two days). I frankly did not have time to listen to each and every commentary, but I spot
checked several from each season, and they're fun and conversational as well as getting into some of the nuts and bolts of characterizations
and more technical aspects like the visual effects. Special kudos need to be given to whoever greenlit the idea to let composer Guy Gross
have so much time describing how a weekly series is scored, and his segments are among the most interesting, at least to those musically
inclined like myself. Most of the Deleted Scenes come with textual prologues giving context. I have organized these supplements by
category, but recognize that they are actually split fairly willy-nilly over the discs of each season without any clear organizing principal.
Selecting individual episode titles lets you know whether there are commentary tracks.
Season One
- Audio Commentaries:
Premiere: Rockne S. O'Bannon, Brian Henson and Ben BrowderI, E.T.: Claudia Black and Anthony Simcoe
Exodus from Genesis: Brian Henson and Virginia Hey
Throne for a Loss: Ben Browder and Claudia Black
Back and Back and Back to the Future: Ben Browder and Rowan Woods
Thank God It's Friday. . .Again: Rockne S. O'Bannon and Anthony Simcoe
DNA Mad Scientist: a) Ben Browder and Claudia Black; b) Rockne S. O'Bannon and David Kemper
Jeremiah Crichton: Ben Browder, Claudia Black, Rockne S. O'Bannon and David Kemper (this commentary bears
the humorous subtitle "When Bad Things Happen to Good Shows")
A Human Reaction: Ben Browder and Claudia Black
Nerve: Ben Browder and Claudia Black
Born to be Wild: Anthony Simcoe
Family Ties: a) Ben Browder and Claudia Black; b) Rockne S. O'Bannon and David Kemper
- Making of a Space Opera (SD; 22:26) is a good making of featurette providing a decent generalized
overview of what the creative team was aiming for with the series and how they went about achieving those aims.
- In the Beginning: A Look Back with Brian Henson (SD; 38:10) is a 2004 interview with Henson where he
recounts what sparked the idea for Farscape and how Henson Studios really wanted to push the envelope with
the series. Henson talks about bringing O'Bannon into the project and how it finally (ahem) took off.
- Farscape in the Raw: Director's Cut Scenes for "The Flax" and "Through the Looking Glass" (SD;
42:00). This is a really interesting comparison of broadcast version scenes from these two episodes with those from an
early director's cut of those same two episodes. The source element for the director's version is a VHS tape with a
timecode caption, so the video quality isn't great.
Season Two
- Audio Commentaries
Crackers Don't Matter: Claudia Black and Ian Watson
The Way We Weren't: Ben Browder and Claudia Black
Won't Get Fooled Again: Rowan Woods and Richard Manning
The Locket: Ben Browder and Claudia Black
Die Me, Dichotomy: Ben Browder, Claudia Black and David Kemper
- Deleted Scenes for Mind the Baby (SD; 3:19)
- Deleted Scenes for Taking the Stone (SD; 00:37)
- Deleted Scenes for Crackers Don't Matter (SD; 00:45)
- Deleted Scenes for Dream a Little Dream (SD: 3:59)
- Deleted Scenes for Look at the Princess Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss (SD; 1:40)
- Deleted Scenes for Look at the Princess Part III: The Maltese Crichton (SD; 1:30)
- Deleted Scenes for The Locket (SD; 00:57)
- Deleted Scenes for Liars, Guns and Money Part II: With Friends Like These (SD; 1:34)
- Listening In With Composer Guy Gross: The Way We Weren't (SD; 9:20) is a neat little featurette
showing Gross writing and playing the score for the show. He also talks about composing for the series, with this
episode being his first foray into writing for the show.
- Listening In With Composer Guy Gross: My Three Crichtons (SD; 11:28) is another interesting piece
with Gross ruminating on creating a score. He talkis about utilizing multi-keyboards for budgetary reasons and how
working within electronics is both a hindrance and a challenge.
- Listening In With Composer Guy Gross: The Locket (SD; 9:50). In this outing Gross discusses
writing a very romantic score for this episode.
- Listening In With Composer Guy Gross: Die Me, Dichotomy (SD; 10:49). Gross wrapped up his first
season on the show with this score.
