Welcome to Cathode Ray Mission, veteran critic David O’Connell’s semi-regular deep dive into the history of genre television. Here you’ll find everything from Gerry Anderson puppets to long-forgotten horror anthologies, one-season wonders, long-running classics, and more – the weirder and more obscure the better. Long live the new flesh!
Farscape
Four seasons and a miniseries (Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars)
Creator: Rockne S. O’Bannon
Stars: Ben Browder, Claudia Black, Anthony Simcoe, Jonathan Hardy, Wayne Pygram, Virginia Hey, Gigi Edgley, Lani John Tupu
Ah Farscape. Essentially Blake’s 7 meets Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in a world where The Muppets are real.
A rare Australian- American science fiction series, produced for the Nine Network (at least initially) by the Jim Henson Company and Hallmark Entertainment, Farscape managed to eke out four seasons and a two episode mini series between 1999 and 2005. Although it struggled with ratings, the adventures of astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder) and the misfit crew of Moya certainly did have its appeal. Part of which is the extensive use of puppetry by Henson’s crew to create a number of the aliens, giving a distinctive feel to the universe far removed from the latex cranial features that dominate Star Trek. Two of the regular cast were even puppets, realised with a range of practical effects that still stand up two decades later. Both Pilot (Lani John Tupu) and Dominar Rigel XVI (Jonathan Hardy) demonstrate the nuance and emotion that Henson’s team is able to bring to puppetry. The CGI, however, has dated, some of it terribly.
However, in its favour there is a distinctive feel to the world. The mishmash of civilisations, the frequent use of unusual bio-organic technologies (anything from slug toothbrushes to a living ship), the highly stylised way some aliens spoke or moved, the mixtures of religious and spiritual beliefs, the strange alien bondage gear fetish – all added something more to the Farscape universe. It’s still a somewhat generic space opera setting, but the set dressing creates enough points of difference to mark it out.
It’s hard to find a more succinct synopsis than the intro voice-over, a feature of the series, that was subtly updated in the 3rd and 4th seasons. “My name is John Crichton, an astronaut. A radiation wave hit and I got shot through a wormhole. Now I’m lost in some distant part of the Universe, on a ship. A living ship, full of strange alien life forms (although season three is more honest about it, calling them “escaped prisoners/ my friends”)….I’m being hunted by an insane military commander (again, this changes as the show progresses – shifting from the revenge-driven Captain Bilar Crais to the inhumanly creepy Scorpius). Doing everything I can. I’m just looking for a way home.” All of which sets the groundwork for a crew of misfits to get into mischief all over the galaxy.
Wildly tonally inconsistent, and utterly variable in quality, Farscape is certainly a lot of fun. Through its run it covers a wide variety of stories, managing to produce both dramatic and comedic highs and lows. From a Looney Tunes-inspired coma dream (Revenging Angel), to western (Home on the Remains), to cannibal horror (Born to Be Wild and Eat Me), to sci-fi heist movie (Liars, Guns, and Money), to a galaxy on the edge of war (We’re So Screwed) – Farscape had some originality and range.
Part of the appeal is the crew of Moya itself, a group of misfits, with a remarkable ability to frell upwards (one of the show’s substitute obscenities). Political prisoners, deposed royalty, and dispossessed warriors, the crew were thrown together by circumstance rather than design, allowing for a number of conflicting personalities to try and get along. Rich fodder for any writer, with a variety of differing personal agendas, and little reason to trust the others, often cause for conflict. Yet even with its rotating roster of characters (as some left or died during the show) Farscape was able to develop them, allowing them to grow and mature.
Then there’s our point-of-view character and ray-gun-toting hero, John Crichton. Initially a maverick, Crichton’s mental health is sorely tested throughout the series, Firstly by the culture shock of being swept through a wormhole and placed in an alien environment where he’s running for his life, but fairly quickly by having another personality sharing his psyche: a neural clone of the villainous Scorpius. This apparition, nicknamed “Harvey”, turned out to be a good move. Not only did this allow for frequent pop culture references (everything from Saving Private Ryan to Nosferatu), it also granted an insight into the Scorpius’ (Wayne Pygram) schemes and character, without resorting to the familiar tropes of monologuing to a captured hero or trusted henchman (although there’s plenty of that in Farscape).
As a result, Crichton becomes a character prone to extremes: a “thinking outside of the box” tactician, given to displays of bravado, often in an attempt to place a superior enemy at a perceived disadvantage. Yet Crichton was also capable of melancholy and over-introspection, often swinging between the two. It’s a duality that forms a multi-episode arc in the third season, as we see the character split into two identical beings, but watch them go through two vastly different fates. Despite the massive psychological trauma inflicted on him, at the end of the day Crichton manages to maintain functionality (for the most part). Mad, bad, or just eccentric…he manages to keep on going.
Although it doesn’t always achieve gender parity (due to Moya‘s rotating roster) Farscape does strive for it, creating some strong and diverse female characters. The spiritual revolutionary Zhaan (Virginia Hey), the indomitable warrior Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black), the free spirited Chiana (Gigi Edgley) – for the era it was made in, it had some decent characterisation. Even when it was problematic, it often managed to evolve those characters to allow for more depth, such as Chiana, who started off worryingly close to added eye-candy, and became someone willing to express her own sexual identity and desires. Like the show itself, it wasn’t always perfect (Tammy Macintosh’s Jools rarely fares well), but it does have something to recommend it.
Finally there’s just the sheer novelty of Australian accents in sci-fi, as a cavalcade of Aussie actors make their way through the show. Sure there’s a heap of soap opera stars, but there’s also some actors that are worthy of note; Barry Otto, Bruce Spence, Magdna Szbanski, Jeremy Sims, Rhys Muldoon, Rebecca Gibney, Alex Dimitriades, Claudia Karvan etc. It also contains what’s probably the first Space Mendo (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Captain Marvel‘s Ben Mendelsohn).
A couple of missteps aside, age has generally been kind to Farscape, giving us a sci-fi show that’s enjoyable for it’s imperfections, and not afraid to be a little quirky in its presentation.