- Season 2 Bloopers (SD; 6:38)
- Farscape In the Raw: Director's Cut Scenes offers additional and alternate moments for
Re:Union (SD; 9:02), Mind the Baby (SD; 7:42), Vitas Mortis (SD; 10:23) and Taking the
Stone (SD; 7:29). As with Season One, these are sourced from VHS and have a timecode caption.
- Re:Union (SD; 44:13). This is a complete alternate Season Two premiere episode that was recut and aired
in a different version later in the season.
- Farscape Undressed (SD; 44:02) was a special hosted by Ben Browder which sought to bring
audiences up to date between the second and third seasons.
- Behind the Scenes Interview: Wayne Pygram (Scorpius) (SD; 22:07)
- Behind the Scenes Interview: David Franklin (Braca) (SD; 16:56)
Season Three
- Audio Commentaries
Self Inflicted Wounds Part II: Wait for the Wheel: Claudia Black
Eat Me: Guy Gross
Green Eyed Monster: Ben Browder and Tony Tilse
Relativity: Lani Tupu and Peter Andrikidis
The Choice: a) Claudia Black; b) Rowan Woods and Justin Monjo
Into the Lion's Den Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Rockne S. O'Bannon and David Kemper
Dog With Two Bones: Ben Browder and Claudia Black
- Deleted Scenes for Season of Death
(SD; 2:25)
- Deleted Scenes for Thanks for Sharing (SD; 00:27)
- Deleted Scenes for Losing Time (SD; 2:52)
- Deleted Scenes for Incubator (SD; 1:20)
- Deleted Scenes for Scratch 'n Sniff (SD; 1:50)
- Deleted Scenes for Revenging Angel (SD; 00:35)
- Deleted Scenes for The Choice (SD; 00:51)
- Deleted Scenes for Fractures (SD; 4:17)
- Deleted Scenes for Into the Lion's Den Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter (SD; 00:43)
- Deleted Scenes for Into the Lion's Den Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (SD; 7:44) Note that this
seems to actually include scenes from Part I of this episode.
- Deleted Scenes for Dog With Two Bones (SD; 7:10)
- TV Promos for Season of Death (SD; 00:17)
- TV Promos for Suns and Lovers (SD; 00:32)
- TV Promos for Incubator (SD; 00:33)
- TV Promos for Meltdown (SD; 00:13)
- TV Promos for Scratch 'n Sniff (SD; 00:33)
- TV Promos for Infinite Possibilities Part I: Daedalus Demands (SD; 00:33)
- TV Promos for Infinite Possibilities Part II: Icarus Abides (SD; 00:18)
- TV Promos for Revenging Angel (SD; 00:18)
- TV Promos for The Choice (SD; 00:18)
- TV Promos for Fractures (SD; 00:18)
- TV Promos for Into the Lion's Den Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter (SD; 00:33)
- TV Promos for Into the Lion's Den Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (SD; 00:33)
- TV Promos for Dog With Two Bones (SD; 00:32)
- Listening In With Composer Guy Gross: Eat Me (SD; 10:33). Since Gross also contributes a
commentary to this episode, this featurette seems like a bit of overkill.
- Listening In With Composer Guy Gross: Revenging Angel (SD; 8:20). Gross talks about working in a
Looney Tunes Carl Stalling sort of way for this partially animated episode (one of the series' best). Gross is evidently the
child of animation professionals, which he claims didn't help him in the slightest.
- Listening In With Composer Guy Gross: The Choice (SD; 11:14). Gross' approach here was more
languid and orchestral to evoke the emotions being felt by Black's character.
- Listening In With Composer Guy Gross: Into the Lion's Den Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (SD;
9:00). Gross goes for a darker palette here, working with a 20 piece male choir.
- From the Archives: Composer Guy Gross Discusses the Season 3 Theme (SD; 4:38). Remember when
every show had a theme, and they even changed them sometimes for subsequent seasons (compare John
Williams' two themes for Lost in Space for a great example).
- Behind the Scenes Interview: Claudia Black (Aeryn) (SD; 35:28)
- Behind the Scenes Interview: Anthony Simcoe (D'Argo) (SD; 27:12)
- Behind the Scenes Interview: Ben Browder (Crichton) (SD; 5:24)
- Behind the Scenes Interview: Wayne Pygram (Scorpius) (SD; 24:20)
- Behind the Scenes Interview: Gigi Edgley (Chiana) (SD; 17:56)
- Behind the Scenes Interview: Rebecca Riggs (Commandant Grayza) (SD; 29:15)
- Behind the Scenes Interview: Paul Goddard (Stark) (SD; 4:22)
- Season 3: A Look Back (SD; 44:37) is another retrospective letting viewers get up to speed for the series'
fourth and final(ish) season.
- "Zhaan Forever" with Virginia Hey (SD; 30:16) is an overview of Hey's character hosted by Hey, who
contributes quite a bit of interview commentary. Hey is quite a sight to see outside of her Zhaan makeup.
Season Four
- Audio Commentaries
John Quixote: Ben Browder and Claudia Black
Kansas: Ben Browder, Claudia Black and David Kemper
Bad Timing: Ben Browder, Claudia Black and David Kemper
- Deleted Scenes for Crichton Kicks (SD; 3:11)
- Deleted Scenes for What Was Lost Part I: Sacrifice (SD; 1:59)
- Deleted Scenes for Promises (SD; 3:04)
- Deleted Scenes for Natural Election (SD; 2:16)
- Deleted Scenes for A Prefect Murder (SD; 2:19)
- Deleted Scenes for Kansas (SD; 2:28)
- Deleted Scenes for Terra Firma (SD; 4:28)
- Deleted Scenes for Twice Shy (SD; 1:55)
- Deleted Scenes for Mental as Anything (SD; 00:27)
- Deleted Scenes for Bringing Home the Beacon (SD; 00:53)
- Deleted Scenes for A Constellation of Doubt (SD; 16:49)
- Deleted Scenes for We're So Screwed Part II: Hot to Katratizi (SD; 1:19)
- Deleted Scenes for Bad Timing (SD; 2:48)
- Listening In With Composer Guy Gross: Crichton Kicks (SD; 7:08). Gross uses a kind of retro Moog
sound throughout this episode.
- Listening In With Composer Guy Gross: John Quixote (SD; 8:06). Gross found this episode
extremely difficult to score as it is a kind of Tron environment which takes place in a game.
- Listening In With Composer Guy Gross: Terra Firma (SD; 9:23). Gross goes for a quieter, almost
chamber like ambience in this episode which takes the characters back to Earth.
- Listening In With Composer Guy Gross: Bad Timing (SD; 9:12). Gross talks a lot about the
episode's complex opening sequence and how he had to write for such a glut of information being imparted.
- Memories of Moya (1080i; 36:51) is a sort of series ending overview of the entire story arc and what the
series' creative team was attempting to create with the show.
- Farscape: The Story So Far (SD; 26:32) is another retrospective of the story up through the end of
the fourth season.
- From the Archives: On the Last Day - Farscape Wrap Speech from David Kemper (SD; 3:37)
- Inside Farscape: Save Farscape (SD; 30:44) is a testament to the fans' attempts to save
the series.
- Inside Farscape: Villains (SD; 15:09) takes a look back at some of the series' bad guys, some of
whom aren't completely bad.
- Inside Farscape: Season 4 Visual Effects (SD; 9:36)
- Video Profile: Creator/Executive Producer/Writer Rockne S. O'Bannon (SD; 19:37)
- Video Profile: Executive Producer/Writer David Kemper (SD; 12:07)
Farscape: The Complete Seasons Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation
Farscape fans are legion and they are loud, as the campaign to save the series indubitably proved. Will those fans clamor for this new
Blu-ray release? There are pluses and minuses, and individual fans must weigh those carefully. The biggest minus is the image quality, which is
upconverted and lacks little of the finesse, clarity and sharpness videophiles would demand not just from a Blu-ray presentation, but from a
series this visually stunning in particular. I never owned Farscape on DVD and so can't offer a valid comparison opinion, but the BDs
aren't so much better than DVD quality that they instantly struck me that way. On the plus side, there's incredible lossless audio and one of the
most amazing sets of supplements of a (more or less) complete series in recent memory, one which will take literally weeks to completely wade
through. While the video quality is a big concern, the
show is winning enough to help at least slightly ameliorate that issue, and with that one major caveat, this set comes Recommended.